Haase, Dr. Werner.

Haase, Dr. Werner, born 02-09-1900 in Köthen, in Anhalt, graduated from secondary school in 1918. Haase then joined the 66th Infantry Regiment in World War I and obtained his doctor’s degree in 1924 and then became a surgeon. Haase was a ship doctor beginning in 1927 and joined the Nazi Party in 1933. From 1934, forward, he served on the staff of the surgery clinic of Berlin University.

In 1935, he upon the recommendation of Karl Brandt, Haase began serving as Hitler’s deputy personal physician. On 01-04-1941, Haase joined the SS. and was promoted to SS-Obersturmbannführer on 16-06-1943. Hitler appears to have had a high opinion of him and sent to Haase on his birthday in 1943, stating: “Accept my heartfelt congratulations on your birthday.

Karl Brandt was Hitler’s personal physician and Hitler was his best man at the marriage with Anni Rehborn a Olympic bronze medal winner

. In the last days of the fighting in Berlin in late April 1945, Haase, with SS Obersturmbannführer Ernst Gunther Schenck , was working to save the lives of the many wounded German soldiers and civilians in an emergency casualty station located in the large cellar of the Reich Chancellery. Dr Schenck died old age 94 on 21-12-1998 in Aachen. The cellar led a further one-and-a-half meters down to an air-raid shelter known as the Vorbunker The Vorbunker was connected by a stairway which led down to the Führerbunker

. By this time, the Führerbunker had become a de facto Führer Headquarters, and ultimately, the last of Hitler’s headquarters.

On 29 April, Hitler expressed doubts about the cyanide capsules he had received through Heinrich Himmler‘s SS. (did you know)  To verify the capsules’ potency, Haase was summoned to the Führerbunker to test one on Hitler’s dog Blondi.  A cyanide capsule was crushed in the mouth of the dog, which died as a result. Hitler in conversations with Haase during this time frame, asked the doctor for a recommended method of suicide. Haase instructed Hitler to bite down on a cyanide capsule while shooting himself in the head. He remained in the Führerbunker until Hitler’s suicide the following afternoon. Haase then returned to his work at the emergency casualty station. Werner Haase, Helmut Kunz and two nurses, Erna Flegel   and Liselotte Chervinska were captured there by Sovjet Red Army troops on 2 May. Helmut Kunz was an SS Sturmbannführer dentist and Magda Goebbels

   was Kunz’s first patient in the Chancellery. On 27-04-1945, Magda took Kunz aside to ask his help in killing her children. After meeting the children, he left moved and returned to his duty post at the Chancellery. Kunz survived the war and died, age 65 in 1976 in Freudestadt. Erna Flegel who was in the Führer bunker when the Soviets arrived said that Hitler was so paranoid that he even suspected spies had filled his cyanide capsule with false poison. Flegel was interrogated by the Americans and lived in anonymity until 1977, when documents including her interrogation were declassified. The media later tracked her down to her residence, a nursing home in Germany. She died in Mölln on 16-02-2006, aged 94.

On 6 May, Haase was one of those taken by the Soviet authorities to identify the bodies of the former Reich Propaganda Minister and (for one day) Reich Chancellor, Josef Goebbels, his wife Magda Goebbels and their five children who were killed by their mother Magda with the help of SS Obersturmbannfüherer Dr. Ludwig Stumpfegger.

Werner Haase identified Goebbels’ body, despite it being partly burned, by the metal brace which Goebbels wore on his deformed right leg.

Death and burial ground of Haase, Dr. Werner.

Haase was made a Soviet prisoner of war. In June 1945 he was charged with being “a personal doctor of the former Reichschancellor of Germany, Hitler, and also treated other leaders of Hitler’s government and of the Nazi Party and members of Hitler’s SS guard”. The sentence is not recorded. Haase, who suffered from tuberculosis, died in captivity on 30-11-1950, age 50. The place of death is recorded as “Butyrka prison hospital”. He is buried somewhere on the Butyrka prison cemetery, in an anonymously grave.

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