The corpse of an apparent Hitler body double with a gunshot wound to the forehead, a battered right temple, and sunken vestibules (filmed by the Soviets)
The most prominent evidence of any Hitler double is Soviet footage of a toothbrush moustache-wearing body with a gunshot wound to the forehead, ostensibly found in the Reich Chancellery garden; the Soviets sometimes implied this to be the body of Hitler himself. Conspiracy theorists cite this double as evidence that Hitler faked his death and escaped Germany.
The 1939 book The Strange Death of Adolf Hitler alleges that the Nazi Party used four people as doubles for Hitler, including the author, who claims that the real dictator died in 1938 and that he subsequently took his place.[8] The book was considered farcical in the year of its release and cannot be considered as being remotely reliable.[9] In 1939, the Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA), while admitting that the book has "practically no direct evidence of authenticity", defended it by dubiously citing the purported death of Julius Schreck in 1938[lower-alpha 3] as support for Hitler's use of doubles.[12] The NEA claimed that after Schreck had ceased to be Hitler's chauffeur (in1934),[10] he was riding in the back of a car being driven by Hitler in 1938 when he took a bullet from a would-be Hitler assassin who did not expect Hitler to be driving.[12] The NEA also cited public appearances of Hitler look-alikes in Europe as fueling belief in his use of doubles: one man was photographed in 1935 in Nice, France, wearing a pinstripe suit (said to have been accompanied by two bodyguards and to have caused a commotion) and another in 1936, spotted at thezoo in Vienna, Austria.[12]
On 26 April 1945,[13]Stockholm's "Free German Press Service" circulated a rumor that a Hitler double named August Wilhelm Bartholdy, supposedly a former grocer from Plauen, was called to Berlin to be filmed dying on the battlefield in Hitler's stead.[14] The Germans émigrés stated, "He will act as Hitler's trump card, creating a hero legend around the Führer's death, while Hitler himself goes underground."[15]Hitler died in Berlin on 30 April, with his dental remains subsequently being positively identified.[16][lower-alpha 1]
Supporting claims
On 2 May 1945, the day Berlin fell, an official Soviet newspaper declared the German report of Hitler's death to have been a Nazi trick.[17] On 9May, The New York Times reported that a body was claimed by the Soviets to belong to Hitler. This was disputed by an anonymous servant, who stated that the body was that of a cook who was killed because of his resemblance to Hitler, and that the latter had escaped via a faked death.[18][19][lower-alpha 4] On 6 June 1945, Western correspondents cited the statements of Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov's staff that four bodies resembling Hitler had been found in the Führerbunker, purportedly burnt by the Red Army's flamethrowers; one body was considered most likely to be Hitler's, chemically determined to have died by poison.[22][23] A few days later, on Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's orders, Zhukov presented the official narrative that Hitler had escaped,[24] stating, "We have found no corpse that could be [his]."[25] In mid-1945, a Soviet major told American sources that Hitler had survived and claimed his body was not found burned in the Reich Chancellery garden, stating, "Our experts have established that the man found here didn't look like Hitler at all."[4][26] Similarly, the British Daily Herald cited a major who was reputedly the first Soviet to enter the garden, where he saw the body of "adouble—and not even a good double".[27] During their Soviet captivity, Schutzstaffel (SS) valet Heinz Linge, SS guard Josef Henschel, and Hitler's pilot Hans Baur were interrogated about whether Hitler escaped by leaving a body double.[28][29]
According to the 1947 American book Who Killed Hitler?, Reichsführer-SSHeinrich Himmler previously employed several Hitler doubles as political decoys and knew of one in the Führerbunker. This unnamed double was "about 54" or perhaps younger, "[having] been groomed for [non-speaking] public functions in the earlier years" when Hitler was healthy; thus, he could not deceive those familiar with the elder Hitler but might fool the public, being able to "pass as Hitler at a distance of fifty feet" by styling his hair and donning a prop toothbrush moustache. He supposedly began appearing in the kitchen by mid-April 1945, known to only a few of Hitler's servants as a helper to his chef, Constanze Manziarly, who was exclusively aware if he performed kitchen duties.