Exhibition of artifacts

Russia geared up on Wednesday for the 55th anniversary of the end of World War Two, a major holiday commemorating more than 20 million dead, with an exhibition featuring what experts say is part of Adolph Hitler's skull. Officials unveiled an exhibition of artifacts entitled "The Agony of the Third Reich - Retribution" with the skull fragment as centerpiece of what they hoped would provide a new vivid image for the victory of the Red Army and its Western allies. Archivists said Hitler's dentist provided proof that the skull, recovered by the Red Army and brought to Moscow in 1946, was that of the Nazi leader, who committed suicide in his Berlin bunker as Allied forces closed in on Berlin. "I am convinced this part of Hitler's skull is proof that Hitler got his just deserts," Sergei Mironenko, head of Russia's State Archives, told reporters."He wanted to escape retribution, but it got him. Did he really want to end his life in a bunker with a bullet hole in his skull? I don't think so." Documents show Hitler committed suicide, along with his mistress Eva Braun on April 30, 1945, in a bunker beneath his Berlin chancellery. Archivists said most of his remains were kept in East Germany and cited a March 1970 note by the Soviet Communist Party's Central Committee noting they were burned before land where they were stored was turned over to local authorities.