In the documentary, Bellantoni can be seen examining the photographs of the skull fragments. His attention is drawn to the sutures connecting the skull plates, which are very open, suggesting that the skull belonged to a person who was 40 years old or younger at the time of death—not representative of the more closed zigzag sutures Bellantoni would have expected to see from Hitler, who was 56 years old when he died. The other thing Bellantoni noted was that the skull fragments were relatively small, more representative of a female skull, not the fuller, more robust fragments that Bellantoni would have expected to find from an adult male. “If the police brought us this skull, we would have thought it was a woman, to be honest with you,” Bellantoni says on camera, sitting at the computer in his study. These were the first hints Bellantoni had that the skull the Russians had held for decades did not belong to Hitler at all.
Remarkably, the DNA tests conducted on the skull fragments by the University of Connecticut Center for Applied Genetics and Technology confirmed Bellantoni’s suspicions. Molecular biologist Dr. Linda Strausbaugh, the director of the university center, supervised the DNA testing. Using full forensic procedures to avoid contamination, Strausbaugh and her science team, after grinding the bone fragments to powder, were able to draw DNA from the skull samples. The scientific conclusion was that the skull fragments belonged to a woman under 40 years of age whose identity was unknown. These were groundbreaking findings, calling into question the historical account of Hitler’s death. “We are going to change everybody’s perception, not only of these remains, but also of what happened to Adolf Hitler and others in that bunker,” Bellantoni said at the conclusion of the documentary. “If this is not Adolf Hitler, who is it? And, as a result of that, we’ve got a lot more homework to do.”
Bellantoni’s scientific results were “extraordinary,” the Guardian concluded.32 “According to witnesses, the bodies of Hitler and Braun had been wrapped in blankets and carried to the garden just outside the Berlin bunker, placed in a bomb crater, doused with petrol, and set ablaze,” writes Guardian reporter Uki Goñi, the author of The Real Odessa, a book about the escape of Nazi war criminals from Europe to Argentina.33 “But the skull fragment the Russians dug up outside the Führerbunker in 1946 could never have belonged to Hitler. The skull DNA was incontestably female. The only positive proof that Hitler had shot himself had suddenly been rendered worthless.”
The skull fragment cannot be that of Eva Braun—even though Braun was 33 years old in April 1945—simply because there is no evidence that she shot herself, and the Russian autopsy claiming to have found Braun’s body concluded that she died of cyanide poising, making no mention that any part of the skull was missing. While the Russians have been much more circumspect about showing Hitler’s teeth fragments, why would we believe the teeth could be dated differently, given that the Russians have always insisted the skull and teeth fragments came from the same corpse? Another problem was that the DNA analysis of the blood samples taken from the sofa showed the blood was male, while the skull belonged to a woman. Lacking DNA samples from Hitler or his relatives, Bellantoni and Strausbaugh were unable to determine if the blood from the sofa belonged to him or not. But what was clear was that the blood sample from the sofa could not be tied to the exit wound observed in the female skull the Russians had for decades misidentified as Hitler’s.
The Russians understandably pushed back, dismissing the DNA reports that the skull claimed by the Russians to be Hitler’s was fraudulent. Vassili Khristoforov, the head of Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, insisted to the Mail Online that Russia still held authentic Hitler remains. “The FSB archives hold the jaw of Hitler and the state archives a fragment of Hitler’s skull,” Khristoforov told the newspaper. “With the exception of these remains, seized on May 5, 1945, there exist no other bits from the body of Hitler.”34 Yet, aside from Russian officials insisting there was no way Russia could have been deceived for nearly six decades, Russian scientists offered no counter-DNA evidence proving the skull fragments in the Moscow archives belonged to a man who was at or near Hitler’s age when he died.
