81st Anniversary of Hitler's Death — Russia's FSB Declassifies Eyewitness Account of Final Hours in Führerbunker

On April 30, 2026 — exactly 81 years after Adolf Hitler's suicide in Berlin's Führerbunker — Russia's FSB security service released previously classified documents containing detailed eyewitness testimony from Hitler's innermost circle. The declassified file includes statements by SS-Sturmbannführer Heinz Linge, Hitler's personal valet, and Otto Günsche, Hitler's SS adjutant, along with investigative notes from Hans Baur, the Führer's personal pilot. According to Linge's testimony, Hitler suffered from 'megalomania' and took his own life 'afraid of being caught while trying to escape Berlin.' The documents describe Hitler's final afternoon on April 30, 1945: meetings with Goebbels around 4 PM, instructions to staff to escape the bunker, Hitler's insistence that his body be cremated 'to prevent display in Moscow,' and his retreat to his private study with Eva Braun. Guards heard a gunshot; Linge described finding Hitler 'slumped on the sofa with a bullet wound to the temple,' with Braun apparently dead from cyanide. The documents explicitly state that no body double existed and that it was 'impossible for Hitler to leave the Führerbunker.' Baur — who last saw Hitler when the Führer gave him a portrait of Frederick the Great by Rembrandt — also provided testimony. The timing of the declassification on the 81st anniversary drew wide international media coverage. Historians noted the documents largely confirm the account established by British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper in 'The Last Days of Hitler' (1947), while providing new operational detail.