On this day in 1945, at approximately 3:15 p.m., the staff of the Führerbunker in Berlin heard a loud gunshot from Hitler’s study. After waiting a few minutes, one of Hitler’s servants, SS member Heinz Linge opened the door along with the Führer’s secretary, Martin Bormann. They saw the dead bodies of Adolf and Eva Hitler (the day before at the wedding she changed her name from Braun to Hitler).
Eva had no wounds, and because of the smell of roasted almonds in the room, they concluded that she was poisoned with cyanide. Blood was flowing from Hitler’s right temple, and on the floor was his Walther PPK 7.65 mm pistol (a model also known for later being used by James Bond and, according to some, Josip Broz Tito got his nickname “Walther” from it). Their bodies were carried outside the Führerbunker on the surface, doused with gasoline, and set on fire.
Since the bodies did not burn well, the aforementioned Heinz Linge returned to the bunker and brought rolls of paper that they threw on the bodies to fuel the fire. Despite the fact that the SS subsequently brought more gasoline, the bodies were not completely burned, so they buried them in a shallow shell crater. The Soviets later found the burnt remains and, with the help of Hitler’s dentist, they proved that they indeed were Adolf Hitler and his wife Eva.
The Soviets later buried remains of their corpses in Magdeburg. However, in 1970., when the KGB had to hand over the site to East Germany, the Soviets decided to destroy the remains, so as to prevent them from becoming a neo-Nazi shrine. They burned the remains again, and threw the ashes into the river Biederitz, a tributary of the Elbe, near Magdeburg.
