Hitler's Final Days in the Bunker

Search for Hitler Discontinued
The Cessnock Eagle and South Maitland Recorder [NSW]
23 October 1945

A British Intelligence Officer in Berlin said that British and American investigators had notified London and Washington that no evidence whatever has turned up to show that Hitler was still alive, and unless new instructions were received, the hunt for Hitler would be considered ended.

Otto Abetz  is credited as one of the sources behind the theory that Hitler had escaped Germany and was living in Argentina, thanks to a quote given to French tabloid "France Soir" on 27 October 1945 – six months after Hitler had died – saying Hitler was "certainly not dead". The newspaper extract, which is included in the FBI records, says Abetz went on to say that Hitler "was not a coward – I believe one day he will return".

Hitler Is "Probably Dead"
Army News [Darwin, NT]
2 November 1945

LONDON: After having studied a military Intelligence report [Trevor-Roper], which will be published soon, the British Cabinet has decided that Hitler is "probably dead," reports the diplomatic correspondent of the "Daily Express".

The hunt for Hitler has been going on in the British zone of Germany since V-E Day. Hundreds of Intelligence officers and field security police have followed up tens of thousands of inquiries in Germany's big cities and on lonely farms. Britons and Americans have travelled thousands of miles chasing clues, including hundreds of false trails. Some were the result of genuine misunderstandings. Others were started by under-cover Nazis determined to maintain the Legend that Hitler was alive. The joint Intelligence committee of the British chief of staff which was directing the search, decided that the likelihood that Hitler was alive was slender. They believe that one of the charred bodies in the Reich Chancellely in Berlln, which the Russians found was Hitler's, or that his followers buried him secretly.

General Eisenhower, who was misquoted by a Dutch journalist when he was reported to have stated that Hitler was alive, takes the same view. The Russians are not so sure,

British Intelligence men believe the only two possibilities left are:

[1] Hitler may be hiding in a big city. This is discounted by German readiness to betray former leaders.
[2] He may be among 12.000 SS men and Nazi lunatics lurking in the mountains of Bavaria. It is believed that Hitler's health rules out this likelihood.

While there is plenty of food in the so-called Redoubt there is little shelter, and winter cold will drive the last-ditchers out of the mountains before long. The Allies are waiting for them.

The British Army Intelligence went to a lot of trouble the other day to prove circumstantially that Hitler was dead, and a very good case was made out that he was, assuming that proof could be given of all the circumstances quoted.

Actually, one possibility stands in the way of the story being completely true, and that is the unlikelihood of Hitler having the courage to shoot himself. Men of his ilk have a tremendous faith in their own infallibility, and find it a very difficult thing to acknowledge defeat, and suicide would be a confession of defeat.

On the other hand, it could be argued that in a paroxysm of wrath, of the variety to which Hitler was no stranger, any thing could happen, but in such paroxysms the anger is directed at other people, least of all against the victim himself.

LONDON, 6 November 1945: Following the British announcement that Hitler and Eva Braun, whom he married on 29 April, committed suicide in the Chancellery Bunker on 30 Apil, their bodies burned outside the Bunke,r hundreds of Allied officers and men began an unprecedented "body hunt" said "Reuters" Berlin correspondent..

Yesterday, investigators swarmed around the entrance to the Bunker and through the gardens, searching for ashes, graves and bones.

A.A.P. 7 November 1945: The search for the bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun, who are now officially presumed dead by the British, has been intensified in the tunnels under the Chancellery in Berlin.

In the Chancellery garden are two unnamed graves beside three burned petrol tins, which lend colour to the report that the bodies of Hitler and his wife were burned.

Nearby, scores of German work men are shifting debris in a secret tunnel whose rat-infested floor is littered with books, documents, uniforms, and furniture. It is widely believed in Berlin that in this underground chamber lies the final solution of the Hitler mystery.

Hitler Order
The Australian Worker [Sydney, NSW]
7 November 1945

The American Joint Chiefs-of-Staff are not convinced of Hitler's death and have ordered General Marcus Clark, commander of the American zone in Austria, Hitler's native state, to attempt to locate and arrest the former Führer.

The order, which is part of a plan to reconstruct Austria along democratic lines, says that the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff are not certain that accounts of Hitler's death during the last days before the fall of Berlin are true, and General Clark has been ordered to arrest and hold Hitler and all other persons who participated in the planning or carrying out of Nazi enterprises resulting in atrocities and war crimes.

The New York "Herald-Tribune" points out that these directions given to General Mark Clark indicate that the United States Government believes that Hitler is still alive.

Reds Reopen Hitler Case
The Daily News [Perth, WA]
1 December 1945

BERLIN: The Russians have reopened the Hitler case, says the "Daily Mail" man in Berlin. 

They are reinvestigating the burnt Chancellery in Berlin and examining the Bunker in which Hitler and Eva Braun arc supposed to have suicided.

The Russians have established a day and night guard over the entrance to the Chancellery. OGPU [secret police] officers are repeatedly visiting the Bunker and staying for long periods.

On one occasion they were accompanied by an officer believed to be a Frenchman.

Explosions have been heard from one end of the enormous Chancellery, from the area where, according to rumors, there may be a secret tunnel from Hitler's private suite to the Bunker.

The activities of the OGPU are being kept a strict secret, but they are believed to be acting on instructions and information from Moscow, according to the correspondent of the "Daily Mail," who was not allowed to enter the Bunker. He says the city is buzzing with rumors that the Russians are about to clean up the whole circumstances surrounding the deaths. 

Says the correspondent:

"It all adds up to a very mysterious story".
 

More Hitler Enigmas
The Advertiser [Adelaide, SA]
3 January 1946

The riddle of Hitler's death continues to provide material for reports about the Nazi leader.

More enigmas concerning Hitler are increasingly cropping up. A report at present sweeping Paris is that his charred body has been found. Although the newspaper "France Soir" circulated the rumor, it says that it cannot be fully confirmed.

"France Soir" cites a well-informed Berlin citizen as having stated that a German woman guided American secret service men to a garden near the Chancellery where they round a steel plaque covering an underground concrete shelter, but there was no entrance to tbe shelter.

The garden was in the Russian zone, and accordingly the information was passed on to Allied Control. British, American and Russian representatives later went to the mystery garden and found that Red Army troops including high ranking officers, had forced an entrance and exhumed Hitler's body and a suitcase containing documents.

"France Soir" adds that the Russian High Command later secretly told the Allies that the body was unquestionably that of Hitler, and that it had been identified by a dentist. The Russians asked that the discovery be kept secret because the body had evidently been hidden after the entrance of the Red Army into Berlin.

Hitler's Body Not Found
The Sydney Morning Herald [NSW]
3 January 1946

LONDON: A report of the discovery of Hitler's body, which was published in "France Soir" yesterday,is denied by British Intelligence officers in Berlin, who say that they have no evidence of the supposed discovery.

 

New Doubts on Hitler's Death
Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners' Advocate [NSW]
6 June 1946

NEW YORK: New doubts whether Hitler actually died in the vaults of the Reichs Chancellery as the Russian Army swept into Berlin in May, 1945, have arisen among both the British and Russian Intelligence services according to the Berlin correspondent of the "North American Newspaper Alliance".

"In the past few days", he says, "the Russians have roped off the air raid shelter where Hitler was supposed to have died and are carrying out digging operations in the greatest secrecy".

The British heard of their activities, and immediately assigned three high-ranking Intelligence officers to attend as observers.

The correspondent says he visited the tiny roomn where Hitler and his wife, Eva Braun, were stated to have shot themselves, and found the Russians, in the presence of the British officers, testing bloodstains on the floor. The Russians had also removed the arm from the couch where Hitler's head was supposed to have slumped after his death.

"Many Germans still believe that Hitler is alive," the correspondent savs.

"Almost anywhere in Berlin you can hear Germans saying: 'They can't prove Hitler is dead, so he must be alive. He must lhave escaped some how'.

"There can certainly be nothing final about the mystery of Hitler's fate while there are secret British and Russian digging parties and blood-testing experiments".

Another Hitler Story
Barrier Miner [Broken Hill, NSW]
2 September 1946

PARIS: A former agent for Germany has offered to reveal the whereabouts of Hitler.

The ex-agent, Max de Riancourt, a Frenchman, claimed that Hitler was alive in the Tyrol. When arrested de Riancourt was attached to Allied intelligence in Italy.

He said:

"I have a proposition - in return for an undertaking by the court that my service in the Allied cause will be taken into consideration, I will give detailed information on four points".

The points are:

- The hiding place of Hitler and a number of other Nazi officials.

"I can lead you to Hitler. He is in the Tyrol".

- The hiding place of Marcel Deat, French traitor.

"I had lunch with him recently".

- The hiding place of two different groups of French paintings, gold, jewelry and other articles worth many millions.

- The organisation of the German Werewolf network in France.

It has not yet been decided what steps will be taken

The Canberra Times [ACT]
By Stewart Tendler
The Times, London, through AAP
11 July 1981

Thirty-six years after World War II, fresh mystery has risen over the fate of Eva Braun, Hitler's mistress and wife for one night.

According to an eminent American scientist, the body the Russians identified as that of Fräulein Braun was probably someone else. Professor Raidar Sognnaes, recently retired from the school of medicine and dentistry at the University of California in Los Angeles, helped to confirm Hitler's corpse beyond question but he raises crucial doubts about the woman's body found near the Berlin Bunker where Hitler committed suicide. He questions the identity on the grounds that "very severe exposure to fire caused cranio-facial bone destruction and charring beyond recognition . . .", but despite this a dental-bridge with white plastic teeth was supposed to have survived intact. This crucial piece of dental evidence the Russians used to identify the body was not found with the corpse but added later, he says.

A piece of bridging attributed to the corpse had been made for Eva Braun but never fitted. It was still in a dental workshop when she died. The man who made the bridge and the dental assistant who should have fitted it were tracked down by Professor Sognnaes.  He has produced evidence from Mrs Heusermann, now in her 50s, who said the bridge, had been made for Eva Braun in the dental laboratory where she worked in 1945, but was never fitted. She says the Soviets, found it in the basement dental office in the Reich Chancellery, not in Eva Braun's body.The Russians have told Professor Sognnaes the bridge has been destroyed.

Professor Sognnaes, acknowledged expert on the remains of Hitler and Martin Bormann, presented his findings to an international forensic science conference in Norway. Professor Keith Simpson, one of Britain's leading forensic experts, described him as a first-class dental research worker. Professor Sognnaes would not go as far as suggesting Eva Braun is still alive but suggests there is an enigma about what happened following the last hours in Hitler's Bunker. It is possible she still lies unidentified somewhere under East Berlin. In 1947 the Poles said she had been captured by the Americans in Austria and was last seen disappearing towards Czechoslovakia.

Last week Professor Sognnaes said:

"I don't want to make up a fanciful scenario of her being smuggled out. I am not suggesting she is alive and well. It is possible another body was found and attributed to her. Based on the forensic evidence there is no basis to claim they recovered her body".

According, to witnesses in the Bunker of the Reich Chancellery, Hitler and Eva Braun killed themselves on 30 April 1945. Hitler shot and poisoned himself while Eva Braun took a potassium cyanide capsule - though no survivor ac tually witnessed her suicide. Bodies were brought up to the surface and burnt in the shallow depression created near a small crater. A few days later they were discovered by a detachment of the Red Army.

The British captured the eye-witnesses from the Bunker. The reconstruction of the last days of the Third Reich which flowed from them became the basis of a report to the military commanders of the city and eventually led to Professor Hugh Trevor-Roper's famous book on the events, "The Last Days of Hitler". The conclusive evidence about the corpses was held by the Americans and the Russians. In the case of Hitler and Eva Braun the Americans captured their dentist, while the Russians had two bodies and two dental workers. For years the Russians were coy about what they had found. Stalin refused to reveal what they knew but in 1968 Lev Bezymensky, a Russian journalist and former intelligence officer, spelt out the findings in a book published in the West.

