The first British soldier to enter Adolf Hitler’s bunker after his death revealed the one memento he took. Hugh Lunghi, who was in Berlin as Winston Churchill’s interpreter, was allowed to enter the underground air raid shelter after Russian troops discovered the bodies of the dictator and his wife of just 40 hours, Eva Braun. Eighty years ago today, the couple died by suicide, as the war was taking a turn for the worse for Germany.
Two days later, the Soviets entered to discover their bodies. Their bodies were then carried outside and burned before being buried. Two months later, Lunghi was allowed in and told he could take home one thing from the bunker, choosing a volume of Hitler’s Brockhaus encyclopaedia. He told the Observer: “It was damp and nasty and there was a lot of dirty clothing – a horrible, grim place which smelt terribly. However, it was fascinating, and that was a moment when I thought, ‘My God, this is history’.
“Outside there was a heap of ashes and a pile of stuff and I said, what was that? One of the soldiers, a major, said, ‘Oh, that’s Hitler and his mistress’. I don’t think he realised he wasn’t supposed to be telling me this.
“There were several rooms down there, including a medical room with a herb rack full of glass phials, which I suppose had both medicines and poisons in.”
When he entered another room, Lunghi saw the set of Hitler’s Brockhaus, the equivalent of Encyclopaedia Britannica, and decided that would be his memento.
He said: “I took one volume and when I went up the steps again asked, ‘Can I take this?’ They said, ‘Oh yes, take it, by all means’.”
The soldier also toured the Reich Chancellery, an administrative building in Berlin, and took chunks of Hitler’s marble desk.
Hitler’s bunker, known as the Führerbunker, remained largely undisturbed until around 1988, despite some attempts at demolition.
The site remained unmarked until 2006, when a small plaque was installed. Now, some corridors of the bunker are still standing, but sealed off from the public.
