KEMPKA: He asked me what the situation was and whether one could get through there at the Friedrichstrasse station. I told him that was practically impossible, since the defensive fighting there was too heavy. Then he went on to ask whether it might be possible to do so with armored cars. I told him that there was nothing like trying it.
Then a few tanks and a few SPW (armored personnel carrier) cars came along, and small groups boarded them and hung on. Then the armored cars pushed their way through the antitank trap and afterwards the leading tank—along about at the middle of the tank on the left-hand side, where Martin Bormann was walking—suddenly received a direct hit, I imagine from a bazooka fired from a window, and this tank was blown up. A flash of fire suddenly shot up on the very side where Bormann was walking and I saw...
THE PRESIDENT: You are going too fast. You are still going much too fast. The last thing I heard you say was that Bormann was walking in the middle of the column. Is that right?
KEMPKA: Yes, at the middle of the tank, on the left-hand side.
Then, after it had got 40 to 50 meters past the antitank trap, this tank received a direct hit, I imagine from a bazooka fired from a window. The tank was blown to pieces right there where Martin—Reichsleiter Bormann—was walking.
I myself was flung aside by the explosion and by a person thrown against me who had been walking in front of me—I think it was Standartenführer Dr. Stumpfecker—and I became unconscious. When I came to myself I could not see anything either; I was blinded by the flash. Then I crawled back again to the tank trap, and since then I have seen nothing more of Martin Bormann.
DR. BERGOLD: Witness, did you see Martin Bormann collapse in the flash of fire when it occurred?
KEMPKA: Yes, indeed, I still saw a movement which was a sort of collapsing. You might call it a flying away.
DR. BERGOLD: Was this explosion so strong that according to your observation Martin Bormann must have lost his life by it?
KEMPKA: Yes, I assume for certain that the force of the explosion was such that he lost his life.