When Hitler Realised the End of the War Was Upon Him
Victory in Europe came on May 8, 1945, when Germany formally surrendered. But the last five days of the Nazi dictator's life were packed with the kind of bizarre episodes possible only when a war has already been lost.
May 8, 2020 marks the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe, or VE Day, the day Nazi Germany signed the instrument of surrender, bringing a formal end to World War Two in Europe. In Russia, Victory Day is celebrated on May 9, because of the time difference.
The death, on April 12, 1945, of President Roosevelt was for Adolf Hitler his last shot of adrenaline. The Fuehrer’s world had been crumbling all around him, unrelentingly, as he lay holed up in his bunker under the Reich Chancellery. And he now clutched at Roosevelt’s death with the demented fury of the addict who has stumbled upon a cache of his favourite drug by chance.
Waving a newspaper clipping at Albert Speer, his minister of armaments, Hitler announced that this was ‘the miracle’ he had always predicted; that Harry Truman, Roosevelt’s successor, would gladly sign for peace with Hitler and that would be the end of all of Germany’s troubles.
As he raved and rambled like a man possessed, Hitler looked up at the picture of Frederick the Great that hung from the wall of his ‘situation room’. It must have crossed his mind just then that the Prussian emperor, whom Hitler considered his guardian angel, had come to his rescue once again. Frederick’s own luck had smiled upon him miraculously when the sudden death of Tsarina Elizabeth persuaded the Tsar to take Russia out of the anti-Prussian coalition in the Seven Years’ War. Berlin had already been occupied and Frederick was on the brink of disaster, but now the tide had turned in his favour. Hitler was convinced that this was his Frederick moment.
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