A Coward's Death

This is the day Hitler died in his Berlin bunker. This is the day he finally gave up on his dream of a thousand-year kingdom . . . the final days of the Third Reich. When visiting Berlin in 2019, I toured the surface of the bunker where he died. It’s a nondescript parking lot. And so it should remain. A nothing place for a coward.

Creative Commons: Hnapel

Not only was he responsible for killing millions while he was alive, the mayhem he unleashed continued after his death. For the those who survived him, the war was far from over. For each of my parents, living their separate lives, the worst was yet to come with years of Soviet captivity still ahead. While the Führer ran away from any sense of responsibility, millions of men, women and children, beautiful horses, and family pets would continue to starve and many still died. The survivors knew that a return to what once was, would never be. Too much destroyed. 

What a coward Hitler was, what a self-serving maniac. And all those Nazi elite who saw their hero self-implode, who faced some kind of reckoning and humiliation in Nuremberg, or who ran away . . . may we never forget the stench of your evil. As the generation who experienced . . . who smelled, hungered and cried through those final years . . . as they fade away, we must never forget. We must always be brave and support the vulnerable, so that the weak don’t ever become revengeful bullies. Hitler might be dead, but hate continues to seek life. Even today.