Did Hitler survive?

[Jeremy Dixon]

Hitler shot himself through the temple the blood might have splattered over Eva Braun? There are always conflicting reports when something happed 70+ years ago...............it doesn't mean Hitler escaped to Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia or the moon!!!

[FranzJ]

Why would I automatically jump to such an extreme conclusion....???

I only mentioned an interesting fact, that has been noted by many people.......

[sandeepmukherjee196]

Pl look at this pic of the bunker room where Hitler and Eva committed suicide. The sofa, blood stains et al ...bunker.room.jpg

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.

There is enough blood if you notice. He shot himself through the right temple. . And bled on the right side. Eva was sitting to his left. She didn't shoot herself .. so no blood there. Her gun was lying handy though she didn't use it.

Her gun was there because Hitler had been told by the medical and military advisers that biting on the capsule while squeezing the trigger made the suicide foolproof.

Hitler did exactly that. But Eva wanted to be a " beautiful corpse" ! She couldn't bring herself to squeeze the trigger.

The gun shot couldn't have been possibly heard outside because of the sound proofing of the room with heavy doors et al. Some say they heard a shot. ..pretty loud too ... which made one of the Goebbels children shout "bulls eye"! But the source of that sound would have been someplace else I guess.

Cheers
Sandeep

[sandeepmukherjee196]

Upon second thoughts. Could it be that acoustics played a role in the gun shot being heard by some and not by others? I am no expert in acoustics or architecture. But is is possible that the heavy doors to the room blocked the gun shot report from travelling outside to those at that level of the bunker, near the door and thereabouts. Whereas the sound could have travelled through the ventilation ducts et al to other levels / locations of the bunker?

I am saying this because a single gun shot report is unlikely to have come from any other source that that specific time and place. There were artillery shells dropping outside intermittently. But the "front" wasn't yet close enough for individual small arms fire to be heard inside... that too a handgun shot ! People like Traudl Junge had no axe to grind on these matters and she says she heard it. I would like to believe her...So what could it be?

Cheers
Sandeep

[Ellecram]

What convinces me about the fact that Hitler died in the bunker is that he was far too feeble to make the efforts needed to survive. The stories of his survival are quite interesting but they just don't seem to carry the weight of evidence.

[sandeepmukherjee196]

book_cover.jpg (84.4 KiB) Viewed 10653 times

This is another one of those Hitler escaped pieces. And here is the review:
http://www.hitlersescape.com/?gclid=CK_ ... aAodJZAByA

It is supposed to be saying that Hitler and Eva Braun beat it on the sly, on 22nd April, leaving a Double to die instead.

I don't have this book nor do I intend to buy it ever. If any kind soul or curious rich (very) person buys this, would s/he please verify what these guys have to say about Eva Braun's "double"..who would doubtless have had to be present in the Bunker after 22nd.

Problem is that those who genuinely and sincerely subscribe to the Hitler escaped theory, never ponder on the following:

How could the Double go on behaving, deciding and reacting exactly like the real Hitler, in those 8 days after Hitler purportedly left ? How would he know what to do with Fegelein? Why did everyone get so paranoid about Fegelein if Hitler was safely out of harms way by that time?

How about the Will and Testament? No...before someone says it...it was not possible to have made these documents before and acting as if they were dictated on the 29th. Hitler dictated in real time and Traudl Junge took them down in short hand. And even though she said some funny and fuzzy things later, Junge was no part of any conspiracy..she wasn't a Nazi and later on went to pieces all over the place.

And what does this book have to say about the suicide cum murder of the Goebbels family ? And what do they feel about the fact that ALL of Hitler's close associates were accounted for later, in a way, to have left them out of range of a fugitive Hitler in exile.