[lower-alpha 5][lower-alpha 6] He was not allowed above ground nor seen outside the kitchen except by an SS escort (undercover as a servant) with whom he shared a room in an area "neither visible nor accessible" to other staff.[lower-alpha 7] The kitchen servants reputedly pitied the duplicate, sensing that "whatever fate overtook Hitler also would overtake" him.[33] Himmler supposedly had to reckon with the double's existence after hatching a (purportedly successful) plan to assassinate Hitler via the dictator's physician Ludwig Stumpfegger.[34][lower-alpha 8] The double was killed via gunshot and partially burned, with the Soviets mistaking his body for Hitler's, which a Nazi servant debunked due to his cheap clothing.[lower-alpha 9] According to a 8 May 1945 Soviet report, Hitler's body was found on the bunker grounds, bullet-riddled and seemingly beaten before and after death; it was captured in a series of photographs and identified as Hitler by several members of his staff, except for a chauffeur and maid, the former saying it was the body of a staff cook he knew intimately and was apparently killed to help Hitler escape.[39][40] From 1951 to 1972, the American tabloid National Police Gazette ran stories alleging Hitler's survival, saying for example that Stumpfegger employed his own technique of temporarily paralyzing the brain to switch the double in for Hitler.[41][42]
In 1963, author Cornelius Ryan interviewed General B. S. Telpuchovski, a Soviet historian who was allegedly present during the aftermath of the Battle of Berlin. Telpuchovski claimed that on 2 May 1945, a burnt body he thought belonged to Hitler was found wrapped in a blanket.[43][lower-alpha 10][lower-alpha 11] This supposed individual had an exit wound through the back of the head.[lower-alpha 12][lower-alpha 6] Several dental bridges were purportedly found next to the body, because, Telpuchovski stated, "the force of the bullet had dislodged them from the mouth",[43][lower-alpha 13][lower-alpha 1] ostensibly from an oral gunshot.[lower-alpha 14] In his 1966 book, The Last Battle, Ryan describes this body as that of Hitler, saying it had been buried "under a thin layer of earth".[51] Telpuchovski had said there were a total of three Hitler candidates which had been burnt, apparently including a body double wearing mended socks, which he described as being in "remnants".[43] Ryan quotes him as saying, "There was also the body of a man who was freshly killed but not burned."[51][lower-alpha 2]
Soviet journalist Lev Bezymenski details the darned-sock-wearing double in his 1968 Soviet propaganda book,[52]The Death of Adolf Hitler (which novelly provided details of Hitler's dental remains despite implying that they were detached from a chimerical charred corpse).[53] Bezymenski quotes Ivan Klimenko, the commander of the Red Army's SMERSH unit, as stating that on the night of 3 May 1945, he witnessed VizeadmiralHans-Erich Voss seem to recognize a corpse as Hitler's in a dry firefighting water tank filled with other bodies in the Reich Chancellery garden.[54] Although Klimenko had some doubts because the corpse was wearing mended socks, he briefly speculated that it belonged to Hitler.[55] On 4 May, Soviet officers had the body double filmed.[56] In the 1982 edition of his book, Bezymenski cites the cameraman behind the footage as saying that the body had been brought inside the Chancellery for identification by Germans, most of whom thought it was not Hitler; the body was then brought outside to be filmed in better lighting.[57]
The footage shows the double with an apparent gunshot wound to the forehead[48] (with aportrait of Hitler laid on the double's torso). According to Klimenko, later on 4 May, Hitler and Eva Braun's true remains were discovered buried in a crater outside the Chancellery, wrapped in blankets and reburied, then re-exhumed the next day after the double was debunked as being Hitler.[58][59] A 1945 Soviet television documentary implied the footage showed Hitler, with the tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda later saying it was Hitler's double.[60] In 1992,[61] journalist Ada Petrova found the footage in the Russian state archives; the body double had reputedly been identified as Gustav Weler.[62][lower-alpha 15] In their 1995 book, Petrova and Peter Watson opined that 'Weler' may have worked a menial job in the Reich Chancellery and occasionally stood in for Hitler as a political decoy.[48]
Arguments against
