Hitler's Final Days in the Bunker

Origins

The theory that Hitler did not commit suicide, but instead escaped with his wife, was deliberately promoted by Soviet government personnel as part of its policies of state-sponsored disinformation.

This "myth" first being announced by Marshall Georgy Zhukov at a press conference on 9 June 1945 on orders from Soviet leader, Jose Stalin. 

Even at the level of the Potsdam Conference, U.S. President Harry S. Truman received a flat denial from Stalin as to whether Hitler had died.

This ambiguity has been a main cause of various conspiracy theories over the years, despite the official conclusion by Western powers that Hitler indeed killed himself in April 1945.

The first detailed investigation by Western powers began in November 1945 after Dick White, then head of counter-intelligence in the British sector of Berlin (and later head of MI5 and MI6 in succession], had their agent Hugh Trevor-Roper investigate the matter to counter the Soviet claims.

His findings that Hitler and Braun had died by suicide in Berlin were first written in a report and then published in book form in 1947. As Trevor-Roper stated in 1946, "the desire to invent legends and fairy tales ... is [greater] than the love of truth".

Evidence

Declassified FBI documents contain a number of alleged sightings of Hitler along with theories of his escape from Germany. The FBI states that the information within those documents pertaining to the escape and sightings of Hitler cannot be verified]

A skull fragment with a bullet hole, found outside Hitler’s Bunker and kept in Russia’s federal archives in Moscow, was for decades believed to be that of Hitler. In 2009, samples of the skull were DNA-tested at the University of Connecticut by archaeologist and bone specialist Nick Bellantoni, et al. The sample was found to be that of a woman aged under 40.

However, neither former Soviet nor Russian officials have claimed the skull was the main piece of evidence, instead citing jawbone fragments and two dental bridges which were found.

The items were shown to Hitler's dentist, Hugo Blaschke; dental assistant Käthe Heusermann; and longtime dental technician Fritz Echtmann, who confirmed the dental remains found were Hitler's and Braun's. 

The skull fragment was found only later, in 1946, when the Soviets investigated rumours of Hitler’s survival

Alleged escape to Argentina

"Grey Wolf: The Escape of Adolf Hitler", by British authors Simon Dunstan and Gerrard Williams, suggest that Hitler and Braun did not commit suicide, but actually escaped to Argentina.

The book's premise is that the Nazis had looted the gold reserves and art treasures of occupied countries.

The scenario proposed by the two authors is as follows:

"A number of U-Boats took certain Nazis and Nazi loot to Argentina, where the Nazis were supported by future president Juan Perón, who, with his wife "Evita", had been receiving money from the Nazis for some time.

Hitler allegedly arrived in Argentina, first staying at Hacienda San Ramón, east of San Carlos de Bariloche. 

Hitler then moved to a Bavarian-styled mansion at Inalco, a remote and barely accessible spot at the northwest end of Lake Nahuel Huapi, close to the Chilean border.

Around 1954, Eva Braun left Hitler and moved to Neuquén with their daughter, Ursula ["Uschi"]; and Hitler died in February 1962.

This theory of Hitler's flight to Argentina has been dismissed by mainstream historians, including by Guy Walters. 

He has described Dunstan and Williams' theory as "rubbish", adding:

"There's no substance to it at all. It appeals to the deluded fantasies of conspiracy theorists".

Walters contends: "it is simply impossible to believe that so many people could keep such a grand scale deception so quiet", saying "no serious historian would give the story any credence".

After the release of the book, a controversial drama-documentary film "Grey Wolf" was produced by author Gerrard Williams in 2014, concluding with an extensive list of people who claimed to have seen Hitler in Argentina.

The film garnered a mixed response. The involvement of the filmmakers with the Weavering Capital scandal also attracted negative attention, as the movie's production became mired by divisive financial disputes.

Investigators of the "History Channel" series 'Hunting Hitler' claim to have found previously classified documents and to have interviewed witnesses indicating that Hitler escaped from Germany and traveled to South America by U-boat. He and other Nazis then allegedly plotted a "Fourth Reich".

A declassified CIA document #HVCA-2592 dated 3 October 1955 highlights claims made by a "former German SS trooper" named Phillip Citroen, that "Adolf Hitler was still alive" and "Hitler left Colombia for Argentina around January 1955".

Enclosed with the document was an alleged photo of Citroen and Hitler dated 1954. The report also states that neither the contact who reported his conversations with Citroen, nor the CIA station "is in a position to give an intelligent evaluation of the information".

 

Adolf Hitler's death on 30 April 1945 is generally accepted and the most commonly cited cause of his death is that he shot himself in the head while simultaneously biting into an ampule of cyanide.

However, due to the chaos and fluidity of circumstances in the Führerbunker at the time, no theory has ever been completely accepted.

The dual method and other circumstances surrounding the event encouraged rumors that Adolf Hitler may have survived the end of World War II along with speculation about what happened to his remains. 

The Standard Account of the Circumstances of Hitler's death

Hitler relocated to the Führerbunker on 16 January 1945 and from that location he presided over the rapid disintegration of his Third Reich before the Allies advancing from both east and west. By late April Soviet forces were fighting within Berlin itself and Hitler began to make preparations for his suicide.

At 4:00 am on 29 April he finished his last Will and Testament. Shortly after midnight on the morning of 30 April 1945 Hitler married Eva Braun in a small ceremony in a map room within the Bunker complex.

Following the reception, just after midnight on 30 April, "with a faraway expression," Hitler "went down the hall, shaking hands.

everal said a few words, but he did not answer, moving his lips inaudibly". He then dictated his Personal Will and Political Testament to secretary Traudl Junge before retiring to bed at around 4 a.m.

After awakening later in the morning, Hitler conferred with his SS adjutant Otto Günsche, his servant Heinz Linge and his chauffeur Erich Kempka.

Professor Werner Haase came with Hitler's dog handler, Sgt Fritz Tornow.

Hitler had given Tornow the job of poisoning Blondi, his Alsatian Shepherd because he wanted to try  cyanide on her. The poison was administered on her and it worked immediately. Curiously, Hitler, who loved dogs, showed no emotion as he watched the animal die.

According to a report commissioned by Josef Stalin and based on eye witness accounts, Tornow was also ordered to shoot Blondi's puppies.

On 30 April, Tornow took  each of the four puppies of Blondi's from the arms of the Göbbels children, who had been playing with them, and shot them in the garden of the Bunker.

He then killed Eva Braun's two dogs and his own Dachshund by lethal injection.

Why did Hitler have his dog poisoned?

Could it be that Hitler realized that fooling the bystanders with a replacement corpse is going to be much easier than fooling his faithful pet?

Late in the forenoon, the military conference took place as usual. Hitler received the information that the Soviet [Russian] forces had by now occupied the Tiergarten, Potsdamer Platz and the subway in the Volkstrasse, in the immediate vicinity of the chancellery. Then he ordered the delivery of 200 liters of gasoline from Kempka.

At 2 p.m., Hitler received Generals Wilhelm Burgdorf and Hans Krebs, Nazi Party Secretary Martin Bormann and Propaganda Minister Josef Göbbels and advised them to "break out the best way you can - in small groups".

Then he had a very strange conversation with his personal pilot, Hans Baur.

As they clasped hands, Baur begged him to escape by plane to Argentina, to Japan, or to one of the Arab countries, where his anti-Semitism had made him such staunch friends. But the Führer would not have it.

"You must have the courage to face the consequences," Hitler told Baur, "I am ending my earthly stay. I know that by tomorrow millions of people will curse me, but Fate wanted it that way."

Why did he say "earthly stay" instead of "life?" Was he speaking of himself in a religious sense as the Teutonic Messiah?

That afternoon Hitler had a short meeting with Party Secretary Bormann before eating a small lunch, said to be spaghetti with a "light sauce". ]According to his secretaries [who ate with him], the conversation at the meal revolved around dog breeding and how lipstick was made from sewer grease. Both were topics which Hitler had brought up on numerous past occasions. Adolf and Eva Hitler then said their personal farewells to members of the Führerbunker staff and fellow occupants including the Göbbels family, Bormann, the secretaries and several military officers. Adolf and Eva Hitler then retired to Hitler's personal study.

Between 2:30 and 3 p.m Günsche phoned Kempka. "I need two hundred liters of gasoline immediately," he said huskily. Kempka thought it was some kind of joke and wanted to know why he needed so much. Günsche could not tell him on the phone. "I want it at the entrance of the Führerbunker without fail".

Note that it was Günsche and not Hitler who made this phone call, even though it was Hitler himself who originally ordered the gasoline. Why didn't Hitler pick up the phone?

Because he was no longer in the Bunker?

Around 3:15 p.m., Traudl Junge was telling the Göbbels children a fairy story to keep them from going downstairs when a shot echoed through the damp concrete, later reported by some witnesses . Young Helmut Göbbels thought it was an enemy bomb and said, "Bull's-eye!"

Nobody heard the shot that killed Hitler...

Witnesses who were standing by the double doors to Hitler's study, which were thick enough to muzzle such a sound, claimed they heard nothing.

Those who did make this claim in 1945 withdrew it, saying  Allied interrogators pressured them into saying it.

Some people who claim to have heard a shot were not even present at the scene.

At this point there are wildly varying versions of what happened. Günsche said he was in the conference room with Göbbels and Bormann when he heard the shot, and they rushed to the anteroom with Göbbels in the lead.

But Rattenhuber, commander of Hitler's SS guards, claimed that Günsche was already in the anteroom when he arrived.

Linge, on 9 February 1956, stated: "I then went into the antechamber to Hitler's room, where I found the door to his room closed and smelt powder smoke".

After a period of time Hitler's valet Heinz Linge, with Bormann at his side, opened the door to the study. Linge later stated that he immediately noted a scent of burned almonds in the small study, a common observation made in the presence of prussic acid, a form of cyanide

One version has both the Hitlers both sitting on the bloodstained couch, Eva on the left, Adolf to the right. Eva's body slumped away from Adolf's. But Kempka's first words when he walked in were "Where's Eva?"

Otto Günsche, who entered Hitler's room immediately after Linge and Bormann, gave the following description on 20 June 1956: "Eva Braun was lying on the sofa standing against the wall opposite the door from the antechamber. Hitler himself sat in an armchair standing to the left and slightly forward--as seen from the antechamber--but very close to the sofa".

Hitler appeared to have shot himself in the right temple with a 7.65mm pistol which lay at his feet.

Other versions had Hitler shot in the right temple, in the left temple, or in the mouth. Hitler lying slumped back in the couch. Hitler pitched forward with his face at rest on the coffee table.

Never was there a more confused crime scene.

The most common version goes like this: "the Führer on the couch, sprawled face down across a low table, and Eva, slumped over the armrest, her lips slightly closed in death, discolored by cyanide. Her dress was wet".

On 2 September 1955, Artur Axmann stated: "Based on the signs I found, I had to assume that Adolf Hitler had shot himself in the mouth. For me the chin, which was pushed to the side, and the blood trails on the temples caused by an internal explosion in the head, all pointed to this. Later the same day SS-Sturmbannführer Günsche confirmed my assumption. I stick to my statement based on the signs I saw, that Adolf Hitler shot himself in the mouth". 

Günsche, however, in his 20 June 1956 testimony stated: "The head was canted [tilted] slightly forward to the right. I noticed an injury to the head slightly above the outer end of the angle of the right eyelid. I saw blood and a dark discoloration. The whole thing was about the size of an old three Mark piece".

Blood was dripping from the wound to Hitler's right temple and had made a large stain on the left arm of the sofa. No bullet was ever found and the blood stains on the sofa were reportedly of the wrong blood-type. Eva had no visible physical wounds and Linge assumed that she had poisoned herself.

Some historians have suggested that the traces of cyanide found in Hitler's body are purely a result of the medicines prescribed to Hitler by his personal physician Professor Theo Morrell, and that the sole probable cause of death is a gunshot wound to the head. The counter-argument to this point states that although Morrell often prescribed unorthodox treatment that included amounts of arsenic and strychnine, cyanide compounds were never included in these so called treatments.

