Götterdämmerung is the name given to the last few days in Hitler’s bunker during the Battle for Berlin and before the surrender to the Soviet forces. Götterdämmerung comes from the final part of Adolf Hitler’s favourite Richard Wagner opera ‘Der Ring des Nibellungen’ which ended in mass destruction. Götterdämmerung did just this – Hitler ordered the total destruction of Berlin to punish those who had betrayed him –this was never carried out. However, the city itself was destroyed and many thousands were killed. To Hitler this would have been Götterdämmerung.



Götterdämmerung ended with Hitler and what remained of his entourage planning the rescue of Berlin. Hitler dreamed up imaginary armies that would fight the Soviet forces to the end. It was clear to many that Hitler had lost all sense of reality but such was his power over those at the top of the Nazi Party that no one challenged him. In his book about the last days of Hitler, Hugh Trevor-Roper described the world Hitler lived in as “cloud cuckoo-land”. Some of his orders bordered on the bizarre. He told his senior army officers that any of them who held back from the fight against the USSR would pay with their life within five hours of receiving the order to attack. On April 22ndhe accused his senior army officers of cowardice and told them that they were traitors to Nazi Germany. However, Hitler adopted the poise of one of Richard Wagner’s heroes: