Hitler's Warriors (4/6) : Udet - The Flyer
For educational purposes
Ernst Udet, the most successful German fighter pilot to survive the First World War, was personally selected by Hitler to build up and equip the Luftwaffe, but all he had ever wanted was to fly.
As the model for Carl Zuckmayer's character Harras in the famous novel "The Devil's General", the fate of Ernst Udet lingered on in Germany's postwar memory.
But the writer's license also obstructed the view of the "real" Udet. His fame as a fighter pilot ace during World War I served the regime well as welcome propaganda material for the build-up of the National Socialist Air Force.
He himself was promoted by Goring from the cockpit to the desk of "Chief Air Inspector General" where he coordinated the build-up of Hitler's plans of aggression.
The successes of the German Air Force in the "Blitzkrieg" would lead Udet to believe in the invincibility of German bombers and fighter planes.
The nimbus of the "flying ace" gave him access to the "higher" society in Berlin. At lavish parties and receptions of the party he fully savored his fame.
Only with the defeat of the Air Force against the British Royal Air Force and the setbacks of German pilots on the Eastern front did his illusion of invincibility shatter.
Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force Goring branded Udet the scapegoat.
Offended and disillusioned in view of the hopelessness of the Russian campaign he took his own life on November 17, 1941.
The regime covered up the suicide, announced the cause of Udet's death in a crash during a test flight and staged a pompous State funeral.
Ernst Udet, the most successful German fighter pilot to survive the First World War, was personally selected by Hitler to build up and equip the Luftwaffe, but all he had ever wanted was to fly.
As the model for Carl Zuckmayer's character Harras in the famous novel "The Devil's General", the fate of Ernst Udet lingered on in Germany's postwar memory.
But the writer's license also obstructed the view of the "real" Udet. His fame as a fighter pilot ace during World War I served the regime well as welcome propaganda material for the build-up of the National Socialist Air Force.
He himself was promoted by Goring from the cockpit to the desk of "Chief Air Inspector General" where he coordinated the build-up of Hitler's plans of aggression.
The successes of the German Air Force in the "Blitzkrieg" would lead Udet to believe in the invincibility of German bombers and fighter planes.
The nimbus of the "flying ace" gave him access to the "higher" society in Berlin. At lavish parties and receptions of the party he fully savored his fame.
Only with the defeat of the Air Force against the British Royal Air Force and the setbacks of German pilots on the Eastern front did his illusion of invincibility shatter.
Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force Goring branded Udet the scapegoat.
Offended and disillusioned in view of the hopelessness of the Russian campaign he took his own life on November 17, 1941.
The regime covered up the suicide, announced the cause of Udet's death in a crash during a test flight and staged a pompous State funeral.
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LearningTranscript
00:00Aschau, a small town on Lake Chiemsee in 1910, a 14-year-old boy dreams of flying. He calls
00:11himself an aviatician. He'll become Germany's most famous pilot, and 31 years from now will
00:18put a bullet through his head.
00:26The Nazis carried him to his grave with due ceremony, marching in step beneath the swastika.
00:32Hermann Göring, Reichsmarschall and head of the Air Ministry, called it a tragic accident.
00:38The official line was that Udet had crashed on a test flight.
00:45The cult of death and crocodile tears.
00:48That was a lie. Göring himself had driven the flyer to his death.
01:18Udet cuts out his dream from paper, a dream of flying.
01:42Flying is a passion, he said. Once you know how, you'll never let go of it.
01:48He described himself as a happy child, but he was over 30 when this was filmed. His paper
01:54dream would later turn into a nightmare of steel and destruction.
02:06He invented the Stuka, meaning Diver Bomber. Howling infernally, the aeroplane carried
02:11death to its target with pinpoint precision. It was one of the first terror weapons of
02:16World War II.
02:19Worth risking your life for, as well as the death of so many people? The contents of this
02:42cigar box express the contradictions of Udet's life. Here are letters, pocket diaries, calendars
02:48and photographs, the pieces of a puzzle. Together, they describe an entire life.
02:55From the First World War, letters to his parents, jubilantly reporting the 62 planes he shot
03:01down and receiving the highest German medal, Pour le Merite.
03:07Udet, the happy child at the age of three.