Another continuing point of speculation is whether or not Hitler was physically capable of shooting himself while taking poison at the same time. This has led to another theory that Hitler ingested cyanide, subsequently died, and then his body was then shot by someone else to make it appear Hitler had died a soldier's suicide by gunshot. As for who the third party shooter would have been, analysis of who was in  the Bunker indicates that only Heinz Linge, Hitler's valet, and Martin Bormann would have had the opportunity to be alone with Hitler's body long enough to inflict a gunshot wound before Hitler's body was removed from the Bunker.

Several witnesses stated the two bodies were carried to a small, bombed-out garden outside the Bunker complex, where they were doused with petrol and set alight by Linge and members of Hitler's personal SS bodyguard. The SS guards and Linge later noted the fire did not completely destroy the corpses, but Soviet shelling of the Bunker compound made further cremation attempts impossible and the remains were later covered up in a shallow bomb crater.

Rattenhuber ordered the bodies [of Hitler and Eva] to be taken into the courtyard. Several witnesses stated the two bodies were carried to a small, bombed-out garden outside the Bunker complex, where they were doused with petrol and set alight by Linge and members of Hitler's personal SS bodyguard. Russian shelling drove them back to the Bunker entrance. Hitler's SS adjutant Otto Günsche thereupon tossed a burning rag upon both corpses, and when the leaping flames swathed the bodies, everyone stood at attention and gave the Nazi salute.

"As the two corpses caught fire, a small group, including Bormann, Linge, Otto Günsche, Josef Göbbels, Erich Kempka, Peter Högl, Ewald Lindloff, and Hans Reisser, raised their arms in salute as they stood just inside the Bunker doorway. Thus attempting to keep Hitler’s corpse from being captured by the Soviet Red Army as the Führer had commanded. At around 16:15, Linge ordered SS-Untersturmführer Heinz Krüger and SS-Oberscharführer Werner Schwiedel to roll up the rug in Hitler's study to burn it. The two men removed the blood stained rug, carried it up the stairs and outside to the Chancellery garden. There the rug was placed on the ground and burned.

On and off during the afternoon, the Soviets shelled the area in and around the Reich Chancellery. SS guards brought over additional cans of petrol to further burn the corpses. Linge later noted the fire did not completely destroy the remains, as the corpses were being burned in the open, where the distribution of heat varies. The burning of the corpses lasted from 16:00 to 18:30. The remains were covered up in a shallow bomb crater at around 18:30 by Lindloff and Reisser".

-- Joachimsthaler, Anton "The Last Days of Hitler: The Legends, The Evidence, The Truth". Brockhampton Press.

Many testimonies [including Russian] put the conservative figure at twelve 20 litre cans [240 litres] utilized on the "'bonfire".

This is more than enough [according to Anton Joachimsthaler, up to 300 litres of gasoline were used on Hitler and Braun] to reach a temperature where adipose tissue becomes an accelerant in the cremation process. When this point has reached, further fuel is not required:

"When the human body is burned in the open by means of petrol, the first thing that burns off is the extraneous petrol, which causes a strong heating up of the corpse. Then, because they act like a wick, the fire spreads to the clothes, which burn away more or less quickly depending on the nature and structure of the fabric. When the open flames act directly on the body surface [estimated at 2.5metres squared] for a longer period of time-according to witnesses, the corpses burned from 16:00hrs to 18:30hrs - the final result is carbonisation.

During the process, steam forms in the subcutaneous tissue and in the course of the burning the pressure can rise dramatically, so that the body surface bursts open in many places. The skull can burst from the same effect. The heat causes the protein in the cells of the muscles to congeal, which then contract. This leads to contortions [arms] or the lifting up and contracting of the upper body and legs, which stay in this position because of posthumous heat rigor [so called "fencer’s stance"]. The heat causes the body fat to melt and the fatty acids released hydrolytically run out of the gashes in the skin, are absorbed by the fabrics still remaining and, because they are flammable just like the fat tissue itself, support the further burning process.

Because of the major loss of substance [water and fat], the carbonated corpse or torso shrinks to a substantial degree. If the burning continues for an extended period of time, the soft tissue is almost completely consumed. The only thing that remains is fragile, calcified bones that can easily disintegrate even without external force being applied".

"There was no body, there was no autopsy"

SS-Hauptsturmführer Edwald Lindloff testified that after only 30 minutes the corpses were already "charred and torn open".

The fire burnt for another two hours.

 “At about 10:00 p.m. Otto Günsche wrenched himself back to reality. He sent up one of the young Führerbegleitkommano guards, a corporal, to inspect the corpses. This guard soon returned to report that the body of Adolf Hitler was ‘no longer recognizable.’ The face and the head, he said, had been 'consumed beyond all human recognition'. Eva Braun, he reported, 'had burned away to fine ash'. 

Shortly before midnight – the source is here Hans Baur – General Rattenhuber, by this time well into his cups, also sent a soldier topside to report. This envoy came back and reported to Göbbels. "Both bodies have now been so burned that only very small remnants still remain. These are unrecognizable".

-- James P. O'Donnell, "The Bunker" 

German historian Werner Maser wrote in his biography "Adolf Hitler":

"The charred body [Hitler's]... there was nothing left of the face and only a horribly burnt remnant of the shattered skull- was pushed on to a tarpaulin, lowered into a shell crater in the vast graveyard around the Chancellery and, under heavy Soviet artillery fire, covered with earth, which was then stamped down with a wooden stamper".

Maser cited Otto Günsche's testimony. But when asked in 1994 Günsche said that he didn't known Maser and that he had never said anything like what Maser cited in his book. This quote from Otto Günsche was used in a biography on Hitler by Joachim C Fest, newspapers and many other books.

This shows how myths and legends are born and perpetuated in literature by reputable historians and journalists.

Otto Günsche:

"That Adolf Hitler was not completely burnt up with the help of the petrol is correct. The remains were scattered and shell fire did the rest... The heavy artillery and napalm fire went on until 2 May. Nothing was left that could point to Hitler... Often I can only shake my head about the claims of so-called witnesses, some of whom were not even there and are only repeating hearsay from others as their own observations. Maybe such claims, which were made immediately after the end of the war and have been repeated in various versions, are the answer to the fact that no one was in a position to prove what was left of the Führer's corpse and where this could be seen. None of the reports about this can be proved: they are falsification...

'The destruction of the Führer's corpse and that of his wife was complete through various causes".

Johannes Hentschel, the German-Danish master electro-mechanic for the Bunker, had this observation on 2 May, as related by Donald McKale ["Hitler: The Survival Myth"]: 

"The [Chancellery] garden looked like a cemetery during a grave diggers' strike", Hentschel said [in 1955] in recalling what he had seen as he left the shelter that morning.

"Bodies lay around in unnatural, dislocated positions, with heads cut off and bowels ripped out, and here and there an arm and a leg".

He had recognized only the corpses of Göbbels and his Frau, who "were not burnt, only singed".

Of Hitler, Eva Braun, and others from the last days, he saw nothing.

Not even a Hitler look-alike, which the Russians claimed to have uncovered later in the garden?

"No," Hentschel replied firmly."I have never seen a Hitler double, neither dead nor living. And I strongly doubt that Adolf Hitler ever saw one".

It is possible that Hitler might have faked his own death. It seems strange that Eva's body was "slumped over the armrest," as if someone had dropped it there. And why did she spill that Tokay wine on her dress?

Suppose Hitler had decided earlier to fake his own death. It would have been a simple matter for the SS to find a "double" for the Führer among the thousands of prisoners in the Nazi concentration camps.

Hitler already has his exit prepared. That may explain his unusual sang-froid when Baur proposed a last-minute flight out of embattled Berlin. A live Hitler would have brought the Allies into howling pursuit. But who is going to search diligently for a "dead man?"

Hitler invites Eva to join him for a glass of Tokay wine. But Eva's glass contains an ampoule of cyanide--one of the capsules Hitler was experimenting with that morning. Eva takes the fatal sip, then topples to the floor, spilling the wine on her dress. Hitler picks her up and drops her over the armrest. His new wife has become "stage scenery" for his great death scene.

After shaking hands with his co-conspirator Günsche, Hitler is out the door.

He had ordered that no-one was to enter the "Death Room" until 10 minutes after the shot was heard - Why? Because that was the time needed to carry the already dead double in. The vase with roses in it was knocked over and that was too far away to be hit by anyone in their death throes. He was slumped forward, hands on knees, leaning to the right slightly- against logic because the bullet was in the right temple and the gun he fired was on his left and he was not left-handed.

Not one witness there mentioned the smell of cordite from a gun, but all recognised the smell of cyanide.

Ewald Lindloff, Hans Reisser, Peter Högl and Heinz Linge carried Hitler's blanket-wrapped corpse up the stairs to ground level and through the Bunker's emergency exit to the bombed-out garden behind the Reich Chancellery. Bormann carried Eva on his own and she was described as "hanging like a wet dishrag".When Martin Bormann carried Eva Braun's corpse out of the Bunker, Kempka took the body from him and insisted on carrying it up himself, remarking that Bormann was carrying Braun "like a sack of potatoes" [Bormann and Braun had a mutual dislike]. 

The description of Eva's limp body is in direct contradiction to Hitler's "rigidly stiff and unbending body". Obviously the body had already gone into a state of rigor mortis and to do that it had to have been dead at least an hour longer than the woman.

Long after the war Erich Mansfield and Herman Karnau, two SS guards who had been stationed on guard towers were interviewed regarding the burning of the bodies of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun. They both made the same statement:

"When the bodies were ignited the corpse of Eva Braun sat up, her legs raised and bent themselves until her knees were almost touching her chin, and her arms lifted until they were pointing straight before her".

One guard said "she contorted as if she was riding a wild horse". 

Crematoria  technicians, detectives from police forensic science laboratories, coroners when interviewed are in agreement that a freshly deceased body or a corpse which has passed the rigor mortis stage will react in this manner. It has something to do with heat tightening and contracting the sinews.

However, during the rigor mortis stage which normally occurs forty-five to sixty minutes after death, the body could be expected to remain rigid regardless of applied heat.

So, did Hitler really shoot himself? Or did he, with Günsche's help, pull off an escape worthy of Harry Houdini?      

 

Hitler's entire body apparently vanished into thin air.

In 1952 there was a proper proceeding at the Federal Court in Berchtesgaden to declare Hitler's dead and to determine the exact time of his death.

It could not be concluded because no body has ever been found identifying Hitler.

Hitler's chauffeur Erich Kempka and former Reich Youth leader Artur Axmann, had both testified under oath in Nuremberg that on 30 April 1945 they had seen a body being carried out of the Führer's Bunker which was wrapped in a blanket and was dressed in Hitler's trousers, shoes and socks. Nevertheless the Berlin records office did not consider this to be proof that Hitler was dead maintaining  that this could have been any corpse dressed in Hitler's trousers and shoes.

Autopsy, Controversy and Urban Myth

Reports of the autopsy performed on Hitler's alleged remains immediately after the fall of Berlin, along with two conflicting accounts of the cause of death, resulted in years of controversy following World War II.

The badly burned and partially buried remains were recovered by a SMERSH unit which had been assigned the task of locating Hitler's body [this unit was attached to the 79th Rifle Corps of the Soviet Third Shock Army and is frequently referred to simply as 79th SMERSH]. An autopsy was performed by the SMERSH unit, led by Chief Forensic Pathologist Dr. Faust Sherovsky in an attempt to determine the exact cause of death.

It is most likely nonsense that the Russians, as they claimed several weeks after his death, ever found Hitler's body/corpse. T

o this day the Russians have not presented a single piece of evidence that they found Hitler's corpse. Where are the authentic photographs? Why was the allegedly lead-lined box with Hitler's identifiable corpse not shown to the German witnesses the Russians had captured? Even though in 1945--and during their reconstruction of the events in 1946--the Russians kept telling Linge, Günsche, Baur, Hofbeck, Henschel and the others that they would be "confronted with Hitler's body," they never showed it to any of these people.

The team first identified Hitler using odontological records relating to removable dental fittings given to Hitler by his dentist Hugo Blaschke. Two of Blaschke's arrested assistants, Fritz Echtmann and Käthe Hausermann, confirmed the dental records as being accurate.