According to a purported Soviet biography dated January 1946, Gustav Weler was born in Pomerania in 1886 and later lived in Berlin. In 1924, he was sentenced to three years in prison for counterfeiting banknotes. In January 1932 he joined the Sturmabteilung, but was expelled after two months for failing to cut his hair. In 1933–34, due to Hitler's rise to power, the Gestapo summoned Weler and implored him to cut his hair and moustache to keep him from resembling the chancellor; the repeated summons prompted Weler's attempted suicide via illuminating gas. In 1934, Himmler offered Weler 1,000 Reichsmarks to shave, asserting that Weler would "disappear forever" if he continued to resist. He was not a Nazi Party member and in 1944 moved to a village in Bernau, where he was still alive, working as a roofer.[63]
Hitler's pilot Hans Baur wrote in his memoir that c.1934, Johann Rattenhuber, then head of the Reichssicherheitsdienst, had found a potential doppelgänger for Hitler and asked Baur to see if Hitler wanted to employ him for that purpose. This prompted the dictator's laughter, saying it was a trick more befitting of Stalin. While in Soviet captivity and being questioned about Hitler's possible escape via a body double, Baur told the Soviets that Rattenhuber might be able to help them contact the man; the Soviets dubiously claimed that they successfully contacted him.[64] In 1955, SS guard Hans Hofbeck recalled that during his Soviet captivity, he was asked about Hitler's alleged body double; the description seemed to match a porter who worked in the Reich Chancellery (having similar facial features, hairstyle, and moustache, but being slightly shorter).[65] Hofbeck further claimed the porter wore a brown jacket resembling the party uniform and comrades sometimes jokingly called him "Führer".[66] According to Hofbeck, Baur told the Soviets that the Nazis had once found a baker from Breslau (modern Poland) who strongly resembled Hitler, but the dictator refused to employ him as a doppelgänger.[65] Hofbeck also said he had learned about the Breslau man from Rattenhuber.[66]
Hitler's dental remains, the only confirmed forensic evidence of his death
Presiding judge at the Einsatzgruppen trial at Nuremberg Michael Musmanno wrote in 1948, "There is not a shred of evidence to show that Hitler ever had a double." Musmanno further states that "the several score immediate associates of Hitler whom I questioned expressly stated that Hitler never had a double."[67] Among these, Hitler's chief secretary, Johanna Wolf, considered the use of a double in the Führerbunker an impossibility.[68] Musmanno wrote in his 1950 book about Hitler's death:
To suggest as some sophomorically reasoning theorists have, including the noted author Emil Ludwig, that possibly it was a double of Hitler who died and was cremated is, without any evidence to support it, about as rational as to say that Hitler was carried away by angels. ... it is inconceivable that Hitler, with his self-assurance of superiority over any other human being, would concede the existence of anyone even superficially an artificial duplicate of himself.[69]
Soviet war interpreter Elena Rzhevskaya (who safeguarded Hitler's dental remains until they could be identified by his dental staff) attributed the rumours of doubles to Soviet Colonel General Nikolai Berzarin's pledge to nominate the discoverer of Hitler's corpse for the Hero of the Soviet Union award, causing multiple potential bodies to be presented.[46] In his 1995 book on Hitler's death, historian Anton Joachimsthaler implies that the Soviets may have falsified the body double because they failed to find Hitler's body (though they reputedly found it before discovering Hitler's dental remains);[70] Joachimsthaler echoes Musmanno's argument that it must have been burnt to near-ashes.[71][4] Certain published studies opine that the open-air burning would not have disintegrated bone.[72][73][74][75] Historian Mark Felton further surmises that after the cremations failed, the Germans planted the dental remains[lower-alpha 1] on other cadavers, perhaps taken from the nearby hospital—explaining certain defects—and expertly concealed Hitler and Braun's real bodies.[76]
Historian Peter Hoffmann, a specialist on Hitler's security units, similarly doubts that he ever used doubles.[18] Historian Sjoerd deBoer also states that the stories of a double are highly suspect and found no evidence to support that there was one used in Berlin in April 1945 or that Hitler escaped. He concludes that these stories were part of the post-war Soviet disinformation campaigns regarding Hitler's fate.[77]
Legacy
In 1998, it was dubiously claimed that Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller (missing in action as of May 1945) had survived the war and told the U.S. that a double was used to help Hitler escape.