03:16He grew up in Munich, a carefree childhood, as the only son of parents from the high bourgeoisie.
03:22By the Isar River, his interest in flying machines was kindled by looking through the
03:26fence of the Otto Aeroplane Factory. He saw man-made birds being created from wood and
03:32canvas.
03:39The dream of flying, also a dream of freedom, a dream which could fail.
03:52August 1914. The war began with enthusiasm. Everyone wanted to be there, including the
03:5818-year-old Udet, who volunteered. But the examining doctors put an end to Udet's enthusiasm.
04:06He was healthy, but at 160 centimetres, he was too short for the front.
04:14Unfit for combat. Rejected.
04:20But Udet had a special ticket to the front, a motorcycle, a gift from his wealthy father.
04:26The German Automobile Club was looking for volunteer dispatch riders for the German troops.
04:31Udet was longing for the trenches.
04:39The reality of the war was brutal and bloody. But in its first year, it was still being
04:44cast in a patriotic light. The war was an adventure for would-be heroes.
04:53The letters Udet sent to his parents were full of the boastful talk common at the time.
05:00Strasbourg, August the 20th, 1914.
05:05Hopefully, we'll soon get back to the front, he wrote. Then we'll give those guys such
05:10a thrashing they won't fit into a coffin. Schoolboy bravado, a way of talking yourself
05:15out of your fears. Better still, you fly away from them.
05:20Udet's knowledge of engines and planes brought him a dream job, fighter pilot.
05:27Flyers were the new idols, the knights of the air.
05:31They flew in rickety constructions of canvas and plywood. The air war looked like a game,
05:37but it was a deadly battle. Hardly any of the famous fighter pilots survived the war.
05:45You cannot think, wrote Udet, that everyone you shoot down has a mother who cries for him.
05:55He successfully ignored that as a member of Baron von Richthofen's famous squadron.
06:01The Red Baron, the role model. Another pilot, Hermann Göring, was to influence Udet's life
06:07profoundly. Cold-blooded, ambitious, a man who liked power. He later headed the Luftwaffe
06:13under the Nazis. But Ernst Udet was a jovial daredevil, attractive to women.
06:22At the end of the war, there was a revolt in Germany, producing the Weimar Republic.
06:27The Allies confiscated everything that could fly. For the time being, the dream was over.
06:34Udet established himself in true bourgeois style in Munich. Near his spacious flat lived
06:39another ex-soldier. The former Lance Corporal Adolf Hitler. He had just become the leader
06:49of a small party. As yet, the two hadn't met. Udet had only one passion. Flying.
07:05Funded by a rich American, he started the Udet Aeroplane Company and called himself
07:10a manufacturer from then on. The first prototypes were built secretly in a chicken coop factory
07:16as the Versailles Treaty prohibited the manufacture of aeroplanes. Later, a great deal of money
07:23would come from the army. Secret rearmament in an unquiet peace.
07:36And Udet was flying once more. For him, this was what mattered most. Before huge audiences
07:43in both Germany and America, he risked his life performing dangerous stunts. Battle manoeuvres
07:50had become circus acrobatics. No one else dared perform loops so close to the ground.
07:59No one else could pick up a cloth with a wingtip. One of the most breathtaking stunts.
08:07No one else could do it. With the engine of his Flamingo off and the propeller motionless,
08:12Udet flies one more loop. Then, he slowly approaches the runway, the engine still off.
08:23The Flamingo drifts down towards the runway, approaching the touchdown sideways. It seems
08:29impossible to stay airborne, but like a true acrobat, the danger is always under control.
08:36I had the feeling that he was like a bird. He was so confident that you didn't have
08:43any fear of flying with him at all. He was like a bird.
08:48Do you see, ma'am, that flying is such a thing? Many, many feel called upon, but very few
08:56are chosen.
08:58Flying as genius, the pilot as artist. Crazy daring, Udet flies under the bridges of the
09:05Isar. Udet, over Munich's Central Railway Station, playing a pilot for a film in the
09:22skies above Serengeti. Or between the walls of the Greenland Glacier for the film SOS
09:32Weissberg, in which his friend Leni Riefenstahl also acted.
09:36I'm joking. He was always on the periphery, always right in front of him.
09:50But he had such a fine, flying feeling that he could go to the farthest limits.