The autopsy ultimately led to the discovery of traces of cyanide in the tissues of both bodies and the official cause of death published by the team was poisoning by cyanide with no mention of any gunshot wound. The findings were released by the USSR on 16 May 1945 but were quickly recognized as lacking by both Soviet and Western authorities.

The so-called autopsy of the [non-existing] corpse of Hitler was so obviously faked, that Viktor Abakumov, the head of the Russian Military Intelligence, absolutely refused to show even parts of it to the Western Allies, or even more astonishing, to Lavrenti Beria, the head of the Russian Secret Police

Autopsy report declared false

The autopsy report was publicly questioned by both Stalin and the Allies due to persistent testimony from other members of the Führerbunker staff that Hitler had shot himself. Stalin, apparently concerned the autopsy may have been botched and that the Soviet Union had a major embarrassment on its hands, directed Marshal Zhukov to announce on 9 June 1945 that the remains of Hitler had not been found and that Hitler was probably still alive. This statement was never retracted.

The motives were made clearer when the KGB/FSB opened their files on the matter to the public in 1993, and a book by Soviet journalist Lev Bezymensky, who had been attached at that time as an interpreter to the Red Army unit concerned in Berlin, detailed the SMERSH autopsy report that had been published in the west in 1968. While it contained such prurient details as that the body had only one testicle, it concealed the fact that Hitler had shot himself; If Bezymenski was to be believed, Hitler had just swallowed poison.

There were psychological and propaganda reasons for asserting this.

The phone rings and suddenly a man who introduces himself as the valet adjutant calmly informs you that the head of your government is dead. But the courteous butler asks you to trust him on this, because there's nothing to prove his claim, other than disfigured parts of a charred corpse with one testicle, and some gasoline rags, rammed into the ground-soil of the Berlin Chancellery garden with a clumsy wooden club. 
 
Being a responsible civil servant, you wonder why it was necessary to dismiss your leader's body in such a macabre way. No funeral or burial rites? Diplomatic Corpus strictly forbids the morbid abuse of the deceased body of a head of state. 

"I did it with the bodyguard," the butler's voice politely cuts you off, "to prevent the enemy from desecrating his body".

While the reason for destroying essential evidence may seem dubious, if not bogus, you must now make a critical choice:

Either insist on more proof, including photographs, or simply trust a valet adjutant and affix your signature to a formal agreement for the transfer of world power.....

---

Strikingly, no films or photographs exist that would corroborate any aspect of the official narrative of the Third Reich's last days, least of all the claim that Hitler committed suicide.

Years later, Bezymenski came clean and admitted that he had been ordered by the Soviet Authorities to doctor the autopsy to conceal the fact that Hitler's skull  clearly showed the bullet's entry and exit wounds, and he published a revised edition of his work].

The KGB/FSB files also released records and statements by former KGB members.

Hitler's Escape?

Allied officials were deluged with a flurry of unsubstantiated reports that Hitler had escaped from Berlin and fled to Argentina, Spain or a moated castle in Westphalia.

Although such rumors abated somewhat after the war, the lack of public confirmation of the existence of Hitler's remains caused rumors to circulate and re-appear for several decades, including various myths that he had fled to New Swabia in Antarctica [and even descended into a hollow earth]. These rumors, often repeated on websites, usually conflated facts regarding the post-war activities of fugitive ex-Nazi officials [including the ODESSA organization] with fictional storylines from the many popular books, films and television programs that have been produced on the topic, but no evidence has ever emerged that either Hitler or Braun were alive after 30 April 1945.

It is absurd to believe that 300,000 fugitive Nazis escaped to South America on the few U-Boats remaining at the end of the war, or that they all made their own travel arrangements. The truth is much more ordinary, almost mundane. It is all the more shocking as a result.

For whatever success ODESSA achieved, they were mere amateurs at Nazi-smuggling when compared with the Vatican.

Source: Mark Aarons and John Loftus "Unholy Trinity"

Pope Pius XI was ardently pro-German, pro-Nazi, and anti-communist. He issued the Concordiat of 1933 which basically recognized the Nazi ideology with open arms and set out a philosophical accommodation with violent anti-Semitism.

After the fall of Stalingrad many in Hitler's closest circle accepted defeat was inevitable and began negotiations.

In the spring of 1943 Martin Bormann sent SS Major Walter Rauff, who had developed mobile units to gas the Jews, to the Vatican to discretely lay in place agreements with Pope Pius XII at the Vatican to form plans for postwar Ratlines and aid the escape of SS war criminals.

The OSS sent Moe Berg, who was a personal emissary from Roosevelt, by submarine [Ammeraglio Cagni & Project Shark/Vittorio], to discuss with the Vatican and Rauff how to facilitate this escape network.

Argentina's diplomat in Madrid, Juan Perón deliberately issued 1000 blank Argentine passports to facilitate escape networks. James Jesus Angleton of the OSS, later to become a key figure in the Cold war CIA was deeply involved in helping the Ratlines smuggle out SS volunteers from occupied Russia and Ukraine to South America to assist in spy networks against the Soviets.

In June 1997 documents came to light reported by CNN and Reuters documenting how the Vatican Bank was holding US$ 250m in gold deposits from the Nazis and alluding toa total of $600m which has vanished.

Late in the war, the Vatican created an organisation called Intermere to assist SS men to cross international borders which accommodated them in monasteries. It also used the CARITAS Catholic aid agency and their network throughout South America. Austria's Bishop Alois Hudal and Cardinal Giovanni Montini who later became Pope Paul VI organised Intermere which knew the true identities of these people and yet issued Red Cross papers to them. Cardinal Montini organised the San Girolamo brotherhood of monks and the Jesuit order of Castelgandolfo to hide Nazis.

 

The initial announcement of the discovery of Hitler's remains, quickly followed by a Soviet denial that the remains had been found and a statement that Hitler was probably still alive led many to believe Hitler had indeed escaped to South America along with other prominent Nazis.

Skull fragment

Dr. Sherovsky had noted in his initial autopsy report that a piece of Hitler's skull cap was missing. A skull fragment was later recovered from the Führerbunker and was found to contain a single bullet hole, most likely from a 7.65mm round. This bullet hole, together with the cyanide trace elements found in the body tissue and witness accounts, ultimately led to the widely accepted conclusion that Hitler had shot himself in the right temple with a 7.65mm pistol while simultaneously biting down on a glass cyanide ampule. The skull fragment was taken to Moscow in 1946 along with the jaw section used for the dental identification and eventually found its way to the Moscow Archives.

There was a rumour, probably an urban legend, that the skull fragment was presented as a gift to Stalin, who then used the fragment as an ashtray in an ultimate show of triumph over his previous enemy. This story may have gotten started with the fact that the fragments were stored for a time in a wooden cigar box by a member of 79th SMERSH who was tasked with their safe-keeping.

The skull fragment disappeared from official records but was later located in the Moscow Archives basement after the fall of the Soviet Union and publicly displayed as part of an exhibition on the fall of the Third Reich entitled "The Agony of the Third Reich".

By 2003 the skull fragment was being kept in a plastic floppy disk case. There were unsubstantiated reports that DNA extracted from the fragment matched samples taken from Hitler's relatives but other sources assert that no such testing had happened, for various reasons.

Almost all captured German officers that were with Hitler during his last hour told their Russian captors that he shot himself in the right temple with a pistol and was subsequently taken outside to the garden and cremated with gasoline in the open air then buried in a shelling crater.

When all bodily tissues and fluids are burned away, the only thing that remains is fragile calcified bones. As a result, it is very unlikely that anything resembling a human corpse remained following Hitler's burning.

In his book, "Hitler", Werner Maser insists that the Russians never found Hitler's body, and that their tales of such discoveries as the lack of one testicle are totally unreliable. He would seem to make his point; the Russians wanted to capitalize on Hitler's death, even on Hitler's corpse. They told tall stories, which they hoped would stand up. Maser throws those Russian inventions into the rubbish-bin, where they should be left. They collected other men and corpses in order to create a myth—one wonders why?

That year, however, American forensic scientist Mark Benecke was given access to the skull and jaw fragments along with some surviving teeth and two metal dental bridges. He positively identified the upper bridge from a 1944 X-ray of Hitler's head which had been obtained by US and British secret service operatives after the war. "You could challenge the validity of the skull" he said, "but the teeth are absolutely conclusive. They are definitely Hitler's".

On a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation program called "As It Happens" 17 September 1974 at 7:15 p.m., Prof. Dr. Ryder Saguenay, oral surgeon from the Dental Faculty of the University of California at Los Angeles, said that Hitler had ordered a special plane to leave from Berlin with all medical and dental records, especially X-rays, of all top Nazis for an unknown destination. He said that the dental records used to identify Hitler's body were drawn from memory by a dental assistant, who disappeared and was never found.

San Jose Mercury
20 February 1987

"The teeth of Corpse Don't Match Führer's Pictures"

1. Two lower bridges in corpse, Not Installed by Hitler's Dentist When Questioned.
2. No evidence of root canal in corpse, Dentist Performed Root Canal.
3. Natural teeth on corpse, Dentist Said Hitler's Lower Right Tooth was Porcelain
4. Gaps on autopsy report not present on Hitler's Dental Record..

Dr. Robert Dorion,  Director of Forensic Dentistry for the Ministry of Solicitor General, Quebec
Information presented last week to American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

When asked if he would have liked to do a DNA test, Benecke replied: "Absolutely. It was only that I didn't have a sterile drill with me at the time that I didn't take a sample. I would like to do a DNA match but, otherwise, the story is over for me. There is no secret left". 

DNA testing would not be possible without a specimen for comparison, for which the cooperation of living relatives of Hitler would be needed. None of them show any evidence of wanting to participate in such a test.

Debate

Some suggested that the traces of cyanide found in the body were a result of the medicines prescribed to Hitler by his personal physician Theo Morrell and that the probable cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head. Critics point out that although Morrell often prescribed unorthodox treatment including doses of arsenic and strychnine, cyanide compounds were never included. Also, according to Dr. Sherovsky's autopsy report shards of glass were found inside the mouth suggesting a glass ampule [similar to those used by Himmler and Göring] had been bitten.

Journalist James O'Donnell, after extensive interviews with the inhabitants of the Bunker [including those who were unavailable for years due to Russian detention], noted agreement among them that shortly before his death, Hitler had a conversation with another doctor, Werner Haase, who gave him instructions on how to make sure the suicide was successful, describing a combination of cyanide and a gunshot to the temple. However, Haase died in Russian captivity and O'Donnell had to rely on witness accounts.

One often-repeated idea is that the "gunshot only" argument was an attempt to portray a more honorable "soldier's death" for Hitler by way of gunshot, as opposed to an "honorless" suicide by poisoning. This idea was later extended to include any suicide scenario that involved Hitler shooting himself [as opposed to using poison only]. O'Donnell, citing the body of evidence that indicates otherwise, noted that such claims are based on ideology, not fact, and remarked that such claimants should learn how to "give the devil his due".

In 2005, Erna Flegel, who served as a nurse in the Bunker, said Hitler was so paranoid he suspected spies had filled his cyanide capsules with something nontoxic and may explain why he killed his dog Blondi while testing a capsule. Moreover, the capsules had been obtained through Heinrich Himmler, who Hitler believed had betrayed him.

Flegel was also quoted that year as saying:

"There were a few people who then heard it [the shot] and there were others who didn't. The Führer suddenly wasn't there any more. I knew that the Führer was dead. Suddenly there were more doctors in the Bunker, including Professor Haase. I didn't see Hitler's body. It was taken up to the garden. The Führer had such an authority that when he was there you knew it. It felt so extraordinary".

Physically possible?

Another continuing point of speculation is whether Hitler was physically capable of shooting himself while taking poison at the same time, given the rapid and violent convulsions often evident during cyanide poisoning. This led to another theory that Hitler ingested cyanide, died and then his body was shot by someone else to either ensure he was dead or make it appear the Führer had died a soldier's suicide by gunshot. As for who the shooter might have been, Eva Braun is sometimes mentioned. She had trained with a pistol during the preceding weeks [as did many German women in response to stories of widespread rape and murder by advancing Red Army soldiers] and was presumably one of the only people Hitler trusted at the end of his life.

