Eva Braun had spent most of her life waiting for Adolf Hitler and she had agreed to share his fate. She was much more than a dumb blonde reading romance novels and watching films - and she would now be with him forever. It was Hitler's wish that she should be with him in death as she had been for so many years in life. Shortly before his suicide, Hitler said of Eva: "Miss Braun is, besides my dog Blondi, the only one I can absolutely count on ..."

On the morning of April 28, 1945, Eva Braun confided in Hitler's secretary, Frau Traudl Junge: "That day Eva Braun said something strange to me: she said, you will be shedding tears for me before today is over ... what she actually meant was her marriage to Hitler."

A minor official of the Propaganda Ministry, Walther Wagner, married them in the early hours of April 29, 1945, as a crowning award for her loyalty to the end, while Soviet troops closed on the Reichstag and Chancellery.

The marriage document survived. Eva started to sign her name "Eva Braun" but stopped, crossed out the "B" and wrote "Eva Hitler, born Braun." Goebbels and Bormann signed as witnesses.

On the same morning Hitler retired to a room with his secretary, Traudl Junge, and hastily dictated his last will and a Political Testament. He did not show the slightest trace of regret or remorse for the millions of lives he had destroyed. In his will, he stated specifically who was to be the executor of his will, what he wanted done with his body, and who was to receive his possessions.

The Last Will

As I did not consider that I could take responsibility, during the years of struggle, of contracting a marriage, I have now decided, before the closing of my earthly career, to take as my wife that girl who, after many years of faithful friendship, entered, of her own free will, the practically besieged town in order to share her destiny with me. At her own desire she goes as my wife with me into death. It will compensate us for what we both lost through my work in the service of my people.

What I possess belongs - in so far as it has any value - to the Party. Should this no longer exist, to the State; should the State also be destroyed, no further decision of mine is necessary.

My pictures, in the collections which I have bought in the course of years, have never been collected for private purposes, but only for the extension of a gallery in my home town of Linz on Donau.

It is my most sincere wish that this bequest may be duly executed.

I nominate as my Executor my most faithful Party comrade, Martin Bormann. He is given full legal authority to make all decisions. He is permitted to take out everything that has a sentimental value or is necessary for the maintenance of a modest simple life, for my brothers and sisters, also above all for the mother of my wife and my faithful co-workers who are well known to him, principally my old Secretaries Frau Winter etc. who have for many years aided me by their work.

I myself and my wife - in order to escape the disgrace of deposition or capitulation - choose death. It is our wish to be burnt immediately on the spot where I have carried out the greatest part of my daily work in the course of a twelve years' service to my people.

Given in Berlin, 29th April 1945, 4:00 a.m.
Signed:

A. Hitler

Signed as witnesses:
Dr. Joseph Goebbels
Martin Bormann
Colonel Nicholaus von Below

The next day Adolf Hitler held his final staff conference being told that the Russians now were only a few blocks away. He had lunch as usual at 2 o'clock in the afternoon with his two secretaries and his cook. He now began making systematic preparations to commit suicide. He supervised the poisoning of his beloved dog Blondi and her pups and shortly after 3 p.m. he and Eva Braun bade farewell to the staff, assembled in the bunker, and retired to their private room to carry out their decision.

They bit into thin glass vials of cyanide - as he did so, Hitler also shot himself in the head with a 7.65 mm Walther pistol.

Heinz Linge, Hitler's personal valet, later recalled how he entered Hitler's suite and saw him almost upright in a sitting position on a blood-soaked sofa. Eva Braun lay on the sofa beside him, but she had made no use of the revolver at her side, preferring to take the poison instead. A small hole showed on his right temple and a trickle of blood ran slowly down over his check. The pistol lay on the floor where it had dropped from his right hand.

No mark showed on Eva Braun's face: "It was as though she had fallen asleep ..", Linge remarked.

Hitler - The Last Photo

Hitler had given precise instructions for disposal of the bodies - they were wrapped in a blanket and placed in the garden of the chancellery. Hitler's SS adjutant Otto Günsche poured gasoline over the two corpses and set fire to them with a lighted rag. While a heavy Russian bombardment was in progress, Joseph Goebbels, Bormann, Burgdorf, Kempke, and Günsche stood at attention and for the last time gave the Hitler salute.

On the evening of the following day Radio Hamburg announced that "our Fuhrer Adolf Hitler died for Germany in his command post in the Reich Chancellery this afternoon, fighting to his last breath against Bolshevism".

Hitler had founded the Third Reich 12 years and three months before. It would survive him for one week ...