The bunker was far removed from the palatial surrounds to which he had been accustomed since 1933. An attempt to retain a degree of splendour at least remained in the corridor leading up to his bunker, which had been converted into a type of waiting-room, laid with a red carpet, and provided with rows of elegant chairs lined against the walls, which were hung with paintings brought down from his apartments. From here, a small ante-room gave way to the curtained entrance to his study. This was a small room — around nine by twelve feet — and seemed oppressive. A door on the right opened on to his bedroom, which had doors leading into a small briefing room, into his bathroom, and a tiny dressing-room (and from there into what was to become Eva Braun’s bedroom). A writing-desk, small sofa, a table, and three armchairs were squeezed into the study, making it cramped and uncomfortable. A large portrait of Frederick the Great entirely dominated the room, offering a constant reminder to Hitler of the seeming rewards for holding out when all appeared lost until the tide miraculously turned.111 ‘When bad news threatens to crush my spirit I derive fresh courage from the contemplation of this picture,’ Hitler was heard to remark.112
At first, even after he had moved his living quarters into the bunker, Hitler continued to spend part of the day in the undamaged wing of the Reich Chancellery. He lunched each day with his secretaries behind closed curtains in a dingy room lit by electric light.113 Since the operations room in the old Reich Chancellery building was no longer usable, the afternoon military conferences, usually beginning about 3p.m. and lasting two to three hours, were at this time held around the map-table in Hitler’s imposing study in the New Reich Chancellery, with its polished floor, thick carpet, paintings, leather armchairs and couch, and — remarkably — still intact grey-curtained ceiling-high windows.114 The circle of participants had by now been widened to include Bormann, Himmler, Kaltenbrunner, and often Ribbentrop. Afterwards, Hitler would usually drink a cup of tea with his secretaries and adjutants before returning to the safety of his underground abode.115 For the evening meal his entourage trekked through kitchens and corridors, past machine rooms, ventilation shafts, and toilets, through two heavy iron gates, and down to the Führer Bunker.116 The first time he ventured down to visit Hitler, Goebbels spoke of finding his way through the corridors ‘just like in a maze of trenches’.117 Over the next weeks, Hitler transferred almost all of his activities to the bunker, leaving it only for occasional snatches of fresh air to let Blondi out for a few minutes in the Chancellery garden or to take lunch with his secretaries above ground.118 From then on, he seldom saw daylight. For him and his ‘court’, spending almost their entire existence in the confines of the underground headquarters, night and day lost most of their meaning.
Hitler’s day usually began around this time with the sound of air raid sirens in the late morning. Linge was instructed to wake him, if he were not already awake, at noon, sometimes as late as 1p.m.119 Often — probably affected by the unholy concoctions of pills, potions, and injections he had daily (including stimulants as well as sedatives) — he had slept, so he claimed, for as little as three hours.120 The air-raids made him anxious. He would immediately dress and shave. The outer appearance of the Führer had to be maintained. He could not face his entourage unshaven and in night clothes even during an air-raid. The afternoons were almost exclusively taken up with lunch and the first of the lengthy twice-daily military briefings. The evening meal, usually not beginning until eight o’clock, sometimes later, frequently dragged out until late in the evening. Hitler sometimes retired for an hour or two, sometimes taking a sleep until it was time for the second military briefing. By now, it was usually la.m. By the end of the briefing — invariably stressful in the extreme for all who attended, including Hitler himself — he was ready to slump on the sofa in his room. He was not too tired, however, to hold forth to his secretaries and other members of his close circle, summoned to join him for tea in the middle of the night. He would regale them, as he had done throughout the war, for up to two hours with banalities and monologues about the church, race problems, the classical world, or the German character.121 After fondling Blondi and playing for a while with her puppy (which he had named ‘Wolf’), he would at last allow his secretaries to retreat and finally retire himself to bed. It was by then, as a rule, according to Linge’s planned schedule, around five o’clock in the morning, though in practice often much later.