"...on 30 April 1945 -the Soviets are already in the center of Berlin- and the Reichs Chancellery is a tiny island, still held by German troops in the inner city - Hitler commits suicide in his Bunker. Earlier he had just married his life companion, Eva Braun, whom he had met many years before when she worked for his official photographer Hoffmann.

"He shoots himself, Eva Braun takes poison.

"According to the latest report, however, Hitler was shot by his wife, since because of his illness that had worsened since the assassination attempt of 20 July, he was no longer able to hold a pistol".

-- Dr. Kurt Zentner, "Illustrierte Geschichte des Dritten Reiches" - Lingen Verlag Köln, 1980

Other possibilities would include Heinz Linge, Hitler's valet, and Martin Bormann who both had the opportunity to be alone with the body long enough to inflict a gunshot wound before it was removed from the Bunker. However, historians for the most part discount this possibility.

Soviet historian, Lev Alexandrowitsch Besymenski, who examined secret Soviet archives in "Der Tod des Adolf Hitler" [Hamburg, 1968] refers to a 1947 US army Intelligence report as concluding that: "None other than Günsche [arrested by the Russians] went into the Führer's room and shot him in the head with his Walther revolver, caliber 7.65. At this time, Hitler was already dead" 

 

Representatives of the Walther firm which manufactured the Walther PPK 7.65 are adamant. If the muzzle was placed against the head as it was discharged an exit wound the size of a closed fist should be on the other side of the victim's head. The only way the corpse could be in the condition described by the witnesses was if the shot was fired from a distance of ten or twelve feet.

O'Donnell also noted that Walter Hewel, like Hitler, was given instructions on the same dual suicide method [along with the same type of cyanide capsule]. Hewel committed suicide on 2 May by a combination of the capsule and a gunshot wound to the head. O'Donnell cited Hewel's death as a cruel proof positive such a suicide was possible.

Based on witness reports of a loud gunshot, Günsche, in his testimony stated:

"After Hitler and Eva Braun had withdrawn I took up a position in front of Hitler's rooms. I then saw--I did not hear a shot--Linge open the door to Hitler's office and Linge and Bormann go inside, I thereupon immediately went into the antechamber myself and heard Linge's account of finding the bodies, Hitler shot himself in the right temple after Braun took cyanide.  There is significant evidence that to ensure self-destruction, Hitler bit into a glass ampule of cyanide  as he pulled the trigger of his personal Walther PPK pistol".

Adolf Hitler's Last Days
Time Magazine
21 May 1945

In Berchtesgaden, last week, Gerhard Herrgesell, stenographer to Germany's Supreme Headquarters Staff, told "Time" Correspondent Percival Knauth the story of the last recorded conferences which the Supreme Command held, in a little bomb proof room deep in the earth under the Berlin Chancellery.

"I Must Die Here"

Said Herrgesell:

"The decisive briefing which determined the fate of all of us began at 3 o'clock on the afternoon of 22 April and lasted until nearly 8 o'clock that evening. At this briefing Adolf Hitler declared that he wanted to die in Berlin. He repeated this 10 or 20 times in various phrases. He would say: 'I will fall here' or 'I will fall before the Chancellery' or 'I must die here in Berlin.' He reasoned that the cause was irretrievably lost, in complete contrast to his previous attitude, which had always been: 'We will fight to the last tip of the German Reich'. "What reasons motivated his change of heart no one knows. He expressed the fact that his confidence was shaken. He had lost confidence in the Wehrmacht quite a while ago, saying that he had not gotten true reports, that bad news had been withheld from him. This afternoon he said that he was losing confidence in the Waffen SS, for the first time. He had always counted on the Waffen SS as elite troops which would never fail him. Now he pointed out a series of reports which he declared were false."

This, and the failure of the SS troops to hold the Russians north of Berlin, Herrgesell said, had apparently convinced Hitler that his elite troops had lost heart.

"The Führer always maintained that no force, however well trained and equipped, could fight if it lost heart, and now he felt his last reserve was gone."

Nerve Control

"During all this time participants in this conference were changing constantly. Hitler himself was generally composed. Every time he really began to get angry or excited, he would quickly get himself under control again. His face was flushed and red, however, and he paced the floor almost constantly, walking back and forth, sometimes smacking his fist into his hand. But of all the participants at all the conferences, the Führer was generally the one who kept his nerves best under control.

"The really decisive conference took place in late afternoon. It lasted only about 15 minutes. Present were Hitler, Martin Bormann, successor to Hess as the Führer's personal representative, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel and Colonel General Alfred Jodl. All others were sent away except the two stenographers.

''Hitler again expressed his determination to stay in Berlin, and said he wanted to die there. He thought it would be the greatest service he could render to the honor of the German nation. In this conference his desire to stay in the Chancellery was violently opposed. Keitel spoke to him in really sharp terms, reminding him that his new attitude was contradictory to his former plans. Bormann supported Keitel no less strongly".

Hitler's End
The Scone Advocate [NSW]
22 May 1945

In a remarkable interview with a "British United Press" correspondent at Odersalzburg, Gerhard Herrgesell, one of Hitler's confidential typists, who was flown out of Berlin just before its fall, says he thinks Admiral Keitel may have tried by force to remove Hitler from Berlin; but he was personally convinced that Hitler died with his sweetheart, Eva Braun, General Bormann, and the last of the Führer's special S.S. Guards.

He was of the opinion that, to prevent the bodies falling into Russian hands, they, with possibly a few others, were placed in a prepared vault of a Government building, which was then sealed off, possibly with debris blasted down on the spot.

Out of the Mousetrap

"Alfred Jodl was a quiet man who spoke little, but when he spoke, it was always clearly, frankly and to the point. Now he also came out strongly against Hitler. He declared very firmly that he, personally, would not stay in Berlin; he thought it was a mousetrap, and his job was to lead the troops, not stand with a flintlock in his hand defending the city and in the end dying in the rubble of its ruins.

"When Keitel and Bormann saw that they could not move Hitler to change his mind, they said that in spite of his orders, they would also stay. Hitler again ordered them to leave; in ten minutes, he said, the Russians might be before the Chancellery. Keitel and Bormann repeated that they would stay. Keitel added: 'We would never be able to confront our wives and children if we left'.'

"Hitler then said that in two or three days, in a week at the very most, Berlin would be finished and the Chancellery taken. He said that he had considered what would happen after his own death. He gave an order to the other three men—it was not clear to whom he gave it, or whether he actually meant it as an order to one of them specifically. He said: 'You must go to southern Germany, form a government, and Göring will be my successor. Göring wird verhandeln—Göring will negotiate'.

Vague and Uncertain

"Whether this last statement was an order or a prophecy, no one knows. He might have said it in a spirit of resignation, realizing that if Göring were to succeed him, he would undertake negotiations. He might also have meant it as a direct order to negotiate after his death. The Führer was by now rather vague and uncertain, giving no direct orders, apparently preoccupied with the prospect of his own imminent death.

"Jodl interjected that Germany still had some armies capable of action. He mentioned the Central Army Group under Field Marshal Ferdinand Schörner which was disposed south of Berlin in the direction of Dresden, and the Twelfth Army of General Walther Wenck, a newly formed army which was to stand against the Americans on the Elbe. Perhaps, said Jodl, these armies could change the course of events around Berlin. Hitler evidenced little interest. He gave no orders, shrugged his shoulders and said: 'You do whatever you want.' "

Search for Death

"As to Hitler's death. I don't believe we will ever find a witness who can tell us how it happened. But I don't believe the Führer remained in the cellar. I believe he went out, possibly several times, looking for death to which he was now so completely resigned, and that he may have died by artillery fire. One thing we do know—he was not the last man alive in the Chancellery Bunker, because after his death we still received some radio reports from there".

At this point Correspondent Knauth told Herrgesell of reports he had heard from U.S. security officers: that Hitler had been killed by 55 Hauptsturmführer Günsche, the Führer's personal adjutant..

Said Herrgesell:

"Günsche was a giant of a man and very violent. He would be capable of doing it if he were asked to, or if he thought the time had come to shoot the Führer and then himself. But I don't believe it happened that way. I honestly believe that Hitler sought his death. He was convinced that all was irretrievably lost, that he could trust nobody any more and that he must die".

Who Killed Hitler?
Barrier Daily Truth [Broken Hill, NSW]
21 May 1945

LONDON. Gerhard Herrgesell, the shorthand writer who recorded Hitler* most intimate meetings since 1943, told correspondents In Berchtesgaden that It was likely that Colonel Günsche, his adjutant In charge of the under ground Chancellery, killed Hitler— with Hitler's knowledge. Herrgesell declared that Günsche's specific assignment was to kill Hitler and. after disposing of the body in such a way that the Russians could not possibly find it, turn the gun on himself.

"During all this time, artillery fire on the Chancellery was increasing and even deep down in the cellar we could feel concussions shaking the building. The conference finally broke up in indecision. I was ordered to leave Berlin with my stenographic reports but my partner was to remain. He pointed out that in that case the reports were valueless, because if he stayed no one would be able to transcribe his records, and without his, mine would be incomplete. Bormann then ordered us both to leave that evening by plane".

---

Late during the evening on 20 April 1945, with Allied armies approaching Berlin from all directions, Hitler had ordered that all but two of the stenographers proceed to Berchtesgaden and evacuate their original notes and his copy of the transcriptions which was kept in the basement of the Reichs Chancellery. At this point they had accumulated at least 100,000 pages of single-sided text.  At 5am on 21 April six of the stenographers and their records flew out of Berlin with their transcripts and notes.  Later that day they stored their records in an air-raid shelter behind the Berghof, Hitler’s home in the Obersalzberg of the Bavarian Alps near Berchtesgaden, and took up residence at Berchtesgaden, believing that Hitler would soon follow.  On the evening of 22 April, the two remaining stenographers flew from Berlin to Berchtesgaden, being ordered to take the records of the last 48 hours to their colleagues in Bavaria, so that -as Hitler expressly stated- the transcripts would be preserved for history. They landed near Munich sometime after 4am on 23 April. They then drove to Berchtesgaden to join their colleagues, where the notes for 21 and 22 April were transcribed. Stenographer Gerhard Herrgesell and Kurt Haagen were the last of Hitler’s rcorders to leave Berlin.

 

Destruction of remains

In the decades following the war there was much speculation regarding the exact location of Hitler's final resting place. Historians have reached a general consensus [based on reports from declassified KGB files and statements by former KGB members] that following the autopsy, the bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun were at first frequently buried and exhumed by SMERSH during the unit's relocation from Berlin to a new facility at 30-32 Klausnerstrasse in Magdeburg.

Once in Magdeburg they [along with the charred remains of Propaganda minister Josef Göbbels, his wife Magda and their six children] were permanently buried in an unmarked grave underneath a paved section of the front courtyard and the location was kept highly secret. By 1970 the SMERSH facility [now controlled by the KGB] was scheduled to be handed over to the East German government. Keen to destroy any possibility of Hitler's burial site becoming a Neo-Nazi shrine, KGB director Yuri Andropov authorised a special operation to destroy the remains. On 4 April 1970 a Russian KGB team [who had been given detailed burial charts] exhumed the bodies and burned the remains before dumping the ashes in the Elbe river.

In 2005 the skull and jaw fragments taken to Moscow were still kept in the Moscow Archives. An earlier public display on the destruction of the Third Reich contained the skull fragment [now proven to be that of a young woman], although the jaw fragment was not shown as it is apparently too fragile to be handled.

The overall confusion as to the whereabouts of Hitler's corpse can be attributed to Stalin's growing paranoia in his later years, which included ideas that Hitler escaped death.

A slight possibility remains that agents and doctors in the USSR attempted to qualm Stalin's fears by producing a body, even though it may have rotted away to nothing long before..

Hitler's death, at the end of World War II, assumed to be by his own hand, remains unproven.

