Führerbunker: Encyclopedia II - Führerbunker - Events in 1945

Führerbunker - Events in 1945

Hitler moved into the Führerbunker on January 16, 1945. He was joined by his senior staff, Martin Bormann, Eva Braun and Joseph Goebbels with all his family, which took residence in the upper Vorbunker. Two or three dozen support, medical and administrative staff were also sheltered there. These included Hitler's secretaries (with his favourite, Traudl Junge among them) a nurse named Erna Flegel and telephonist Rochus Misch.

The bunker was supplied with large quantities of food and other necessities and by all accounts successfully protected its occupants from the relentless and lethal shelling that went on overhead in the closing days of April 1945. Many witnesses later spoke of the constant droning sound of the underground complex's ventilation system.

Many of the bunker staff left between April 22-23, before Berlin was wholly encircled by Russian forces. Hitler had chosen to stay until the end and committed suicide in the bunker by gunshot and cyanide on April 30. The Goebbels poisoned all of their children and committed suicide the next day. Most of the bunker's remaining occupants left within hours thereafter, trying with varying success to break through the lines of the encircling Red Army, which by this time was only a block or two away in any direction. A very few people remained in the bunker and were captured by Russian troops on May 2nd.

Soviet intelligence operatives investigating the complex found more than a dozen bodies of suicides along with the cinders of many burned papers and documents. The last living occupant of the Führerbunker is believed to have been Rochus Misch, a military telephone operator who was attached to Hitler's staff.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Events in 1945", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki