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Vice-Admiral Hans-Erich Voss (or Voß, see ß) (1897-1969) German naval officer, was among the last people to see Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels alive.

Voss was born in Argemunde, Brandenburg, and graduated from the German Naval Academy in 1917. He served in the German Navy through the Weimar Republic and Nazi periods. In 1942 he was commander of the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, and met Goebbels, then Reich Propaganda Minister, when Goebbels accompanied a party of journalists on a tour of the ship. As a result of this meeting, Goebbels arranged to have Voss appointed Naval Liaison Officer to Hitler's headquarters in March 1943.

In this capacity Voss accompanied Hitler, Goebbels and their entourages into the Führerbunker under the Reich Chancellery building in central Berlin in January 1945. In the final months of the Third Reich Voss became a close confidante of Goebbels and his wife Magda Goebbels. He was aware that Joseph and Magda Goebbels had decided that they would not leave the bunker, but would kill their children and then themselves once Hitler was dead.

On 30 April Voss was among the group of officers whom Hitler informed that he had decided to commit suicide rather than attempt to escape from Berlin, which was surrounded by the Red Army. One of Hitler's security officers, Johann Rattenhuber, later testified:

"In Hitler's reception room at 10 o'clock [in the morning] there assembled Generals Burgdorf and Krebs, Admiral Voss, Hitler's personal pilot General Baur, Standartenführer Beetz, Obersturmbannführer Hegel, his personal servant Sturmbannführer Linge, Günsche and myself. He came out to us and said: 'I have decided to abandon this life. Thank you for your good and honest service. Try to escape from the Berlin with the troops. I am staying here'. Saying goodbye he shook hands with each of us."

Interrogated by the Soviet officers on 6 May, Voss recounted:

"When Goebbels learned that Hitler had committed suicide, he was very depressed and said: 'It is a great pity that such a man is not with us any longer. But there is nothing to be done. For us, everything is lost now and the only way out left for us is the one which Hitler chose. I shall follow his example'."

On 1 May Voss saw Goebbels for the last time:

"Before the breakout [from the bunker] began, about ten generals and officers, including myself, went down individually to Goebbels's shelter to say goodbye. While saying goodbye I asked Goebbels to join us. But he replied: 'The captain must not leave his sinking ship. I have thought about it all and decided to stay here. I have nowhere to go because with little children I will not be able to make it'."

Voss then joined the group led by SS-Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke which broke out of the bunker and tried to escape from Berlin. Most of the group were captured by Soviet forces the same day. Voss was brought back to the bunker for questioning, and to identify the partly burned bodies of Joseph and Magda Goebbels, and also the bodies of their six children, who had been poisoned. The Soviet account states:

"Vice-Admiral Voss, being asked how he identified the people as Goebbels, his wife and children, explained that he recognised the burnt body of the man as former Reichsminister Goebbels by the following signs: the shape of the head, the line of the mouth, the metal brace that Goebbels had on his right leg, his gold NSDAP badge and the burnt remains of his party uniform."

Voss was made a Soviet prisoner of war. In August 1951 he was prosecuted by the Soviet authorities on charges that "he held a command post in Hitler's war fleet, that was involved in an aggressive war in breach of international laws and treaties." In February 1952 the Court Martial of the Moscow Military District sentenced him to 25 years' imprisonment. By a decree of the Praesidium of the Supreme Soviet in December 1954, however, he was released and handed over to the German Democratic Republic authorities. He died in 1969 at Berchtesgaden in Bavaria.

[edit] Source

All facts and quotations in this article are from V.K. Vinogradov and others, Hitler's Death: Russia's Last Great Secret from the Files of the KGB, Chaucer Press, 2005; ISBN 1-904-44913-1.