This assumption was the result of what many conceive as a conspiracy by the Western Powers, bowing to political pressures and to fight Nazism, to come up with Hitler's suicide story. This then would explain Hitler's disappearance from Nazi Germany after Germany's defeat.

Even if one takes the submitted Russian report on Hitler's autopsy at face value, there still remains the fact that there was no trace of the corpse of Eva Braun, Hitler's mistress and later wife. This alone disproves the double-suicide theory now part of German history.

Could he be alive today?

In July 1943 Pierre J. Huss, chief correspondent in Berlin for the International News Service who had interviewed Hitler several times during the 1930s and 1940s, filed a report which concluded:

"But Hitler, unlike Il Duce, probably will ride the storm to the bitter end, wildly spilling oceans of blood in occupied countries and even in the Reich itself, and kill himself rather than follow Mussolini's example and resign".

That same year a classified psychological report by the Office of Strategic Services came to the same conclusion.

On 31 October 2003, Kamato Hongo, the only living person with a birthdate earlier than Adolf Hitler, passed away. With the passing of Ramona Trinidad Iglesias-Jordan on 29 May 2004, no one born in the decade of the 1880s, male or female, was known to be living. In effect, if Hitler had still been alive somewhere, he would have been the oldest living person in the world.

What if Hitler had survived
the end of the Second World War
-
- Esquire cover from the Sixties -

---

 Bibliography

The Last Days of Hitler, by Hugh Redwald Trevor-Roper
Inside Hitler's Bunker : The Last Days of the Third Reich by Joachim Fest

References

O'Donnell, James,  The Bunker
Waite, Robert G.L.  The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler
Ada Petrova, The Death of Hitler: The Full Story With New Evidence from Secret Russian Archives
Gardner, Dave  The Last of the Hitlers

 

There is no Proof

Hitler was a very wealthy man. Sales of his book earned millions for him. That's a fact generally overlooked.

The original title of Hitler's "Mein Kampf" was "4 & ½ Year Struggle, against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice". The first part was written while he was incarcerated in Landsberg prison after the 1923 Beerhall Putsch. His publisher, Max Amann, later changed the title to "Mein Kampf" [My Struggle]. By 1939, the book had sold over 5 million copies, making Hitler a millionaire. Up to 1945, the book had a total printing of just over 10,000,000 copies. His official salary was 60,000 Marks per annum. In 1934, Hitler declared his income for 1933 as 1,232,355 Marks but the tax on 600,000 of this amount was never paid. Most of this was from royalties from his book. He also received a fraction of a cent for every postage stamp sold bearing his image.

Klaus-Dieter Dubon, a retired Bavarian notary and tax expert, said he found Hitler's tax records in a Munich archive. They show the Nazi dictator battled tax collectors for eight years before becoming chancellor in 1933.

Hitler's troubles with the Munich tax office suddenly vanished shortly after he took power in 1933.

The infamous 1933 Enabling Act gave Hitler dictatorial powers but also helped him win his battles with the Munich tax office for good. The office first declared Hitler liberated from income tax in 1934 and in 1935 absolved him of his past tax debt of 405,494 Reichsmarks.

Dubon said the head of the Munich tax office, Ludwig Mirre, excused Hitler from paying tax only after first formally writing to him to ask permission. An assistant to Hitler wrote back to Mirre: "Herr Hitler accepts your proposal".

Mirre was promoted a month later to head of the German tax office and given a 41 percent pay rise.

Steel Baron Gustav Krupp, proposed that all employers contribute a quarterly sum based on their payroll. Called the "German Industry's Adolf Hitler Fund", it was administrated by Martin Bormann and added many millions to Hitler's coffers. In the twelve years of his dictatorship Hitler disposed of over 305 million Reichsmarks.

There is no evidence that Hitler’s great wealth was ever found or inherited by his relatives. What his relatives inherited were material things he could not take with him if he left Germany.

His Last Will is very suspicious.

Written and dated shortly before his supposed suicide, he begins by explaining that he is marrying his long-time girlfriend, but he does not even put her name in his will.

Then he goes on to say, "She goes as my wife with me into death", and ends his will, "It is our wish to be burnt immediately on the spot...", meaning in Berlin.

Why explain the marriage in the will? Could it have been a message to her family?

...she goes as my wife...

...with me...

...into death...

We have married and have left the country together and won't be back. That's how the message might be read.

Hitler's Last Will was how he wanted his story to be told.

And that's what has been told, just the way he wrote it.

Supposed witnesses told the story of the last-minute wedding and the suicide and the burning of the bodies.

Yet why should we believe the people who said Hitler killed himself? The very people who were closest to him. Who believed in him and the Nazi dream.

Hitler's nurse was questioned by the FBI after the war ended. She described how Hitler filled a room with his personality, how only he existed when you were in a crowded room with him, that aside from Hitler, nothing else existed.

She went on to explain that the most fascinating thing about Hitler was his eyes, and how even at the end, it was impossible to turn away from his eyes.

And then, to explain why she believed Hitler had killed himself, she told the FBI that Hitler would have known it was hopeless for him to ever build a new Germany.

What kind of answer is that?

Who says Hitler cared only about ruling Germany and the world? In the end, maybe Hitler only cared about saving himself. And he took his girlfriend/wife with him to take care of his daily needs.

A body burned in a funeral parlor oven is not completely burned. The large bones are ground up. If Hitler had been burned and buried, there would have been bones and ash.

At some point the Soviets claimed they'd dug up Hitler's burned body, reburied it, dug it up again, and eventually brought the skull to the Soviet Union.

Not true.

The skull they claimed to be Hitler's has been tested for DNA and it is a woman's skull. 

But if Hitler did not die, where did he go?

How did he get out of Berlin?

Then out of Germany?

Well, quite a few Nazis escaped, some as far away as Argentina, so we know it was not impossible.

Would anyone have recognized Hitler without his mustache? Travelling with a wife?
 

Many years previous to what is said to be Hitler's last will, he had written a detailed will, describing how his estate was to be divided. The so-called Last Will of his had no such details.

Why was that?

Probably, long before the war ended, he had secured his money outside of Germany, so there was no money for his family.

The people who told Hitler's story about his suicide were people who idolized him.

They would have told the story to protect him in his new life.

And years later, they would have continued to tell the same story to protect themselves for having lied to authorities.

Whatever the truth about Hitler, he is dead by now. But it would be interesting to know how he lived his last years.

H. D. Baumann in his 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.

Harry S. Truman meets Josef Stalin at the Potsdam Conference, held outside Berlin, on 17 July 1945

"Shortly after his arrival, on 17 July, Stalin came to call on the President. We had to remember to call him Generalissimo rather than Marshal Stalin, for he had been accorded the new title in recognition of the Red Army's great successes. It was the first time the President and Stalin had met. After a very pleasant conversation, the President quite informally asked Stalin, Molotov, and Pavlov, the capable Soviet interpreter, to stay and have lunch with him. They accepted.

"The conversation was general in nature and cordial in spirit. The President was favorably impressed by Stalin, as I had been at Yalta.

"In speaking of our visit to Berlin, I asked the Generalissimo his views of how Hitler had died.

"To my surprise, he said he believed that Hitler was alive and that it was possible he was then either in Spain or Argentina. Some ten days later I asked him if he had changed his views and he said he had not".

Byrnes, James F. "Speaking Frankly". "Harper & Brothers, New York, 1947

A myth to refute is the myth that Hitler, almost by magic, ceased his functioning. How?  By suicide.....

That is an example of magical thinking. The Allies wanted him out, so he magically committed suicide. How convenient!

The whole suicide story of Hitler rests solely on the concocted testimony of four fanatical Nazis, Heinz Linge, Hitler's valet, Otto Günsche, Hitler's Adjutant, Hans Baur, his personal pilot and Johann Rattenhuber, the Chief of Bodyguards. They were all vigorously trained to guard Hitler's personal secrets, even under the threat of torture and death.

The fabrications were made up as the "witnesses" went along, even changing their own stories! Incredible!

When considering the fate of Adolf Hitler, one has to realize that the overwhelming majority of people believe that he committed suicide during the last days of the Second World War. This view is supported by dozens of books written by among others, world-renowned historians. Their views and conclusions are seemingly well supported by circumstances and eye witness accounts.

Indeed, an entire library of books may be filled with eye-witness accounts and so-called proofs of Hitler's suicide. Most of the new printed works are merely rehashed Berlin Bunker testimonies, smoothed out to make a bit more sense, and hopefully convince us by their sheer size of whatever we seriously hope is true.

Just the consideration that there may be another, darker side to the story makes most people, to say it mildly, emotionally uneasy. Just the thought that such a man responsible for the murder of millions, might have escaped unscathed from the rubble of Berlin in 1945 seems hard to swallow. 

Ironically, it was not the evidence provided by Russia that convinced Establishment historians that Adolf Hitler committed suicide in his Berlin bunker, on 30 April 1945, as Allied forces closed in on Berlin, shortly after exchanging marriage vows with Eva Braun, but the testimony of the obsessively devoted Nazis who were also present in the Chancellery Bunker when Hitler allegedly killed himself. Here is where their futile pretense became a matter of imprudence: For they were primarily the very same historians who insisted that the body shown in the annoying Russian photos was a Doppelgänger killed by those Nazis in the Berlin Bunker who wanted to thwart Allied investigators. We are therefore expected to believe that after committing the outright murder of a double for the purpose of obstructing justice, the Nazi Bunker guests were nonetheless quite frank and honest in their eye-witness accounts of what really became of Adolf Hitler. These guests would not stop even at murder to perpetrate their Führer's cover-up. Yet the world was totally convinced of their honest integrity and humble desire to satisfy our secret wish that Hitler should not have escaped justice.

The Soviet authorities, who were the only people in a position to conduct the investigations did far more to confuse the issue than to clarify it, and what their finding actually amounted to has still not been made public. When the Soviets found the partially burned remains of a man and a woman near Hitler's Bunker, their forensic specialists concluded that these were the corpses of Hitler and Braun and that both had died from cyanide poisoning. But the discovery was kept secret – perhaps because Stalin was not completely convinced.

In 1952, Dwight D. Eisenhower said: "We have been unable to unearth one bit of tangible evidence of Hitler's death. Many people believe that Hitler escaped from Berlin".

When President Truman asked Josef Stalin at the Potsdam conference in 1945 whether or not Hitler was dead, Stalin replied bluntly, "No".

Stalin's top army officer, Georgi Konstantinovitch Zukhov, whose troops were the ones to occupy Berlin, flatly stated after a long thorough investigation in 1945: "We have found no corpse that could be Hitler's".

The chief of the U.S. trial counsel at Nuremberg, Thomas J. Dodd, said: "No one can say he is dead".

Major General Floyd Parks, who was commanding general of the U.S. sector in Berlin, stated for publication that he had been present when Marshall Zhukov described his entrance to Berlin, and Zhukov stated he believed Hitler might have escaped.

Lt. Gen. Bedell Smith, Chief of Staff to Gen. Eisenhower in the European invasion and later Director of the CIA, stated publicly on 12 October 1945: "No human being can say conclusively that Hitler is dead."

Col. W.J. Heimlich, former Chief, United States Intelligence, at Berlin, stated for publication that he was in charge of determining what had happened to Hitler and after a thorough investigation his report was: "There was no evidence beyond that of hearsay to support the theory of  Hitler's suicide".

He also stated: "On the basis of present evidence, no insurance company in America would pay a claim on Adolf Hitler".

A recent TV program, called "What Really Happened to Adolf Hitler," after investigating numerous stories, ends by saying that, in spite of Glasnost and the new freedom of access to Russian files, the files on Hitler are still some of the most highly classified items of the Soviets.

In his 1995 book "The Greatest Illusion: The Death [?] of Adolf Hitler", Australian historian Fred C. McKenzie summarizes how Stalin was adamant in his conviction that Adolf Hitler still lived. In August of 1945, Stalin personally accused the British of concealing the real, living Adolf Hitler in their sector of Berlin.

Russian officials even said that they thought Hitler might have escaped from the Bunker, fuelling the doubts of the Americans, who went on to conduct an 11-year investigation into the possibility that Hitler was hiding out in the foothills of the Andes or in a remote part of Argentina.

