Wednesday, May. 04, 2011

Hitler's Bunker

As the Soviets were closing in from the East, and British and U.S. troops were moving toward Berlin from the West, Adolf Hitler took refuge in an underground lair — the Führerbunker, a massive complex of rooms directly below the New Reich Chancellery in Berlin. From there and for the last few months of World War II, Hitler plotted maneuvers he believed would crush the Allies and turn the tide of the war toward the Germans. Nothing of the kind came to fruition. The Russians captured the Reichstag in late April, and Hitler realized his time was running out. He hastily married his longtime mistress Eva Braun inside the bunker. And a day later, on April 30, 1945, it is widely believed that Hitler shot himself with a pistol while Braun ingested cyanide capsules.