Tornow had the task of taking care of Hitler's beloved
German shepherd Blondi, as well as her puppies, and
Eva Braun's dogs. Additionally, Tornow had his own pet
dachshund. During the last days of
World War II, Tornow was one of the few remaining German personnel in the
Führerbunker. During the course of 29 April 1945, Hitler learned of the
death of his ally,
Benito Mussolini, who had been publicly executed by Italian partisans. This, along with the fact the Soviet
Red Army was closing in on his location, led Hitler to strengthen his resolve not to be captured alive. That afternoon, Hitler expressed doubts about the cyanide capsules he had received through
Heinrich Himmler's
SS. To verify the capsules' potency, Hitler ordered
Werner Haase to test them on his dog, Blondi. Tornow had to force the opening of the dog's mouth while Haase crushed a cyanide capsule in Blondi's mouth. Tornow became visibly upset by these events, more so when the dog died as a result. According to a report commissioned by
Joseph Stalin and based on eyewitness accounts, Tornow was further upset when he was ordered to shoot Blondi's puppies. On 30 April, Tornow took each of the four puppies and shot them in the garden of the
Reich Chancellery, outside the underground bunker complex, after Hitler and Eva Braun
committed suicide together. He also killed Eva Braun's two dogs, Frau
Gerda Christian's dogs, and his own
dachshund. On 2 May 1945 the Soviet Red Army took control of the bunker complex. Tornow was among only five living occupants; the others were
Werner Haase, nurses
Erna Flegel and Liselotte Chervinska, and
Johannes Hentschel. They all surrendered to the Soviet Army troops. Tornow was taken back to the Soviet Union. He was tortured in the infamous
Lubyanka prison in Moscow. In the mid-1950s, he was released and sent to West Germany. From the 1960s until the mid-1970s he was living at Paulinenhof in Hervest, part of
Dorsten. He produced dog food there. He died at the end of the 1990s of natural causes in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. ==Portrayal in the media==