Cheers
Sandeep

PS. But one thing I am quite OK with..This book refers to Gestapo Mueller's testimony to US intel in 1948, to the effect that he organised the Fuehrer's escape to Spain. Though I have made it clear ad nauseam that Hitler didn't escape to Spain or wherever...I do believe that Mueller escaped (and Bormann perhaps) and he could have told the Americans "interesting" things just to keep them from making a hole in his head and dumping his body in the sea. He had to get by on the basis of his value to US intel, after capture. So he may just have been making up some tall tales to mix with some other genuine things of value he told the Americans.

[Jeremy Dixon]

I don't believe for one minute that Gestapo Mueller made it to the US. The 3 volume series by Bender all about Mueller working for the US intellignce is fake in my opinion. The author Gregory Douglas, whose real name is Peter Stahl has been described as a forger and "novelist" when it comes to writing history. Mueller died in May 1945....in my opinion and the opinion of leading historians.

The above book cover "Hitler's Escape"...another piece of rubbish

[sandeepmukherjee196]

Well he maynot have made it to the US. I don't have any strong input on that. There isn't anything in the US Archives to indicate CIA involvement, that I know of.
I
It may very well have been the Russians who got him after the war. A subordinate of Mueller was told by his Russian interrogators "your boss is dead". But then the circumstances quoted by them about how his body was found in a subway shaft wasn't fitting in with the other versions.

In fact no 2 versions match about his so called death or disposal of the body.

There are several versions about his being taken and used by the Soviets after the war. And that doesn't necessarily mean he was a Soviet mole throughout.
Maybe the Russians went out of the way to volunteer the info that "your boss is dead" to throw up a smoke screen since they were using Mueller by then.
But his death in Berlin on 2nd May hasn't been proved.

Cheers
Sandeep

[sandeepmukherjee196]

" ...to find MUELLER immediately after the war while the trail was still hot, either in the West or the East….The presumption is that Allied officials searching for MUELLER soon stumbled over the…holdings of his effects and the…burial record and considered these sufficient proof that he was dead….There is little room for doubt, however, that the Soviet and Czech services circulated rumors to the effect that MUELLER had escaped to the West. These rumor were apparently floated to offset the charges that the Soviets had sheltered the criminal….There are strong indications but no proof that MUELLER collaborated with [the Soviets]. There are also strong indications but no proof that MUELLER died [in Berlin]….One thing appears certain. MUELLER and SCHOLZ had some special reason for entering the Berlin death trap and remaining behind in the Chancellery. If their object was to carry out a memorable and convincing suicide, they really bungled the job...."

A perusal of the following report quoting CIA documents (Record Group 263: Records of the Central Intelligence Agency) from the US National Archives is interesting in this context :

https://www.archives.gov/iwg/declassifi ... eller.html

Cheers
Sandeep

[FranzJ]

in a striking passage in his memoirs, former Volkssturm member Dieter H. B. Protsch relates an incident that took place in Berlin on 29 April 1945. That day, which happened to be his thirteenth birthday, in the course of searching for food for his family he stumbled upon a basement occupied by several Waffen-SS men operating radio equipment who gave him bread and chocolate:

"After some small talk about the family, they suddenly stopped talking when the radio operator raised his hand to demand quiet. The "Funker" [Radio Operator], wearing a head set, started smiling and stated that "der Führer" got his belated birthday present. He explained further that he [Hitler] made it safely out of Berlin, flown out by his personal pilot Hanna Reitsch, Germany's best female test pilot. The report stated that she was flying a small one engine, two or three seater plane, a so-called 'Fiseler [sic] Storch'.

-- Dieter H. B. Protsch, "Be All You Can Be: From a Hitler Youth in WWII to a US Army Green Beret", Trafford Publishing, 2004, p. 32

[FranzJ]

To add to the mix, if I'm not mistaken (it's been a while, and my memory is a tiny bit rusty), Hitler's pilot, Hans Baur, stated upon his return from Russian captivity in 1955 that he had seen Eva's corpse in the Bunker, and she had "shot herself in the heart." So, there's yet another "rendition" of what occurred.