The bodies of Hitler and Braun, discovered by members of SMERSH, Soviet counter-intelligence, were examined in an autopsy. Both bodies were badly burnt and dental evidence was crucial to identification in both cases. Professor Sognnaes interviewed the two dental workers who now live in West Germany after being held prisoner by the Russians for 10 years.

He said:

"The bridging work was found in the factory. The bridge was done but they did not put it in Eva Braun's mouth".

In his opinion the intact plastic facings to the teeth in the bridge would have exploded in the heat of the fire if the body had been that of Braun.

Professor Sognnaes points out that there are contradictions in the evidence of the eye-witnesses about the movement of the bodies from the Bunker. Eva Braun's dead body was burnt yet the corpse found by the Russians had 16 shell splinters and had freshly bled. The Russian confusion is borne out by one senior British intelligence source who said last week that the Western Allies had met at the site both the ordinary Russians who had taken over the Bunker and the special team assembled by Stalin to track down Hitler. Material had been simply scooped up and sent East.

Professor Sognnaes said:

"It is possible that Eva Braun escaped. After all, there were a number of men in the Bunker unaccounted for who could have helped her. No one actually witnessed her death".

There was no suggestion that Hitler might have escaped with her.

The Soviet Union fell for a Nazi trick and never recovered the remains of Adolf Hitler after the fall of Berlin in 1945, a specialist in forensic dentistry has concluded after 15 years of research.

Dr. Lester Luntz said Hitler's dentist and other top Nazi officials conspired to dupe Soviet officials Into believing the charred remains of two bodies were those of the dictator and his wife, Eva Braun.

Hitler and his wife committed suicide 30 April 1945, and their bodies were later burned. Hitler had ordered the bodies destroyed because he didn't want his remains to fall Into Soviet hands. It wasn't until 1968 that the Soviet Union revealed evidence that It possessed Hitler's remains, basing its claim on skeletal evidence and interviews with the dictator's dentist and dental assistant.

"It is my personal belief that the Russians didn't get Hitler's remains, nor did they get Eva Braun's remains," Luntz said, arguing that the dictator committed suicide and his body was never found.

His conclusion is based on transcripts of interviews with Hitler's dentist, an Interview with the dental assistant and discussions with Hitler experts. He also interviewed Albert Speer, Germany's armament minister during World War II, who shared the same dentist with Hitler.

"The reason I got involved in the story was because Adolf Hitler had for a dentist a man named Hugo Johannes Blaschke," Luntz said. "He was a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Dental School. I'm also a graduate [of that school]".

Luntz, an author, professor and forensic dental expert, said Blaschke, who died In 1957, was a colonel In the Gestapo. As a member of the elite secret police corps, Blaschke was a friend of Hitler's and was dedicated to keeping the dictator's body out of Soviet hands, Luntz said. Luntz said Blaschke "conveniently lost" Hitler's dental records, but was able to provide his captors with details of the German leader's dental work. His dental assistant, Käthe Heusermann, also provided the Soviets with a detailed account of Hitler's dental work and was able to draw a picture of the teeth from memory.

Luntz believes that Nazi leaders planted the body of a Hitler look-alike near the Bunker and claimed that man's dental records were Hitler's in order to confuse the Americans and Soviets.

-- The Cincinnati Enquirer
27 February 1983

New Theory: Body in Bunker "Not Hitler's"
The Canberra Times [ACT]
23 September 1984

LONDON: The body discovered by Soviet troops at Hitler's Bunker may not have been that of the Nazi Germany leader. According to a leading US dental expert, the Soviet troops found a double and Hitler was buried elsewhere, perhaps in the Tiergarten. This theory was put to the International Association of Forensic Sciences in Oxford yesterday, "The Times of London", reports. A professor of oral diagnosis at the University of Connecticut School of Dental Medicine, Dr Lester Luntz, said Hitler's closest aides had been instructed to ensure his body did not fall in the hands of the Soviet Union.

"There is no Soviet statement of positive identification", Dr Luntz said.

"The Soviet autopsy report said the teeth were the most important anatomical finding for identification but Hitler's dental records were never found. Duplicate X-Rays, allegedly of Hitler's head, lacked positive substantial proof of their authenticity. There was no mention of X-Rays in the Soviet autopsy report although a Soviet author has said an assistant to Hitler's dentist gave Soviet security officers Hitler's dental X-Rays. But the assistant and Hugo Johannes Blaschke, Hitler's dentist, were ardent Nazis, loyal to the Führer, who would have done all that was possible to keep Hitler out of the hands of Soviet troops".

Dr Luntz said Blaschke's description of Hitler's teeth was incomplete when he gave it from memory, yet he was able to recite perfectly details of Martin Bormann's teeth.

"SS Major Otto Günsche, Hitler's adjutant, had been responsible for burning Hitler's body, Dr Luntz said.

"The major had told Colonel Eugene Bird, former Spandau Prison commandant, that the Soviet troops did not find Hitler's body".

Teething Troubles Over Hitler’s Body
By Tara Patel
New Scientist
27 March 1993 
 
Pieces of skull recently displayed by Russia’s national archives probably did not come from Adolf Hitler’s body, claims a team of French forensic scientists.

Although the fragments had been in storage in Moscow since 1945, the researchers say the German dictator’s real remains stayed in Berlin and that scientists who performed the "official" autopsy shipped an "official" corpse to Moscow under tremendous political pressure from Stalin.

The French team of forensic odontologists, or tooth specialists, at the Institute for Forensic and Social Medicine in Lille base their theory on a report by the forensic medical commission of the Soviet army, which performed autopsies on what it concluded to be the corpses of Hitler and his wife, Eva Braun. Both committed suicide in the Berlin Chancellery’s Bunker on 30 April 1945 and were partially cremated and buried the same day. The report of the autopsies, performed in May 1945, and accompanying photographs were kept secret until 1968, when they were published by a Soviet journalist.

Five years later Reidar Sognnaes, an American odontologist who had studied a report by Hitler’s dentist –arrested and interrogated by American troops in 1945– concluded that the photographs indeed showed the German leader’s maxilla, complete with removable upper bridge and false teeth. But other experts disputed this and questions remained about whether the Soviet team had had any of Hitler’s dental records on which to base their conclusions.

In the French journal "Semaine des Hopitaux", the Lille team, led by Eric Laurier, says that the Soviet forensic scientists probably knew the badly burnt and unrecognizable male corpse they were given by soldiers for the autopsy was not Hitler’s. They say the scientists deliberately put two clues into their report so the truth would eventually come out.

Although the Soviet report describes 14 teeth in the corpse’s lower jaw –matching the dentist’s records– the authors twice wrote that there were 15 teeth. Didier Gosset, one of the authors of the study, says the discrepancy in the number of teeth could not be a mistake because the report took three days to complete and was signed by five experts. He says the Russians may well have had Hitler’s false upper teeth but they were not sure whose body they had. He says that a mix-up was likely because the bodies were uncovered by soldiers with a number of others in a similar, partially cremated state.

They say historic evidence indicates that Hitler’s recognizable remains were actually uncovered at the end of May 1945 in a forest near Berlin.

Laurence De Melo
24 August 2016

Martin Bormann, Hitler’s right hand man and chancellor, the man that controlled all of Nazi Germany’s appropriated loot, was tried in absentia in October 1946 at the Nuremberg trials. Found guilty of war crimes and sentenced to death by hanging, Bormann evaded the noose due to his mysterious disappearance.

When anyone mentions the name Martin Bormann most baby-boomers will know who he was, they will also be quick to tell you that; while there was a wild goose-chase across the globe to find him, he certainly died in 1945, proved they say, by the finding of his bones in Berlin in 1972.

Two Nazi witnesses at the Nuremberg trials testified to the fact that they had seen Bormann and fellow Nazi, Dr Ludwig Stumpfegger dead, in the vicinity of the Weidendamm Bridge and the Lehrter train station in Berlin, only hours after fleeing the Bunker – where Hitler had supposedly put a bullet through his brain. One witness going as far as to say that he had even seen Bormann’s dead "moonlit face".

From 1945 the hunt for Martin Bormann was on. During the confusion of those early post war years, the West German government kept the heat up, but the "hunt" was only, If anything, lukewarm. A concentrated search effort had been made in 1945 around the site of the supposed "moonlit" scenario of Bormann and Stumpfegger, with whom he was last seen alive.

According to an interview with Hugh Trevor-Roper, Artur  Axmann "coming upon a Russian patrol, turned back and followed in the direction in which Bormann and Stumpfegger had gone. Before long he overtook them. Behind the bridge, where the Invalidenstrasse crosses the railway line, he found both of them lying out-stretched on their backs, with the moon light on their faces. Stopping for a moment, he saw that both were dead, but Russian fire prevented closer examination. There were no obvious wounds, no signs of a shattering explosion. He assumed they had been shot in the back. Axmann continued on his way alone..."

Roper left the issue of Bormann's death open in early editions of the work, because evidence of Bormann's death rested solely on the testimony of Axmann. Although Axmann's testimony regarding other events was truthful so far as it could be independently verified, Roper realized that Axmann might be giving false evidence to protect Bormann from further search. 

With the advantage of hordes of Allied troops on the ground to co-ordinate a thorough search near and around the Lehrter station in Berlin, no stone was left unturned. The same was done independently by a Russian recon group, after Lieutenant General Konstantin Telegin, of the Soviet 5th Shock Army was delivered a diary said to be of Bormann’s, found near the same site.

In those early post war years, it was not yet a "cold case", with memories still fresh and the ground still soft. Any such corpses although decomposed, would have certainly been on, or near the surface and easily identifiable with the minimum of forensics; but not as much as a scrap of flesh was found of either man. At least they had some disputable charred remains of Hitler, but the bodies of Bormann and Stumpfegger had literally "vanished" into thin air, along with the Nazi loot.

In December, 1972, during construction near the Lehrter Station [near to where Bormann's diary had been found in a discarded leather jacket in 1945 by a man who claimed to have been forced by the Russians to bury Bormann and Stumpfegger], identified the supposed grave. The man knew the body had been that of Bormann because of the pocketbook found upon the body by the man's boss.

Erich Kempka appears to have given conflicting accounts that when the tank [armoured car in some accounts] which Bormann sheltered beside exploded, that he saw Bormann fall with his leather coat on fire.

This conflicts with Russian claims that a leather coat was found some distance away to the west near Lehrter S-Bahn [station] with Bormann's diary in its pocket, but interestingly not Hitler's will, which was known to be in that coat's pocket that night. If Kempka saw the coat ablaze how was it later found intact?

When Axmann's story came out years later Kempka's story apparently changed to state that Kempka was concussed and temporarily blinded.

Axmann's story also appears to have evolved. He first stated that after the tank exploded about 1 a.m. on 2 May 1945, that he came across the dead unmarked corpse of Bormann on his back in the moonlight [There was almost no moon that night as it was 13 days past the full moon and the highest the moon reached before dawn was 18 degrees above the horizon. It was a very thin crescent and unable to bathe anybody's face in moonlight]. 
 
It is also reported that Axmann said he saw Stumpfegger and Bormann alive taking cyanide [prussic acid], and there were also conflicting claims that Bormann was still wearing the coat when Axmann saw them, but that the coat was found separate from the corpses by the Russians.

Jochen von Lang, Editor and Reporter of "Stern" verified this story. The man led von Lang and Joachim Richter Frankfurt Prime Prosecutor, to the spot where the bodies had lain before he had moved them to the burial site. It was the exact spot where Axmann had testified to having last seen them. Nevertheless, the search revealed nothing.

Seven years later the city of Berlin was excavating the area near the suspected grave. Von Lang attended and two bodies were discovered and were identified as those of Bormann and Stumpfegger. They were found thirty-six feet away from the site of the previous search. The dental records recreated from memory by Dr. Hugo Blaschke, in 1945, identified the bodies. A press conference in West Germany announced the discovery of the remains. Since the dental records were recreated from memory their authenticity was questionable. 

