Armin D. Lehmann

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Armin Dieter Lehmann (born May 23, 1928 in Waldtrudering near Munich ; † October 10, 2008 in Coos Bay , Oregon , USA ) was a relative from Adolf Hitler's birthday on April 20, 1945 until his suicide on April 30 the Hitler Youth the last courier and reporter in the Führerbunker in Berlin . After the war he emigrated to the USA, where he became a staunch peace activist.

Childhood and school days

Lehmann was born as the eldest of seven children in Waldtrudering, now a district of Munich, in 1928. His parents were the car salesman and driving instructor Fritz Armin Lehmann (1904–1979) and Susanne Toni Lemcke (1906–1988), both of whom were close to the Wandervogel movement and had left the church. Lehmann's childhood was marked by frequent moves. He attended elementary schools in Niesky , Krauschwitz and Hoyerswerda . His father, who had failed as an independent Mercedes-Benz representative, joined the SS security service , where he soon made a career. Lehmann's grandfather was one of the first Nazis and became the local group leader in Seefeld-Oberalting . Admission of the nine-year-old, who was already writing his first poems, to a national political educational institution failed. The relationship between father and son was disturbed from then on.

In 1937 his father was transferred as a " watchdog " to the Reich broadcaster in Breslau , where he rose to the position of acting station manager. In 1943 he voluntarily went to the front as a war correspondent . Armin attended the Elisabet-Gymnasium in Breslau.

Hitler Youth and camp manager

At the age of ten, on April 20, 1938 ( Führer birthday ), Lehmann joined the German Young People , where he met all the requirements for the badge of achievement until 1940 and was indoctrinated into the principles of National Socialism . Because of frequent health problems, he did not initially have to do any pre-military service that enabled others of his age to be air force helpers at the flak battery. Instead, he took the training to KLV -Lagermannschaftsführer in Podebrady , east of Prague in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia on. Here he enjoyed the time and continued to write poetry. Without his knowledge, the headmaster sent a selection of his works to the Reich Youth Leader Baldur von Schirach , who then praised him in a personal letter and encouraged him to continue. After working as an instructor at the KLV school, Lehmann briefly took over a position as warehouse manager in the Ullersdorf Castle near his old school town of Niesky in the autumn of 1944 .

Front deployment and wounding

In January 1945 Lehmann received a three - week pre - military training with the Waffen SS Mountain Division North . The shooting training in the WE camp is limited to small caliber . He then went to Breslau on his own initiative in order to be able to support his family during the Russian advance . But his mother and siblings were already in Hoyerswerda.

Lehmann reported to the KLV office of the HJ area management . There he was accepted into the Gutschke combat group. This so-called "elite unit" consisted of three war veterans, a few teachers, and sixteen-year-old students with WE and KLV camp training. As part of the Breslau fortress regiment , they were supposed to stop the Red Army . On January 30, the combat group was involved in a battle with Russian advance troops and was able to repel them. Lehmann, injured in the thigh, recovered five wounded comrades from the battlefield.

He was transferred to Hof an der Saale to recover . There he was awarded the Black Wound Badge and the Iron Cross . At Easter 1945 he was back with the Gutschke combat group. This should now be relocated to the fortress Frankfurt (Oder) .

Before that, all Hitler Youth members were transferred to the Waffen SS by order of the Fuehrer . In Fürstenwalde on the Spree , the troops received political training and sworn to the final battle. Reich Youth Leader Axmann arrived there on April 16 and chose Lehmann for a performance of the youngest, battle-tested soldiers on Hitler's birthday. He had to swap his uniform for the Hitler Youth's outfit.

Hitler's last courier

On April 20, 1945, the sixteen-year-old Lehmann met Hitler in the company of his closest confidantes, including Joseph Goebbels , Heinrich Himmler , Wilhelm Keitel , Alfred Jodl and Martin Bormann , in the garden of the New Reich Chancellery in Berlin. Lehmann describes his encounter with the Führer as follows:

“Although we were not allowed to move our heads, I looked as far to the right as possible and studied the infallible, providential leader of our nation on his 56th birthday. He looked much older. (...) Now his head sat lower between his shoulders, as if it had shrunk. His steps seemed unsteady to me and his whole body seemed to be shaking. With his left hand, trembling badly, he held the skirt of his skirt to bring it under control. (...) Up close, Hitler looked even older than my two grandfathers, who were over 70. (...) Hitler came up to me, (...). The guide grabbed my left upper arm in his right hand and held it for a second or two. (…) I was trembling and Hitler's whole body involuntarily shook. He let go of my arm to encircle my outstretched right hand with both hands. He was only 30 or 40 centimeters from me. His cold eyes were moist and shiny as a result of the medication he had taken. Dark bags under the eyes made his wrinkled, ashen face look even more senile. "

Lehmann then became a reporter for the Axmann combat group in Berlin, and received his orders from Axmann personally. Repeatedly he and his driver got between the front lines and was also wounded. During one mission, he destroyed a Soviet T-34 with a bazooka . He then received the Iron Cross 1st Class, the Wound Badge in silver and an anti-tank destruction strip .