Former Pilot and Valet Tell How Hitler Died
The Canberra Times [ACT]
10 October 1955

HERLESHAUSEN [Germany] Hitler's chief personai pilot, Hans Baur said on return from Soviet captivity yesterday that he saw Hitler shoot himself dead.

"The Führer Iooked at me gravely, in the eyes, shook my -hand, said 'goodbye' and shot himself," he said. Baur said Hitier's wife, Eva Braun committed suieide in his [Baur's] presence in a Bunker of the Reich Chancellery. . . However before Baur could tell further details, he was whisked off by Red Cross officials.

Thirty-one other former prisoners were in transport which brought Baur from the Soviet Union.

Baur said later:

"There is no doubt about it! Hitler is dead and Eva Braun died on the same day as he. I did not see their bodies afterwards and I do not know what happened to them".

There had been many conflicting reports about the drama in the Bunker, some saying Hitler and Braun were not married, others that they married almost at the last moment before their suicide. Some report's said Hitler and Braun took poison after a last minute marriage; Baur's acccount is the first eyewitness version.

Heinz Linge, Adolf Hitler's personal valet, today also declared the Führer to be dead says an "American Associated Press" report from Berlin.

"I carried his body out of the Bunker, and then helped pour Petrol over it", he was quoted as saying. "I watched it burn for about five minutes".

Linge gave his version of Hitler's last' minutes after returning from the prisoner of wair camp in Russia. H6 said Hitler and his bride, Eva Braun, committed suicide in the Führer's air raid Bunker in the Chancellery garden in Berlin on 30 April 1945.

"They were alone in one of the Bunker rooms," Linge said. "Hitler shot himself, Eva Braun took poison".

Both bodies were liberally doused with Petrol. About 10 men, of them in the S.S. staff of the Bunker, watched as the bright blaze consumed the bodies.

Linge said he then fled with Martin Bormann, chief of the Chancellery staff. Linge' said Bormann entered a Tiger tank and tried to break through the ring of Russians who were closing on the centre of the city. "I don't think he made it. The last time I saw the tank was at the Weidendammer Bridge," said Linge.

The bridge is in what is now East Berlin. Bormann was officially declared dead last year.

Conflict In Stories Of Hitler's Death
The Canberra Times [CT]
11 October 1955
Hans Baur, Hitler's chief personal pilot, said he saw the Nazi dictator and Eva Braun shoot themselves dead amid the blazing ruins of Berlin in April 1945. Heinz Linge, Hitler's personal valet, said: "Hitler shot himself, and Eva Braun took poison. They were alone in one of the Bunker rooms".

BERLIN: Two men who were with Hitler to the last have given conflicting accounts of how the Führer and Eva Braun met their deaths in besieged Berlin.

Heinz Linge, Hitler's valet, told reporters yesterday that he threw a blanket over the Führer's body on 30 April 1945, and helped to burn it. Linge, who arrived in Berlin last night among a group of 116 ex-prisoriers, said he had tried to carry the body out of the Chancellery by himself but found it too heavy. The bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun were then soaked with Petrol and burned.

Linge's revelations came less than 21 hours after Hans Baur, Hitler's' personal pilot, told reporters at the West German repatriation camp of Friedland that he saw Hitler and Eva Braun shoot themselves in the Chancellery air raid shelter.

"The Führer looked me gravely in the eyes, shook my hand and said 'goodbye,' and shot himself", Baur said.

"Braun shot herself at the same time," he added.

Baur also told reporters that Martin Bormann, Hitler's deputy, was killed trying to escape from beleaguered Berlin.

************************************

Baur is the first surviving witness to say he actually saw Hitler and Braun die.



I Burnt Hitler's Body: Migrant
The Canberra Times [ACT]
18 January 1973

SYDNEY: A 58-year-old Newcastle State dockyard worker said today that he had helped to burn Hitler's body early on 1 May 1945.

