Translation of document 3569-PS

The Secretary of the Fuehrer, Reichsleiter Martin Bormann
                                        Fuehrer Headquarters
                                                     29.4.45
            Postal address Munich 33, Fuehrerbau.

Dear Admiral of the Fleet,

As, owing to the non-arrival of all divisions, our position
appears hopeless, the Fuehrer last night dictated the
enclosed political Testament.

Heil Hitler!
Your
[signature illegible, presumably Martin Bormann]

[Seal]
[ADOLF HITLER]
                My Private Will and Testament

As I did not consider that I could take responsibility,
during the years of struggle, of contracting a marriage, I
have now decided, before the closing of my earthly career,
to take as my wife that girl who, after many years of
faithful friendship, entered, of her own free will, the
practically besieged town in order to share her destiny with
me. At her own desire she goes as my wife with me into
death. It will compensate us for what we both lost through
my work in the service of my people.

What I possess belongs — in so far as it has any value —
to the Party. Should this no longer exist, to the State,
should the State also be destroyed, no further decision of
mine is necessary.

My pictures, in the collections which I have bought in the
course of years, have never been collected for private
purposes, but only for the extension of a gallery in my home
town of Linz a.d. Donau.

It is my most sincere wish that this bequest may be duly
executed.

I nominate as my Executor my most faithful Party comrade,

                       Martin Bormann.

He is given full legal authority to make all decisions. He
is permitted to take out everything that has a sentimental
value or is necessary for the maintenance of a modest simple
life, for my brothers and sisters, also above all for the
mother of my wife and my faithful coworkers who are well
known to him, principally my old Secretaries Frau Winter
etc. Who have for many years aided me by their work.

I myself and my wife — in order to escape the disgrace of
deposition or capitulation — choose death. It is our wish
to be burnt immediately on the spot where I have carried out
the greatest part of my daily work in the course of a twelve
years' service to my people.

Given in Berlin, 29th. April 1945, 4:00 o'clock.
                                             (Sd.) A. Hitler
As Witnesses:
(Sd.) Martin Bormann
(Sd.) Dr. Fuhr
                                                 As Witness:
                                   (Sd.) Nicolaus von Below.

                                                  [Page 260]

[Seal]
ADOLF HITLER

                   My Political Testament

More than thirty years have now passed since I in 1914 made
my modest contribution as a volunteer in the first world-war
that was forced upon the Reich.

In these three decades I have been actuated solely by love
and loyalty to my people in all my thoughts, acts, and life.
They gave me the strength to make the most difficult
decisions which have ever confronted to mortal man. I have
spent my time, my working strength, and my health in these
three decades.

It is untrue that I or anyone else in Germany wanted the war
in 1939. It was desired and instigated exclusively by those
international statesmen who were either of Jewish descent or
worked for Jewish interests. I have made too many offers for
the control and limitation of armaments, which posterity
will not for all time be able to disregard for the
responsibility for the outbreak of this war to be laid on
me. I have further never wished that after the first fatal
world war a second against England, or even against America,
should break out. Centuries will pass away, but out of the
ruins of our towns and monuments the hatred against those
finally responsible whom we have to thank for everything,
International Jewry and its helpers, will grow.

Three days before the outbreak of the German-Polish war I
again proposed to the British ambassador in Berlin a
solution to the German-Polish problem — similar to that in
the case of the Saar district, under international control.
This offer also cannot be denied. It was only rejected
because the leading circles in English politics wanted the
war, partly on account of the business hoped for and partly
under influence of propaganda organized by international
Jewry.

I also made it quite plain that, if the nations of Europe
are again to be regarded as mere shares to be bought and
sold by these international conspirators in money and
finance, then that race, Jewry, which is the real criminal
of this murderous struggle, will be saddled with the
responsibility. I further left no one in doubt that this
time not only would millions of children of Europe’s Aryan
peoples die of hunger, not only would millions of grown men
suffer death, and not only hundreds of thousands of women
and children be burnt and bombed to death in the towns,
without the real criminal having to atone for this guilt,
even if by more humane means.

                                                  [Page 261]

After six years of war, which in spite of all set-backs,
will go down one day in history as the most glorious and
valiant demonstration of a nation’s life purpose, I cannot
forsake the city which is the capital of this Reich. As the
forces are too small to make any further stand against the
enemy attack at this place and our resistance is gradually
being weakened by men who are as deluded as they are lacking
in initiative, I should like, by remaining in this town, to
share my faith with those, the millions of others, who have
also taken upon themselves to do so. Moreover I do not wish
to fall into the hands of an enemy who requires a new
spectacle organized by the Jews for the amusement of their
hysterical masses.

I have decided therefore to remain in Berlin and there of my
own free will to choose death at the moment when I believe
the position of the Fuehrer and Chancellor itself can no
longer be held.

