Finding the Führerbunker : Hitler's Last Days (WW2 Documentary)

today it's well known that by April 1945 most of the Nazi leadership found themselves cut off and surrounded by Massive Soviet forces in Berlin amongst them were Adolf Hitler and his soon-to-be wife Eva Brown neither would Escape but what really happened in those Final hours and where did the drama unfold in this short video we'll use all the latest available technology and mapping techniques to pinpoint to the very meter where Hitler's bunker lay and what passed there in the final days of his life [Music] first off we need to head to Berlin and the central or Zed Zone as it was known to the city's Defenders this is the area in which a mixture of die-hard Nazis and reluctant old men and young boys found themselves fighting for their lives once the Noose had closed around the capital included in this Central area with a famous reichstag rice chancelloric goring's air Ministry and of course the fury bunker itself for students of this period it's generally understood that the fury bunker was located under this rather non-descript car park and that Hitler committed suicide and his body was burned in this vicinity but where exactly did that happen the first key piece of evidence in finding the exact location of the fury bunker comes from wartime schematics created for the building of the bunker in 1944. it shows a two-level complex the upper part named the vorbonca and the lower part the fura bunker with dozens of rooms protected by meters of reinforced concrete and state-of-the-art gas protection it was a formidable structure now we know from records that the vorbunker pre-existed the fury bunker was used as an air raid shelter until 1943. it was located directly beneath the old rice Chancellor in the heart of Berlin's government quarter and made up around 16 small cell-like rooms which included storage for luggage Provisions a generator toilets a canteen and several small accommodation rooms which would be taken over by the Goebbels family in late April the fury bunker itself came as a later addition completed in 1944 two meters deeper and linked to the war bunker by a single passageway one of the most Junior Personnel in the bunker at that time was radio operator rocus Mich he described his first impression of the fury bunker in detail Donald last couple of steps and finally we were the Deep bunker Hitler's Banker Suite construction work had begun far too late and it was not ready having not dried out because of the remaining dump on the wall it smelled stale I looked around and screwed up my eyes getting accustomed only slowly to the harsh light of the naked lump bolts how minute everything was how sad unready unworthy the rice post technician explains the division of the rooms to me they were no more than cells the corridor was only 50 meters long and divided into two halves by a concrete bulkhead and a door on the left was firefighting equipment and on the other wall a long narrow table with chairs white at the end was another bulkhead behind which was an emergency axis into the Rice kansfly Garden in the first room on the right of the corridor technician hair show worked at his machinery a diesel generator and various pumps which supplied fresh water opposite the Machinery room on the left side where the so-called red rooms a bathroom and toilets immediately adjoining hand Shields was my room with a telephone switchboard which was without the door and opened to the whole floor as well as the telephone room there were four others first one came to an anti-room with a table and four chairs on the left hand side from this room it was possible to access another room occupied by Dr Morel and later Goebbels to the right the corridor went down to linger's room and the surgery and dressing station zenwon reached Hitler's rooms the first one on the left LED immediately into a Lobby from there one went left into a womb intended as Hitler's dressing room but which was taken by IFA Brown the lobby led him to Hitler's study and living rooms even these rooms were only 3.5 by 3.2 meters in size in the living room a sofa and three chairs were squashed together the big furniture pieces made the room look cramped from here one turned white into Hitler's bedroom with a bed in the far corner on the other side one crossed a small floor into a red room with toilet and shower then reached ifa's room here photoshell lamps hung from the ceiling from the central Corridor the second door led into the map room which in the final weeks military situation conferences were held despite its tightness after my first two of the bunker I was greatly relieved to step out into the garden through the emergency exit I began to sense what it meant to have to ensure this over a long period of time and also realize that for me such a time was Dawning as we heard the whole complex was pretty uninspiring perpetually damp concrete walls sparse Furnishing tightly enclosed rooms no natural light and the constant hum of generators and pumps made life highly unpleasant for those in the bunker including Hitler who by mid-april would descend and with the exception of a few short trips to the surface would remain underground for the rest of his life so how do we find out exactly where this bunker was with real accuracy the first step lies in Wartime aerial photographs taken by the allies during flights over Berlin in March 1945. this photograph of the central government District highlights many key buildings the air Ministry the old and new reichs chancellery the Brandenburg gate the spray River and the reichstag these we can use as sort of signpost to accurately identify the spot one of the problems in finding the fewer bunker at post-war Berlin is that the city was so badly damaged in 1945 that many buildings were pulled down and much of the road layout changed when the city was rebuilt but some of those major markers still