Walter Wagner (notary)

Wagner's handwriting was so indecipherable that it took Sayer 22 years to obtain a full translation. During the intervening period Sayer had attempted to locate any surviving members of Wagner's family. In 2002 he located Wagner's son, which prompted the publication of Hitler and Women which contained the first photograph of Wagner to be published. During his investigation Sayer had learned that Wagner's wife had been interrogated by British Intelligence at the end of the war to establish if she had heard from Wagner who had disappeared in Berlin. He was wanted for questioning in connection with the marriage of Hitler and Eva Braun. The British Intelligence officer had retained the card and sold it at auction 35 years later.

In 1963 Stern magazine reported to the Hamburg Court that there were rumours circulating in Frankfurt that Wagner was living there. The court reopened the case. Gustl was questioned by a judge in Wyk and Cordula was interviewed in Mannheim. The case was subsequently closed.

In 1951 Wagner's widow, Cordula, who had moved to Hamburg with the son he had never seen, wished to re-marry. She petitioned the Hamburg Court to issue a death certificate and, after submitting a number of affidavits from individuals who had been present at the time of Wagner's death, it was finally granted.

Walter Wagner was an enigma. Plucked from obscurity at a critical moment in world history he enjoyed a few brief hours of fame before plunging back into obscurity and dying almost immediately afterwards in the Apocalypse that was Berlin in April 1945. Both his Christian and surnames were common throughout Germany. However, as the notary who had married Hitler and Eva Braun his name appeared in every major work on the Battle of Berlin and Hitler's last days. However, although he was portrayed in many post war films, the real Walter Wagner remained a faceless individual until 2004 when the first photograph of him was published in Hitler and Women – The Love Life of Adolf Hitler.

In 1980 investigative writer Ian Sayer purchased a postcard, handwritten by Walter Wagner on 30 March 1945. It was addressed to his wife on the Frisian island of Fohr where she was living with his, as yet, unseen son. The stamp was a typical Nazi stamp bearing Hitler's effigy. Someone had written at the top in another hand "The Last Card".

Wagner also represented Goebbels and the Berlin Gau in connection with the re-settlement of Berlin residents in Reichsgau Wartheland, a large area of Poland which had been annexed by the invading German armed forces in 1939. Wagner carried out duties in that area from January 1943 to February 1944 and was based in Posen, the capital, where he not only met the local Governor, Arthur Greiser, but his future wife, Cordula Kroepels, an NSV (National Socialist People's Welfare) social worker who was also involved in the re-settlement programme. Following their marriage on 10 March 1944 they moved to an apartment in Berlin-Buch where they lived together until October 1944. Wagner also held a position with the local Pankow council as administrator of their refuse collection services.

In October 1944 Cordula, who was heavily pregnant, left Berlin to live with her mother at Wyk auf Fohr (the second largest of the North Frisian Islands) where their son Michael was born on 1 November.

In October 1944 Wagner joined the "Gauleitung" Battalion of the Berlin component of the Volkssturm (Home Guard). He continued living in his Berlin-Buch apartment together with his sister Gustl who last saw him in April 1945 when he was taken to the Führerbunker.

Wagner was a lawyer who had joined the Nazi Party on 1 July 1931. In 1938 he was appointed acting head of the Central Legal Department in the Berlin Gau (Administrative Region). This position was formerly confirmed in January 1944 by Reichsminister Joseph Goebbels, acting in his capacity as Gauleiter of Berlin.

Walter Wagner (25 June 1907 – 29/30 April 1945) was the notary who married Adolf Hitler to Eva Braun in the Führerbunker on 29 April 1945.