← Dan Snow's History Hit
Dan Snow's History Hit
The Death of Hitler
00:37:38
Isolated in a bunker beneath the city, as Soviet forces close in, Adolf Hitler and his inner circle face the end.
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- [00:00]
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- [00:53]
Holly Fry
Our Skin Tells a Story Join me, Holly Fry and a slate of incredible guests as we are all inspired by their journeys with psoriasis. Along with these uplifting and candid personal histories, we take a step back into the bizarre and occasionally poisonous history of our skin and how we take care of it. Whether you're looking for inspiration on your own skincare journey or are curious about the sometimes strange history of how we treat our skin, you'll find genuine, empathetic, transformative conversations here on our skin. Listen to our skin on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:35]
Dan Snow
Welcome to Dan Snow's history.
- [01:38]
Historian
Eighty years ago, Adolf Hitler was sickly, tempestuous, scratching out a life beneath the streets of Berlin in his bomb proof bunker. Now, at the end of April 1945, he was accepting defeat, acknowledging what the rest of the world had known for months, if not years. He was there in the Fuhrer bunker. It was a complex underneath the Reich Chancery, his effectively his office, his official.
- [02:11]
Dan Snow
Residence, where he was able to seek.
- [02:13]
Historian
Refuge from the crash of Russian artillery, which was by now systematically reducing the city above his head to rubble. Russian tanks and troops had penetrated the city itself and they were now just a few hunts. I always think this is one of the most extraordinary turnarounds in history. Four years before, Hitler's infantrymen had been on the outskirts of Moscow and now here were Joseph Stalin's Soviet troops about to penetrate the very heart of the Third Reich.
- [02:52]
Dan Snow
With that as the context, he decided to sit down and dictate his last.
- [02:56]
Historian
Will and testament to his young assistant, Frau Traddle Junger. He was unrepentant he made arrangements for his art collection. He appointed the German political leadership that would succeed him. And he stated categorically one last time that he hadn't wanted war in 1939. No, it had been the Jews and their supporters that were responsible for the war and all Germany's and Europe's woes. The next day, on the 30th of April, after a big lunch with his staff, Hitler and his now wife, Eva Braun went into their private apartments and took their own lives.
- [03:40]
Dan Snow
It's unclear entirely what happened, but it seems likely that her death was caused.
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Historian
By biting into a cyanide capsule. And he put a gun to his own temple. They had been married for one day. Their bodies were taken upstairs into the open air by loyal officers.
- [03:57]
Dan Snow
As artillery shells rained down on them.
- [03:58]
Historian
They hastily dug a pit in the chancery garden, cremated them, and threw their remains into the shallow grave. It was a tawdry end for Hitler and indeed his whole National Socialist project. Hitler insisted that millions of people, men, women and children, had fought and suffered and died and been wounded or brutalized, all to postpone this inevitable moment as long as possible. But now, in the spring of 1945, it came. Hitler was dead, and with him, the Third Reich.
- [04:39]
Dan Snow
In this episode, we're going to dig.
- [04:40]
Historian
Into the final moments of one of the most prolific criminals in the long and lamentable history of humankind. We're going to talk about the last hours and the death of Adolf Hitler 80 years ago. We're joined by the very brilliant historian, Frank McDonagh. He's been on the podcast many times. He's got a wonderful series of books called the Hitler Years. There's another one coming out soon on the Holocaust, which I know from talking to Frank was a very, very difficult project for him personally to work on as well. For more detail about anything you hear today, make sure you go and check out Frank Madonna's wonderful books.
- [05:15]
Dan Snow
But in the meantime, let's get into it. This is another one of our D.
- [05:17]
Historian
Day to Berlin series, marking all those 80th anniversaries. This one is the final days, the final hours and minutes of Adolf Hitler.
- [05:27]
Sponsor Representative
T minus 10.
- [05:28]
Frank McDonagh
Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. God save the King. No black white unity till there is first and black unit never to go to war with one another again. And lift off. And the shuttle has cleared the tower.
- [05:47]
Dan Snow
Frank, good to have you back on the podcast.
