Hitler Evacuated to the Zoo Bunker?

By Peter David Orr

Read the newspaper clipping in the header by US war correspondent, Jack Fleischer.

You read that right: Prior to June 15, 1945, three men who had been in Berlin during the "last days" told American counterintelligence that Hitler left the Führerbunker on April 23, 1945, and went to the Zoo Bunker. Why Fleischer withheld the name of this Martin Bormann "adjutant" is unknown, but perhaps we can figure it out.

List of Bormann Adjutants/Aides:

Rudolf Mackensen was Bormann’s “Geschäftsführer” (Business Manager) who died February 14, 1945. ELIMINATED.
Kurt-Walter Hanssen was Bormann’s "persönlicher Referent". Captured by Soviets in Berlin and died in Soviet captivity in 1945. ELIMINATED.
Helmuth Friedrichs (often misspelled “Hellmuth Friedrich”). Said to have gone missing in early February 1945. This is incorrect because Friedrichs is mentioned six times between March 1 and April 9, 1945, in Bormann’s desk diary. He was declared dead in 1951. The US National Archives has a massive dossier on Friedrichs; the most voluminous of anyone attached to Martin Bormann. The bottom line is that the US government was very interested in finding Friedrichs but never did. Friedrichs was often described in newspaper articles of the era as “Bormann’s aide-de-camp,” but never as an “adjutant.” ELIMINATED.
Dr. Helmut von Hummel was an accountant and personal assistant to Martin Bormann for special projects. Hummel was last seen with Julius Schaub (Hitler’s personal adjutant) by Hitler’s housekeeper, Anni Winter, on April 26, 1945. From April 28, 1945, forward, Hummel helped Gerda Bormann and her children to hide in the Tyrol. While the timeline of his April 26 departure from Berlin is intriguing, Von Hummel was not captured by the Americans until May 22, 1946—too late to be Fleischer's June 1945 informant. ELIMINATED.
Dr. Hans A. Müller was a federal-level civil court justice for Nazi-era Bavaria. He was captured by the Allies in Darmstadt on April 16, 1946. ELIMINATED.
Wilhelm Zander is universally described as an adjutant to Martin Bormann, but he was an adviser. Zander was captured in Vilshofen in late December 1945. ELIMINATED.
Gerhard Klopfer, along with Hellmuth Friedrichs, was the highest-ranking bureaucrat behind Bormann in the Chancellery. Captured by the Soviets and imprisoned. ELIMINATED.
Heinrich Heim and Dr. Henry Picker are famous for their post-war collaboration on Hitler’s Table Talk. No arrest record exists for either man in Berlin at the end of the war. ELIMINATED.
Paul Wegener was a Nazi Gauleiter and early Bormann adjutant. He surrendered to the British at Flensburg, and British Intelligence did not share his interrogation with their American counterparts in Bavaria. ELIMINATED.
Friedrich “Fritz” Darges had been Bormann’s and then Hitler’s adjutant. He was interned by US forces on May 8, 1945. Despite many interviews, there is zero indication he was the informant. LIKELY ELIMINATED.
Heinrich Sellmer was captured and interned by the British. ELIMINATED.
“Zeller” and “Scheel”—Papers found in Bormann’s office (the “Bradin documents”) feature the activities in Bavaria and Austria of these two men who worked for Bormann. Gustav Adolf Scheel was interrogated and then interred until 1947. Although calling Scheel Bormann's "adjutant" is a stretch, neither he nor Zeller can be eliminated. What if the "informant" was relaying information heard from a Bormann staffer flown into Salzburg? Circumstancially, Scheel remains a candidate because he was tasked by Bormann to find hiding places for party officials in the last days. The identity of “Zeller” remains amiss even after eight decades.

Another Clue

Not all newspaper articles are the same. A different syndicated version of Jack Fleischer's June 15, 1945, piece notes: "German sources said today that an aid of Martin Bormann left Berlin on April 26, and by then Hitler and a small staff had moved to the Tiergarten [Zoo] command post...". This suggests the informant was in Berlin until the 26th and reported the move as a completed event.

Wollenhaupt and the Investigation into "Joseph Reck"

Jack Fleischer's report derived corroboration from two other men: August Wollenhaupt, Hitler's barber, and a driver named "Joseph Reck".

