Original subtitles

Berlin. April 1945.

Nazi Germany is about to fall.

Hiding in an underground bunker beneath the city is Adolf Hitler,

the man who plunged the world into six years of total war.

Hitler had sworn to make the Nazis a world power,

inspiring his adoring people with his vision of a thousand-year rule.

His armies had ravaged over three million square miles of Europe

and ignited a world war that killed 55 million people.

Now, Hitler's world is shrivelled

to a few cramped rooms below the ruins of Berlin.

Above him, the Soviet army advances through the city,

tightening the noose as they hunt as they hunt down the Nazi leader.

For the first time on British television,

this film goes inside Hitler's bunker

to hear previously untold stories of those last desperate days,

in extraordinary film interviews

which have never been seen before in the UK.

We hear, from the people who were there,

what happened the day Hitler died.

The army major who knew that to admit defeat to the Fuhrer meant death.

He wanted to live.

He loved power like a miser loves gold.

The secretary who typed Hitler's last will and political testament.

For years, he had been taking medicines, drugs and injections.

The leader of the Hitler Youth,

who was the first to see the Fuhrer's body.

The blast of the pistol

had ruptured the veins on either side of his head.

These witnesses from inside Hitler's bunker

were filmed just after World War II.

Their testimonies lay forgotten in American archives for almost 70 years

and have only recently been rediscovered.

Did he expect others to commit suicide with him?

Yes. Eva Braun.

The bunker became a mortuary and the people in it living corpses.

None of these witnesses had ever spoken on camera before.

Their memories have allowed us to reconstruct in detail the bunker,

and the actions of the people

who witnessed the end of the Nazi Third Reich

and Hitler's final hours.

Was there any doubt in your mind that he was going to die?

None whatsoever.

This is the last time that Adolf Hitler is ever seen in public.

The last time he is ever captured on film.

He's been Fuhrer of Nazi Germany for 12 years.

But at this moment, as he awards medals to boys of the Hitler Youth forced into combat,

he is days away from defeat - and from death.

Hitler's troops once occupied most of Europe.

But now the Third Reich is reduced to a desperate defence of Berlin.

The German capital is surrounded.

British and American forces fight in the west

and the ferocious Soviet army advances from the east.

The man who conquered over three million square miles of Europe

is now confined to a claustrophobic underground bunker.

Buried 30 feet beneath his headquarters,

the Fuhrerbunker was constructed in 1944

in response to heavier Allied bombing.

The ceiling and walls are 12 feet thick,

encasing a network of 16 cramped rooms.

Lying below the city's sewage system,

four flights of steps lead into this subterranean refuge...

..where Hitler has been holed up for four months.

The corridor is decorated with looted art.

A grandfather clock in Hitler's study is the only way of telling the time.

His private sitting room is crammed with oversized furniture

brought down from his headquarters above.

Next to his bed stands an oxygen tank

in case the ventilation should fail.

Hitler disappears into this underworld for the final time in April 1945.

The only people who know what happened in the bunker

are those trapped here with him.

Six months after the war has ended, the Nuremberg War Crime Trials begin.

Nazi leaders are prosecuted for crimes against humanity.

But Hitler isn't on the list.

There are rumours he's still alive.

Nuremberg Judge and US Navy lawyer Captain Michael Musmanno

decides to track down eye witnesses to Hitler's final days.

His mission: to prove the Fuhrer is dead.

Musmanno's search takes him across Germany.

Over two years, he speaks to more than 100 people,

everywhere from prisons, internment camps, and in hiding.

In 1948, Musmanno captures his findings on film.

I have brought a number of eye witnesses

on the subject of Hitler's disappearance.

In their own words,

they will tell you what happened to the Fuhrer of Germany.

The witnesses Musmanno brings together

are surviving members of Hitler's civilian and military staff

who were with him in the Fuhrerbunker.

They've never been interviewed on camera before

and need to rehearse their statements in English,

or speak through a translator.