The point remains: scientific proof that the Russians resorted for decades to fraudulent physical “evidence” that Hitler and Eva Braun died in Berlin at the end of World War II makes virtually certain no such proof ever existed. Clearly, the Russians provided the world with the best evidence of Hitler and Eva Braun’s death they could find. We return to the argument with which we began: Surely if Hitler and Eva Braun had committed suicide, someone would have taken a photograph. The proof that Hitler and Eva Braun must have escaped Germany is that Russia took the best shot at proving both died without escaping the Führerbunker, only to have the suicide scenario demonstrated to be nothing more than a fabrication because the evidence upon which it was based turn out to be fraudulent. With the corpses the Russians claimed belonged to Hitler and Eva Braun conveniently cremated, with the ashes sprinkled on the Elbe River, it is now time for the Russians to show what they maintain are Hitler’s dental remains.
But having had the Hitler skull proved by DNA analysis to belong to a relatively young female body, the Russians will almost certainly refuse to make the supposed Hitler dental remains public to be subjected to independent scientific examination. Why exactly the Russians have been willing to show the skull fragments while keeping the dental remains under wraps remains unknown. But when and if the Russians do decide to release the dental remains for analysis, the X-rays and dental records should be released at the same time. Independent scientific examination may be able to determine if these records are originals, or if the only dental records the Russians have come from the testimony of dental technicians recalling Hitler’s dental records from memory. If there were no dental X-rays and records made by Hitler’s dentist at the time the dental work was done, how could Russian officials dismiss the possibility that the dental technicians had their memories improved by first being shown the dental samples the Russians wanted identified as Hitler’s?
______________
6 “Where in the World is Hitler’s Skull?” Sky News, Sept. 28, 2009, http://www.foxnews.com/story/2009/09/28/where-in-world-is-hitler-skull/.
7 James F. Byrnes, Speaking Frankly (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1947), page 68.
8 Memorandum by Assistant Secretary of State Charles E. Bohlen, “Memorandum of First Conversation at the Kremlin, 8 PM, Moscow, May 26, 1945,” included in “The Hopkins Mission to Moscow,” US Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, Diplomatic Papers, The Conference of Berlin (the Potsdam Conference), May 1945, pp. 21-62, archived at University of Wisconsin Library, http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=div&did=FRUS.FRUS1945Berlinv01.i0011&isize=text and http://images.library.wisc.edu/FRUS/EFacs/1945Berlinv01/reference/frus.frus1945berlinv01.i0011.pdf.
9 Lev Bezymenski, The Death of Adolf Hitler: Unknown Documents from Soviet Archives (New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, Inc., 1968).
10 Russian Lieutenant Colonel Ivan Isayevich Klimenko, quoted in Lev Bezymenski, op.cit., pp. 30-31. Parenthesis in original.
11 Ibid., p. 31.
12 Ibid., p. 32. Parenthesis added for clarity.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid., p. 33.
15 Ibid., p. 34.
16 Ibid., p. 38.
17 Ibid., pp. 54-55.
18 Ibid., page 49.
19 Ada Petrova and Peter Watson, The Death of Hitler: The Full Story with New Evidence from Secret Russian Archives (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1995).
20 Ibid., p. 76.
21 Ibid., pp. 87-88.
22 Ibid., p. 89.
23 Ibid., p. 85.
24 Ibid., pp. 94-95.
25 The BBC and the Discovery Channel, Hitler’s Death: The Final Report – Operation Myth, Café Productions, 1995. The BBC TV is listed as the commissioning company and The Discovery Channel is listed as the production company. Hugh Purcell, Executive Producer; Laurence Rees, Executive Producer, BBC; Dai Richards, P
roducer. Ian Holms, narrator.
26 Benjamin Fischer, CIA History Staff, “Hitler, Stalin, and ‘Operation Myth,’” published in aboutfacts.net, 2003, http://aboutfacts.net/Else23.htm.
27 Steven Erlanger, “Historian Asserts Soviet Soldiers Found Hitler’s Charred Remains,” New York Times, Sept. 18, 1992, http://www.nytimes.com/1992/09/18/world/historian-asserts-soviet-soldiers-found-hitler-s-charred-remains.html.
