In the end, what defeated Nazi German leader Adolf Hitler feared most was suffering the public humiliation exacted
In the end, what defeated Nazi German leader Adolf Hitler feared most was suffering the public humiliation exacted upon his fascist counterpart, WWII Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and mistress Clara Petacci.
After being captured and shot on April 28, 1945, both their corpses were beaten, kicked, urinated on and hung upside down at an Esso gas station by an angry mob in downtown Milan.
Isolated in his underground Führerbunker Berlin bomb shelter, Hitler had likely not seen the grisly pictures of their strung up corpses before his own suicide two days later on April 30, 1945.
Upon hearing of Mussolini's fate, Hitler instructed his security officer SS Maj. Otto Günsche to dispose of his and his mistresses’ bodies following their suicides in the bunker.
On April 30, 1945, Russian troops had penetrated Berlin within a quarter mile of Hitler and his bunker underneath the Reich Chancellery when he shot himself in the head and Braun bit into a cyanide capsule.
In accordance with Hitler's written and verbal instructions, his and Braun's bodies were carried up the stairs through the bunker's emergency exit to the garden immediately behind the Reich Chancellery where they were unceremoniously dumped into a muddy bomb crater and burnt using 20 jerrycans of gasoline supplied by Hitler’s chauffeur. The remains were further pulverized by incoming Russian artillery fire.
Having ensured the corpses were burnt beyond recognition, Günsche left the Führerbunker after midnight on May 1, 1945. The following day he was taken prisoner by the Soviet Red Army troops that had encircled the city and flown to Moscow for a gruelling interrogation which included torture and abuse.
On May 2, 1956, after 11 years of Soviet captivity, Günsche was released from custody and allowed to return home.
Immediately after Berlin surrendered on May 2, 1945, the Russians initially claimed that Hitler had escaped. Several years later, after Hitler's dental assistant was released from a Russian prison, it was learned that, as early as May 11, 1945, the Soviets had pieces of Hitler's dental work; forensic proof of a positive indentification. Later, a part of Hitler's skull, found on May 5, 1945, became public and is said to be currently housed in a Russian archive.
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