Paul Manning in "Martin Bormann: Nazi in Exile" cited two of Hitler's dental assistants to Dr Blaschke who said that two Bormann look-alikes were removed from concentration camps and given identical dentistry to Bormann's and accompanied the break-out party. Thus the confusion was planned in advance by Bormann.

Bormann's skull when unearthed was caked in red volcanic soil which matched soil found in Paraguay suggesting Bormann had first been buried in Paraguay, unearthed and then reburied in Berlin.

The West German Government and the Bormann family refused all permission to study the soil. His skeleton was hastily cremated and the ashes spread in the Baltic in great secrecy to prevent all further investigations.

At the time there were protests in many newspapers wanting to know more about the red soil. These included:

"The News Letter" [Belfast, Northern Ireland]; 5/5/1998 
"The Scotsman" [Edinburgh, Scotland]; 8/30/1999 
"The Birmingham Post" [England]; 5/11/1998 

But after construction workers came across human remains near the Lehrter station in Berlin in 1972, the world’s press gathered to hear if this was indeed Bormann.

Skeletons not of Bormann
The Canberra Times [ACT]
13 December 1972 

WEST BERLIN: Hopes that two skeletons dug up in West Berlin last week might solve the 27 year-old mystery surrounding the disappearance of Hitler's Deputy, Martin Bormann. dimmed yesterday when police said preliminary comparison of dental records had proved negative.

Bormann's skull had about eight fillings not performed before May 1945. It had an upper right 3rd molar crown not present in 1945 and a lower window crown bridge from lower right to lower left lateral incisor inclusive. During the war Dr. Blaschke had performed a crown on Bormann's U/left cent incisor which in the 1972 skeleton was replaced by a three element bridge. There were also at least three teeth L/L 1st molar U/L bicuspid and U/L 2nd Bicuspid missing with bone growth over their sockets which had been present before the breakout on 2 May 1945.

The skulls of the two skeletons were unearthed during cable-laying work near the spot where Mr. Bormann, who if alive today would be 72, was last seen at the end of World War II.

Forensic experts compared them yesterday with Mr. Bormann's dental records but there was nothing to indicate that either skull belonged to the world's most wanted Nazi war criminal.

Bormann’s Nazi dentist Dr Hugo Blaschke was called and he recalled from memory his former patient’s dental physiology and gave testimony that they were one and the same, the case was then closed.

Bormann Dead
The Canberra Times [ACT]
12 April 1973

FRANKFURT, Germany: The case book on the Martin Bormann mystery was formally closed today when the Frankfurt Attorney General, Mr Gauf, ruled that a recently un-earthed skeleton was "with certainty" that of Hitler's deputy, the "Associated Press" reported.

"Martin Bormann died on 2 May 1945, between 1 and 3 A.M. on the Invalidenstrasse Railway bridge, in Berlin, a short time after his accomplice Adolf Hitler", Mr Gauf said in directing that the 28-year search for Bormann be terminated and the existing arrest warrant be lifted.  

As stated in the Final Report of the Frankfurt State Prosecution office under File Index No. Js 11/61 [GStA Ffm] in "Criminal Action against Martin Bormann on Charge of Murder", dated 4 April 1973:

XI. Result
Although nature has placed limits on human powers of recognition [BGHZ Vol. 36, pp. 379-393-NJW 1962, 1505], it is proved with certainty that the two skeletons found on the Ulap fairgrounds in Berlin on 7 and 8 December 1972, are identical with the accused Martin Bormann and Dr. Ludwig Stumpfegger.

The accused and Dr. Ludwig Stumpfegger died in Berlin in the early hours of the morning of 2 May 1945 -- sometime between 1:30 and 2:30 A.M.

XII. Further Measures
1. The search for Martin Bormann is officially terminated.

The forensic identification was validated by Dr. Reidar F. Sognnaes, a celebrated U.S. expert in such matters. [Reidar F. Sognnaes, 'Dental Evidence in the Postmortem Identification of Adolf Hitler, Eva Braun and Martin Bormann', in "Legal Medicine Annual", 1976].

This new evidence caused Trevor-Roper to write in the 1978 edition of "The Last Days of Hitler" that "...in view of new evidence which has recently been found, I believe that it [the question of Bormann's death] can now be closed". 
 

Martin Bormann’s body was "unearthed" in 1972 
at a site that had been thoroughly and extensively searched by various groups of soldiers and investigators over the years  

 

It was not until 1998 that due to modern science technology, the remains were subjected to a DNA forensic study by the West German prosecutor. The reason for this new 1998 investigation was that in 1996 Christopher Creighton, aka John Ainsworth-Davis a former British Naval Intelligence agent and member of the covert British group C.O.P.P [Combined Operations Pilotage Parties] had published a book, "OPJB" [Operation James Bond]. In the book, Creighton using a pseudonym, claims that along with Ian Fleming, he was instructed by Winston Churchill and Desmond Morton the head of Secret British Intelligence section V, to rescue Martin Bormann from a burning Berlin in May 1945. The book passed off as a novel, to protect Creighton from potential serious consequences due to breach of the Official Secrets Act – unsettled the German government to the extent that a thorough forensics and DNA investigation was carried out on the remains. The forensic results came back after the legal medical team matched blood from a maternal Bormann relative, the match was positive.

A confirmation of the remains being those of Bormann was released to the world’s press, along with the statement that Martin Bormann had certainly died in 1945 at the site his remains were found.

Due to the 1998 DNA confirmation of the Martin Bormann skeleton, modern historians teach their students that stories of Bormann escaping to South America are false, nothing more than the rantings of conspiracy theorists and madmen. A handful of bona-fide investigative journalists and even former Intelligence agents have been continually slandered after they have released information to the contrary, that there has been a cover-up by the western allies; that not only did Bormann escape, but his escape was orchestrated by the British intelligence services with the full knowledge of the United States government.

Anyone that dares to raise any questions as to the true dynamics of Bormann’s disappearance and death, is discredited based only on the DNA match which confirm the remains as being Bormann. But why are there such conflicting stories between the official version and the version by those that have seriously investigated this strange case for decades? Bormann’s remains were found in 1972, but did he really die in 1945? And what exactly is at stake if it were proved that he died much later than we are led to believe? Even though his remains were found in 1972 in Berlin, it does not mean that his body had lain there since 1945 and there is absolutely no evidence to suggest such. In fact, there is more evidence to suggest foul play by the British and American Intelligence services, that Bormann did escape and after his death in the mid/late 1960’s his remains were carefully reburied in the place historians like to believe he fell.

In 1998, a test identified the skull as that of Bormann, using DNA from an unnamed 83-year-old relative.

Some controversy continued, however. For example, Hugh Thomas' 1995 book "Doppelgängers" claimed there were forensic inconsistencies suggesting Bormann died later than 1945. According to this work and the very controversial "The Nazi Hydra in America: Wall Street and the Rise of the Fourth Reich" by Glen Yeadon, there were not only significant forensic inconsistencies with Bormann's having died in 1945, but there were also a very many credible sightings of Bormann in South America well in to the 1960s. The forensic inconsistencies included the following:

1) A certain type of volcanic red clay that was found caked on much of the skull, which suggested that the skull had been dug up and moved since that type of soil doesn't exist in the ground in Berlin, but is instead largely found in Paraguay [which is where several of the Bormann sightings were reported to have occurred].

2) Record of dental work. Although Bormann's dental records dating back to 1945 matched dental work done on that skull, there was also other, more recently performed dental work that didn't show up on the 1945 dental records, but appeared to exist in addition to all of the other dental work that matched exactly the 1945 records.

3) The position and condition of the teeth in the skull indicated that the skull belonged to someone of a more advanced age then Bormann's almost 45 years at the time of his supposed 1945 death.

Since 1998 DNA testing revealed the skull to in fact be Bormann's, the theory that is suggested by the above evidence is that Bormann lived outside of Germany for some time, and that after his death his remains were buried somewhere [presumably near where he had been living]. Then, sometime later, as part of a cover-up, his remains were exhumed, altered appropriately [such as the planting of glass shards in the lower jar to mimic the result of having bitten down on a glass cyanide ampule], and then "planted" as evidence, with the intention of them being found in Berlin by "accident," to lend credence to story that Bormann had fallen nearby, in 1945, and that that was where his body was ultimately buried by someone who perhaps didn't recognize him or who did but didn't want it to be found at the time.

People have questioned why Bormann, if he had indeed been buried abroad, would have been exposed directly to the soil as opposed to being in a casket or sarcophagus of some kind. Theorists of this conspiracy suggest that perhaps, during his period of hiding, the plan had existed all along [or was conceived at least at the time of his death] and therefore he was buried locally to allow his body to naturally biodegrade before being exhumed and relocated back to a site in Berlin where it would eventually be found.

Theories as to who perpetrated this crime abound, from the West German government wanting to cover-up his escape to the Mossad wanting to cover-up the fact that they knew his whereabouts but were unable or unwilling to abduct him and bring him to justice as they had with Eichmann to elements of the British government wanting to cover-up the fact that they had helped him escape in order to get access to his vast fortune to the Soviets wanting to cover-up the fact that he had in fact been the deep-cover mole codenamed "Werther". 

On the publication of the 1998 Bormann DNA report, "London’s Daily Express" newspaper called it a "whitewash". The author of the article, Stewart Steven a very experienced foreign editor of the "Daily Express", who was participant and directly involved with a thorough Bormann investigation in Buenos Aires, along with a team of highly qualified academics and lawyers, was sacked 6 days later.

Stevens was accused of publishing a "hoax" and discredited as having being hoodwinked into believing that classified Argentine government and Federal police files were fakes, even though there is absolutely no evidence to date to prove, let alone suggest, that such files were in fact anything but genuine.

But why do modern historians find it so shocking to consider the possibility  that Martin Bormann, Hitler’s "Banker" may have escaped from Berlin with the help of British intelligence? Not only would it make absolute sense to Churchill, to lift the man with access to all the money, it would be negligent to fail to.

After all, numerous Nazi officers who were participant in the brutal slavery of concentration camp prisoners, were snapped up by the USA for their various talents. Many of whom were made post WWII heroes in the American scientific community, after being "invited" to the USA as part of Operation Paperclip.

Notorious  Nazi Klaus Barbie, a former head of the  Gestapo and known as the "Butcher of Lyon", was tried at Nuremberg and sentenced to death in absentia, yet it is documented that Barbie was protected and formerly employed in 1947 by the U.S Army Counterintelligence Corps [CIC] and later by the CIA to set up the Western Intelligence Network to keep tabs on communist threat. This was a major and shocking betrayal by the USA as to the allied Nuremberg trial sentencing of Barbie. When the French government discovered that the USA were protecting Barbie, they requested he be immediately handed over for execution under international law. The USA flatly refused and consequently gave Barbie a new identity and shipped him off to Bolivia.

If the USA could blatantly fly in the face of the International Nuremberg trials death sentence which they were actively participant in by protecting a psychopathic killer such as Barbie, why is it so unacceptable to believe that the Allies would rescue Martin Bormann, the man with access to the hidden Nazi funds? If anything, there should have been a rabid race between the USA and Britain to see who could get to him first.

Pried loose by Congress, which passed the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act three years ago, a long-hidden trove of once-classified CIA documents confirms one of the worst-kept secrets of the Cold War – the CIA's use of an extensive Nazi spy network to wage a clandestine campaign against the Soviet Union.

The CIA reports show that U.S. officials knew they were subsidizing numerous Third Reich veterans who had committed horrible crimes against humanity, but these atrocities were overlooked as the anti-Communist crusade acquired its own momentum. For Nazis who would otherwise have been charged with war crimes, signing on with American Intelligence enabled them to avoid a prison term. 