Mr Bruno Koch, an assistant boilermaker-foreman, said he also saw Martin Bormann, whose fate still remains one of the great wartime mysteries die in a hail of bullets as he fled from Russian soldiers only an hour after the burning.

Mr Koch, then a warrant officer and a personal aide to Hitler, said he was only yards from Hitler and his bride of one day, Eva Braun. when they committed suicide in a Bunker 30ft below the German war headquarters in Berlin, The next day he had helped wrap the couple in a carpet, soak it in petrol and set fire to it.

Mr Koch's disclosure 28 years after World War II, came as a result of the recent discovery of a human skull near a railway yard in Berlin and the the discovery that the skull was the remains of Bormann. According to Mr Koch, Bormann died only yards from him while crossing a bridge over the River Spree in Berlin. Mr Koch said he had lived with the secret since the war because he wanted to forget.

"But all this talk about what happened to Field Marshal Bormann [sic] makes me want to say once and for all that he died on 1 May 1945", he said. "I saw him die. I was only a few yards behind him, taking cover from bullets".

Mr Koch, who has lived in Newcastle for 15 years, said he had been near Hitler and other leading Nazi Party figures in the last days. Mr Koch migrated to Australia 18 years ago and spent several weeks in migrant hostels in Melbourne and Sydney before moving to Newcastle, where he has been ever since.

**********************************************

The West German Institute for Contemporary Affairs, in Munich, said it had a Soviet intelligence report listing all people known to have been in the Bunker at the time of Hitler's death. Mr Koch was not among them.

[FranzJ]

Did Hitler Die?
A West Australian's Answer
The West Australian
February/March 1947

The Investigator. Louis C. S. Mansfield, of recent years well known in Britain and Europe as a scientific detective of remarkable attainment, was born at Subiaco, Western Australia, on 17 October 1906. At 17 he decided to make scientific criminal detection his life's work and for that reason, entered on a prolonged course of study covering 80 different science subjects and including five different branches of chemistry, biology, physics and engineering. He eventually decided to concentrate mainly on the scientific detection of forgeries and on the smashing of international codes and cyphers, though he is conversant with the latest technique of all branches of criminal investigation. At 24 he was appointed consultant expert to the chief of the Federal G.P.O. Investigation Bureau. At 25 he was appointed special forgeries investigator by the Bank Officers' Association, eventually setting up in private practice as consultant criminologist and being called into consultation on a number of important crime cases. In 1936 he left Australia for London to further his studies in scientific criminology during a tour of the world's most important crime centres. He decided to stay in London to write on crime andcriminals and to set up in practice as consulting criminologist, handling a number of important cases. In 1944, after having been invalided out of national service work he joined the staff of Reuters, the famous news agency, becoming, eventually, chief reporter and deputy to the news editor. It was after leaving Reuters in 1945 that he decided to undertake a private one-man investigation into the Hitler mystery to find out what really did happen in the Chancellery garden in Berlin, where Hitler's death was reported to have occurred when the Russians were conquering the city. He treated the mystery as an ordinary crime investigation, applying the methods of scientific detection which have won him an international reputation.

As a result of the evidence Louis C. S. Mansfield discovered, Colonel Heimlich, of the American Intelligence [G2], reopened the Hitler case offering him the full facilities of their organization in their zone, and General Smirnov, Russian Commander of Berlin, gave him carte blanche to carry out any investigations he wished in the Russian sector. His discoveries were deemed so important that British, American and Russian Intelligence officers requested full copies of his investigational field notes.


