Hitler's Final Hours Marriage and Suicide in Bunker
About this episode
The episode discusses the bizarre and grim wedding of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun on April 30, 1945, just hours before their suicide pact in the Führerbunker.
# The Night Adolf Hitler Married Eva Braun (April 30, 1945) On April 30th, we mark one of history's most bizarre and grim wedding ceremonies – though this marriage lasted mere hours before ending in a suicide pact deep beneath the streets of Berlin. In the early morning hours of April 30, 1945, Adolf Hitler and his long-time companion Eva Braun were finally married in the Führerbunker, the underground shelter that had become Hitler's final command post. The ceremony took place around 1:00 AM, officiated by a minor city councilor named Walter Wagner, who had been hastily summoned from fighting in the defense of Berlin to perform his civil duties one last time. The wedding was surreally mundane given the apocalyptic circumstances. Soviet forces were literally overhead, their artillery pounding Berlin into rubble. The bunker shook with each nearby explosion as the Red Army closed in, block by bloody block. Yet Hitler insisted on formalities: Eva signed the marriage certificate as "Eva B—" before catching herself and crossing it out to write her maiden name properly. She had waited 16 years for this moment, having been Hitler's mistress since 1929, deliberately kept in the shadows…
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