The first witness will be Frau Traudl Junge, Hitler's secretary.

Traudl Junge started working for Hitler in 1942,

when she was only 22 years old.

Once, she'd dreamed of being a dancer.

War put an end to that.

Hitler selected her because she was from Bavaria, his favourite part of Germany.

She married an SS officer from Hitler's staff.

He died in combat a year later.

Frau Junge, what did your duties consist of as Hitler's secretary?

At first, I received and distributed

personal mail addressed to the Fuhrer.

There were many women who had nothing better to do

than to write to him every week.

Were these communications in the nature of love letters?

Yes.

Did these enthusiastic women receive replies to their love effusions?

None at all.

By April 1945, no-one writes love letters to the Fuhrer.

As Berlin burns and the Soviet army closes in,

Hitler hides in his underground bunker.

Secretary Traudl Junge is down here with him.

Frau Junge, what was Hitler's health in April 1945?

His health was very bad.

For years, he had been taking medicines, drugs and injections.

During his last days, he had a constant tremor in his hands.

And in front of strangers,

I think he was a little ashamed of his affliction.

And would try to hide it.

As the Soviets fight their way into Berlin,

Hitler refuses to accept the war is lost.

He is attended in the bunker by more than a dozen generals,

adjutants and aides-de-camp.

Twice a day he calls a military conference in an airless room

where only HE is permitted to sit.

One of the military men trapped with Hitler

is Baron von Loringhoven.

He's an aristocrat with the rank of major

but has never joined the Nazi party.

He has a wife and young son and has come to regard Hitler as insane.

Baron Loringhoven,

how large was the map room in which you held your conferences?

It was about three by four metres.

And with 15 people crowded into it, the atmosphere was stifling.

But what did you have to discuss? The war was lost.

Yes. But no-one dared to mention defeat to Hitler.

To do so, one could lose one's life.

In addition, one's entire family would be jeopardised.

We still kept up his hopes by hinting at secret weapons

and of dissensions between the Allies.

One and a half million Soviet soldiers begin entering Berlin.

The German defenders are outnumbered three to one.

They know that the war is lost.

But Hitler has been losing his grip on reality for weeks.

The bunker is within range of the Soviet guns,

yet he still thinks he can fight back.

Heinz Lorenz is the Fuhrerbunker's press attache.

He's been part of Hitler's inner circle throughout the war,

and often sits up late with the Fuhrer, talking and drinking tea.

Mr Lorenz, I should like to have you tell me

the most impressive moments that you associate with Hitler.

Well, there were two such moments.

The first occurred April 12th, when I brought him the news

that Roosevelt, the President of the United States, had passed away.

RADIO: "From his beloved second home at Warm Springs, Georgia,

the body of Franklin Delano Roosevelt

moves on the first stages of its journey to his final resting place."

Hitler went into a dance and congratulated himself

as if he had himself brought about this event.

He exclaimed, 'This will mean I will win the war. This is our victory'.

Ten days later, the other event occurred.

And this time, his feelings went to the other extreme.

The Red Army juggernaut rolls into the northern part of Berlin.

The only defence here is a ragtag collection of inexperienced units.

Hitler orders them to attack the Soviets,

warning that the fate of the German capital is in their hands.

It's a suicide mission and Hitler's soldiers refuse.

His armies were defeated on all fronts.

And Berlin was threatened.

He ordered his troops forward to stop the advance

but the troops failed to attack.

The shock of realisation that he, Adolf Hitler, had been disobeyed,

and that complete disaster was inevitable,

was too much for him.

He collapsed and he said, 'It's all over and I'll shoot myself'.

For over a decade, Hitler's been, in the eyes of his followers,

an invincible demi-god.

Now his inner circle are stunned by this announcement.

Secretary Traudl Junge sees him moments later.

Did you ever hear him mention suicide?

Yes. After April the 22nd he talked about it constantly.

