Hitler - Alive or Dead? | Fabricating the Death of Adolf Hitler

The first authoritative announcement of the Führer's death came from a radio station in Hamburg, which said that he met what his successor, Großadmiral Karl Dönitz, called "a hero's death". Doubt persisted.

An American war correspondent, Joe Grigg, reported on the 10 May 1945 that four blackened and charred bodies had been found in/around the Bunker, but that none had been positively identified. In fact - the Soviets had apparently found a total of six blackened and charred bodies that could not be positively identified.

On 9 June 1945, during a press conference attended by British, American, French and Russian reporters, Marshal Georgi Zhukov, the Soviet supreme commander, alleged that they had "found no corpses which could be Hitler. The Soviet commandant of Berlin, Colonel-General Nikolai E. Bezarin, explained that the Russians had "...found several bodies in Hitler's Reich Chancellery with the Führer's name on their clothes... In Hitler's Chancellery we found, in fact, too many bodies with his name on the clothes. It got to be a joke. Every time I would find a pair of pants I would say, 'These are Hitler's'.

The six most important accounts are those of SS Obersturmbannführer Harry Mengershausen, SS Sturmbannführer Otto Günsche, SS Obergruppenführer Johannes ["Hans"] Rattenhuber, SS Obersturmbannführer Erich Kempka, SS Unterführer Hermann Karnau and SS Hauptscharführer Erich Mansfeld.

These earliest six eyewitness accounts—effectively, the only reliable accounts we have—establish that at least four cremations of corpses, which were assumed by observers to be those of Adolf Hitler and Eva Hitler, took place in the Reich Chancellery garden between 26 or 27 April and 1 May. In each case, the male body wore a pair of Hitler's trousers. In each case, also, the male body was accompanied by a female who bore a convincing resemblance to Eva Hitler.

It is obvious, therefore, that many Bunker veterans who thought they had witnessed the cremation of Adolf and Eva Hitler had only witnessed the burning of other corpses—that is to say, corpses they were meant to mistake for those of Adolf and Eva Hitler. No one was therefore in a position to say whether they had witnessed the cremation of the real Adolf Hitler or of a substitute.

The U.S. Chief of Intelligence in Berlin, Col. W.J. Heimlich [who invented the Heimlich maneuver] reported: "There was no evidence beyond that of hearsay to support the theory Hitler's suicide". He added that no insurance company in America would pay a claim on Hitler.

Lt. Gen Bedell Smith, Gen. Eisenhower's Chief of Staff, said publicly: "No human being can say conclusively that Hitler is dead".

CIA Director Walter B. Smith agreed that Hitler's death was unproven.

After a long and thorough investigation, Field Marshall Gregory Zhukov told Josef Stalin: “We have found no corpse that could be Hitler’s".

12 October 1945, General Bedell Smith, Eisenhower’s Chief of Staff, said: "No human being can say conclusively that Hitler is dead".

President Harry Truman asked Soviet leader Josef Stalin at the Potsdam Conference in 1945 if Hitler was dead. Stalin simply said: "No!"

The Commanding General of the US Sector of Berlin, Major General Floyd Parks, stated for publication that he was present when Marshal Zhukov stated that Hitler might have escaped.

Thomas J. Dodd, the U.S. Chief Trial Counsel at Nürnberg, said: "No one can say Hitler is dead".

In 1945, the Naval Attaché in Buenos Aires informed Washington there was a high probability that Hitler and Eva Braun had just arrived in Argentina. This coincides with the sightings of the submarine U-530.

Added proof comes in the form of newspaper articles detailing the construction of a Bavarian styled mansion in the foothills of the Andes Mountains.

In July, 1945, the U.S. Office of Censorship intercepted a letter from Washington which was addressed to a Chicago newspaper, which claimed that Hitler was living beneath a Hacienda 450 miles from Buenos Aires.

A classified telegram was dispatched to the U.S. embassy in Argentina requesting assistance in following-up the lead.

Shortly before Christmas, 1946, the U.S. embassy in Stockholm received an anonymous letter addressed to the "Chief of the American Zone". It said that Hitler was living in a cave more than one-and-a-half thousand feet long in the Bauerska mountains. Plenty of guns and ammunition were said to be on hand.

Another report said Hitler was in Amsterdam.

Another placed him in Zürich, where he was said to prefer dark suits and hats and behave in the manner of a pensioned official. The Deputy Director of Intelligence of the European Command ordered his subordinates to check out this report. Help was requested from the Chief of the Swiss Federal Police in Berne.

A G.I. claimed to have seen Hitler at the house in Bernheim [not the one in Kentucky] where he had his laundry done. This man grew angry whenever the V-1 rocket was mentioned and showed great sentiment over a photograph of his dog, which closely resembled Blondi.

In January, 1947, French intelligence forwarded American forces a report saying that Hitler was hiding in Heidelberg. A raid by 30 allied officers failed to find him.

A British intelligence officer, Lieut. Col. W. Byford-Jones asked twenty educated Berliners about Hitler on 20 April 1946, which would have been Hitler's 57th birthday. Only one believed Hitler to be dead.

In June, Stalin told President Truman, envoy Harry Hopkins, and Secretary of State James Byrnes, of his firm conviction that Hitler still lived. The episode is related in Byrnes book, "Frankly Speaking".

At first, the Soviets claimed Hitler was being protected by the Americans and British, although this was no more than Cold War posturing.

It is said that Stalin had all of the evidence and scientific analysis of remains at the Bunker brought directly to him, and that he went to his grave convinced that Hitler had escaped.

In 1952, at a press conference at the Hotel Raphael in Paris, President Eisenhower said, "We have been unable to unearth one bit of tangible evidence of Hitler's death".

A much-touted article in the "Chicago Times" said that Hitler and Braun were living on an estate in chilly Patagonia, in Argentina. The information, while only hearsay, was repeated by almost every major American and European newspaper.The lurid headlines of Pulp magazines proclaimed that Hitler's suicide was faked and told of his escape.

The September 1948 edition of "The Plain Truth" carried the headline "Is Hitler Alive, or Dead?" The relevant article was said to be the result of "an exhaustive three-year investigation -- together with reasons for believing Hitler may be alive and secretly planning the biggest hoax of all history".

Another article in November, 1949, says "The Nazis went underground, 16 May 1943!" and details a meeting at the residence of Krupp von Bohlen-Halbach, the head of I.G. Farben, etc., at which they planned "For World War III".

"Bonjour" magazine, the "Police Gazette", and the esteemed French newspaper, "Le Monde" all carried articles about Hitler's refuge in the South Pole.

The Soviet newspaper, "Isvestia", reported Hitler and Braun to be alive and well in a castle in Westphalia, in the British area of occupation.

"Isvestia" also reported that an American lawyer had written to Hoover saying that Hitler was residing under the name of Gerhardt Weithaupt in a house owned by Frau Frieda Haaf, in Innsbruck. With Hitler, said this lawyer, was his personal physician, Dr Alfred Jodl. [sic].

The Hitler-in-Antarctica tale first surfaced in a book back in 1947. Ladislao Zsabó, a Hungarian advertiser, witnessed the arrival of the U-530 and saw its crew disembarking. He had heard that the destination was the German Antarctica and, mistakenly, made a supposition that Hitler had escaped to Antarctica, and published the book "Hitler está Vivo" [Hitler is Alive], where he speaks about the possible location of Hitler, in Queen's Maud properties, opposite the Weddel Sea, that was then renamed Neuschwabenland, when the area was explored in 1938/39 by the German expedition [led] by Captain Ritschter. Zsabó made the wrong assumption. Had he read the book by Professor Hugo Fernandez Artucio published in 1940, "Nazis en el Uruguay", [Nazis in Uruguay] he would had discovered that there actually was a plan referring to German Antarctica, but this was nothing but the term they used for the Patagonia and that this information had been made public in New York in 1939.

A magazine circulated to U.S. high school pupils in 1955 called on the U.S. government to “Clear Up Hitler's Death".

As late as 1969, German authorities were still arresting men who resembled Hitler. One, retired miner, Albert Pahkla, refused to change his hairstyle or remove his mustache, and said he was arrested 300 times.

Donald McKale's 1981 tome, "Hitler: the Survival Myth", was skeptical of Hitler's survival. The back flyleaf of the book say, “Absolute certainty about what happened still eludes us today".

Even skeptics are unsure that Hitler died in his Bunker in 1945.

Peter Hurkos acquired psychic abilities after falling 30 feet from a ladder and fracturing his skull. A website devoted to him proclaims him the "foremost psychic of the 20th century!" The "Los Angeles Times" reported that he was involved in a number of infamous criminal cases, including the Boston Strangler and the Manson family murders. In Hurkos' autobiography, "Psychic", which was published in 1961, he said he had had a vision in 1952 where he saw Hitler journeying through Spain, disguised as a monk. He said Hitler had remained there for some years, and was still alive. He was prepared to stake his life and reputation on Hitler's being alive.

The most extensive investigation of Hitler's demise resulted from "Isvestia's report that Hitler was in Innsbruck. It was conducted by historian and MI6 officer, Hugh Trevor-Roper, who interviewed many people who had been present in Hitler's supposed last hours. He published his findings in a meticulously-sourced and very popular book, "The Last Days of Hitler".

The Russian State Archive possesses a fragment of skull claimed to be that of Hitler. It is said that the bullet hole is too small to have been fired from a Walther PPK at short range. The fire damage insufficiently extensive, considering that Hitler's corpse was almost completely burned.

Research at the genetics lab of the University of Connecticut showed that the skull was that of a woman under 40.

One of the Connecticut team, bone specialist and archaeologist, Nick Bellantoni, traveled to Moscow to inspect the skull fragment and bloodstains on the sofa where Hitler and Braun are supposed to have committed suicide.

He said he was granted an hour, which he used to apply cotton swabs and take DNA samples. He had photographs taken by the Soviets in 1945, and was sure he was looking at the right thing because the stains were the same. At the university, Linda Strausbaugh closed her laboratory for three days to work solely on the Hitler materials. She said that the same routines were used as would be in a crime lab. A small quantity of viable DNA was extracted, and then replicated by molecular copying. She said she was lucky to get areading due to the paucity of genetic information. The result was startling: the bone was too thin to be female, and the sutures where the skull plates came together were those of someone under 40. There are no reports that Eva Braun shot herself, so the skull did not belong to her.

A spokesperson for the Moscow State Archive released a statement saying it had had no contact with a person by the name of Bellantoni, and no samples were taken from any bone fragments. The statement said the Archive had never claimed the bones belonged to Hitler.

Hitler Died Peacefully in His Bed in Argentina?
10 February 2009

The death of Adolf Hitler still remains one of the biggest mysteries in history. There are numerous theories that mostly come down to speculation that the Nazi leader didn’t die in his Bunker, but managed to escape and hide. He allegedly was hiding for years and peacefully died in his own bed.

A few days ago scientists received the evidence that these theories might not be that far from truth. The skull fragment that was thought to be Hitler’s turned out to be the remains of a woman.

For a long time historians believed that the fragment proved that on 30 April 1945, the Führer took a cyanide pill and shot his head off when he realized that the Third Reich was over. His mistress Eva Braun committed suicide in the same Bunker.

According to numerous witnesses, their bodies were wrapped in blankets and taken out of the Bunker to a nearby garden. The bodies were soaked with petroleum, set on fire, and later buried. In 1945, Soviet special agents excavated the place of a likely burial and found the bones that were believed to be Hitler’s.

A part of the skull was missing, which showed that the death was caused by a bullet. The preserved jaw fragment coincided with the dental records found at the office of Hitler’s dentist. A year later, the missing fragment was found by the order of Stalin who had suspicions that Hitler managed to escape and hide.

In the mid 1950s, after Stalin’s death, the skeleton that was presumably Hitler’s was buried in Magdeburg, East Germany. In 1970, the skeleton was dug out by the KGB agents.

Only the jawbone, the skull fragment and the bloodstained sofa segments were preserved. The findings were sent to the KGB archives.

American specialists examined the bone fragments. According to Connecticut archaeologist Nick Bellantoni, the bone seemed very thin, male bone tends to be more robust. Besides, the sutures where the skull plates come together seemed to correspond to someone under 40. In 1945 Hitler turned 56.

Bellantoni believes that the studied bone fragment could not belong to Eva Braun either, although she died at 33. "There is no report of Eva Braun having shot herself or having been shot afterwards. It could be anyone. Many people were killed around the Bunker area,” the scientist said.

Nick Bellantoni received the bone tissue that was believed to belong to Hitler in Moscow, where the fragments were kept in the Russian State Archives and even displayed at an exhibition in 2000.

The researcher was shown the bloodstained upholstery from the Bunker sofa which was believed to be Hitler’s and Braun’s deathbed.

"I had the reference photos the Soviets took of the sofa in 1945 and I was seeing the exact same stains on the fragments of wood and fabric in front of me, so I knew I was working with the real thing," said the archeologist. The results of the research will be used as the basis for the US documentary "Hitler's Escape".

Bellantoni was allowed only one hour in the archives, during which time he applied cotton swabs and took DNA samples that were sent to Connecticut right away. Linda Strausbaugh closed her lab for three days to work exclusively on the Hitler project.

"We used the same routines and controls that would have been used in a crime lab," she said. To her surprise, a small amount of viable DNA was extracted.

"We were very lucky to get a reading, despite the limited amount of genetic information," the scientist said. “That’s how we found out that the fragment belongs to a female.”

The story of the Nazi leader’s death is still a mystery. Some scientists initially had doubts about his suicide and believed it was Nazis propaganda created to present his suicide in a suitably heroic light.

Abel Basti, an Argentinean writer, was one of the first people to believe that the jaw fragment must be DNA-tested.

He explained that the scientists only had a chance to compare the charred jaw fragment with poor quality X-rays and the testimony of Hitler’s dentist who could have lied. He believed that the scientists should compare his DNA samples with the samples of Hitler’s sister Paula who passed away in 1960 and was buried at the Bergfriedhof cemetery.

Abel Basti is the author of the book "Hitler in Argentina" that describes his theory of Hitler’s escape based on the real documents and photographs from archives. The writer believes that Hitler managed to escape to South America and live a long life.

In his book Basti states that on 29 April 1945 the Nazi leader was flown from Berlin to Spain on a Messerschmitt Me 262 [in later books a Ju 290]. From Spain, accompanied by Eva Braun, he went to Argentina by a submarine.

-- Ksenia Obraztsova
Pravda.Ru

There is only a small amount of blood on the actual sofa, and no blood splattered
on the wall, which seems odd if Hitler shot himself through in the head.
There are also conflicting reports on how the bodies were situated
and whether or not a gun shot was heard.
Note, also, the unidentified gun on the sofa.

An account published in the 18 January 1948 issue of the right-wing, Chilean "Diario Illustrado" newspaper said on 30 April 1945, Berlin was in dissolution but little of that dissolution was evident at Tempelhof Airfield. At 4:15 p.m. a Ju 52 landed and S.S. troops directly from Rechlin for the defense of Berlin disembarked, all of them young, not older than 18 years. The gunner in the particular plane sought to tank up and leave Berlin as quickly as possible.

During this re-fueling interval he was suddenly elbowed in the ribs by his radio operator with a nod to look in a certain direction. At about 100-120 meters he saw an Arado 234, the world's first jet bomber, and without any doubt whatsoever, standing in front of the jet, their Commander in Chief, Adolf Hitler, dressed in field-grey uniform and gesticulating animatedly with some Party functionaries, who were obviously seeing him off. For about ten minutes whilst their plane was being refueled the two men observed this scene and around 4:30 p.m. they took to the air again. They were extremely astonished to hear during the midnight military news bulletin, some seven and a half hours later, that Hitler had committed suicide.

The Arado Ar 234 B Blitz [Lightning] was the world's first operational jet bomber and reconnaissance aircraft. The first Ar 234 combat mission, a reconnaissance flight over the Allied beachhead in Normandy, took place 2 August 1944. With a maximum speed of 735 kilometers [459 miles] per hour, the Blitz easily eluded Allied piston-engine fighters. While less famous than the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighters, the Ar 234s that reached Luftwaffe units provided excellent service, especially as reconnaissance aircraft.

