Walter Hewel Quotes in Downfall (2004)

Walter Hewel: Why do you want to live on?

Prof. Dr. Ernst-Günter Schenck: And you? Why do you absolutely want to die?

Walter Hewel: You see this?

[shows him a cyanide cap]

Walter Hewel: The Führer personally gave it to me!

Prof. Dr. Ernst-Günter Schenck: [bitter] As last honor?

Walter Hewel: ...maybe.

Joseph Goebbels: Surrender? Never! This is outrageous! I've conquered Berlin against the Reds several years ago, and will defend the city to the last breath against them! The few hours that I've yet to live as German Chancellor, I will not use them to put my signature on a document of surrender!

General der Artillerie Helmuth Weidling: We must protect the civilian population!

General der Infanterie Hans Krebs: The Führer's order is final!

General der Infanterie Wilhelm Burgdorf: No matter what happens, we will protect to the end!

General der Infanterie Hans Krebs: We cannot give up!

[Fritzsche steps out to Rochus Misch]

Walter Hewel: We have to start negotiations!

Joseph Goebbels: I repeat: I will never sign to a surrender!

[Burgdorf follows Fritzsche]

Hans Fritzsche: I need you to send a telegraph to Marshal Zhukov immediately.

Rochus Misch: Marshal Zhukov?

General der Infanterie Wilhelm Burgdorf: What's going on here?

Hans Fritzsche: This is madness. We have to give the city to the Russians.

[Burgdorf pulls out a gun]

General der Infanterie Wilhelm Burgdorf: Then I have to shoot you. The Führer commands to prohibit any surrender!

[Wielding grabs Burgdorf's arm as the latter shoots]

Martin Bormann: [reading folder in hand] My Führer, following your decision to stay in Berlin, do I have your approval as Vice Chancellor to immediately take charge of the entire Reich with the necessary power and authority? If I receive no answer by 10 p.m., I will assume that you have been incapacitated. I will serve the well-being of our people and fatherland.

[closes folder and puts it down]

Martin Bormann: He's betraying Germany... and you!

Walter Hewel: Göring's concern isn't unjustified. If our communication system breaks down, which could happen at any time, we'd be cut off from the world; we could no longer pass on orders.

Joseph Goebbels: I see it differently. Göring wants to seize power. I never trusted that mob he gathered at Obersalzberg; it stinks of a coup.

Adolf Hitler: That failure. That sponger... A parvenu! A lazybones!

[Albert Speer returns while Hitler rants offscreen]

Adolf Hitler: How dare he declare me unable to act? Tomorrow he might declare me dead!

Albert Speer: Hello, Frau Junge.

Traudl Junge: Herr Speer. How did you get into Berlin?

Albert Speer: It wasn't easy, but I must speak with the Führer.

Heinz Linge, Kammerdiener: I'd wait here if I were you.

Adolf Hitler: The Luftwaffe... What did he do with it? That was reason enough to execute him! That morphine addict... helped to corrupt this country! And now this...

[Hewel looks down in disappointment]

Adolf Hitler: He betrayed me of all people! Me of all people!

[pause]

Adolf Hitler: I want Göring to be deprived of power and removed from office. If I don't survive the war, that man is to be executed at once.