In order that there should be no doubt about his death,

he made plans to take poison

and at the same time shoot himself with his pistol.

Hitler orders his safe emptied and the contents burned.

He also removes his Walther PPK pistol from the safe.

And sits with it, staring at a portrait of Frederick the Great,

the Prussian king who also vowed to kill himself

when the Russians threatened Berlin.

What was your attitude

regarding Hitler's intention to commit suicide?

I told him, if he intended to die,

the place to die would be in battle, leading his troops.

But he said he feared that he might only be wounded and captured

and then the Russians would degrade him.

Did he expect others to commit suicide with him?

Yes. Eva Braun.

Eva Braun first met Hitler in 1929, when she was 17

and working for a Nazi party photographer.

Although 23 years younger than him,

Braun has been Hitler's mistress for 14 years.

But the relationship is being kept hidden from the German people.

Hitler wants to remain attractive to his female admirers

and has groomed Braun to refrain from public displays of affection.

Their private life together in the bunker

is confined to a few small concrete rooms.

They sleep separately.

She's here in the bunker against Hitler's wishes

but refuses to leave.

Braun's family do not approve of her affair with the Fuhrer.

Her sister, Ilse Braun,

knew that Eva's relationship with Hitler was doomed.

Madame Braun, what was Hitler's health like when you last saw him?

His face was grey as ashes.

His hands were in a constant state of agitation

and his eyes were glassy.

He was bent over like an old man.

It seemed to me he didn't have the energy to live much longer.

To those who knew details of Braun and Hitler's relationship,

it is no surprise she wanted to die with him.

Mrs Winter, how long did you keep house for Hitler?

(HE TRANSLATES AND SHE REPLIES IN GERMAN)

15 years.

(SPEAKS GERMAN)

Of course, Eva Braun was a regular visitor.

(SPEAKS GERMAN)

There was a time when Eva Braun wanted Hitler to marry her.

(SPEAKS GERMAN)

Hitler said, 'I shall never marry but you may remain my girlfriend.'

(SPEAKS GERMAN)

She was very unhappy over this situation

and attempted suicide.

She shot herself in the breast

but she did not seriously injure herself.

As Hitler and Eva Braun contemplate ending their lives,

a powerful influence in the Reich tells them to wait.

Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister,

is the Fuhrer's most fanatical follower.

He persuades Hitler not to take his life...yet.

Rather, he says, use his willingness to face death

to inspire Germany to fight on to the end.

Goebbels will make a radio broadcast,

announcing that the Fuhrer will die fighting with his troops defending Berlin.

Then, the propaganda minister brings his family into the bunker.

His six children, five girls and a boy, call Hitler 'Uncle Adolf'.

His wife, Magda, is a fanatical Nazi.

The Goebbels have been presented to Germany as the Third Reich's modelfamily.

Now they will be at the Fuhrer's side in his final hours

as an example to all Germans.

It becomes apparent that the Goebbels children have no change of clothes.

And then the Nazi propaganda minister and his wife make a horrifying announcement.

Goebbels and Mrs Goebbels announced

they didn't want to live after the Fuhrer had gone.

And so they talked all day long on how they were going to die.

Minister Goebbels and his wife

arranged to have their six children poisoned as well.

Frau Goebbels declares that she doesn't wish her children to live in a world without National Socialism.

The rank atmosphere in the bunker is recharged with Nazi fervour.

Generals Krebs and Bergdorf announce that they too will die with the Fuhrer.

He was passing around poison phials. Did you get one?

No. I wasn't within the immediate entourage,

nor had I any desire to paint my lips.

Well, what do you mean by that?

The poison was contained in a receptacle

which looked like a lipstick

and those who received them regarded them as a great treasure.

What kind of poison was to be used?

Cyanide Potassium.

It was contained in a little phial which fitted in a brass container.

Just like this.

He gave me one with the others.

Did you intend to commit suicide also?

Well, I didn't intend to die

just because Hitler was going to end his life.