- [05:48]
Frank McDonagh
Great to be here.
- [05:50]
Dan Snow
Why does Hitler stay in Berlin? The Soviet jaws are closing around the city, aren't they?
- [05:54]
Frank McDonagh
Well, you've Got to remember that he kind of has this kind of nihilistic view of the world, that it's either you win or you lose and you blow yourself up. Now that's his vision of the world, really. So, I mean, I think he did know that Germany was heading for defeat and he did know that the Red army would come into Berlin and would win. But he stuck firm to the idea that he could somehow turn this round. And even if he didn't turn it round, he had the idea of himself in history as some kind of martyr. So he thought, well, I'll die. And he does say to his secretary, Charles Jung, he says, nazism can't come back. I know that, but it might come back in 100 years. So he has this idea that he's leaving a legacy for the next hundred years. Goebbels shares that vision as well. So he sort of says, yeah, you know, let's die in a blaze of glory.
- [06:51]
Dan Snow
So in a way, this is Hitler's last big strategic decision. He says, well, let's stay in Berlin. We might have lost this war, but by giving this example, we might win the next one. Whereas him getting arrested, wearing sort of civilian clothes, trying to cross the Rhine and escape would just be utterly humiliating. That's his thinking.
- [07:09]
Frank McDonagh
He would have been caught. You know, anyone famous, very famous, they get caught. You can't hide from your face. I mean, even if he shaved, they found the Himmler and he shaved his mustache off, but someone said, that's Himmler. And also there's nothing in what he says to people, talks to people, that indicates that he wants to go into exile, you know, and live a quiet life in exile and secretly like that. It's not like that. He sort of talks about I'll kill myself many times in the past over the years, you know, like the Munich Beer hall coup, for example. He said he'd kill himself. He said it many times that, you know, if it all goes pear shaped, I'll kill myself. I just don't buy into the idea that, you know, he was going to go off to Argentina. I mean, look, people did go off to Argentina and the South America. So people are saying, ah, but if they got there, surely Hitler went with them. But he didn't want to go and it would have been impossible. How are you going to get out of that bunker? It wasn't as if you could just get out the bunker and phone an Uber, take you to a ferry and then go to Argentina. It's just, it's so unbelievable that that could Happen, really. So I'm not a big one for conspiracy theories, you know, because I know Hitler very well. I just don't buy he was the kind of person that would do that for him. It would have been seen as humiliating. And I can't see him living his life in a little farm in Argentina with Eva Brown, you know, like turn into a Sky TV program. Hitler in Argentina.
- [08:48]
Dan Snow
They're in a big underground shelter, are they, beneath the Reich Chancery?
- [08:52]
Frank McDonagh
Yeah, they're in this Fiora bunker. It was designed by Albert Speer. It was built to go under the right Chancellery garden. So it's kind of like a self contained unit. It's about 40 people can get in there and it's got living quarters, it's got some kind of air conditioning system, but doesn't really work really. So they're sort of sharing the same air for days on end. So it's got like sort of offices that he has meetings at. It's got his own living quarters. He's got like a living room with a settee and stuff like that. Also, you know, his main military men are down there. And Goebbels is in Berlin, but he goes in as well towards the end and stays with him as well. I mentioned Tradal Jung, he's got three secretaries who are down there. So it's kind of like an underground shelter. And he stays in the latter days, sometimes he goes up actually into the Reich Chancellery and goes into the rooms which are bombed, you know. But sometimes he goes in there and has a cup of coffee with Ava Brown. It's a kind of subterranean world, if you like. They've got links with the outside world. People come in and give them messages and so on and so forth.
- [10:11]
Dan Snow
Roughly when was the last time he sort of left the premises totally and went.
- [10:14]
Frank McDonagh
And we think that he might have gone up to the top, near towards the end. There's supposed to be a photograph. Some people have questioned it, but that's sort of roundabout. The day before he dies, we think the last time we see him above ground, I think it's like the 16th of March when he gives out medals to these Hitler Youth people who are defending Berlin. I think that's the last time we officially see if there's a newsreel of that. But he's down in the bunker and he's listening to all these terrible reports that the Red army are overwhelming the Wehrmacht in Berlin and the Allies are sort of coming from the West. They're moving through city by city now. Capturing them. He knows things are bad in Italy as well.
