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Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More
The Last Days and Death of Adolf Hitler
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Learn more about the death of Hitler and what happened after
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Host of Everything Everywhere Daily
In April 1945, in the last days of the war in Europe, everything was falling apart for the Third Reich. Adolf Hitler and his closest advisors holed up in a bunker in Berlin and issued delusional orders until the Russians arrived. Hitler, his wife and other high ranking Nazi officials took their own lives rather than be captured. However, what happened to Hitler's remains has been the genesis of theories and conspiracies for decades. Learn more about the death of Hitler and then what happened to his remains on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. This episode is sponsored by Quince. If you've been listening to the show for even a little while, you've heard me talk about Quince. The reason why I have such good things to say about them is because Quince has hit the trifecta by offering products that are low cost, high quality and easy to purchase and return online. They can do this because they work directly with top artisans and cut out the middleman. 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Discover birth and marriage announcements, obituaries, and everyday stories about your ancestors. In seconds, Newspapers.com can help you fill in the gaps between vital records and reveal details about your ancestors lives that you can't find anywhere else. Their easy to use search feature will let you filter your results by date, location, specific paper and more. When you find something interesting, newspapers.com makes it a snap to share it with your family and friends and you can even save it directly to your ancestry Tree. Come explore 1 billion pages and make infinite discoveries today on Newspapers.com use promo code Everything Everywhere for a 20% discount on your subscription. By April 1945, Nazi Germany was collapsing on all fronts. The Soviet Red army had encircled Berlin while American and British forces approached from the west. Hitler had retreated to his Fehr bunker, a reinforced concrete shelter 50ft beneath the Reich Chancellery garden. This wasn't just a military headquarters. It had become his tomb like refuge from a world he could no longer control. The bunker had two levels. The upper Vohr Bunker housed staff and guards, while the deeper Fuhrer bunker contained Hitler's personal quarters, conference rooms and living spaces for his inner circle. The entire complex was designed to withstand direct artillery hits, but it couldn't protect against the psychological pressures of inevitable defeat. Who remained with Hitler helps us grasp the bizarre dynamics of those final days. Eva Braun, his longtime companion, had insisted on staying despite Hitler's attempts to send her away. Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda minister, brought his entire family to the bunker, demonstrating the fanatical loyalty that characterized Hitler's inner circle. Martin Bormann, Hitler's secretary and gatekeeper, controlled access to the Fuhrer and remained a powerful figure even as the Reich crumbled. General Wilhelm Keitel and General Alfred Jodl continued to brief Hitler on military situations that grew more hopeless by the hour. The presence of these military leaders creates an important contrast. While they maintained professional duties, they were increasingly managing the delusions of a leader who refused to accept reality. The final phase began on April 16, when the Soviets launched their final assault on Berlin. Hitler's behavior during those two weeks reveals the complex breakdown of both his mental state and his regime structure. From April 16th to the 20th, Hitler still maintained some connection to reality, holding daily briefings and issuing orders. However, these orders increasingly bore no relationship to actual German capabilities. He commanded non existent divisions to attack and expected miracles from depleted forces. The turning point came on April 20, which was ironically, Hitler's 56th birthday. This was the last time he appeared above ground, briefly inspecting Hitler Youth defenders in the Chancellery garden. The last photo of him ever taken was at this brief ceremony. It depicted a prematurely aged, trembling man reviewing children who had been pressed into military service. After this, he retreated permanently underground into his bunker. April 22 marked what many historians consider Hitler's final mental break. In a rage filled conference, he declared the war lost and stated he would remain in Berlin to die. This represented a crucial psychological shift from delusional hope to suicidal despair. His staff was shocked because despite everything, they hadn't expected him to abandon his messianic self image so completely. On April 29, as Soviet forces fought House to house, mere blocks away, Hitler made two final decisions that revealed his mindset. First, he married Eva Braun in a brief civil ceremony conducted by a city official who had been brought to the bunker. And second, he dictated his personal and political last will and testament. These documents are psychologically revealing. Rather than