Heinz Linge

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Heinz Linge, 1935

Heinz Linge (born March 23, 1913 in Bremen , † March 9, 1980 in Hamburg ) was an SS officer and valet of Adolf Hitler . From January 1935 to 1945 he was in the service of the dictator, most recently in the rank of SS-Obersturmbannführer .

Life

Linge first learned the mason trade and then attended a technical center. As early as 1932 he became a member of the NSDAP ( membership number 1.260.490) and the SS (SS number 35.795). At the age of 20 he joined the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH) on March 17, 1933 . On January 24, 1935, he was selected by Hitler and, after completing his training at the hotel management school in Munich-Pasing, he was one of several servants of Hitler. After the dismissal of the body servant Karl Wilhelm Krause on September 10, 1939 (he had a dispute with Hitler during the attack on Poland over a forgotten bottle of Fachinger water ), Linge became Hitler's preferred body servant in the position of "chief of personal service" and was in his immediate vicinity until his death on April 30, 1945.

The corpses of Adolf Hitler and his wife Eva Braun were discovered on April 30, 1945 by Heinz Linge, Joseph Goebbels , Martin Bormann , Hitler's doctor Ludwig Stumpfegger , Hitler's personal SS adjutant Otto Günsch , Hitler's driver Erich Kempka , who supplied the petrol needed for the incineration and some bodyguards from the Führer's escort unit in the garden of the Reich Chancellery  - in accordance with Hitler's last decrees - poured petrol over them and burned them. The charred remains were placed in a nearby shell hole, covered with rubble and tamped down.

In the last days of the war (May 2, 1945) of the Second World War, Linge was captured by the Soviets when he broke out and escaped from the Führerbunker in Berlin and was taken to Moscow in the Lubyanka Prison , where he was subjected to NKVD intelligence interrogations, often accompanied by torture were questioned about Hitler. The Soviet leadership doubted Hitler's death and suspected his escape. In 1946 Linge was brought back to Berlin for a short time in order to mark the exact spot in the garden of the Reich Chancellery where the remains of the corpses had been buried a year earlier. Various corpses have been excavated in the devastated garden area since May 1945.

In 1950 Linge was tried in a Soviet court and sentenced to 25 years of forced labor. He was a Soviet prisoner of war until 1955 and, like many other prisoners of war, was released after Adenauer's visit to Moscow in September 1955 (see The Return of the Ten Thousand ). After his return home, he took over as a sales representative for Nordmark prefabricated houses and thereby achieved some prosperity. Linge worked in this position until he was 65. Shortly before reaching the age of 67, he died in a Hamburg hospital on March 9, 1980.

Heinz Linge is played by Thomas Limpinsel in the film Der Untergang , which premiered on September 9, 2004 in Munich . He is portrayed by Lars Rudolph in the parody Mein Führer - The Truly Truth About Adolf Hitler .

literature

  • Heinz Linge: Until the end. As head of personal service with Hitler. Published by Werner Maser . Herbig, Munich et al. 1983, ISBN 3-7766-1021-2 .
  • Heinz Linge: Until the end. As head of personal service with Hitler. Published by Werner Maser. Nation Europa Verlag, Coburg 2000, ISBN 3-920677-51-X .
  • Henrik Eberle , Matthias Uhl : The book Hitler. NKVD secret dossier for Josef W. Stalin, compiled on the basis of the interrogation protocols of Hitler's personal adjutant, Otto G possibly, and the valet Heinz Linge, Moscow 1948/49. Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 2005, ISBN 3-785-72226-5 .
  • Christa Schroeder : He was my boss. From the estate of Adolf Hitler's secretary. Published by Anton Joachimsthaler . Langen-Müller, Munich et al. 1985, ISBN 3-7844-2059-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ernst Klee : The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 369.
personal data
SURNAME Linge, Heinz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German SS officer, Adolf Hitler's valet
DATE OF BIRTH March 23, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Bremen
DATE OF DEATH March 9, 1980
Place of death Hamburg