Stars and Stripes reported Hitler’s death on May 2, 1945
Told the next day that Berlin’s defenders were nearly out of ammunition, Hitler and Braun committed suicide. She took poison; he used a shot to the temple. Their bodies were cremated by loyal followers in a garden not far from Hitler’s bunker in the Reich Chancellery.
Under the terms of Hitler’s will, Grand Admiral Karl Donitz, the German naval commander, became the president of Germany. It was Donitz who would soon officially surrender to the Allies, bringing the war in Europe to a close.
The shock of the Red Army’s arrival in Berlin was more than just a grotesque nightmare that confirmed the worst fears of Berliners, and would play out mercilessly in the city in the months ahead. It was the end of the world as Berliners knew it. The people of Berlin, the home of the Thousand-Year Reich, had been pummeled by airstrikes, more than three hundred of them since early 1944, when the daily raids on the city began.
Excerpted from Chapter Four, “Berlin Stories,” THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF AMERICA AT WAR
The Hidden History of America At War-May 5,2015 (Hachette Books/Random House Audio)
© 2015 Kenneth C. Davis All Rights Reserved