exist and we know haven't moved so let's take modern Berlin and compare it to the 1945 aerial to recreate Hitler's government quarter as it looked at the time this isn't that simple either we need to know that the original photograph perspective is correct satellite images are generally fine they're taken from a height of around 450 kilometers so we know the imagery is straight down but wartime aerial photos taken at a much lower level are often slightly oblique an error of just a fraction of a degree can throw out an actual positioning by hundreds of meters at the least so we need to triangulate that is to say highlight key positions in Berlin on all corners of this map and compare them to the modern imagery so let's try it these are great markers the bridge over the river spray to the north of the reichstag which still exists in the same spot as in 1945. this corner of the reichstag building which again we know hasn't changed here a distinctly shaped building on the same road which leads to the old reich's chancery and we can see that each of these locations matches with the 1945 image with a good degree of accuracy and that further to the South the edge of the famous potsdammer Platt also fits as it should telling us that the wartime image perspective is accurate and therefore our overlay is correct too so we know that works let's zoom into the government headquarters District here we can see that in the post-war years those famous government buildings have almost all been replaced with blocks of flats restaurants a children's play area and most notably a car park this we know is broadly the area where the reichs chancellor is to be found in 1945. one problem with actually finding the bunker is pretty obvious it's underground which makes aerial reconnaissance of limited use but we do know from this contemporary image of the bunker that a few parts of the complex remained above ground namely an observation tower with a distinctive ConEd roof and a squared emergency exit into the rice chancellery Gardens it's not easy to do with 1945 quality photographs but we can actually identify these key objects right here on the map the Tower and the building are both just about visible and give us a good guideline as to where the bunker was now to add the bunker complex itself using those two above ground points we can blend out the historic map and identify the spots directly beneath on the modern ground by marking these two key locations on the modern view we have at least two accurate points of reference including the distance between them which gives us the scale but to triangulate we need a third this is a bit more difficult we need to consult this excellent 3D plan of both the bunker and the old Chancery Hall to achieve it we can see here that the bunker complex actually starts directly beneath the hull and we can see that on the aerial so by taking common points at the edge of the building and marking those on the new map we can triangulate the exact position of the bunker now we repeat the same process embedding our specially drawn bunker plan into the modern map to identify the exact location with real certainty of exactly where the fura bunker lay interestingly it's slightly further south than many people suppose towards the southern end of the car park and slightly under a block of flats but still in the same vicinity and so it was right here in late April that Hitler and Eva Brown met their end but can we use this same mapping to track those events eyewitness testimony tells us that by the end of April Hitler had finally admitted he was not going to be leaving Berlin alive and that the war was lost which In fairness had been obvious to everybody except him apparently for many months Eva Brown too knew this and seemingly had come to Berlin with the express purpose of dying alongside Hitler to many people's surprise though and notary was called and made a perilous journey through Berlin to reach the bunker it was here just after midnight on the 29th of April that Hitler and Eva Brown married with either famously beginning to sign her surname Brown before Crossing it out and writing Hitler instead unsurprisingly it wasn't much of a honeymoon with the Newlywed spending a little time with the last remaining residents of the bunker including Mr and Mrs Goebbels and their six young children in fact the Hitler's the best man the witnesses and even the notary who performed the marriage would all be dead within days by late on the 29th Russian guns were pounding the government district and Soviet tanks were less than a kilometer away from the bunker around 2 A.M on the 30th Hitler summoned his secretary Charles younger to whom he dictated his last will and testament appointing Admiral Karl dernitz as the new president of Germany on the 30th of April Hitler called his adjutant Otto guncher and valet Heinz linger and informed them of his and Eva's plans to commit suicide with news of the public display and maltreatment of Mussolini's body the day before in Italy Hitler was desperate to escape the same undignified fate and so issued orders that the vehicles in the nearby garage were to be drained of their fuel and their bodies burned after death originally it was believed that Hitler intended to poison himself using cyanide Supply by Heinrich Himmler though when Hitler learned that Himmler had been secretly discussing peace terms with the Allies he feared betrayal and that the poison Himmler had given him would not be effective so instead he tried it on his beloved dog Blondie it worked some short time later after assembling the remaining staff and saying their goodbyes to their Inner Circle Hitler and Ava made their way to this small damp room in the fury bunker where sitting on a couch Ava bit down on a cyanide capsule whilst Hitler simultaneously shot himself in the head with his wealth of pistol a few minutes later linger alongside Martin Borman