It was the last Luftwaffe aircraft to fly over Britain during the war, in April 1945.

An editorial in the 16 January 1948 edition of the Chilean publication, "Zig Zag", stated that on 30 April 1945, Hitler, Braun, and some friends were taken by Flight Captain Peter Baumgart from Tempelhof to Tønder [Tondern] in Denmark, which was still under German control. Another airplane took them to Kristiansund in Norway, also under German control, where they joined a submarine convoy.

On 17 September 1974, a CBC program named "As it Happens" showed Professor Dr. Ryder Saguenay of the University of California at Los Angeles, saying that Hitler had decreed that an airplane should take all medical records of top Nazis from Tempelhof to an unknown destination. He said the dental records used to identify Hitler's body were drawn from memory.

So, if he escaped his Bunker, where might Hitler have ended up?

Perhaps Hitler went to the Moon. This theory emerged, as might be expected, in the 1970s. The Nazis made great progress with technology in such forms as the V-2 rocket and the Messerschmidt 262 jetfighter. There are people who believe the Nazis made contact with aliens and reached the Moon in 1942.

The June, 1952, edition of "The Plain Truth" ran an article with the title of 'Hitler May be Alive'. It said that from 1940, the Nazis transported sledges, airplanes, tractors and all manner of other equipment to Antarctica, where an installation was constructed, scooped out of a mountain.

A quote from popular Israeli writer Michael Bar-Zohar's book, "The Avengers", has Admiral Dönitz saying:

"The German submarine fleet has even now established an earthly paradise, an impregnable fortress, for the Führer, in whatever part of the world". To a class of graduating naval cadets, he is also supposed to have said: "The German Navy has still a great role to play in the future. The German Navy knows all hiding places for the Navy to take the Führer to, should the need arise. There he can prepare his last measures in complete quiet".

"Bonjour" magazine also said the Nazis had created buildings in Antarctica, which can be less cold than Canada or North Dakota, particularly if buildings are underground.

Argentinian journalist Abel Basti produced "Hitler En Argentina" and "Bariloche Nazi: Sitios Historicos Relacionados Al Nacionalsocialismo" [Nazi Bariloche: Historic Sites Related to National Socialism].

These carefully-documented if sensationalistic tomes said that Hitler and his merry band were transported by three submarines which docked near the village of Caleta de los Loros in Rio Negro province, in Argentina. Hitler and Braun, Basti said, had children. The two story mansion in Bariloche where Basti said Hitler stayed from 1945-50 is a permanent tourist attraction. Paraguayan historian, Mariano Llano, supported Basti's view. Argentina is one of the more likely destinations of Hitler, as Argentine dictator, Juan Perón, is likely to have happily accommodated him. Several prominent Nazis certainly fled to Argentina, including the Angel of Death, Dr. Josef Mengele, and Adolf Eichmann.Two U-Boats are known to have arrived in Argentina in the weeks following the end of the war. U-530 and U-977 surrendered at Mar del Plata in July and August, 1945, respectively.

The Third Reich did not quite work out, and there has been no sign of a Fourth, but in nearly every slasher or action movie of the last two decades, the bad guy is believed dead but then rises one last time to give the audience a final jolt.

Hitler could have rallied support with radio broadcasts, but with Germany occupied by four armies, this would not have been fruitful.

He was born in 1889, and barring revolutionary and secret scientific discoveries, is now no longer around. However, as can be seen, data collected only from reputable sources shows that an escape from his Bunker was quite possible.

What would have happened to Hitler if he had not killed himself?

If Hitler had chosen to embrace the idea of a massive partisan uprising to continue the struggle even after Germany had been overrun and conventional military defense ended, there are multiple scenarios, including:

He could have been killed - What is rarely touched upon in histories of WWII is how frightened the people in the Führerbunker were of what was going to happen to them. Discipline had broken down and most had realized that they were going to either be arrested and tortured or summarily executed by the Red Army when it finally took control of the city. Few of them still saw Hitler was as being the demi-god that he was before and the thought had to be going through more than a few minds that a single bullet could have ended what had to be an agonizing wait for the end. If Hitler had not killed himself, it is possible that someone would have killed him in order to bring the entire mess to a conclusion.

He could have been captured #1 - If given a choice, Hitler probably would have wanted to be captured by the Americans, more so than by the English, Free French or the Soviets. The Americans would have simply put him on trial without the spectacle. The British had made it clear that they considered the Nazi regime to be outlaws and that they had no issues with either summary executions for leadership caught on the battlefield or using a bill of attainder [a simple list of crimes justifying imprisonment or execution] to resolve the matter. The French had not made their choices clear, but summary execution does not seem to be too far from being unbelievable.

He could have been captured #2 - Had Hitler been captured alive by the Soviets, he would have been taken to Moscow in chains. The Soviets would have used him as the centerpiece of the greatest show trial in history and they would have made the spectacle last for many months. At the end, Hitler would have been found guilty and executed, but not before all of his crimes against the Soviet peoples had been clearly delineated and the entire world had been made aware that this was occurring. This would not have been a Nuremberg proceeding as there would have been absolutely no chance for an acquittal. This would have been a circus and Josef Stalin would have been the ringmaster.

He could have escaped #1- Albeit, temporarily as Göring and Himmler had both fled Berlin, along with a number of other minor Nazi functionaries. There were numerous hideouts across Germany and even the Berghof [his Bavarian Alps retreat] although damaged by bombing was still largely intact. He could have been moved about for weeks or months. Europe was in turmoil and it was months before all of the disparate elements of the Nazi regime were brought to heel.

He could have escaped #2 - There was the very real possibility that Hitler and his wife Eva Braun could have been spirited out of the country and into Spain or even South America. They could have disguised their features, taken a U-Boat from Spain to South America and disappeared.

Did Hitler Survive The War?
29 January 2013

Sensational claims have re-surfaced that Adof Hitler escaped from his Berlin Bunker and lived out his old age in Patagonia, Argentina. The official view is that Hitler shot himself in his Berlin Bunker on 30 April 1945, and Eva Braun committed suicide by taking cyanide.

Not so long ago, the claim that Hitler had survived the war would have been dismissed out of hand, not anymore. Up until the events of 9/11, people tended to believe whatever those in authority told them, 9/11 changed all that.

The events of 9/11, the London bombings and the death of Princess Diana, are just a few examples where the official version of events is viewed with suspicion by a large section of the public.

The fact is that governments lie to their own people whenever it suits their purpose. This was proven beyond all doubt when Blair lied about Iraq's, non existent, weapons of mass destruction in order to justify the Iraq war.

Just because the official view is that Hitler and Eva Braun died in the Berlin Bunker in April 1945, does not mean it is true.

A new drama/documenary film called "Grey Wolf" is to have its world premiere next month at the Berlin film festival. Based on the book of the same name by British authors Gerrard Williams and Simon Dunstan, the book claims there is overwhelming evidence that Hitler and Eva Braun escaped at the end of the second world war for a new life in a Nazi-controlled enclave in Fascist Argentina.

Mr Williams and Mr Dunstan go on to state the pair had two daughters before Hitler died in 1962 at the age of 73.

Mr Williams, a historian and journalist who has written extensively about the Second World War, told "Sky News":

"We didn’t want to re-write history, but the evidence we’ve discovered about the escape of Adolf Hitler is just too overwhelming to ignore.

"There is no forensic evidence for his, or Eva Braun’s deaths, and the stories from the eyewitnesses to their continued survival in Argentina are compelling".

The book also claims American Intelligence officials were complicit in the escape, in return for access to war technology developed by the Nazis.

It also says that skull fragments thought to be those of Hitler currently held by the Russians are actually that of a young woman under the age of 40. Hitler was 56 when he died.

Mr Williams said he and Mr Dunstan -an author, film-maker and photographer who specialises in military history- carried out their research on the ground in Argentina, interviewing eyewitnesses to Hitler’s presence there.He added: "It’s only now that Argentina is once more a thriving democracy that the real stories are beginning to come out. Even so, two of our eyewitnesses received death threats from persons unknown while working with us on this book".

"Grey Wolf" focuses on the crucial days in 1945 as the Allies closed in on Hitler’s Bunker.

Mr Williams and Mr Dunstan claim a body double took Hitler’s place and an actress stood in for Eva Braun on 27 April, three days before the alleged suicide.

It was at this point that the pair were able to flee Berlin, travelling to Tønder in Denmark before returning to Travemünde in Germany.

From Travemünde it is claimed that they flew to a Spanish military base at Reus, south of Barcelona. This is supported by FBI documents which claim the Nazi leader and his party travelled in a Junkers 290 aircraft, which had the serial number 0163.

In the summer of 1945, Allied forces discovered this plane in the Travemünde airbase, close to the German city of Hamburg. Using its flight documentation, the military traced the aeroplane’s movements to Spain.

General Franco supplied another aircraft to take them to Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands.

The Canaries are Spanish islands, seized in the years just before Columbus' voyage. Nazi scientists from the Ahnenerbe, a research institute set up by SS Reichführer Heinrich Himmler and funded by the SS, planned to work in the Canary Islands, but were forced to postpone the project when war broke out [September 1939]. The Ahnenerbe funded Spanish excavations, provided photographic equipment, and lent aircraft to conduct aerial surveys of archaeological sites. [Garcia Alonso] Franco at first declared Spain a non-belligerent. German Führer Adolf Hitler conceived of seizing the Azores and Canaries early in the war, but was dissuaded from this adventure by his naval staff who realized that Germany might be able to seize the islands, but did not have the naval strength that would be needed to supply the island and hold them. Spain began constructing large military complex at Las Palmas [1940]. President Roosevelt saw it as a potential "German springboard" for "aggression upon the Western Hemisphere".

Unlike the Portuguese controlled Azores, the Canaries did not play a major role in the War. The British were concerned at first because it was not clear if Franco would enter the War on the side of the Axis. In Axis hands, the Islands could have disrupted sea commerce with the Dominions which provided critical supplies to the Britain. Even if the Germans did not seize the Canaries, allowing U-Boats to refuel and resupply there would provide an important support for U-Boat operations. The Canaries had, however, a serious weakness as a U-Boat base. Fuel and equipment would have to be brought in by ship. And such shipping would be vulnerable to Royal Navy interdiction. The British prepared Operation Puma to seize the Canary Islands [June 1941]. This was one of several contingency plans prepared to deal with any German plans to move against Spain and Portugal. Of course the German invasion of the Soviet Union in the same month made this much less likely. Spanish authorities denied the Canary Islands to the Kriegsmarine for refueling and rearming U-Boats [July 1941]. The British were prepared to seize the Canaries if the Spanish attacked Gibraltar. Denying U-Boast access to the Canaries, however, went a long way toward ending British concern with the Canaries. Franco decided to change Spain's status from non-belligerency to neutral. The Allies decided to treat Spain as a neutral nation [1942].

According to the "La Provincia" daily, the Spanish dictator ordered a large network of military tunnels to be built in Gran Canaria to store torpedoes and other supplies for submarines in anticipation of Spain entering World War II on Germany’s side.

A day later the two fugitives are said to have boarded a U-Boat and the two body doubles were executed and their bodies subsequently burned.

The book points to declassified FBI documents which contain references to Hitler having escaped Berlin to begin a new life in South America.

Here they say he lived in a wooden chalet in the vicinity of Bariloche, a city in the foothills of the Andes [in those days it was a remote village].

The book quotes a number of sources, such as cooks and doctors, who claim to have known the Nazi leader before he died aged 73 on 13 February 1962. They claim that Hitler's bloodline survived through two daughters he had with Braun.

Bariloche was a popular destination for fleeing Nazis. Mengele, Eichman and Klaus Barbie all lived there at some time. Erich Priebke, a captain in the Waffen SS and currently under house arrest in Italy, lived in Bariloche for 50 years after the war.

Other prominent Nazis who lived in Bariloche were Josef Schwammberger, commander of three Nazi labour camps and in charge of the liquidation of the Jewish ghetto in Przemysl, Poland.

There was Nazi diplomat Horst Wagner, a man who allegedly had the blood of at least 350,000 Jews on his hands, Hans Ulrich Rudel, former hero of the Luftwaffe and a close confidant of Hitler, and Frederich Lantschner, the former governor of the Tyrol.

It is not the first time that Hitler has been rumoured to have fled to Argentina. Author Abel Basti claimed the same in his 2003 book "Hitler In Argentina".

He said Hitler and Braun fled to Argentine shores aboard a submarine and lived for many years in the vicinity of San Carlos de Bariloche, a tourist site and ski haven some 1,000 miles southwest of Buenos Aires.

In his book "Bariloche Nazi-Guía Turística" he reproduced documents, affidavits, photographs and blueprints aimed at steering the reader to the sites that sheltered Hitler and his top henchmen.

About 50 miles north of Bariloche lies Villa la Angostura, a village on the shores of Lake Nahuel Huapi. Author Abel Basti claimed the Incalco Ranch, which is situated in this village, was the refuge chosen by Argentine Nazis to hide the couple.

Set amid a pine forest, it could only be reached by boat or hydroplane, and belonged to Argentine businessman Jorge Antonio, one of the most trusted friends of three-times president Juan Domingo Perón.

Conclusions

There is no forensic evidence for Hitler's, or Eva Braun’s deaths. Even "proper" historians accept that the skull held by the Russians is not that of Hitler.

The double suicide theory is mostly based on the testimony of Rochus Misch, now 95, Hitler’s former radio operator and the last survivor of the Berlin Bunker. He says he saw the bodies of "the boss" and Eva Braun with his own eyes.

The book by Williams and Dunstan claim a body double took Hitler’s place and an actress stood in for Eva Braun on 27 April, three days before the alleged suicide. Rochus Misch did not hear the shot and he only saw the bodies from outside the room, not close up.

He said:

"I was in the room next door when he shot himself. I did not hear the shot but I saw his uncovered corpse when the door was opened. I saw Hitler slumped with his head on the table. I saw Eva Braun sitting dead in the corner of the sofa, her head turned to Hitler, her knees pulled up to her chest. She had a dark blue dress on and a white frill on her collar".

Historians hold him up as a reliable source and he is the author of a book, published several years ago, called "The Last Witnes".

Why would Hitler choose to stay at the Berlin Bunker, where he knew the Russians were attacking first and foremost? Why not choose the safety of his mountain retreat?

Berlin Bunker:

Was poorly ventilated
Was cramped
Was being constantly bombarded
Was the target for the Soviets
Was dangerous to be in
Too dangerous to leave most of the time

The Berghof:

Was not even bombed until 25 April 1945, and then by accident
Had a cinema
Was protected from air attack by a sheet of mist which could be created 3 kilometers around the building within a couple of minutes by the simple flick of a switch
Was captured after the Berlin Bunker
Was still safe to stay outside there
Had lifts, not stairs like the Bunker

Hitler had stopped visiting his mountain retreat; he never returned to the compound after 14 July 1944.

The Obersalzberg was bombed by hundreds of British RAF Lancaster heavy bombers, including aircraft from No. 617 Squadron RAF [the "Dambusters"], which attacked the Berghof on 25 April 1945.. At least two bombs successfully struck the Berghof and did considerable damage to the building. On 4 May, retreating SS troops set fire to the villa.

Only hours later, the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division arrived at Berchtesgaden along with the French 2nd Armoured Division.

In his interview with the Library of Congress, Herman Louis Finnell of the 3rd Division, 7th Regiment, Company I, stated that he and his ammo carrier, Pfc. Fungerburg, were the first to enter Berghof, as well as the secret passages below the structure.

The American troops reportedly muddled Berchtesgaden with the Berghof and a French Army captain and his driver were the first Allied military personnel to reach the still-smoldering chalet. A French tank crew soon joined them. The American 1st Battalion of the 506th Infantry Regiment [led by Company C] arrived four days later, on 8 May.

It is interesting that most of the Army and Luftwaffe High Command had relocated to the Berchtesgaden area by April 1945.