I intended to use the poison

only if war conditions compelled me,

or in the event of a personal attack.

Conversation in the bunker is dominated by the idea of suicide.

But some people reject the notion.

Major Johannmeier is Hitler's army adjutant.

He's a veteran of the Russian Front and won the Iron Cross for bravery.

Major Johannmeier, did you receive one of the poison phials

which Hitler distributed, according to the testimony of other witnesses?

No. I was a soldier and did not want to die by poison.

I wanted to fight and if I had to die, die honourably.

But Hitler allows no-one to leave the bunker without his permission.

And few believe they're going to get out alive.

30 feet above the bunker, in the ruins of Berlin,

thousands of Germans are already dead.

The Red Army has completely encircled the city

and meets up with US troops in the west.

General Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces

has agreed to let the Soviets take Berlin.

They want Hitler alive

and as they fight their way to the Fuhrerbunker, street by street,

they're calling it the biggest manhunt in history.

Hitler tries one last desperate tactic to save himself.

50 miles to the southwest of Berlin is the 12th German army,

commanded by General Wenck.

It faces the American advance on the River Elbe.

Hitler orders Wenck and his 70,000 men

to about turn and come to his aid.

Hitler hoped that Wenck's army would break through to relieve Berlin.

Where was Wenck?

On the Elbe. He stormed ahead with a few troops as far as Potsdam

but he was hopelessly outnumbered and out-equipped.

The Soviet bombardment now homes in on Hitler's position.

Shells land so close to the bunker, it shakes,

filling the air and covering the surfaces with concrete dust.

The lights frequently fail.

Each day, Hitler takes tea and crumpets with his secretary.

And each day he demands to know when Wenck will come.

But unknown to Hitler, Wenck has disobeyed the order to relieve Berlin

and is instead helping civilians flee.

Nonetheless, each day Hitler wanted to know where Wenck was.

But Baron, hadn't Hitler already decided to die?

Yes. But he wanted to live.

He loved power like a miser loves gold.

For five days, Hitler clings to the delusion

that his army will relieve Berlin.

Baron von Loringhoven's duty

is to provide the Fuhrer with intelligence updates.

But the bunker is now cut off from radio contact with the military.

He resorts to using a Berlin telephone directory

to call addresses in the city.

If a Russian voice answers, he knows that sector is taken.

If it's German, he asks them to look out of the window and tell him what's happening.

By April 28th, the Russians are less than 500 metres from the bunker.

Hitler still clings on.

Then he receives news that changes everything.

Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS

and the second most powerful man in the Reich, has betrayed him.

From the relative safety of German occupied territory in the north,

he's trying to negotiate peace with the Americans.

The news is picked up via a bulletin on the BBC World Service,

now virtually the only contact Hitler's staff has with the outside world.

Now, Baron Loringhoven, just when did Hitler abandon all hope?

When Hitler heard that Himmler

had tried to surrender to the western powers,

he raged and declared

that never would a traitor succeed him as Fuhrer.

Hitler orders Himmler's representative in the bunker,

General Fegelein, to be shot.

Fegelein is Eva Braun's brother-in-law,

married to her pregnant sister.

Hitler's mistress begs for his life

but the plea is refused.

Then Hitler begins dictating his final will and political testament

to Traudl Junge.

He starts by blaming the Jews for the war.

He dictated it to me the night of April 28th.

I must frankly say that the will was very disappointing.

I thought that in it he would try to justify what he has done

and why Germany found itself in its present situation.

So that he might offer to show some way out of our horrible tragedy.

But he repeated the same old arguments

he had used over and over in all his speeches.

The will also reveals that Hitler is prepared to give his mistress what she's always craved.

Although never mentioning her by name,

it states that in return for her loyalty

and willingness to die with him,

he will at last marry Eva Braun.

Just over an hour after executing her brother-in-law,

Hitler emerges from his room with Eva Braun on his arm.

She wears a black sequinned dress,

her eyes are radiant with happy tears.

