On this day 81 years ago, #AdolfHitler killed himself.
Soviet artillery was landing on the streets above. Red Army shock troops were meters away, close enough that the staff inside the Führerbunker could feel the shells through the concrete.
Soviet artillery was landing on the streets above. Red Army shock troops were meters away, close enough that the staff inside the Führerbunker could feel the shells through the concrete.
That morning, General Helmuth Weidling had delivered the news in person. The defenders would run out of ammunition by nightfall. The fight for Berlin would be over within 24 hours. Wenck’s spearhead was bogged down south of Schwielow Lake.
The day before, Hitler had married Eva Braun in a small ceremony. Goebbels and Bormann witnessed the signing. Then he dictated his last will to his secretary Traudl Junge and went to bed. They would be husband and wife for less than 40 hours.
She bit a cyanide capsule. He shot himself. His valet Heinz Linge couldn’t hear the gunshot over the bombardment, but he smelled the gunpowder and knew.
They wrapped the bodies, carried them up the emergency stairs into the Chancellery garden, doused them in petrol, and lit the pyre while Soviet shells crashed down around them. Eight days later, Germany surrendered. The war was over.
Eighty-one years on, the bunker is a parking lot in central Berlin. A small plaque marks the spot. Above where the most powerful dictator in Europe once paced his concrete corridors, people now park their cars and walk their dogs in the afternoon sun 🙌
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