- [11:02]
Dan Snow
What's his mental health or physical health like?
- [11:04]
Historian
I mean, can he sleep?
- [11:05]
Dan Snow
How's he getting through the day?
- [11:07]
Frank McDonagh
I actually think, Dan, he's got bad mental health. I think he's mainly a depressive type of person whose normal default position is to be depressed. And this is just run of the mill for him. Things are going badly. Well, in his life, lots of things went badly. I suppose if you've had a life in which loads and loads of things have gone badly, you get used to it. So he sort of thinks, yeah, but I turned that round, you know, I went to jail for the Munich beer hall coup. But I got out, you know, and people said I couldn't get into power, but I did get into power. People said I couldn't revise the Treaty of Versailles, but I did, you know, and people warned me against attack on France, but I did and I won. So he sort of thinks things can turn around. He feels like he's lucky, that he's the lucky person, that things often go his way. Even when Roosevelt dies on 12 April, he sees it as a sign. It's a sign. He says to Goebbels, we're going to turn this round. So there's all this sort of daydreaming that goes on, a lack of reality. I personally think that he knew it was hopeless. I think he did. But he wasn't the kind of person who would ever admit that.
- [12:28]
Dan Snow
Reports about him suggest that he was, you know, shaking, unsteady on his feet.
- [12:33]
Frank McDonagh
Yeah.
- [12:33]
Dan Snow
About the fits of temper.
- [12:35]
Frank McDonagh
Yeah. Doctors have said that he probably had. They've seen these pictures of his arm. You see there's a few pictures of his arm shaking badly. People are saying that that's Parkinson's disease, that he had Parkinson's disease and it was affecting his leg and his arm. On top of that, he had bad stomach and he was taking all kinds of drugs given by his own physician, Dr. Morel. We reckon he took a lot of speed, you know, amphetamines. We're not sure about cocaine. Although he did take something like a cream for cocaine. Cause he had problems with his dental fixtures. So he put it on, rubbed on. He quite liked it. Cause it was a lot of cocaine and it said that he kind of liked that. So it's like a hypochondriac. You go to their house, the drawers are full of various potions and stuff like that. I think he was a hypochondriac and I think he did take painkillers and he definitely took amphetamines. Amphetamines do make people's temper go up and down. You know, sometimes they can go crazy with a temper. I mean, I think we can exaggerate Hitler's temper. I don't think he was screaming, ranting and raving all the time. I just don't think he did. He did scream and rant and rave, you know, we've seen the famous Downfall clip, haven't we? With that they then pile on all modern things to it. The interesting thing to read about Hitler is his meetings, his military meetings with the Wehrmacht and the navy. And when you read them, it's surprising how calm he is. The transcript of what was said at these meetings and it's not every five minutes the Fuhrer jumped from his seat and screamed keto or whatever. It's not like that. So I'm not sure about this kind of idea of him as a ranting, raving lunatic. I think that's a bit, it's a bit exaggerated really, but extraordinary, Frank, that.
- [14:33]
Dan Snow
They were having meetings, minutes were being kept and typed up. And this is an empire on the very, very brink of absolute extermination.
- [14:41]
Frank McDonagh
Yeah, they did well, he started at Rastenburg, which is where his military headquarters were. He moves out of there by the end to go to Berlin. But he took all this paraphernalia with him. He wanted a record himself because he wanted to make sure that nobody was double crossing him. So he wanted to say this is what was said at this meeting and that meeting. So he did have a stenographer and they're fairly accurate reports of what was said at these meetings with the military men and the navy because he doesn't have political meetings. So there's no cabinet meetings that we can look at. You just have to go to his correspondence with individual people. Goering, Goebbels, Himmler, Albert Speer. They're the kind of main people who he's conversing with at this time.
- [15:32]
Dan Snow
And is he still moving units around.
