Image: 'Video: Adolf Hitler: The Last Days of the Dictator | Documentary' (Apr. 20, 1945, at 13:54; note: last known moving pictures of Hitler were captured on Mar. 20, 1945)
(Friday, April 20, 1945, approximately 3:00 p.m. Central European Summer Time; during the Battle of Berlin on the Eastern Front during World War II) — As the Red Army’s tanks pressed into the outskirts of Berlin and a mournful air raid siren echoed through the battered city at dawn, Germany’s Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler marked his 56th birthday today in the gloom of his underground Führerbunker, facing the collapse of his regime and the encirclement of the capital.
The day began with bleak symbolism: Soviet artillery opened fire on central Berlin at 11 a.m., signaling that the city’s final ordeal had begun.
For Hitler, the question of whether to flee or remain in Berlin became urgent as the last defensive lines crumbled and his closest advisers pressed him to escape to the so-called Alpine Fortress in Bavaria—a stronghold that, in reality, existed only in propaganda.
Despite their pleas, Hitler resolved to stay, determined to meet his end in Berlin rather than abandon the capital to its fate.
At 3:00 p.m., Hitler emerged from the depths of the bunker for what would be his final public appearance. On the steps of the Chancellery garden, he greeted a small group of Hitler Youth and SS men—some of the youngest and last defenders of the city.
Video: 'The World At War 1973(World War II Documentary)Episode 21-Nemesis:Germany(February-May 1945)' (Apr. 20, 1945, at 23:45)
The children, some as young as 11, were decorated for bravery, their faces pale in ill-fitting uniforms as Hitler, his left arm trembling, shook hands and patted their cheeks. Witnesses described the scene as somber and grotesque: the dictator honoring boys he was sending to the front lines, even as the city’s fate was sealed.
Shortly after, at 4:00 p.m., senior Nazi officials—including Himmler, Göring, Bormann, Keitel, and Speer—filed into the bunker to offer birthday greetings. The mood was tense and joyless, as many sought permission to leave Berlin, knowing the end was near. Hitler, grim and withdrawn, accepted their wishes with little enthusiasm.
Amid the chaos, Eva Braun, his longtime companion, presented him with a signed photograph in a silver frame—a rare personal gesture on a day otherwise marked by dread and despair.
As night fell, Berlin endured another heavy Allied air raid, and Hitler retreated once more into the bunker, surrounded by a shrinking circle of loyalists. He had chosen to remain in the city, determined to face the final act of his regime in the ruins of the capital rather than flee.
The 56th birthday of Adolf Hitler, once a day of orchestrated spectacle, ended in isolation and foreboding, with the thunder of Soviet guns drawing ever closer.
