Why did renowned war photographer Lee Miller choose to bathe in Hitler’s private bathroom at the moment his regime came to an end?

This is a well-known photograph. It shows a woman calmly sitting in the bathtub of Adolf Hitler’s private apartment, taken just days before the Second World War ended. The image carries a strong message, as if history is declaring, “This chapter is over.”

The woman in the photograph is Lee Miller. Before the war, she was famous for her beauty and success as a fashion model, even gracing the cover of Vogue. However, when the war broke out, she left modeling behind and chose a much riskier path by becoming a frontline photographer determined to capture the truth.

The photo was taken in Munich, inside Hitler’s apartment, on April 30, 1945. Coincidentally, that was the same day Hitler took his own life in Berlin. Miller and her companion entered the apartment and intentionally made a bold statement.

If you look closely, her boots are stained with mud and resting on the bathmat. That dirt came from battlefields and places like the Dachau concentration camp, which she had recently photographed. In that moment, the dirt and suffering of war were brought directly into the clean, personal space of the man responsible. A portrait of Hitler can even be seen nearby, as if watching the scene.

This was not a staged act. Miller actually bathed there, washing off the physical traces of war, and later slept in his bed. It was her quiet but defiant way of showing that humanity, justice, and freedom had triumphed over the evil that once filled that home—a final, wordless act of resistance against a tyrant who was already gone.