Death of Boris III

The death of Boris III of Bulgaria was one of the great mysteries of World War II.

Boris III with Adolf Hitler, 14 August 1943.

The tsar's death certificate was also signed by Bogdan Filov, in Bulgarian; 28 August 1943.

Shortly after returning to Sofia from a meeting with Adolf Hitler in Rastenburg, East Prussia, Boris III died of apparent heart failure on 28 August 1943.[1] According to the diary of the German attache in Sofia at the time, Colonel Carl-August von Schoenebeck, the two German doctors who attended the King – Sajitz and Hans Eppinger – both believed that he had died from the same poison that Dr. Eppinger had allegedly found two years earlier in the postmortem examination of the Greek Prime Minister, Ioannis Metaxas, a slow poison which takes weeks to do its work and which causes the appearance of blotches on the skin of its victim before death.[2]

There are three versions for poisoning:

1. the United Kingdom case (Secret Intelligence Service);[3]
2. the case of the Soviet Union (NKVD);[4]
3. the case of the Nazi Germany (Sicherheitsdienst).[5]

Bulgarian officials say the tsar has been poisoned by British secret services. [6]

The Bulgarian tsar is a descendant of all French kings, an Eastern Orthodox whose godfather is the last Emperor of All Russia Nicholas II.

There is a version that he was urged by Hitler to be an intermediary for separate peace with the Soviet Union, similar to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. During the war, Bulgaria represented diplomatically the interests of the Nazi Germany in Moscow. Upon learning of his death, Hitler furiously breaks a vase into the wall, mourning his fate.

Boris III is buried in the Rila Monastery.