I die with a happy heart, aware of the immeasurable deeds
and achievements of our soldiers at the front, our women at
home, the achievements of our farmers and workers and the
work, unique in history, of our youth who bear my name.

That from the bottom of my heart I express my thanks to you
all, is just as self-evident as my wish that you should,
because of that, on no account give up the struggle, but
rather continue it against the enemies of the Fatherland, no
matter where, true to the creed of a great Clausewitz. From
the sacrifice of our soldiers and from my own unity with
them unto death, will in any case spring up in the history
of Germany, the seed of a radiant renaissance of the
National-Socialist movement and thus of the realization of a
true community of nations.

Many of the most courageous men and women have decided to
unite their lives with mine until the very last. I have
begged and finally ordered them not to do this, but to take
part in the further battle of the Nation. I beg the heads of
the Armies, the Navy and the Air Force to strengthen by all
possible means the spirit of resistance of our soldiers in
the National-Socialist sense, with special reference to the
fact that also I myself, as founder and creator of this
movement, have preferred death to cowardly abdication or
even capitulation.

May it, at some future time, become part of the code of
honour of the German officer — as is already the case in
our Navy — that the surrender of a district or town is
impossible, and that above all the leaders here must march
ahead as shining examples, faithfully fulfilling their duty
unto death.

                                                  [Page 262]

           Second Part of the Political Testament

Before my death I expel the former Reichsmarschall Hermann
Goering from the party and deprive him of all rights which
he may enjoy by virtue of the decree of June 29, 1941, and
also by virtue of my statement in the Reichstag on September
1, 1939, I appoint in his place Grossadmiral Doenitz,
President of the Reich and Supreme Commander of the Armed
Forces.

Before my death I expel the former Reichsfuehrer-SS and
Minister of the Interior, Heinrich Himmler, from the party
and from all offices of State. In his stead I appoint
Gauleiter Karl Hanke as Reichsfuehrer-SS and Chief of the
German Police, and Gauleiter Paul Giesler as Reich Minister
of the Interior.

Goering and Himmler, quite apart from their disloyalty to my
person, have done immeasurable harm to the country and the
whole nation by secret negotiations with the enemy, which
they conducted without my knowledge and against my wishes,
and by illegally attempting to seize power in the State for
themselves.

In order to give the German people a government composed of
honourable men — a government which will fulfill its pledge
to continue the war by every means — I appoint the
following members of the new Cabinet as leaders of the
nation:

     President of the Reich: Doenitz.
     Chancellor of the Reich: Dr. Goebbels.
     Party Minister: Bormann.
     Foreign Minister: Seyss-Inquart.
     Minister of the Interior: Gauleiter Giesler.
     Minister for War: Doenitz
     C-in-C of the Army: Schoerner
     C-in-C of the Navy: Doenitz
     C-in-C of the Air Force: Greim
     Reichsfuehrer-SS and Chief of the German Police:
     Gauleiter Hanke
     Economics: Funk.
     Agriculture: Backe.
     Justice: Thierack.
     Education and Public Worship: Dr. Scheel.
     Propaganda: Dr. Naumann.
     Finance: Schwerin-Grossigk.
     Labour: Dr. Hupfauer.
     Munitions: Saur.
     Leader of the German Labour Front and Member of the
     Reich Cabinet: Reich Minister Dr. Ley.

                                                  [Page 263]

Although a number of these men, such as Martin Bormann, Dr.
Goebbels etc., together with their wives, have joined me of
their own free will and did not wish to leave the capital of
the Reich under any circumstances, but were willing to
perish with me here, I must nevertheless ask them to obey my
request, and in this case set the Interests of the nation
above their own feelings. By their work and loyalty as
comrades they will be just as close to me after death, as I
hope that my spirit will linger among them and always go
with them. Let them be hard, but never unjust, above all let
them never allow fear to influence their actions, and set
the honour of the nation above everything in the world.
Finally, let them be conscious of the fact that our task,
that of continuing the building of a National Socialist
State, represents the work of the coming centuries, which
places every single person under an obligation always to
serve the common interest and to subordinate his own
advantage to this end. I demand of all Germans, all National
Socialists, men, women and all the men of the Armed Forces,
that they be faithful and obedient unto death to the new
government and its President.

Above all I charge the leaders of the nation and those under
them to scrupulous observance of the laws of race and to
merciless opposition to the universal poisoner of all
peoples, international Jewry.

Given in Berlin, this 29th day of April 1945.
4:00 a.m.

           Witnessed by

     Dr. Josef Fuhr.                  Wilhelm Buergdorf.
     Martin Bormann.               Hans Krebs.

     [Note: This document was not introduced into evidence
     because there was not sufficient time to verify its
     authenticity.]