The news of Roosevelt’s death on 12 April 1945, which came as a personal blow to Churchill, brought temporary joy to Hitler. On 20 April, his fifty-sixth and final birthday, Hitler, the First World War corporal, made his last public appearance in front of a small parade of Hitler Youth boys.
Soviet soldiers in Berlin, May 1945
Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-R77767 / CC-BY-SA
But with the end in sight, Hitler, who had directed fanciful operations of non-existent forces from within his bunker for a number of weeks, married his 33-year-old girlfriend, Eva Braun, and then dictated his last will and testament. The following day, 30 April, the newly-wed couple committed suicide, Eva by cyanide, Hitler with a bullet through his right temple. He died, German radio announced, ‘fighting to his last breath against bolshevism’.
On 2 May, Berlin surrendered. On 7 May, Germany surrendered to the western Allies, and, the following day, to the Soviet Union. The war in Europe, at least, had ended.