By Enver Robelli
Eighty years ago today—on April 30, 1945—Adolf Hitler took his own life. One week later, Germany capitulated. Thus came the end of the Second World War.
Blondi—that was the name of Adolf Hitler’s beloved dog, who had remained loyal to the dictator for many years. Photographs of the two were carefully staged to project Hitler’s “human side,” though such a thing never truly existed if one considers the unimaginable crimes he inflicted on humanity.
By the end of April 1945, Hitler had come to a grim realization: the end was inevitable. Soviet troops were advancing on Berlin, and the Nazis could expect no mercy. On April 30, around 2:00 PM, Hitler and his longtime companion Eva Braun—whom he had married in the final hours of his life as a gesture of gratitude for her loyalty—retreated to the private quarters of the Führerbunker. To his closest confidants, Hitler distributed cyanide ampoules and instructed them that, should capture become imminent, they should surrender only to British or American troops, not the Soviets.
Before any of this, Blondi the dog had been killed—with one of those same poison capsules. Then Hitler himself put a bullet in his mouth. He had no intention of suffering the same fate as Benito Mussolini, who had been executed by Italian partisans on April 28, 1945. A day later, Mussolini’s corpse was strung up and displayed at a gas station in Milan.
At approximately 3:30 PM, a servant opened the door to Hitler’s quarters and announced to those gathered: what was feared had happened—Hitler was dead. His wife had also swallowed poison. The corpses were carried out into the garden of the Reich Chancellery, doused with petrol, and set ablaze after several attempts. The charred remains of Hitler and Eva Braun were then buried in the bunker’s garden.
As Hitler’s successor, he had appointed Admiral Karl Dönitz as President of the Reich and Supreme Commander of the German armed forces. Joseph Goebbels, the regime’s chief propagandist, was named Reich Chancellor. On the very same day, April 30, 1945, at 10:40 PM, the Soviet flag was raised over the Reichstag in Berlin. It was placed there by Soviet soldier Mikhail Minin. As no photographer had been present to capture the moment, the iconic scene was restaged on May 2, 1945.
On May 1, Goebbels and his wife committed suicide—but not before murdering their six children. “Children, don’t be afraid, the doctor is just giving you an injection that all soldiers and children receive,” Magda Goebbels told them. The doctor administered morphine to put them to sleep. Once unconscious, she ordered the doctor to place a cyanide capsule into each child’s mouth. When he couldn’t bring himself to do it, another physician was summoned to carry out the act.
Though Hitler was now dead, the German public remained unaware. On the evening of May 1, between 9:00 and 10:25 PM, Reichssender Hamburg interrupted its programming three times to announce an important message from the German government. Between the interruptions, the radio played selections from Richard Wagner’s operas (“Tannhäuser,” Rheingold, and Götterdämmerung) and Anton Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony.
Then came the somber voice of the announcer: “From the Führer’s main headquarters it is announced that our Führer, Adolf Hitler, has fallen this afternoon at his command post in the Reich Chancellery, fighting to his last breath against Bolshevism, for Germany.” The cause of death and circumstances were deliberately withheld.
Next, Admiral Karl Dönitz addressed the nation, vowing that the war would continue to save the German people from “Bolshevism.” The broadcast continued with the German national anthem and the Horst Wessel song, a Nazi hymn named after a paramilitary activist murdered in 1930 by a German communist. Three minutes of silence followed, then funeral music, including Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony. The program ended with these words: “We greet our listeners in Germany and abroad, our soldiers at sea, at the front, and in the air, with the German salute: Heil Hitler.”
German generals interned near London mocked Dönitz, calling him a “cow,” a “charlatan,” and a “mini-Hitler.” Eight days later, Nazi leaders signed the act of capitulation.