-- Martin A. Lee   "San Francisco Bay Guardian"  7 May 2001  

Hans Globke was a  Nazi functionary working with Adolf Eichmann in the Jewish Affairs department who helped draft the laws stripping Jews of rights. After the war he rose to become one of the most powerful figures in the government. As national security advisor to Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, he was the main liaison with the CIA and NATO.

Julian Borger in Washington: 
 
On 23  May 1960, when Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion announced to the Knesset that "Adolf Eichmann, one of the greatest Nazi war criminals, is in Israeli custody", US and West German Intelligence services reacted to the stunning news not with joy but alarm. 

At the request of the West Germans, the CIA even managed to persuade "Life" magazine to delete any reference to Globke from Eichmann's memoirs, which it had bought from the family.

But it was not just Globke. When Eichmann was captured the CIA combed files it had captured from the Nazis to find information that might be useful to the Israeli prosecution. The results caused near panic among the CIA's leadership because, unknown to the junior staff who had looked through the files, a few of Eichmann's accomplices being investigated had been CIA "assets".

--- "Guardian" 8 June 2006 

The Nazis were also experimenting with technology extremely advanced for their time, and many Nazi scientists, evaluated as  being valuable resources for post-war America, were repatriated to the US under "Project Paperclip".

Between 1945 and 1965 there were numerous sightings of Bormann. Bormann’s former personal chauffeur, Jakob Glas, said that he had seen Bormann in Munich months after May 1945, as did many others.

Paul Manning, author, Intelligence expert and former war correspondent claimed along with others that Bormann escaped. When Manning tried to publish his extensively researched 1981 book "Martin Bormann – Nazi in Exile", he was menacingly threatened. After finally getting a renegade publisher to agree to publish his work, within two weeks the publisher had his legs broken in a vicious and anonymous attack and shortly after Manning’s son was mysteriously murdered. In fact Manning’s story is very much in line with the former British Intel officer and author of "OPJB". Christopher Creighton states that Bormann escaped, as does former WWII British army General and war crimes investigator, Ian Bell. Bell can be seen on YouTube telling us that he saw Bormann being taken to a ship in Genoa and when he radioed back to his HQ command, he was told to follow but "do not apprehend".

Contrary to the survival story being told by those considered "crazy conspiracy theorists", there are many highly qualified and well versed investigators and former Intelligence agents that tell us the story we teach our children at school is just that, a story.

Hugh Thomas, surgeon, international forensic expert and author of the 1995 book "Doppelgängers" wrote extensively about the Bormann forensics investigation that suggest Bormann died later than 1945. According to Jonathan Glancey of "The Guardian", Thomas’s "scalpel-sharp eye for detail" and second investigative work "Hess: A Tale of Two Murders", precipitated a six-month Scotland Yard inquiry that saw its report immediately suppressed. Thomas confirms that the original Bormann medical reports in 1972 released only some and not all the information found under the microscope. While it is true the dentistry of the skull found was identified as Bormann, the official report failed to reveal to the public that there was dentistry performed in the skull, which could only have been done in the 1950’s due to the technology used. A man that died in 1945 is certainly not going to go to the dentist in 1950. Also, the skull "found" in Berlin was encased in a "red clay" type earth, exotic to Germany but local to a place in Paraguay, the very place that many investigators have traced Bormann to in his last years. Those last years being as late as 1968.

Reinhardt Gehlen former senior Nazi, Cold war spymaster and head of the West German Intelligence network, also claimed that Bormann escaped to South America and died in Paraguay.

But probably some of the most disturbing work comes from Ladislas Farago. In 1974, Farago a brilliant military historian, WWII war correspondent and former civilian naval intelligence officer, published "Aftermath: Martin Bormann and the Fourth Reich". Farago, after a long and painstaking investigation on the ground in South America, much of which was spent accessing classified Argentine intelligence documents, presented his evidence including copies of said documents in his book. Not only did Farago examine and get the classified documents he accessed authenticated, he called in a team to join him on the ground in Buenos Aires to witness and document the authentication of such.

The formidable 1972 Buenos Aires team with Farago included former Intelligence operative and New York attorney Joel Weinberg, Stewart Steven the Foreign Editor of the "London Daily Express" and four top Argentine attorneys; Dr. Guillermo Macia Ray, Dr. Jaime Joaquin Rodriguez, Dr. Silvio Frondizi the brother of the former President Frondizi of Argentina and Horacio A. Perillo, the former legal aid to the Argentine President Frondizi. Farago and his team’s conclusion was that Martin Bormann certainly escaped Europe in 1945 with the help of the Allies and went on to South America where he survived for many years, many of them in Argentina.

Even though Farago and his team were highly qualified to make an intelligent and thorough analysis and investigation on the documents made available to them, Farago’s publication was ignored and serious attempts were made to discredit him and the other members of the team. Precedence had been set, when it came to stating or even suggesting Bormann had survived, even experts like Farago, who was also the world’s leading expert on propaganda and clandestine psychological forms of espionage at the time, was not safe from character assassination, ridicule and criticism. It is blatant there were those that were determined to keep the 1945 Bormann death myth in force and such suppression of evidence continues to this day.

But not everyone ignored Farago’s book. The content and evidence produced by Farrago was so compelling that it attracted the attention of Dr. Robert M.W. Kempner, a former Nuremberg trial attorney who decided to reopen the Bormann investigation, based on Farago’s documentary evidence of survival.

Farago, Manning, Thomas and Kempner, are sadly long gone, but the Bormann investigation is far from a cold case, as a new generation of investigative journalists have reopened the dusty Bormann files and have enthusiastically picked up from where their predecessors departed. Recent research reveals that the Federal police archives in Argentina show that the FBI were sending agents to Argentina to follow the Bormann case and his financial trails well into the 1980’s. New elderly witnesses, who till recently refused to talk have also come forward in the past 3 years and startling new evidence has come to light that cannot be ignored and may very well lead to the undisputable discovery that Bormann did escape and lived for many years in South America with the protection of the Allies.
 

James P O'Donnell, a WW2 US Intelligence officer, in  "The Berlin Bunker" [1979] devotes two whole chapters to claims that in his last fortnight alive Hitler was preoccupied not with the advancing Russians but with leaks of information on an Allied radio station masquerading as an SS station known as "Soldatensender West"

It broadcast juicy gossip about Hitler's inner circle only known to those who were closest to Hitler. RSHA boss Heinrich "Gestapo" Müller was summoned to Berlin to find the security leak in April 1945.

O'Donnell asserts from sources he interviewed that Himmler's SS attaché Hermann Fegelein may not have been shot after all. He was arrested in Berlin on 27 April 1945 in company with a British woman, a bag full of German and Swiss currency, gold rings and watches, pearls, diamond jewelry and two passports one British with photographs, both of his companion. The woman was not arrested. Fegelein was arrested for attempting to desert.

Fegelein's mistress was believed to be of Irish nationality and married to a high ranking Hungarian diplomat in Admiral Miklós Horthy's service. In late 1944, her husband was arrested by the Gestapo and she was left stranded in Berlin with little or no means of support. Apparently, she became a short-term lover of Göbbels who found her employment working for a radio station. It was while with Göbbels that she caught the eye of Fegelein. She was believed to be in the pay of the British Secret Service, members of which remember her by her nickname of Mata O'Hara.

Members of Hitler's staff remember her being in the company of Fegelein, but never at the Reichschancellery. It is strongly suspected that Fegelein leaked information to the British via this woman during bedroom activities and also that she was the mystery woman in Fegelein's secret apartment when Peter Högl arrived to advise Fegelein of Hitler's wish [via Rattenhuber] that he present himself at the Reichschancellery immediately. The woman cleverly made her escape through a kitchen window on the pretext of getting water for some cognac that Fegelein had offered his "guests". At this point, Högl had no orders to forcibly return Fegelein to the Reichschancellery, so he did not pay much attention to the woman, much to his subsequent regret.

After radio broadcasts about Himmler trying to cut a deal with the British and Americans, Hitler demanded that Fegelein be charged with treason.

The trial was abandoned because Fegelein was drunk. Hans Rattenhuber was tasked with holding Fegelein and carrying out the firing squad, but it is known that Bormann intervened and that Gestapo Müller removed the prisoner to be interrogated at the Dreifältigkeit chapel. After being led away by Gestapo men, Fegelein was not seen again. Hitler delayed his marriage to Eva Braun to seek advice from Müller whether Fegelein had indeed been shot. Müller said he was.

Hanna Reitsch asserted that she saw Fegelein shot ten minutes before her departure with Ritter von Greim. Reitsch later recanted this saying she only heard of Fegelein's execution by hearsay.

Hanna Reitsch let slip to American interrogators that when she flew out of Berlin's Tiergarten,  she saw a Ju-52 parked in a sheltered revetment and the pilot waiting by the plane was probably the same one who had flown Fegelein to Berlin from Rechlin airport. Since the Russians never reported finding the wreckage of this Ju-52, it must be assumed it flew out.

Whilst the Gestapo marched Fegelein off on the 28 April for interrogation, Bormann personally went off to Fegelein's flat to find the woman armed with a description from Hans Baur who knew her.

The woman who most closely matches the description seems to be Baroness Mary Allison Gerstenberger-Miske. It is known she survived the war but was arrested by the Soviets when returning to Hungary in 1947 to settle the affairs of her husband. She was imprisoned by the Soviets as a British spy and only released in 1955.

RHSA then ordered a Ju-290 aircraft of I/KG200 with fuselage code PJ+PS to make a one way VIP flight from Hörsching, Linz to Barcelona at the first opportunity from 30 April 1945.

The flight was to be flown by Haupt Braun & Ofw Aufdenkamp ordered by Führungstab I/Ic secret command matter Br.B. No 1136/45. Hitler is known to have ordered Bormann to escape with his will so it is conceivable the Ju-52 flew Müller and Bormann to Hörschung and from there they escaped by Ju-290 to Barcelona.

It was alleged by Adolf Eichman's son in Argentina that Heinrich Müller lived on an estate in Cordoba, Argentina under the name Hertzog. When Müller's grave in the war cemetary at Kreuzburg in Berlin was exhumed on 25 September 1963, it was found to contain an assortment of bones from three separate individuals to represent one anatomically correct body. The three donors were all taller in stature than Müller had been.

One important witness is a former military ADC to Argentine General Juan Perón. This high ranking internationally decorated military officer had been the ADC to 7 Argentine presidents, a close personal friend of Chilean President Augusto Pinochet and was the sub chief of the tough Argentine Federal secret police and prominently involved in the dismantling of the Argentine narcotics traffic in the 1990’s. His taped testimony given in 2010 on the premise that it could only be revealed after his death to protect his family, is that he met Martin Bormann frequently in Buenos Aires in late 1952 and till the end of 1953. He also testifies that on the instructions of Perón, he organised the personal security for Bormann and escorted him to various meetings in Argentina. This highly credible witness also tells us that Bormann had been installed in a famous luxury hotel in Buenos Aires throughout 1953, which was owned by Germans.
 

 

The ADC also testifie that he was sent on a weekly basis to collect the Bormann bill from the hotel concierge which he was instructed to take directly to Perón, who paid the bill from his personal bank accounts. This man asked for nothing in exchange for his testimony, all he requested was that the truth be finally known after his death. The official died in 2012 and his testimony is now ready for publication.

Another recent elderly witness with ties to the FBI and CIA, is a former Naval Captain who was in charge of the security for the port of Buenos Aires. He tells us that not only was it common knowledge, but it is documented in the classified Federal police archives that Bormann was certainly living in Argentina in the 50's and that the CIA were in Argentina keeping close tabs on Bormann’s South American movements as late as 1967.

The most controversy surrounds the author of the 1996 book "OPJB". Christopher Creighton writes that he was instructed by Lord Louis Mountbatten and Winston Churchill to reveal the truth of all the Ops in which he was participant, 25 years after the death of both. According to Creighton, "OPJB" is not only the title of the book, but the operational code name given to the plan to rescue Bormann from Berlin. Documents have been seen and recently photographed which were written to Creighton from Lord Louis Mountbatten in 1976 which prove Creighton was not only certainly working for British Naval Intelligence at the very highest level, but that Creighton was Desmond Morton’s Godson.

