This Day in History: Adolf Hitler Dies by Suicide April 30, 1945 Sitting next to his new wife, Eva Braun, in a small bunker room 55 feet underground of the chancellory building in Berlin, the 56-year-old "Fuhrer" ended his life by consuming a cyanide capsule and simultaneously shooting himself with a pistol.
Braun also died by taking cyanide.
Per Hitler's orders, their bodies were removed up to the chancellory garden and burned.
The Russian army was closing in on Berlin and were less than 24 hours from the bunker where Hitler had been holed up since January of that year.
The "1,000 Year Reich" was finished.
The 12 years of Nazi rule in Germany were perhaps the most catastrophic of the 20th century.