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April, 1945 in The Bunker (Read 2041 times)
Apr 24th, 2012 at 12:38am

Webb   Offline
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The Battle of Berlin, designated the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation by the Soviet Union, was the final major offensive of the European Theatre of World War II.

Before the battle was over, German Führer Adolf Hitler and a number of his followers committed suicide. The city's defenders finally surrendered on 2 May. However, fighting continued to the north-west, west and south-west of the city until the end of the war in Europe on 8 May (9 May in the Soviet Union) as German units fought westward so that they could surrender to the Western Allies rather than to the Soviets.

No plans were made by the Western Allies to seize the city by a ground operation. U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower lost interest in the race to Berlin and saw no further need to suffer casualties by attacking a city that would be in the Soviet sphere of influence after the war, envisioning excessive friendly fire if both armies attempted to occupy the city at once. The major Western Allied contribution to the battle was the bombing of Berlin during 1945. During 1945 the United States Army Air Forces launched a number of very large daytime raids on Berlin, and for 36 nights in succession scores of RAF Mosquitos bombed the German capital, ending on the night of 20/21 April 1945 just before the Soviets entered the city.
 

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Reply #1 - Apr 24th, 2012 at 9:55pm

Webb   Offline
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Hitler had entrusted Minister of Armaments Albert Speer to enforce a scorched earth policy, which would have reduced Germany to even worse rubble.  Speer promised to comply but refused to enforce the order.

Speer returned to the bunker between April 22-24 and confessed that he had defied the order.  Hitler wrote Speer out of his political will.

Speer was captured by the Allies on May 23 and tried as a war criminal.  He was convicted of crimes against humanity and served 20 years in Spandau Prison (1946-1966).  The Soviets insisted that Nazi war criminals receive no credit for time served before conviction.  He died in 1981.

Speer had designed the New Reich Chancellery, the building where Hitler died.


« Last Edit: Apr 25th, 2012 at 1:26am by Webb »  

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Reply #2 - Apr 29th, 2012 at 1:34am

Webb   Offline
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April 29 - Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun (his mistress/girlfriend of 10 years) are married.

...

This is a great scene in Hitler: The Last Ten Days as the minister is required by German law to ask them if they are "of pure Aryan heritage" before he can officiate the marriage.
« Last Edit: Apr 29th, 2012 at 3:04am by Webb »  

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Reply #3 - Apr 30th, 2012 at 2:13pm

Webb   Offline
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April 30 - After lunch Hitler and Eva retire to his personal study.  A single gunshot is heard.

Hitler has shot himself in the head with his Walther PPK 7.65.  Eva has taken cyanide.

Joseph Goebbels made the announcement.  "The heart of Germany has ceased to beat. The Führer is dead."

There is no time for mourning.  The bodies are carried out of the bunker and burned in a bomb crater as the remaining staff plan their breakout.
 

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Reply #4 - Apr 30th, 2012 at 4:23pm

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http://news.yahoo.com/photos/life-hitler-s-bunker-slideshow/

There are more photos in the link to the right of the picture.  These are rare, previously unpublished photos.
 
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Reply #5 - May 1st, 2012 at 12:49am

Webb   Offline
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Not very glamorous.

...

 

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Reply #6 - May 1st, 2012 at 1:22pm

Webb   Offline
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May 1 - Joseph Goebbels and his wife, Magda, poison their six children before killing themselves.
 

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Reply #7 - May 3rd, 2012 at 2:25am

Webb   Offline
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May 1-2. The breakout. The remaining members of the bunker staff escape in separate groups, each to a different fate.

May 2. Around noon, Russian troops first enter the bunker complex, finding Johannes Hentschel, a mechanic, the sole remaining occupant.  The western allies learn of Hitler's death.

...
 

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Reply #8 - May 3rd, 2012 at 8:18pm

BlackAce   Offline
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Webb wrote on May 1st, 2012 at 12:49am:
Not very glamorous.

[img]


Is that the Führer bunker?
 

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Reply #9 - May 3rd, 2012 at 8:44pm

Webb   Offline
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Yes, that's from Apex's link.

This is a new view of a photograph that appeared, heavily cropped, in LIFE, picturing Hitler's command center in the Berlin bunker, partially burned by retreating German troops and stripped of valuables by invading Russians.
 

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Reply #10 - May 5th, 2012 at 9:36am

Strategic Retreat   Offline
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Webb wrote on May 1st, 2012 at 12:49am:
Not very glamorous.


Nothing of it.

Thinking about the third reich, the words that may come to mind can be: imposing, scary, garish, inhuman, bestial, hateful, degraded, fetishistic, warmongering, lethal, merciless, rotten, dishonorable, militaristic, racist, psychopathic... and so many other not-quite glamorous words.