- [15:34]
Historian
On the map like he's a great military supremo?
- [15:37]
Frank McDonagh
Supposedly he is. Whether those units can actually move on the ground is another matter. And I don't think they're very keen on telling him exactly what is happening towards the end. I think they're sort of making up a little bit of a fiction in a way. He asked for a counterattack. That's the one where he screams and rants and downfall. He asked for a counterattack and then he finds out the counterattack never happened. In Berlin. So he goes mad about that, you know, you lied to me about this. So that is true that he does rant and rave when Goering sends him a telegram saying, look, I think you're no longer capable of running the country. I'm gonna take over my powers as deputy leader. And then he strips Goering of all of his officers of state. And the fact he could do that right at the end shows that he still had some power.
- [16:30]
Dan Snow
Yeah. Isn't it strange that he sent SS guys around to Goering's house, didn't he? So the regime continued to function in some ways, yeah.
- [16:37]
Frank McDonagh
That's the weird thing, isn't it? I think it's the loyalty to him, you see, I think he's established a personal loyalty as the Fuhrer. And people, they are fond of him, they're definitely loyal to him. The public are loyal to him. The public go on supporting him to the bitter end as well. Again, we sort of think, well, why did they do that? Is it really true? But it is largely true. The functions of the Third Reich carry on even in these terrible situations where the whole city is destroyed. And yet they managed to get the water supply back on, the electricity, amazing powers of recovery from the German authorities.
- [17:19]
Dan Snow
I guess there is one other big bit of disobedience, the so called Nero Decree. Tell me about that. Which is the end of March, Hitler would have been in the bunker issuing that, would he?
- [17:28]
Frank McDonagh
Well, Hitler knew about Stalin's scorched earth policy. And Stalin's scorched earth policy was as the Red army retreated, they destroyed any infrastructure they could so that the enemy couldn't gain control of that infrastructure. So he done that scorched earth policy, and it did work. The Soviet Union did remarkable. They destroy a factory, dismantle it and move it eastwards and open it again, rebuild it and open it quickly. So Hitler wanted to have his own scorched earth policy. He thought, well, the Allies are moving in the West, I want my scorched earth policy. I want them to destroy all of our main industry in the Ruhr. So that's what he told Speer to do, this Nero Decree in which he asks for this to happen, but Speer doesn't do it, he just ignores it. And then he tells him, a few days before Hitler dies, they have a final meeting. And Speer said, look, I want to tell you something. I didn't carry out that Nero Decree that you gave me. So apparently Hitler just sort of looked at him coldly and didn't say another word. He just Looked at him like, yeah, fine, okay, Right. And that was the end. He said in his memoir, Speer said, that was the moment I knew that the relationship I had with him had ended. So it shows that not everything got going. Cause they knew the west were gonna win. And people like Speer were thinking, well, let's do a separate deal with the west and allies, Britain and America, and then persuade the Allies to turn on Stalin.
- [19:07]
Dan Snow
Let's get into those last few days. It's a date I find easy to remember Hitler's birthday because it's my dad and my sister's birthday, April 20th. Do they make an occasion of it?
- [19:18]
Frank McDonagh
Yeah, they have a party. The champagne is drunk. They go up to the Bond, right. Chancellor, and they have champagne and a cake is brought out. So, yeah, there was celebration of it. People don't realize that he was 56 in 1945. He's quite young, actually, you know, and people talk about it, you know, Charlie Young gives a very good description of the party and says, you know, everyone was trying to put aside. Ava Brown was one of them, who she liked to have a good time. So she saw a party or drinking as a distraction from that Hitler who caused him drink. But he did go to the party, stayed for a bit, and then he went back to the bunker.
- [20:04]
Dan Snow
You're listening to Dan Snow's history. We're talking about the end of Hitler.
- [20:08]
Historian
More coming up.