Hitler wears his usual tunic.

Goebbels acts as best man in the hastily arranged ceremony

and the bride and groom, adhering to the legal requirements of a Nazi wedding,

both declare that they are of pure Aryan descent

and free from hereditary disease.

As Eva signs the wedding certificate, she writes the letter B for Braun

before scoring it out and writing Hitler.

What happened at the end?

He married Eva Braun and prepared for his suicide.

Was there a wedding celebration?

There was a little party and they drank champagne.

Hitler did not drink any champagne because he was dictating his will.

Hitler returns to dictating his will,

stating that he and his new wife will take their lives

rather than face the shame of defeat and surrender.

Their bodies are to be burned.

It also urges his successors to continue the fight.

The documents are to be couriered out of the bunker,

through Soviet lines to territory still held by Germany.

When did you last see Adolf Hitler?

The morning of April 29th.

He directed me to take a copy of his will to Field Marshal Schorner

and emphasised the importance of the mission.

What was the atmosphere of that last conversation with Hitler?

We both realised we would never see each other again.

Was there any doubt in your mind that he was going to die?

None whatsoever.

Having married Eva Braun and written his last will and political testament,

urging his followers to continue the fight,

all Adolf Hitler has left to do is take his life.

Now, in his final hours,

the Fuhrer's paranoia reaches new heights in the claustrophobic bunker.

What was Hitler's mood during this period?

He was depressed and suspicious of everybody.

He even now suspected that the poison

would only make him unconscious

and he would be turned over alive to the Allies.

So he decided to test the poison.

On whom did he test the poison?

On his best friend.

Namely?

Blondi.

Who was Blondi? His dog.

What was the result of the test? The dog died.

Trapped in the bunker with him,

his staff know the reign of the Fuhrer will soon be over.

Hitler moved about like a living dead man.

He couldn't bear to be alone.

And he walked around from person to person.

Before, everybody had an awe of him.

Now he excited no fear or sensation.

The people in the bunker even smoked.

Something no-one had dared to do in 12 years in his presence.

Even Eva Braun, who had never smoked before, had a cigarette on that day.

The bombardment of Berlin intensifies.

The bunker's sewage pipes rupture and the toilets overflow,

filling the corridor and rooms with the reek of urine.

The generals get drunk.

The bunker became a mortuary and the people in it living corpses.

The atmosphere was very depressing and funereal.

And I had no desire to remain.

If I was going to die,

I preferred death on the battlefield as a soldier.

How did you get out of the bunker?

I asked my superior, Officer General Krebs,

if I could try to join General Wenck's army still in the field.

He got Hitler's permission. I saluted and left.

What was Hitler's demeanour as you actually left?

He had a collected and concentrated expression

as if he had closed everything

and was no more interested in minor people like ourselves.

A British radio broadcast is picked up in the bunker

late on the evening of April 29th,

describing the fate of Hitler's ally,

the Italian Fascist dictator Mussolini.

"Milan was in a state of the wildest excitement at this time

because the partisans had just killed Mussolini.

The bodies of the ex-dictator, his mistress and fellow fascists

were left lying in the square and the enraged Italians

took the opportunity of kicking them and flinging rubbish on them.

The final ghastly scene was the hanging of the bodies upside down outside a petrol station.

Well, at least it's a warning to all remaining fascists everywhere."

Did Hitler hear of the death of Mussolini?

Yes, he did

and I think that this unnerved him more than anything else.

He had a great fear that if captured, dead or alive,

his body would be exposed to ridicule and degradation.

In the early hours of April 30th,

Hitler orders an assembly of the Fuhrerbunker staff.

Baroness Irmengard von Varo is a German aristocrat

sheltering in the bunker from the Red Army.

Now she volunteers as a waitress.

At 2:30 in the morning, I was awakened,

and instructed to report to the Fuhrer's rooms.

My eyes heavy with sleep,

I made my way underground to the corridor in the Fuhrerbunker.

