A Cowardly End 60 Years Ago

Yesterday marked the 60th anniversary of the death of Adolph Hitler, he of genocide, eugenics and the "Thousand Year Reich" that lasted all but a decade. On April 30, 1945, with Soviet forces just 300 meters from the underground bunker where Hitler huddled in the final months of the war and his armies decisively beaten, Hitler bade farewell to his staff and went into his private rooms. There the man who had plunged the world into conflict and sent millions of Jews to their deaths in the Holocaust poisoned a willing Eva Braun, his private mistress, and then shot himself in the head (after taking a cyanide capsule). Last Witness Remembers Hitler's Suicide [Mail & Guardian Online.za]. Hitler was a shaking, graying, sickly man who "sank into himself" in the final days before his suicide. Later, the bodies were taken into the courtyard and burned with gasoline to avoid identification.

Score of other German army and SS officers took the same way out -- like the Japanese later did at Iwo Jima and Okinawa -- offing themselves to avoid capture. For instance, Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels and his wife poisoned their six children and killed themselves in the bunker after Hitler's death. (Of course, publicly his successor announced Hitler's death on German radio, claiming that "the Fuhrer" had died a hero and not mentioning suicide.)

It's always that way with tyrants, depots and their fanatical lieutenants. I think a big reason for fascism is the same big streak of cowardice that leads people like this to end their own lives rather than face the consequences of their actions.

Goodbye, Fuhrer. We will NOT miss you.

 Posted by glenn