Inside Hitler's bunker: Photographs reveal the blood-stained furniture and debris inside the hideaway where Adolf and Eva Braun died after the fall of Berlin

Haunting images reveal inside Hitler's Führerbunker in Berlin, Germany



Photographer William Vandivert given access to hideaway in 1945



Extraordinary series of images were then published in Life Magazine



Pictures show piles of debris, old documents and blood-stained furniture

Hilter and wife Eva Braun killed themselves in the bunker on April 30 1945



These haunting images show the inside of the Führerbunker - the underground hideaway where Hitler and Eva Braun took their own lives after the fall of Berlin.

The death of Adolf Hitler, then 56, and Eva Braun, 33, in the heart of Berlin on April 30, 1945, is widely regarded as the fall of the Third Reich.



The couple lived the last few months of their lives together in the Führerbunker - with Hitler controlling his failing military operation from the base.



They are even thought to have wed in the hideaway the day before their suicide.



These extraordinary pictures reveal inside Hitler's bunker. This room is thought to have been the Fuhrer's command center conference room - which was partially burned out by SS troops and stripped of evidence by invading Russians in 1945

A ripped, blood stained and burnt sofa inside the bunker - which was located under the Reichschancellery building in the heart of Berlin. Hitler lived in the Führerbunker with Braun for the last months of the war

Debris lies scatted on a make-shift desk near to the sofa. Photographer William Vandivert was the first western man to gain access to the disturbing bunker two weeks after Hitler's death

War correspondents examine the arm of a sofa stained with blood - which could have belonged to Hitler

Historians believe Hitler took his own life by shooting himself in the temple, with Braun ingesting cyanide.



Two weeks after their death and the subsequent fall of Berlin, William Vandivert became the first western man to photograph the so-called 'shelter for the leader' - with this collection of images published shortly afterwards in Life Magazine.

Also published were a selection of photographs capturing a city destroyed by the Second World War.



In one of Vandiver's eerie shots, ripped pictures can be seen hanging an odd angles on the walls, while piles of broken furniture lays scattered around the room.

In another, a moldy SS officer's hat lies abandoned on the floor.

Another picture of the sofa in the dim and grotty room of the bunker

Ripped documents line the bottom of a large container near to a desk. The series of images were published in Life Magazine in July 1945

A Russian soldier stands amid rubble - next to the ripped and burnt sofa in one room of the hideaway

A ruined, empty safe with doors burned off stands at the foot of a bed. In his photographer's notes, Vandivert wrote: 'Hitler sat in middle and fell forward, did not bleed on sofa. This is in Hitler's sitting room'

Piles of documents stuffed into large boxes and enormous books are piled high atop a broken safe are seen in another.

A burnt and blood-stained sofa surrounds a desk, littered with pieces of paper, empty bottles and dirty teaspoons.



A 16th-century painting of a woman, which is thought to have been taken from a Milan museum, was also discovered.

The photographer sent typed notes to magazine editors in New York, which, according to Life said: 'Pix of [correspondents] looking at sofa where Hitler and Eva shot themselves.



'Note bloodstains on arm of soaf [sic] where Eva bled. She was seated at far end . . . Hitler sat in middle and fell forward, did not bleed on sofa. This is in Hitler’s sitting room.'

S oviet, American and Soviet Royal Air Force crafts dropped hundreds of bombs in about 350 air strikes on Berlin between 1940 and 1945 - leaving countless civilians dead.

A Nazi SS officers cap with its trademark death skull on the floor next to a cupboard in the Fuhrerbunker

A 16th-century painting looted from a museum in Milan sits among debris in another room of the bunker

More books and pieces of paper lay scattered across shelves and a table. The photographer also documented a war-torn Berlin, noting how hundreds of buildings in the city had been destroyed by bombs

Thousands were also left without anywhere to live - with hundreds of residential homes as well as government buildings and military installations destroyed.



The photographer added in his notes: 'Found almost every famous building [in Berlin] a shambles. In the center of town GIs could walk for blocks and see no living thing, hear nothing but the stillness of death, smell nothing but the stench of death.'



Russian and German troops fought for control of Berlin in the spring of 1945 - six years after the start of the war in 1939.



By that point, Hitler's grip on Europe had almost entirely slipped and it was evident the Allies would go on to win the conflict. As Allied men fought over Berlin, Hitler and his wife killed themselves.



His men then carried the couple's remains upstairs and out through the emergency exit before covering them in petrol and setting the two bodies alright.

A bullet-riddled pillbox watchtower outside the bunker Empty gas jerrycans used by SS Troops when ordered to burn the bodies of Adolph Hitler and Eva Braun

Hitler, pictured in his official 1937 photograph, left, and his wife for just one day Eva Braun





