Front page of the U.S. Armed Forces newspaper, Stars and Stripes, 2 May 1945 |
Later on 2 May, the remains of Hitler, Braun, and two dogs (thought to be Blondi and her offspring, Wulf) were discovered in a shell crater by a unit of the Red Army intelligence agency SMERSH tasked with finding Hitler's body. Stalin was wary of believing Hitler was dead, and restricted the release of information to the public.The remains of Hitler and Braun were repeatedly buried and exhumed by SMERSH during the unit's relocation from Berlin to a new facility in Magdeburg. The bodies, along with the charred remains of propaganda minister Goebbels, his wife Magda, and their six children, were buried in an unmarked grave beneath a paved section of the front courtyard. The location was kept secret.
Fearing that a known Hitler burial site might become a Neo-Nazi shrine, KGB director Yuri Andropov authorised an operation to destroy the remains that had been buried in Magdeburg on 21 February 1946. A Soviet KGB team was given detailed burial charts. On 4 April 1970 they secretly exhumed five wooden boxes containing the remains of "10 or 11 bodies ... in an advanced state of decay". The remains were thoroughly burned and crushed, after which the ashes were thrown into the Biederitz river, a tributary of the nearby Elbe.
The above-ground portion of the Führerbunker shortly before it was destroyed in 1947. The entrance was to the left. The circular structure was for generators and ventilation. |
The destroyed Führerbunker (1947) |
Biederitz rive |
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