Hans-Erich Voss (or Voß, see ß) (October 30, 1897 – November 18, 1969) was a German Vice Admiral and among the last people to see both German dictator Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels alive.
Voss was born in Angermünde, 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 Joseph 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.
Voss was present during the bomb plot against Hitler on 20 July 1944. He was in the conference room at Hitler's Rastenburg Headquarters Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) as Kriegsmarine representative. Though wounded from the bomb blast, he recovered quickly. He was one of the few recipients of the Wound Badge of 20 July 1944.
In his capacity as Kriegsmarine Liaison Officer, 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 the 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:
Interrogated by Soviet officers on 6 May, Voss recounted:
On 1 May Voss saw Goebbels for the last time:
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:
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.
Contents |
Hans-Erich Voss has been portrayed by the following actors in film and television productions.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Wikis
Quiz
Map
Search
