30 April 1945

Führerbunker: Eva Braun had no appetite for lunch today, so Hitler dined with his two secretaries and his cook. At 3.30 pm having finished his meal, he sent for Eva, his bride of 36 hours, and they retired to his quarters. In the passage, Goebbels and a few other faithful followers waited. A single shot rang out.

After some minutes they opened the door. The body of Adolf Hitler, dripping blood, was slumped on a couch. He had shot himself in the mouth. Beside him was Eva Braun. Two revolvers lay on the floor, but she had not used hers; she had taken poison. Hitler's valet, SS Major Heinz Linge, and a servant carried Hitler's body, wrapped in an army blanket, up to the garden of the Chancellery. Martin Bormann brought Eva Braun's, then handed it to the Führer's chauffeur Erich Kempka.

With Russian shells exploding all around, Linge and Kempka slid the bodies into a shell hole. The bodies were doused with petrol and set alight with a burning rag. Goebbels stood to attention and raised his right hand in the Nazi salute. The propaganda wizard had risen to the heights with Hitler; now he was preparing to follow him in death.

It was Himmler's "treachery" - the SS chief was trying to make a separate peace with the western Allies - that persuaded Hitler that the end had come. But first his mistress's long-cherished desire must be fulfilled. In the early hours of Sunday, a city councillor called Wagner was tracked down fighting with the Volkstürm and brought to the bunker to marry the Führer and Eva, who both swore that they were "of complete Aryan descent". In the space on the marriage form for the name of his father (Schicklgruber) Hitler left a blank. The bride began to write "Eva Braun", stopped, struck out the "B" and wrote "Eva Hitler". The next day a pistol shot put an end to the "Thousand Year Reich" that lasted for little more than twelve years.

Berlin: General Weidling's diary (90) courtesy of Russ Folsom:
It took us nearly an hour to get to the Chancellery through the house-ruins and half-collapsed cellars. In the Chancellery I was taken straight to the Fuhrer's room, where there were Reichsminister Göbbels, Reichsleiter Bormann, and General Krebs. The latter gave me the following information:

- His body had already been cremated in a crater in the garden of the Chancellery.

- The strictest silence must be maintained. I was made personally responsible for keeping the secret pending subsequent developments.

- Of the outside world, only Marshal Stalin had been informed by radio of Hitler's suicide. (5)

- Sector commander Lt.Gen.Seifert had received orders to make contact with the local Russian commanders and to request safe conduct for General Krebs to the Russian High Command.

- General Krebs was to give the Russian High Command the following information: The Fuhrer's suicide, the contents of his will, a request for an armistice, and the government's wish to open negotiations with Russia about the surrender of Germany.

I was deeply shocked...so this was the end. Between 0200 and 0300 hours on May 1st General Krebs was at last successfully passed through our lines. A few hours later, another very regrettable incident took place, which unfortunately did not pass off so easily. When Colonel von Dufving had to return, bringing the telephone cable to establish a direct link with the Chancellery, his Russian escort, walking beside him, was seriously wounded by a sudden burst of fire. There were no longer organised troops defending Berlin, but an armed mob.

Flensburg: The new German "Führer" is to be the commander of the German navy. Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz. Appalled by Himmler's treachery and Göring's incompetence, Hitler appointed the former U-boat commander as president of the Reich because he was the only man left to trust. In a broadcast tomorrow, Dönitz plans to say that the war will continue: but he must realize that all he can do is delay Germany's inevitable defeat.

AUSTRIA: French forces enter Austria near Lake Constance.

NORWAY: U-2511 set out from Bergen for her first and last patrol. The crew served under very experienced U-boat officers like Oak-Leaves owner Korvkpt. Adalbert Schnee, the former very successful commander of U-201 and then two years one of closest staff members of Dönitz. The destination for that patrol was to be the Caribbean, where the boat had should be tested under all conditions. On 1 May, U-2511 had the first enemy contacts. Three days later, on 4 May 1945 Adalbert Schnee received the ceasefire orders. A few hours later U-2511 made a contact with cruiser HMS Norfolk among some other British warships. The boat approached to within 500 meters of the British warship without any sonar contact from the enemy destroyers. Schnee had here the possibility for an absolute deadly attack against the cruiser, but then he left the scene without attacking and headed back to base. U-2511 reached Bergen on the 5 May 1945. There the commander a few days later had a talk with officers of the HMS Norfolk and they could not believe the fact, that U-2511 was able to get so close without any sonar contact.

JAPAN: Japanese counterattacks and other movements on the Shuri Line are defeated on Okinawa. The Maeda and Kochi Ridge positions are the scenes of heavy fighting. The 1st Marine Division and the 77th Division US Army take over from the 27th and 96th Divisions.

Off Okinawa, the light minelayer USS J. William Ditter (DM-31) is damaged during an air raid while kamikazes damage minelayer USS Terror (CM-5) and the U.S. freighter SS S. Hall Young.

RYUKYU ISLANDS: IE SHIMA: VII Fighter Command, United States' Seventh Air Force bases the 318th Fighter Group flying P-47Ns on this island.

Conversion of HMS City of Paris conversion to accommodation ship ordered from United Shipyards Montreal, Province of Quebec.. Cancelled after VJ Day.

Frigate HMCS St Thomas arrived Halifax , Nova Scotia. for refit.

Corvette HMCS North Bay departed St John's to escort Convoy SC-174 to Londonderry.

Minesweeper USS Delegate commissioned.

Submarine USS Mapiro commissioned.

1946

JAPAN: U-511 (then called RO-500 by Japanese) is scuttled by US Navy at Maizuru.

(5) This no doubt refers to the post-suicide Goebbels-Krebs signal attempts to their Soviet counterparts in Berlin that Hitler was dead. There is no proof here that Stalin knew reliably of *Hitler's death* on April 30th, or even by May 1st of 1945. Indeed, considering the multifarious claims in works on the exact circumstances of Adolf Hitler's death published since the war, it is highly improbable that Stalin had any concrete knowledge of the Hitler's actual demise before the SMERSH troops of 79th Rifle Corps had made their preliminary searches of the Reichskanzlei and the Bunker complex proper, on or about May 2nd and 3rd, 1945.