09:59And he was a fanatical artist. That was his life. And he was a transmitter.
10:09Udet, roaring engines in the roaring twenties.
10:15Everyone in Berlin knew him. There was always a table reserved for him at his favourite
10:19restaurant. Wild parties and Udet always in the thick of it.
10:23He was always in a good mood. I sometimes wonder how a person can only be in a good
10:35mood. How does it look inside him? Where is the other side of the coin?
10:43Udet was hardly ever alone and was seen at the most popular bars. He was the lady killer,
10:49the life of the party, dancing on tabletops. He put on juggling performances. The cognac
10:55and champagne flowed. He juggled plates and glasses when he was in really high spirits.
11:03Or he'd put a safety pin through his lip. He called it his fuckier trick.
11:07I didn't understand the women who chained themselves to him.
11:21I think he gave too little and took too much.
11:31Udet! Udet! Udet!
11:35The women expected more and more from him than he expected from the women.
11:41He enjoyed it and took with him what he could get.
11:48And what do you like best here? Not the women?
11:51No. Not at all.
11:55I think he would have been very upset if he could have felt what he did to my mother
12:02and probably to other women.
12:07Udet with Amy Bessel, a young actress. It was love at first sight.
12:12In 1933 she gave birth to his daughter. Udet sent a telegram while enjoying himself with friends
12:18at Lake Eibsee. Congratulations. Call her Anna Marie. Please write Eibsee Hotel, Udlinger.
12:25By this time he was in a new relationship with another woman.
12:35And he had another relationship with politics as well. The Federal Archives in Berlin.
12:41These files contain a document which sheds light on Udet's attitudes at that time.
12:47Proof of his membership of the National Socialists.
12:51He joined as soon as the party came to power. Occupation, flyer, says his membership card.
12:57Joined May 1st, 1933. His fall from grace.
13:04What made the non-political flyer and playboy join the Nazis?
13:08A temptation he could not resist.
13:11When Hitler wormed his way into power, Udet travelled to America.
13:16There he made a pact with the devil, but he didn't know it yet.
13:21The American newspapers wrote that Udet, the famous flying ace, was most impressed with Hitler.
13:28The reason for these lies. The Curtiss Hawk, an aeroplane with a hugely powerful engine
13:34which could perform the most daring stunts.
13:37Goering would buy two Curtiss Hawks for Udet, provided he joined the party.
13:42It was Goering's idea.
13:44In the beginning he didn't really want to participate.
13:47He said, I don't want that.
13:49Goering thought, I'll buy him a few machines in America,
13:54and then he should fly or drive there and get the machines.
13:57So he bought them.
13:59He had his two Curtiss machines, but he wasn't like a child with toys.
14:05The child and his new toy.
14:09The aeroplane embodied all of Udet's longings.
14:13Vertical climb.
14:16Vertical dive.
14:18The flying engine, they called it.
14:20A 700 horsepower miracle of aluminium for which Udet had sold his soul.
14:28The daring take-offs and nose-dives gave Udet a fateful idea.
14:33This fighter plane became the model for the Stuka, the dive-bomber,
14:37Hitler's first weapon of terror.
14:48This plane was found in a field near Krakow.
14:51It is the Curtiss Hawk, the plane of Udet's dreams.
14:55It became the model for one of the most horrific weapons used in World War II.
15:03In this bucket seat, Udet completed many of his hazardous stunts.
15:09Using these levers, he earned worldwide acclaim.
15:13But with this joystick, he practised a manoeuvre
15:16that would terrify its thousands of victims.
15:19Udet's stunt show became deadly serious.
15:23Even now, 60 years after the last take-off, the pistons fire.
15:27The voice of temptation, which was to be Udet's downfall.
15:38After January 1933, Hitler was Reich Chancellor and called the tune.
15:43It was the first time in history that Udet had ever performed a stunt.
15:47After January 1933, Hitler was Reich Chancellor and called the tune.
15:52In the streets, people sensed what was to come.
15:55Couldn't Udet see what was wrong? Or didn't he want to see it?
16:00To be a great flyer, you have to make a pact with the devil, he said.
16:04But don't let him swallow you up.
16:17A visit to Udet's home.
16:21Just an overgrown boy, sports trophies and memorabilia.