If the idea was not to die in the ruins of the German capital, the only thing which appears to speak for Berlin is the fact that a large collection of aircraft and helicopters was always at the disposal of Hitler on stand-by there. The safest way out of the Berlin Bunker on 30 April 1945 was a helicopter, and at least one other senior Nazi official, Karl Hanke, Gauleiter of Silesia, was helicoptered out of a besieged city, in this case Breslau.

Until shortly before the fall of Berlin, up to 40 aircraft were on constant standby at Berlin Gatow for the evacuation of Hitler and his entourage. These aircraft were: More than 13 Fw 200s, three Ju 290s, some He 111s, a large number of Ju 52s and "a few small machines". The "few small machines" may have included one or two helicopters. Although Germany had at least 30 helicopters operational at that time, almost nothing is known of their activities and none of the usual sources ever mention them.

Towards the end of World War II, most of the surviving Flettner Fl-282s, 'Kolibri' [Humming Bird], were stationed at Rangsdorf AB & Ainring AB at Mühldorf, Bavaria, in their role as artillery spotters, assigned to Transport Staffel [transport squadron] TS40, the Luftwaffe's only operational helicopter squadron but gradually fell victim to Soviet fighters and anti-aircraft fire. During the last few months of the War the Luftwaffe's Transport Staffel TS40 squadron made many flights into and out of besieged and encircled towns transporting dispatches, mail and key personnel. It was possibly one of this unit's Fl-282s that flew Hanke to his escape out of besieged Breslau, on 5 May 1945, letting him escape to Prague, just one day before the capture of that city.

On the whole, the evidence is not satisfactory that Hitler died in the Bunker on 30 April 1945. He was determined to commit suicide there but wavered, and may have been talked out of it eventually.

Since Gauleiter Karl Hanke was helicoptered out of besieged Breslau, then if Hitler left the Bunker, that was obviously the safest manner to ensure his escape.

During the waning months of World War II, as the Soviet Red Army advanced into Silesia and encircled Breslau [Festung Breslau], Karl Hanke was named by Hitler to be the city's "Battle Commander" [Kampfkommandant]. Hanke oversaw, with fanaticism, the futile and militarily useless defense of the city during the Battle of Breslau. Göbbels, dictating for his diary, repeatedly expressed his admiration of Hanke during the spring of 1945.

During the 82-day siege, Soviet forces inflicted approximately 30,000 civilian and military casualties and took more than 40,000 prisoners, while suffering 60,000 total casualties. On 6 May, the day before Germany's surrender, General Hermann Niehoff surrendered the besieged Breslau [the Soviet army already having reached Berlin]. Hanke had flown out the previous day in a small Fieseler Storch plane kept in reserve for him.

In his memoirs, German Minister of Armaments Albert Speer claimed that he had heard from Anton Flettner that Hanke had actually escaped in one of the few existing prototype helicopters which Flettner had designed.

Breslau was the last major city in Germany to surrender. Due to the Soviet forces aerial and artillery bombardment of the city, along with the self-destruction by the SS and Nazi Party, "80 to 90 percent" of Breslau had been destroyed.

The following may not be how it happened, or that it happened this way, but it is a possibility [Certain things may not be advocated as truth, or even probability, but be advanced as a certain point of view for debate]:

[1] A transport helicopter made a round flight Berlin-Danzig on Hitler's orders in March 1945. The purpose of this flight is unknown but might have been a trial to test the aircraft's endurance.

Against all odds, a final Focke Achgelis Fa-223 'Drache' helicopter was completed in February 1945 at Tempelhof Airport, and was almost immediately dispatched on a special mission, the details of which remain murky to this day, to Gdansk, then known as Danzig, on the express orders of Adolf Hitler.....

On 25 February 1945, the Fa-223, was ordered to fly to Danzig. It took off from Tempelhof the next morning to proceed on its mission, flown by Leutnant Helmut Gerstenhauer, possibly the Luftwaffe’s premier helicopter pilot, accompanied by two other pilots. Plagued by bad winter weather, Allied bombing attacks, and having to search for fuel, the helicopter's pilot did not arrive on the outskirts of Danzig until the evening of 5 March, having flown the perilous last leg of the journey directly over the Russians’ heads, making it impossible to fly into the center of Danzig as ordered. While awaiting orders on where to proceed, the crew got word that a fighter pilot had gotten lost in a snowstorm and had made a crash landing.

Lt. Gerstenhauer took off in the Fa-223 and proceeded to search the area. The helicopter crew spotted the downed Me-109 with the injured pilot still in the cockpit. They rescued him and flew him back to the base for medical attention. By this time, Danzig was falling to the Russians, and the Fa-223's crew took off to try to reach a safer haven. When they found fuel stockpile, they realized that the Allies push had captured or destroyed all the friendly airfields along their projected route. After topping the tanks off, they loaded a 55 gallon drum of gasoline and a hand pump on board, and overflew the Soviet forces. They finally put down at the German base at Werder, on 11 March 1945, after an aerial odyssey covering more than 1,500 kilometers [932 miles], and logging 16 hours, 25 minutes of flight time.

[2] Berlin-Danzig is the same distance as Berlin-German held northern Denmark.
[3] It was only one refuelling stop from there to Bodo in Norway.
[4] The Third Reich controlled Norway until the end.
[5] According to SS papers at the Berlin Document Centre, the second Ju 390 prototype was at readiness at Bodo, painted in Swedish livery and under heavy SS guard. Suddenly in early May it was no longer there, and nobody knows what happened to it.
[6] Declassified Argentine Intelligence documents state that in May 1945, a six-engined German transport aircraft from Europe landed on a large German ranch in Paysandu province, Uruguay with passengers and equipment. To transport passengers from Paysandu into and across Argentina was not an enormous undertaking.

A new book [Manfred Griehl: "Luftwaffe Over America" Greenhill Books London, 2005] deals exclusively with the subject of German WWII long range designs.

Griehl appears certain that the Ju 390 V-1 prototype did not have the characteristics to make a long transatlantic flight. However, the Luftwaffe had mastered mid-air refueling by early 1944 and so a flight to within sighting distance of New York was not out of the question by Ju 290s.

Two Ju 290 A2s experimented over the Atlantic from Mont de Marsan in May 1945 but the extent westwards reached is not known.

The only known official plan to attack the American East Coast was Oberst von Lossberg's scheme approved by Erhard Milch and Karl Dönitz in 1943.

A BV 222 flying boat would rendezvous with a U-Boat 1000 miles off New York to refuel and bomb-up for the attack. Priorities were to be the Jewish quarter and the docks. By 1944 such an operation was no longer feasible.

German aircraft designers were told to tender designs for a bomber capable of flying to New York and back, without refueling. The bomb load was to be 4000 Kilograms; surprisingly light for an attack that could have any real effect. The Horton firm was given the assignment, with the beautiful Ho XVIII B flying wing bomber being the only design that could achieve the required specifications. They were told to begin construction as soon as possible.

Work was restarted on a submarine towed pod, code named "Test Stand XII", to transport and launch the V-2 [A-4] missile. Up to three of these could be towed by a Type XXI submarine. The work was given high priority, and one of the pods, minus its internal equipment, was finished by the war's end.

The German rocket team at Peenemünde were told to dust off the plans for the A-9/A-10 project, a two stage ICBM capable of reaching New York. This seemed an awfully big project to start this late in the war.

Jonastal S-3 would have been the production center for all of Germany's best secret weapons with emphasis being placed on the ICBMs, German atom bomb, and an equally devastating plasma weapon that was authorized in March 1945 but not completed. This was a mix of 60/40 fine coal dust powder and LOX mixed with a secret reagent developed by the SS Technical Branch. The result was both a fire and electrical storm at ground level. Testing of small bombs near the Baltic produced spectacular results. So, advanced aircraft like the Sänger, Ho XVIIIB, and Ar E.555 would have carried these over US cities on the eastern seaboard.

The only known official plan to attack the American East Coast was Oberst von Lossberg's scheme approved by Erhard Milch and Karl Dönitz in 1943. A BV 222 flying boat would rendezvous with a U-Boat 1000 miles off New York to refuel and bomb-up for the attack. Priorities were to be the Jewish quarter and the docks. By 1944 such an operation was no longer feasible.

German aircraft designers were told to tender designs for a bomber capable of flying to New York and back, without refueling. The bomb load was to be 4000 Kilograms; surprisingly light for an attack that could have any real effect. The Horton firm was given the assignment, with the beautiful Ho XVIII B flying wing bomber being the only design that could achieve the required specifications. They were told to begin construction as soon as possible.

However, these were never needed as a Ju-390 could have done the job. NYC would have been the first target.

Junkers Ju390 V2 “Amerika Bomber”

The Junkers Ju 390 was a German aircraft intended to be used as a heavy transport, maritime patrol aircraft, and long-range bomber, a long-range derivative of the Ju 290.

It was one of the aircraft designs submitted for the abortive Amerika Bomber project, along with the Messerschmitt Me 264, the Focke-Wulf Ta 400, and by February 1943, the Heinkel He 277.

Two prototypes were created by attaching an extra pair of inner-wing segments onto the wings of basic Ju 90 and Ju 290 airframes, and adding new sections to lengthen the fuselages.

The existence of a second prototype Ju 390 V-2 is disputed but seems a reasonable possibility.

Joachim Eisenmann's entry in his flying log for 9 February 1945 identifies the aircraft he test flew as Ju 390 V-2 [RC+DA]. It was then left at Lärz aerodrome near Rechlin.

The trail continues with the testimony of SS-Sturmbannführer Rudolf Schuster, III Dept/RSHA. In his personal file [Berlin Document Centre], under interrogation Schuster stated that in June 1944 he had responsibility for the SS-ELF Special Evacuation Commando subordinated to Lower Silesia Gauleiter Karl Hanke [appointed successor to Himmler in Hitler's Last Will and Testament].

Schuster stated that in the second half of April 1945, a special Ju 390 attached to KG 200 brought top secret scientific materials from Schweidnitz to Bodo in Norway where it was then supervised by SS-Obergruppenführer Jacob Sporrenberg. The aircraft was painted pale blue and given Swedish AF markings, kept under tarpaulins and guarded by the SS.

There is a service course sheet [available at Berlin Document Centre] for SS-Obersturmbannführer Rudolf Schuster attached to SS-WVHA Amt-V zbV. This officer stated that in the second half of April 1945 a Junkers Ju 390 attached to KG 200 was at Schweidnitz [an airfield SW of Breslau] where it loaded materials from a secret project coded "Cronos/Laternenträger". The aircraft was painted pale blue and had Swedish AF markings. It was guarded by SS and concealed beneath tarpaulin. It is known to have taken off for Bodo in Norway, but nothing further is known of its activity.

Former Oberfunkmeister Wolfgang Hirschfeld, U-234 radio operator, stated in his book "Das Letzte Boot - Atlantik Farewell" that a plan existed in April 1945 to fly a KG 200 aircraft with supplementary tanks to Japan with one fuelling stop in China. It was to have shipped the special "Uranium" cargo which eventually finished up at Portsmouth NH aboard Hirschfeld's U-Boat. The flight was not approved because it could not be made without crossing Soviet air space at some point.

Schuster's direct superior, head of SS-ELF SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Neumann, masqueraded under various aliases postwar and was well known to the Intelligence authorities in Argentina.

There is an Argentinian Intelligence report [cited by Abel Basti in "Nazi Bariloche"] which mentions a six-engined German aircraft landing at a German owned ranch in Paysandu province, Uruguay in early May 1945 with SS-ELF super-secret scientific material aboard.

That aircraft landed in Uruguay - there are other indications from contemporary Uruguayan sources that it did - but whether Hitler was aboard is unknown. The important thing is that he could have been aboard, and it is just yet another feasible idea amongst many.

If Hitler came to Argentina, it is more likely that it would have been by aircraft to Uruguay.

After a long flight from Europe over the sea, Uruguay is the first neutral country on the South American landmass. It has many German settlers, in the country they tend to live in German villages and many of these settlers own large tracts of land. The Argentine I intelligence document states that the Ju 390 put down on a ranch in Paysandu province, this ranch being near Puntas de Gualeguay about 70 kms out on the road from Paysandu town to Tacuarembo. The mile-wide River Uruguay separates Uruguay from Argentina. On the other bank from Paysandu is Entre Rios province, mostly marsh and wild pasture, another hotbed of German settlers.

Uruguay was neutral in the Second World War, Argentina was "at war with Germany" from March 1945.

On 23 February 1945 Uruguay was a signatory to the United Nations Declaration of War on the Axis.

However, most Uruguayan don't think Uruguay was anything other than neutral throughout WWII.

The total contribution of Uruguay to "the defeat of Hitlerism" to which it was pledged appears to have been nothing and to all intents and purposes the Germans probably considered Uruguay to be utterly harmless.

The only shots fired in anger between Argentina and Germany were the eight depth charges dropped on U-977 in the Gulf of San Matias on 18 July 1945. Certain sections of the police and armed forces in Argentina had been "bought" with Reich gold but it was by no means safe to overfly Argentinian airspace and land a large aircraft, whereas what went on in Uruguay interested nobody, least of all the Uruguayans.

In 1944 Brazil became the only Latin American nation to send troops to Europe when it dispatched the 25,000 strong Brazilian Expeditionary Force to fight on the continent.

If Hitler committed suicide in the Bunker, his body and that of Eva Braun would have been removed so that the enemy would not profane and abuse them. This would account for the replacement corpses.

"They searched for his body in the tomb and could not find it".

There is plenty of documentary evidence that arrangements were in hand for various long distance flights from northern Germany commencing on 1 May 1945.

The marriage to Eva Braun

There was not any room for romance and sentiment in the Bunker - the marriage took place for a purpose, and that purpose was not to make an honest woman out of Frau Hitler.

One possibility never considered by any historian

The bodies of Feldmarschall Paul von Hindenburg and his spouse were exhumed from the Tannenberg War Memorial and brought to western Germany by the cruiser "Emden" in early 1945 in order that the remains should not be profaned by the Russians. If Hitler did commit suicide in the Bunker, it would not have been National Socialist policy to leave his cadaver there for the Russians to find and abuse, the remains would have been helicoptered out to receive a proper burial and State funeral beyond the reach of any of his enemies, Soviet or Western. If Eva Braun was to lie in State with Hitler, by protocol she had to be married to him. This would explain the hasty marriage.

It is a fact that some bodies were burned near the Bunker. Neither the Russians nor Eisenhower, were prepared to confirm that these were the immolated corpses of Hitler and Eva Braun. For political reasons we are supposed to believe that they were their corpses, but whether they escaped or committed suicide, either way the cadavers in the Bunker were not those of Hitler and spouse.

According to what is told and known in History is that Hitler had died before the end of WWII. However, evidence has surfaced refuting the claims.

Hitler's alleged inside the Bunker in Berlin described by Trevor- Roper's book "The Last Days of Hitler", has been refuted by many historians. We now know that the official history is not true. The history Trevor-Roper told was invented by British Intellegence Services to free themselves from the accusations by Stalin which stated that they helped Hitler escape.

That's assuming of course that the official accounts based on eyewitness testimonies gathered by the incredible historian/journalist extraordinaire Hugh Trevor-Roper, the one and only expert on the last days of Hitler's life, is accurate.

For whatever reason, we have no reason at all to believe that these eyewitnesses who were deeply loyal to Hitler could have lied, just as we have no reason at all to believe that Trevor-Roper could be incredible [incredible = the opposite of credible].

Except that we do have reason to doubt Trevor-Roper: the "Hitler Diaries" fiasco. [Basically, a crude forgery fooled our expert].

What is fascinating is that there is no dispute here that Trevor-Roper was indeed fooled, which means the same people who know that Trevor-Roper blundered also vouch for his expertise in gathering evidence on Hitler's death.

We are now left with jaws that are alleged to belong to Hitler. In 2003, "a German forensic scientist named Dr Mark Benecke confirmed that they belonged to Hitler". How does this confirmation process work?

