The End, 1948 Painted by Kukryniksy

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The End, 1948
Painted by Kukryniksy
Oil on canvas, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

In The End, the Soviet collective Kukryniksy delivered one of the most infamous images of the 20th century: Adolf Hitler in his bunker, moments before his death.

But this is not the defiant Führer of propaganda. Here, he is diminished — a trembling, pathetic man, eyes bulging with terror, hand clutched to his chest. Around him, his officers drink, smoke, or look away. No one pays him heed.

The artists — a trio of satirists — had visited the bunker after Berlin fell in 1945. Years later, they painted this vision of ultimate defeat. It won the Stalin Prize and was widely reproduced across the Soviet Union, not just as history but as revenge.

The message was clear: the dictator died not as a martyr, but as a coward, abandoned even by those closest to him. Through ridicule, Kukryniksy stripped him of the myth he had built around himself.

This painting endures as a reminder of the power of art not only to record history, but to reshape its memory — turning terror into mockery, and fear into final humiliation.

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