cautiously opened the door to find Ava her lips purple from the cyanide on the couch with her legs drawn up around her and Hitler by her side killed by a gunshot to the temple linger described what happened next while Poorman went outside to fetch help I spread out the blankets laid the bodies upon them and wrapped them around Ava Hitler was carried out first Borman picked her up in his arms and brought the body over to the room where air his camper took over because he did not like the idea of the man she had despised in life now carrying her to the Grave I reached below Hitler's head two officers from his bodyguard lifted the body wrapped in a gray blanket and we carried him out records tell us that those carrying the bodies travel through the fury bunker and exit via this doorway and that they entered the badly shelled rice Chancery Gardens where they found a showhole in which to place the bodies here's linger again immediately in front of the bunker door in the chancellory garden his body was lit next to ethos in a small depression but gasoline was poured over the bodies and an attempt was made to set them a night at first this proved impossible as there was a fierce wind circulating I returned to the back and made a sixth spell from some signal papers Walmart knitted and sued onto Hitler's petrol's hook body which caught fire immediately standing by the banker entrance we the last Witnesses raised our hand for a last Hitler's salute so where exactly did this take place by turning the clock forward from our map we can reveal modern day Berlin and very likely the exact spot where Ava and Hitler's bodies were burned which is rather fittingly in a totally unremarkable Road Junction next to a non-descript street in Central Berlin with news of Hitler's death spreading many in the bunker later reported feeling like a spell had been broken an individually or in groups most began to flee vainly hoping to escape the fast approaching Soviets most wouldn't make it the Goebbels family were an exception having murdered their six children in their beds with cyanide on the 1st of May they too headed to this same area of the Chancery Gardens where Goebbels drew his pistol shot his wife and then himself the pair also being burned in the show hole Joseph and Magda goebel's bodies would later be positively identified through the device Goebbels War for his club foot which was found amongst the charred remains the goebbel's children wouldn't be found for another two days still in their beds in the bunker within 24 hours of Hitler's death the Russians had captured the reichstag at all meaningful defense in Central Berlin ceased shortly thereafter and the race to find Hitler began shrouded in controversy and secrecy to this day it was unclear as to where and when Hitler's remains were discovered but it was likely about five days later by Soviet troops who kept it a secret from the Western allies in fact Stalin claimed they'd not found him at all and this spawned a long persistent myth that Hitler may have escaped the encirclement of Berlin and fled to safety location unknown the reality is far less dramatic Hitler was found and his almost completely burned remains identified relatively quickly one of the few remnants to survive the fire were Hitler's teeth and part of his lower jaw very quickly the Soviets found Hitler's dentist's assistant and got her to sketch from memory a plan of hit as extensive and almost unique dental work which perfectly matched The Remains discovered in the chancellory gardens not only that but gunsha linger Mish his chauffeur kemka and several other Witnesses all saw Hitler's body were part of the group that burned it and were subject to brutal interrogation by the Soviets about the events for years afterwards had there been another version it would have certainly come out at the time what's more even after repatriation to the West all the witnesses continue to tell the same story The Myth though and it is a myth persisted with sightings the theories around Hitler's Escape continuing to this day so did a seriously ill Hitler even remotely possibly escape the bunker in Berlin well unless there's a tunnel under this spot leading directly to South America he didn't and even if there was he didn't take his teeth with him and a large portion of his jaw both of which today reside in a Moscow archive so what became of the bunker itself as we know the Soviets captured and retained control of Berlin at the end of the war and when the city was later divided into four the bunker remained just inside the Soviet zone some attempts were made to destroy the remnants and above ground sections were destroyed when Redevelopment finally took place in the 1990s some parts of the bunker were uncovered and a few Berlin residents even managed to make their way inside and capture some rare photographs before those visible remnants were destroyed or filled in by work Crews it's likely though not certain that even to this day parts of the bunker complex still exist relatively intact beneath this spot in Berlin and so this unassuming location today still May retain some of its history albeit out of sight to those who walk these streets and maybe that's how it should be personally I think it's fitting that the end of one of the world's most horrific regimes and the man responsible for it is largely unremembered here and the only a Stones throw away lies a powerful Memorial commemorating millions of those he put to death this should be obvious but to clarify the idea behind this video of course is not to commemorate an individual or to condone an ideology but simply to highlight a location where at one time and in one moment history came to pass foreign [Music]

Channel: Battle Guide

Views: 1,684,895

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Id: 7yM1-A0VTi0

Length: 19min 31sec (1171 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 08 2023