Artur Axmann Artur Axmann ( 18 February 1913 – 24 October 1996 ) was the German Nazi leader of the Hitler Youth ( " Reichsjugendführer " ) from 1940 to the war ' s end in 1945 . He was the last living Nazi with a rank equivalent to Reichsführer . Early life . Axmann was born in Hagen on 18 February 1913 . In 1928 , he founded the first Hitler Youth group in Westphalia . He became very active in the local Nazi Party . Thereafter , he studied law at school . Nazi career . In 1932 , he was called to be a Reich Leader ( " Reichsleiter " ) of the Nazi Party ( " Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei " or NSDAP ) to carry out a reorganisation of Nazi youth cells . In 1933 , Axmann became Chief of the Social Office of the Reich Youth Leadership . He directed the Hitler Youth in state vocational training and succeeded in raising the status of Hitler Youth agricultural work . War service . He was on active service on the Western Front until May 1940 . In August of the same year Axmann succeeded Baldur von Schirach as Reich Youth Leader ( " Reichsjugendführer " ) of the Nazi Party . In 1941 , he was severely wounded on the Eastern Front , losing an arm . During the last weeks of the war , Axmann commanded units of the Hitler Youth ( " Hitlerjugend " ) , which had been incorporated into the Home Guard ( " Volkssturm " ) . His units consisted mostly of children and adolescents . They primarily fought in the Battle of Seelow Heights ( " Seelower Höhen " ) , which was a part of the larger Battle of Berlin ( " Endkampf um Berlin " ) . On 4 January 1944 , Axmann was awarded the German Order , the highest decoration that the Nazi Party could bestow on an individual , for his services to the Reich . He and one other recipient , K . Hierl , were the only holders of the award to survive the war and its consequences . All other recipients were either awarded it posthumously , or were killed during the war or its aftermath . During 1945 , Axmann was pressured to let young women be conscripted into combat roles for the last defence of Germany . Although Axmann had permitted young boys to fight in the final days , he refused to allow girls to fight . He stated , " Women bring life into the world , they do not take it . " Breakout . During Hitler ' s last days , Axmann was among those present in the Führerbunker . On 30 April 1945 , just a few hours before committing suicide , Hitler signed the order to allow a breakout . On 1 May , Axmann left the Führerbunker with SS doctor Ludwig Stumpfegger and Martin Bormann as part of a group attempting to break out of the Soviet encirclement . Their group managed to cross the River Spree at the Weidendammer Bridge . Leaving the rest of their group , Bormann , Stumpfegger and Axmann walked along railway tracks to Lehrter railway station . Bormann and Stumpfegger followed the railway tracks towards Stettiner station . Axmann decided to go alone in the opposite direction of his two companions . When he encountered a Red Army patrol , Axmann doubled back and later insisted he had seen the bodies of Bormann and Stumpfegger near the railway switching yard ( Stettiner Bahnhof ) with moonlight clearly illuminating their faces . He did not check the bodies , so he did not know how they died . He avoided capture by Soviet troops and disappeared . Axmann , presumed dead , lived under the alias of " Erich Siewert " for several months . Axmann was arrested in December 1945 when a Nazi underground movement which he had been organising was uncovered by a U . S . Army counterintelligence operation . Trials . In May 1949 , a Nuremberg de - Nazification court sentenced Axmann to a prison sentence of three years and three months as a ' major offender ' . On 19 August 1958 , a West Berlin de - Nazification court fined the former Hitler Youth leader 35 , 000 mark s ( approximately £3 , 000 , or $ 8 , 300 USD ) , about half the value of his property in Berlin . The court found him guilty of indoctrinating German youth with National Socialism until the end of the Third Reich , but concluded he had been a Nazi from inner conviction rather than base motives . During his trial , Axmann told the court he heard the shot by which Hitler committed suicide . He also stated he had attempted to escape from central Berlin along with Martin Bormann , who he said had died during the attempt . Portrayal in the media . Artur Axmann was portrayed by Harry Brooks , Jr . in the 1973 British television production " The Death of Adolf Hitler " .