16:29Kitsch from the World War and trophies for the planes he had shot down.
16:37Portrait of the Red Baron.
16:40Udet as a dashing young man, wearing his poor Lemiret medal.
16:45Much vanity, but also a great deal of loneliness.
16:49All questions are locked out, repressed.
17:00Udet began to drink more and more heavily. Wine, beer, cognac.
17:04He ordered a mobile bar, but it was too expensive.
17:09He ordered a mobile bar from a carpenter,
17:11which became standard equipment on all his flights.
17:15Glasses were carefully stowed to survive any stunt.
17:19Udet always drank when he flew.
17:21His generation considered heavy drinking manly.
17:24We liked each other and drank our first bottle of brandy together,
17:28recalled his friend, the writer Karl Zuckmeier,
17:31who later wrote a play, The Devil's General, based on Udet's life.
17:39He was a passionate drinker. He drank a lot.
17:43Before he flew, he always had a nice shot of cognac.
17:48But I think that Udet's alcohol increased his fears.
17:56The fears of not being able to finish the position he had.
18:03Fear caused by his old comrade-in-arms, Göring,
18:06who was organising the new air force just as Hitler wanted it.
18:31Now Göring needed a role model for his air force.
18:35Udet was expected to take on the task, and he did.
18:45Youth must be daring.
18:47Udet was just the man for such propaganda slogans
18:50and for the weekly newsreels,
18:52which showed him at the side of the Reich's master of the hunt.
18:57Udet played along, but had conflicting feelings.
19:01In the German forest, there's a smell of carcasses,
19:04he wrote in his notebook.
19:12The Reich Air Ministry, a bureaucracy which Göring made gigantic.
19:17Udet could call himself Chief of the Technical Office
19:20and later Chief Air Inspector General.
19:23These fantasy titles were flattering,
19:25but also required a great deal of desk work.
19:28The ministry became his prison.
19:34The ministry grew like a tumour, 3,000 employees.
19:39Göring wanted to turn the air force into the backbone of the armed forces.
19:48Udet had a talent for drawing, and did this cartoon of himself.
19:52Chained to his desk, he naively dreams of better times.
19:57Frustration or flirtation?
19:59He drew himself as the victim, but he had become the perpetrator.
20:05He dreamt of the times when he had roamed the skies in his flamingo plane.
20:09He was a fantasist who fled his problems.
20:12He repressed them, but by now his pact with the devil was sealed.
20:21But could he admit it?
20:23At San Remo, he put on a show of loyalty for the cameras of the weekly newsreel,
20:27strolling with Göring in civilian clothes, like a tourist.
20:31He hid behind jovial wisecracking.
20:53But what use were jokes and civilian clothes,
20:56now that he was so deeply implicated?
20:59In this period, Udet approved a rearmament plan that prepared for war.
21:04In just under two years, the number of air force planes
21:07would increase from 3,400 to almost 24,000, a six-fold increase.
21:18Rechlin, 100 kilometres north of Berlin.
21:22The air force, as a fantasy of power, would now be put to the test.
21:29The rusty ruins of Göring's pride.
21:32These hangars once housed top-secret armaments projects,
21:35prototypes for the so-called miracle weapons, such as the jet bomber.
21:43On these rails, the Fuhrer's train pulled in at Rechlin on July 3, 1939.
21:48The decisive inspection tour.
21:51Hitler wanted to see the air force's rearmament for himself.
21:55He wanted confirmation of what he already believed,
21:58that nothing and no one could defeat this air force,
22:01that the war could begin.
22:08Udet next to Hitler, eager to please.
22:11Udet and Göring, the experienced fighter pilots of World War I,
22:15wanted to show the Lance Corporal what aeronautics could be.
22:19To show the Lance Corporal what aeroplanes were capable of.
22:30Hitler was impressed.
22:32German craftsmanship for his World War madness.
22:37It was essentially a repetition of the air shows of the 1920s.
22:41Udet demonstrated his skills, and the public was amazed.
22:45The strangest prototypes, impressive aerial stunts, show flights.
23:16The unique craftsmanship of the designers,
23:19were mostly their prototypes.
23:22We were in a certain way ahead,
23:25for example with all the jet flying, jets, rockets and so on.
23:30Without a doubt.