This new evidence puts in grave doubt spy writer Nigel West’s claims that Christopher Creighton is a "charlatan". There are also letters from James Bond author Ian Fleming to Creighton which testify to OPJB, the highly covert operation as being fact and that he based his James Bond Character on Creighton’s covert naval operations. How did Fleming know? Because according to verified letters from Fleming to Creighton, Fleming was not only part of the operation while he was a Royal Naval commander under the command of Desmond Morton for the British secret service, but he was the commander in charge of the rescue.

A British factual film company, "Christopher Robin Media Ltd", have in their possession an as yet unpublished 2013 interview of Creighton recorded only weeks before his death. The startling interview gives never before revealed details of various highly covert British Naval intelligence operations, including the assassination of French Admiral Francois Darlan and the operation to remove Martin Bormann from Berlin.

In 2007 a lady came forward to investigators with a story that she had been born in a German clinic in Brazil in 1952. This five foot two, blonde, green eyed lady, was found to be a well balanced, well educated and discreet and trustworthy member of her community, a far cry from a publicity seeking delusional self-promoter. Her adoptive father had been a senior naval officer for the  Dominican Republic dictator Radael Trujillo. She claims her adoptive father was entrusted with her in 1952, the year of her birth, after he was in Brazil negotiating arms deals between the Dominican Republic government and the German arms factories hidden in the Brazilian jungle.

In 1984 she contacted the Simon Wiesenthal centre after her adoptive father revealed on his death-bed that she was the daughter of "one of Germany’s three greatest men". Extremely distressed at this shocking revelation and wondering who it could possibly be, she with her attorney approached the Simon Wiesenthal Centre for help. Within weeks her attorney was anonymously threatened with his life and shortly after, dropped her representation after the SWC aggressively told him that they were not able to help and would not investigate due to "lack of funds". An unusual response from a wealthy organisation whose main objective has been to track down Nazi war criminals. Even Simon Wiesenthal himself believed till his death in 2005, a full 7 years after the 1998 DNA analysis that Bormann escaped and was frequently outspoken against the official version. It is shocking and detrimental to Wiesenthal’s memory, that those that now head the very organisation founded in his name have obstructed investigations and ridicule others that believe what Wiesenthal believed, Bormann escaped.

I contacted the SWC in 2010 to request copies of the investigation files held by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre on Martin Bormann. After three months of cold shouldering on their part, I finally managed to speak to the head of the organisation itself. I revealed the fact we were in touch with a lady that had been formally refused help by the SWC in 1985 and we had the documentation that the SWC refused to investigate due to "lack of funding". We were now soliciting their support to reopen her case and investigate, especially as the SWC had been avidly promoting and raising significant funding for their much publicised  "Operation Last Chance" - "a campaign to bring remaining Nazi war criminals to justice by offering financial rewards for information leading to their arrest and conviction". But rather like the famous Anna Anderson and Russian Grand Duchess Anastasia case, all efforts to access information on official files to see if this adopted woman has any Nazi blood connections have failed.

If Bormann did escape, then the adopted woman may very well be the daughter of Martin Bormann, not only because of the mysterious dynamics surrounding her birth, but photos of her, the officials involved, the timing of her birth and the fact investigators believe Bormann was in Brazil with Dr Josef Mengele in late 1951. Recent photos of the woman’s son show an uncanny similarity  with Martin Bormann’s eldest son Adolf. 

Access to genuine DNA of Martin Bormann or one of his children or grandchildren is now vital to the investigation, not only to make comparisons with potential offspring conceived post 1945, but also to compare with supposed Bormann DNA profiles in the Files held by various Intelligence agencies.  If Bormann did indeed escape, those that covered it up are going to go to enormous lengths to hide any incriminating evidence. Bonafide DNA profiles of Bormann would be the last thing they would leave hanging around.

I was extremely surprised to discover that during the forensic analysis of the Bormann remains in 1998, only mitochondrial DNA was put on the record. And the Bormann relation that was used to confirm the identity of the skeleton was an 83-year-old Maternal relative of Bormann not Martin Bormann’s son who was easily available for such.

The mitochondrial DNA specifics were confirmed in a conversation I had with one of the doctors involved in the original 1998 investigation, which had been instigated by the West German Prosecutor. For those that are not genetically savvy, mitochondrial DNA could only be used to match a person or corpse to maternal blood relations. This means that the Martin Bormann DNA profile held on official documents is worthless for use for matching with any possible offspring or grandchildren.

One would have thought that after going to such extraordinary lengths of opening a through investigation and having such remains available for research, the scientists and doctors would have taken every possible bit of data possible, particularly DNA – they did not. And just to keep things really tidy, after the closing of the investigation, Martin Bormann, guardian to Nazi Germany’s post WWII wealth and classified technology, was promptly cremated and thrown "into the sea" in the Baltic, outside German territorial waters.

Those that work to uncover highly covert conspiracies have a hard time, whether it be on the Kennedy assassination, death of princess Diana or Martin Bormann, much of their compelling evidence can be at best circumstantial and it would not be a Conspiracy if the organisers of such were sloppy enough to leave a paper trail or hot leads to expose their plot. The appeal is now for genuine Martin Bormann blood relatives to come forward, not only to cross match with the woman, but to cross match with the DNA profiles supposedly used to identify Bormann in 1998 and those held in official and public files. Of course if this woman does have Bormann DNA and being born in a German clinic in Brazil in 1952, it will once and for all put to bed the mystery and will vindicate all those that have sacrificed much to reveal what they believed to be the truth. Could that truth be that Martin Bormann escaped and went on to manage the vast funds accumulated by Nazi Germany with the help of Britain and the USA? And according to recent research, those vast funds were probably laundered through and invested into over 750 international companies with or without Bormann.

Since 1972, "official" historians and academics have spun their tales and told the world that Bormann certainly died near the Lehrter station in the early hours of 2 May 1945. This oral history is based on no more than unreliable witnesses, two of which were Nazis and a DNA match to a skeleton found in 1972.

DNA may prove that the remains are those of Bormann, but there is more evidence to prove that he was alive for at least 25 years after 1945;. 25 years, in which he could have managed the vast Nazi wealth, including cash, gold, stocks, bonds, shares and priceless works of art. After all, with all the modern banking forensics available to date, not one single Intelligence agency or government claims that the vast, fat, booty has been found! Or has it?

After WWII Bormann remained a mysterious figure; sentenced in absentia to 10 years imprisonment and forfeiture of all property by a Bertesgaden denazification tribunal 18 July 1948 ["Encyclopedia of the Third Reich" ; "New York Times' 19 July 1948]; trial in absentia by an Austrian people's court at Linz announced 9 August 1949; disposition unknown; declared legally dead 1954 (NYT 28 February 1965; NYT 12 May 1967; declared dead 16 June 1960 by Berlin denazification court and property seized [NYT 16 Jun 1960]; US Embassy to Argentina believed Bormann was living in Posadas, Misiones Province, Argentina in 1947-1948 [NYT 14 December 1993]; Walter Flegel arrested September 1960 in Argentina on suspicion of being Bormann [NYT 30 September 1960]; Flegel freed 30 September 1960 by Argentine authorities after fingerprint test proves he is not Bormann [NYT 1 October 1960]; German prosecutor believes Bormann still lives 14 April 1961 and prosecution re-opened [NYT 15 April 1961]; Brazilian police investigating leads 19 March  1964 [NYT 20 March 1964]; leads the result of an impostor but West German authorities investigating report Bormann died near Asuncion, Paraguay in 1959 [NYT 21 March 1964]; $25,000 reward posted by West Germany for capture November 1964 [NYT 28 February 1965]; sons Adolf Martin Bormann Jr. and Gerhard Bormann interrogated by West German authorities at Frankfurt 28 May 1965 [NYT 29 May 1965]; arrest of Eduardo Garcia Gomez/Juan Calero or Falero Martinez at Mariscos, Guatemala May 1967 on suspicion of being Bormann [NYT 12 May 1967; NYT 13 May 1967; NYT 14 May 1967]; Guatemalan freed after fingerprint test proves he is not Bormann 16 May 1967 [NYT 17 May 1967]; extradition request by West Germany to Brazil July 1967 [NYT 5 July 1967]; reportedly living in Brazil near the border with Paraguay 31 December 1967 [NYT 1 January 1968]; reportedly living in Latin America 25 November 1972 [NYT 26 November 1972; NYT 2 Dec 1972]; claims doubted [NYT 26 November 1972]; West German authorities consider re-opening war crimes proceedings against Bormann December 1972 [NYT 5 December 1972]; Bormann, Argentina, and 1945 U-Boat treasure detailed [NYT 13 November 1991; NYT 7 December 1991}; reportedly committed suicide at Berlin in May 1945 by biting a cyanide capsule, according to dental records examined by dental detective Dr. Reidar Sognnaes [NYT 10 September 1974]; a newspaper in Paraguay reported in 1993 that Martin Bormann had lived in that country for three years, according to the Paraguayan Interior Ministry, and had died in Asuncion on 15 February 1959, and was buried in a nearby town. The  cause of death was gastric cancer [see also NYT 1 June 1993].

Bormann was the adminstrator of "Operation Regentröpfchen", the evacuation of Reich gold, money and treasure to Argentina, and the size of this fortune evidenced by the few documents released from Argentine official archives is mind boggling. If Bormann survived and escaped, it was to Argentina that he came.

Postwar Nazi money laundering through bogus land deals was administered from San Carlos de Bariloche in Neuquen province. In the early 1960s there were reports in the local and foreign Press of a grave in the cemetery at Bariloche, allegedly that of Martin Bormann, having been visited by officials of the German Embassy, after which it vanished.

Yet it has been officially written, printed, signed sealed and delivered, even into our children’s history lessons. Martin Bormann died in 1945 de-facto, the loot disappeared and anyone that tells you different is a deluded "Conspiracy Theorist".

Berlin Breakout

At 9.30 p.m. on 1 May 1945, Hamburg radio warned the German people that a grave and important announcement was about to be made.Suitably funereal music from Wagner and Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony was played to prepare listeners for Grand Admiral Dönitz' address to the nation.

He stated that Hitler had fallen, fighting "at the head of his troops", and announced his succession.

Very few people in Berlin heard the news because of the lack of electric current.

Martin Bormann, meanwhile, was evidently impatient at having to wait for the Göbbels family drama to finish. Berlin Commandant General Helmuth Weidling’s surrender was to take place at midnight and the breakout northwards over the Spree was due to start an hour before.

The personnel from the Führer Bunker, including Traudl Junge, Gerda Christian and Constanze Manzialy, had been told to assemble ready for departure. Generals’ Hans Krebs and Wilhelm Burgdorf, who both intended to shoot themselves later, were not to be seen.

Gustav Krukenberg, Brigadeführer of the Charlemagne Division of the Waffen-SS and further commander of its remains and the SS Division Nordland during the Battle of Berlin, who had been summoned earlier by Wilhelm Mohnke, encountered Artur Axmann and Joachim Ziegler, the previous commander of the Nordland. Mohnke asked Krukenberg whether, as the senior officer, he wished to continue the defence of the city centre. He added that General Weidling had given an order to break out of Berlin north-westwards through the Soviet encirclement, but that a cease-fire would come into effect around midnight. Krukenberg agreed to join the breakout. He and Ziegler left to rally the Nordland and other units in the area. Krukenberg sent one of his aides on ahead, with messages to outlying detachments to fall back. The group led by Captain Henri Joseph Fenet, defending Gestapo headquarters on Prinz-Albrechtstrasse, heard nothing. Krukenberg’s aide, who was never seen again, probably met his death before he reached them.