There were witnesses to Hitler’s death and the cremation of his body, and these witnesses were interrogated.

How truthful are these witnesses?

The story of Hitler's death is one of a man who knew the end was near and was determined to not be captured alive. Supposedly while he was in his Bunker, on 30 April 1945, realizing the Russians were almost upon him, he put a automatic pistol to his head and pulled the trigger while reclining on a couch. The body was then taken outside, put in a pit and set on fire to destroy the evidence. But is this what really happened ?

One witness reported seeing a gunshot wound in Hitler's mouth, while others claimed it was near the corner of his eye, [some even hinted that Hitler's butler strangled him and forced a cyanide capsule into his mouth]. Pick a card, any card. One witness described finding the body of Hitler perched limp next to a dead Eva Braun on an elongated, upholstered sofa. But another found Hitler's corpse sitting alone near a corner, on a chair by itself. Mix and match.

Hitler's one-day marriage to Eva Braun was another sentimental enticement, orchestrated to win our naïve confidence. For only a worm could marry a lovely woman, just to poison her a few hours later. 

Hitler's precipitate decision to marry Eva Braun is unlikely to have been made for a reason not connected with State protocol. The probability is that they married in haste because it was a condition of some agreement. There are a number of possibilities but the most likely case is that the Church of Rome insisted on the marriage as a precondition for its help in arranging sanctuary and later exile.

The fact that a maid admitted seeing a Hitler look-alike confined to the butler's pantry area was not considered to be of great consequence.

No bullet was ever found. But that does not matter.  A skull fragment originally thought to be from Hitler has had its DNA tested, by American researchers. The skull fragment has turned out to be that of a woman under 40. The blood stains on the sofa were reportedly of the wrong blood-type.  Hitler's entire body apparently vanished into thin air. 

What was the actual point of murdering the Doppelgãnger, if Hitler had already left a legally written will; a historical document, stating that his body was to be "immediately destroyed" by fire?

What sort of cover-up was the actual purpose behind the murder of Hitler's double?

The most prevalent opposing opinion is that the true motive was for Hitler to escape. According to the "Washington Post", the US Office of Censorship intercepted a letter in July 1945 written from someone in Washington. Addressed to a Chicago newspaper, the letter claimed that Hitler was living in a German-owned Hacienda 450 miles from Buenos Aires. The US government gave this report enough credibility to act on it, sending a classified telegram to the American embassy in Argentina requesting help in following up the inquiry.

Was Stalin was correct in his statements to his western Allies in 1945, telling them that Hitler [and Eva Braun] were still alive?

Hitler's death, at the end of World War II, assumed to be by his own hand, remains unproven. This assumption was the result of what many conceive as a conspiracy by the Western Powers, bowing to political pressures and to fight Nazism, to come up with Hitler's suicide story. This then would explain Hitler's disappearance from Nazi Germany after Germany's defeat.

By mid-1945, the public was being asked to choose between a proliferating number of escape stories and the suicide theory. All in all, the evidence supporting Hitler's escape to Argentina is pretty flimsy. And yet, so is the evidence that Hitler died in the Bunker. It rests on testimony provided by fellow Nazis who were fanatical devotees of Hitler. As such, its not hard to imagine they might have lied to help their former Leader.

However, the public was given the impression that only the suicide theory had any evidence to support it and deserved to be taken seriously.

Hitler's chauffeur Erich Kempka evidence not only became the basis for Major Hugh-Trevor-Roper's book, "The Last Days of Hitler", it was also endorsed at Nuremberg as the sole source of reliable information concerning Hitler's demise.

The primary reason Kempka's story won such a positive reception from the Anglo–American authorities was that Kempka was the sole source of evidence that appeared to support the suicide theory, and also contradicted Soviet claims that Hitler could have escaped.

Some of the theories/ variations include:

1. He ate poison and shot himself at the same time.
2. He ate poison, but did not shoot himself.
3. He shot himself, but did not take poison.
4. One of Hitler's supposed "doubles" was killed, creating the illusion Hitler was dead, allowing the "real" Adolf Hitler to escape.
5. Somebody else killed Hitler.

Since his supposed death on 30 April 1945, many trees have fallen to create articles and books concerning: Is Hitler dead; how did he die; did he survive; did he escape; and so on. Enough lies and contradictions have been put forth concerning the death of Hitler and Eva Braun, and the disposal of their bodies, that speculation about how and if Hitler died persist to this day.

---

Contradictions in Hitler's Death

Much speculation concerning the nature of Hitler's demise was created by the contradictions in the various "eyewitness" accounts of the death of Hitler and Eva Braun and the disposal of their bodies.

For example Hitler's Butler Heinz Linge, on 9 February 1956, stated:

"When we came into the living room Bormann and I saw the following. The bodies of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun were in a seated position on the sofa standing against the wall opposite the door from the antechamber".

Otto Günsche, who entered Hitler's room immediately after Linge and Bormann, gave the following description on 20 June 1956: "Eva Braun was lying on the sofa standing against the wall opposite the door from the antechamber. Hitler himself sat in an armchair standing to the left and slightly forward--as seen from the antechamber--but very close to the sofa".

Why the difference in accounts? Hitler and Eva on the couch, or Eva on the couch, and Hitler in the chair. Did someone move Hitler, after death, from the chair to the couch? Did one or the other of these witnesses lie, and, if so, why?

Supposed eye-witnesses offered different statements as to where Hitler shot himself

On 2 September 1955, frequent Bunker visitor Artur Axmann stated:

"Based on the signs I found, I had to assume that Adolf Hitler had shot himself in the mouth. For me the chin, which was pushed to the side, and the blood trails on the temples caused by an internal explosion in the head, all pointed to this. Later the same day SS-Sturmbannführer Günsche confirmed my assumption. I stick to my statement based on the signs I saw, that Adolf Hitler shot himself in the mouth".

Günsche, however, in his 20 June 1956 testimony stated:

"The head was canted [tilted] slightly forward to the right. I noticed an injury to the head slightly above the outer end of the angle of the right eyelid. I saw blood and a dark discoloration. The whole thing was about the size of an old three Mark piece".

Did Hitler shoot himself or was he shot?

Linge, on 9 February 1956, stated:

"I then went into the antechamber to Hitler's room, where I found the door to his room closed and smelt powder smoke".

Günsche, in his testimony stated:

"After Hitler and Eva Braun had withdrawn I took up a position in front of Hitler's rooms. I then saw--I did not hear a shot--Linge open the door to Hitler's office and Linge and Bormann go inside, I thereupon immediately went into the antechamber myself".

Günsche found Hitler dead from a gunshot wound, and Braun poisoned.

Judging from the lack of the smell of Prussic Acid and the bloodstains on Hitler's corpse, the witnesses concluded that he had not taken poison, he died by shooting himself in the right temple. It has been suggested that Hitler had simultaneously taken poison and shot himself. It would have been physically impossible for Hitler to do this. The effect of prussic acid is immediate, and all muscular action ceases in a fraction of a second. It has also been suggested that Hitler had taken poison and was shot after death as a security measure to insure that he was dead. The witnesses reported a large bloodstain on the rug next to the sofa on which Hitler was sitting when he died. Bloodstains were also present on the armrest on which Hitler was leaning. It is argued that such a large amount of blood is unlikely to have poured from a postmortem wound with the person in a seated position.

But, if Günsche was right outside the door, why didn't he hear Hitler shoot himself? Were the doors/walls that thick? Did a Russian artillery shell explosion outside mask the sound? Did Linge or Bormann quickly shoot Hitler, with a silenced pistol, before Günsche entered?

Was Adolf Hitler murdered in some other way? 

Hugh Thomas, in his book "The Murder of Adolf Hitler", puts forth a theory about Hitler's death that may explain various Bunker resident's contradictory statements about where the fatal gun wound was located, as well as why no shot was heard.

As Thomas paints the scene:

"He [Hitler] is still shuffling around the anteroom when Linge returns. Linge. offers him a cyanide capsule from a small brass case, and the use of the Army pistol that Linge withdraws from the drawer of a table. Staring blankly and uncomprehendingly at his manservant, Hitler calls him a 'stupid peasant' and turns his back.

"Linge picks up the cyanide capsule and vainly tries to force it into Hitler's mouth from behind--forcing the mouth open by closing his powerful middle finger and thumb across the Führer's mouth, from side to side in the cheek pouch. Despite his feeble state, Hitler manages to turn his head away from the strong grip and lower his head. Linge's increasingly violent efforts can't succeed, even though he is by now half facing the Führer.

"But the affront has been made, the first act of violence committed. Savagely Linge turns the prematurely aged man around and throttles [strangles] him from behind. Terrified, he holds up the Führer in front of him while the frothing stops and struggles cease.

"He is still holding the corpse almost at arm's length, when Dr. Ludwig Stumpfegger comes into the room. Stumpfegger beckons Linge to lay the corpse down on the floor. Checking that Hitler is dead, he reaches in his pocket and produces an ampule-crushing forceps. The cyanide capsule is quickly and professionally crushed under Hitler's protruding tongue".

-- Thomas, a former British Army doctor, previously has written books claiming Hitler aide Rudolf Hess was murdered in 1941 while flying to Scotland with a proposal to end the war. He claimed the Hess who died in 1987 at Berlin's Spandau prison was an imposter.

Dr. Thomas' Doppelgänger theory was finally investigated by Scotland Yard and the final report now remains hidden from the public.

A hundred-year ban has been imposed on key facts concerning the so-called deaths of certain Reich leaders. Why hide information? It only confirms that Hitler escaped.

Where and how Hitler's body was disposed of

With the Russians, marching through Berlin and almost literally at the door, the surviving Bunker personnel had a very limited time to dispose of Hitler's body, in accordance with his specific orders and/or instructions. Unlike Mussolini, Hitler did not want the Russians/Allies to have access to his recognizable corpse after death, for display/mutilation/desecration.

Here are some supposed eyewitness accounts of key Bunker observers/participants concerning the final disposal of Hitler's lifeless body:

According to Heinz Linge, once the bodies had been brought up into the garden [of the Chancellory] Linge, Otto Günsche and Erich Kempka began the cremation. Linge stated on 10 February 1956:

"The Petrol which had been provided was then immediately poured over the bodies [of Hitler and Braun]. Besides myself, Günsche and Kempka took part in this. I emptied two cans. I do not know how many cans Günsche and Kempka emptied. Because of the heavy shelling, it was not possible to ignite the Petrol directly. The surrounding buildings were burning and shells were coming in thick and fast. Standing in the exit from the Bunker, I therefore twisted a piece of paper into a spill which Bormann lit with a match and which I then threw.

"I do not recall whether others also attempted to ignite the Petrol. In any case, I did not see a piece of cloth. When the Petrol caught fire, a gigantic flame shot upwards. We then observed the cremation through a slit in the closed Bunker door. One thing that stuck in my mind is that within a very short while one of Eva Hitler's knees was lifted up. One could see that the flesh of the knee was already being roasted. About eight minutes after the cremation began I went back downstairs. Before that, all of those present in the exit from the Bunker had given Adolf Hitler a final salute. I did not make any observations about the further progress of the fire. I did not return to the site of the fire, nor did I learn anything from the other sources..."

By contrast, Kempka, recalling these same events on 2 December 1953 recounted:

"There were several cans of Petrol standing inside the exit from the Bunker. I immediately picked up one of these cans, went back outside and poured the contents over Adolf Hitler, after I had moved his left arm, which was extended sideways, closer to the body. I then jumped back into the exit and then emptied two further cans over Adolf Hitler and Eva Hitler, while Günsche and Linge were similarly engaged. While this was going on, the garden was still under very heavy fire. In the Bunker exit we then discussed how to light the Petrol. Günsche suggested throwing a hand-grenade, which I rejected. We then found a large rag lying next to the fire hoses in the exit. Günsche picked this rag up. I opened a can still standing in the exit and wet this rag with Petrol.

