Conspiracy theories about Adolf Hitler's death

The narrative that Hitler did not commit suicide, but instead escaped with his wife, was first presented to the public by Marshal Georgy Zhukov at a press conference on 9 June 1945, on orders from Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.[2] When asked at the Potsdam Conference in July 1945 how Hitler had died, Stalin said he was either living "in Spain or Argentina."[3] In July 1945, British newspapers repeated comments from a Soviet officer that a charred body discovered by the Soviets was “a very poor double.” American newspapers also repeated dubious quotes, such as that of the Russian garrison commandant of Berlin, who claimed that Hitler had “gone into hiding somewhere in Europe."[4] This disinformation, propagated by Stalin's government,[5][6] has been a springboard for various conspiracy theories, despite the official conclusion by Western powers and the consensus of historians that Hitler killed himself on 30 April 1945.[7][8][9] It even caused a minor resurgence in Nazism during the Allied occupation of Germany.[4]

The first detailed investigation by Western powers began in November 1945 after Dick White, then head of counter-intelligence in the British sector of Berlin, had their agent Hugh Trevor-Roper investigate the matter to counter the Soviet claims. His findings that Hitler and Braun had died by suicide in Berlin were written in a report in 1946, and published in a book the next year.[10] Regarding the case, Trevor-Roper reflected, "the desire to invent legends and fairy tales ... is (greater) than the love of truth".[11] In 1947, 51 percent of Americans polled thought that Hitler was still alive.[12]

Declassified FBI documents contain a number of alleged sightings of Hitler along with theories of his escape from Germany. The FBI states that the information within those documents pertaining to the escape and sightings of Hitler cannot be verified.[13]

On 30 May 1946, while the Soviets were investigating rumours of Hitler's survival,[14] two fragments of a skull were retrieved from the crater where Hitler was buried. The left piece of the parietal bones had gunshot damage.[15] It was kept in Russia's federal archives in Moscow, and believed to be Hitler's for decades. In 2009, a bone-specializing archaeologist performed DNA and forensic tests on a sample of one of the skull fragments, for an episode of History's MysteryQuest.[16] The sample was found to be that of a woman aged under 40.[14][17] The same researchers also DNA-tested a piece of cloth from the sofa soaked with Hitler's blood, and confirmed that it belonged to a male. This prompted an executive of the Russian state archive to assert that "No one claimed that was Hitler's skull."[18] According to French forensic pathologist Philippe Charlier, "When doing a diagnostic of the skull, you have a 55 per cent chance of getting the sex right."[1]

Neither former Soviet nor Russian officials have claimed the skull was the main piece of evidence, instead citing jawbone fragments and two dental bridges found in May 1945. The items were shown to two associates of Hitler's personal dentist, Hugo Blaschke: his assistant Käthe Heusermann and longtime dental technician Fritz Echtmann. They confirmed that the dental remains were Hitler's and Braun's, as did Blaschke in later statements.[19][20][21] According to Ada Petrova and Peter Watson, Hugh Thomas disputed these dental remains in his 1995 book, but also speculated that Hitler probably died in the bunker after being strangled by his valet Heinz Linge. They noted that "even Dr Thomas admits that there is no evidence to support" this theory.[22] Ian Kershaw wrote, "[t]he 'theories' of Hugh Thomas that Hitler was strangled by Linge, and that the female body burned was not that of Eva Braun, who escaped from the bunker, belong in fairyland."[23] In 2017, Philippe Charlier confirmed that teeth on one of the jawbone fragments were in "perfect agreement" with an X-ray taken of Hitler in 1944.[24] This investigation of the teeth by the French team, the results of which were reported in the European Journal of Internal Medicine in May 2018, found that the dental remains were definitively Hitler's teeth. According to Charlier, "There is no possible doubt. Our study proves that Hitler died in 1945 [in Berlin]."[25]

The Inalco House near the current settlement of Villa La Angostura. According to the fringe theory, Hitler would have lived some years here after 1945.

Photograph from a CIA document showing a supposed ex-SS trooper and a man he alleged to be Hitler c. 1954[26]

In 2009, Russian General Vasily Khristoforov, the head archivist of Russia's Federal Security Service, claimed that KGB agents under the orders of Soviet Premier Yuri Andropov burned Hitler's remains and dumped them into a German river. According to the documents Khristoforov referenced, "The remains were burnt on a bonfire outside the town of Shoenebeck, 11 kilometers away from Magdeburg, then ground into ashes, collected and thrown into the Biederitz River." Khristoforov claimed that Andropov feared that Hitler's burial site would become a place frequented by neo-Nazis.[27]

• In the controversial novella The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H. by George Steiner, Hitler survives the end of the war and escapes to the Amazon jungle, where he is found and tried by Nazi-hunters 30 years later. Hitler's defence is that since Israel owes its existence to the Holocaust, he is really the benefactor of the Jews.
• In the CGI anime film Lupin III: The First (2019), Interpol spreads a fake rumor stating that Hitler is alive and living in Brazil, in order to lure his fanatical Ahnenerbe followers out of hiding.
• In the 2020 Amazon Prime TV-series Hunters, it is discovered in 1977 that Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun are living in Argentina.

• Death of Adolf Hitler
• Last will and testament of Adolf Hitler

Notes

Bibliography

• Beschloss, Michael (December 2002). "Dividing the Spoils". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 14 September 2018.
• Brisard, Jean-Christophe; Parshina, Lana (2018). The Death of Hitler. Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0306922589.
• Daly-Groves, Luke (2019). Hitler's Death: The Case Against Conspiracy. Oxford, UK: Osprey. ISBN 978-1-4728-3454-6.
• Eberle, Henrik; Uhl, Matthias, eds. (2005). The Hitler Book: The Secret Dossier Prepared for Stalin from the Interrogations of Hitler's Personal Aides. New York: Public Affairs. ISBN 978-1-58648-366-1.
• Joachimsthaler, Anton (1999) [1995]. The Last Days of Hitler: The Legends, The Evidence, The Truth. London: Brockhampton Press. ISBN 978-1-86019-902-8.
• Kershaw, Ian (2001) [2000]. Hitler, 1936–1945: Nemesis. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-04994-9.
• Kershaw, Ian (2008). Hitler: A Biography. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-06757-6.
• Petrova, Ada; Watson, Peter (1995). The Death of Hitler: The Full Story with New Evidence from Secret Russian Archives. W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-03914-6.

Further reading

• Evans, Richard J. (2020). The Hitler Conspiracies The Third Reich and the Paranoid Imagination. London: Allen Lane. ISBN 9780241413463.
• Evans, Richard J. (4 December 2020). "What Hitler conspiracies mean". New Statesman. Retrieved 8 December 2020.
• Trevor-Roper, Hugh (1995) [1947] The Last Days of Hitler. London: Pan Books. ISBN 978-1-4472-1861-6
• Vinogradov, V. K.; Pogonyi, J.F.; Teptzov, N.V. (2005). Hitler's Death: Russia's Last Great Secret from the Files of the KGB. London: Chaucer Press. ISBN 978-1-904449-13-3.

• FBI documents containing alleged sightings of Hitler