AI Overview

Adolf Hitler committed suicide by gunshot on April 30, 1945, in his Führerbunker in Berlin, as Soviet troops closed in on the city. His wife of one day, Eva Braun, died with him by ingesting a cyanide capsule.

Background and Final Hours By April 1945, it was clear Germany had lost World War II in Europe. Soviet forces were bombarding Berlin, and news of Benito Mussolini's capture and public execution by Italian partisans on April 28 likely reinforced Hitler's determination to avoid falling into enemy hands. In his final days, he:

Married Eva Braun in a small civil ceremony in the bunker shortly after midnight on April 29.

Dictated his last will and testament, blaming Jews for the war and appointing Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz as the new head of state and Joseph Goebbels as chancellor.

Ordered his dog Blondi poisoned with a cyanide capsule to test its efficacy.

The Suicide and Aftermath

On the afternoon of April 30, after a final quiet lunch, Hitler and Braun retired to his personal study. A single gunshot was heard shortly thereafter.

Key details include:

Manner of death: Historians generally agree Hitler died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the right temple, possibly after also biting into a cyanide capsule, though forensic evidence for the latter is debated.

Disposal of bodies: According to his wishes to prevent a public display like Mussolini's, their bodies were carried up to the Reich Chancellery garden by SS officers, doused in gasoline, and set on on fire as Soviet shells fell nearby.

Announcement: On the night of May 1, German radio announced that Hitler had died a "hero's death" while fighting the Bolsheviks.

Soviet reaction: Soviet forces quickly located the remains, identified through dental records confirmed by his dental assistant and technician. To sow confusion and for political reasons, Joseph Stalin's government initially spread contradictory reports that Hitler might have escaped or was being protected by the West.

Final

resting place: The recovered burnt remains were secretly buried and later exhumed and completely cremated by the KGB in 1970, with the ashes scattered into the Biederitz river to prevent the site from becoming a neo-Nazi shrine.

Decades of investigation, including forensic analysis of the dental remains stored in Russian archives, have confirmed the consensus among historians that Hitler died by suicide in the bunker in 1945