hitler

[mozarella]

how did Adolf Hitler die

[roosi]

Shot himself I think. Suicide of some sort I was led to believe anyway, did he not go mentally insane (although I personally think that was the thing all along, no?)

[Clanad]

The Russians lay claim to remnants of his skull (seen here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/725537.stm) , which indicates that he shot himself. About 3:30PM on April 29, 1945, after a light meal, he and his, by then wife, Eva Braun retired to his private quarters in the Chancellery in Berlin. The Russians were only a few blocks away. A shot was heard, and after a few minutes his body, with a bullet wound to the temple was found by aides. Braun had elected to take poison. The bodies were burned in a small pit outside of the bunker using gasoline accoding to post-War testimony of the survivors as well as that of Russian soldiers...

[123everton]

He took cyanide and shot himself in the head at the very moment he bit into the phial, according to the people who were there.

[zzxxee]

a slow and painfull death hopefully his body has never been found

[juliacornwal]

He took poison as well as shooting himself because he had Parkinson's disease and his doctor had advised him he might not actually do the job with a bullet.

After their deaths he and his wife of three days, Eva Braun, were carried up into the garden above the bunker, placed in a small pit where petrol was poured upon them and burned. He had made his companions promise to do that for him because he was terrified of finishing up like Mussolini, hanging upside down from a lamp post.

The Russians almost certainly dug him up, but what they found wouldn't have been much of a trophy and there is a fragment of his skull in Russia, so they claim, but as to where the rest of the remains have finished up, that's anybody's guess.

Joseph and Magda Goebbels also committed suicide in the bunker and were burned in the garden above but appallingly they first poisoned their six beautiful little children and there are photos of them laid out in a line, all in their white nightclothes.

Hitler dictated his last testament to his secretary Traudl Junge the day before he died in which he - predictably - blamed everyone else for his misfortune rather than taking any blame on himself. And even at the end he was still raving that World Jewry (whatever that was supposed to be) was entirely to blame for the destruction of most of Europe.

Please God we shall not see his like again!

[illya7]

If you really want a good idea of what happened in the bunker in the last days of the Reich watch the film " Downfall" ,( based on the experineces of Traudl Junge) and starring Bruno Ganz. Truly sobering

[jno]

zzxxee, the point about cyanide is that it's quite quick. Likewise shooting yourself, as long as you aim properly. (Maximilien Robespierre, during the French revolution, tried to shoot himself and missed, as I recall; he ended up on the guillotine, to which he had sent countless others.)

[123everton]

"Downfall" is'nt particuarly accurate, if memory serves, the Doctor was convicted of war crimes and Traudl Junge did'nt escape with the help of a Hitler Jugend (she was the personal prisoner of a Russian General I understand).
The cyanide was provided by Himmler who Hitler had just learned had betrayed him, he was fearful that it woud'nt do exactly what it says on the tin and lead to his capture, that's why he tested it on his dog (Blondi) first, Eva second and made doubly sure of himself last.

[juliacornwal]

I agree that there are bits of 'Downfall' that owe more to a good movie than accurate history, but I love the fact that the film is all in German with subtitles - a Hitler speaking English always puts me right off - and the general sense of claustrophobia is really compelling. I think in the main it's probably the most accurate representation you'll ever get of the last days of the Reich, and that scene of the broken Hitler hunched in the doorway of the bunker as the Russians get closer and closer is hair-raising! A frighteningly accurate representation of the last photo ever taken of the real thing.

[ollie321]

The bodies were burried by ruble in the gardens of the bunker in a bomb crater after being wrapped in a rug and taken to be burnt! Glass chards were found in their oral tract which suggests they bit on the container of poison and shot them selves! they dont think it was pure cyanide but an acid that cantains cyanide properties. The same glass chards were found in the tract of Goebells and his wife. But who will ever know for sure but CLANAD is correct in the date and rough time although some suggest it was the day after. read the book called BERLIN the down fall of 1945