75 Years ago - TODAY.
Adolf Hitler entered his underground study with his wife, Eva Braun. He had already said farewell to his servants and poisoned his dog. Gasoline for his cremation had been sent for. He had his pistol. Eva had cyanide.
He wore his Nazi uniform jacket and black trousers. She wore a blue dress trimmed in white. They closed the door and sat beside each other on a small couch. He was 56. She was 33. They had been married for a day and a half.
It was 3:15 p.m. on April 30, 1945. Seventy-five years ago, today.
No sound was heard from the study, according to historian Ian Kershaw. Aboveground, Berlin was being leveled by Russian artillery, as the epic catastrophe Hitler had launched six years earlier neared its bloody end.
Ten minutes passed. Then, Hitler’s valet, SS officer Heinz Linge, who had waited on him for a decade, smelled the odor of a discharged gun. He paused. “Everything in me resisted opening the door,” he wrote later.
As he entered, he recalled, the event he dreaded and civilization prayed for “had come to pass.”
Hitler and Braun were dead. Hitler had a bullet hole in his right temple. Braun was slumped to his left and reeked of the cyanide, which smelled like bitter almonds. “Her contorted face betrayed how she had died,” Linge recalled.
He wore his Nazi uniform jacket and black trousers. She wore a blue dress trimmed in white. They closed the door and sat beside each other on a small couch. He was 56. She was 33. They had been married for a day and a half.
It was 3:15 p.m. on April 30, 1945. Seventy-five years ago, today.
No sound was heard from the study, according to historian Ian Kershaw. Aboveground, Berlin was being leveled by Russian artillery, as the epic catastrophe Hitler had launched six years earlier neared its bloody end.
Ten minutes passed. Then, Hitler’s valet, SS officer Heinz Linge, who had waited on him for a decade, smelled the odor of a discharged gun. He paused. “Everything in me resisted opening the door,” he wrote later.
As he entered, he recalled, the event he dreaded and civilization prayed for “had come to pass.”
Hitler and Braun were dead. Hitler had a bullet hole in his right temple. Braun was slumped to his left and reeked of the cyanide, which smelled like bitter almonds. “Her contorted face betrayed how she had died,” Linge recalled.
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