Photo of the Day

The end has come.

It is July 16, 1945.

The peace in Europe is not quite six weeks old.

And the leaders of the victorious Allied powers — Truman, Churchill and Stalin — are traveling to Potsdam, Germany, to discuss the fate of postwar Europe.

Churchill, Truman and Stalin at Potsdam, July 17, 1945. Clement Atlee will replace Churchill as British leader on July 26.

For Winston Churchill, the trip offers an opportunity to see Berlin.

Berlin had suffered 363 Allied bombing raids during the war.

His car passed through the Brandenburg Gate and then arrived at the remains of Hitler’s New Reich Chancellery.

The structure had been completely destroyed in Allied bombing raids during the spring of 1945 and the advance of Soviet ground forces into Berlin.

The once grandiose building had been constructed in the late 1930s as the seat of Nazi power.

It shared a garden with the Old Reich Chancellery, a former palace which had long served as the official residence of Germany’s leaders.

The shell hole, located to the left of the Chancellery entrance shown above, was claimed to be the place where the corpses of Hitler and Eva Braun were incinerated after their suicides.

Churchill describes the scene:

“The city was nothing but a chaos of ruins.

“No notice had of course been given of our visit and the streets had only the ordinary passers-by.

“In the square in front of the Chancellery there was however a considerable crowd.

“When I got out of the car and walked about among them, except for one old man who shook his head disapprovingly, they all began to cheer.

“My hate had died with their surrender, and I was much moved by their demonstrations, and also by their haggard looks and threadbare clothes.”

Soviet soldiers allowed Time/Life photographer William Vanddivert to take these photos, which were published in TIme Magazine on May 21, 1945. The sofa is alleged to have been the location of Hitler's suicide.

The warren of underground rooms fifty feet beneath the Chancellery garden, where Hitler and his partner, Eva Braun, had sheltered from January until committing suicide there in April, had been burned by retreating German forces, then stripped of anything of value by conquering Soviet troops in early May.

So, leaning on his walking stick and holding his daughter Mary’s arm, Churchill poked his way through the remains of Hitler’s cavernous office and the underground living quarters.

“Inside the Chancellery Mr. Churchill climbed over heaps of rubble and rubbish, poked into rooms, wandered round the huge banquet hall, where two huge silver chandeliers had fallen to the floor. — Ronald McKie, Argus newspaper, Melbourne

Churchill’s tour concluded outside, in the remains of the Chancellery Garden.

“The Chancellery Garden was a chaos of shattered glass, pieces of timber, tangled metal and abandoned fire hoses.

“Craters from Russian shells pocked the ground.

“In one of those craters, Hitler and his wife had supposedly been buried after Nazi officers burned their corpses.

“The rusted cans for the gasoline still lay nearby.

“Russians pointed out the spot where the bodies had been incinerated.

“Churchill paused briefly before turning away in disgust. — Barbara Leaming

Wearied from his walk and the hot weather, Churchill sat for a moment on the edge of a broken chair which his Russian guides said had once belonged to Hitler.

Burnt fragments of the Third Reich, which Hitler claimed would last a thousand years, lay at his feet, scattered in disarray.

Nazi rally in Nuremberg, 1936.

The place is now a parking lot.

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I’ll see you tomorrow.

— Brenda