Present in the Führerbunker during the Battle of Berlin, he committed suicide while attempting to escape the Red Army after the breakout from the bunker.

[2] From 1927, Hewel worked abroad for several years[1] in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) as a planter and coffee salesman for a British firm.

[3] Hewel joined the Nazi Party there in June 1933[2] and helped to organise local branches with German expatriates as members.

By 1937, the Nazi Party in Indonesia had established branches in Batavia, Bandung, Semarang, Surabaya, Medan, Padang, and Makassar.

[citation needed] In 1936, Hewel returned to Germany, where he was appointed the chief of the East Asia Desk in the Foreign Section of the Party.

Journalist James P. O'Donnell remarked that, during this time, Hewel "was almost certainly an agent of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris's Abwehr" counter-intelligence agency.

In September 1940, Hewel was appointed the Permanent Representative of the Reichsminister for Foreign Affairs to the Führer, in effect, the liaison officer between Ribbentrop and Hitler's headquarters.

[page needed] The group headed along the U-Bahn tunnels, but their route was blocked so they went above ground and later joined hundreds of other German civilians and military personnel who had sought refuge at the Schultheiss-Patzenhofer Brewery.

Despite the efforts of Dr. Ernst-Günther Schenck – who attempted to talk him out of it in a long and wide-ranging conversation – Hewel killed himself in the manner that Professor Dr. Werner Haase had recommended to Hitler, biting down on a cyanide capsule while shooting himself in the head.

The tall and portly Hewel, whose nickname was "Surabaya Wally",[16] is generally described as a pleasant and good-natured bon vivant, if not very intelligent.

[17] A waiter in Berlin described Hewel after the war in this way: He was the type of fellow who always knew how to get a good table by tipping the headwaiter in advance.

[16]O'Donnell referred to Hewel as a man who had a front row seat to history, but who lacked the intelligence and perspective to realize it.

[full citation needed] Walther Hewel has been portrayed by the following actors in film and television productions: Notes Bibliography