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It is just me putting the whole thing together and a dollar or two from each of you really does make

the difference. So head to patreon.com slash WW2 podcast to support the show. This country is at war

with Germany. We shall go on to the end. I remember the sheets of flame which came up and

almost blinded us from our guns.

In April 1945, as the Third Reich collapsed around him,

Adolf Hitler died in the funeral bunker.

It is one of the most famous deaths in modern history and yet, in many ways, one of the least securely witnessed.

There was no public body, no official announcement at the moment it happened, and no single

uncontested account. What followed was confusion, rumour, investigation and decades of speculation.

Today, I'm joined by historian Caroline Sharples to talk about the death of Hitler itself.

Why unfolded as it did, how news of his death was received, how governments and intelligence

services tried to verify what happened and why uncertainty and myth filled a vacuum

almost immediately. Caroline is the author of the long death of Adolf Hitler, an investigative

history, a study of the aftermath of April 1945 and the cultural and political consequences

of a death that was widely anticipated, but never

conclusively seen. Before we start, a brief note for listeners, this episode contains references

to suicide and you may wish to take that into account before listening. Caroline, thanks

for joining me. So Hitler took his own life on the 30th of April 1945. I suspect this was not the

end that many people had expected for him. But I wonder, had the German people considered

...