That morning, the Red Army had in fact begun its final assault on Berlin. Before dawn German soldiers had retreated from the Seelow Heights, fifty-five miles from the center of Berlin, leaving no front line. The Soviet operation to capture Berlin was colossal, involving 2,500,000 Red Army soldiers, 41,600 guns and mortars, 7,500 aircraft, and more than 6,000 tanks.
Rumor, panic, and chaos enveloped the city at an unstoppable pace. The majority of Berliners were now living underground, in cellars and air raid shelters, appearing aboveground only to scavenge for food. Every road out of Berlin leading west was overwhelmed with refugees. Casualties were skyrocketing. To the south, a detachment of Hitler Youth fighting near the Buckow Forest became trapped in a forest fire; most were burned alive. Major General Dr. Walter Schreiber’s makeshift hospital could not keep up with the wounded. During the course of the next twelve days the Red Army would fire 1.8 million shells on the city.
Hitler’s birthday was also the day Knemeyer and Baumbach would flee Berlin for good. In the morning, Baumbach had received a cryptic message from G?ring, who instructed him to go meet with SS-Brigadeführer Walter Friedrich Schellenberg, the notorious chief of military intelligence and Himmler’s number-two man. The end was near and everyone seemed to know it, so what did Schellenberg want from Baumbach now? Schellenberg told Baumbach that a warrant had been issued for his arrest and that he was scheduled to be taken into custody during the Führer’s birthday party. Baumbach should leave the city immediately, Schellenberg said. Anyone close to Hitler who was arrested this late in the war—usually suspected of treason—faced a quick execution. This was happening all across Berlin. Had Hitler found out about the Greenland escape plan?
“Schellenberg, whom I had known for years,” Baumbach later explained, “was a clever man.” Baumbach interpreted the tip-off to mean only one thing: Schellenberg needed Baumbach alive to help facilitate an escape. “It was known among a core group of SS officers that Himmler had been trying to use concentration camp inmates as bargaining chips for clemency, through an intermediary, the Swedish Red Cross,” Baumbach explained. Of course Himmler would never be granted clemency; Baumbach figured that Schellenberg and Himmler wanted him alive so he could help them escape somewhere overseas.
Baumbach located Knemeyer and the two pilots agreed to flee Berlin immediately. They got in Baumbach’s BMW and headed north to the Travemünde airfield, two hundred miles north of Berlin, on the Baltic Sea. The long-range aircraft they planned to use for their escape with Speer sat stocked and fueled on the tarmac. “We were supplied with everything we needed for six months,” Baumbach explained after the war. Knemeyer and Baumbach found many Luftwaffe officers packing up their belongings, stripping themselves of military identification, and preparing to disappear among civilians. An aide delivered an urgent message to Baumbach. This time it was from Himmler himself. The Reichsführer-SS wanted to see Baumbach immediately. Baumbach was to come to Mecklenburg, halfway back to Berlin, where Himmler was staying. Baumbach asked Knemeyer to accompany him.
The road leading to Mecklenburg was swamped with refugees. This part of Germany was one of the only regions still in German control. SS guards herded concentration camp prisoners along the roads like cattle in a last-ditch effort to keep them out of the liberators’ hands. The roads were almost impassable, and it took five hours for Baumbach and Knemeyer to drive a hundred miles. When they finally arrived at a large country home referred to as the manor of Dobbin, Himmler’s SS-guards escorted them inside.
“The Reichsführer will receive you now,” a guard said. Knemeyer was told to wait outside Himmler’s office, while Baumbach was led down a long, narrow corridor, up a winding staircase, and into Himmler’s study. Behind the desk, Himmler sat alone. He wore a gray field uniform covered with SS insignia, the death’s head (Totenkopf). The sleeves on Himmler’s uniform were too long, and Baumbach noted a cheap ring on the pinkie finger of his left hand. Himmler sized up the general of the bombers from behind his signature pince-nez and got to the point.