After gasoline could no longer be made available for the motorcycle, the last reporting route was limited to crossing Wilhelmstrasse . In the course of the last days of April, the Reich Youth Leadership lost almost all of its detectors to enemy fire, including many ten to sixteen year old boys. Only Armin Lehmann remained, who had to transmit messages between the radio station, command post and the bunker.

Lehmann personally handed a telegram to Propaganda Minister Goebbels, took messages from Bormann and met Eva Braun , Magda Goebbels , Hanna Reitsch , Robert Ritter von Greim , Otto Günsch and Wilhelm Mohnke in the Führerbunker. There witnessed the fall of the Nazi regime. However, Axmann strengthened his firm belief in the final victory in anticipation of the "miracle weapons" to come. He received the news of Adolf and Eva Hitler's suicide through Axmann. An SS guard showed him a shell hole as the alleged grave of the two.

On the night of May 1 to May 2, 1945, an order to break out of the government district was given. On Friedrichstrasse , he was hit by shrapnel on the spine and buried. At times paralyzed, he escaped transport to Soviet prison camps. He was later able to withdraw to the American zone of occupation . During the interrogations he answered all questions without further explanation. The underage Lehmann did not have to appear in front of the ruling chamber .

United States

After the war, Lehmann first attended the German School of Journalism in Munich and worked as a freelance journalist for various newspapers in southern Germany. In 1953 he emigrated to the United States. From 1955 to 1957 Lehmann taught at the American Armed Forces Institute (USAFI) and also served as a transport coordinator at the Tachikawa Air Force Base in Japan . For more than 40 years Lehmann worked as a tour director, consultant and organizer in the travel and tourism industry. He lectured extensively as a co-professor of travel and tourism at the Airline & Travel Academy of the American airline Trans World Airlines and at Pacific States University in Los Angeles , California . He has also authored several books on the subject of travel and tourism and wrote over 200 articles for travel magazines. In 1969 he was honored with the Community Leader of America Award . From 1977 to 1981 he was vice president of education and training for the Association of Retail Travel Agents (ARTA). In 1993 the travel advisor and owner of a travel agency Armin Lehmann retired. He then spent the time writing his memoirs.

Lehmann published the English-language books Hitler's Last Courier: A Life in Transition (dt. The last command When Hitler's messenger boy in Hitler's bunker. ) And in Hitler's bunker about his childhood experiences in the Nazi period, which have been translated into seven different languages, including Chinese. He is also making a documentary about his experience as one of Hitler's child soldiers, entitled Eyewitness to History .

Peace activist

At the age of about 30, Lehmann decided to dedicate his life to peace from now on. As an advocate of the same, he took part in Linus Pauling's “Campaign for Nuclear Weapons Disarmament” and gave lectures in schools. In terms of peace, Lehmann also traveled to more than 150 countries to advocate non-violence and tolerance . Lehmann was married three times and had a daughter.

bibliography

German

• Armin D. Lehmann: The last order. As Hitler's messenger boy in the Führerbunker . Bastei Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 2005. ISBN 978-3-40461-568-1 .

English

• Margie Boulé: From Hitler's Bunker to Coos Bay . Oregonian, October 21, 2008.
• Anton Joachimsthaler: The Last Days of Hitler . London: Cassell, 2002.
• Kelly Knauer (ed.): VE Day . Time: New York, 2005.
• Armin D. Lehmann: Hitler's Last Courier: A Life in Transition . Xlibris Corporation, 2000. OCLC 46606344
• Armin D. Lehmann, Tim Carroll: In Hitler's bunker . Guilford: The Lyons Press, 2004. OCLC 57069258
• Armin D. Lehmann: Tomorrow's World: A Book of Peace . Free e-book OCLC 9936795
• Armin D. Lehmann: Resume , 2007.
• Gary Lester: Eyewitness To History (DVD). Port Orange: Blue Heron International Pictures LLC, 2007. http://blueheronpix.com/armin_lehmann_for_peace
• Oliver North: War Stories III . Washington: Regnery Publishing, 2001.