They were six children who spent their final days in a grey concrete bunker beneath Berlin, surrounded by iron doors, cold lighting, and the distant thunder of Soviet artillery. Their names were Helga, Hilde, Helmut, Holde, Hedda, and Heide — all beginning with the letter H, a deliberate tribute to Adolf Hitler by their father, Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels. On the night of May 1, 1945, all six were murdered by their own parents. They ranged in age from four to twelve.
Helga, twelve years old, had her father’s dark hair and brown eyes. Hilde, eleven, was already being described by those who knew her as a girl on the edge of becoming a real beauty. Helmut was nine — the only boy, described as slightly quiet and languid. Then came Holde, eight; Hedda, six; and little Heide, just four years old, who had tonsillitis and wore a scarf around her neck in her final days.
Only weeks before the fall of Berlin, the children had been playing with cats and dogs on a farm far outside the city. The contrast between that life and the bunker could not have been sharper. The Führerbunker was a suffocating underground complex with narrow passageways and no natural light. There was nothing welcoming about the place for anyone, let alone six children.
As Soviet forces closed to within a few hundred meters of the Chancellery, nearly everyone in the bunker urged the Goebbels parents to get the children out. German aviator Hanna Reitsch told Magda Goebbels directly: “My God, Mrs. Goebbels, the children cannot stay here even if I have to fly in twice to remove them.” Albert Speer also offered to take the children safely out of Berlin. Magda refused both. Her response to Reitsch was chilling: “My children would rather die than live in humiliation and disgrace.”
Joseph Goebbels had his own reasons for staying. He added a postscript to Hitler’s last will and testament stating that for “reasons of humanity and personal loyalty,” he refused to leave Berlin. He also feared that Soviet leader Stalin intended to take the children to Moscow, where they would be raised as communists. Stories of brutality and rape by advancing Soviet troops were spreading through the bunker, and many of those inside were already discussing suicide as a way to avoid capture.
Evidence shows that Magda had been thinking about killing her children for at least a month before the bunker’s final days. Eleanore Quandt, the sister-in-law of Magda’s first husband Günther Quandt, recalled Magda telling her that she did not want her children growing up knowing their father had been a notorious criminal. Reitsch later said that during her time in the bunker, she was asked by others to make sure Magda did not lose her nerve and back away from killing the children.
On the night of May 1, 1945, Magda and Joseph Goebbels had SS dentist Helmut Kunz inject morphine into all six children to render them unconscious. According to Kunz’s own later testimony, he administered the morphine injections, but it was Magda and SS-Obersturmbannführer Ludwig Stumpfegger — Hitler’s personal physician — who then crushed cyanide capsules into the children’s mouths. The bunker’s telephone and radio operator, Rochus Misch, stated that Werner Naumann told him he had seen Stumpfegger give the children something to drink that had been “sweetened.”
Nurse Erna Flegel recalled that Magda reassured the children about the morphine injections by telling them they would need inoculations because they would be staying in the bunker for a long time. Another account says the children were told they would be leaving for Berchtesgaden in the morning. Historian James P. O’Donnell concluded that, although Stumpfegger likely drugged the children, Magda herself administered the fatal cyanide. O’Donnell noted that Stumpfegger may have been heavily intoxicated at the time, and that witnesses found it convenient to blame him since he died the following day.
Rochus Misch was among the very last people to see the children alive. That final night, they sat around a table in his work area wearing nightgowns, their hair combed by their mother, who kissed each of them. Little Heide had climbed up and was sitting on top of the table. Before being led upstairs, she turned to Misch, laughed, and teased him: “Misch, Misch, you are a fish.” Misch later said he suspected what was about to happen and would spend the rest of his life regretting that he did not act.
Helga, the oldest, had already sensed that the adults around her were lying. She asked what would happen to them all. On that last night, Misch described her as the brightest of the children — and said she was “crying softly” just before bedtime. He also noted that she seemed to have little affection for her mother and that Magda had to physically push her up the stairs to the Vorbunker.
When Soviet troops entered the bunker the following day, they found all six children laid out in their nightclothes, with ribbons still in their hair. The Soviet autopsy on Helga’s body recorded “several black and blue bruises,” and photographs taken during the examination showed severe bruising across her face. The injuries were consistent with a physical struggle. Helga had woken up and fought back against whoever forced the cyanide capsule into her mouth.
The legal aftermath was almost as disturbing as the crime itself. In 1949, SS dentist Helmut Kunz confessed to his role in sedating the children with morphine injections. Despite this confession, judges let him go unpunished. No one was ever formally convicted for the murders of the six Goebbels children.
I’d like to believe they’d have grown up to be decent people but who knows. I don’t want to see any little kid lose their life.But let’s be honest these kids lost their lives and a much more peaceful way than jewish children did.
Probably from the time these kids could hear their evil demon of a father was cramming their head with the most racist and evil things so who knows how they would have turned out. It is a sad thing truly but I hope they’re resting in peace
Those poor children
so much innocence stolen, in the name of hatred. . .
This article absolutely sucks. The first couple of paragraphs go into names and ages of the four daughters, then turns right around to state Helmut was their only child. Photo #9 shows a child with a dog, and the caption is incomplete. Trash writing.
So basically the parents were such complete and total losers, they didn’t want to have the children to have to live with that so they murked the kids. Furthermore hitler as we know was a pitches of shit he should have demanded the children be taken to a safe place & let them surrender to the Americans, they had to have know they would have received better treatment than the Russians, after all they knew good & well about what the wonderful Russians were doing. It’s so dam sickening, they could have had the world had they chosen to do good & not evil. They must have had a grand old life before their glass castle came smashing down.
I read the wiki. The mom purposely took the kids to a more secluded part of the bunker so nobody could stop her. Goebbels didn’t help her, both of them got mercy blows. Not sure if the kids did,
Yes it didn’t sound like the children did. But the way they described “the bunker” even on a beautiful spring morning, the place was grey & evil.