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When in 1945 it became clear even to Hitler that the war was hopeless, he moved into a bunker below his Berlin headquarters. Beneath six feet of earth, and isolated from the world by sixteen feet of solid concrete, he grew more and more despondent. He shared the bunker with his trusted aide Goebbels, Goebbels's wife and six children, and a few trusted SS officers. There the Führer monitored his troops last efforts to save Berlin. He was furious when he learned that two of his most devoted assistants, Himmler and Göring, had approached the Allies about peace negotiations.
Nothing is spared me... No allegiances are kept, no honor lived up to, no disappointments that I have not had, no betrayals that I have not experienced, and now this above all else! Nothing remains. Every wrong has already been done me.
Despairing that all was lost, and fearing what would become of him if he were captured by the Russians storming Berlin, Hitler shot himself on April 30, 1945. By previous order, SS officers soaked his body in gasoline and burned it in the garden of the Chancellery. Following his master's lead, Goebbels administered cyanide to his wife and children before taking the poison himself.
A week after the suicides of Hitler and Goebbels, the German forces surrendered. The war was officially over; however, the world was only beginning to realize the extent of its horror.
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According to a witness, Hitler lost all composure.