--- description: "If he were indeed dead, the hope of most of mankind had been realized," TIME wrote in 1945 title: How Hitler Died on April 30, 1945—And How the World Found Out image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte72185842b803c7d/6987ec05524fc01b1adf051a/1101450507_400.jpg?branch=production&width=828&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [History](/section/history/) ## History Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # How the World Learned of Hitler's Death  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Apr 30, 2015 1:00 PM CUT  The May 7, 1945, cover of TIME The May 7, 1945, cover of TIMECover Credit: BORIS ARTZYBASHEFF  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Apr 30, 2015 1:00 PM CUT It wasn’t immediately clear what had happened on April 30, 1945\. This much the world knew: Adolf Hitler was gone, one way or another. The week after, TIME ran[ a list ](http://time.com/vault/issue/1945-05-14/page/23/ "undefined")of his “many deaths,” the theories of his survival or defeat. Some said he had actually been killed the year before. Some said he was on his way to Japan. One captured Nazi actually got it right, telling the world that Hitler, along with his wife, had committed suicide. By [that July](http://time.com/vault/issue/1945-07-02/page/27/ "undefined"), TIME had an account, from his one-time chauffeur, of how the bodies had been removed from the underground bunker and burned; the cause of death was a bullet to the head, the chauffeur said. However, the Russian authorities who were conducting the investigation insisted that there had still been no concrete evidence of his death, that Hitler might still be alive out there somewhere. Decades later, [in 1968](http://time.com/vault/issue/1968-08-09/page/43/ "undefined"), a book published by a former Soviet intelligence officer attested that the Russians had found the body and done an autopsy, confirming his identity with dental records and showing that the real cause of death was cyanide. But, back in 1945, as May began and the end of war in Europe was finally certain, as Allied troops liberated the suffering remnants of the people who had been the dictator’s targets, as his followers cast about for someone to blame — back then, in many ways, the details of what had happened didn’t really matter. It was enough to know that it was over. In honor of that end, that week was the occasion for TIME’s iconic crossed-out Hitler cover — the first instance of a motif that has been repeated for other historic villains, like [Osama bin Laden](http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20110520,00.html "undefined") — and a meditation on his life, how he came to power and what the world would be like now that he was out of it: --- > “” --- **_Read the full story, here in the TIME Vault:_** [The Betrayer](http://time.com/vault/issue/1945-05-07/page/31/ "undefined") ### After the Fall: Photos of Hitler's Bunker and the Ruins of Berlin  Not published in LIFE. Oberwallstrasse, in central Berlin, saw some of the most vicious fighting between German and Soviet troops in the spring of 1945 William Vandivert—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  A new view of a photograph that appeared, heavily cropped, in LIFE, picturing Hitler's bunker, partially burned by retreating German troops and stripped of valuables by invading Russians. William Vandivert—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. In typed notes that William Vandivert sent to LIFE's New York offices after getting to Berlin, he described his intense, harried visit to Hitler's bunker: "These pix were made in the dark with only candle for illumination ... Our small party of four beat all rest of mob who came down about forty minutes after we got there." Above: A 16th century painting reportedly stolen from a Milan museum. William Vandivert—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  With only candles to light their way, war correspondents examine a couch stained with blood (see dark patch on the arm of the sofa) located inside Hitler's bunker. William Vandivert—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Abandoned furniture and debris inside Adolf Hitler's bunker, Berlin, 1945. William Vandivert—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Papers (mostly news reports dated April 29, the day before Hitler and Eva Bruan killed themselves) inside Hitler's bunker, Berlin, 1945. William Vandivert—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  A Russian soldier stands in Adolf Hitler's bunker, Berlin, 1945. William Vandivert—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Desk inside Adolf Hitler's bunker, Berlin, 1945. William Vandivert—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. An SS officer's cap, with the infamous death's-head skull emblem barely visible. William Vandivert—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  A ruined, empty and likely looted safe inside Hitler's bunker. William Vandivert—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. LIFE correspondent Percy Knauth, left, sifts through debris in the shallow trench in the garden of the Reich Chancellery where, Knauth was told, the bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun were burned after their suicides. William Vandivert—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. In the garden of the Reich Chancellery, Berlin, 1945. William Vandivert—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Bullet-riddled sentry pillbox outside Hitler's bunker, Berlin, 1945. William Vandivert—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. An unidentified hand on the destroyed hinge of the door to Hitler's bunker, burned off by advancing Russian combat engineers, Berlin, 1945. William Vandivert—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Empty gasoline cans, reportedly used by SS troops to burn the bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun after their suicides in the bunker, Berlin, 1945. William Vandivert—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Russian soldiers and a civilian struggle to move a large bronze Nazi Party eagle that once loomed over a doorway of the Reich Chancellery, Berlin, 1945. William Vandivert—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. An American soldier, PFC Douglas Page, offers a mocking Nazi salute inside the bombed-out ruins of the Berliner Sportspalast, or Sport Palace. The venue, destroyed during an Allied bombing raid in January 1944, was where the Third Reich often held political rallies. William Vandivert—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. At the Reichstag, evidence of a practice common throughout the centuries: soldiers scrawling graffiti to honor fallen comrades, insult the vanquished or simply announce, I was here. I survived. Berlin, 1945. William Vandivert—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. An image almost too perfectly symbolic of Berlin in 1945: A crushed globe and a bust of Hitler amid rubble outside the ruined Reich Chancellery. William Vandivert—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  The first of the approximately 20 pages of notes that William Vandivert typed for LIFE's editors in New York, describing not only the pictures he took but also the atmosphere pervading his examination of Hitler's bunker and the Reich Chancellery grounds. (An example of Vandivert's terse, vivid notations: "... view of chancellery palace ... completely bombed, burned and shelled to hell.") 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