23:32But that could never equal the industrial, purely mass-based superiority.
23:42But Hitler was convinced his air force was invincible.
23:45No one mentioned the shortage of raw materials.
23:48Göring provided the fantasies, and Udet put them on show.
23:52The war could begin.
23:58The 1st of September 1939, attack on Poland.
24:02Udet's weapon, the Junkers 87, the Stuka, was about to attack.
24:07The Polish army had nothing to counter it.
24:10The Jericho trumpet, a siren fixed to the plane, howled over Poland.
24:15Udet's invention terrified its victims.
24:27But dive-bombing was dangerous for the pilots too, leaving nightmarish memories.
24:45The Americans and the British who had fled,
24:48the same story with great success, were right.
24:51And they hit their target too.
24:59Warsaw in ruins.
25:01This secret service film, shot immediately after the bombing,
25:04was made to show the effects of attacks from the air.
25:07Was Udet unaware of the misery caused by his weapon?
25:11After this victory, Hitler thought anything was possible,
25:15and signed autographs like a movie star.
25:25Nerves were strained at the air ministry.
25:31For Hitler, the war had just begun,
25:34but the air force and its leaders were already running out of steam.
25:38While Goering let things slide, Udet buckled under his workload.
25:42The huge air ministry was disorganized.
25:45Udet hoped the latest prototypes would impress,
25:48but by now raw materials were running out.
25:53And a competitor who was trying to dislodge him,
25:56Goering's state secretary, Erhard Milch,
25:59who said, Hitler rightly considers Udet the greatest aviator,
26:03but that doesn't make him a great engineer.
26:08I had the impression that Milch was jealous of Udet,
26:12because he had a leading position as air force commander,
26:16which he would have liked to have taken.
26:25Milch was the great organizer, the great expert,
26:29and he was predestined for this,
26:32because he was the director of Lufthansa,
26:35which meant that Udet was far superior to Kaufmann.
27:06The tragedy was the war for him.
27:09In three words, it was just the war.
27:36The French planes were destroyed on the ground.
27:40Udet's Stukas celebrated their last great victory.
27:52At such short range, the Stuka was a weapon that terrorized the enemy.
27:56But Udet knew he couldn't go on winning battles forever.
28:06The life he led when the war broke out,
28:10that was the opposite of the life he had led before,
28:14and that must have changed him a lot.
28:17Udet now issued daily orders which begged his employees
28:21to achieve the final victory for their dearly beloved fatherland,
28:25Nazi Germany.
28:27Did he realize what he was saying?
28:30There was to be, no, there was to be no war.
28:34There was to be no final victory.
28:37The war continued.
28:39Bomb England was Hitler's order,
28:41as the way to the channel was now open.
28:44Goering with German troops.
28:46He promised his pilots would soften up the island for invasion.
28:50The Battle of Britain had begun.
28:55Udet knew the German air force could not win.
28:58The range was too great for the Stukas,
29:02and slow German bombers would be an easy target for the Royal Air Force.
29:08The bombs falling on England only strengthened the British determination to resist.
29:17London burning.
29:19Such images disguised the true balance of power.
29:22The demise of the German air force had long since begun.
29:32And if you looked at the numbers of casualties,
29:36hundreds of planes were left over there.
29:40And then, me too,
29:42you could count on three fingers that nothing could be done about it.
29:51Udet knew.
29:53By now he was taking ever higher doses of amphetamines.
29:56Just one tablet could keep you awake for days,
29:59and Udet was taking them by the packet and cognac,
30:02lurching between euphoria and depression.
30:15His dream of flying in a pill.
30:18A flight from the evil reality which surrounded him
30:21into a weightlessness which anaesthetised all reality.
30:29He took the Pervitin,
30:31because he was not capable of such a long-term performance
30:35of such a psychological structure,
30:38but always needed immediate success experiences.
30:41I think you can have that when you fly, when you reach goals,
30:44when you experience adventures.
30:46But of course you can't perform any leading function
30:49in an administrative apparatus with such a personality structure.
30:53And that's why you always take, I suppose,
30:56this already known remedy,
30:58when you have the feeling, I can't take it anymore,
31:01I can't stand it anymore, I have to do something for myself
31:04in order to cope with it.
31:08Udet began to draw again, with a wicked sense of self-deprecation.