I saw a strange figure. It looked like a ghost.

I saw it was Hitler.

He was absolutely shrunken.

He was hanging in his clothes.

His eyes were glaring into emptiness.

His hands were shaking like leaves in a storm.

Hitler thanks his staff for their loyal service.

He shook hands with each one of us like an old man going to his grave

and then he said goodbye to all of us.

I made some foolish remarks about keeping up courage

but I am sure he did not hear me or pay any attention

and then, dragging his feet, he slowly went out.

The Soviets are 200 metres away.

Hitler is informed that the Fuhrerbunker would be breached at anymoment.

He attempts to step outside but the shelling is too intense.

A conference is held. There is nothing to say.

Hitler instructs his adjutant, Otto Gunsche, to procure enough gasoline

to ensure that his and his wife's bodies are incinerated.

Tell us about the 30th.

We had lunch together. Hitler, Eva Braun and myself.

There was an attempt at normal conversation.

But everybody could feel the presence of death.

Hitler is vegetarian and the last meal he and Eva Braun eat

is spaghetti with cabbage and raisin salad.

How did Eva Braun take all this business of dying?

She loved the Fuhrer and she was willing to die with him.

But still she loved life.

She was a very lively person

and had a great spirit of good living.

Once she had agreed to die with Hitler,

I think she was like a child in the dark.

She asked Hitler, 'Will it hurt?

I don't mind dying heroically but it must be painless'.

And she laughed but it was not laughter which comes from the heart.

What did Hitler say to this?

Oh, he went into details.

He said, 'The immediate effect of the poison

will be a paralysation of the respiratory tissues

and then of the heart.

That will occur only after a few minutes.

But the pains will cease after a few seconds

of the tissue convulsions occurring.

Eva Braun changes.

She chooses Hitler's favourite dress.

Black with white roses around the neck.

She does her hair.

And paints her nails.

After lunch, I retired in one of the rooms.

At about 2:30, Gunsche, who was Hitler's SS adjutant,

called me out to the corridor.

Here I saw Hitler with Eva Braun on his arm, giving his final farewells.

I was the last person to whom he offered his hand.

It was very limp.

He looked at me but I don't think he saw me.

I don't think he saw anybody.

Hitler and his wife retired to their rooms.

Magda Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister's wife,

and mother of his six children, appears at Hitler's door.

For days, she has shut herself away in her room.

Now, she demands to see Hitler.

The adjutant relents and knocks.

Hitler opens the door

and Frau Goebbels bursts into a desperate plea.

She knows that when the Fuhrer dies, she will have to carry out her vow

to not only kill herself, but also poison her children,

and implores Hitler to escape and live on.

Hitler's refusal is brusque.

No-one will see the Fuhrer alive again.

Artur Axmann, leader of the Hitler Youth, arrives.

He joined the Nazi party at 15 and started the first Hitler Youth group

to indoctrinate children and teenagers into National Socialism.

He's recruited thousands of boys as young as 12 to defend Berlin

and they are taking heavy casualties.

He's here for his daily conference with the Fuhrer.

I arrived there at about 3: 00 in the afternoon.

I went to the room but the door was closed.

And Gunsche, his SS adjutant, was standing outside.

He motioned me to silence

and I went back to the conference room and waited with Goebbels.

(EXPLOSIONS)

The bombardment above resumes with renewed intensity.

The bunker personnel wait for the Fuhrer to finally carry out the act

he's been threatening for the last eight days.

Suddenly I thought of the Goebbels children.

My heart went out in sympathy with them.

Because I knew they were marked for death too.

And I was afraid that just in that moment,

the children would want to see him.

I knew that at any moment now, Hitler would take his life.

(GUNSHOT)

And that, Captain Musmanno, was the shot which finished Adolf Hitler.

Goebbels and I ran back to Hitler's room and entered it.

We found Eva Braun sitting on the sofa,

her head resting on Hitler's left shoulder.

