IT was 75 years ago today, on April 22, 1945, that Adolf Hitler for the first time admitted in public that the war was lost. He had been in command of Nazi Germany for 12 years and had driven the country first to the conquest of half of Europe and then to the brink of extinction, but apart from a few occasions when he spoke of losing in private to his underlings such as his armaments minister Albert Speer – and he and others had reason to fabricate such stories – it was only in the Fuhrerbunker in Berlin that Hitler finally admitted that his dream of a Third Reich ruling the world was finally over.

WHAT DID HITLER SAY AND DO?

MOST medical experts accept that Hitler, who had celebrated his 56th birthday on April 20, was by then a drug-addled and demented hulk of a man, his physical frailty, his Parkinson’s Disease and mental delusions obvious to all around him. He had hoped that the death of President Franklin D Roosevelt on April 12 could mean a change in the Allies’ policy of demanding unconditional surrender from the Axis powers, but was quickly disabused of that notion.

Thanks to the testimony of Fuhrerbunker survivors, such as his last secretary Frau Traudl Junge, we can know with some degree of certainty what transpired on April 22.

The Soviet Red Army had encircled Berlin, and that morning they had begun pounding the city centre with their tanks and huge amounts of artillery, while for several nights previously, RAF Mosquito bombers carried out precision air raids on targets across the sprawling city with little or no opposition in the air.

Hitler had ordered defensive manoeuvres by armies that simply did not exist, telling General Felix Steiner to counter-attack on Saturday, April 21. On the Sunday, he met his remaining generals and SS chief Heinrich Himmler and was told that Steiner had refused to carry out his orders because he simply did not have the men that Hitler thought he had.

In the full view of his generals and with his staff listening in, Hitler began to rant and rave, blaming the generals and the German people for the war which, for the first time, he admitted was lost.

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According to himself, who had never been to a military academy, he had won the war in Europe himself without any help from those who had been to an academy, He accused his generals of treachery and treason and then told everyone present that he would stay and fight for Berlin until the end, when he would shoot himself.

JUST LIKE THE FAMOUS SCENE IN THE FILM DOWNFALL?

SEVERAL movies have used the “war is lost” scene either in documentaries or feature films. By common consent, the best and most accurate rendition is in the Oscar-nominated Downfall.

READ MORE: Life During Wartime: Nissen huts, Humbers and a very fast Packard

The brilliant Swiss actor Bruno Ganz, who died last year, captured Hitler’s mania perfectly in the 2004 film. The scene was created directly from Trudle Junge’s eyewitness description in her memoirs Until The Final Hour – she was standing at the door waiting to be called in. The words are believed to be 90% accurate.

The scene has, of course, become probably the most parodied in film history, and is a staple of YouTube.

HOW TERRIBLE WAS THE BATTLE OF BERLIN?

BY the time Hitler had concluded the war was lost, Berlin was under assault on all sides by the Soviet Red Army, the American and British content to leave their Allies to the task. Perhaps supreme commander General Dwight D Eisenhower knew that the Battle of Berlin would be very costly in terms of lives.

Once the Seelow Heights near the city were overrun, the capture of the German capital became inevitable and the Soviet tanks and troops made their way through the suburbs which the German Army, aided by the Volkssturm – the militia equivalent to the Home Guard – and Hitler Youth defended fanatically.

In terms of casualties in battles or sieges of cities, Berlin was only third after Leningrad and Stalingrad.

Eventually, some 1.5 million Soviet troops charged into Berlin with the loss of 81,000 soldiers, male and female. German losses were estimated at 140,000, plus 200,000 wounded and nearly 500,000 captured. The Soviets have been blamed for many atrocities against the civilian population, including mass rape of Berlin women, but their dictator Joseph Stalin ordered that such allegations be covered up.

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The final artillery assault that convinced Hitler the game was up was reported by a Soviet war correspondent.

He wrote: “On the walls of the houses we saw Goebbels’ (Hitler’s propagandist) appeals, hurriedly scrawled in white paint: ‘Every German will defend his capital. We shall stop the Red hordes at the walls of our Berlin.’ Just try and stop them!

“Steel pillboxes barricades, mines, traps, suicide squads with grenades clutched in their hands – all are swept aside before the tidal wave.

“Drizzling rain began to fall. Near Biesdorf I saw batteries preparing to open fire. ‘What are the targets?’ I asked the battery commander. ‘Centre of Berlin, Spree bridges, and the northern and Stettin railway stations,’ he answered.

“Then came the tremendous words of command: ‘Open fire on the capital of Fascist Germany.’

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“I noted the time. It was exactly 8:30am on April 22. 96 shells fell in the centre of Berlin in the course of a few minutes.”

It may well have been those shells which finally convinced Adolf Hitler that there was to be no escape for him.

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?

HITLER recovered his senses and decided to fight on, though he had no troops with which to do so. He committed suicide eight days later – but that’s a story in itself.

Scotland is in lockdown. Shops are closing and newspaper sales are falling fast. It’s no exaggeration to say that the future of The National is at stake. Please consider supporting us through this with a digital subscription from just £2 for 2 months by following this link: www.thenational.scot/subscribe. Thanks – and stay safe.