- [20:17]
Holly Fry
Our skin tells a story. Join me, Holly Fry, and a slate of incredible guests as we are all inspired by their journeys with psoriasis. Along with these uplifting and candid personal histories, we take a step back into the bizarre and occasionally poisonous history of our skin and how we take care of it. Whether you're looking for inspiration on your own skincare journey or are curious about the sometimes strange history of how we treat our skin, you'll find genuine empathetic transformation, formative conversations here on our skin. Listen to our skin on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [21:03]
Dan Snow
So they have a party. What's the next big milestone? Is it. Would it be Hitler's marriage? Big week for him.
- [21:09]
Frank McDonagh
Yeah, yeah, they have a party. That's the 20th of April, which is the birthday. And then on the 28th or the 29th, he hears about Mussolini, that Mussolini is captured by partisans, and then he's strung up with his mistress, Clara Petacci, over a garage. So they're hung upside down in this garage. They're already shot dead. And this sort of rattles Hitler, you know, Hitler thinks, oh, I don't want to be out on the streets of Berlin being picked over by an angry mob. So this sort of convinces him that he's got to kill himself. It makes a big impact on him. So he decides, first of all, to marry Ava Brown to kind of compensate her for all the. All the privation she's had to suffer by being his partner, so to speak. So he decides to marry her, and they have a marriage ceremony which is conducted by a local official. So he comes in, conducts the marriage ceremony, and then Hitler slips away during the ceremony to get his last will and testament typed by his secretary, Charles Leung. So he starts to dictate his last will and testament. It's in two parts. One's a personal testament. He says, I'm going to kill myself because I don't want to face the humiliation of defeat, he says, with my wife Ava, he says, but also I'm going to give, you know, a political testament of what I want to happen. He appoints Grand Admiral Donitz as the president in this will and testament. Of course, he's a naval man, and he did that because of his hatred of the military leadership. By then he said, you know, they don't deserve to run this country. He made Goebbels chancellor. Quiz question. Who's the shortest reigning German chancellor? It's actually Goebbels. But the main thing about that testament, I think, which is interesting, is that he doesn't take any responsibility for the Second World War. He says the Second World War was forced on us by the worldwide Jewish conspiracy, and these people, you know, are trying to rule the Earth and we tried to stop them. He says we could have settled the Polish issue by negotiation, but the Poles wouldn't have it. He said, again, they were pushed on by the Jewish worldwide conspiracy. What's interesting is that his antisemitism stays right there, front and center, right to the very end, which is very interesting that he sees that. And he even says that in the future, the task of the German people is to destroy Judaism if they want.
- [23:48]
Dan Snow
To prosper so unrepentant, even with the Russian guns bringing down fire on the ground above him.
- [23:56]
Frank McDonagh
Yeah, he's not willing to accept that he did anything wrong.
- [24:00]
Dan Snow
He dictates the last will and testament. They've got married. Was there a party after the ceremony?
- [24:05]
Frank McDonagh
Yeah, yeah, there was a party. Yeah. They sort of hosted it in Hitler's living room. And again, there was champagne and a cake, and, you know, it's Bake and Vivian. They're all There, you know. So Braun was very happy.
- [24:21]
Dan Snow
And did Braun know that Hitler was about to conduct a murder suicide? Were they talking about it openly?
- [24:26]
Frank McDonagh
Yeah, he told her, yeah. By the time he'd written his will and testament, it had already been agreed with her. Cause he says, we have decided to kill ourselves in the will and testament.
- [24:38]
Dan Snow
So they're at the party, they're all drinking. Hitler signs his will at what, five in the morning?
- [24:44]
Frank McDonagh
Something like that, yeah. She's shocked. Charlie Youngster. I couldn't believe it. As he was saying, I thought he was gonna take some responsibility for all the destruction that he wrought on the well, but he didn't. He stuck true. And he also stuck true to his decision, clearly, to kill all of the world's dudes.
- [25:05]
Dan Snow
How does he intend the world to have any force? Does he telegraph it out? Does he smuggle it out?
- [25:10]
Frank McDonagh
Well, five copies are made, and some brave person gets one copy out and ends up handing it personally to Grand Admiral Dern, for example. So the will is actually carried out.