Col. W. F. Heimlich, former Chief of U.S. Intelligence, Berlin, found no evidence that Hitler actually died or that his body was cremated:


The Chief of British Intelligence in Berlin was Colonel E A. Howard, not Captain Trevor-Roper as is popularly supposed because of Trevor-Roper's widely accepted book. Trevor-Roper was in no way connected with our inquiry into Hitler's "death" in Berlin except as a visitor in the early days of September, far in advance of really significant findings. The Chief of Soviet Intelligence was Major General Alexis Sidney, Chief, NKVD [later MVD] for Berlin and Brandenburg Province. Sidney had copies of pictures taken immediately after fighting ceased, of Dr. Göbbels, his wife and family. Göbbels' body had also been burned by gasoline as Hitler's was supposed to have been but was clearly identifiable as the late Propaganda Chief. General Sidney assured me that he did not have any further evidence of Hitler's demise and particularly, he did not have any idea as to what had been done with Hitler's body, despite the fact that Soviet Intelligence agents had been with the assault troops who entered the Reichschancellery on 1 May 1945!

*******

There were stories told of hundreds of persons having been trapped in the subway been flooded by SS troops. Later investigation into this by the Military Government, including the pumping of the subways dry and the raising of the cars, revealed that there had been no deaths due to this action. These wild stories, together with what had been gleaned by Intelligence units in Western Germany, made excavation in the Reichschancellery proper all the more important. Arrangements were therefore completed with the Soviet representatives for excavation of the Reichschancellery area around 1 December 1945. The American Intelligence team headed by Captain George Gabelia, one of the American officers who spoke fluent Russian, arranged for two dozen workmen to be available. At the appointed time the workmen were carried by trucks to the Reichschancellery, provided with picks, shovels and axes and the operation began. First, all debris was cleared up, such odds and ends of war as broken machine guns, ammunition, rifles, helmets, uniforms, bits and pieces of wood, leather and metal were examined and carefully piled in one area of the garden

After two days of excavation in an ever widening area we found no signs of any bodies and more significantly no evidences of burning or of fire! On the third day of excavation I received a call at 7:00 in the morning from Captain Gabelia telling me that upon reporting at the Reichschancellery to continue the digging, he and our British allies had been met by an entire batallion of Soviet troops on guard there and had been denied access to the Reichschancellery Bunker area. I hurried to the Reichschancellery, arriving there about 7:45 in the morning. The area was indeed under guard. The Soviet major in command said that he was acting under instructions. I proceeded to NKVD headquarters in the Luisan Strasse, in the Soviet sector of Berlin. I found that General Sidnev was "not available" and that his deputy, Colonel Tulpov was "ill".

After three fruitless days, we were forced to call off further excavation in the Reichschancellery. The building and the grounds continued under guard for another six months! It was therefore necessary to send my uncompleted report of investigation into the death of Adolf Hitler to Supreme Headquarters then located at Frankfurt, Germany, together with pictures and supporting documents, with the notation that it had been impossible to complete the investigation.

In the final paragraph of that report I stated that there was no evidence beyond that of hearsay to support the theory of Hitler's suicide. I was authorized by higher headquarters in 1945 to say that:

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

My final report to Washington stated that no evidence was found of Hitler's death in Berlin in 1945.

...........

"Berlin Twilight" [1947] by Lieutenant-Colonel W. Byford-Jones

Inquest on Hitler
Is Adolf Hitler dead? If so, how did he die?

These two questions, even at the end of 1946, were still not answered to the satisfaction of some jurists in the Allied Armies of Occupation, and may never be so answered.

Officially the British Army of the Rhine, through its Intelligence branches, stated categorically in October 1945, without anyone having seen the body, that Hitler was dead, and described how, when and where he had died. The United States Intelligence Service maintained a discreet silence, although they produced considerable evidence which contributed to the conclusion reached by the British authorities. The attitude adopted by the Soviet Union was dictated by the Minister of Political Reticence. Although the Red Army had captured the Reichs Chancellery, and their Intelligence Service was in sole charge of the air-raid shelter in which Hitler was known to have lived directing the battle, and although the Russians had captured several relevant witnesses, who had been in Hitler's Bunker, they made no official pronouncement on the subject. For them Hitler might never have existed.

