&gt;  I don&#x27;t get this fascination with hunting down the truth behind a single person. He died, whether then or 20 years later, case closed.<p>It&#x27;s significant because it gives us a rare insight into Mr Hitler&#x27;s late-war psychology.<p>The traditional story, at least in the English-speaking West, was that he finally realised that he had failed himself and Germany and took his own life to escape the inevitable wrath of the Soviets.<p>An alternative narrative that I have encountered is that he saw the whole conflict as a competition between national character.  He felt that the majority of the German people had failed <i>him</i> and Germany, in which case it is difficult to understand why he would have committed suicide.