PITTSBURGH (AP) β American television viewers get their first chance to see and hear Adolf Hitler’s inner circle describe the dictator’s final hours in filmed interviews when “The Day Hitler Died” premieres on the Smithsonian Channel.
The documentary marks the first time viewers outside Germany will see the interviews by Michael Musmanno. The Navy attorney presided at one of the Nuremburg war crimes trials and later became a Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice.
After the trials, Musmanno spent more than two years tracking down witnesses and re-interviewing them on camera in 1948 to prove Hitler was dead. He hoped to thwart rumors spawned when Soviet dictator Josef Stalin claimed Hitler had escaped his underground Berlin bunker.
Musmanno died in 1968.
“The Day Hitler Died” premieres on the Smithsonian Channel Monday at 8 p.m. EDT/PDT.