31:12Self-portraits, he's ill.
31:14On his chest sits an evil nightmare,
31:17the gigantic armament programme which he will never complete.
31:22Udet was now considered a security risk.
31:25Goering sent him to the Black Forest on holiday
31:28with two doctors at his side.
31:30His competitor, Milch, was to take over temporarily,
31:34or so they said.
31:36On an excursion up Feldberg mountain,
31:39Udet signed his name in the guestbook, like a good tourist.
31:43Below the names of his keepers,
31:46he wrote in his best handwriting,
31:49reserved for autographs, Ernst Udet.
31:52In the column-headed guest status,
31:55he wrote with bitter sarcasm, mentally and physically broken.
32:04And the war went on, now in the East,
32:07against Russia, June 1941.
32:13Udet knew that this war on all fronts had long since been lost,
32:18that his aircraft must be lost on the vast plains of Russia,
32:22like the ground troops.
32:24The air force had been equipped for short-range targets
32:27and couldn't attack this huge country.
32:30The advance became bogged down.
32:34The air force could hardly support the infantry
32:37because of the enormous distances,
32:40despite the propaganda images.
32:44Goering's boastful dream of an all-conquering air force
32:47came to an end during this advance.
32:51But the misery caused by the German army in Russia was indescribable.
32:55Could Udet repress this fact?
33:17I remember, he said,
33:19Leni, this is not going well.
33:21Yes, that's what he said, Leni.
33:23This is not going well.
33:25He always said, it's going wrong.
33:28It must go wrong.
33:33August 1941.
33:35Goering's train in the Ukraine.
33:38Here, the Reich's Marshal held court,
33:41far removed from the cruel reality of the war.
33:44Situation briefing.
33:46Udet now stood to one side.
33:48He was indifferent, apathetic.
34:07The last footage of Udet.
34:10Three months later, he shot himself.
34:14I told him a week before,
34:16I'm fed up.
34:18I'm fed up.
34:20I'm going to lose the war anyway.
34:22He also told the guard,
34:24what are you doing with your late planes?
34:27It's too late anyway.
34:30He really suffered to serve a third Reich
34:33in an exposed position.
34:37The ministry ordered portraits of Udet
34:40a few weeks before his death.
34:43Once more, he tried to manage the old poses.
34:47No longer the beaming hero.
34:50The smiles for the camera weren't a success.
35:02There has been much change in Udet's life.
35:05There has been much speculation and legend
35:08over what happened next.
35:10His final 24 hours reconstructed.
35:20November the 16th was a gorgeous day, a Sunday.
35:24A few people met in the Heerstrasse in Berlin.
35:27Udet, his former flight technician, Bayer,
35:30and Udet's lover, Inge Bleile.
35:34He made awful jokes and tried to bury his dog Bobby
35:37in heaps of fallen leaves, she later testified.
35:40Somehow he was very wound up and cheerful
35:43in a worrying way.
35:46They decided to go to Udet's flat in Stallhupener Allee.
35:551pm. They sat down at his mobile bar.
35:58Have as many cigars as you like, Udet told Bayer.
36:02They're the last I'll be able to give you.
36:05They smoked, drank. Udet drank a whole bottle of brandy
36:08over the next few hours.
36:12They talked about old times.
36:15The wall next to the bar was covered in memorabilia.
36:18Pictures of aircraft, friends and lovers.
36:21Somehow I was scared, Inge Bleile said later.
36:24Udet was so restless and he drank so much.
36:27His cheerfulness was a front.
36:30He tried to laugh off his fears.
36:35Early afternoon. Bayer had left.
36:38Udet and Inge sat on the sofa and kept drinking.
36:41He was still talking non-stop about his life.
36:44Nothing held back.
36:48How in von Richthofen's squadron he'd won victory after victory
36:52as a knight of the air.
36:54In those days we were still decent, he kept saying.
37:00And how all the flying enthusiasts had met
37:03on the Wasserkuper mountain.
37:05So at ease, so carefree, so different.
37:10SOS Eisberg.
37:12Those crazy days of filming in Greenland with Leni Riefenstahl.
37:19A child's dream of flying.
37:24He had filmed lions and giraffes.
37:28His film was called Strange Birds Over Africa.
