Hitler’s suicide

© Time Front page of the Time Magazine on 7 May 1945

From the Neisse River and its bridgeheads on the Oder, the Red Army begins an assault on Berlin on 16 April 1945. One last battle with enormous casualties on both sides takes place at the gates of the Reich’s capital. On 25 April the capital of the Reich is surrounded. Hitler has decided to await the end in Berlin. He sets his last hopes on the vain possibility of an eventual break in the Western-Soviet alliance. When Soviet forward positions reach Berlin’s government sector on 30 April, the „Führer“ takes his own life in his bunker under the Reich Chancellery with a gunshot in the mouth. That frees the way for a German capitulation.