"April 30, 2005 marked the 60th anniversary of Adolf Hitler's suicide. Eyewitness accounts, collected in a Security Service file, provide a fascinating insight into Hitler's final days in April 1945.
The accounts, summarised below, were made available to the historian, Hugh Trevor-Roper, who in 1947, published his best-selling account of the fall of the Third Reich,
The Last Days of Hitler.
At the end of the Second World War various members of Hitler's personal staff, who had been with him in his Berlin bunker during the month of April 1945, were interrogated by Allied officers seeking to establish beyond possible doubt that Hitler had died.
Their questioning therefore concentrated on the events that took place in the Bunker during the last days of April. By then advancing Soviet armies surrounded Berlin and the sound of gunfire could be heard plainly from within the Führerbunker.
In the small hours of 28-29 April Hitler dictated his will, in the form of a political and personal testament, to Gertrud (also known as Traudl) Junge, who was one of his secretaries. Soon afterwards Hitler and Eva Braun were married. Accounts from two of the secretaries present recorded that they had been called together as Hitler and Eva emerged, with Göbbels, Frau Göbbels and Martin Bormann, from the map-room where the marriage ceremony had taken place. Turning to Hitler's personal secretary, Gerda Christian, Eva pointed to the wedding ring on her finger and received her congratulations.
A party followed to celebrate the occasion. According to Gerda, Hitler talked mostly of the past and of happier times. However, he did admit to her that he knew the war was lost, adding that he would never allow himself to be taken prisoner by the Russians but intended to shoot himself. He confided to Gertrud Junge that the wedding had been an emotional experience, but that for him death would only mean a personal redemption of his many worries and of what had been a very difficult life. Gerda, who was accustomed to joining Hitler and Eva for certain meals, was invited to the wedding breakfast after the ceremony, only to leave it early telling Gertrud that she had been unable to stand the atmosphere of gloom and despondency.
Preparations for death
On the morning of 29 April news of Mussolini's death at the hands of Italian partisans reached the Bunker. One of those interrogated recorded that this would have served to reinforce Hitler's order to his staff that this should not be his fate, or that of Eva Braun. One eyewitness noted that Hitler's SS bodyguards were destroying his personal papers. Elsewhere one of the doctors, on Hitler's instructions, poisoned Blondi, his Alsatian dog, a fate that Eva Braun's spaniel shared. Accounts also described how in the afternoon Hitler went from room to room in the Reichschancellery shaking hands with all but his immediate staff, saying a few words of encouragement and thanks to each.
By the morning of 30 April Russian forces had reached the nearby Potsdamer Platz and the sounds of battle were all around. One version on record suggests that Eva was overheard crying, "I would rather die here. I do not want to escape". She and Hitler later emerged from their suite, their personal staff having been assembled, and went round the room shaking hands silently. Everyone knew that the time had come.
Gertrud Junge recalled that she and Gerda both asked Hitler for a poison ampoule, having noted coolly the effect the poison had had on Hitler's dog. Hitler gave them one each, saying as he did so that he was sorry he had no better parting gift and that he wished his generals had been as poised and brave as they were. Eva embraced Gertrud and, in what seems to have been her last recorded words said, "Take my fur coat as a memory. I always like well-dressed women". Then, saying "It is finished, goodbye". Hitler took Eva back into their rooms for the last time. During the afternoon Hitler shot himself and Eva took the poison ampoule he had given her.
Soon afterwards their bodies were carried up the stairs to a small garden within the protection of the Bunker. Hitler's driver, another of those interrogated, helped carry Eva's body some of the way and noted that once there it was placed on the ground beside Hitler's. He told his interrogators he had noticed that she had been wearing a blue summer dress made of real silk, that her shoes had cork heels, and that her hair was "artificially blonde".
Moments later the same witness saw a party including Göbbels and Bormann gathered beside the bodies. One of them poured petrol from a can over the bodies. They then retired to the safety of a doorway with, as the guard described it, the sound of Russian artillery all around them. Hitler's adjutant lit a petrol-soaked rag and threw it on the bodies, which immediately burst into flames. The group gave the Nazi salute and withdrew.
One of the Bunker guards, arriving late on the scene and unable to see the Göbbels party concealed in a doorway, was greatly startled to see the two bodies burst into flames as if by spontaneous combustion, only later to be told the true circumstances."
http://greyfalcon.us/restored/Endger.htm
Trevor-Roper's account is the authoritative account on Hitler's suicide. Speer's quote is in one of his books. Are you claiming the U.S. Army wrote and published Speer's books? The DNA evidence confirms Borman died in Berlin in April 1945.
