Adolf Hitler is one of the most photographeds, he’s known because of his photos, but there are a lot of mystery and stories about his last shots.
Prior to his own death within one of his secret bunkers in Berlin just before the end, Hitler had emerged to the surface with one of his officers to inspect the devastation the Allied bombings had caused.
A few days later when Mussolini had been killed and Soviet troops were advancing on Berlin, Hitler chose death rather than surrender.
By spring 1945, the ceaseless fighting throughout Europe had resulted in massive loss of life and the ruin of cities which had existed for centuries. By April, virtually everyone understood that, sure enough, the Nazis were going to lose.
In the battle of Berlin German and Soviet troops fought house to house for the capital city. A LIFE photographer reported that practically every great building in Berlin had been destroyed. He said they could march through the middle of the city block after block and not see a living thing, hear only the silence, and smell only the death.
On April 16 the Soviets began their final assault against the city. Even though the Western Allies had ceased air strikes, Soviet planes continued blasting to support their ground troops. The Soviets Gave the Germans several bloody days to crumble at vital German defenses. By the 21st of April Soviet troops began invading Berlin where they had to face last desperate stands of German soldiers, Waffen-SS men and civilian militias filled with young boys and old men.
With the city blazing and crumbling to pieces, Hitler retreated underground in the Führerbunker, under the Reich Chancellery. The bunker, constructed as a rudimentary air-raid shelter in 1936, was transformed into a scavenge last resort by 1943 with sleeping quarters, conference rooms and an iron grip security regime.
Hitler and his leading officers took up residence in the bunker from January 16, 1945. Eva Braun, Joseph Goebbels and others high-ranking Nazis joined in shortly thereafter. Hitler finally appeared in public on his 56th birthday, the 20th of April, when he decorated the Hitler Youth teenagers up in the garden above.
A couple of days later, approximately on April 28, Hitler came outside for one final time to Julio Schaub his aide to see the nearby destruction caused by the bomb. This emerged as the last known photograph of Hitler. The hazy picture depicts a fearful and losing looking Hitler standing next to Schaub.
That night Hitler married Eva Braun and wrote his last will, if the Reich and the state disappeared, then there were no further decisions that had to be made. He and Eva, he wrote, chose death rather than bear the shame of surrender.
Leaving for Berlin on April 30, General Helmuth Weidling reported back Hitler that Soviet troops were at the gates. Thinking there was no way out and knowing about the grisly death of Mussolini, December 25, 1942, Hitler chose to do the same with himself.
At that time, Hitler had become much sicker. His sister in law later reported that he looked gray, shaky and weak, almost like an old person who could no longer live.
That afternoon Hitler and Eva had their final meal, and afterward, they retreated to the bunker’s living room and ended their own lives. Hitler’s dead body was later discovered slumped on the couch while Eva lay next to him.
Immediately in the garden above he lit up Hitler’s personal items and papers and made his exit to Munich to destroy Hitler’s private apartment and personal train.
2 days later Berlin surrendered to Soviet forces and WWII in Europe was over when May 8, 1945 arrived.
After the war, with the Reich Chancellery buildings doomed to be destroyed, the Soviet leader was Joseph Stalin. In time both the Führerbunker and Vorbunker were destroyed, sealed or rebury as East Germany built apartments over the site.
To one’s surprise Julius Schaub escaped the punishment. Arrested by American forces on May 8, he spent four years in jail but was finally categorized as a traveler and he escaped from war crimes. He quietly spent out his last years in Munich.
Schaub, according to Traudl Junge, Hitler’s last private secretary, was a kind and curious man. But he was not a man with much worth saying about him though in her words for historical purposes.