- [25:23]
Dan Snow
So as you say, there are still messengers coming in and out of the bunker. And even though it's all pretty much.
- [25:27]
Frank McDonagh
On the front line now, there's messengers coming in and out, you know, and it goes by that service. Yeah, messenger service.
- [25:34]
Dan Snow
The Soviets are now, what, 400 meters away.
- [25:37]
Frank McDonagh
They've completely encircled the Reich Chancellery. So they're kind of all around the Reich Chancellor. It's just a matter of when they're going to go in. There's now negotiations opening up between the general staffs of the German army and the Red army about when are you going to surrender? And stuff like that. So there's already discussions that this isn't going to last much longer. The people in the bunker saying that the best we can last for two days, I think.
- [26:05]
Dan Snow
Let's get to the afternoon of the 30th. Does he go through the bunker saying goodbye? Is this a public moment?
- [26:11]
Frank McDonagh
Yeah, he does, yeah. He has a lunch, which is his favorite. It's like a pasta dish with tomato. Eats that. It's made for him and he likes it. And he congratulates the cook and says, oh, that was wonderful. Then he says goodbye to these secretaries as well, the cook and then the three secretaries. He says goodbye to them because he always has his meals with them, you see, he doesn't like to have his meals with military people. He likes to have it with people who aren't connected to the military. So he has the meal, says goodbye to all the people. There's a lot of Crying Magda Goebbels, she gets hysterical in the corridor as he says goodbye, say and says, do you can't leave us, my Fuhrer. And all this. And so somebody shepherds her away. But that's the only sort of sign of emotion that goes on. And then the last. The people, there's so many people in the bunker who testified later about what happened. They say that he then went into his room, his living room with Eva Brown. And then they heard a gunshot. Then they opened the door and he was dead with a bullet hole in his forehead. And she was just immobile and dead from the smell, aniseed smell. They thought she'd taken a cyanide capsule. He'd apparently taken a cyanide capsule and shot himself. It's unclear whether he took the cyanide capsule and shot himself at the same time or just shot himself in the head because he didn't have the same smell around him that you would associate with a cyanide capsule. And then of course these assistants, they take him up as was pre planned, take him up to the right chancelly garden and set a light to the two corpses. They don't completely burn, they're put in a shallow grave.
- [28:05]
Historian
This is downstairs history hits more on the last few minutes of Hitler's life after this.
- [28:16]
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- [29:27]
Dan Snow
The other sort of suicide murder is.
- [29:29]
Historian
So extraordinary, isn't it?
- [29:30]
Dan Snow
The one that just appalls everyone who hears about it. Tell me about the Goebbels family.
- [29:35]
Frank McDonagh
Well, obviously, you know, Goebbels becomes the Chancellor for a day, but he decides that he's going to kill himself. But what's awful is that his wife Magda and him agree that their six children will be killed as well, using cyanide. Magda says that in a letter. She's saying, I can't envisage my children living in a world without the Fiora, and I can't envisage living in that world either. So I'm doing it to save their skin. And Gabel says, who wants to be the daughter or son of me? Because I'm going to be vilified, he said, so they'll have to have decades of shame, so I'm going to save them from that. So that's how they justify it. And they're helped by a doctor. The doctor goes in with Magda and they give each of the children a cyanide capsule. Very sad, really. And they are then taken out and they're seen, actually. The photograph of them is taken. They're all lying in the right chancery garden, not buried. And then Goebbels and Magda Goebbels, either they took the cyanide themselves or one of them did and the other one shot the other or whatever. We don't really know exactly. There's no sort of eyewitness who can say exactly what happened, but their bodies were found, so they definitely did take cyanide. So those two died as well. And their children died, too.
- [31:08]
Historian
Extraordinary. Yeah.
- [31:09]
Dan Snow
So five daughters and one son all killed there. What happened after. After these bodies were laid out in the garden of the Reich Chancellor, what happened to everyone else? And when Hitler and Goebbels were dead, did everyone just sort of every man for himself?