37:31Then the times had changed.
37:34He'd let himself be bought by Goering.
37:37The wrong man in the wrong place.
37:40Crazy armaments plans he couldn't fulfil.
37:43Nightmares over the crimes being committed.
37:46EARLY EVENING
37:55Early evening.
37:57Inge Bleiler tried to distract a depressed Udet.
38:00They visited some friends, the Winters.
38:03Udet played with their children.
38:05He was like a child himself.
38:07Tomorrow Uncle Ernst will no longer be alive, he said.
38:11And the children laughed.
38:13Dreams of flying.
38:16EARLY EVENING
38:28They sat down to dinner at 7.30.
38:31There was duck with red cabbage.
38:33I feel like that duck, Udet said.
38:36Here today, gone tomorrow.
38:40Red chrysanthemums on the table.
38:44Red candles, solemn like a funeral.
38:47Udet was cheerful and kept telling jokes,
38:50as he had in Berlin in the 20s.
38:53But who could believe his laughter?
39:09Udet drank.
39:11Let me drink, he said.
39:13The last brandy.
39:17Another brandy.
39:20With it, apple strudel and black coffee.
39:23Lots of it. And cigars.
39:25It was a feast.
39:27The condemned man's last meal.
39:30Someone who keeps talking about it won't do it,
39:33Mrs Winter whispered to Inge Bleiler.
39:36Suddenly, all of them felt silent.
39:39Not a word about politics. Not a single word.
39:43EARLY EVENING
39:51They left the Winters about 1 a.m.
39:54Udet drove Inge to her flat.
39:57She did not want to be with him now.
40:00She was afraid she couldn't bear his depression.
40:04Udet was in a crazy mood again and sang the latest songs.
40:07We should have got married, had children,
40:10instead of fighting this shitty war, he said suddenly.
40:15Too late.
40:17Everything was sliding towards the abyss.
40:22At about 8.30 a.m., Inge Bleiler's phone rang.
40:25It was Udet.
40:27His voice was quite calm and cold, she later recalled in her statement.
40:31There's no point anymore, he said.
40:35EXPLOSION
40:38She heard the shot over the phone.
40:41Ernst Udet had shot himself at his desk with a Colt revolver.
40:47The escape into alcohol and drugs had not been enough.
40:50Death as the ultimate denial of failure,
40:53of crime and of his weakness in the face of it all.
40:58But one mystery still remains.
41:01At the end, Udet had given vent to his depression.
41:04He scribbled an accusation in lipstick on the headboard of his bed.
41:08Immediately after it was discovered, his adjutants wiped off this farewell.
41:12What had Udet written?
41:19A 40-year-old document provides conclusive evidence.
41:23It's Inge Bleiler's account of the night he died.
41:27Udet had written three sentences.
41:30Darling Inge, why did you leave me?
41:34Man of Iron, you lied to me, meaning Göring.
41:37And Milch, you bastard.
41:40Inge Bleiler's eyewitness account.
41:49In Berlin's invalid cemetery, a place once divided by the no-man's-land
41:53between East and West, Ernst Udet lies buried.
41:57Göring lied when he said that Udet had died like a hero.
42:01Even his death certificate stated that the flyer had not died in the cockpit.
42:12To be a great flyer, you have to make a pact with the devil,
42:16Ernst Udet had said.
42:18But don't let him swallow you up.
42:22But he had let himself be swallowed up.
42:31To be a great flyer, you have to make a pact with the devil,
42:35Ernst Udet had said.
42:37But don't let him swallow you up.
42:40But he had let himself be swallowed up.
42:43But he had let himself be swallowed up.
42:46But he had let himself be swallowed up.
42:49But he had let himself be swallowed up.
42:52But he had let himself be swallowed up.
42:55But he had let himself be swallowed up.
42:58But he had let himself be swallowed up.
43:01But he had let himself be swallowed up.
43:04But he had let himself be swallowed up.
43:07But he had let himself be swallowed up.
43:10But he had let himself be swallowed up.
43:13But he had let himself be swallowed up.
43:16But he had let himself be swallowed up.
43:19But he had let himself be swallowed up.
43:22But he had let himself be swallowed up.
43:26But he had let himself be swallowed up.
43:29But he had let himself be swallowed up.