"Dr. Göbbels handed me a box of matches. I lit the rag. Günsche threw the burning rag on to Adolf and Eva Hitler. They immediately caught fire, which burst into a mighty flame. After we had saluted, we followed Göbbels back into the Bunker. I was not personally involved in the continuation of the cremation nor did I make any personal observations with regard to this..."

Günsche, the third person involved in setting fire to the bodies, stated on 21 June 1956:

"When I turned back towards the Bunker exit after I had put the body of Eva Braun down, Kempka and Linge had already stepped out with open cans of Petrol in their hands. We three then poured Petrol onto the bodies; it is possible all of the nine or ten cans that had been provided--these were Army cans holding 20 liters and they were filled to the top--were emptied. Lighting the Petrol presented a problem because of the heavy shelling. Attempts with matches failed. I then considered using a stick grenade which was available. While I was unscrewing the cap I saw that Linge had already made a paper spill which Bormann was in the process of lighting, Bormann then immediately threw this spill outside, whereupon the Bunker door was closed. While the door was closing, a bright flare of fire could just be seen. I then remained in the exit for a short while, and I again ordered Hans Hofbeck not to let anyone in or out. Subsequently I, like all the others, went back into the Bunker. Before leaving, each of us saluted, some from outside the exit from the Bunker, others from inside..."

Additional perspectives

Before the cremation of the bodies began on the afternoon of 30 April 1945, there were between eight to ten cans of petrol of 20 liters each in the machine room of the Bunker, in addition to the cans standing in the garden exit of the Bunker. But that was not all there was.

In his statement on 24 November 1954, guard Maximilian Kölz said:

"Shortly after this [after he had seen Hitler's and Eva Braun-Hitler's bodies being carried out of the Bunker on 30 April 1945], when I was again standing at the top of the staircase [at the main entrance to the Führerbunker], Petrol cans were repeatedly carried downstairs from the upper Bunker to the central corridor. Who was carrying the cans I do not recall; Günsche and Linge were not involved in any case. It was clear to me, that this Petrol would be used to burn Hitler's corpse. . ."

Another member of the bodyguard, SS-Obersturmführer Johann Bergmüller, confirmed on 30 April 1954 in Munich that after Hitler's death several cans of Petrol were brought from the upper Bunker to the central corridor of the Führerbunker: "... soon after this [i.e. after the bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun-Hitler had been carried upstairs] several men came from the upper Bunker, each carrying two cans of Petrol—these were normal Petrol cans—through the central corridor of the lower Bunker in the direction of the garden exit. I knew these people by sight as being drivers from the vehicle park of the Chancellery . . ."

At the time when the cremation of the bodies began, there was apparently much more Petrol available than has previously generally been assumed. And, as Kempka also stated, during the course of the late afternoon of 30 April 1945 "further Petrol" to continue the cremation was demanded and provided. Kempka said:

"When I returned to the Bunker from burning the bodies in the garden, Rattenhuber.. .asked me to provide further petrol with which to continue the cremation, which I agreed to do. From the Führerbunker I immediately gave the appropriate order to SS-Hauptsturmführer  Karl-Wilhelm Schneider by telephone. When in the course of the afternoon I returned to the Bunker near the garages, Schneider reported to me that he had carried out my orders. I do not know how much Petrol was involved".

This would tie in with Mansfeld's statement, that while he was on guard duty in the observation tower during the afternoon of 30 April he observed "several men of the Leibstandarte running towards the garden exit from the Old Chancellery" with cans of Petrol.

It is interesting to note at this point that in 1950 Kempka, who previously had always talked about a lack of Petrol, wrote in his book "Ich habe Adolf Hitler verbrannt":

"The cremation lasted from about 14:00 to approximately 19:30 in the evening [should be 16:00 start time]. Under the most difficult conditions, I had had my men fetch several hundred [!] additional liters of Petrol during the afternoon ..."

SS-Hauptsturmführer Schneider, the supervisor of the garages, had stated that, when Günsche originally ordered him to provide Petrol, he had only been able to supply eight cans, because that was all he had available. However, that was not all the Petrol there was in the vicinity of the Chancellery and the Führerbunker. Hans Fritzsche, Director and Head of the Radio Department in Göbbels' Propaganda Ministry, made the following statement on 5 February 1948 in Nuremberg:

"May I add something at this point? I know that many people have debated the question whether it was possible to cremate Hitler's and Eva Braun's corpses with only 180 litres of Petrol. I do not understand this objection at all, because during the final weeks in Berlin I had more Petrol available to me than during the whole of the war. It had been brought over from the airports that had had to be evacuated. And I had 20 to 30 or even more barrels filled with Petrol in the garden of the Propaganda Ministry. On 27 or 28 April I called the Chancellery and asked if they needed Petrol because I had so much and actually thought it could be a bit dangerous. Those in the Chancellery told me, 'We have too much ourselves'. I then had the barrels taken to the Tiergarten through Voss-strasse in order to get rid of them. When the Russians later brought me to the garden near the Führerbunker, I saw with my own eyes many cans standing about".

The burning of the bodies was  witnessed by several men who were on guard duty on the garden side of the Bunker. They were Hans Hofbeck, Hermann Karnau, and Erich Mansfield. Each offer their contrasting memories of the event.

Hofbeck, who was on guard at the door of the garden exit, stated on 25 November 1995:

"Linge, Günsche and Kempka immediately poured Petrol over the bodies. I had previously seen some of the cans they used standing on the topmost turn of the staircase. I don't know how much Petrol was used, but it was probably at least five, but no more than ten, cans full. While this was being done, I was the one who let Kempka, Günsche and Linge in and out of the exit by opening and shutting the door for an instant each time. At the time there was again heavy firing going on. After the cans had been emptied, Dr. Göbbels, Bormann, General Krebs, General Burgdorf and Schädle as well as Kempka each stepped outside the Bunker door for a short moment and saluted the dead by raising their right arms.

"Everybody involved then quickly returned to the Bunker, whereupon I again shut the door. Immediately after this Bormann handed up a box of matches from the top turning of the staircase, which Günsche, Linge or Kempka took. Kempka then wet a rag with Petrol. Either he or Günsche lit this rag and Günsche threw it on the bodies, for which purpose I again opened the door. At this moment, the artillery fire had slackened. Through the partially opened door of the Bunker we then saw a huge flame rising up, followed immediately by heavy smoke.

"After the bodies had been set alight, all the people mentioned above returned to the interior of the Bunker. I remained on guard and again opened the door a short time later, which however was only possible for a brief moment because heavy Petrol fumes and smoke blew towards me. There was a wind blowing towards the exit. On opening the door I could see that the bodies were still burning. I had the impression that they had shrunk together. On both bodies the knees were drawn up somewhat.

"Being very much moved by this experience, I gave over my post to one of my subordinates. At 22:00 I again had a look out of the door of the Bunker. However, there was nothing left to be seen of the bodies..."

Karnau described the burning on 13 November 1953:

"When I came near the garden exit, I chanced upon two bodies lying next to each other in the open about 2 to 2.5m from the exit. I immediately recognized one of these bodies as Adolf Hitler. It was lying on its back wrapped in a blanket. The blanket was folded open on both sides of the upper body, so that the head and chest were uncovered. The skull was partially caved in and the face encrusted in blood. The face, however, could still be clearly recognized. The second corpse was lying with its back upwards. It was completely covered by the blanket except for the lower legs. The lower legs were uncovered up to the knees. On the feet I recognized Eva Hitler's shoes, which were familiar to me from frequent encounters in the Bunker. These were black suede shoes".

Mansfield was questioned on 1 July 1954 about what he had seen of the events of 30 April 1945.

He stated that he had to leave his post in order to fetch his equipment from the guard's day room in the Bunker and described how he saw two bodies being carried up the stairs and laid on the ground near the Bunker exit. He clearly recognized Eva Braun but did not recognize Hitler, owing to the body being wrapped in a blanket.

Mansfield further related:

"Through the window looking towards the Bunker exit I saw several men of the Leibstandarte-- I believe I recall that one of them was Jansen-- running towards the garden exit from the Old Chancellery. The men were carrying Petrol cans. I immediately closed the shutter of the window looking towards 'Unter den Linden' in order to continue my observations. When I opened the shutter, however, heavy clouds of smoke blew towards me, so I quickly closed it again without having seen anything. Shortly after that I again opened the shutter of the window looking towards the garden exit and now saw that the bodies were burning brightly. I also saw several cans of Petrol being thrown out of the Bunker exit to land near the bodies. There were no people to be seen".

As a consequence of the area not being declared off-limit for the Allied Forces many visits were made by militaries, politicians and journalists. Everybody visited the miserable 3m by 4m L-shaped pit outside the emergency door that was put when Churchill visited the site on 16 July 1945, site and sat on Hitler's sofa that had been brought from the Führerbunker. To everyone's eyes it was a simple ditch that showed no trace of a bonfire, let alone of a bomb cone as it has always been told. There were no impact holes or other characteristics to justify that myth or the one of the Wagnerian bonfire where Hitler was supposedly burned to ashes.  

Was Hitler's body ever found?

What now actually became of Hitler's body? To what extent was it burned? Did the Russians find anything resembling a corpse?

The burning of a corpse in the open is not of course comparable to a cremation in a crematorium, and not even to the burning of a body or parts of a body in a stove such as occurs from time to time in criminal cases.

During a cremation, the enveloping heat reflected from the walls of the oven leads to the intensive destruction of organic matter. If a corpse is burned in the open, as was the case with Hitler and Eva Braun-Hitler, the distribution of heat varies and consequently so does the depth of destruction, besides which much heat is lost by radiation into the atmosphere. When a human body is burned in the open by means of petrol, the first thing that burns off is the extraneous petrol, which causes a strong heating up of the corpse. Then, because they act like a wick, the fire spreads to the clothes, which burn away more or less quickly depending on the nature and structure of the fabric.

When the open flames then act directly on the body surface for a longer period of time, the final result is carbonization. During the process, steam forms in the subcutaneous tissue and in the course of the burning the pressure can rise dramatically, so that the body surface bursts open in many places, like an overheated frozen burrito. The skull can also burst from the same effect. The heat causes the protein in the cells of the muscles to congeal, which then contract. This leads to contortions of the arms or the lifting up and contracting of the upper body and legs, which stay in this position because of posthumous heat rigor mortis, which is called the "fencer's stance".

The heat causes the body fat to melt and the fatty acids released to run out of the gashes in the skin. Because of the major loss of water and fat, the carbonated corpse or torso shrinks to a substantial degree. If the burning continues for an extended period of time, the soft tissue is almost completely consumed. The only thing remains is fragile, calcified bones that can easily disintegrate even without external force being applied. As a result, it is very unlikely that anything resembling a human corpse remained following Adolf Hitler's post-mortem burning.

According to Günsche:

"That Adolf Hitler was not completely burnt up with the help of the Petrol is correct. The remains were scattered and shell fire did the rest... The heavy artillery and napalm fire went on until 2 May. Nothing was left that could point to Hitler... Often I can only shake my head about the claims of so-called witnesses, some of whom were not even there and are only repeating hearsay from others as their own observations. Maybe such claims, which were made immediately after the end of the war and have been repeated in various versions, are the answer to the fact that no one was in a position to prove what was left of the Führer's corpse and where this could be seen. None of the reports about this can be proved: they are falsification... The destruction of the Führer's corpse and that of his wife was complete through various causes".

Therefore, it is most likely nonsense that the Russians, as they claimed years after his death, ever found Hitler's body/corpse.

Hitler Now 'Dead'
The Canberra Times [ACT]
6 May 1963

MOSCOW. The Russians have admitted that they recovered Hitler's charred body in his Bunker when they reached Berlin at the end o£ the war.

After a silence of 18 years, the admission was made by Marshal Vasily Sokolovsky to Cornelius Ryan, American author of the best seller, "The Longest Day".

Ryan has just completed a two-weeks study of secret archives of the Red Army's final assault on Berlin.

Marshal Sokolovsky was Marshal Zhukov's Chief of Operations during the battle of Berlin and until recently was Chief of Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces.

Ryan was allowed to interview all surviving Russian commanders of the Battle of Berlin except Marshal Zhukov, who is in disgrace.