The scenes in the Bunker were chaotic as Bormann and Mohnke tried to organize everybody into groups. In the end, they did not leave until nearly 11 p.m., two hours later than planned. The first group, led by Mohnke, set out through the cellars of the Reich Chancellery, and then followed a complicated route to the Friedrichstrasse Bahnhof. The others followed at set intervals. The most difficult part was just north of the station, where they had to cross the Spree. This could not be done under cover of darkness because the flames from bombarded buildings lit up the whole area. The first group from the Reich Chancellery, which included Mohnke and the secretaries, wisely avoided the main Weidendammer Bridge. They used a metal footbridge 300 metres downstream and headed for the Charité  Hospital.

A Nordland Tiger tank and a self-propelled assault gun were to spearhead the main charge across the Weidendammer Bridge. Word had spread of the breakout and many hundreds of SS, Wehrmacht soldiers and civilians had assembled. It was a gathering which Soviet troops could not fail to miss. The first mass rush, led by the Tiger tank, took place just after midnight, but although the armoured monster managed to smash through the barrier on the north side of the bridge, they soon ran into very heavy fire in the Ziegelstrasse beyond. An anti-tank round struck the Tiger and many of the civilians and soldiers in its wake were mown down. Axmann was wounded, but managed to stagger on his way. Bormann and Dr Ludwig Stumpfegger were knocked over by the blast when the tank was hit, but they recovered and went on. Bormann carried the last copy of Hitler's Testament, and he evidently hoped to use it to justify his claim to a position in Dönitzs government when he reached Schleswig-Holstein.

Another attack over the bridge was made soon afterwards, using a self-propelled 20mm quadruple flak gun and a half-track. This too was largely a failure. A third attempt was made at around 1a.m., and a fourth an hour later. Bormann, Stumpfegger, Günther Schwägermann and Axmann kept together for a time. They followed the railway line to the Lehrterstrasse Bahnhof. There they split up. Bormann and Stumpfegger turned north-eastwards towards the Stettiner Bahnhof. Axmann went the other way, but ran into a Soviet patrol. He turned back and followed Bormann’s route. Not long afterwards he came across two bodies. He identified them as Bormann and Stumpfegger, but he did not have time to discover how they had died. Martin Bormann, although not of his own volition, was the only major Nazi Party leader to have faced the bullets of the Bolshevik enemy. All the others –Hitler, Göbbels, Himmler and Göring– took their own lives.

Krukenberg had meanwhile assembled most of his French SS escort. They joined up with Ziegler and a much larger group from the Nordland. Krukenberg estimated that there were four or five holders of the Knight's Cross among them. They managed to cross the Spree shortly before dawn. But they came under heavy fire just a few hundred meters short of the Gesundbrunnen U-Bahn station. Ziegler was hit by a ricochet and mortally wounded. Several others in their group also fell, among them Eugène Vaulot , the young French recipient of the Knight's Cross. He died in a nearby cellar three days later.

The Soviet forces in the area had been reinforced so strongly that Krukenberg and his remaining companions had no choice but to retreat the way they had come. At the top end of the Ziegelstrasse they saw the Tiger tank which Mohnke had taken from them. There was no sign of any of its crew. One of Krukenberg’s officers had spotted a joinery workshop nearby and there they discovered some overalls to disguise themselves. Krukenberg managed to make his way to Dahlem, where he hid for over a week in the apartment of friends. Eventually he had no choice but to surrender.

Marshal Zhukov, on hearing of the breakout attempts from General Vasily Kuznetsov of the 3rd Shock Army, ordered a maximum alert. He was understandably perturbed by the "unpleasant suggestion" that senior Nazis, especially Hitler, Göbbels and Bormann, might be trying to escape. It was not hard to imagine Stalin's anger if this should happen. Soviet officers hastily rounded up men who were celebrating May Day with alcohol and women-hunts. Brigades from the 2nd Guards Tank Army were sent in pursuit and cordons hurriedly put into place. This thwarted a second attempt to break through northwards up the Schönhauserallee by Major General Erich Bärenfänger’s troops from the eastern side of the Zitadelle defence area. Bärenfänger, a devoted Nazi, committed suicide with his young wife in a side street.

Shortly before midnight, the time when Colonel Haller had promised to surrender the Tiergarten Flak tower, the remaining tanks and half-tracks of the Müncheberg Panzer Division and the 18th Panzergrenadier Division set out from the Tiergarten westwards.


Panther at the Tiergarten
  2 May 1945 

Below the vast bulk of the Zoo Bunker one of three giant Flak towers designed to defend Berlin from air attack, some remnants of the city's defenders gather in an attempt to break out of the doomed capital, including troops from the 9th Fallschirmjäger and Müncheberg Panzer Divisions, with a rare night fighting equipped Panther G of Oberleutnant Rasim's 129th Panzer Regiment.

Mikhail Katukov's 1st Guards Tank Army and Vasily Chuikov's 8th Guards Army had attacked into the Tiergarten from the south across the Landwehr Canal. But the task of tackling the Zoo Flak tower was left to two regiments from the 79th Guards Rifle Division.

Storming it was out of the question, so on 30 April they sent German prisoners as envoys bearing an ultimatum written in pencil to the commander:

"We propose that you surrender the fortress without further fighting. We guarantee that no troops, including SS and SA men, will be executed".

On 1 May one of the prisoners eventually returned with a reply:

"Your note was received at 11 p.m. We will capitulate [tonight] at midnight. Haller, garrison commander".

Haller was not in fact the garrison commander and the reason for the long delay was to allow them to prepare a breakout that evening".

--Antony Beevor, "Fall of Berlin 1945"

Generalmajor Otto Sydow [Luftwaffe] commanding 1. Flak-Div. Berlin from the Tiergarten Flak-tower, with General Weidling's permission, organized the breakout of the armed forces through the Soviet lines and away from Berlin, shortly before midnight. The civilians refugees then left the facility.

Sydow was captured by the Soviets on 6 May 1945. 

They then pushed north-westwards towards the Olympic stadium and Spandau. Word had also spread rapidly in this case. The rumour was that Walther Wenck’s army was at Nauen, to the north-west of the city, and hospital trains were waiting there to take soldiers to Hamburg. Thousands of stragglers and civilians made their way on foot and in a variety of vehicles in the same direction. One group of around fifty came in three trucks from the Grossdeutscher Rundfunk. They included Himmler’s very different younger brother, Ernst, a leading studio technician.

The Charlottenbrücke, the bridge over the Havel to the old town of Spandau, was still standing and held by Hitler Youth detachments. In heavy rain and under artillery fire from the 47th Army, the armoured vehicles charged across, followed by a ragged crowd of soldiers and civilians. The slaughter was appalling.

A tactic was instinctively worked out. Self-propelled army Flak vehicles with quadruple 20mm guns gave covering fire from the eastern bank to keep Soviet heads down, and during this frantic firing for up to a minute, another wave of civilians and soldiers surged across to hide in the ruined houses opposite. The slow and the lame were caught in the open by Soviet guns. As well as wave after wave of people on foot, trucks, cars and motorcycles also crossed, running over bodies already crushed by the tracks of armoured vehicles. Ernst Himmler was one of the many who died on the Charlottenbrücke, either shot or trampled in the desperate rush.

Although the massacre at the bridge was horrific, the sheer weight of German numbers forced the Soviet troops back from the river bank. But Soviet machine guns in the tower of the Spandau town hall continued to cause heavy losses. Two of the Tiger tanks then shelled the Rathaus itself, and a small group from the 9th Parachute Division stormed the tower. The main force of armoured vehicles pushed on westwards towards Staaken, but most of the troops were encircled or rounded up over the next two days. Only a handful reached the Elbe and safety. Soviet officers searched the burnt-out remains of tanks carefully on orders from Front headquarters.

"Among the crews killed," wrote Zhukov, "none of Hitler’s entourage were found, but it was impossible to recognize what was left in the burnt-out tanks".

Proving once and for all with new testimony, documentation and forensic science that Hitler’s handler, Martin Bormann survived, will redeem many damaged reputations and will certainly bury the myth and cause many a red face in the high end academic and "history" community. But more importantly, it will open a very nasty can of worms and raise many more complicated and embarrassing questions to those agencies and governments that will have knowingly perpetrated the Bormann death myth for the past 70 years.

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This article may be freely shared with the proviso it is not edited and the byline is kept intact

Goldeneye Publishing Ltd

Laurence de Mello is a British investigative journalist and factual TV and film producer. A media professional since 1985 she has worked on programs with and for Discovery US, Discovery Europe, The Learning Channel Rai 1&2, NTV Russia, Nat Geo, Berlusconi Networks BBC, Channel 4, etc., Laurence de Mello uses the pseudonym Ami de Creighton and is co author of "The Mountbatten Report - final edition". A member of The British Association of Journalists she is represented by Tony Clayman at Tony Clayman Promotions Limited London. Laurence de Mello divides her year between London and Buenos Aires.

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H. D. Baumann book "Hitler's Fate",  exposes the rumors, politically-inspired falsehoods, criminal mischief, false leads, and conspiracies revolving the rumours, falsehoods and conspiracies revolving around the historically accepted death of Hitler on 30 April 1945, to plant sufficient doubt that Trevor-Roper's and other accounts of Hitler's suicide may not be wholly accurate:

• If Hitler shot himself in the right temple, why do the Russians exhibit what is claimed to be Hitler's cranium, showing a bullet hole in the back of his head?
• There were ten official reports [conducted by NKVD and SMERSH officials, and also by the only permitted Western official] on his suicide, none of them agreed on the same method of suicide; Altering in scene, gun placement and even if a gun was even involved.
• Hitler had a double. Eye witness reports state that people in the Bunker noticed a significant and immediate change in Hitler's personality several days before he apparently committed suicide. He appeared shorter [Hitler's double was 2 inches shorter and often had to wear special shoes], was despondent [drugged against his will], allowed smoking [Hitler never allowed smoking near him], and his sleep patterns changed entirely: Hitler would always work late into the night and sleep in during the morning.
• The Russians first exhibited the corpse of Hitler's double, believing it to be the real thing.
• The Russians later admitted they never actually found the whole corpse of Hitler or Eva Braun.
• Why did the Russians not allow the Western allies to see the 'autopsy report' of Hitler's supposed corpse.
• Hitler's private plane landed in neutral [or loosely German-allied] Barcelona, Spain, on 27 April 1945, three days before the alleged suicide. Two months later, three German submarines surfaced and landed off the cost of South Argentina - a hot spot for hiding Nazi war criminals. The timeframe all coincide perfectly with that required to travel from Berlin.
• Stalin was adamant, and told President Truman and his military Generals and the NKVD and SMERSH, that he believed Hitler had escaped, until the time of his death

 

 

 

Hitler Expected to  Try to Escape
The Newcastle Sun [NSW] 
16 April 1945 

Australian Associated Press WASHINGTON — Allied Intelligence agents are scouring oc cupied Germany for Hitler's finger prints. They believe Hitler may try to get out of Germany and hole-up in some neutral country in disguise. 

The Allies doubt very much whether Hitler will play the heroic role of defender of a lost cause at Berchtesgaden. They think it more likely that Hitler will shave his famous moustache, dye his hair or in some other way change his appearance and attempt to flee the country. 

Intelligence agents have been warned of this possibility. Hitler is included in a list of 2000 leading Nazis, ranging from Himmler and Göring downwards. Complete dossiers have been filed on these war criminals, giving their complete case history.

Agents have been furnished with artists' drawings, showing what these war criminals possibly would look like under various facial disguises.

Wandering Arabs in the North African desert are responsible for .he blocking of at least one of Hitler's last escape routes, according to the  Trípoli correspondent of the "Daily Express.'' He says that the Arabs several times reported to the Allied authorities that they had seen German planes landing at a hidden airfield about 200 mile's inland from the North African coast.

