Why didn’t the A-Team of the Wehrmacht try to save Hitler in the Battle of Berlin?

Abdullah Cheema

18 Sep, 2024

The A-Team of the Wehrmacht did try to save Hitler.

The leader of the A-Team was SS General Wilhelm Mohnke. He was in charge of a special 1,000-man force created to protect Hitler. Mohnke was a true soldier who rose through the ranks and continued to fight, even after losing a foot in combat early in the war.

Many stories tell how Mohnke tried to get Hitler out of Berlin. Major Siegfried Knappe, part of the General Staff of the 56th Panzer Corps, discussed how Mohnke attempted to convince Hitler to leave Berlin in his book “Soldat,” which has one of the best accounts of the fighting in Berlin at the end. Mohnke and General Weidling gathered a significant force near the Führerbunker, including many tanks, such as Tiger II tanks, half-tracks, and a special armored half-track for Hitler's protection. Their plan was to create a “flying wedge” using all the armor and the 1,000 combat veterans from Mohnke’s unit, plus an additional 500 hand-picked soldiers for the escape. Knappe helped with the strategy and believed it could work. After the war, he was captured by the Russians, who kept people connected to Hitler in special prisons and interviewed them repeatedly to piece together the last days of Hitler’s life.

However, Hitler refused to leave. He said he didn't want to die like a dog or sleep in a barn like a fugitive. He didn't want to be paraded around like a circus clown. Knappe felt disgusted with Hitler, watching men die “like dogs” in Berlin while protecting him.

Mohnke, along with Hitler’s best friend and personal pilot, Hans Baur, tried again to convince him to go to Templehof Airport, where there were still planes and fighter escorts to take him away. Hitler still refused. Baur and some others attempted to reach the airport on their own but were blown up along the way. Baur lost a leg but survived and later wrote a bland account of his time with Hitler and his escape called “I Was Hitler’s Pilot.” The last plane out of Berlin was a BV-137 floatplane meant to carry Hitler’s testament, but the two majors who brought it to the plane didn’t have the proper documents, and the pilot refused to let them board. They escaped Berlin and delivered Hitler’s testament to Doenitz in Flensburg. Earlier, Hannah Reitsch had escaped Berlin in an AR-96 flight trainer, one of the last planes available. Most of the air force at Templehof had left Berlin on April 25, carrying high-ranking Nazis in what became known as “The Flight of the Eagles.” Some powerful planes, including a JU-277, were still available for Hitler if needed, along with FW-190 fighter escorts.

Meanwhile, several battle groups were formed, including the strong Panzer Division Müncheburg and Army Group Holste, which was made up of two worn-out divisions meant to link with General Steiner and help relieve Berlin. However, those divisions were caught in heavy combat. Holste deserted and escaped to General Wenck’s 12th Army, where Wenck was so upset with him for leaving his men that he made him sit by the door of his office while combat reports came in.

The last desperate defenders, including the Charlemagne and Nordland Divisions and some survivors of the shattered 4th Army, held out at the Führerbunker to the end. These fanatical fighters, who hated Bolshevism, expected to die. Only about 60 survived, and all were executed by the French after the war, except for their commander.

After Hitler killed himself, Mohnke dispersed the armored force but later regrouped them into three groups for a breakout. By then, it was too late. The breakout turned into a slaughter, with over 1,000 German soldiers killed in about an hour of fierce combat, and they never got close to breaking out. Mohnke then decided to take a combat unit and try to escape through the subways but was turned back at a crucial point. A couple of Sturmgessutz 3 tank destroyers and a half-track did break out but were abandoned quickly and burned.

In the book “With Our Backs to Berlin,” SS Master Sergeant Willi Rogmann recounts meeting Mohnke and his exhausted men negotiating a surrender in a subway station with the Russians. Mohnke refused their offer to join them and managed to leave the city using various tricks. He never saw Mohnke again. (Later, Rogmann was betrayed by a jealous friend of his wife and was captured by the Russians about two weeks after the surrender.)

Mohnke was taken to Lubyanka Prison in Moscow, where he was tortured and kept in solitary confinement, but he never spoke about his time with Hitler or the end.

Mohnke really was the “A-Team,” but by then, it was too late to save Hitler, and Hitler didn’t want to be saved.