In the absence of a categorical Quadripartite statement on this fundamentally important matter, it is impossible to know whether the Four Powers think that Hitler is dead or not. Certainly, so far as the Germans are concerned, some statement ought to be made with the full weight of the Control Council; until the possibility of his reappearance is eliminated from the superstitious German mind there will exist the greatest obstacle to spiritual de-Nazification. The Germans who survived the Battle of Berlin were almost unanimously of the opinion that Hitler was still alive. The statement made by the British Intelligence Service did not have the desired effect.

...........

The first Allied officer to reach the Reichs Chancellery was Major Feodor Platanoff of the Red Army, who on 2 May, in the closing stages of the Battle of Berlin, led a storming party of infantry across the grounds to the entrance to Hitler's Bunker. Major Platanoff stated that there was a body in the garden near the Bunker, that it was not Hitler's, "but a very bad double". He said that his men buried the body in the garden. It had already been half burned. When asked if he thought Hitler was dead, Platanoff shook his head. "I think he escaped," he said.

Before the assault was made, the Reichs Chancellery was stormed by artillery and mortars. At midnight on 30 April, when the Red Army had surrounded Central Berlin, a group of Nazi officers arrived under a truce flag at the Soviet headquarters, then in the Friedrichstrasse, saying that they had come from General Weidling, the recently appointed Commander-in- Chief of all German forces in Berlin, with authority to ask for an armistice between the Russian Government and German Government under Dr. Göbbels. The offer suggested that Hitler no longer existed, and is consistent with the statement that he committed suicide at 2.30 p.m. that day. Certainly it did not appear that he could be at his headquarters or in Berlin. The Soviet Commander replied that he would only consider an unconditional surrender: The Nazis returned to their lines, and the battle continued until next day.

During the night of 1 May there was heavy hand-to-hand fighting in the Wilhelmstrasse, and the streets which led off it, and the Russians secured the Chancellery. It was the last fortified place in the city to fall. Early on 2 May, General Weidling broadcast an order to all German troops in the city to lay down their arms, and two of the armies of Marshal Zhukov's command met and celebrated victory beneath the Brandenburger Gate. It does not seem that the Russian Intelligence Service grasped the real importance of the Chancellery in the first days of victory. True, everyone knew that it had been Hitler's seat of government, and it was not long before large cases of files and other documents were removed, and put under guard. But there does not seem to have been any systematic effort to find out what had happened to the man who led a group of conspirators towards the goal of dominating the world, and who might have escaped to lie for years in hiding, then to emerge and call the German people to action.

It is certain that if, within a few hours of the capture of the Chancellery a group of Scotland Yard detectives had been given the run of the place, assisted with one or two finger-print and forensic medicine experts, there would never have been any Hitler mystery at all.

If Hitler and Eva Braun had died there some proof would certainly have been found. However, it was weeks before the work of investigation was seriously undertaken, and then it was too late to learn anything conclusive

............

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Franz J,

And yet none of your sources say Hitler lived. They only say that the circumstances of his death are less than 100% clear to them. This does not mean Hitler did not die as claimed.

We can also say with some authority that, even if Hitler did not die exactly as claimed, he might as well have done as he has not reappeared and he is certainly dead now.

Cheers,

Sid.

[FranzJ]

True enough.......

But if the circumstances were not as described by witness and/or accepted by standard histories ........ what actually did happen and why was it suppressed

If Hitler died, was were no better place to hide the body than feet from the exit of the Bunker?

Some investigators have stated whether he died or escaped is irrelevant.....the bodies found are not Hitler or Eva

[Ironmachine]

If Hitler died, was were no better place to hide the body than feet from the exit of the Bunker?

If Hitler died, and with the Soviets at the gates, had the people in the bunker nothing better to do than play hide-and-seek with his corpse?
For each such argument as the one you posted, there is an immediate counter-argument at least as powerful. That kind of reasoning is not going to yield an anwer to the question of Hitler's survival.