Reconnaissance parties discovered the existence of a heavily camouflaged German airfield, with underground hangars, containing stocks of fuel and spare parts, apparently for emergency use by the Nazi higher-ups. Maps and other documents revealed that Nazi escapees intended to make for South American destinations. The possibility of other secret airfields has caused the Allies to redouble their watch on Nazi escape routes.

Face Lift for Hitler? 
Daily Mercury [Mackay, Qld] 
7 April 1945 

"The question whether Hitler may be undergoing operations to disguise his appearance is being seriously discussed in responsible quarters," writes John Gaunt, "Daily Express" special correspondent. 

"Reliable reports reaching London show that a number of Germany's leading plastic surgeons have been brought into the Berchtesgaden fortress in recent weeks. As the tide of war gets nearer to this last Redoubt the question whether- it will be possible to identify Hitler when he is caught is becoming more urgent. The question is exercising Allied intelligence departments and the new Allied international "Scotland Yard," set up to track war criminals. 

"The suggestion that Hitler may be having his face changed under guise of having bomb injuries attended to is not so fantastic as it sounds. The Nazi leaders are a bunch of gangsters, and during the heyday of gangsterism in the United States gang leaders made great use of plastic surgeons. Tell tale scars were removed, fingertips changed, and faces lifted. It entailed fairly long periods of disappearance from the public gaze, which was made all the easier if the gangster had a hideout or double. Hitler has both".

The latest theory to account for long Hitler's absence from the public eye is a report from Stockholm that the Führer has resorted to  plastic surgery to facilitate his escape when, in even his maniacal brain, victory is a vanished mirage. 

The Stockholm source backs up this I report with a claim that in the last two years Hitler has discussed details of facial transformation with two surgeons who have been bound to secrecy, under penalty of death. 

The Stockholm claim goes further. Himmler, Göring and Göbbels, it says, know of the Hitler's blueprints, and are themselves considering extensive facial reconstruction. The plastic surgery theory, say its supporters, ties up with the widespread accounts of quantities of gold smuggled out of Germany to various European centres and to the Argentine, so that the top-ranking Nazis wilt have the necessary funds to support them in comfort for the rest of their lives. 

Dr. J. H. Crum, American plastic surgeon of 30 years experience, points out that changes in Hitler's appearance would probably include: raising hairline to give a higher forehead; operation on temples to tighten sagging cheeks; removal of part or all of ear lobes; raising eye brows; skilful rounding of nostrils, thinning of nose, alteration of lips and slitting of eyelids. 

"'All of these operations," says Dr. Crum, "could be done in three hours while Hitler sat in a chair. A local anesthetic would be used and bandages need be worn for only 24 hours. Upon removal of the bandages application of infra- red ray heat would coagulate the blood to speed healing of the incisions". 

"Before operating on the fore head and temples, the hair would be shaved, and there would be no visible scars because new hair would cover the incisions. Sunglasses would be needed for a week or 10 days at most, to shield operations around the eyes. And the net result would be a Hitler that even his mother wouldn't recognize".

"In any case, except when roused by oratory or in passion, Hitler is a dull and colorless little man, with lacklustre eyes. It would need only smallest alterations and he could easily pass for any little Austrian bourgois drafted for forced labor in the fortress area. 

"Himmler, too, would be easy enough to disguise, though Göring's size and Göbbels glowing eyes and club foot would be difficult to conceal. 

"The escape situation has deteriorated for Nazi leaders recently. Argentina— for so long regarded with favor and the recipient of discreet Investments- has declared war; and Sweden, has declared her intention of not harboring war criminals, and would certainly not receive the more prominent ones.

The Moscow correspondent of "Associated Press" says Hitler, Himmler, and Mussolini are expected to seek refuge in Japan almost any time now according to a Rumanian diplomat returning home from Tokyo.

The diplomat, Victor Gutxulesco, stated that they had been expected there for a long time. The Japanese did not appear particularly pleased about giving shelter to the Fascist leaders, fearing that it might only make life harder for them.

Some preparations had been made. Tunnels were dug for underground factories, similar to the Mittelwerk facility near Nordhausen that produced the V2 rocket. But most of it was a Propaganda coup by Josef Göbbels.

He fooled even Dwight Eisenhower, the supreme allied commander, who pursued a broad-front strategy instead of a direct advance on Berlin in order to stave off any German resurgence in the south.

General Omar Bradley later said the Alpenfestung myth “grew into so exaggerated a scheme that I am astonished we could have believed it as innocently as we did. But while it persisted, this legend of the Redoubt was too ominous a threat to be ignored".

One of History's most famous Conspiracies - Hitler escaping the Bunker in 1945
History is Now Magazine
24 July 2016

There have been many conspiracy theories of Hitler’s escape from his Bunker at the end of World War Two over the years. And here George Balakrishna explores the conspiracy. As we’ll see, there is a thread of evidence that he made it to Spain and South America, but it is very thin and it is extremely unlikely to have happened…

When Adolf Hitler died on 30 April 1945, it signaled the end of one of history’s worst figures. He was responsible for the systematic death of six million Jewish people [along with an estimated four to six million non Jews], the deportation of even more, and the destruction of Germany and Europe during World War Two. Unlike many of his Nazi colleagues, he was not convicted at the Nurnberg Trials that followed the end of the war; however thanks to recently declassified FBI files and newly discovered evidence, this could go down as one of history’s greatest injustices. Such files have brought light to the possible escape of Adolf Hitler from the Führerbunker to South America – but how was it possible for the world’s most wanted man to escape? How could it have happened?

Hitler’s death is announced

Though Hitler died on 30 April, it was not until 1 May that his death was announced to the world. At around 10:30 pm, a German newsreader reported that Hitler had "fallen at his command post in the Reich Chancery fighting to the last breath against Bolshevism and for Germany” with Admiral Dönitz being announced as his successor. Yet, even at this point reports from Washington suggest that US officials were suspicious of the timing of the announcement, did not celebrate the death, and feared that he had escaped via the underground tunnels of Berlin.

Berlin tunnels show Hitler's megalomaniac vision
By Madeline Chambers | Berlin
Reuters
25 August 2008 

Three vast tunnels were opened under central Berlin this month, giving a glimpse of Adolf Hitler's megalomaniac vision of a new architectural centre for the capital of Nazi Germany.

The 16-metre [50-foot] deep tunnels were constructed in 1938 as part of an underground transport network beneath a series of bombastic buildings designed by Nazi architect Albert Speer, including the biggest domed hall the world had ever seen.

The overground plans, never completed because of World War Two, included boulevards, squares and huge buildings, such as an arch dwarfing the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, and the 290-metre high Great Hall, with room for 180,000 people.

Hitler called the concept, a symbol of the power of the Third Reich, "Berlin -- the capital of the world" but in recent times it has come to be known as "Germania".

The tunnels, between 90 and 220 meters long lying beneath the Tiergarten park, would have accommodated roads and a railway line.
 
"The tunnels -- which are in surprisingly good condition -- were part of Speer's grand plans, what we now call 'Germania'," historian Dietmar Arnold, head of the Berlin Underground Association and bunker tour guide, told "Reuters".

Last week, Arnold -- who runs an exhibition of Hitler's plans -- took journalists on a rare visit into the dank tunnels.

They are closed to the public most of the time because of safety concerns, but visits can be arranged.
 
"The acoustics are incredible"" said Arnold, who likes singing a note and hearing it reverberate around him.

After the war, British forces in divided Berlin closed the tunnels. They were rediscovered in 1969 but have remained shut. In 1990, a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, they were handed to the city of Berlin.

The Berlin Underground Association, set up in 1997, has seen a surge in interest in tours of Berlin's remaining Bunkers.

Although most were destroyed, some of the maze of 1,000 World War Two Bunkers are intact and serve as a reminder of the city's violent history.

Propaganda posters and escape instructions on the walls convey a sense of the past. In one Bunker, suitcases, helmets, and uniforms from various sites are on show.

"Interest is constantly growing -- we have about 150,000 visitors a year to the Bunkers," said Arnold. "That is partly why we want the Bunkers to be protected -- they are an important part of the history of Berlin".

By the end of the war, Germany's most heavily bombed city could protect up to 800,000 people in its Bunkers.

 

Escape to Tempelhof

In order for Hitler to flee Berlin upon the Soviet invasion, he would have needed to go through Tempelhof Airport. Since Berlin was swarming with Soviet soldiers, making himself visible at any point would have been fatal so the question resides in how he could have travelled around three and a half miles from his headquarters to Tempelhof without being seen. The aforementioned underground tunnels, developed by Hitler himself in 1938 as part of his megalomaniac vision of an architecturally brilliant transport network, would have got Hitler most of the way, though maps of the tunnels suggest he would have been limited in his travels to what was then the ‘U6’ subway station [now Luftbrücke], leaving him 200 meters short of the airport. This means he would have gone over ground to get there. Indeed, one can imagine that Hitler would have been willing to risk this, given the compromised situation he was already in. However, military grade, ground-penetrating equipment has very recently discovered a false wall, allowing passage directly to the airport. From 22 April, prominent Nazis had been flown from Tempelhof to Munich as the Russians edged closer to central Berlin, culminating in the capture and control of Tempelhof by 27 April meaning Hitler’s escape has most frequently been pinpointed to 26 April.

In this sense, escape from the Führerbunker to Tempelhof now seems in many ways probable and entirely plausible

From Tempelhof to Spain

Under its leader Francisco Franco, Spain had remained "neutral" during World War Two so did not technically support or oppose Hitler. However, whilst staying neutral it also remained a quasi-fascist state, and during its own Civil War in 1936-39 had allowed Hitler to terrify the world in testing his arms. Franco and Hitler were known to hold similar views and to be friendly with one another. Assuming still that Hitler made his way to Tempelhof, strong evidence suggests Hitler took refuge in Spain, keeping a low profile before being able to build up his Fourth Reich. Stefan Aceituna, one of Franco’s drivers describes how in late April 1945, he was sent to meet a plane that had arrived "very late", was of "German origin" and the passenger he came to collect "had no luggage". He describes how he was ordered by Franco to "transport the passenger directly to the [Presidential] Palace".

In May of 1945, the east wing of the palace was completely sealed off, with no explanation ever recorded, nor so for the fourteen-foot wall that was built around the palace in the same month. Furthermore, every member of staff who worked in the east wing was fluent in German. From May 1945, there was a monthly order for 144 bottles of ‘Doctor Kostler’s Anti Gas Pills’ – the same pills Hitler’s physician, Theo Morell, had introduced to him and which he had become addicted to, to the extent he was known to swallow the pills by the handful. Herein it becomes difficult to comprehend that General Franco developed a sudden flatulence problem, exactly the same as his acquaintance, one Adolf Hitler, immediately after the reported "death" of the latter. And this continued until October 1947.

Dr Victor Vega Diaz was the director of the Clinico San Carlos whilst also holding the title of President of the International Association of Cardiologists. More simply, he was the world leader in his field. He recalls in his personal diary how on 1 November 1947, being called upon by Franco to 'examine a member of Franco’s gardening staff'. Perhaps the greatest curiosity and mystery lay not only in the fact a world expert was asked to treat a gardener, but the fact he was asked to come from Clinico San Carlos when Franco had always favored the closer, better equipped hospital, which Franco had named after himself, the Hospital Francisco Franco. If this seems illogical and inexplicable, the ‘name’ of the gardener he recalls treating propels even more questions. The name of the man was Adi Lupus; a man described by Diaz to be "in his late fifties or early sixties" [Hitler would have been fifty-eight]. Upon further inspection, there is no employment history, birth certificate, registration on the electoral role, or marriage history of such a man either. Even further, ‘Lupus’ is Latin for ‘wolf’ – we know the wolf was something of great sentimental importance to Hitler. When he had met Eva Braun, he had gone under the pseudonym of "Mr. Wolf", he named his yacht 'Sea Wolf’ and his plane ‘Flying Wolf’, and two of his headquarters were the "Wolf’s Lair" and the "Wolf’s Den". "Adi" could well be interpreted as a shortened version of Adolf.