He trusted experts/authorities who had provided him with the jaws and the X-Rays. That is like reading a book, and then using a magnifying glass to verify that you are reading every letter correctly, and then declare whatever the book said to be true because you have read each letter correctly.

Historically, it appears not only did Stalin and the Russians doubt Hitler was dead, but so did US General Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The comedown of Trevor-Roper’s influence began in 1983, when as a director of "Times Newspapers" he endorsed the so-called “Hitler Diaries.”

"Stern" magazine claimed to have received the Führer’s diaries smuggled out from East Germany. The diaries were alleged to be part of a shipment of documents recovered from an aircraft crash on the way to Berchtesgaden in late April 1945.

Hugh Trevor-Roper inspected the dictator’s diaries and declared: “I am now satisfied that the documents are authentic.” But within a few weeks, the West German Bundesarchiv revealed that forensic scientist Julius Grant had demonstrated beyond a doubt that the Hitler diaries were fakes –– made on modern paper using modern ink and crammed with chronological errors.

The Hitler diaries humiliation was portrayed in the 1991 British comedy TV miniseries "Selling Hitler." The news media around the world laid blame on what seemed to be the most expensive fraud in the annals of publishing. Some critics straightforwardly inferred that Trevor-Roper’s crowd was trying to fabricate modern history.

A considered review acknowledged: "Trevor-Roper’s initial endorsement of the alleged diaries raised questions in the public mind not only about his wisdom as a historian but also about his integrity, because "The Sunday Times", a newspaper to which he regularly contributed book reviews and of which he was an independent director, had already paid a considerable sum for the right to serialize the diaries".

At length, the hottest vexation to Trevor-Roper’s better judgment transpired in 2009. Researchers from the University of Connecticut released the results of a DNA test on “Hitler’s skull” that they said proved it did not belong to the Führer.

“The remains were that of a female aged between 20 and 40 years old,” according to DNA analysis.

In 1968, Soviet journalist Lev Bezymenski wrote that Hitler’s skull had been destroyed beforehand. When a fragment of Adolf Hitler’s skull went on display at Russia’s Federal Archives Service in 2000, an official at Russia’s Forensic Medicine Institute archives department stated with reservation that he had “not seen documents providing evidence that this is the skull of Hitler".”

As presently avowed by Connecticut archaeologist and bone specialist Nick Bellantoni, the skull bone with a bullet hole shown in Russia came from an unknown woman, not the German leader.

The Trevor-Roper household version no longer presents much credible proof. It cannot establish a single certainty to the Berlin Bunker suicide.

The truth is that when the Russians entered Hitler's underground Bunker in Berlin, Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun were gone.

Exactly what happened to them on 30 April 1945, has long remained a mystery.

The British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper:

"A single shot fell ... Hitler was lying on the sofa soaked with blood, he had shot himself in the mouth....the bones have never been found ..."

The British historian Alan Bullock:

"A single shot was heard ... Hitler had shot himself in the mouth....what had happened with the ashes of the two bodies burned in the Reich Chancellery's garden has never been ascertained".

"Der Spiegel" reporter Erich Kuby:

"The probably most photographed, mostly documented man of our time disappeared in an unknown way in the unknown".

FBI and CIA records maintained at the National Archives indicate that the US government took seriously reports at the end of World War II that Hitler had escaped to Argentina.

If the US government really believed that official story of Hitler's suicide in Berlin, then why did these extensive files on Hitler in Argentina.

There is a startling documentary titled: "El Escape de Hitler " by Carlos de Napoli.

According to De Napoli:

"'Hitler's Escape" is the first documentary used to attempt to know what really happened to Hitler, since the absence of any trace of his body, everything has sunk in a sea of doubts and uncertainty.

All these unpublished documents, allowed us to develop a special with unique information, never presented before in another job".

Former Secretary of State Jimmy Byrnes in his book "Frankly Speaking":

"While in Potsdam at the Conference of the Big Four, Stalin left his chair, came over and clinked his liquor glass with mine in a very friendly manner.

"I said to him: 'Marshal Stalin, what is your theory about the death of Hitler?' Stalin replied: 'He is not dead. He escaped either to Spain or Argentina'.

The same thing was reported about Josef Mengele until he was found. Mengele eluded capture. He drowned while swimming off the Brazilian coast in 1979 and was buried under a false name. His remains were disinterred and positively identified by forensic examination in 1985.

And Adolf Eichmann who was a SS-Obersturmbannführer and one of the major organisers of the Holocaust.

After Germany's defeat in 1945, Eichmann fled to Austria.

He lived there until 1950, when he moved to Argentina using false papers. Information collected by the Mossad, Israel's Intelligence agency, confirmed Eichmann's location in 1960.

A team of Mossad and Shin Bet agents captured Eichmann and brought him to Israel to stand trial on 15 criminal charges, including war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against the Jewish people.

Found guilty on many of these charges, he was sentenced to death by hanging and executed on 31 May 1962.

The evidence demands a verdict different from the official story.

The story remains unsolved if at the end all we have are the charred corpse and the technical treatise on dental identification.

The Escape of Hitler
Brian Redman
31 May 2015

A documentary released in 2011, "El Escape de Hitler" [The Escape of Hitler], has been available on Netflix. The film is in Spanish, but Netflix has settings which can add English subtitles. The movie is also available on YouTube, but without English subtitles.

In my book, "Tales Of The Holy Lance," I reported upon statements indicating that in the final days of Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler and wife Eva Braun had been flown out of Berlin by Luftwaffe General Robert Ritter von Greim and test pilot Hanna Reitsch.

However the film, "El Escape de Hitler" offers a more likely scenario of how Hitler escaped: He was not even in Berlin in the final days.

A smokescreen had been deployed by the Nazis in which the public was told the Führer was in Berlin. In fact, the Nazi leader had been smuggled into Berchtesgaden, a municipality in the German Bavarian Alps. Hitler owned a home there on the flank of the Hoher Goll, a mountain in the Berchtesgaden Alps. Not far away was the "Eagle’s Nest", atop the Kehlstein subpeak of the Hoher Goll.

25 April 1945 Göbbels Diary:

"Hitler said: 'I'd regard it as a thousand times more cowardly to commit suicide on the Obersalzberg than to stand and fall here. They shouldn't say: 'You, as the Führer ...' I'm only the Führer as long as I can lead. And I can't lead through sitting somewhere on a mountain, but have to have authority over armies that obey. Let me win a victory here, however difficult and tough, then I've a right again to do away with the sluggish elements who are constantly causing an obstruction. Then I'll work with the generals who've proved themselves ... Only here can I attain a success, and even if it's only a moral one, it's at least the possibility of saving face and winning time. ... Only through a heroic attitude can we survive this hardest of times... It's the only chance to restore personal reputation ... if we leave the world stage in disgrace, we'll have lived for nothing. Whether you continue your life a bit longer or not is completely immaterial. Rather end the struggle with honor than continue in shame and dishonor a few months or years longer ...'

Late in World War II the Allies launched a devastating air raid on the Berchtesgaden area. However the 25 April 1945 bombing did little damage to the town. And at any rate, an underground Bunker system had been built there and was used by Hitler and the SS. In the vicinity of Berchtesgaden is Königssee, a natural lake. It was either upon this lake or another nearby lake that a seaplane landed, according to the movie, "El Escape de Hitler", and took onboard Hitler and Braun. From there they were flown to a naval base in Norway, possibly the Kriegsmarine base.

A "Plan Z" had originally called for the building of a fleet to rival that of Britain, but that plan was changed in favor of a shift to submarines. The Kriegsmarine‍’s most famous ships were the U-Boats, most of which were constructed after "Plan Z" was abandoned at the beginning of World War II.

Plan Z called for a fleet centered on ten battleships and four aircraft carriers which were intended to battle the Royal Navy, supplemented with numerous long-range cruisers that would attack British shipping. A relatively small force of U-Boats was also stipulated.

When World War II broke out in September 1939, the need to shift manufacturing capacity to more pressing requirements forced the Kriegsmarine to abandon the construction program.

Nevertheless, the plan still had a significant effect on the course of World War II, in that only a few dozen U-Boats had been completed. Admiral Karl Dönitz's U-Boat fleet only reached the 300 U-Boats he deemed necessary to win a commerce war against Britain in 1943, by which time his forces had been decisively defeated.

From Norway, according to the film, a U-Boat transported the infamous couple to Argentina. They then made their way to Patagonia, a sparsely populated region located at the southern end of South America, shared by Argentina and Chile. There they resided unmolested.

In Patagonia, Hitler was not strutting around in uniform and wearing his toothbrush moustache. The film suggests the Nazi Führer appeared in civilian clothes, bald, and without the moustache.

In my book, "Tales of the Holy Lance" I include copies of declassified FBI files supporting claims of an alive Hitler residing in Argentina.

At the close of World War II, Uranium was badly needed. Martin Bormann, had been allowed to escape in exchange for 1,120 pounds of enriched Uranium and infra-red bomb fuses. Adolf Hitler and the Allies may have reached a similar agreement, suggests the film, "El Escape de Hitler".

The People Who Swear Hitler Is Alive
The Daily Beast
Nina Strochlic
04.30.2015

Adolf and Eva died in a suicide pact in Berlin… right? Not if you believe 70 years of rabid conspiracy theories.

Adolf Hitler and his wife, Eva Braun, committed suicide 70 years ago—or so they’d like us to believe.

Of all the Nazi conspiracy theories [buried gold sunken in Austrian lakes; jungle hideaways; U-Boats filled with treasure off the coast of New Zealand], the most pervasive and indefatigable legend is that the fascist lovebirds survived the war and lived the rest of their lives in peaceful South American retirement.

The origins of these rumors lie in the fact that, though scholars agree Hitler and Braun carried out a suicide pact in an underground Bunker, their remains were never publicly and formally identified. If they had made a daring escape as Berlin fell, say, the next stop would have been to Latin America, which was rolling out the red carpet for fleeing Nazis.

These fictions needed almost no time to marinate. They were spurred on by top officials in both the Nazi and Allied forces, and spread virulently in the West’s postwar confusion. 'Nazi Envoy Says Hitler Still Alive,' the "Associated Press" blasted in 1945, with two quotes from a German diplomat promising the leader’s imminent return. Such assertions and sightings were so pervasive that the Federal Bureau of Investigation began actively looking into them.

Last year, the FBI declassified more than 700 pages of tips and investigations into the possibility that Hitler survived the war. Included in the trove were hundreds of typed and handwritten notes to the FBI, government memos attempting to verify the claims, and J. Edgar Hoover’s replies.

"According to [retracted], he was one of the four men who met Hitler and his party when they landed from two submarines in Argentina approximately two and one-half weeks after the fall of Berlin," one report said, conveying descriptions of the heavily guarded ranch where Hitler, who had shaved off his mustache, was supposedly hiding out.

Another person swore Hitler had taken to hiding in plain sight and was residing in Manhattan, the ideal city for anonymity. A Maryland resident was convinced the two had shared a table at lunch in 1946 [“looked like he had been in confinement for sometime"]. Another informant claimed Hitler was being treated in Spain for a "nervous condition".

And then there’s the bold report that included a letter, translated from German and postmarked with German stamps, which was supposedly from Hitler himself. "[When] I was informed that my body and that of my wife had been covered with Naptha and burred [sic] in the Chancellory [sic] garden. I could not help smiling for at this we were many kilometers south west of Berlin on our air jouney to Argentina," the fraud Führer boasted. [The man who turned this letter in was dubbed by the FBI "a psychopathic case"].

But other tips were apparently worthy of follow-up. “His letter is coherent and it is not known whether or not he is a psychopathic,” an evaluation of another epistle reads.

Another person swore Hitler had taken to hiding in plain sight and was residing in Manhattan.

The FBI trove ends in 1947, but the theories were only just getting started. Seventy years after the war’s end, dozens of historians, journalists, documentarians, and other conspiracy-inclined hobbyists are still peddling their wares as Hitler hunters. Like a mustachioed Carmen Sandiego, Hitler candidates have been popping up across the globe for years. Then, with a simple overlay of the signature facial hair and comb-over, or with some clever aging tricks, the believers declare a match. The theories range in delusional intensity—one claims Hitler was hidden in an Antarctic base—but the idea of a South American retirement remains the most popular.

Many Nazis did flee into the welcoming arms of South America after the war. Argentina, in particular, offered a safe haven, and rumors abounded that the highest levels of Nazi leadership had made a successful escape there. Most famously, Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele were granted refuge by Juan Perón, Argentina’s president at the time, who dispatched rescue voyages to Europe after Germany fell to retrieve the war’s losers from capture.

“[A]rgentina is teeming with unmolested Nazi war criminals,” journalist Johannes Steel wrote in a 1945 investigation.

No matter how absurd, theories of Hitler’s survival rarely fail to make international headlines. In 2014, the British tabloid "Express" proffered a grainy, virtually face-less photo of an older Caucasian man with the headline, "The Incredible picture that 'proves' Adolf Hitler lived to 95 with his Brazilian lover". Citing a new book called "His Life and His Death" by author Simoni Renee Guerreiro Dias, the article outlines the argument that the Führer spent his last years in a small town in Brazil, going by the name Adolf Leipzig.

Last year also gave us "Hitler in Argentina", which promised to "change the history you were taught in 5th grade". It was the second book about Hitler’s certain survival by author Harry Cooper, who is classified as a neo-Nazi by watchdogs at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Four years earlier, there was "Grey Wolf: The Escape of Adolf Hitler". Two British journalists made similar claims about Hitler’s escape, alleging that he settled in Patagonia and fathered two children with Braun. When a local journalist claimed they had stolen his theory, it pitted the three in a Hitler survivalist-off.

Since the 1960s, the Russians have claimed that bones they extracted from the Eagle’s Nest after the war were Hitler’s. They took samples and then reportedly burned the rest of the corpses. The original jawbone they recovered apparently matched the records of Hitler’s dentist, the investigators said. But in 2009, DNA tests on what was thought to be Hitler’s skull turned out to belong to a younger woman.

Even those who believe Hitler survived the war’s end concede he must be dead today—unless the fountain of youth also turned up in his jungle hideaway. But new theories of cross-ocean Nazi infiltration are robust as ever. In March, Argentinian archaeologists revealed they were investigating claims that newly-discovered buildings had been used as Nazi Bunkers. But a closer look found that the stories were blown out of proportion, blowing the lid off a Nazi hideout.

"That was just speculation on my part," the lead investigator told the "Guardian" after dozens of articles ran with the claims. "The press picked it up and magnified it".

Why the FBI investigated the possibility that Adolf Hitler survived World War II
Douglas Perry
The Oregonian
1 May, 2015

We overlooked the 70th anniversary of Adolf Hitler's death on Thursday. But we have a good excuse: 30 April 1945 might not be the correct date of the infamous Nazi leader's demise.

So say the conspiracy theorists, anyway. Scholars are convinced Hitler and wife Eva Braun committed suicide in their Berlin Bunker as Soviet forces pushed into the center of the city in 1945. But the "Daily Beast"s Nina Strochlic pointed out this week that the "Hitler is alive" believers were somewhat mainstream in the years immediately after World War II. After all, Strochlic writes, Hitler and Braun's "remains were never publicly and formally identified. If they had made a daring escape as Berlin fell, say, the next stop would have been to Latin America, which was rolling out the red carpet for fleeing Nazis".

Many Nazi war criminals did successfully make it out of Germany and find refuge in South America. In 1960, Israel's Mossad famously kidnapped notorious Hitler henchman Adolf Eichmann from Argentina. (Read Neal Bascomb's excellent book "Hunting Eichmann". So, without Hitler and Braun's bodies as definitive proof, fears raged. The conspiracy theories even led to one of the worst movies of all time: "They Saved Hitler's Brain".

Strochlic points readers to the declassified FBI files on the postwar hunt for Hitler. Her article about sightings of Hitler and Braun in New York, Maryland and elsewhere is fun stuff and worth a look.