Photographs of Hitler c.1935 and April 1945; between which dates the authors of Grey Wolf (2011) say that a double had begun appearing in the dictator's place[lower-alpha 16]
The false implication that footage of a body double showed Hitler's corpse in a 1945 Soviet documentary was corrected in a 1966 documentary.[60][56][79] In September 1992, Ada Petrova edited a still of the footage into a Russian television broadcast, which was criticized for implying the body was Hitler's.[80] A few days later, Bezymenski claimed that the double was unique from the body identified as Hitler, which he reaffirmed that the Soviets had found elsewhere in the Chancellery garden.[56]
Joachimsthaler disputes the purported Soviet autopsy report of Hitler's body (published by Bezymenski in 1968), quoting esteemed German pathologist Otto Prokop[de] as saying it "describes anything but Hitler".[71] Similarly, historian Luke Daly-Groves states that "the Soviet soldiers picked up whatever mush they could find in front of Hitler's bunker exit, put it in a box and claimed it was the corpses of Adolf and Eva Hitler".[81] Also in 1995, Bezymenski disclosed that his work had contained "deliberate lies", evidently including the manner of Hitler's death. In his book, he had claimed that if the dictator died from a gunshot wound, it was a coup de grâce to ensure his quick death after he took cyanide, not a suicide by gunshot.[82][83]
In 1998, British author Ian Sayer received from an anonymous source what alleged to be a photocopy of a 427-page report from the U.S. Army's Counterintelligence Corps (CIC), apparently containing a 1948 interview of Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller, who went missing in action in 1945, but claimed to have been retained by the CIC as an intelligence adviser and to have joined the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).[84][78] According to Müller's purported account: a Hitler double was discovered in Breslau in 1941 and was seldom seen after July 1944, being sedated and kept hidden until April 1945; on April 22, Hitler, Braun and three of Hitler's associates departed by air for Hörsching Airport and were then flown to Barcelona;[lower-alpha 17] the double was later killed by a coup de grâce, dressed in Hitler's clothes, and buried. Joachimsthaler notes that the plane claimed to have been flown out of Berlin was considered a "total loss" by the Luftwaffe in May 1944, and the Junkers Ju 290 supposedly flown to Barcelona had been grounded in that city since the beginning of April 1945. Thereby, the claims of the dossier are considered by historians such as Joachimsthaler and Daly-Groves as an example of created "myths".[78][86]
Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino said that he opted not to include a bait-and-switch with a double in the version of Hitler's death he depicted in Inglourious Basterds (2009), saying it was something he had "seen before" and that it would be more interesting to "just fucking kill" the dictator.[87]
In a 2009 episode of History's MysteryQuest, a bone-specializing archaeologist collected samples from a skull fragment in the Soviet archives believed to be Hitler's. DNA and forensic examination indicated that the fragment, which had an exit wound on the right parietal bone,[2][lower-alpha 14] belonged to a woman less than 40 years old.[31][88] On the same program, fringe author H.D. Baumann asserts that Hitler increased his use of doubles after a1944 assassination attempt.[89] Baumann claims that the darned-sock-wearing double, whose ears he points out are different than Hitler's[lower-alpha 16] and allegedly was two inches shorter,[lower-alpha 18] was killed by the Germans on 30 April 1945.[89] Baumann cites the purported account of Müller that Hitler was replaced by a double called Sillip, saying that this explains his weakened and otherwise uncharacteristic appearance.[92] Citing all these details, as well as the implication that the bodies of Hitler and Braun were never found[lower-alpha 2] and Stalin's assumption that Hitler escaped to Spain or Argentina, Baumann concludes that Hitler faked his death.[89] He posits that Hitler's dental remains were put in the mouth of the double,[lower-alpha 1] with discrepancies between eyewitnesses explained by their loyalty to the ostensibly living Hitler.[92]
In their 2011 book, Grey Wolf: The Escape of Adolf Hitler, British authors Simon Dunstan and Gerrard Williams cite "a noted facial recognition expert witness" in claiming that a double stood in for Hitler on his 20 March 1945 appearance with the Hitler Youth—citing this as the dictator's last public appearance. The book claims that in a deal with the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (the country's intelligence agency during World WarII), on 28 April 1945 Hitler's private secretary, Martin Bormann, installed the alleged 20 March imposter and an actress in place of Hitler and Braun, then staged their deaths, possibly with the help of Müller.[93]
Greek conspiracy theorist Peter Fotis Kapnistos, author of 2015 fringe book Hitler's Doubles, claims that Hitler was replaced by a double after he was hospitalized near the end of World War I, citing personality changes and his increased nose width in later photographs.[94] (In fact, there is only evidence of Hitler's enlarged nose close to the end of World War II in Europe.)[95] Kapnistos claims that Hitler had four doubles: Schreck, stenographer Heinrich Berger (who was killed in the 20 July 1944 attempt to kill Hitler),[96] Gustav Weler (whom controversial author W.Hugh Thomas said was found alive after the war), and English occultist Aleister Crowley.[94]
