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They were greeted by armed SS guards who celebrated when they saw the wagon of food and produce the corporals pulled behind them. “Go in, you may pass,” they said eagerly. “There is refrigeration.”

Once inside the bunker, another set of guards greeted them, but they were far more interested in the booze the corporals brought than in their credentials. Besides, the credentials were real—Thomas Bauer and Erich von der Haas had easily assumed the identities of Corporals Henrik Becker and Alfred Otto, who’d both recently deserted OKH headquarters in Berlin.

In the kitchen, complete with a massive wine storage area and large refrigerators, a pleasant, dark-haired young cook named Constanze was busy at the stove. Bauer and von der Haas started unloading the supplies, but she objected. “I will decide what is refrigerated and what is not,” she told them.

Just then, a man in a soiled white shirt and dark pants entered the kitchen. Bauer did a double take and instinctively swept his hand against the Walther pistol in his holster. The height, the build, the facial shape, the coloring, the mustache, even the part of his hair—for the blink of an eye, Bauer was sure that he was looking into the eyes of the Führer. But no. Just a man who bore a striking resemblance to him.

“Rolf,” said the cook, “I need three large carrots chopped.”

“Right away,” said the man. Rolf, apparently.

After Bauer and von der Haas finished unloading the food and drinks, Bauer snuck a bottle of brandy, and von der Haas a bottle of champagne, on their way out.

“For a minute there,” Bauer whispered, “when that guy walked in—”

“I know. Me, too,” said von der Haas, keeping a straight face. “Poor Rolf almost got a bullet between the eyes.”

Technically, now that their business was completed, Bauer and von der Haas would be expected to be on their way. But it was clear to them that the Vorbunker was not the tightest-run ship these days. The staff was despondent, worried, distracted. Nobody was paying them any attention.

And nobody was more popular than the guys with the booze.

So instead of turning right toward the exit, they turned left, moving into a room that had become the site of an impromptu cocktail hour. Uniformed men and a number of female staffers were sharing beers and smoking cigarettes.

They had no trouble blending in. They kept their cover stories straight. Henrik Becker (Bauer) had been shot twice in the back in Stalingrad while serving in the Panzergruppe 4—the 4th Panzer Group—earning him the Knight’s Cross for valor and a transfer to administrative duties back in Berlin. Alfred Otto (von der Haas) claimed he’d worked for Nazi intelligence, first in the Sicherheitsdienst and then in its successor, the Reich Security Main Office, or RSHA. The nature of the work was such that he couldn’t discuss it in public.

One hour turned into two turned into three, the party spilling over into the dining room as well, smoky rooms filled with music, boozy laughter, even dancing. Nobody talked about the war. Nobody mentioned victory or defeat. This was their escape, the alcohol numbing their fear. They wanted to forget their lives for a few hours.

Bauer and von der Haas were in the dining room, chatting with an SS guard and a typist for Joseph Goebbels, when they heard a roar go up in the conference room. They leaned in to have a look at the commotion, the source of the cheering.

They weren’t surprised at whom they saw. She was, after all, the reason they were here.

With a glass of champagne in one hand and a cigarette in the other, her eyes lively and her smile wide, Eva Braun had just entered the room.

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IT BECAME A ROUTINE. Every evening for the next ten days, Corporals Henrik Becker and Alfred Otto returned to the Vorbunker with liquor. It quickly reached the point where the only question the guards asked was what kind of booze they had brought that night. Vodka, beer, and champagne were mainstays, sometimes schnapps and, if they were lucky, a bottle of Jägermeister.

Their supply came from a resistance sympathizer and liquor wholesaler named Newberry, who’d fled Berlin for Switzerland ten days ago. He’d gladly offered them his flat, preferring to leave it inhabited so Russian soldiers wouldn’t plunder it. And he couldn’t possibly take the stacks of alcohol sitting in his pantry with him on his getaway to Switzerland.

While Adolf Hitler never showed his face in the upper bunker—besides his strolls through the chancellery garden with his dog, Blondi, he remained behind steel-reinforced doors, twenty-eight feet belowground—Eva Braun would often make an appearance at the Vorbunker parties.

She’d been a party girl her entire life, relegated to the role of hostess at dinners. She’d always been a heavy drinker, champagne her favorite, and had become a heavier smoker as she grew older, though she aimed to cover up the smell by chewing mints in Hitler’s presence.

Bauer had trusted she wouldn’t recognize him from fifteen years ago. He’d introduced himself to her as Henrik Becker. He didn’t want to seem too obvious, didn’t want to force the matter. But time was short. He needed to get some meaningful time alone with her, and he had to figure out something soon.

The Battle of Berlin began on April 16. The Soviet Army began a full-on assault of the city. It was not a matter of if but when the Russians would overcome the beleaguered and disorganized German troops and seize control of the city.

Bauer and von der Haas sat in the kitchen of the liquor wholesaler’s flat, which was in the western district of Charlottenburg, only blocks from the Tiergarten and the chancellery and, thus, the Führerbunker beneath. But they were under no illusions of safety. Nobody could predict how swiftly Russia’s ground troops would overtake the city. And the Allied aerial bombing spared no part of Berlin. Any moment of any day, an Allied bomb could flatten the building.

They ate slices of bread while they reviewed a map that von der Haas had drawn. The room vibrated from a bomb dropped nearby. The sound of artillery fire was as common as birds chirping in the spring.

“This is my best understanding of the Führerbunker.” Von der Haas spread it out. “Just from conversations. I can’t be sure of this.”

“Better than nothing,” said Bauer.

“You have to get past an armed guard to take the stairs down from the upper bunker,” von der Haas said. “Once you’re down there, you get another set of armed guards. Get past them, you walk into a hallway, a lounge area, something like that. Past that lounge is a steel-reinforced door at least two meters thick, also—”

“Also guarded by soldiers with guns,” said Bauer. “Three sets of armed guards.”