One FBI informant compared a woman she knew with a photograph of Braun from "Life" magazine. From an FBI agent's memo: "It was [redacted] belief that should Adolf Hitler still be alive, the [redacted] family would know where he is located. [Redacted] said that after studying the photographs of Eva [redacted] and Eva Braun, he was of the opinion that the two individuals were identical and that the true name of Eva Braun is actually Eva [redacted]".

The FBI shut down its Hitler investigation in 1947. And early this century, a Nazi nurse's first-hand account of Hitler and Braun's last moments came to light. Wrote "The Independent": "After intense discussion with his personal physician, Hitler shot himself through his right temple while holding a cyanide capsule in his mouth. His recently wed wife ate another capsule next to him".

The Death of Nazism? Investigating Hitler’s Remains and Survival Rumours in Post-War Germany

Caroline Sharples
20 September 2017

“Becoming really dead”, argues Thomas Laqueur, “takes time”. 1 It has been more than 70 years since Adolf Hitler’s suicide in his Berlin Bunker, yet the passage of time has done little to diminish public fascination with the Nazi leader, nor stem speculation surrounding the circumstances of his demise. Indeed, some people have doubted whether Hitler died in Berlin at all; survival myths remain popular fodder for tabloid newspaper articles, sensationalist television documentaries, and best-selling books. 2 Fundamentally, the endurance of such legends is rooted in the chaos of the immeiate post-war era and the Allies’ failure to positively identify any human remains as those of the former Führer. In the absence of a body, what counts as irrefutable proof of death?

Potential forensic evidence, gathered by the Soviets, was released only gradually. It was not until 1968 that Lev Bezymenski was able to publish his account based upon the autopsy reports on the alleged remains of Hitler and Eva Braun . 4 Since the end of the Cold War, additional material from the former Soviet archives has revived scholarly interest in the case, spurring reassessments of the available medical evidence by the likes of Ada Petrova, Peter Watson, and Daniela Marchetti . 5 Yet, while there are now detailed—if varying—accounts of the mode of Hitler’s demise, there has been little attempt to explain the origins and persistence of survival myths, or to locate Hitler’s end within the broader context of a National Socialist fixation with the dead.

The death of Adolf Hitler was both a biological and social process.

The Nazi regime had been constructed around a cult of personality and the leader’s death became synonymous with Germany’s total defeat in the Second World War, a significant rupture marking the end of National Socialism itself. In reality, of course, the regime limped on for an additional eight days without Hitle , and supposed sightings of the former leader kept his memory very much alive in the public imagination. Hitler’s suicide, then, was hardly a “zero hour” for the nation, but an event that serves to demonstrate the complexity of post-conflict commemorative culture. 6

There were Allies’ efforts to sort fact from fiction, and at the same time, post-war power struggles to control the narrative of Hitler’s death contributed to the subsequent survival mythology, with Nazis and Allies both deliberately casting doubt on the timing and cause of death to further their own interests.

To understand initial German reactions to the loss of Hitler, they have to situate them within a longer history of Nazi rituals and martyrdom legends. 7 During the Third Reich, the Nazi regime routinely peddled the notion that fallen comrades were not truly dead, but continued to fight for Germany as part of an immortal, spiritual army. This was important, ideological glue for manufacturing the Volksgemeinschaft [People’s Community] and preparing the population for the necessary challenges ahead. The anniversary of the 1923 Munich Putsch, in which 16 Nazis had been killed, became one of the holiest days in the Nazi calendar. Speaking at the commemorations in 1942, for example, Hitler declared:

Truly these sixteen who fell have celebrated a resurrection unique in world history. From their sacrifice came Germany’s unity, the victory of a movement, of an idea and the devotion of the entire people…All the subsequent blood sacrifices were inspired by the sacrifice of these first men. Therefore we raise them out of the darkness of forgetfulness and make them the centre of attention of the German people forever. For us they are not dead. This temple is no crypt but an eternal watch. Here they stand for Germany, on guard for our people. Here they lie as true martyrs of our movement. 8

This existing emphasis on the eternal spirit of Nazism constituted a ready-made framework for casting doubt on Hitler’s own mortality. In addition, the German public had become somewhat accustomed to Hitler being able to extricate himself from perilous situations. Hitler had survived numerous assassination attempts during his time in power—most notably, Georg Elser’s bombing of the Bürgerbräukeller in Munich in November 1939 and the Operation Valkyrie attempt in the Wolf’s Lair in July 1944. Following the latter event, Hitler gave a radio speech in which he declared that his survival was proof that his work was blessed by Divine Providence. 9

Given this background, it is understandable that his eventual, ignoble end in a Berlin Bunker may have been viewed with disbelief.

Consequently, those who had died fighting for Nazism were now being subjected to a form of “social death”, stripped of their previously exalted status with their past achievements now rendered taboo in public discourse. 10 The fate of Hitler himself quickly became entangled with this denazification process. With his image banned after the war, and access to the former Reich Chancellery and Bunker controlled by the Allies, the German people had little outlet for mourning their fallen leader. This may have come as something as a culture shock after the sophisticated state funerals of the Third Reich. Unlike the posthumous history of other dictators, such as Stalin or Mussolini , there was no public memorial or display of Hitler’s body. Consequently, John Borneman argues that the population endured “an enforced silence about the scene of death and the whereabouts of the corpse”. 11 The extent of this “silence” can, of course, be called into question by the sheer number of rumours that emerged immediately over the timing, manner, or actuality, of Hitler’s death.

It was at 10.30pm on Tuesday, 1 May 1945, following three solemn drum rolls, that Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz took to the airwaves of North German radio to make a crucial announcement: “German men and women, soldiers of the armed forces: our Führer, Adolf Hitler , has fallen. In the deepest sorrow and respect, the German people bow”. 12 Reflecting on the manner of Hitler’s death, Dönitz added:

At an early date, he had recognised the frightful danger of Bolshevism and dedicated his existence to this struggle. At the end of his struggle, of his unswerving straight road of life, stands his hero’s death in the capital of the German Reich. His life has been one single service for Germany. 13

Further reports within the German press the following day elaborated on the glorious nature of the Führer’s last stand—and applied a similar rhetoric of immortality to that previously assigned to those killed in the Munich Putsch. "The Hamburger Zeitung", for example, insisted:

We know that he must have perished while fighting bitterly in the Reich Chancellery. We know that the enemy will be able to find a body in the ruins caused by countless artillery shells and countless flame throwers, and that they may say that it is the Führer’s body, but we will not believe it…What is mortal of him has perished, has passed away but he has fulfilled his most beautiful oath [to give his life to his people]…He began by fighting for his people, and he ended that way. A life of battle. 14

Similarly, a message broadcast to troops stationed in the Netherlands proclaimed: Adolf Hitler, you are not dead, you live on within us. The ideals which you gave us cannot be extinguished Beneath the ruins of a devastated Berlin, you remain the fountain of all Germans. 15

In terms of the final pieces of Nazi propaganda, then, the cult of the Führer remained very much alive. His memory and, in particular, the seemingly dramatic nature of his demise—courageously resisting the Soviet advance into Berlin—served as a last-ditch appeal to the German people to keep on fighting. These descriptions of Hitler’s final moments, though, were designed to obscure the truth. The consensus of scholarly opinion and witness testimony suggests that, on 30 April 1945, Hitler chose to kill himself rather than end up in the hands of the advancing Russians. In his last hours, he married his long-term companion, Eva Braun , dictated his will and political testament, and administered cyanide to his beloved Alsatian dog, Blondi, to determine the effectiveness of the poison. 16 Having heard about the public desecration of Mussolini’s corpse on 28 April, he made preparations to ensure that no similar humiliation would be extended to his remains. Petrol was ordered and his staff members were instructed to incinerate his body when the time came. Indeed, Hitler’s own precautions would prompt much of the post-war debate and confusion about his fate.

Almost immediately, the veracity of Dönitz’s account was called into doubt by the Allies, and even some high-ranking Nazis. The day after Dönitz' radio address, the Russian newspaper, "Pravda", proclaimed the whole story to be a “fascist trick to cover Hitler’s disappearance from the scene”. 17 Observers in Britain and the United States, while noting that a death fighting against the “Bolshevik hordes” would have been “quite in character” for Hitler, quickly moved to undermine what was left of the German war effort by issuing statements challenging Dönitz' account of Hitler meeting a “hero’s death” in Berlin. 18 To support their claims [and to try and avoid their comments being dismissed as enemy propaganda], the western Allies seized upon an account of Hitler’s failing health promulgated by the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler , more than a month earlier. According to notes of a conversation between Himmler and the Swedish diplomat Count Folke Bernadotte on 24 March 1945, Hitler was “finished”. Himmler claimed that the Führer was suffering from a brain haemorrhage and would be dead in a couple of days, if he wasn’t already—a sentiment that immediately cast doubt on the precise timing of Hitler’s demise. 19

For the Allies, disseminating Himmler’s version of events could sow the seeds of discord among the remnants of the Nazi leadership and shatter any remaining illusions that the general population still harboured about their “courageous” leader, preventing the formation of martyrdom myths. A Foreign Office memorandum noted that “there is every indication that German propaganda will play up the manner of Hitler’s death with a view to establishing the Hitler legend. We must do all in our power to play it down”. 20 Himmler’s account was privately regarded as a “good weapon” to encourage the Wehrmacht, now released from their oath of loyalty, to surrender and prompt the fall of more German cities. A public statement issued by General Eisenhower dismissed Dönitz' statement as an effort “to drive a wedge between the British and Americans on one side and the Russians on the other”. 21

For Himmler , meanwhile, the original assertion in March 1945 that Hitler was in no fit state to rule served to strengthen his own negotiating hand for surrender, enabling him to present himself as the provisional leader of the country. Himmler was conspicuously absent from the public discussion of Hitler’s death on 1 and 2 May, suggesting the continuance of a power struggle between himself and Dönitz . By advancing competing accounts of Hitler’s health, the pair cast doubts on the closeness of one another’s relationship with the Führer, and their right to rule in his stead. 22 At the same time, with one eye undoubtedly on the future, even Dönitz was rather muted in his eulogy, dedicating just six sentences of his radio broadcast to dealing with Hitler’s death. Having been named as Hitler’s successor, Dönitz then used the remainder of his radio broadcast to try and rally popular support behind him. Observers within the British Foreign Office similarly noted an absence of “fanatical party statements” in remembrance of their leader. Given the dire military situation, this relatively restrained response from Hitler’s fellow Nazis may be seen as an attempt to dissociate themselves from the failing regime, and an effort to strengthen their own position with the advancing Allies. Different parties, then, were able to appropriate Hitler’s death to further their own political cause.

Publishing Himmler’s comments in early May 1945 sparked a longstanding fascination with Hitler’s medical history, including the lingering physical effects of the attempt on his life in July 1944, and the psychological strain of living in the Berlin Bunker during the final phases of the war. In the immediate aftermath of the war, the Allies initiated a search for any surviving medical records, and interrogated anyone who had treated Hitler in the past, knowing that such evidence could play a vital role in identifying any human remains. How and where Hitler died consequently became the subject of great speculation: was it inside or outside of the Führer bunker? Was it the result of a stroke or nervous collapse, cyanide capsule, lethal injection or gun? Could Hitler have taken cyanide and still have time to shoot himself in the temple? Had death occurred at Hitler’s own hand, or was it the result of his doctor’s intervention? Timing too, became a crucial issue. British military intelligence took great pains to reconstruct Hitler’s movements in the final days and hours leading up to his death. But had death occurred even earlier than 30 April 1945? In June, the Allies received what they acknowledged to be a “very odd” communication from an Austrian builder to the effect that Hitler had actually been shot by an army general in March 1944, that the infamous July bomb plot later that year had been contrived by Nazi propagandists and that his corpse actually lay in a secret crypt below Obersalzburg, Hitler’s mountain retreat in Berchtesgaden. 23 American investigators in Bavaria, however, could find no evidence to support this claim.

Had Hitler died at all? Amidst the Dönitz -Himmler debate in early May 1945, the "Daily Telegraph" published the testimony of Major Erwin Giesing, Hitler’s personal physician, who refuted claims that the Nazi leader had been in ill health. In conclusion, the newspaper declared there was “some doubt” about the cause of Hitler’s death, adding, “if he is dead”. 24 By 15 May 1945, Winston Churchill had similarly admitted to the House of Commons that he was unable to confirm “beyond doubt” whether Hitler was dead. 25 The Chief of the US Secret Service, Brian Conrad , conceded that “the only decisive evidence … would be the discovery and positive identification of the corpse”. He added, “if such evidence is unavailable, all that remains are the detailed accounts of certain witnesses who either knew of his intentions or were eyewitnesses to his fate”. 26

In terms of the former, the Allies soon appeared to have found what they were looking for. On 2 May—one day after Dönitz’s radio address—Soviet forces occupied the former Führer Bunker in Berlin and quickly discovered the remains of Propaganda Minister Josef Göbbels , his wife Magda , and their six children. At the time, two Soviet officers, Lozovski and Litvinov , expressed some scepticism about the chances of finding Hitler’s body too, believing that he had “gone to earth” along with Göring and Himmler . 27 On 5 May, however, the badly-burned corpses of a man and a woman were found in a bomb crater within the garden of the former Reich Chancellery, prompting speculation that they were that of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun . Subsequent examination by Soviet forensic pathologists confirmed the presence of glass splinters in their mouths, consistent with biting into a cyanide capsule. 28 The male corpse was “heavily charred” and missing part of its cranium, but estimated to be “somewhere between 50 and 60 years” old; Hitler turned 56 in 1945. The other key point of interest for investigators concerned the male corpse’s teeth, described as having “much bridgework, artificial teeth, crowns and filings”. 29 Hitler’s former dentist, Dr Hugo Blaschke had already managed to flee Berlin but, under Soviet interrogation, two of his former staff members, Käthe Heusemann and Fritz Echtmann , were able to describe and sketch Hitler’s distinctive dental work from memory. On 9 May, they were invited to examine the physical remains retrieved from the bomb crater and concluded that they did, indeed, belong to the Nazi leader. Accordingly, on 31 May, KGB officer Ivan Serov informed Stalin and Molotov that “there is no doubt that the supposed corpse of Hitler is really his”. 30

While the official Soviet records were not released at this time, news of the discovered corpses was relayed in the media. 31 In June 1945, "The Times" also published a detailed account by Hermann Karnau, a former guard, who confirmed that he had seen the bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun lying in the grounds of the Reich Chancellery: “both bodies were on fire, but were clearly recognisable”. 32 Yet this was not to be the end of the matter as the Soviets spent the rest of the summer of 1945 suddenly casting doubt on their own findings. On 10 June, Marshal Zhukov of the Red Army told a press conference: “The situation is very mysterious … We have failed to discover a body confirmed as Hitler’s. I cannot say anything definite about Hitler’s fate”. 33

Rumours now spread that the charred remains previously seized upon by investigators had belonged to a body double and that Hitler had managed to flee the ravaged capital after all. On 5 July, a Daily Telegraph correspondent visiting the scene agreed that the previous narrative of suicide and cremation seemed doubtful:
The account of Hitler’s death in the shelter and the burning of the body, as told by the German policeman Kernau [sic] at 21st Army Group HQ recently, fits in perfectly with the evidence on view here. There are even five petrol cans, all marked with the SS sign…Corroboration is so overwhelming as to be almost suspicious. 34

Why did the Soviets refute the dental evidence? The consensus among historians, including Russian scholars Vinogradov , Pogonyi and Teptzov , and the British academic Roger Moorhouse , is that this was a typical, cynical move by Stalin . In part, it reflected his own paranoia and mistrust of the forensic evidence being set before him; but it also became another way of exercising a degree of power over the other members of the wartime alliance. In July 1945, The Times repeated the claim that the jawbone found on the grounds of the Reich Chancellery had been positively identified as that of Adolf Hitler, but acknowledged that:

Whatever pronouncement is made, it is certain that many people in Germany, especially here in Berlin, will go on believing in the legend of his escape under cover of one of the doubles he is supposed to have employed. It seems strange that of all the people of authority round Hitler, none has been found to give an account of what happened, and the circumstantial evidence accumulated from lesser fry could well be an attempt to cover Hitler’s trail. 35

The Daily Herald concurred, noting, “no one with whom I have talked in Berlin believes that Hitler is dead. They all think he ‘got away’”. 36

The search for firm proof of death thus continued, although it was hampered by missing witnesses and mutual suspicion between the Allies. A memorandum produced by the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force at the end of July 1945 bemoaned the fact that “it is impossible to give any authoritative account of Hitler’s last days since evidence is still accumulating. That which is already available is sometimes contradictory and incomplete and depends often on hearsay and conjecture. Much of the evidence, too, is in Russian hands”. 37 The Americans, having captured Dr Blaschke themselves, proceeded to interrogate him about Hitler’s dental history. Like Heusemann and Echtmann before him, Blaschke was able to recreate detailed descriptions and diagrams of the treatment he had performed on the Nazi leader—yet Allied investigators were hampered by the fact they had no post-mortem evidence to compare this to; Hitler’s alleged jawbone and teeth were now archived in Moscow and the Soviets showed no signs of being willing to share this evidence.