1 2 3 One witness and some authors argue that Hitler and Braun's bodies were burnt nearly to ashes,[3][4] although the fragment of Hitler's jawbone was only burnt on the edges of the alveolar process, where it was sundered from the rest of the jaw.[1][2] Even extreme burning does not typically disintegrate bones,[5][6] with German forensic biologist Mark Benecke arguing that body water would hinder an open-air cremation.[7]
↑ Reliable sources place Schreck's death in May 1936, in conjunction with meningitis.[10][11]
↑ According to Hitler's chauffeur Erich Kempka, after Hitler's death SS-SturmbannführerOtto Günsche referred to him as "derChef" ('theboss'), an epithet purportedly used by Hitler's "inner circle".[20][21]
↑ Manziarly's own body was never identified. Her companion (and Hitler's private secretary) Traudl Junge said she last saw Manziarly on 2 May 1945 being detained by Soviet soldiers while they tried to escape Berlin. Junge's memoir also suggests that Manziarly could have committed suicide via poison capsule.[30]
1 2 3 In 2009, a skull fragment claimed to be Hitler's, which had a posterior exit wound through the right parietal bone, was determined to have female DNA.[31]
↑ The 1947 book also purports that Soviet claims as to Hitler's poisoning hinged on Günsche having "buried [Hitler's] body in a secret vault below the floor of the underground bunker".[32]
↑ Hitler's main physician, Theodor Morell, had been ordered to leave Berlin on 20 April 1945. The 1947 book claims that on 21 April 1945, Hitler sacked Morell due to suspicions the physician intended to poison him.[35] After leaving the bunker, Morell's duties were performed by Dr.Werner Haase and Linge.[36]
↑ One disreputable eyewitness as to the disposal of Hitler's body inconsistently stated that he recalled no details of the body's clothing and claimed to recognize Hitler's moustache, which another unreliable witness thought unlikely due to the upper body being covered by a blanket, with the lower body burnt. The 1947 book's authors opined that any hair would have quickly disintegrated in such an intense burning.[37][38]
↑ Soviet Marshal Vasily Chuikov wrote in his 1964 memoirs that Hitler's body was found on 2 May.[44] According to Soviet war interpreter Elena Rzhevskaya, this is the day Joseph Goebbels and a woman presumed to be his wife[45] were discovered, but Hitler's body was not unearthed until 4May.[46]
↑ Soviets also told Ryan in 1963 that Hitler's body had been cremated outside of Berlin,[43] which was later claimed to have occurred in 1970.[47]
↑ The filmed double had a gunshot wound to the forehead[48] along with a bruised right temple.
↑ A U.S. official related in 1947 that Hitler Youth leader Artur Axmann thought Hitler's body had not been unidentified partly because "the impact of the shot fired into his mouth destroyed his dental fixtures".[49]
1 2 Despite early statements by key eyewitnesses about the gunshot being through the mouth, Anton Joachimsthaler regarded a shot from the right to left temple as correct.[50] In 2017–18, forensic analysis was conducted on Hitler's dental remains, whichdid not detect any gunpowder.[16]
↑ The purported Soviet autopsy on Hitler's corpse found the body to be about four inches shorter than his presumed height.[53][91]
Related Research Articles
Adolf Hitler, chancellor and dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, committed suicide via a gunshot to the head on 30 April 1945 in the Führerbunker in Berlin after it became clear that Germany would lose the Battle of Berlin, which led to the end of World War II in Europe. Eva Braun, his wife of one day, also committed suicide by cyanide poisoning. In accordance with Hitler's prior written and verbal instructions, that afternoon their remains were carried up the stairs and through the bunker's emergency exit to the Reich Chancellery garden, where they were doused in petrol and burned. The news of Hitler's death was announced on German radio the next day, 1 May.
Michael Angelo Musmanno was an American jurist, politician, and naval officer. Coming from an immigrant family, he started to work as a coal loader at the age of 14. After serving in the United States Army in World War I, he obtained a law degree from Georgetown University. For nearly two decades from the early 1930s, he served as a judge in courts of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. Entering the U.S. Navy during World War II, he served in the military justice system.
Heinz Linge was a German SS officer who served as a valet for the leader of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler, and became known for his close personal proximity to historical events. Linge was present in the Führerbunker on 30 April 1945, when Hitler committed suicide. Linge's ten-year service to Hitler ended at that time. In the aftermath of the Second World War in Europe, Linge spent ten years in Soviet captivity.
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Constanze Manziarly was born in Innsbruck, Austria. She served as a cook and dietitian to Adolf Hitler until his final days in Berlin in 1945.