August Wollenhaupt cut Hitler’s hair for the last time in the early hours of April 20, 1945, in the Führerbunker. He observed a bunker abuzz with activity: “Many people were packing bags that night, and the general talk was that Hitler and his staff were going to the flak tower command post”. Wollenhaupt was evacuated by air to Salzburg, Austria, in the earliest morning hours of April 21.

The driver, identified by Fleischer as "Joseph Reck," told interrogators he departed Berlin on April 21 driving one of 25 field-grey cars. Crucially, Reck added that Hitler ordered three or four vehicles to remain at the Chancellery garage specifically to move himself and his party to the Zoo Flak Tower.

The name "Joseph Reck" is a phantom. Erich Kempka, chief of the Reich Chancellery motor pool, never mentioned or wrote about a man named "Reck". However, a search of the Bundesarchiv reveals two compelling candidates who fit the profile of a young SS driver in 1945:

Josef Reck (b. Nov. 15, 1919), a 25-year-old; SS.
Josef Reck (b. Sept. 14, 1921), a 23-year-old; SS.

Given the typical age of Kempka's drivers, one of these men is likely the "informant" whose name was Americanized to "Joseph" by Fleischer. This Josef Reck was not a liar; he was a witness to logistical intent. He left Berlin on the 21st believing the move to the Zoo Tower was the operational plan.

The Zoo Tower Fortress: A Functional Command Shift

While the Reich Chancellery remained the symbolic heart of the Nazi state, its tactical utility vanished long before the final surrender. The geographic focus of the city’s defense had shifted two miles west to the Zoo Tower complex (Flak Tower I), a massive concrete citadel comprised of the G-Tower (Gefechtsturm) and the L-Tower (Leitturm). The G-Tower was a vertical fortress of unprecedented scale, housing a high-tech military hospital and thousands of civilians behind 3.5-meter-thick walls. However, the true "brain" of the defense was the L-Tower, situated just across the Landwehr Canal. This "Command Post" served as the primary radio and fire-control center for the Tiergarten sector, making it the only reliable communication island left in the encircled capital. Because this complex was virtually indestructible and functioned as a self-contained fortress, it provided the perfect operational environment for a high-level relocation.

Joseph Goebbels—the city’s Defense Commissioner—had already established his official combat headquarters (Gefechtsstand) within the Zoo Tower suggests a coordinated "switcheroo" rather than a chaotic flight. On the night of April 22, Goebbels moved his family into the Chancellery, publicly anchoring the "Final Stand" to the Führerbunker. Logistically, this move cleared the way for Hitler and a small staff to occupy Goebbels’ pre-existing, fully functional command center at the Zoo on the night of April 23. This tactical swap allowed the inner circle to maintain the heroically doomed narrative at the Reich Chancellery while the actual command authority operated from the impenetrable L-Tower, surrounded by the only radio transmitters still capable of reaching the outside world.

The shift in command HQ is corroborated by General Hellmuth Reymann, the commander of the Berlin Defense Area, who in postwar briefings recalled that while he was initially offered the Zoo Flak Tower as a headquarters, Goebbels’ staff had already moved in to utilize its superior radio facilities. This established the Zoo complex not merely as a shelter, but as the active 'Gefechtsstand' (Combat Headquarters) for the Reich Commissioner for Defense.

Conclusion: A Logistical Anomaly

By July 5, 1945, Jack Fleischer had visited the ruins of the Führerbunker. He reported finding the blood-stained sofa and the petrol cans described by Kempka, declaring the suicide story "true". Yet, this "neat bow" never sat well with him because the blood patterns only accounted for Eva Braun, leaving Hitler’s end a forensic question mark. Read Fleischer's full article, and see if you notice the differences between what Fleischer reported; like what Kempka told him about the positions of AH and EB on the suicide couch, or the the mention of a visible wound to Eva Braun. Then compare it to the popular, homogenized, version first created by Hugh Trevor-Roper and endlessly repeated for over 80 years.

The Zoo Flak Tower story is not a debunked rumor; it is a logistical anomaly supported by independent witnesses—a barber, a driver, and a Bormann aide—all of whom reported a consistent timeline.

I am not giving up on positively identifying the men in question, particularly the "Bormann aide" who left on the 26th and the specific Josef Reck who drove in that April 21st convoy. I challenge my fellow researchers and readers to dig into these names. If you find a diary, a letter, or a service record that places a "Reck" or a "Zeller" in the presence of these events, please contact me. The final chapter of the Zoo Tower has yet to be written.