80 years since Hitler's suicide: Most Germans want to turn the page on the Nazi past.

BerlinEighty years after dictator Adolf Hitler's suicide in his Berlin bunker on April 30, 1945, while surrounded by Soviet troops, the crimes of National Socialism continue to weigh heavily on Germany. However, more and more Germans want to turn the page on the country's Nazi past, amid the rise of the far right in Germany and Europe.

The year 2025 has been particularly fraught with historical remembrance events in Germany: from the commemoration in January the liberation of the Auschwitz extermination camp until the 80th anniversary on May 8 of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany and the end of World War II in Europe, including numerous other anniversaries.

. Matteros for the German weekly The Time. The percentage of those in favor of turning the page on the Nazi past has increased by two percentage points since 2020.

When Germans are asked whether they agree with the statement that "the period of National Socialism is presented in a too one-sided and negative light, and also had its positive aspects," 28% of respondents 2020. Among voters of the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD), the second most voted party in the elections last February, 58% agree.

"The constant reminder of National Socialism prevents Germans from developing a healthy national consciousness," say 59% of respondents. In 2020, the percentage was 56%, and in 2010, 44% in similar surveys.

Although more and more Germans want to turn the page on the Nazi past, the culture of Holocaust remembrance is still alive in Germany. 79% of respondents agree with the following statement: "It is our duty as Germans to ensure that the history of National Socialism and the Holocaust is not forgotten."

The Culture of Holocaust Remembrance

In German schools and universities, Hitler, Nazism, and the Holocaust are discussed in order to raise awareness among young people about this historical period. Many German students visit Nazi concentration camps, the Holocaust Memorial, or the Xoà Museum.

German foreign policy also remains influenced by the Holocaust, as evidenced by the German government's unwavering support for Israel. For example, since Hamas's brutal attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, German authorities have repeatedly stated that Israel's security is part of Germany's "reason of state."

Holocaust remembrance culture is a central element of German society aimed at remembering and reflecting on the Nazi past and its crimes through seminars, conferences, books, documentaries, museums, events, plaques, memorials to the victims of Nazism, and commemorations on significant dates.

However, the bunker where Hitler committed suicide goes almost unnoticed by tourists visiting Berlin, unless they notice an information sign located in a parking lot opposite Gertrud Kolmar Street, 8, in the former Reich Chancellery gardens and very close to the monument.

On the site of the Führer's bunker, all that remains is the nondescript parking lot of a communist German apartment block. The parking lot attracts a number of tourists and history buffs, not neo-Nazis.

At first glance, there are no traces left of the air-raid shelter where the Führer celebrated his final birthday and spent his final days before taking his own life by shooting himself in the head while biting a cyanide capsule a few hours after marrying Eva Braun. His wife also committed suicide with cyanide.

Hitler did not want to fall into the hands of Soviet troops. He was horrified by the thought of ending up like his ally, the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, shot by partisans. His body was hung and displayed in a square in Milan. After their suicides, the bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun were burned by their loyal SS followers outside the bunker and half-buried. Their teeth confirmed their identity.

Their charred bodies, recovered by the Soviets, were cremated in 1970 and the ashes thrown into a river in Magdeburg, according to the official version, although their less-than-heroic final act has also given rise to numerous conspiracy theories.

Soviet troops blew up part of Hitler's bunker in the autumn of 1947. Other parts of the Nazi bunker complex were later discovered, but were demolished, filled with rubble, and sealed again.

Today, "those who don't know, or don't want to know, see nothing" at the site of Hitler's bunker. "History is literally buried here," writes history journalist Sven Felix Hellerhoff in his book The Führer's bunker..