accepting responsibility for Germany's destruction, Hitler blamed the war on international Jewry and claimed that he had always wanted peace. He had constructed an entirely alternate reality to protect his self image. Even facing death, he couldn't acknowledge the consequence of his actions and that he was the cause of everything that was happening around him. And his marriage to Eva Brown was also odd, considering that they had been together for 14 years and at no point before had he ever been interested in marriage. April 30 brought the final act around 3:30pm after his lunch with his secretaries and a brief farewell to his remaining staff, Hitler and Eva retired to his private study. The details of what followed came from the testimonies of those who discovered the bodies. Hitler shot himself in the right temple while simultaneously biting down on a cyanide capsule, a method ensuring certain death. Eva Brown took only the cyanide. Their bodies were discovered by Hitler's valet and bodyguard, who had been instructed to wait 10 minutes before entering. Following Hitler's earlier instructions, the bodies were carried upstairs to the chancellery garden, doused with gasoline and burned. The creation was hasty and incomplete due to ongoing Soviet artillery fire. Witnesses described the surreal scene of Nazi officials giving final salutes to the burning remains while explosions echoed all around them. Hitler's death didn't immediately end the fighting that wouldn't come until Germany's official surrender on May 8. However, his suicide effectively decapitated the Nazi command structure. Within hours, many bunker occupants began planning their own escapes or suicides. Joseph Goebbels and his wife killed their six children and then themselves on May 1st. Martin Borman attempted to escape, but died in the breakout attempt. And the story of Martin Borman's death might actually make for a very interesting future episode. The story up until this point is one that you might actually be pretty familiar with. I'd highly recommend the 2004 movie Downfall, starring Bruno Ganz as Hitler, as an excellent dramatization of the events that happened in the bunker. This is the movie that is used as a video meme of Hitler always going on a rant to his generals. Everything I've just described has come from the testimony of witnesses who were with Hitler in the bunker during those final days. While the reports of the death of Hitler went out to the German people and to the Allies. It was at first just a report. There was no evidence or proof ever provided that Hitler was actually dead. The story of what happened to Hitler's remains after his death represents one of the most complex forensic mysteries of the 20th century, involving cold War secrecy and scientific controversy. When Hitler's body had been hastily burned in the Chancellery garden, the cremation was incomplete due to the ongoing Soviet bombardment and limited fuel supplies. This is the first layer of complexity. The original disposal was so rushed and incomplete that it created ambiguity from the very start. Harry Mengershausen, one of Hitler's bodyguards, later claimed that the bodies were still identifiable after the cremation. Soviet forces discovered the charred remains on May 4, 1945. However, this discovery was never made public. Instead, Stalin ordered the remains to be secretly examined and then buried. Autopsies were performed and Hitler's identity was confirmed primarily through dental evidence. This decision reveals something crucial about Stalin's mindset. He understood the propaganda value of controlling the narrative around Hitler's death. By keeping the discovery secret, Stalin could either claim that Hitler was dead when it suited Soviet interests, or suggest that he might have escaped when it served his purposes better. Stalin told the Western leaders at the Potsdam Conference that Hitler might have escaped and be living in Spain or Argentina, a claim that he knew was false. The Soviets initially burned the remains, along with those of Eva Braun and the Goebbels family, in a forest near Rathenau, Brandenburg. But this wasn't the end of the story. It was more like the beginning of a decades long shell game with human remains. The Western Allies, for their part, had no clue what happened to Hitler. And internal memos released in 1945 indicate that they had no clue that the Soviets had recovered the body. On October 12, General Dwight Eisenhower, who was the head of the Western Allies, said to the press, there is every presumption that Hitler is dead, but not a bit of positive proof that he is dead. End quote. In February 1946, Soviet counterintelligence secretly exhumed all the remains and moved them to a facility in Magdenburg, East Germany, where they were reburied. They remained there for 24 years, hidden and largely forgotten. During the height of the Cold War, the remains weren't just treated as evidence. They were a Soviet state secret, carefully guarded and controlled by the intelligence apparatus. And this is one of the reasons why so many rumors about Hitler surviving kept cropping up over the years. The Soviets never shared this knowledge with the rest of the world. And absent any evidence Theories were created to fill the gap. The Soviets kept the knowledge of Hitler's remains a secret until well after the death of Stalin. The first semi