Adolf Hitler has taken a long time to die, despite the lethal efficiency of the gun he put to his head in April 1945. Although eagerly anticipated around the world, there were no available witnesses to his suicide—and his corpse was not put on display. This created the perfect vacuum for myth and survival legends, while rival intelligence agencies and propaganda further confounded the investigations of successive historians.

In The Long Death of Adolf Hitler: An Investigative History (Yale University Press, 2026) Dr. Caroline Sharples explores the aftermath of events at the Führerbunker in the first cultural account of this decisive yet elusive moment. Hitler’s death was widely anticipated, and the news elicited a huge range of emotions as governments and secret services scrambled to verify what they heard. The search for proof of death led to an outpouring of conspiratorial thinking, and the final moments of Hitler’s life have been reimagined ever since.

This is an intriguing, unsettling account of a historical event we all think we know—and a sophisticated examination of how history is written.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

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