# Why didn't hitler escape? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 20, 2017, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-hitler-escape/782629 "2017-03-20T17:50:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-hitler-escape/782629/1 "2017-03-20T17:50:45Z")
It seems to me odd that Hitler didn’t try to escape Germany. He knew which way the war was going and he certainly could have gotten to a U-boat and got out of dodge. Did he really kill himself out of some sense of honor that prevented him from fleeing? ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-hitler-escape/782629/2 "2017-03-20T17:57:12Z")
[Who says he didn’t](http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/life/725536/Adolf-Hitler-Nazi-Germany-die-bunker-escape-submarine-Argentina)? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-hitler-escape/782629/3 "2017-03-20T18:02:07Z")
There was nowhere for him to go at that point other than into the meaningless South American exile so often fictionalized. “Honor,” yes, and going from the man who would rule the world to a hunted rabbit after a crushing total defeat - with only a chance at exile or a truly awful trial and execution ahead of him. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-hitler-escape/782629/4 "2017-03-20T18:27:46Z")
It’s almost certain he was dying of Parkinson’s anyway… ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-hitler-escape/782629/5 "2017-03-20T18:35:18Z")
Most men in Hitler’s family died relatively early and Hitler felt he was never going to live to old age even if he won the war. So a long life wasn’t something he aspired to. Hitler loved power. Any attempt to escape and prolong his life would have meant giving up the power he had. So he stayed alive right up to the point where his power was about to be taken away and then he killed himself. ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-hitler-escape/782629/6 "2017-03-20T18:46:52Z")
Get out of Dodge and do what, where? Maybe shave off the 'tache, trim his hair and … become a reclusive South American cattle farmer, with a strange accent? ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-hitler-escape/782629/7 "2017-03-20T19:03:31Z")
> [@up\_the\_junction](#): > > Get out of Dodge and do what, where? > > Maybe shave off the 'tache, trim his hair and … become a reclusive South American cattle farmer, with a strange accent? Better than shooting yourself or letting the allies do it. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-hitler-escape/782629/8 "2017-03-20T19:08:52Z")
He also wanted to avoid ending up suffering [Mussolini’s fate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Benito_Mussolini#Subsequent_events) – which he probably would’ve, if had been caught. Or worse. ---
**Author:** ![Loopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loopus/32/15343_2.png) [@Loopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopus)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-hitler-escape/782629/9 "2017-03-20T19:12:06Z")
Hitler thought until VERY late in the war that the Axis Powers were going to win. Once he was finally able to accept otherwise, it was pretty much too late to plan an escape, and he was so completely crushed by the failure of the Nazi regime (not HIS failure mind you; he blamed everyone but himself) that I think he just wanted death. ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-hitler-escape/782629/10 "2017-03-20T19:35:43Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Most men in Hitler’s family died relatively early and Hitler felt he was never going to live to old age even if he won the war. So a long life wasn’t something he aspired to. This seems like an odd argument to me. How many people say, “well my dad only lived to 50 so I might as well kill myself when I reach 50.” ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-hitler-escape/782629/11 "2017-03-20T19:38:34Z")
I recommend watching Downfall (with the real subtitles, not the humorous ones 🙂 ). Hitler answers this question in the final half of the film, and the answer makes sense. Of course, I can’t find the quote on line to add it, so you have to trust me. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-hitler-escape/782629/12 "2017-03-20T19:45:05Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > This seems like an odd argument to me. How many people say, “well my dad only lived to 50 so I might as well kill myself when I reach 50.” Not really that. Hitler didn’t plan on killing himself. But he expected to die early of natural causes. So he never thought about things like turning over power to one of his minions and spending his old age in retirement. He expected to stay in power right up until his death. Which is, I guess, what happened but not in the way he had imagined it. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-hitler-escape/782629/13 "2017-03-20T19:48:04Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > He also wanted to avoid ending up suffering [Mussolini’s fate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Benito_Mussolini#Subsequent_events) – which he probably would’ve, if had been caught. Or worse. He didn’t even want to have Napoleon’s fate. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-hitler-escape/782629/14 "2017-03-20T19:49:52Z")
> [@Loopus](#): > > Hitler thought until VERY late in the war that the Axis Powers were going to win. Once he was finally able to accept otherwise, it was pretty much too late to plan an escape, and he was so completely crushed by the failure of the Nazi regime (not HIS failure mind you; he blamed everyone but himself) that I think he just wanted death. Yeah, I’m pretty convinced that he was only in tenuous touch with reality for most of the latter half of the war, and that once it finally was made clear to him that the Germans were losing, and yes, there are Red Army troops a few blocks away, he was crushed by that realization and did himself in. Had he wanted to escape, he’d have had to have done so no later than a week before his suicide, as that’s about when the Russians surrounded Berlin and cut off access to the wider world. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-hitler-escape/782629/15 "2017-03-20T19:58:05Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > There was nowhere for him to go at that point other than into the meaningless South American exile so often fictionalized. “Honor,” yes, and going from the man who would rule the world to a hunted rabbit after a crushing total defeat - with only a chance at exile or a truly awful trial and execution ahead of him. This is incorrect. He could have retreated to Bavaria and continued to resist in the Alps. It would have been very difficult for the Allies to root him out. Hitler did the best thing for everyone by killing himself. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-hitler-escape/782629/16 "2017-03-20T20:08:47Z")
He was freakin’ nuts! ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-hitler-escape/782629/17 "2017-03-20T20:12:24Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Yeah, I’m pretty convinced that he was only in tenuous touch with reality for most of the latter half of the war… Yeah, like a lot of his soldiers, wasn’t he basically tweaked out all the time on meth? ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-hitler-escape/782629/18 "2017-03-20T20:24:26Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > He didn’t even want to have Napoleon’s fate. Napoleon became a pastry; Bismarck became a herring; and the Fuhrer will be a piece of cheese. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-hitler-escape/782629/19 "2017-03-20T20:35:32Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > It seems to me odd that Hitler didn’t try to escape Germany. He knew which way the war was going and he certainly could have gotten to a U-boat and got out of dodge. Did he really kill himself out of some sense of honor that prevented him from fleeing? “Sense of honor” and Hitler do not belong in the same sentence. More like his sense of what the Soviets would do to him upon capture (even if they had to start WWIII to get him) was the overriding concern of Hitler at the very last. I imagine whatever Stalin had been fantasizing about doing would have made Mussolini’s death and the deposition of his body seem like a Disney cartoon in comparison. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-hitler-escape/782629/20 "2017-03-20T20:59:15Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > This seems like an odd argument to me. How many people say, “well my dad only lived to 50 so I might as well kill myself when I reach 50.” Mickey Mantle’s father and grandfather both died at 37, so one of the reasons he drank and caroused so hard was that he thought he had only a few years in which to do it. So he destroyed his knees and his liver and lived to be 64 with all the problems, including a late liver transplant. So yeah, that mindset exists. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-hitler-escape/782629.md?page=2)