The account of Hitler's death given to Ryan stated that a charred body, presumably Hitler's, was found in the Bunker wrapped in a blanket. A bullet had entered the right temple and knocked out some teeth.

The Russian's then found Hitler's dentists and on the basis of their records they identified the teeth as Hitler's

It was also indicated that the body was not charred beyond recognition.

To this day the Russians have not presented a single piece of evidence that they found Hitler's corpse. Where are the authentic photographs? Where is the allegedly lead-lined box with Hitler's identifiable corpse? Why was this not shown to the German witnesses the Russians had captured? Even though in 1945--and during their reconstruction of the events in 1946--the Russians kept telling Linge, Günsche, Baur, Hofbeck, Henschel and the others that they would be "confronted with Hitler's body," they never showed it to any of these people.

Did Hitler escape the Bunker?

Because of the fact that Hitler's corpse was never found, rumors, stories and myths have proliferated since the end of World War Two. For many years after the end of World War Two there were more sightings of Hitler, alive in South America, than of Elvis at Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets in the deep South.

Certainly the fires of rumor were fanned by the fact that Stalin informed Truman, Byrnes and Leahy over lunch in Potsdam on 17 July 1945 that "Hitler had escaped".  This is the same Stalin who also claimed that the Russians had possession of Hitler's corpse. He also claimed, or Russian KGB files claimed, that Hitler was captured alive, taken to the Soviet Union, and held in a prison/hospital for many years.

So, at one time or another, Stalin/the Russians claimed:

1. Hitler escaped alive from Berlin.
2. Hitler's corpse was found and seized by the Russians.
3. Hitler, alive, was transported to the Soviet Union and kept there, secretly, for years.

Talk about covering all the options. The only concept that the Russians did not put forth was: a guy named Adolf Hitler never existed.

Conclusion - Is Hitler alive?

The fact that Hitler died in his Bunker is almost certain, despite the lack of provable physical evidence to this effect. It is also quite likely that Hitler did not die by his own hand. There is reason to believe that Hitler, unable to bring himself to commit suicide, and with the Russians almost at the door, was killed, possibly by his Butler Linge, in order that the remaining Bunker residents might attempt to escape from the advancing Russians.

While it will never be proven with certainty, it certainly would be poetic justice for Adolf Hitler, the most powerfully evil man of the 20th Century, to be strangled to death by his "faithful" servant.

Ironically, the answer to one of the most intriguing deaths/murders of the century, may indeed be: the Butler! 

Data Sources include: "The Last Days of Adolf Hitler", by Anton Joachimsthaler, translated by Helmet Bogler, Arms & Armour Press [1996]; "The Murder of Adolf Hitler", by Hugh Thomas, St. Martin's Press [1995].

 

Hitler Death Conspiracy Theories: The Good, The Bad, And The Crazy
What really happened to the Führer? These Hitler death conspiracy theories, from the plausible to the outlandish, claim to have the answers.
13 April 2018

On 1 May 1945, with World War II about to end, the Soviet Army was fighting its way into the central district of Berlin. Meanwhile, American and British forces were beginning the mammoth task of processing the thousands of German prisoners taken in the fighting in Nuremberg, where an entire SS division had made its last stand, and of cataloging the vast treasures they had captured there.

On that day, the Grand Admiral of the German Navy, Karl Dönitz, delivered a radio broadcast to the broken Reich. In it, he announced that Adolf Hitler was dead and that he had died gallantly leading men in battle against Soviet forces. Dönitz claimed that Hitler had named him as his successor in his last testament and that everything was, basically, fine.

Business would continue as normal, with the German government “temporarily” headquartered in Flensburg. Ten days later, Dönitz was in Allied custody, as were many other leading Nazis. In his effects was found a single telegram from Nazi Propaganda minister Josef Göbbels in Berlin, also now dead, announcing Hitler’s death and omitting the bit about the Führer having fallen in combat, which seems to have been Dönitz’s own invention, since he had no other evidence of what had actually happened to Hitler in Berlin.

Within days, the war was over and the Third Reich was no more, but the fact that Hitler’s body hadn’t turned up rankled the Western Allies. Hitler wasn’t supposed to mysteriously vanish into history — he was supposed to either stand trial or drop dead and leave a corpse to be verified.

Thus was born a myth of Hitler’s survival — and a host of Hitler death conspiracy theories — one that still persists and was even reignited by the 2015 release of secret FBI documents containing reports that Hitler had escaped Germany in a U-Boat and fled to Argentina.

The myth, it seems, lives on.

“The Obstinate Love Of Fiction”

Part of the problem with investigating the Führer’s demise — and easily debunking some of the Hitler death conspiracy theories — is that the only people who were in a position to know what happened with any certainty were the Soviets, and they weren’t eager to share information or be honest with the Allies who became their Cold War enemies.

Between the end of the war in the spring of 1945 and the fall of the USSR in 1991, Soviet authorities put out so many contradictory and self-refuting statements about Hitler’s death that some of it must have been conscious disinformation.

After initially claiming that Hitler was dead and that they had the remains to prove it, the Soviets then put out word that they didn’t have the body and then accused the British of smuggling Hitler and Braun out of Germany.

After that, they claimed to have a fragment of Hitler’s skull with a conveniently positioned bullet hole in it. Then, decades later, forensic examination revealed that the fragment was that of a woman.

Despite such misinformation, Allied investigators tried to get to the bottom of things by interviewing anybody in Germany who might have known what happened inside Hitler’s bunker in the last days of the war.

Walter Schellenberg

One of the people deposed by the British was an SS general named Walter Schellenberg, who was apprehended after the war in Sweden. According to him, Himmler had poisoned Hitler on his advice. The advantages to telling this story of betraying Hitler were obvious for a former Gestapo general looking to avoid punishment, and since he hadn’t actually been present for many of the meetings he claimed to have led, the Allies dismissed his story.

Another informant was a woman who claimed she had been at the center of a German Intelligence ring from inside the concentration camp at Ravensbrück. This woman, whose name was Carmen Mory, swore she had firsthand knowledge that Hitler, Eva Braun, and others were living in Bavaria under assumed names. She also threatened to kill herself if the British didn’t make concessions to her regarding her treatment and let her go.

Mory, as it happens, was facing trial for war crimes at the time for having actually been a Gestapo spy inside Ravensbrück, where her information got 60 other women killed. She committed suicide in 1947 after the British sentenced her to hang.

Yet another unreliable witness was Luftwaffe pilot Peter Baumgart, who claimed he had personally flown Hitler to Denmark on 30 April 1945. He eventually checked himself into an insane asylum and stopped claiming to have aided Hitler’s escape.

The British report on these informants, written by historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, concluded that none of the “firsthand accounts” were credible, and neither was that of Dönitz, writing that: “[R]eason is powerless against the obstinate love of fiction.”

Escaping Nazis

While the British were leaving esteemed historians [and deep-cover MI-6 spooks, like Trevor-Roper] to despair of ever knowing the truth, the Americans were, ironically, lending credence to Hitler death conspiracy theories stating that he and other prominent Nazis had escaped. The Americans did so by actually helping prominent Nazis escape themselves.

Operation Paperclip was a project of the Office of Strategic Services [the U.S. Intelligence agency at the time] to identify and extract German scientists and counte-Iintelligence officers in order to keep them out of Soviet hands. These Germans, like Wernher von Braun, went on to lead the American space program and use their experience as Nazi torturers to uncover and frustrate communist subversion of the new West German state. The Soviets were surely aware of all this, which may have motivated some of their refusal to clear up the details surrounding Hitler’s death for their Cold War enemies.

The subject of Nazis escaping justice came up from time to time in the decades after the war. Some Nazi diehards, such as SS officer Otto Skorzeny, were known to have set up a “rat line” to smuggle their former comrades out of occupied Europe and [usually] into South America, where friendly governments would shelter them from prosecution.

With such prominent individuals as SS leader Adolf Eichmann and infamous concentration camp doctor Josef Mengele making it out of Germany this way, it didn’t seem impossible that their leader had also made it out, thus fueling plenty of Hitler death conspiracy theories.

Sighting Reports

During his life, Adolf Hitler made public appearances and speeches to tens of millions of people. Between 1933 and 1945, his face was printed on hundreds of millions of postage stamps, picture postcards, newspapers and magazines, as well as other mass-circulation items. His face, in other words, was well-known.

If the Hitler death conspiracy theories were true and he had escaped, it wouldn’t be easy for him to hide and it would be easy for passerby to recognize him. So when informants started cropping up all over the world, such as one Argentine expat in Los Angeles in September 1945, who claimed he had personally seen Hitler and his entourage getting settled into their new homes at the foot of the Andes, the FBI stepped in to investigate.

The FBI’s investigation pulled from multiple sources all over the world and it was eventually joined by a parallel investigation by the CIA. The CIA effort, which ran into the early 1960s, included a sighting report from an SS veteran named Phillip Citroen, who claimed to have been in regular contact with Hitler in Colombia, and that the former Führer moved to Argentina in January 1955 during a spell of bad health.

The CIA report on Citroen’s statements even included a microfilmed photograph that purported to show Citroen sitting with Hitler in South America. In the end, after chasing down hundreds of leads on at least three continents, both the FBI and CIA concluded they couldn’t prove anything without some hard evidence and closed their cases.

Hitler Death Conspiracy Theories In Popular Culture

The official FBI and CIA search for the fugitive Adolf Hitler may have ended with a whimper, but unofficially, the idea that the most wanted man in history may have faked his death and escaped was too good not to enter the culture in various ways, with Hitler death conspiracy theories popping up again and again.

A 2011 book by British authors Simon Dunstan and Gerrard Williams, titled "Grey Wolf: The Escape of Adolf Hitler", purported to be a factual examination and biography of the postwar Hitler family: Adolf, Eva, and their daughter Ursula. The book was blasted like a furnace by mainstream historians, who called it trash upon its release.

But as the ancient proverb goes: “if it’s trash and it involves Hitler, it’ll be on The History Channel during May sweeps”.

So it was that, in 2015, The History Channel began running a pseudo-documentary series called "Hunting Hitler", which put forward the Hitler death conspiracy theory that he had escaped war-ravaged Europe with his wife aboard a U-Boat to Argentina. The program’s writers, evidently not having easy access to a world map, claimed that the U-Boat stopped briefly in Madagascar on its way to Buenos Aires.

A Fitting Tribute

In a bizarre way, all the circus-like speculation and Hitler death conspiracy theories would probably have pleased the man himself no end. Based on statements made by people who had actually been present in the Bunker at the end, many of them spoken in confidence to WWII researcher and bestselling author David Irving, it is clear that Hitler was serious about disappearing from the world without a trace.

Hitler’s adjutant, SS officer Otto Günsche, reported being ordered to find several liters of gasoline, suitable for burning remains, a day or two before Hitler’s suicide. Furthermore, Hitler seems to have settled on 30 April as his suicide date because it was the latest day when he could be sure there would still be time to burn him properly and disperse the ashes before the Red Army took the Chancellery. His concern seems to have been that no trace of his remains should ever be recovered to serve his enemies as a trophy.

Funny enough, such drama was predicted years before it happened by a then-obscure document commissioned by the Office of Strategic Services. In 1943, the OSS asked prominent psychologists to assess what was then known about Hitler from his public and private utterances as well as anecdotal statements from people who had known the man personally.

The resulting report goes on for a bit about how Hitler saw himself in relation to his place in history, and then it offers a list of likely outcomes for when the fighting inevitably turned against Germany and Hitler’s fall became a certainty.

Among the eight possible endings the team saw for Hitler, the outcome they rated as most likely read as follows:

“It is probably true that he has an inordinate fear of death, but being an hysteric he could undoubtedly screw himself up into the super-man character and perform the deed. In all probability, however, it would not be a simple suicide. He has too much of the dramatic for that and since immortality is one of his dominant motives, we can imagine that he would stage the most dramatic and effective death scene he could possibly think of. He knows how to bind the people to him and if he cannot have the bond in life he will certainly do his utmost to achieve it in death”.

In other words, given that the mystery of his death and disappearance is still inspiring talk over 70 years later, Hitler wouldn’t have had it any other way.