She wore a black chiffon dress. She was dead.

But she had no marks of violence on her body.

She died of poison.

Hitler's lower jaw was slightly distorted.

It was obvious he had shot himself in the mouth.

On either side of his temples, I saw drops of blood.

The blast of the pistol

had ruptured the veins on either side of his head.

The sofa was stained with blood and his pistol lay at his feet.

I remained with the corpses about ten minutes.

Then I returned to the conference room and from this point

saw Hitler's and Eva Braun's bodies being carried out of the bunker.

But for Hitler's staff, there is still one more ordeal to come.

For 12 years, Adolf Hitler was leader of Nazi Germany.

For six years, he inflicted the chaos and catastrophe

of a global war that claimed 55 million lives.

Now Hitler lies dead by his own hand.

The Third Reich is over.

In accordance with his orders,

the bodies of Hitler and his wife are to be burned.

His staff must get them outside.

Erich Kempka, the Fuhrer's chauffeur since 1934, carries Eva Braun.

Mr Kempka, please tell us about the events of April 30th.

(SPEAKS GERMAN)

I turned over Eva Braun's body to Gunsche.

(SPEAKS GERMAN)

And he laid her down next to Hitler's corpse.

Hitler and Braun's bodies are laid in a shell crater.

180 litres of gasoline lie waiting at the bunker exit.

(SPEAKS GERMAN)

We then picked up the cans and poured gasoline over both bodies.

Fuhrerbunker guard Hermann Karnau approaches the scene.

(SPEAKS GERMAN)

Hitler was wrapped up in a blanket which had opened up.

(SPEAKS GERMAN)

I saw his face covered with blood.

(SPEAKS GERMAN)

All the time, the Russian artillery were shelling the Reich Chancellery.

(SPEAKS GERMAN)

We had to take shelter in the concrete entrance to the bunker.

(SPEAKS GERMAN)

Here, Gunsche lighted a rag...

(SPEAKS GERMAN)

..and threw it to the bodies.

(SPEAKS GERMAN)

Both bodies were in full flame when I left.

Hermann Karnau has kept watch over the funeral pyre

for the last two hours.

(SPEAKS GERMAN)

The bodies were still burning.

(SPEAKS GERMAN)

And the flesh moved up and down.

(SPEAKS GERMAN)

I touched the burning remains which were lying before me with my feet.

And they fell apart.

(SPEAKS GERMAN)

Almost frozen, I remained fixed to the spot

and lifted my arm in salute.

The incinerated remains of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun

are buried in the shell crater.

(RADIO TUNING)

"This is London calling.

Here is a news flash.

The German radio has just announced that Hitler is dead.

I'll repeat that.

The German radio has just announced that Hitler is dead."

24 hours later, Soviets enter and loot the deserted Fuhrerbunker.

They find the charred remains of Goebbels and his wife.

They've shot themselves and their bodies have been burned.

They also find the bodies of the six poisoned Goebbels children.

The Soviets dig up what's left of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun

and identify the Fuhrer using his dental records.

No-one is certain what happened to the remains.

And they are never shown to the western powers.

Stalin, the Russian dictator,

suggests Hitler escaped Berlin and is still alive.

The rumour marks the beginning of the mistrust and disinformation

that will define the coming cold war.

By the time Captain Musmanno concludes his investigation in 1948,

there's been no trace of Hitler for three years.

There can be no doubt that Adolf Hitler,

the Fuhrer of Germany,

the master criminal of the world,

the greatest gangster who ever disgraced...the human race,

is dead.

Michael Musmanno's interview footage is never seen by the public.

He sends a copy to Hollywood

but the mood of the western world has changed.

It wants to forget Hitler and the war.

And instead look forward to a brighter new future.

The film is only rediscovered in an American university archive in 2013.

Today, the site of the Fuhrerbunker in Berlin

where Hitler died and his body was burned

is a car park.

subtitles by Deluxe