For the Soviets, the Reichstag was the symbol of Nazi Germany and therefore of significant military and political value to capture. While the Battle in Berlin was raging around them, Hitler ordered Mohnke to set up a military tribunal for SS-Gruppenführer Hermann Fegelein, adjutant to Heinrich Himmler, in order to try the man for desertion. The tribunal consisted of Generals Hans Krebs, Wilhelm Burgdorf, Johann Rattenhuber, and Mohnke himself. Years later, Mohnke told author James P. O'Donnell the following:"I was to preside over it myself... I decided that the accused man [Fegelein] deserved trial by high-ranking officers... We set up the court-martial... We military judges took our seats at the table with the standard German Army Manual of Courts-Martial before us. No sooner were we seated than defendant Fegelein began acting up in such an outrageous manner that the trial could not even commence. Roaring drunk..., Fegelein first brazenly challenged the competence of the court. He kept blubbering that he was responsible to...Himmler alone, not Hitler... He refused to defend himself. The man was in wretched shape – bawling, whining, vomiting, shaking like an aspen leaf... I was now faced with an impossible situation. On the one hand, based on all available evidence, including his own earlier statements, this miserable excuse for an officer was guilty of flagrant desertion... Yet the German Army Manual states clearly that no German soldier can be tried unless he is clearly of sound mind and body, in a condition to hear the evidence against him... In my opinion and that of my fellow officers, Hermann Fegelein was in no condition to stand trial... I closed the proceedings... So I turned Fegelein over to [SS] General Rattenhuber and his security squad. I never saw the man again." On 30 April, after receiving news of Hitler's suicide from SS-Sturmbannführer Otto Günsche, Mohnke took part in a conference where prior orders were implemented that those who could do so were to break out from the Soviet Red Army ring. The plan was to escape from Berlin to the Allies on the western side of the Elbe or to the German Army to the North. Prior to the breakout, Mohnke briefed all commanders (who could be reached) within the Zitadelle sector about the events as to Hitler's death and the planned breakout. They split up into ten main groups on 1 May 1945. Mohnke's group included secretary Traudl