INTRODUCTION
A DOLF H IT LER’S THI R D R EICH EN DED I N B ER LI N ON A PR I L 30, 1945. Thunder reverberated from a storm of Russian artillery that was bombarding the ruined capital. The day before, along with the incoming shells, came particularly bad news for the fuehrer, who by this late date in World War II was confined to his underground bunker beneath the Reich chancellery. Hitler had learned that two days earlier his Axis partner, Italy’s Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, had been captured by paramilitary Italian resistance fighters. Mussolini and his mistress, Clara Petacci, were executed and their bodies were left hanging from lampposts in a Milan piazza. This news was especially worrisome to Hitler because only hours earlier he had married Eva Braun in a small civil ceremony inside the Fuehrerbunker. Hitler had previously vowed never to be captured alive, and reiterated to his entourage that neither he nor his new bride would be made a “spectacle, presented by the Jews, to divert their hysterical masses.” He made obvious preparations for the end of his reign. He handed out poison capsules to his remaining female secretaries and had Blondi, his favorite Alsatian dog, poisoned. Two other household dogs were shot. Dictating a last will, he stated, “I myself and my wife—in order to
