With the Red Army less than 500 meters from the Führerbunker, Hitler married Eva Braun the previous night and dictated a final political testament blaming Jews for the war. Around 3:30 pm, aides heard a gunshot; they found Hitler dead on a sofa, Braun beside him having taken poison. Their bodies were carried to the Chancellery garden, doused in gasoline, and burned, a hasty cremation befitting the collapse of the Nazi state.
The bunker reeked of diesel fumes and unwashed bodies after weeks of siege. Hitler had grown convinced that phantom armies would relieve Berlin; when told none existed, he raged, then grew resigned. He tested cyanide capsules on his beloved Alsatian, Blondi, killing the dog to confirm the poison worked.
After the wedding to Braun—a small, grim ceremony witnessed by Joseph Goebbels and Martin Bormann—Hitler spent his final hours dictating a testament that showed no remorse, only fury at generals he believed had betrayed him. His valet, Heinz Linge, later described the acrid smell of gunpowder and bitter almonds when he entered the study after the shot.
Soviet soldiers reached the Chancellery within days, and for decades the exact fate of the remains stayed shrouded in Cold War secrecy, fueling conspiracy theories that Hitler had escaped. Soviet forensic teams secretly held skull fragments, later confirmed decades later through DNA analysis, closing the loop on one of history's most consequential deaths.
Key people: Adolf Hitler, Eva Braun