This Day in History:
Adolf Hitler Dies
by Suicide April 30, 1945 Sitting next to his new wife,
Eva Braun, in a small bunker
room 55 feet underground of
the chancellory building in Berlin, the 56-year-old "Fuhrer"
ended his life by consuming a
cyanide capsule and simultaneously
shooting himself with a pistol. Braun also died
by taking cyanide. Per Hitler's orders, their
bodies were removed up to
the chancellory garden and burned. The Russian army was closing in on
Berlin and were less than 24 hours from
the bunker where Hitler had been
holed up since January of that year. The "1,000 Year Reich"
was finished. The 12 years of Nazi rule in
Germany were perhaps the most
catastrophic of the 20th century.