To circumvent the lack of medical proof, the British and the Americans launched an extensive and time-consuming hunt for as many potential bunker eyewitnesses as possible. By the end of the process, Hugh Trevor-Roper was able to piece together accounts from secretaries Elsa Krüger and Traudl Junge who independently reported that Hitler had shot himself; Hitler Youth leader Artur Axmann who inspected the bodies and confirmed a bullet wound to Hitler’s right temple; guard Erich Mansfeld who witnessed the removal of a body wrapped in a blanket; tailor Willi Otto Müller who saw five men carrying petrol on the evening of 30 April 1945; and the aforementioned Karnau who recognised the bodies as they were set on fire. The evidence, he noted, is not complete, but it is positive, circumstantial, consistent and independent…It is considered quite impossible that the versions of the various eyewitnesses can represent a concerted cover story; they were all too busy planning their own safety to have been able or disposed to learn an elaborate charade which they could still maintain after five months of isolation from other and under detailed and persistent cross-examination. 38

Soviet investigators, meanwhile, spent the spring of 1946 re-visiting the purported scene of Hitler’s death. Samples were taken from the bloodstained sofa in Hitler’s living quarters while further examination of the bomb crater unearthed what was immediately considered to be the missing fragment of Hitler’s skull, complete with apparent bullet hole. Once again, though, there was a refusal to make any definitive public statement on Hitler’s death and, in the absence of any forensic proof of death, the Allies continued to be inundated with stories that Hitler and Eva Braun had escaped the bunker altogether. Letters were received from all over Germany, describing supposed sightings of the former leader, or promising to divulge important “facts” about his fate. Some accounts had them fleeing by plane to Denmark and thence to Argentina by submarine. 39 Others had them relocating to Munich, Hanover, or Hamburg, living under assumed names and the effects of plastic surgery. In September 1945, for example, the Hamburg story gained particular momentum through a series of sensational articles in the international media. Dr Karl Maron, Deputy Bürgermeister in East Berlin, inflamed matters by stating that he was “firmly convinced” that Hitler was still alive, and sea patrols began a search for the mahogany yacht believed to have conveyed the couple to safety. The British, who occupied this part of the country, were compelled to investigate these allegations, if only to be able to discredit them. A handwritten memo in the Foreign Office archives reveals the private sense that it was all “sheer poppycock”. One commentator noted succinctly that the so-called “plastic operation” that had “changed Hitler’s appearance” was probably carried out with a service revolver in the Führer Bunker. 40

The fact that such speculation existed owes much to the secrecy and contradictory messages disseminated by the Soviets about the forensic evidence in the summer of 1945. However, it can also be traced back to the sheer chaos in Germany during the final days of the Second World War. With the lines of communication broken, no clear political leadership, and the increasing threat posed by the advancing Red Army, everything had been in disarray, enabling rumours to spread like wildfire. Even Dönitz’s official announcement of Hitler’s death was experienced differently in different parts of the country. In the north, where Dönitz was trying to establish his provisional capital, the radio station had prefaced the broadcast with three warnings that “grave and important” news was about to be revealed, together with the playing of sombre music. It then held a three-minute silence in honour of the deceased. Consequently, the broadcast was rendered an event on North German radio. Listeners in the south, however, missed all of this. As the country teetered on the edge of collapse, many radio stations and other parts of the Nazi propaganda machinery had already fallen into Allied hands, reducing the Party’s ability to disseminate a clear, uniform message. It was an hour and a half later that southern stations finally issued the news that Hitler was dead. Their audiences had not been prepared for this announcement as well as their northern counterparts; indeed, relatively light and cheerful music had been played up until midnight. 41 The timing of Hitler’s death thus became fluid in the public imagination. The lack of a “proper” send-off on some radio stations may also have made it easier for people to doubt the accuracy of the reports.

What purpose did the survival stories serve, though? In part, documenting supposed sightings of Hitler may have simply been a form of attention-seeking, or even a deliberate attempt to stir up confusion between the Allies. It might also be argued that the rumour-mongers, having been denied any opportunity to mourn their leader, view his body, visit his final resting place or disseminate his image, were rebelling against the Allied “containment” of Hitler’s death. Supposed sightings of Hitler and Braun enabled people to question the veracity of Allied pronouncements and imagine their own conclusion to the regime, regaining some element of control over the narrative. Alternatively, the very fact that people were volunteering “information” on Hitler’s whereabouts to the authorities may be indicative of a desire to wreak revenge on the man held responsible for their current state of affairs, a hope that Hitler might yet be discovered and brought to justice for the damage he had inflicted upon the country. However, as Allied investigations focused on following potential leads to Hitler, rather than the characters of those making the sightings or spreading the rumours, we do not have the sufficient data to fully understand the motivations of these individuals.

That survival stories continue to emerge in the twenty-first century owes much to an enduring popular fascination with the Third Reich and the knowledge that other Nazis, such as Adolf Eichmann, did indeed manage to escape to far-flung locations after the war.

More significant, though, is the fact that there remains some reasonable doubt about the thoroughness of the Soviet autopsies and the identification of the few body parts that have been retained since the exhumation of the Reich Chancellery gardens.

In 2000, the skull fragment that had been retrieved in 1946 was “rediscovered” in the Russian archives and placed on public display in Moscow, generating a whole new wave of interest in the circumstances surrounding Hitler’s death. In 2009, however, DNA analysis conducted by researchers at the University of Connecticut revealed that the fragment actually belonged to a woman under the age of 40, a result that immediately stirred up new conspiracy theories that rejected the narrative of Hitler’s suicide in the bunker. 42

The controversy surrounding the death of Adolf Hitler, then, shows no sign of abating. For the Allies operating immediately after the war, the aim was simple: find conclusive proof of the Nazi leader’s death so that Nazism itself could be rendered truly dead. The western Allies, in particular, were all too aware that a lack of evidence could foster martyrdom myths, or fuel belief in Hitler’s continued existence, thereby encouraging people to cling to the tenets of his ideology and fight on. A definitive end to the matter was considered not just desirable, but also achievable. An American cartoon published on 2 May 1945, the day after Dönitz’s official announcement of the Führer’s death, depicted a Swastika draped body being removed from the ravaged Berlin landscape and asked whether this constituted “the end of the road”. 43 Similar, if fleeting, optimism was expressed amid the initial confirmation that the charred remains discovered by the Soviets matched the available dental evidence for Hitler and, in 1956, there was renewed hope for closure when the district court in Berchtesgaden formally declared Hitler deceased and placed the death certificate on public display. 44 Hitler’s “death” has thus occurred at multiple junctures. It is the failure, however, to unite legal, forensic and anecdotal proof of his demise that has enabled alternative versions of Hitler’s fate to endure and keep him very much alive in the public imagination for all this time

“Becoming really dead”, argues Thomas Laqueur, “takes time”. 1 It has been more than 70 years since Adolf Hitler’s suicide in his Berlin bunker, yet the passage of time has done little to diminish public fascination with the Nazi leader, nor stem speculation surrounding the circumstances of his demise. Indeed, some people have doubted whether Hitler died in Berlin at all; survival myths remain popular fodder for tabloid newspaper articles, sensationalist television documentaries, and best-selling books. 2 Fundamentally, the endurance of such legends is rooted in the chaos of the immediate post-war era and the Allies’ failure to positively identify any human remains as those of the former Führer. In the absence of a body, what counts as irrefutable proof of death?

In 1945, the western Allies’ answer was to establish a clear timeline of the events leading up to the suicide , piecing together witness testimonies from Hitler’s staff and poring over key documents, such as his last will and testament. The first history on this topic, produced by Hugh Trevor-Roper in 1947, reflected this approach, using information collected during the author’s service with British Military Intelligence. 3 Potential forensic evidence, gathered by the Soviets, was released only gradually. It was not until 1968 that Lev Bezymenski was able to publish his account based upon the autopsy reports on the alleged remains of Hitler and Eva Braun . 4 Since the end of the Cold War, additional material from the former Soviet archives has revived scholarly interest in the case, spurring reassessments of the available medical evidence by the likes of Ada Petrova , Peter Watson , and Daniela Marchetti . 5 Yet, while there are now detailed—if varying—accounts of the mode of Hitler’s demise, there has been little attempt to explain the origins and persistence of survival myths, or to locate Hitler’s end within the broader context of a National Socialist fixation with the dead.

The death of Adolf Hitler was both a biological and social process.

The Nazi regime had been constructed around a cult of personality and the leader’s death became synonymous with Germany’s total defeat in the Second World War, a significant rupture marking the end of National Socialism itself. In reality, of course, the regime limped on for an additional eight days without Hitler , and supposed sightings of the former leader kept his memory very much alive in the public imagination. Hitler’s suicide , then, was hardly a “zero hour” for the nation, but an event that serves to demonstrate the complexity of post-conflict commemorative culture. 6 Drawing upon British Foreign Office and Military Intelligence records, this chapter traces the Allies’ efforts to sort the fact from fiction. At the same time, it also reveals how post-war power struggles to control the narrative of Hitler’s death contributed to the subsequent survival mythology, with Nazis and Allies both deliberately casting doubt on the timing and cause of death to further their own interests.

To understand initial German reactions to the loss of Hitler , we have to situate them within a longer history of Nazi rituals and martyrdom legends. 7 During the Third Reich, the Nazi regime routinely peddled the notion that fallen comrades were not truly dead, but continued to fight for Germany as part of an immortal, spiritual army. This was important, ideological glue for manufacturing the Volksgemeinschaft (People’s Community) and preparing the population for the necessary challenges ahead. The anniversary of the 1923 Munich Putsch, in which 16 Nazis had been killed, became one of the holiest days in the Nazi calendar. Speaking at the commemorations in 1942, for example, Hitler declared:

"Truly these sixteen who fell have celebrated a resurrection unique in world history… From their sacrifice came Germany’s unity, the victory of a movement, of an idea and the devotion of the entire people…All the subsequent blood sacrifices were inspired by the sacrifice of these first men. Therefore we raise them out of the darkness of forgetfulness and make them the centre of attention of the German people forever. For us they are not dead. This temple is no crypt but an eternal watch. Here they stand for Germany, on guard for our people. Here they lie as true martyrs of our movement". 8

This existing emphasis on the eternal spirit of Nazism constituted a ready-made framework for casting doubt on Hitler’s own mortality. In addition, the German public had become somewhat accustomed to Hitler being able to extricate himself from perilous situations. Hitler had survived numerous assassination attempts during his time in power—most notably, Georg Elser’s bombing of the Bürgerbräukeller in Munich in November 1939 and the Operation Valkyrie attempt in the Wolf’s Lair in July 1944. Following the latter event, Hitler gave a radio speech in which he declared that his survival was proof that his work was blessed by Divine Providence. 9 Given this background, it is understandable that his eventual, ignoble end in a Berlin bunker may have been viewed with disbelief.

One of the key challenges facing the Allies in 1945, then, was to dismantle some of these prevailing mythologies. A thorough denazification programme was intended to cleanse Germany of every last vestige of National Socialism, including the removal of Nazi symbols from the landscape. The elaborate memorials that had been constructed in honour of the “old fighters” killed in Munich were removed and the iron sarcophagi that had housed their mortal remains were recycled for use in repairing regional railway lines. “Ordinary” cemeteries were also affected by the political transition away from fascism: gravestones were purged of swastikas and other Nazi imagery or, in some cases, destroyed altogether. The Allies’ central aim was to prevent the formation of pilgrimage sites that could be used to sustain National Socialist ideology. Consequently, those who had died fighting for Nazism were now being subjected to a form of “social death”, stripped of their previously exalted status with their past achievements now rendered taboo in public discourse. 10 The fate of Hitler himself quickly became entangled with this denazification process. With his image banned after the war, and access to the former Reich Chancellery and bunker controlled by the Allies, the German people had little outlet for mourning their fallen leader. This may have come as something as a culture shock after the sophisticated state funerals of the Third Reich. Unlike the posthumous history of other dictators, such as Stalin or Mussolini , there was no public memorial or display of Hitler’s body. Consequently, John Borneman argues that the population endured “an enforced silence about the scene of death and the whereabouts of the corpse”. 11 The extent of this “silence” can, of course, be called into question by the sheer number of rumours that emerged immediately over the timing, manner, or actuality, of Hitler’s death.

It was at 10.30pm on Tuesday, 1 May 1945, following three solemn drum rolls, that Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz took to the airwaves of North German radio to make a crucial announcement: “German men and women, soldiers of the armed forces: our Führer, Adolf Hitler , has fallen. In the deepest sorrow and respect, the German people bow”. 12 Reflecting on the manner of Hitler’s death, Dönitz added:

"At an early date, he had recognised the frightful danger of Bolshevism and dedicated his existence to this struggle. At the end of his struggle, of his unswerving straight road of life, stands his hero’s death in the capital of the German Reich. His life has been one single service for Germany". 13

Further reports within the German press the following day elaborated on the glorious nature of the Führer’s last stand—and applied a similar rhetoric of immortality to that previously assigned to those killed in the Munich Putsch. The "Hamburger Zeitung", for example, insisted:

"We know that he must have perished while fighting bitterly in the Reich Chancellery. We know that the enemy will be able to find a body in the ruins caused by countless artillery shells and countless flame throwers, and that they may say that it is the Führer’s body, but we will not believe it…What is mortal of him has perished, has passed away but he has fulfilled his most beautiful oath [to give his life to his people]…He began by fighting for his people, and he ended that way. A life of battle". 14

Similarly, a message broadcast to troops stationed in the Netherlands proclaimed: Adolf Hitler, you are not dead, you live on within us. The ideals which you gave us cannot be extinguished … Beneath the ruins of a devastated Berlin, you remain the fountain of all Germans. 15

Almost immediately, the veracity of Dönitz’s account was called into doubt by the Allies, and even some high-ranking Nazis.

The day after Dönitz’s radio address, the Russian newspaper, "Pravda," proclaimed the whole story to be a “fascist trick to cover Hitler’s disappearance from the scene”. 17 Observers in Britain and the United States, while noting that a death fighting against the “Bolshevik hordes” would have been “quite in character” for Hitler, quickly moved to undermine what was left of the German war effort by issuing statements challenging Dönitz’s account of Hitler meeting a “hero’s death” in Berlin. 18 To support their claims (and to try and avoid their comments being dismissed as enemy propaganda), the western Allies seized upon an account of Hitler’s failing health promulgated by the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler , more than a month earlier. According to notes of a conversation between Himmler and the Swedish diplomat Count Folke Bernadotte on 24 March 1945, Hitler was “finished”. Himmler claimed that the Führer was suffering from a brain haemorrhage and would be dead in a couple of days, if he wasn’t already—a sentiment that immediately cast doubt on the precise timing of Hitler’s demise. 19

For the Allies, disseminating Himmler’s version of events could sow the seeds of discord among the remnants of the Nazi leadership and shatter any remaining illusions that the general population still harboured about their “courageous” leader, preventing the formation of martyrdom myths. A Foreign Office memorandum noted that “there is every indication that German propaganda will play up the manner of Hitler’s death with a view to establishing the Hitler legend. We must do all in our power to play it down”. 20 Himmler’s account was privately regarded as a “good weapon” to encourage the Wehrmacht, now released from their oath of loyalty, to surrender and prompt the fall of more German cities. A public statement issued by General Eisenhower dismissed Dönitz’s statement as an effort “to drive a wedge between the British and Americans on one side and the Russians on the other”. 21

But had death occurred even earlier than 30 April 1945?