official Soviet account came with the publication of the book the Death of Adolf Hitler by Lev Bezyminsky, a Soviet journalist and historian with KGB ties. The book revealed some details of the autopsy and alleged remains, but it was selective and likely influenced by state censorship. Bezymensky's account was later criticized for inaccuracies and fabrications. So even when the Soviets finally came clean, they still weren't coming totally clean. In 1970, Soviet KGB chief Yuri Andropov made a dramatic decision. Concerned that the burial site in Magdenburg might become a pilgrimage destination for neo Nazis, he ordered the remains to be secretly exhumed, burned and scattered in the Bitternitz River. This had the full approval of Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev. This operation, which was codenamed Operation Archive, was meant to completely eliminate any physical trace of Hitler from the earth forever. The remains, consisting mostly of skull fragments, jawbones and bits of teeth and clothing, were burnt to ashes. After this final cremation, the ashes were ground down, scattered into the river and the burial site was obliterated. However, and this is where the mystery deepens. The Soviets claim to have retained some pieces of Hitler. In the year 2000, the Russian government publicly displayed what they said was were fragments of Hitler's skull, complete with what appeared to be a bullet hole. They presented this as definitive proof of Hitler's death by suicide. But why would the Russians, who supposedly destroyed everything in 1970, suddenly produce skull fragments in 2000, almost 10 years after the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union? I have no answers for you. However, the story took a dramatic turn in 2009 when University of Connecticut researchers conducted DNA testing on the skull fragments, concluded they belonged to a woman between the ages of 20 and 40. This revelation sent shockwaves through the historical and scientific communities. The Soviets hadn't kept a proper chain of custody and didn't use appropriate storage protocols. So even if the Soviets had possessed genuine Hitler remains in 1945, the movement, storage and handling over 60 years could have led to contamination, mislabeling or substitution. Parallel to the skull fragment story runs a more scientifically sound narrative involving Hitler's dental remains. The Soviets captured Hitler's dentist's assistant who provided information on Hitler's teeth. This dental evidence has proven more reliable over time because teeth preserved DNA better than bone fragments and because the chain of custody was better documented. Recent studies of these dental remains have proven stronger scientific support for Hitler's death in 1945, and this creates an interesting contrast. While the dramatic skull fragments turned out to be questionable evidence, the less visually compelling dental work provided more solid scientific proof. Despite the skull fragment controversy, the scientific and historical consensus remains that Hitler died by suicide in the bunker on April 30, 1945. This consensus is based on multiple forms of eyewitness testimony from bunker survivors, Soviet intelligence reports, dental analysis, and the absence of any credible evidence for alternative scenarios. In a previous episode, I covered Nazis who had made their way to South America after the war, so there absolutely were members of the Nazi party who managed to flee. However, despite all the rumors and supposed sightings over the years, there had never been any solid proof of Hitler surviving the war. The only reason these theories ever existed in the first place was because the Soviets hid their knowledge of Hitler's remains and then obscured facts for decades once they admitted the body had been found. The only good news about the Soviet's mishandling of Hitler's remains is that we can be pretty sure that almost nothing is left of Adolf Hitler outside of a few teeth the executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Okun and Cameron Kiefer. Today's review comes from listener Kevop88 over on Apple Podcasts in the United States. They missed a crucial Knuckleballer Love the podcast and am nearly religious about it as I am about baseball, but I have to call you out on your knuckleball episode. You missed Jim Bouton, a critical part of the history of the knuckleball. A 20 game winner for the Yankees early in his career, he was completely overused and was essentially out of baseball by the age of 27. However, he reinvented himself as a knuckleballer, a journey he chronicled in Ball four, hailed by the New York Times as one of the 100 best books in the century. He was also my dad's college roommate and one of his best friends over their entire lives. May they both rest in peace. Well, thanks Kevop88. You are of course correct that Jim Bouton did throw an knuckleball. I wasn't trying to be comprehensive in my list of pitchers, I just listed some of the more notable ones. Bouton's probably best known for his off field accomplishments, including Ball four like you mentioned, and he was also the founder of Big League Chewing Gum. Not a lot of people know that. Also, thanks for sharing that your dad was his friend. That makes for a great story. Remember, if you have a review or send me a boostogram, you too can have it read on the show.