Dr Diaz' diary on 1 November 1947, records that at 3:32 pm he certified the patient’s death from “Cardio Myopathy”, a fairly basic heart attack and it appears that no autopsy was performed. .

At the top of the page, beside the words "Patient Identification" the doctor had written: "Senor Adi Lupus".

Unfortunately the doctors personal notes do not elaborate further and the Clinico San Carlos has relocated since 1947 and if any official hospital records ever existed they are now lost for ever

Despite lengthy searches of all cemeteries within reasonable proximity to Madrid, no record can be discovered which documents the burial or cremation of Senor Adi Lupus.

Of course, it is as likely that all of this was a coincidence as that Hitler genuinely was in Spain and we can by no means assert with confidence this means that Hitler did escape, but certainly it is thought provoking. Evidence of Hitler being in Spain continues until around October of 1947, when it seems Hitler made a move elsewhere.

The declassification in 2014, of more than 700  FBI documents dating back to the end of the Second World War prompted the probe into whether Hitler may have in fact evaded capture in Berlin and been spirited away to South America was prompted by these files, which feature numerous "sightings" of the Nazi leader, reveal that the US authorities were sceptical about the official version of Hitler’s death. They call into question the received history, that as the Red Army marauded through the streets of the German capital in late April 1945, he shot himself in the Führerbunker and that his corpse was then burnt in the Reich Chancellery garden by his close followers. 

A secret memo from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover himself stated that, "American Army officials in Germany have not located Hitler's body nor is there any reliable source that will say definitely that Hitler is dead". 

Rumours circulated immediately after the war that the Führer had managed to fake his death – to such an extent that the US Army launched a covert "search and destroy" mission to track him down in Spain.

Spain to South America

South America, especially Argentina, was a known retreat for wanted Nazis following the War. In fact, around 5,000 Nazis in total escaped including very prominent officials such as Franz Stangl, commanding officer of Treblinka, Adolf Eichmann, responsible for the co-ordination of the deportation of Jews out of Germany, and the infamous ‘Angel of Death’ Josef Mengele who tortured men, women and children in experiments in Nazi war camps. Look through declassified FBI files [all 732 pages available on the FBI website] and you will see evidence which suggests Hitler himself had also fled to Argentina, via U-Boat, like so many Nazis before him.

In particular, the FBI files reveal and point to Nazi hotspots deep in the Argentine interior, in Misiones. It was here archaeologist Daniel Schazelvon and his team from the University of Buenos Aires discovered over 2,000 Nazi items from post World War Two, Nazi buildings as well as medicine used to treat the same ailments experienced by Hitler. Once more, this does not prove Hitler came here but adds to the growing evidence that he could have.

The story tells us nonetheless that the Germans did burn Hitler’s body; however a skull, taken by the Russians from the Bunker, attributed to Hitler and kept secretly preserved by Soviet Intelligence until 2000 has since been revealed to have been from that of a woman, no older than forty years old. In April of 1945, Hitler had turned 56. But could it have been Eva Braun, Hitler’s lover? 

If so, how could the skull, with a bullet wound belong to a woman who was never reported to have shot herself? There is a pattern here of more questions arising than answers. Even Stalin had not been satisfied with what the Soviets had found of Hitler, imposing secrecy on all matters related to Hitler’s death until Stalin himself died and having the supposed body kept with Soviet Intelligence until long after his death. The explanation history gives us of Hitler’s death clearly leaves much to be desired and the fact an identifiable corpse of Hitler or Eva Braun has not been discovered is a palpable indicator of some sort of cover up. .

Conclusion - this couldn't really be true...

History is not based on imagination or conspiracy, rather fact and evidence. So if we are to re-write history to tell the story of how Hitler fled to Spain following the war, eventually settling in South America, we require irrefutable evidence and on this account, perhaps not everything we have explored is this way. Such colossal events in history always attract the most imaginative of stories [one thinks of conspiracies of the 9/11 attacks] but the "Death of Hitler" prompted Dwight D. Eisenhower to say in 1952 "we are unable to unearth one piece of tangible evidence that Hitler is dead", Stalin to refute his death, and a ten-year FBI international pursuit of Hitler.

And just to be clear

The reality is that it remains a crazy conspiracy that Hitler escaped; you can cite countless sources that credibly argue that Hitler died in the Bunker in 1945 and there is no reliable and clear evidence that he escaped – indeed this article has had to be put together with very weak threads. An article could of course have been written that shows that Hitler did die in the Bunker, but part of the purpose of this article is to demonstrate how unlikely this is – through the lack of true evidence.

If you believe this conspiracy, you're going against all but the fringes.

Reports from the CIA Chief in Buenos Aires in February 1948 describe the following:

T

here was another sighting of Hitler, again in Argentina and once more from the chief CIA station in Buenos Aires

 

Whilst Hitler is often said to have been in Argentina, it seems he also developed a presence in Rio Grande, Brazil, a city once described to have a ‘100% German population’. A Former OSS officer writes to J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI:

Although escape by airplane as late into the Battle of Berlin as 30 April was possible, Hitler stayed.

Why not an escape conspiracy that locates Hitler's escape after his "death" thus explaining why years of interrogation failed to shake witnesses' testimonies?

Top Nazi officials including Göbbels and Bormann escorted Hitler's body, wrapped in a blanket, outside for burning. What if the body was Hitler's double, someone who had received identical dental work? The real Hitler disguised, and shielded by the same senior Nazis, could have left that night when most Bunker personnel were distracted with orgies and alcohol. Next a flight out in a "Storch" the airplane with the short take-off distance. The German air force could, even at this late stage, have protected Hitler's escape flight-route — Adolf Galland, for example, commanded 70 jet fighters.  ["The First and the Last", 1970]. After that, either a Junkers Ju-390 or a submarine — and off to Argentina. Bunker survivors, no matter how long interrogated, would sincerely describe what they seemingly saw — that Hitler was dead.

The only witnesses who saw Hitler’s face were Göbbels and Axmann. It is extremely possible that all other witnesses who saw Hitler's body could have been mistaken, since his clothes were covered and only his boots and uniform legs were showing. Doubt must also be considered possible with regard to Eva Braun’s body, since both Linge and Kempka reported seeing two bodies carried out wrapped in blankets. 

The fact that the British Intelligence report is so emphatic on ruling out these quite obvious details suggests a whitewash. It seems like British Intelligence were about the only ones believing Hitler died in the Bunker. which is interesting given all the links between the Royal Family and the Nazis.

Perhaps they just believed what they wanted to believe, because it suited their Propaganda narrative. 

"War’s over, we’re the winners, time to go home. Hitler died a miserable, broken, wretched loser". 

The Nazis exploited “Ratlines“ tied to the Vatican, which has had a huge presence in South America since the New World was discovered, to smuggle people and valuables out of Europe. More than 9000 high-level Nazis relocated to South America this way. In fact South America was described as a "Haven" for Nazis. America got its share, more than 1500 through Paperclip which became the guts of NASA and the US aerospace industry. Russia also took a large number of Nazi scientists.

There are about 50 U-Boats still unaccounted for, which lends credence to the theory that Nazis used them to flee to the ends of the earth. At least two of the U-Boats showed up in South America.

If Hitler was to escape to anywhere, it would make sense that he would go to where the largest number of his people were; and if the Nazis were to escape to anywhere, it would make sense for them to follow the Führer.

Some reports say Hitler went from Argentina to Paraguay.

Hitler Didn’t Die In A Berlin Bunker But Escaped In A Huge Nazi Cover-Up Claims Historian: 
"The FBI Never Believed Hitler Was Dead" 
Tim Butters
'Inquisitir'
June 12, 2015

Hitler didn’t commit suicide in a Berlin Bunker but escaped Germany alongside his wife, Eva Braun, in an elaborate Nazi cover-up that the FBI were aware of, a historian has sensationally claimed.

Russia has also been implicated of hiding vital evidence that would have revealed to the world that the supposed bodies of Hitler and Braun were, in fact, murdered doubles.

The claims that Hitler didn’t die from a self-inflicted gunshot to the head after his wife took a lethal cyanide pill in 1945, but fled Berlin as part of a Nazi ruse, is elaborated on in a new documentary that claims since the Hitler hoax, post-World War II history has been an intricate tissue of lie upon lie.

According to journalist, author, and historian Gerrard Williams, two innocent lookalikes were murdered in Hitler and Braun’s stead, and ever since, the world has been victimized by a “duplicitous deception” that those in power are well aware of.

“I believe that in April 1945 the real Hitler along with Eva Braun were spirited out of the Bunker where they escaped. They did not die, we were lied to, we’re still being lied to.

Pointing to secret FBI documents as his source, Williams explained to the "Daily Express" that  American Intelligence were investigating sightings of Hitler long after the end of war.

“I am pretty convinced two people probably did die in the Bunker at the end of April 1945 but they weren’t Hitler and Eva Braun. Two doubles replaced them and it was those who were murdered and their bodies disposed of later.

“The FBI never believed Hitler was dead, they looked for him around the world".

The British Intelligence Services claim Hitler and his wife died on 30 April 1945, shortly after 2:30 p.m., and their bodies were burned.

However, the reports are based on third-party accounts and the deaths only confirmed "as conclusively as possible without bodies". Skeptics claim that any "eyewitness" evidence used to compile such reports were nothing more than what people chose to tell Soviet interrogators.

Sönke Neitzel, professor of history at the London School of Economics, is adamant that such reports are extremely unreliable.

“We know that prisoners who had been in the Bunker most likely lied to the Soviets when they were interrogated.

Professor Williams believes that the Russians’ failure to find the body of Hitler in the ruins of the Berlin Bunker casts serious doubts on the Nazi dictator’s actual death.

He added, “We are being sold a dummy".

“There are no bodies reported discovered in 1945 and this is something which amazes me.

"The theory of Hitler and Braun’s suicide is supported by eyewitnesses who actually never saw anybody get shot. They never see the Führer and Eva go into his private quarters in the Bunker. They see bodies coming out but nobody ever saw Hitler and Eva dead".

Top story Professor: Hitler Escaped Germany in 1945
By Stuart Hooper
21st Century Wire 
June 22, 2015

What were once considered wild, alternative theories on the end of the Nazi regime are now being confirmed by expert professors at the world’s top universities..

Professor of history at the world-famous London School of Economics, Sönke Neitzel, believes eyewitness accounts used to compile the British report into Hitler’s death are entirely unreliable.

According to the official story, Hitler shot himself in the head and Eva Braun, his wife, took a cyanide pill in their Bunker after suffering defeat in April 1945. Both of their bodies were burned beyond recognition.

That official story is now under attack as academics, like Nietzel, claim the two corpses were actually body doubles. Historian and Professor Gerrard Williams said, ‘they did not die, we were lied to, we’re still being lied to’.

Williams also claims that FBI documents reveal the agency was searching for Hitler and chasing leads years after his alleged "death"’ in the Bunker.

British Intelligence Services published the official report, which was mostly based on secondary accounts, and even includes an admission that it was produced  "as conclusively as possible without bodies".

Williams’ says the official story "is supported by eyewitnesses who actually never saw anybody get shot", and, that nobody ever saw Hitler and Eva’s bodies; just two charred corpses.

He went on to say that "...if you tell a lie often enough and loudly enough it becomes the truth, and in this case what the world accepted as the truth is this lie".

Some believe that Hitler escaped to Argentina, while others claim he made it to the grand old age of 95 in Brazil.

More radical theories point to a fortified installation at the South Pole in a location known as New Swabia, where Germany sent expedition forces to in 1939.

In allegations set to debunk one of the biggest slices of world history, Russia is also accused of hiding vital evidence proving the Führer and his wife Eva Braun fled in disguise.

Two corpses found after the Second World War reported to be those of Hitler and Braun were in fact murdered body doubles.