Page 18 - All About History - Issue 38-16

Dictators

New Chancellery Garden
Hitler’s body was burned to a crisp in the grounds
above the bunker. Whether the corpses recovered
by the Red Army were those of Hitler and Eva
Braun is still hotly debated. Joseph Goebbels, who
stayed with Hitler until the bitter end, ordered his
body to be burned after he had already killed his
six children with cyanide. Goebbels’s body was
later discovered by Red Army soldiers.

ADOLF

HITLER’S Concrete tower

SUICIDE The Führerbunker had two concrete
towers on the ground level that helped
with ventilation and could also be
used as emergency exits. Only one
was completed while the other was
left unfinished. The concrete block
was tough but still felt the force of the
Soviet shelling that was pummelling
BERLIN, GERMANY the Chancellery above. The complex
shook with every artillery blast and the
30 APRIL 1945 Vorbunker ceiling nearly collapsed.

As battle raged on the streets of Berlin, Nazi
Germany’s Führer was 15 metres underground
in his subterranean lair, the Führerbunker. Adolf
Hitler was safe for now, but it wouldn’t be long
until the Third Reich’s capital was overrun by the
vengeful Red Army. Hitler’s remaining allies had
pleaded with him to escape south to the Alpine
retreat of Berchtesgaden. However, the Führer,
determined to be a martyr for the cause, stayed
put. Now more mentally twisted than ever, he
believed his presence in Berlin would inspire what
was left of the Wehrmacht to hold out. There
would be no humiliating armistice like in 1918.
Hitler’s last few days were dominated by those
he held in high regard deserting him. Heinrich
Himmler attempted to make peace with the Allies
while Hermann Göring appointed himself the new
führer. It was only at the end of April that Hitler
realised the game was up and made preparations Hitler’s Berlin
for his passing. Under no circumstances would command bunker
he be captured and suffer the same as Mussolini, Located near the Reich
strung up for the world to see. He married his Chancellery in Berlin, the
long-time companion Eva Braun and dictated his Führerbunker was one part of a
final testament that, typically, was a tirade on how secret subterranean complex. Built
Jews were to blame for the war. in two phases, the Vorbunker was
completed first in 1936 with the
At 2.30am on 30 April, Hitler bid farewell to Führerbunker following in 1944.
those in the Führerbunker. That afternoon, he It was initially constructed as a
was found dead. A Walther PPK pistol was on the temporary air-raid shelter, but as
floor next to him and his new wife also lay lifeless bombing raids increased and the
war turned against Germany, the
after biting on a cyanide capsule. The bodies were site was expanded to become a
burned until they were just charred remains. The more permanent residence. It was
Wehrmacht’s guns soon fell silent and the tyranny here that Hitler spent the last three
of the Third Reich was over. months of his life.

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