Otto Günsche was a mid-ranking officer in the Waffen-SS of Nazi Germany during World War II. He was a member of the SS Division Leibstandarte before he became Adolf Hitler's personal adjutant. Günsche was taken prisoner by soldiers of the Red Army in Berlin on 2 May 1945. He was held in various labour camps and prisons by the Soviet Union until 2 May 1956 and provided key testimony regarding Hitler's death.
Erich Kempka was a member of the SS in Nazi Germany who served as Adolf Hitler's primary chauffeur from 1936 to April 1945. He was present in the area of the Reich Chancellery on 30 April 1945, when Hitler shot himself in the Führerbunker. Kempka delivered petrol to the garden behind the Chancellery, where the remains of Hitler and Eva Braun were burned. After Kempka's capture by United States forces, he served as an eyewitness as to Hitler's demise, albeit his self-admitted unreliability.
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Ewald Lindloff was a Waffen-SS officer during World War II, who was present in the Führerbunker on 30 April 1945, when Hitler committed suicide. He was placed in charge of disposing of Hitler's remains. Lindloff was later killed during the break-out on 2 May 1945 while crossing the Weidendammer Bridge under heavy fire in Berlin.
Georg Betz was an SS officer, who rose to the rank of SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer during World War II. Betz served as Adolf Hitler's personal co-pilot and Hans Baur's substitute. Betz was present in the Führerbunker in Berlin in late April 1945. On 1 May 1945, Betz took part in the break-out from the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. Early on 2 May 1945, Betz was wounded and died while crossing the Weidendammer Bridge, which was under heavy fire from Soviet troops.
Elena Moiseevna Rzhevskaya was a writer and former Soviet war interpreter. In April and May, 1945, she participated in the Battle of Berlin. According to her memoirs, called in English Memories of a War-time Interpreter, she was a member of the Soviet unit searching for Adolf Hitler in the ruins of the Reich Chancellery. Hitler's charred remains were, according to her own words, found by soldier Ivan Churakov on 4 May 1945. Four days later, on 8 May, Colonel Vassily Gorbushin gave her a small box that contained Hitler's dental remains. During the identification of the corpse, the Soviet team worked in top-secret conditions. Rzhevskaya and Gorbushin managed to find in Berlin, Käthe Heusermann, an assistant of Hugo Blaschke, Hitler's personal dentist. Heusermann confirmed the identity of the Nazi leader. The information was, however, suppressed by Joseph Stalin, who later ordered the facts not to be publicized. She was a recipient of the Andrei Sakharov Prize for Writer's Civic Courage.
Conspiracy theories about the death of Adolf Hitler, dictator of Germany from 1933 to 1945, contradict the accepted fact that he committed suicide in the Führerbunker on 30 April 1945. Stemming from a campaign of Soviet disinformation, most of these theories hold that Hitler and his wife, Eva Braun, survived and escaped from Berlin, with some asserting that he went to South America. In the post-war years, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) investigated some of the reports, without lending them credence. The 2009 revelation that a skull in the Soviet archives long (dubiously) claimed to be Hitler's actually belonged to a woman has helped fuel conspiracy theories.
Anton Joachimsthaler is a German historian. He is particularly noted for his research on the early life of the German dictator Adolf Hitler, in his book Korrektur einer Biografie and his last days in the book Hitlers Ende, published in English as The Last Days of Hitler.
The Death of Adolf Hitler: Unknown Documents from Soviet Archives is a 1968 book by Soviet journalist Lev Bezymenski, who served as an interpreter in the Battle of Berlin. The book gives details of the purported Soviet autopsies of Adolf Hitler, Eva Braun, Joseph and Magda Goebbels, their children, and General Hans Krebs. Each of these individuals are recorded as having died by cyanide poisoning; contrary to the Western conclusion that Hitler died by a suicide gunshot.
Who Killed Hitler? is a 1947 American book edited by Herbert Moore and James W. Barrett, with an introduction by U.S. intelligence officer William F. Heimlich. The book contends that rather than commit suicide or escape Germany, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was assassinated in an attempted coup d'état by Schutzstaffel (SS) leader Heinrich Himmler. The book criticizes claims of Hitler's survival and has also been criticized for bolstering them.
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↑ Trevor-Roper, Hugh (1945), Special Interrogation of Erich Kempka– via National Archives at College Park, Record Group 242, foreign records seized, P26, Box1 @190/18/6/3
↑ Felton, Mark; Linge, Heinz (2023). "The Forgotten Theory". Find the Führer: The Secret Soviet Investigation. Episode 6. The Russians have never found Hitler's body. I know that because—uh… he uh, they never—they questioned me repeatedly about it.
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