Hitler's Final Demise

Factual Questions
1

Ignoring conspiracy theories to the contrary, it appears that Hitler chose to remain in the Fuhrerbunker until the bitter end, at which time he commits suicide.

Since by the bitter end the German military largely had been destroyed I can understand why it would have been pointless to try to escape, but for 4 or 5 months he lived in the bunker, not the nicest of places, presumably because he thought it was the best place for him to be. Surely he could have been flown out of Berlin and hidden somewhere while he managed the end of the war, so why didn’t he flee Berlin when he had the chance?

Did he really think they could turn the tide and win the war? Was there no place for him to go? Did he have a death wish that forbade him from running away in self preservation?

I realize that negotiating with the Allies was out of the question, and that insane dictators don’t do logical things, but even insane people choose to prolong their life if they have a choice.

2

He wanted to go down with the ship. Till the end he was actively participating in the defense of Berlin. Gen Weidling was in charge of the defense of Berlin. "Late in the evening of 26 April, Weidling presented Hitler with a detailed proposal for a breakout from Berlin. When Weidling finished, Hitler shook his head and said: “Your proposal is perfectly all right. But what is the point of it all? I have no intentions of wandering around in the woods. I am staying here and I will fall at the head of my troops. You, for your part, will carry on with your defense.”

3

Fleeing is an admission of defeat

4

A very interesting book is the autobiography Soldat. Seigfried Knappe had an interesting career mostly by luck. He was a young artillery officer before the war started. He fought on most of the fronts and was wounded several times but each time seemed to be luckier than the last. He was evacuated from each front before the total collapse because of his wounds but none were life threatening. At the end he was in Berlin on Gen Weidling’s staff. He often had to run messages form the Army HQ to the bunker. He met Hitler multiple times and saw what was going on at the end. The movie Downfall was partly based on his memoirs. He spent the next 5 years in a Russian prison camp.

5

"During the early hours of April 30, as the Soviet forces continued to fight their way into the center of Berlin, German dictator Adolf Hitler married Eva Braun in the Führerbunker.

Late in the morning of April 30, with the Soviets less than 500 metres from the bunker, Hitler had a meeting with Weidling, who informed him that the Berlin garrison would probably run out of ammunition that night. Weidling asked Hitler for permission to break out, a request he had made unsuccessfully before. Hitler did not answer at first, and Weidling went back to his headquarters in the Bendlerblock, where at about 13:00, he received Hitler’s permission to try a breakout that night.

Hitler and Braun committed suicide, Braun by taking cyanide and Hitler by shooting himself. Some witnesses later reported hearing a loud gunshot at around 15:30. Per instructions, their bodies were burned."

All from wiki but well cited.

6

How many demises did he have before the final one?

7

He got better.

8

That answers the questions how and where, but it doesn’t answer the question why. Apparently he wanted to go down with his troops, and I get that, but why not pick up a rifle and lead the final charge against the Russians and die in battle? Why off yourself in a bunker in the middle of Berlin? Why not off yourself in a lodge up in the mountains? He told at least a few people that he was going to kill himself so that was neither a secret nor a rallying point for the troops (I doubt they knew what he was thinking).

9

Additionally, I saw in the wonderful documentary “Apocalypse: The Second World War” that Hitler was suspicious about the cyanide, so a week or so prior to their own demise, he had his beloved German Shepard, Blondie, ingest one of the cyanide pills, to ensure it was real. It was. Maybe he only had the two to start with, so he took a bullet instead of cyanide.

Seems he decided long before the end that there was no winning and no escape for him.

10

You were given examples of what he was saying to people in the bunker. There are no eyewitnesses to what was happening in his head.

I suspect that he felt with Berlin gone, Germany was gone. He had nothing left to live for. He did not want to charge and die in battle because he did not want to give the Russians the satisfaction. He even wanted to deny them his dead body. He did not want to end up like Mussolini, dragged through the street and hung up by his heels.

11

Charging out of the Bunker would risk being captured, which he understandably wanted to avoid. And I don’t think its obvious that killing himself up in the mountains was particularly superior to doing it in Berlin.

Also, his Parkinson’s (and possibly other ailments as well) reportedly became worse in the final months of his life, so the degree to which he was up to ducking around Berlin in an attempted break-out isn’t really clear.

12

Where’s he going to go? By April, 1945, Hitler’s sort of out of good options when it comes to retirement planning. There’s not really any place for him to go that’s safer than his bunker.

13

nm

14

I’ve made a study of the period so hope I can add a few things along with Loach’s salient points.

