Sergeant-Major
Edwin Austin on the Death of Heinrich Himmler, BBC
interview [recorded evidently on May 24, 1945] Website
note: Transcribed by this website from a sound
recording. It may be the actual Sergeant Major
Edwin Austin, but equally possibly an actor,
reading his script. "Sergeant Major Austin" is
very word-perfect, and only fluffs once in the
final paragraph. Minor pauses are marked [.
. .] CHESTER WILMOT:
Hello BBC, this is Chester Wilmot speaking from
Lüneburg, where Himmler committed suicide last
night. One of the men with him, in the room at the
time, at 31 Ülzener Strasse, was Sergeant
Major Edwin Austin of Mortlake in Surrey,
and I've brought him to the microphone to tell you
what happened. Sergeant Major Austin. SERGEANT MAJOR
AUSTIN: Before I arrived, I didn't know
it was Himmler. I was only told there was, uh, an
important prisoner whom I was to guard. As he came
into the room, not the arrogant figure which we all
know, but dressed in an army shirt, a pair of
underpants, with a blanket wrapped round him, I
immediately recognised him as Himm-lah [his
pronunciation]. [Three second
pause]. Speaking to him in German, and pointing to an
empty . . . couch, I said, "That's your bed. Get
undressed." [Pause]. He looked at me, and
then looked at an interpreter and said, "He doesn't
know who I am." I said, "Yes, I do. You're Himm-lah. But still
that's your bed. Get undressed." He tried to stare me out. But I stared at him
back . . . and eventually he dropped his eyes, and
sat down on the bed and started to take orf
[his pronunciation] his underpants.
The doctor [Captain C J Wells] and the
Colonel [Michael Murphy] then came into the
room, and started to carry out a routine
inspection, uh, looking for poison which we
suspected . . . he probably had on 'im. He looked
at between his toes, all over his body, under his
armpits, in his ears, behind his ears, in his hair,
and then he came to his mouth. He asked Himmler to
open his mouth. He did, and he ran his tongue
around his lips quite easily, but the doctor wasn't
satisfied. He asked him to come nearer to the
light. He came nearer to the light and opened his
mouth. The doctor tried to put two fingers into his
mouth to 'ave a, 'ave a good look inside, I, uh,
suspected, and Himmler . . . drew his head away,
and, clamping down on the doctor's fingers, crushed
the phial of poison which he had been carrying in
his mouth for hours.  The
doctor said, " 'e's done it!" and the colonel and I
instinctively jumped to him, the doctor held him by
the throat as he was falling and tried to make him,
uh, spit out the poison which he was swallowing,
and the colonel and I held him. After a struggle,
uh, lasting a quarter of an hour in which we tried
all methods of artificial respiration under the
directions of the doctor, he died, and when he
died, we threw a blanket over 'im. And left
'im.
Heinrich
Himmler dossier | Statement
by Sergeant Britton on arrest of
Himmler-
Our dossier
on death of Heinrich Himmler
-
Statement
dated February 11, 1964, by former colonel
(British Army) Michael Murphy on the death of
Heinrich Himmler, May 1945
|
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