How Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler met his death 75 years ago and brought the Second World War to a close

Through the fire-blackened ruins the scent of lilac rose in waves out of derelict gardens whose owners had fled or died... crocuses struggled out of the rubble. The stumps of trees amputated by the bombing were bursting with green leaf. Only the birds were missing: Douglas Botting, In the Ruins of the Reich (1985) 

Adolf Hitler took his own life on 30 April 1945, dying in ignominy in an underground shelter at the Reich Chancellery two days after his fascist ally Benito Mussolini had been assas-sinated by partisans in the small northern Italian village of Giulino di Mezzegra. With the Western Allies days away from retaking Europe, Poland in the hands of the advancing Red Army and Berlin under relentless siege, the Fuhrer was forced to concede his vision of founding a new empire to last a thousand years lay in tatters, his hope of global conquest for the greater glory of the Teutonic “master race” doomed to end in failure.


He shot himself through the right temple with a 7.65mm Walther PP pistol, biting down on a cyanide capsule as he did so to ensure there would be no question of his survival. His wife, Eva Braun – whom he had married a day earlier in their dank subterranean rooms – followed suit, ensuring that neither would have to face capture by the Russians or answer for the unprecedented atrocities carried out by the Third Reich under his direction. 

Hitler, Braun, propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, his wife Magda and their six children, plus members of the party’s trusted inner circle and staff had taken up residence in the Fuhrerbunker on 16 January as the once-mighty German army found itself pushed to the verge of collapse.... read more:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/adolf-hilter-death-suicide-anniversary-nazi-germany-world-war-2-eva-braun-history-a9488061.html

see also
The Republic of Silence: Jean-Paul Sartre on The Aftermath of War and Occupation (1944)
Sources for German archival materials 
Hitler's Assault on the Golden Rule : by Claudia Koontz (video)


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