In June, the Allies received what they acknowledged to be a “very odd” communication from an Austrian builder to the effect that Hitler had actually been shot by an army general in March 1944, that the infamous July bomb plot later that year had been contrived by Nazi propagandists and that his corpse actually lay in a secret crypt below Obersalzburg, Hitler’s mountain retreat in Berchtesgaden. 23 American investigators in Bavaria, however, could find no evidence to support this claim.

Had Hitler died at all?

Amidst the Dönitz -Himmler debate in early May 1945, the Daily Telegraph published the testimony of Major Erwin Giesing , Hitler’s personal physician, who refuted claims that the Nazi leader had been in ill health. In conclusion, the newspaper declared there was “some doubt” about the cause of Hitler’s death, adding, “if he is dead”. 24 By 15 May 1945, Winston Churchill had similarly admitted to the House of Commons that he was unable to confirm “beyond doubt” whether Hitler was dead. 25 The Chief of the US Secret Service, Brian Conrad , conceded that “the only decisive evidence … would be the discovery and positive identification of the corpse”. He added, “if such evidence is unavailable, all that remains are the detailed accounts of certain witnesses who either knew of his intentions or were eyewitnesses to his fate”. 26

In terms of the former, the Allies soon appeared to have found what they were looking for. On 2 May—one day after Dönitz’s radio address—Soviet forces occupied the former Führer bunker in Berlin and quickly discovered the remains of Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels , his wife Magda , and their six children. At the time, two Soviet officers, Lozovski and Litvinov , expressed some scepticism about the chances of finding Hitler’s body too, believing that he had “gone to earth” along with Göring and Himmler . 27

On 5 May, however, the badly-burned corpses of a man and a woman were found in a bomb crater within the garden of the former Reich Chancellery, prompting speculation that they were that of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun . Subsequent examination by Soviet forensic pathologists confirmed the presence of glass splinters in their mouths, consistent with biting into a cyanide capsule. 28 The male corpse was “heavily charred” and missing part of its cranium, but estimated to be “somewhere between 50 and 60 years” old; Hitler turned 56 in 1945. The other key point of interest for investigators concerned the male corpse’s teeth, described as having “much bridgework, artificial teeth, crowns and filings”. 29 Hitler’s former dentist, Dr Hugo Blaschke had already managed to flee Berlin but, under Soviet interrogation, two of his former staff members, Käthe Heusemann and Fritz Echtmann , were able to describe and sketch Hitler’s distinctive dental work from memory. On 9 May, they were invited to examine the physical remains retrieved from the bomb crater and concluded that they did, indeed, belong to the Nazi leader. Accordingly, on 31 May, KGB officer Ivan Serov informed Stalin and Molotov that “there is no doubt that the supposed corpse of Hitler is really his”. 30

While the official Soviet records were not released at this time, news of the discovered corpses was relayed in the media. 31 In June 1945, The Times also published a detailed account by Hermann Karnau , a former guard, who confirmed that he had seen the bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun lying in the grounds of the Reich Chancellery: “both bodies were on fire, but were clearly recognisable”. 32 Yet this was not to be the end of the matter as the Soviets spent the rest of the summer of 1945 suddenly casting doubt on their own findings. On 10 June, Marshal Zhukov of the Red Army told a press conference: “The situation is very mysterious … We have failed to discover a body confirmed as Hitler’s. I cannot say anything definite about Hitler’s fate”. 33

Why did the Soviets refute the dental evidence? The consensus among historians, including Russian scholars Vinogradov , Pogonyi and Teptzov , and the British academic Roger Moorhouse , is that this was a typical, cynical move by Stalin . In part, it reflected his own paranoia and mistrust of the forensic evidence being set before him; but it also became another way of exercising a degree of power over the other members of the wartime alliance. In July 1945, "The Times" repeated the claim that the jawbone found on the grounds of the Reich Chancellery had been positively identified as that of Adolf Hitler, but acknowledged that:

"Whatever pronouncement is made, it is certain that many people in Germany, especially here in Berlin, will go on believing in the legend of his escape under cover of one of the doubles he is supposed to have employed. It seems strange that of all the people of authority round Hitler, none has been found to give an account of what happened, and the circumstantial evidence accumulated from lesser fry could well be an attempt to cover Hitler’s trail". 35

The "Daily Herald" concurred, noting, “no one with whom I have talked in Berlin believes that Hitler is dead. They all think he ‘got away’”. 36

To circumvent the lack of medical proof, the British and the Americans launched an extensive and time-consuming hunt for as many potential bunker eyewitnesses as possible. By the end of the process, Hugh Trevor-Roper was able to piece together accounts from secretaries Elsa Krüger and Traudl Junge who independently reported that Hitler had shot himself; Hitler Youth leader Artur Axmann who inspected the bodies and confirmed a bullet wound to Hitler’s right temple; guard Erich Mansfeld who witnessed the removal of a body wrapped in a blanket; tailor Willi Otto Müller who saw five men carrying petrol on the evening of 30 April 1945; and the aforementioned Karnau who recognised the bodies as they were set on fire.

The evidence, he noted, is not complete, but it is positive, circumstantial, consistent and independent…It is considered quite impossible that the versions of the various eyewitnesses can represent a concerted cover story; they were all too busy planning their own safety to have been able or disposed to learn an elaborate charade which they could still maintain after five months of isolation from other and under detailed and persistent cross-examination. 38

In September 1945, for example, the Hamburg story gained particular momentum through a series of sensational articles in the international media. Dr Karl Maron, Deputy Bürgermeister in East Berlin, inflamed matters by stating that he was “firmly convinced” that Hitler was still alive, and sea patrols began a search for the mahogany yacht believed to have conveyed the couple to safety. The British, who occupied this part of the country, were compelled to investigate these allegations, if only to be able to discredit them. A handwritten memo in the Foreign Office archives reveals the private sense that it was all “sheer poppycock”. One commentator noted succinctly that the so-called “plastic operation” that had “changed Hitler’s appearance” was probably carried out with a service revolver in the Führer bunker. 40

Even Dönitz’s official announcement of Hitler’s death was experienced differently in different parts of the country. In the north, where Dönitz was trying to establish his provisional capital, the radio station had prefaced the broadcast with three warnings that “grave and important” news was about to be revealed, together with the playing of sombre music. It then held a three-minute silence in honour of the deceased. Consequently, the broadcast was rendered an event on North German radio. Listeners in the south, however, missed all of this. As the country teetered on the edge of collapse, many radio stations and other parts of the Nazi propaganda machinery had already fallen into Allied hands, reducing the Party’s ability to disseminate a clear, uniform message. It was an hour and a half later that southern stations finally issued the news that Hitler was dead. Their audiences had not been prepared for this announcement as well as their northern counterparts; indeed, relatively light and cheerful music had been played up until midnight. 41 The timing of Hitler’s death thus became fluid in the public imagination. The lack of a “proper” send-off on some radio stations may also have made it easier for people to doubt the accuracy of the reports.

That survival stories continue to emerge in the twenty-first century owes much to an enduring popular fascination with the Third Reich and the knowledge that other Nazis, such as Adolf Eichmann , did indeed manage to escape to far-flung locations after the war. More significant, though, is the fact that there remains some reasonable doubt about the thoroughness of the Soviet autopsies and the identification of the few body parts that have been retained since the exhumation of the Reich Chancellery gardens. In 2000, the skull fragment that had been retrieved in 1946 was “rediscovered” in the Russian archives and placed on public display in Moscow, generating a whole new wave of interest in the circumstances surrounding Hitler’s death. In 2009, however, DNA analysis conducted by researchers at the University of Connecticut revealed that the fragment actually belonged to a woman under the age of 40, a result that immediately stirred up new conspiracy theories that rejected the narrative of Hitler’s suicide in the bunker. 42

An American cartoon published on 2 May 1945, the day after Dönitz' official announcement of the Führer’s death, depicted a Swastika draped body being removed from the ravaged Berlin landscape and asked whether this constituted “the end of the road”. 43 Similar, if fleeting, optimism was expressed amid the initial confirmation that the charred remains discovered by the Soviets matched the available dental evidence for Hitler and, in 1956, there was renewed hope for closure when the district court in Berchtesgaden formally declared Hitler deceased and placed the death certificate on public display. 44 Hitler’s “death” has thus occurred at multiple junctures. It is the failure, however, to unite legal, forensic and anecdotal proof of his demise that has enabled alternative versions of Hitler’s fate to endure and keep him very much alive in the public imagination for all this time.

What If Hitler Escaped?

Most likely, Hitler'se escape to South America never happened.

But suppose for a moment it were true.

Say Hitler managed to live in hiding to age 75, which would have been 1964, with the world none the wiser.

He would have seen his Nazi party forbidden in Germany, its symbols outlawed and “Mein Kampf” banned.

Hitler would have seen how quickly most Germans turned their back on his movement and his Reich as the Allies’ comprehensive “denazification” program took hold.

At the start of 1945, Nazis still ruled Germany, and everyone of any importance was a party member. A year later, there was nary an open Nazi to be found.

Hitler would have lived to see his adopted country divided between a Soviet-dominated, communist east and a free, democratic and prosperous west, with consequences lasting far beyond those he would live to observe.

He would have seen Berlin physically divided by a wall in 1961, and U.S. troops based in in the western half of his adopted homeland to defend it against any threat from the Soviet Union, which had thwarted and ultimately reversed Hitler’s eastward expansion.

He would have seen his own name and likeness become the very embodiment of evil in popular culture. He would see himself depicted as a monster in countless films, books and broadcasts. The vehemence with which he was globally despised would continue to grow with the discoveries of the magnitude of the Holocaust, despite the wartime cover-up efforts by the Nazi regime. Even his given name, once so common in German-speaking countries as to be completely unremarkable, practically vanished by the early 1950s.

Hitler would have watched from afar as a Jewish state was proclaimed in Palestine. In 1960 he would have seen its agents kidnap his accomplice Adolf Eichmann from Argentina, where he had assumed a false identity, and bring him to Jerusalem to stand trial for his crimes the following year. Eichmann was hanged in 1962. Whatever sycophants surrounded Hitler in his hiding place would have already long since known that their Führer looked after himself, as he would have presumably done while 22 of his chief supporters faced justice in Nuremburg.

A peaceful death in exile would not have been a fitting end. For that, Hitler would need to have been brought to account for his horrific crimes. But an escape to South America to watch all of this as a powerless observer would not have been a comfortable or satisfying end, either.

Hitler probably did not escape. But if he had, it might not be so much worse than the alternative. The man who once saw himself as the savior of his people might have lived long enough to know that he failed, and that his country and the world considered themselves far better off without him.

Notes

1. Thomas W. Laqueur, “The Deep Time of the Dead”, Social Research, 78 [2011], p. 802.
2. For the most recent of these see Simon Dunstan and Gerrard Williams, Grey Wolf: The Escape of Adolf Hitler [New York, 2011]; Paul Nelson dir., Conspiracy [2015]; “Hola Hitler! Ex CIA Agent Claims Nazis Leader Faked His Death and Flew to Tenerife before Escaping to Argentina on a U-Boat”, Daily Mail, 8 January 2016. The most recent claim—that Hitler fled to Tenerife—was printed across other British tabloids, including The Sun, Daily Mirror and Daily Express. The popular German press also has a tendency to relay such stories, but they usually stress their origins in the foreign media. See, for example, “Hitler Konnte Fliehen—Sollen FBI-Akten Beweisen”, Die Welt, 7 October 2015; “Hat Hitler den Krieg Überlebt?”, Bild, 7 October 2015.
3. Hugh Trevor-Roper, The Last Days of Hitler [London, 1947].
4. Lev Bezymenski, The Death of Adolf Hitler: Unknown Documents from Soviet Archives [London, 1968].
5. Ada Petrova and Peter Watson, The Death of Hitler: The Final Words from Russia’s Secret Archives [London, 1995]; Daniela Marchetti et al., “The Death of Adolf Hitler—Forensic Aspects”, Journal of Forensic Sciences, 50 [2005], pp. 1147–1153. Most recently, scholarly attention has shifted onto the role of Allied Intelligence gathering. See Sarah K. Douglas, “The Search for Hitler: Hugh Trevor-Roper, Humphrey Searle and the Last Days of Adolf Hitler”, Journal of Military History, 78:1 [2014], pp. 159–210; Luke Daly-Groves, “The Death of Adolf Hitler: British Intelligence, Soviet Accusations and Rumours of Survival”, Unpublished dissertation, University of Central Lancashire [2015].
6. The notion of 1945 as a “Zero Hour” or Stunde Null for Germany has enjoyed some currency over the years, giving the post-war German states a fresh foundation on which to construct their identities and distance themselves from the recent, Nazi past. See, for example, Konrad Jarausch, “1945 and the Continuities of German History: Reflections on Memory, Historiography, and Politics”. In Geoffrey J. Giles ed., Stunde Null: The End and the Beginning Fifty Years Ago [Washington, D.C., 1997], pp. 9–24.
7. There is a growing literature on Nazi death cults. See, for example, Jay Baird, To Die for Germany: Heroes in the Nazi Pantheon [Bloomington, Indiana, 1990]; Sabine Behrenbeck, Der Kult um die Toten Helden: Nationalsozialistische Mythen, Riten und Symbole 1923 bis 1945 [Cologne, 2011]; Jesús Casquete, “Martyr Construction and the Politics of Death in National Socialism”, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 10:3, [2009], pp. 265–283; Peter Lambert, “Heroisation and Demonisation in the Third Reich: The Consensus-Building Value of a Nazi Pantheon of Heroes”, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 8:3–4 [2007], pp. 523–546; Daniel Siemens, The Making of a Nazi Hero: The Murder and Myth of Horst Wessel [London, 2013].
8. “Zum 9 November 1942: Gedenktag für die Gefallenen der Bewegung”, Die Neue Gemeinschaft, 8 September 1942.
9. Cited in Jeremy Noakes ed., Nazism: A Documentary Reader, 1933–1945. Vol. 4: The German Home Front in World War II [Exeter, 1998], pp. 624–626.
10. The term “social death” is frequently invoked within Holocaust studies to describe how Nazi policies of discrimination and segregation steadily rendered the German public indifferent to the treatment of the Jews; ostracism from mainstream society during the 1930s was the first step towards physical extermination during the Second World War.
11. John Borneman ed., Death of the Father: An Anthropology of the End in Political Authority [New York, 2004], p. 2.
12. “Dönitz Announces Hitler’s Death”, 1 May 1945. Jewish Virtual Library.. This statement was reproduced in the international media. See, for example, “Donitz [sic] as Head of State”, The Times, 2 May 1945.
13. “Dönitz Announces Hitler’s Death”.
14. “Abschied von Hitler”, Hamburger Zeitung, 2 May 1945.
15. FO371/46748: Review of the Foreign Press, The National Archives, Kew [hereafter TNA].
16. Witness testimonies from Bunker staff and several leading Nazis agree that Hitler had expressed a desire to commit suicide from 22 April 1945. See WO208/3781, TNA.
17. FO371/46748: Roberts to Foreign Office, 2 May 1945, TNA.
18. FO371/46748: Harrison memorandum, 2 May 1945, TNA.
19. Meeting between Heinrich Himmler and Count Folke Bernadotte reported in FO371/46748: Washington to AMSSO, 2 May 1945, TNA.
20. FO371/46748: Harrison memorandum, 2 May 1945, TNA.
21. FO371/46748: Yarrow telegram, 4 May 1945, TNA. Eisenhower’s statement was reprinted in the press. See, for example, “Hitler Met No Hero’s Death, States ‘Ike’; Was Dying of Brain Illness over Week Ago”, Ottawa Citizen, 2 May 1945; “Eisenhower’s Exposure of New ‘Führer’”, Daily Telegraph, 3 May 1945.
22. By mid-May 1945, Himmler’s own fate had become the subject of some discussion. Responding to a question in the House of Commons, Winston Churchill declared, “I expect he will turn up somewhere in this world or the next and will be dealt with by the appropriate local authorities. The latter would be more convenient to His Majesty’s Government”. See FO371/46748: PMQs, TNA.
23. FO371/46748: AFHQ to German Department, 7 June 1945, TNA.
24. “Hitler’s Doctor Denies Führer was Ill”, Daily Telegraph, 7 May 1945.
25. FO371/46748: PMQ by Major Anstruther-Gray, 15 May 1945, TNA.
26. Cited in V. Vinogradov et al., Hitler’s Death: Russia’s Last Great Secret from the Files of the KGB[London, 2005], p. 262.
27. FO371/46748: Roberts to Foreign Office, 6 May 1945, TNA.
28. The Soviet autopsy report was first published in 1968 in Bezymenski, The Death of Adolf Hitler, pp. 44–51. Excerpts were later reproduced in Marchetti et al., “The Death of Adolf Hitler”, pp. 1147–1148.
29. Marchetti et al., “The Death of Adolf Hitler”, p. 1148.
30. Cited in Vinogradov et al., Hitler’s Death, p. 108.
31. See, for example, “Reported Finding of Hitler’s Body”, The Times, 7 June 1945.
32. “Hitler’s Last Hours”, The Times, 21 June 1945.
33. Cited in Petrova and Watson, The Death of Hitler, p. 44.
34. “Body Russians Found Was Not Hitler’s”, Daily Telegraph, 5 July 1945. See also “The Body Outside Hitler’s Shelter Was Not His”, News Chronicle, 5 July 1945.
35. “Jawbones identified as Hitler’s”, The Times, 9 July 1945.
36. “Hitler Still Alive Says Moscow”, Daily Herald, 5 July 1945.
37. FO371/46749: Memorandum by the Supreme Allied Expeditionary Force, 30 July 1945, TNA.
38. WO208/3781: “The Death of Hitler” [undated], TNA.
39. The Denmark story gained particular traction towards the end of 1947 when Peter Baumgart, a former Luftwaffe pilot, was named as the person who had piloted the Hitlers to Denmark via Magdeburg.
40. FO371/46749: Annotation on telegram from Roberts to Foreign Office, 12 September 1945, TNA.
41. FO371/46748: Review of the Foreign Press, 22 May 1945, TNA.
42. See, for example, “Tests on Skull Fragment Cast Doubt on Adolf Hitler Suicide Story”, The Guardian, 27 September 2009. The results of the DNA analysis were also featured in Mystery Quest: Hitler’s Escape (History Channel), broadcast date 16 September 2009.
43. “The End of the Road?”, Providence Journal, 2 May 1945.
44. “The Death Certificate of Adolf Hitler”, 25 October 1956, Associated Press Archive.