- [31:23]
Frank McDonagh
Borman tried to escape. He tried to escape. Some people said he did escape to South America. But in 1973, a corpse was found, and later DNA was attached to the corpse, showing that Bormann had died escaping from the right Chancellor. The Gestapo official, Heinrich Muller, he left the bunker, but we never heard of him again. So he obviously was killed. Some of them committed suicide. Some of the army officers took their own life, quite a large number, actually. And ordinary individuals took their own life as well. You know, there's a local town where maybe about 1,500 people killed themselves. These were just ordinary people from the town. So the surrender took place on the 1st of May. So the day after Hitler's Death. The surrender started to open. I think on the 2nd of May, it was finalized and that was it. That was the kind of end of the military conflict. Although Donitz carried on with the war for a week, he was trying to find out if he could get a separate peace for Germany at the expense of the Soviet Union.
- [32:37]
Dan Snow
So through the 30th and the 1st, I suppose people are just slipping out.
- [32:41]
Historian
Of the bunker and just trying their luck, trying to escape.
- [32:44]
Frank McDonagh
Yeah, Trao Jung, she goes out as well, she escapes and she ends up in Munich. So it shows that some of them got out and did get away.
- [32:53]
Dan Snow
Do you have any Soviet account of.
- [32:54]
Historian
When they entered those grounds? And storming through that bunker must have been just what a moment for those Soviet troops.
- [33:01]
Frank McDonagh
Yeah, we've got accounts of the Soviet soldiers who went in and they saw, there's photographs as well. They went into his living room and stuff and photographed the Settee chaise lounge, which has got some blood on it, where Hitler was shot and so on. So they did film the bunker. They took souvenirs as well. So you've got like Red army men with busts of Hitler under their arm, photographs of things like that.
- [33:26]
Dan Snow
They knew that Hitler had committed suicide. Did they, did they try and recover his body, his remains?
- [33:30]
Frank McDonagh
They did recover those charred remains. The Soviets did recover them and they did an autopsy on them. So that exists, the autopsy. They cut out his jaw. So they cut out above and below his jaw and through that, because that survived. His dentist, Hitler's dentist looked at these jaws and said, yeah, that's Hitler, because he had a strange dentistry. He was always getting silver fillings put in and gold teeth replacing his other one. And he had a dental plate, a very distinctive dental plate on the bottom, like a bridge, that held together a lot of his teeth as well. So the dental records are pretty good and they were used because what you remember is there was three different investigations into Hitler's death. There was the Red Army Soviet investigation, which involved these autopsies and stuff like that. There was also a British led investigation by you, Trevor Roper, and he interviewed every single person who was in the bunker at the time. There's no forensic evidence in Trevor Roper's report. There is forensic evidence in the Soviet autopsy which I mentioned. The dental records is the main way of identifying Hitler. And in 1944, Hitler had agreed to have an X ray taken of his head after the bomb plot. So they were able to take that X ray of his head and compare it to the dental plate that they cut out of his mouth. The Soviets at the end of the war. Then there was. If you want more, you've got these people who go for conspiracy theories. They always ignore things like this. There was a four year investigation by the state of Bavaria into Hitler's death and they went through everything and the dentists gave evidence of that. Everyone in the bunker gave evidence of that. All of the evidence of the eyewitness accounts was taken so on. And they concluded 1956. They said Hitler died in the bunker by a single shot to his head, self inflicted. And that Eva Braun, she died with cyanide. That was what that concluded. And that was a four year investigation. And obviously there were people who said that Hitler was alive. You know, the CIA would report, it's a bit like Elvis, we've seen Elvis down on Chippy and all that. It's a bit like that really. None of these CIA reports have got any validity. They're all sorts of, you know, people giving a report saying I saw Hitler in the probe or something, but none of them have got any validity. It's like sort of, yes, people did say I saw Hitler in Argentina, right. People did report that to the CIA, but it was never verified, he was never found. So I think, you know, we can just ignore that.
- [36:37]
Dan Snow
So within hours, Berlin has fallen to the Soviets. The war lasts another week.
