Hitlers bunker today
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The bunker was independent of the Berlin grid as it had its own diesel generator.
When Hitler arrived in the bunker in January 1945 as the Anglo-American air raids became fiercer, he took with him his adjutants and his staff as well as his closest assistant Martin Bormann. Authorities feared that preserving the site could turn it into a neo-Nazi shrine.
Therefore, the location of Hitler’s bunker was left undeveloped and unmarked for years.
It’s not just about where Hitler died—it’s about what that place represents in the context of humanity’s darkest chapter.
Should the bunker have been preserved as a bunker?
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Written By: Ben Cosgrove
In the spring of 1945, as Russian and German troops fought savagely, street by street for control of the German capital, it became increasingly clear that the Allies would win the war in Europe.
It no longer exists. Situated in a quiet Berlin neighborhood, it is now a parking lot surrounded by apartment complexes. Therefore the construction was fairly straightforward and did not need to be too elaborate.
However, as the war progressed salong with the boming of Berlin, so too did the needs of the Fuhrerbunker. It would be Hitler’s home during the final weeks of the war.
Hitler’s secretary, Traudl Junge, described the bunker as claustrophobic and surreal.
The location of Hitler’s bunker was both a military post and a psychological prison. Only a modest sign installed in 2006 informs visitors of the historical significance of the site. It’s also where he and his new bride killed themselves.
The next day, Berlin surrendered and the Soviet Army occupied all government buildings and the bunker.
In April, Josef Goebbels, minister of public enlightenment propaganda and head of the NSADP, the Nazi party, in Berlin, arrived with his wife and 6 children.
During the last days of the month of April, Hitler learned about the hopeless situation of the German army and about Heinrich Himmler’s attempts to negotiate with the Western allies.
What you are actually looking for is its former location in the back of the Reich Chancellory Gardens, today a parking lot.
We recommend using this Google map for exact directions to the bunker location.
It's just there, underneath the ground, inaccessible for a good reason.
Location of Hitler’s Bunker: Secret Past Beneath Berlin
The location of Hitler’s bunker remains one of the most haunting sites in Berlin’s World War II history.
Officially known as the Führerbunker, it was constructed beneath the Reich Chancellery and served as Adolf Hitler’s final headquarters.
This underground shelter was not just a military command center; it became the last chapter in the dictator’s life. However, some chambers and some walls are said to still exist. .
The cover and the walls were made of two layers of armored concrete and the ventilation had a filter system against lethal gas.
The bunker location is between Potsdamer Platz and Brandenburger Tor, just a block away from the Holocaust Memorial. On that late April afternoon in 1945, with his “Thousand-Year Reich” already in its death throes, Hitler shot himself in the temple.
Oberwallstrasse, in central Berlin, saw some of the most vicious fighting between German and Soviet troops in the spring of 1945.
William Vandivert/ Life Pictures/Shutterstock
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/ Life Pictures/Shutterstock
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/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
With only candles to light their way, war correspondents examined a couch stained with blood (see the dark patch on the arm of the sofa) located inside Hitler’s bunker.
William Vandivert/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Abandoned furniture and debris inside Adolf Hitler’s bunker, Berlin, 1945.
William Vandivert/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Papers (mostly news reports dated April 29, the day before Hitler and Eva Bruan killed themselves) inside Hitler’s bunker, Berlin, 1945.
William Vandivert/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A Russian soldier stood in Adolf Hitler’s bunker, Berlin, 1945.
William Vandivert/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A desk inside Adolf Hitler’s bunker, Berlin, 1945.
William Vandivert/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
An SS officer’s cap, with the infamous death’s-head skull emblem barely visible.
William Vandivert/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A ruined, empty and likely looted safe inside Hitler’s bunker.
William Vandivert/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
LIFE correspondent Percy Knauth, left, sifted 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/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
In the garden of the Reich Chancellery, Berlin, 1945.
William Vandivert/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A bullet-riddled sentry pillbox outside Hitler’s bunker, Berlin, 1945.
William Vandivert/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
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/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
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/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Russian soldiers and a civilian struggled to move a large bronze Nazi Party eagle that once loomed over a doorway of the Reich Chancellery, Berlin, 1945.
William Vandivert/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
An American soldier, PFC Douglas Page, offered a mocking Nazi salute inside the bombed-out ruins of the Berliner Sportspalast, or Sport Palace.
Yet, the Soviet Union kept much of their findings secret, fueling decades of speculation.
The location of Hitler’s bunker was filled in with rubble, and its access points were sealed.
The documentary “Blind Spot: Hitler’s Secretary” (Im toten Winkel”) is partly integrated into the movie.
Only steps away is Peter Eisenman’s famous Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe.
+++Join us on our pay-what-you-like walking tours of Berlin to learn more!+++
We also offer a free self-guided tour of Third Reich sights in Berlin.
It is a shame such a momentous location and key part to WW2 history has been erased. Despite the chaos above, official meetings continued until Hitler’s mental state deteriorated.