How Am I Still Alive?

4:45 AM. Everything is quiet. Perhaps it's true and this is nothing but a mad dream. Can it be! Can it be? Oh, the relief. I'm still angry but I should not have done what I have done.

My mind is playing tricks. The fog in the morning gets thicker. So little rest. I cannot stay here without hope! Where is the hope? There's never been hope! What I thought was hope was no hope at all. But that was my only hope.

Scheisse! Scheisse! The quiet seduced me. I should be dead, I just know it. I'm right. I'm always right. There is nothing to live for. Who can say differently for me? Who ever loved me? They said I was not worthy. I tried. I really did try to be somebody. I thought I could have something to offer. But that was too much to hope for.

They ride their high horses but I saw through them! If they were as great as they said then none of this would have happened! Do any of them realize this? It's the Great Question of our age. But never do they question themselves. That's how I knew they'd never question me. I have to say it was a glorious ride. What a dream - if I were allowed a dream. Must never let them know what I really wanted or they'd know me a fraud.

Everyone loved me, praising me with their lips. We made our own myths. I dared dream as no one had dare before! Only I had the imagination, the vision. Is it true it was I who betrayed me? That thought I must share with no one.

Was I a success or not? It was a mirage, wasn't it? How very painful. I never thought it through. The Successful Lie, what does it mean? Part of me knew it meant doom in the end, yes, I realize that. I just hated people feeling they were better than I! It drove me insane! This madness forever plagues me. I can never reach their level. Just wishing and wishing and wishing...never getting.

I must pretend to the end. Show I too can have a personal life and true love. Please, oh please, let someone pretend with me so I'm not exposed as the World's Biggest Loser. The criminals can call me criminal, but don't portray me as a loser! How is it the other criminals have wives and children? What is the secret? I know only of the suicide of love.

Yes, it was the appearance of success I had, not success itself. So many followed in my footsteps! We thought ourselves clever finding this shortcut, laughing at fools struggling for love. The ones who knew the truth we got rid of. The power was intoxicating! What else is there to do with nothing real to live for? The Day Of Reckoning must be delayed at all costs! After that, there is nothing. There can only be nothing.

Love. It favors so few. If only God had smiled upon me. Then I would not have needed to create my own gods! Is there no god who can give life? So much misery in the loveless world. That was my currency! They could never blame themselves so I gave them someone to blame. They took to it with a hungry vengeance! So exciting to see my utter acceptance! For a time I felt alive. Who can resist that feeling?

I made a mockery of them and still they do not realize this. Afterwards, seeing the total destruction, will they turn their backs on me and grow up? Will they no longer see freedom as the enemy and control as the savior? Will enough terrorists remain to eliminate the truth-tellers and keep darkness safe in the world? Will they go so far, repulsed by me, as to even give up the slavery of money? Oh, how I would be branded then! It's unbearable to think of!

This will be the end of the age of war too; the romance of it forever gone. Never again can a voice like mine rally tens of millions of men to a false calling. How I will be hated in the coming world of peace. I cannot face it! I will be deemed the lowest of the low, the One Most Deceived. Can even death set me free?

How am I still alive? Shouldn't I be dead already after what I've done. And yet, here I breathe after mountains and mountains of self-destruction. Could I be wrong and my efforts not been an entire waste? Yes, surely that is why I am still alive. I shall go up to the surface today and award medals to those who keep fighting. Who's to say what is a lost cause. Oh, this is wonderful!

I shall marry Eva too. She must accept! That too will show my life has not been a complete waste. Just one little scrap would mean the world! Did I not try to stop the cruel killing of animals with my position of power? But I must hedge my bets so I don't seem the deluded fool. I will write me will after the marriage. If I live we can laugh about it later. If not, I'll appear the sober realist who faced the gritty truth.

I hate these moments like this! I want to live! I want to liiiiiive!

April 20, 1945. The Führer's bunker.

On 20 April, his 56th birthday, Hitler made his last trip from the Führerbunker ("Führer's shelter") to the surface. After midnight on 29 April, Hitler married Eva Braun in a small civil ceremony in the Führerbunker. After a modest wedding breakfast with his new wife, he then took secretary Traudl Junge to another room and dictated his will.

On 30 April 1945, after intense street-to-street combat, when Soviet troops were within a block or two of the Reich Chancellery, Hitler and Braun committed suicide; Braun bit into a cyanide capsule and Hitler shot himself. Both their bodies were carried up the stairs and through the bunker's emergency exit to the bombed-out garden behind the Reich Chancellery, where they were placed in a bomb crater and doused with petrol. The corpses were set on fire as they were given the same chance to live as they gave.