- [36:43]
Frank McDonagh
Yeah, as we say. That's why. What happened? VE Day, isn't it on the 8th, on the 7th they surrendered to the British and the Americans. A Soviet representative was there. The Allies insisted that the army surrendered because they didn't want to legitimize the regime of Donitz. So they didn't want to legitimize that. So he said, no, we don't want him to sign the surrender. We don't even agree that that's a legitimate government. We want the army armed forces to sign the surrender. So they signed the surrender in a place called Reims on the 7th and on the 8th we announced VE Day, the end of things. But it wasn't all over then. They asked to have a signing in Berlin which took place sometime after midnight on the 9th. So you've got two different celebrations. We celebrate VE Day on the 8th for the signing on the 7th, and the Soviet Union and Russia, they celebrate on the ninth, it's called Victory Day and they do that on the 9th. So there's a little bit of confusion at the end, Frank.
- [37:50]
Dan Snow
Obviously the last will and testament, a lot of it is sort of a political screed justifying himself, talking about the.
- [37:56]
Historian
Future and the past.
- [37:58]
Dan Snow
There is also the political arrangements for the new Nazi regime. That only lasts a week. Is there anything else in there? Is there anything else that endured? Did Hitler get his way on anything?
- [38:07]
Frank McDonagh
No, not much endures. The Third Reich is destroyed, isn't it? And completely. Whether the German people felt the same. The Americans did opinion polls in 1940s, late 1940s, and they found that something like 53% of the German people thought Nazism was a good thing. It was just badly applied. And so there was a lingering love of Hitler, the Hitler Youth. I mean, I've talked to some Hitler Youth, well, many years ago now, who survived, and they're still, you know, my Fuhrer. They're definitely still loyal to Hitler. And we know about the ODESSA file, don't we, that these SS men had these periodic meetings where they celebrated Hitler. But in a sense, the Third Reich is then blotted out of history, isn't it? It's sort of destroyed. Most Germans then agree that they've got to become a democracy. Some people said they were forced to be free, but Germany has been a functioning democracy since 1949. They've got laws that prevent democracy being overthrown. Some of the most stringent laws are under the German constitution. Be far easier to overthrow America or Britain than it would to overthrow democracy in Germany, which is a good thing.
- [39:31]
Dan Snow
Yes. But amazing that despite the absolute catastrophe that Hitler inflicted upon the people of.
- [39:38]
Historian
The world, but particularly people of Germany.
- [39:39]
Dan Snow
That it didn't ruin his reputation. The manner of his death, the manner of the collapse of the German Empire, didn't actually blacken his name with large chunks of the German population.
- [39:50]
Frank McDonagh
Yeah, that's true. There are neo Nazis who support Hitler, but you couldn't say he's been rehabilitated.
- [39:58]
Dan Snow
And let's hope his master plan, that in 100 years time, the manner of.
- [40:02]
Historian
His death would inspire a new generation of Nazis. Let's hope that also does not come to pass like the rest of his last will and testament.
- [40:08]
Dan Snow
Frank, thank you so much for coming on the podcast again. You're an absolute legend. Tell everyone about your biographies of Hitler.
- [40:15]
Frank McDonagh
Well, I've written a series called the Hitler Years, and it covers German history from 1918 through to 1945. And there's a fourth volume coming out in November, the Hitler Years Holocaust 1933-1945. So that concentrates on the Holocaust. So through those four books, you've got a complete history of Germany from 1918 to 1945.
- [40:43]
Dan Snow
Great stuff, Frank. Thanks so much for coming back on the podcast. We're going to talk to you again soon, I'm sure.
- [40:47]
Frank McDonagh
I hope so. Take care.
- [41:00]
Holly Fry
Our Skin Tells a Story Join me, Holly Fry, and a slate of incredible guests as we are all inspired by their journeys with psoriasis. Along with these uplifting and candid personal histories, we take a step back into the bizarre and occasionally poisonous history of our skin and how we take care of it. Whether you're looking for inspiration on your own skincare journey or are curious about the sometimes strange history of how we treat our skin, you'll find genuine, empathetic, transformative conversations here on our skin. Listen to our skin on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.