Nothing of he third reich has ever been glamorous.
 

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Reply #11 - May 5th, 2012 at 5:48pm

Webb   Offline
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Albert Speer's architecture was pretty awesome.
 

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Reply #12 - May 7th, 2012 at 8:52am

BlackAce   Offline
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Happy VE day
 

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Reply #13 - May 7th, 2012 at 2:12pm

Webb   Offline
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Happy VE Day.

The first instrument of Surrender was signed at Reims, France, at 02:41 hours on 7 May 1945. The signing took place in a red brick schoolhouse that served as the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF). It was to take effect at 2301 hours Central European time on 8 May 1945.

The unconditional surrender of the German armed forces was signed by Generaloberst Alfred Jodl, on behalf of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (German language: High Command of armed forces) and as the representative for the new Reich President, Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz. Walter Bedell Smith signed on behalf of the Western Allies, and Ivan Susloparov on behalf of the Soviets. French major general François Sevez signed as the official witness.

Since the Rheims ceremony was arranged by the Western Allies without agreement with the Soviet Command, shortly after the surrender had been signed the latter announced that the Soviet representative in Rheims, General Susloparov, had no authority to sign this document. In addition, it had been found that the document signed in Rheims was different from the draft prepared earlier, which had been approved by the Big Three. Importantly, a part of Wehrmacht refused to lay down their arms and continued to fight in Czechoslovakia; it has been stated in a German radio broadcast that the Germans made peace with the Western Allies, but not with the Soviets.

The Soviets argued that the surrender should be arranged as a unique, singular, historical event. They also believed that it should not be held on liberated territory, that had been victimized by German aggression, but at the seat of Government from where that German aggression sprang from: Berlin. The Soviet side insisted that the act of surrender signed in Rheims should be considered "a preliminary protocol of surrender", so the Allies agreed that another surrender ceremony should take place in Berlin. A second Act of Military Surrender was signed shortly before midnight on 8 May at the seat of the Soviet Military Administration in Berlin-Karlshorst, now the location of the German-Russian Museum Berlin-Karlshorst.
 

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Reply #14 - May 8th, 2012 at 7:50pm

Strategic Retreat   Offline
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Webb wrote on May 5th, 2012 at 5:48pm:
Albert Speer's architecture was pretty awesome.


Coming into the "imposing", "scary" and "garish" range by me mentioned above.

NOT glamorous.
 

There is no such a thing as overkill. Only unworthy targets.
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Reply #15 - May 22nd, 2012 at 1:47pm

Webb   Offline
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Heinrich Himmler, traveling disguised with a false passport, was arrested by British forces on May 22.

He committed suicide by poison the next day.
 

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Reply #16 - May 23rd, 2012 at 8:54am

BlackAce   Offline
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Did he hid a syanide capsul in himself? Or how did he do it? I think the British would have searched him thoughly.
 

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Reply #17 - May 23rd, 2012 at 2:47pm

Webb   Offline
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BlackAce wrote on May 23rd, 2012 at 8:54am:
Did he hid a syanide capsul in himself? Or how did he do it? I think the British would have searched him thoughly.

This story looks as good as any.

Quote:
The doctor examined him minutely for any sign of
concealed poison -- the "SS Cough Drops." This was
the tiny vial of paper-thin glass, just under
half-an-inch long and a quarter-inch wide, filled
with deadly cyanide of potassium which all top
Nazis and SS men carried. At one end it had a
purple seal.

The doctor even looked in Himmler's mouth He
turned to the others. "Nothing!" he said ...

The British doctor had been watching Himmler. He
said later that he was not satisfied. The former SS
chief seemed too smug and self-assured, as though
he held some last trick.

"Come over to the light," he told Himmler. '"I
want to have another look at you. Open your
mouth."

He bent Himmler's head back and with his
forefinger, moved his tongue so he could see
better. He saw the purple seal of the poison vial,
no bigger than a man's little fingernail, tucked
away in a cunning niche between two back
molars.

The doctor made the mistake of uttering some
exclamation. Himmler knew his sure way out had been
discovered. The game was up. It was now or
never

He clamped his jaws hard on the doctor's finger.
The doctor gave a startled cry of pain and jumped
back. And Himmler took his last decision.

With a swift movement of his tongue, he
dislodged the poison vial and crushed it between
his teeth. He gave a gasp of agony as the searing
liquid burned away his life. Then, slowly, he
crumpled up and collapsed on the floor ...
 

A bad day at golf is better than a good day at work.

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Jim
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