At Stalingrad, Hitler promoted Paulus to Field Marshall. It was a not so subtle hint that he should commit suicide, immolate himself along with the Sixth Army rather than capitulate. When he found out that he Paulus had instead surrendered to the Soviets he was furious. It had spoiled the heroic narrative. Likewise in Berlin he viewed his own death as part of his ‘great man’ mythos to inspire future National Socialists. He dictated just before his date with a burning ditch;
“From the sacrifice of our soldiers and from my own unity with them unto death, will in any case spring up in the history of Germany, the seed of a radiant renaissance of the National-Socialist movement and thus of the realization of a true community of nations.”

The OSS compiled a psychological report on Hitler during the war and included predictions on his likely fates, stating that suicide was the most likely.
*This [suicide] is the most plausible outcome. Not only has he frequently threatened to commit suicide, but from what we know of his psychology it is the most likely possibility… He knows how to bind the people to him and if he cannot have the bond in life he will certainly do his utmost to achieve it in death. He might even engage some other fanatic to do the final killing at his orders.

Hitler has already envisaged a death of this kind, for he has said to Rauschning:
“Yes, in the hour of supreme peril I must sacrifice myself for the people.” *

As for why he didn’t go out fighting, although he was no physical coward (he was a runner in WWI, an extremely dangerous task) as well as being a decrepit shell of himself by the war’s end his bigger fear was being wounded, captured and paraded around in a cage. To avoid this ultimate humiliation he decided against any direct contact with the enemy. The OSS opined that the possibility was not unlikely and extremely undesirable from our view;
*"Hitler might get killed in battle.

This is a real possibility. When he is convinced that he cannot win, he may lead his troops into battle and expose himself as the fearless [Page 245] and fanatical leader. This would be most undesirable from our point of view because his death would serve as an example to his followers to fight on with fanatical, death-defying determination to the bitter end. This would be what Hitler would want for he has predicted that:

"We shall not capitulate...no, never. We my be destroyed, but if we are, we shall drag a world with us...a world in flames." .

"But even if we could not conquer them, we should drag half the world into destruction with us and leave no one to triumph over Germany. There will not be another 1918." *

As for why he didn’t just flee. The last sentence of the previous paragraph says it all; there would not be another 1918. To say Hitler was obsessed with the end of World War One is putting it mildly, it went hand in hand with his hatred of Jews in defining his political career. The Novemberverbrecher, November Criminals, he believed had betrayed Germany in 1918, sold out her soldiers, made a mockery of battlefield sacrifice. In Mein Kampf he wrote;
*"Was there no obligation toward our own history? Were we still worthy to relate the glory of the past to ourselves? And how could this deed be justified to future generations?

Miserable and degenerate criminals!

The more I tried to achieve clarity on the monstrous event in this hour, the more the shame of indignation and disgrace burned my brow. What was all the pain in my eyes compared to this misery?"*

In other words to be seen in German history alongside those who had stabbed her in the back in 1918 was, literally, a fate worse than death.

15

If he’d wanted he could have escaped earlier to his Alpine retreat at Berchtesgaden (there was a vague concept floating around about a ‘National Redoubt’ in the Bavarian Alps), but rejected it because he thought staying in Berlin would sound better to history.
*
‘I’d regard it as a thousand times more cowardly to commit suicide on the Obersalzberg than to stand and fall here,’ he stated. ‘They shouldn’t say: “You, as the Führer…” I’m only the Führer as long as I can lead. And I can’t lead through sitting somewhere on a mountain, but have to have authority over armies that obey. Let me win a victory here, however difficult and tough, then I’ve a right again to do away with the sluggish elements who are constantly causing an obstruction.'*
Quoted in Kershaw, Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis.

16

To the degree that Hitler was making rational decisions in 1945, this one made sense. Hitler realized he now faced a serious threat from other Germans. There was no way Hitler personally could negotiate his way out of the war. But Hitler would be a significant bargaining chip for any other high-ranking German looking to cut a deal.

So if Hitler had been traveling around Germany, there’s a reasonable chance he would have been assassinated or taken prisoner as a prelude to be surrendered to the Soviets or Americans.

Hitler decided to keep himself safe from this fate by holing up in his bunker with a handful of loyalists.

17

Hitler was very stubborn and bullheaded and achieved much of his success in life by a Steve Jobs reality distortion field (way to Woznize the thread TSS!). Also remember that in WWI he was remembered for being fearless until finally blinded (psychosomatically) in a mustard gas attack. He was a mind over matter and reality sort of person.

18

Hitler didn’t want to end up like Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci: shot and their bodies displayed publicly hanging upside down from meat hooks. He ans Eva figured it was better to commit suicide and have their bodies burned by their remaining loyal minions. So shooting it out with the Russian army was a no-go.

19

Nowadays known as the “Lane Kiffin Career Trajectory”.

20

I think the OP was questioning why Hitler stayed in the bunker for several months before the Russians reached Berlin.