Things That Make You Go "Hmmm..." The JFK Documents
Joseph P. Farrell
8 November 2017

What's the story? Well, amid that tranche of documents released by President Trump concerning the JFK assassination, there appear to be documents concerning the CIA receiving reports about Adolf Hitler being alive in South America. The documents themselves do not appear to do anything to settle the issue, but they do appear to confirm more or less the broad outlines of what JFK assassination researchers carefully argued over the years: yes, it was a conspiracy and yes, Oswald had some sort of connection to American Intelligence. In fact, a popular American talk show interviewd a well-known JFK assassination conspiracy skeptic, an individual who defends the basic premise of the Warren Report. In other words, an effort appears to be underway to "spin" the release as confirming the nonsense of the "official narrative".

But in the midst of this release, we have the curious business of CIA reports about Adolf Hitler:

Shock CIA files reveal Hitler 'STILL ALIVE'…and there are PICTURES to prove it
SHOCKING declassified CIA files reveal spooks received a tip Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler was still alive more than 10 years after World War 2.
By Henry Holloway
Daily Star
29 October 2017

Unsealed documents from the spy agency reveal a US agent was told by a “trusted” source that the Third Reich boss was not dead and hiding out in South America.

The suspected Hitler’s picture was even presented to the agent, scanned and sent back to the CIA.

It is claimed the Fuhrer didn’t commit suicide in his Berlin bunker, but instead fled to Colombia.

Conspiracy theorists often claim Hitler survived the end of World War 2 – despite him officially being recorded dead by the Allies.

The revelation comes as researchers around the world trawl through the newly declassified JFK files – hoping to shed some light on his assassination in Dallas in 1963.

Marked “secret”, the memo was wired from the head of CIA’s bureau in Carcas, Venezuela, on 3 October 1955. to the head of spy agency’s Western Hemisphere Division, who wold have been Joseph Cadwell King.

King is believed to advocated the assassinations of Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, and was also instrumental in overthrowing Brazilian president Joao Goulart in 1964.

Code named agent Cimelody-3 reports a former member of Hitler’s brutal secret police the SS claimed Hitler “is still alive”.

The trooper, named Philip Citroen, is said to have been in contact with Hitler once a month in Colombia.

The CIA document reads: “[Citroen] also stated Hitler left Colombia for Argentina around January, 1955.

“Citroen commented that inasmuch as ten years have passed since the end of World War 2, the allies could no longer prosecute Hitler as a criminal of war".

Agent Cimelody-3 requested a picture, which was provided to him – featuring Citroen and a man with a chilling resemblance to the Führer.

This bombshell memo is 100% authentic and is available via the CIA’s own archives site – which contains all declassified files.

Conspiracy theorists have often claimed Hitler survived the war due to the bizarre circumstance of his death.

Officially as the Red army closed in Hitler shot himself, and then his body was burned by Soviet soldiers.

Russian authorities also claimed Hitler was still alive – with Josef Stalin outright denying it to US President Harry Truman.

Theories persist to this day, and even this year a fake news story about a man claiming to be Hitler went viral.

However, subsequent Western-led investigations suggest the Fuhrer is indeed dead – despite alleged sightings recorded by the CIA and FBI.

The most common theory of Hitler’s survival is that he stashed stolen Nazi treasure before fleeing with his wife Eva Braun to South America.

Argentina is long associated with claims of surviving Nazis, with conspiracy theorists even claiming it was the base for a surviving wing of the SS.

Historians have rubbished all theories suggesting Hitler survived World War 2, content that he committed suicide in the Führerbunker on 30 April 1945.

Now, in spite of the fact that the so-called pictures of post-war Adolf living in the lap of luxury in South America do not prove anything, the document itself is interesting in that it purports to report a "Hitler sighting" in Columbia that was related by a former SS officer. Again, this is far short of proof of anything other than that the CIA was doing what any Intelligence agency worth its salt would do with such a report: pass it along to headquarters. Such American Intelligence documents about Hitler and Bormann have been around for a while, and the FBI documents also raise similar issues:- the reports of surviving high-ranking Nazis in South America were a subject of interest to post-war American Intelligence. Again, as they should be. They only attain evidentiary value, however, when combined with other data and argument. They corroborate the survival hypothesis, but they fall far short of proving or establishing it.

But I suspect that this isn't the real problem here.

The real problem is: just what the heck is this document doing in a tranche of documents supposedly about the assassination of President Kennedy?

If -as some American talk shows are now desperate to convince us- the documents do nothing but prove the Warren Report, then what the dickens is a document about Adolf Hitler surviving in Columbia doing in the release? If the document was genuinely and intentionally filed with the JFK materials, then what the heck does Hitler have to do with JFK, beyond the fact that in his diary, President Kennedy expressed doubts about the Hitler-suicide-in-the-Bunker story? We could, of course, be looking at a plain and simply case that the document was simply misfiled, or even at a case of a bit of Intelligence agency humor of a deliberately planted document: "Ok... since what's his name wants to force the release, let them have fun with this one".

You get the idea, and I wouldn't put it past them, either. In fact, I can even see a case for them doing that on the day of the assassination itself, with the carefully placed news references to the murder weapon first being a German-made Mauser, and then an Italian-made Mannlicher-Carcano: "Let's really misdirect them and plant this bit of obfuscation".

The problem is, of course, when one wants to entertain the "Intelligence agencies having fun planting documents and other false leads in the evidence" theory, that it begins quickly to fray around the edges, especially as one encounters Jack Ruby's warnings about the come-back of Fascism and a "whole new form of government" being emplaced [Gee... nothing Fascist looking about post-JFK assassination America, is there?], or when one encounters the strange presence of the goings-on in New Orleans, Dr. Mary Sherman, Dr. Alton Ochsner [and his famous patient Juan Peron], or Lee Harvey Oswald's notebook containing the telephone number and address of the president of the American Nazi Party, George Lincoln Rockwell, or even the oft-overlooked problem that the Warren Report mentions one of Oswald's marine buddies who heard him speaking not just Russian, but German as well, and you get the picture: there are little-known oddities about the assassination that are not widely discussed, even in the assassination research and revision community.

Which brings us back to this strange Hitler-survival-story document squatting in the middle of the JFK documents release. When viewed in the above context, it's not accidental, and would thus tend to confirm my argument made in "LBJ and the Conspiracy to Kill Kennedy" that there is a lurking Fascist element and involvement that no one wants to touch.

Why The Allies Thought Hitler Might’ve Escaped To Argentina
By Katie Serena
30 January 2018

“…Claims to have aided six top Argentine officials in hiding ADOLPH HITLER upon his landing by submarine in Argentina. HITLER reported to be hiding out in foot-hills of southern Andes…”

So begins a memo, on official FBI letterhead, dated “9-21-45”. The memo goes on to detail an encounter that took place in Hollywood, California, on 28 July 1945, between two men. One of whom, allegedly, described meeting Adolf Hitler himself, in Argentina a few weeks earlier.

The problem? Adolf Hitler had died almost exactly three months prior.

On 30 April 1945, deep in the Führerbunker, Adolf Hitler killed himself with a shot to the head. His wife of one day, Eva Braun, joined him, taking a capsule of cyanide. In accordance with the Führer’s last will and testament, the bodies were carried out of an emergency exit and set alight. The burned remains were kept in an undisclosed location until 1970 when they were cremated, the ashes scattered.

The story of the demise of Adolf Hitler, the most hated man in history, is well known. But, is it the truth? Even 73 years later, the mystery still lives on. Most recently, the rumor mill has been churning out theories that Hitler and his bride fled Germany, and sought asylum in Argentina, where they lived for the duration of their lives under the protection of Argentine officials.

Spurned by the release of official-looking documents on official-looking letterhead, the rumors insist that the pair’s tandem suicide was a fake, that they fled to South America, and that they were helped by the government of Argentina.

According to one document, the FBI had reported seeing a submarine traveling up the coast of Argentina, dropping off upper-level Nazi officials. From there, the rest of the information is second-hand, told to FBI agents in exchange for political asylum by unnamed informants.

One informant claimed that he knew, firsthand, that Hitler was living in Argentina. He claimed to be one of just four men who had met the submarine in Argentina, and that there had been not just one, but two. The Nazi officials had been on the first sub, and Hitler and Eva Braun the sole passengers of the second.

The informant added that the Argentinian government not only accepted the Führer but welcomed him with open arms, granting him their full protection. He detailed specific villages that Hitler had been taken to and provided credible physical details of the man himself.

Despite the credible witness, whose name has been redacted from all official documents, the FBI never followed up on the leads, further adding to the conspiracy theorists cases. Additionally, the reaction of the various governments to the news of Hitler’s death exacerbated claims that he could still be alive.

The first man to announce Hitler’s death was the man who was appointed as Hitler’s successor by Hitler. In other words, a fellow Nazi who, by announcing Hitler’s death, had a lot to gain – with him gone, the Allies would be more willing to negotiate surrender terms, and potentially the release of Soviet POW’s.

Furthermore, Hitler’s body was never seen by any Allied forces before it was burned beyond recognition. Stalin had demanded that the body be released, and when it wasn’t, sent troops marching into the Führerbunker to find it. The team found the charred remains of two bodies, reported to be Hitler and Braun, in a small crater outside the exit, though Stalin remained convinced that it wasn’t him.

Even when he was asked by U.S. President Harry Truman if Hitler was dead, Stalin replied with a firm “no.”

Though publicizing Hitler’s death helped to quell the terror that was mounting worldwide, more and more evidence keeps cropping up that suggests it took longer for authorities to believe in his death than they let on.

In 1945, the "Stars and Stripes" newspaper claimed that then-General Eisenhower himself believed in the possibility of Hitler living under Argentine protection. And, the government publicized photos of Hitler in various disguises, to show the world what he could look like if he had in fact survived.

Of course, there is much information that the FBI is privy to that lay people are not, and for all we know someone could have seen Hitler’s body up close and personal before it went missing. The official version of events is still the 30 April double suicide, and for as much evidence to the contrary as there is, there is just as much that backs it up. Additionally, there are several other theories about where Hitler went, each of them increasingly more far-fetched.

Though Hitler fleeing to Argentina seems like the kind of wartime mystery that conspiracy theorists eat up, the fact that the FBI never investigated it fully does lead one to believe that they didn’t fully trust it.

New HISTORY series
investigates claims dictator fled to South America after World War Two
By Dave Masters
The Mirror
15 January 2018

It could be the most astonishing disappearing act in history.

According to documents declassified by the FBI in 2014, Adolf Hitler may have survived World War Two, faked his own death and fled to South America following the fall of Nazi Germany.

A new series of HISTORY’s hit TV show "Hunting Hitler".continues the ultimate manhunt.

It follows CIA veteran Bob Baer zeroing in on Hitler's potential escape route using the same man-hunting strategy that Intelligence agencies across the globe use to find and capture high-value targets, known as Asset Mapping.

There are six key claims conspiracy theorists believe prove Hitler survived

1. He may have escaped his infamous Fuhrerbunker by using a secret tunnel.

Under Nazi rule, Berlin's underground was expanded into sprawling web of 93 miles of interconnected tunnels and bunkers. Hitler would have had these at his disposal to make his escape.

2. FBI files suggest Hitler may have fled to Argentina at the end of WWII.

The FBI report -dated 21 September 1945- details claims that several officials secretly landed Hitler onto Argentine soil after arriving by submarine. He was allegedly then hidden in the foothills of the Andes mountains.

3. According to investigators, Hitler fled Europe following the fall of Berlin in a U-Boat.

There are claims Hitler was swept out of Europe on a "ghost convoy" after the fall of Berlin.

Several high-profile Nazis –including "architect of the Holocaust" Adolf Eichmann and Dr Josef Mengele, the "Angel of Death"– did indeed escape to Argentina.

The theory is, Hitler joined them there.

4. A CIA informant claimed to have spotted Hitler in Colombia in 1955.

Among the recently declassified CIA documents about the JFK assassination was a report that claimed Hitler survived the Second World War and was living in Colombia.

The informant, codenamed "Cimelody-3", told the US Intelligence chief for Venezuela that he was in contact with a former SS agent, Philip Citroen, who met a man claiming to be Adolf Hitler in the city of Tunja.

5. A Nazi island is said to have existed off the coast of Chile.

It’s believed that thousands of Nazis fled to South America after WW2 and many believe there were attempts to rebuild the Third Reich on a secret island there.

6. It was only 11 years after WWII that the German court declared Hitler’s death.

The official line was that the Nazi leader killed himself by taking a cyanide pill before shooting himself. But it took more than a decade before it was recognised by the German courts.

#header_text h2#site_subheading a, #header_text h2#site_subheading{ color:#000000 } @media (min-width: 650px) { #header_text h2#site_subheading a, #header_text h2#site_subheading{ } }

Hitler - Alive or Dead?

Why would Hitler choose to stay at the Berlin Bunker, where he knew the Russians were attacking first and foremost? Why not choose the safety of his mountain retreat?

The Death of Nazism? Investigating Hitler’s Remains and Survival Rumours in Post-War Germany