[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of the family of Raymond N. Born] CHAPTER 20 BERLIN, GERMANY APRIL 10, 1945 NIGHT NOBODY STANDS AS ADOLF HITLER enters the conference room. The Führer’s entire body quivers as he assumes his usual place before the war map table. Hitler’s hands shake, his head nods uncontrollably, and he is bent at the waist, too weak to stand upright. The distant thunder of Allied bombing shakes the concrete walls. Yet the Führer’s eyes shine brightly behind his rimless pale green eyeglasses, showing no fear whatsoever as he gazes down at the current location of his armies. Most of what he sees, however, is not real; he is too deluded to know the truth. In his desperation to end the war on his terms, Hitler imagines nonexistent “ghost” divisions as he scrutinizes the map, and pictures thousands of tanks in places where there are none at all. Meanwhile, private conversation hums as if the Führer had never even entered the upper-level room.