28 Fischer, loc.cit.
29 V. K. Vinogradov, J. F. Pogonyi, and N.V. Teptozov, Hitler’s Death: Russia’s Last Great Secret from the Files of the KGB (London: Chaucer Press, 2005).
30 Andrew Roberts, Foreword, in Vinogradov, Pogonyi, and Teptozov, op.cit., pp. 10-13, at p. 11.
31 MysteryQuest, Hitler’s Escape, produced by the A&E Television Networks studio and shown first on The History Channel, September 2009. Joanna Chejade-Bloom, producer; Bill Hunt and Vincent Kralyevich, executive producers. Stan Bernard, narrator.
32 Uki Goñi, “Tests on skull fragment cast doubt on Adolf Hitler suicide story,” The Guardian, Sept. 26, 2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/27/adolf-hitler-suicide-skull-fragment.
33 Uki Goñi, The Real Odessa: Smuggling the Nazis to Peron’s Argentina (London: Granta Books, 2002).
34 Alan Hall, “We really do have Hitler’s skull, say Russians … despite US claim bones are female,” Mail Online, Dec. 8, 2009, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1234131/Hitler-skull-fragments-genuine-insist-Russians.html.
2
THE HITLER SUICIDE COVER STORY
The Nazi regime gave evidence of how quite literally the entire existence of the state can be based on deception. Even Hitler’s death is surrounded by a fabric of lies.
—Lev Bezymenski, The Death of Adolf Hitler (1968)35
At 9:40 p.m. on Wednesday, May 2, 1945, in Germany, radio channels across the nation interrupted the dramatic playing of Wagner’s “Twilight of the Gods,” by the announcement, “Achtung! Achtung! The German broadcasting is going to give an important German government announcement for the German people.” At 9:57 p.m. the dramatic playing of music from Wagner’s “Rhinegold,” with the announcer issuing another “Achtung!” warning calling for attention, explaining, “We are now going to play the slow movement of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony,” a score written to commemorate Wagner’s death.
At 10:30 p.m. in Germany—4:30 p.m. in the afternoon in New York—the music broadcast over the radio stopped. Three drum rolls preceded a moment of silence. The announcer solemnly informed the German people listening, “It is reported from Der Führer’s headquarters that our Führer Adolf Hitler, fighting to the last breath against Bolshevism, fell for Germany this afternoon in his operational headquarters in the Reich Chancellery.” The next speaker, identifying himself as Grand-Admiral Karl Dönitz, well known as the commander of Germany’s U-boat submarine fleet, came on the radio to explain that he had been appointed as Hitler’s successor. Dönitz advanced the theme that Hitler had died as a hero: “He saw the terrible dangers of Bolshevism early on and he devoted his life to the struggle against it. This struggle and his unshakably straight path was ended by his heroic death in the capital of the Reich.”36
With this announcement, the politics of Hitler’s death kicked into high gear. Immediately, the Allies began worrying that if the German people perceived Hitler as a hero fighting against communism to the death, a martyr would be born, keeping open the possibility that Nazism might once again arise in Germany. On the morning of May 3, 1945, the official Moscow radio called the German broadcast “a new Fascist trick,” by which “the German Fascists evidently hope to prepare for the possibility of Hitler disappearing from the scene and going to an underground position.”37 Rather than allowing Dönitz to position Hitler as having charged the ramparts in a last-ditch attempt to defend the German people, the Soviets in Moscow wanted to reframe Hitler as the culprit who abandoned Germany after leading the country into a catastrophic world war that resulted in nothing for the German people but death, destruction, and despair. The Russians appreciated that if the German people believed Hitler had escaped Berlin, their conclusion would be that Hitler was a coward who preferred to escape into hiding while Berliners had no choice but to remain in place and face captivity under the advancing Russian army.
First accounts of Hitler’s death
As noted in the previous chapter, the Soviet army was the first to capture Berlin and seize the Reich Chancellery. Rushing into the Führerbunker, the first question of the Russian soldiers was, “Where is Hitler?” Failing to find him in the bunker, the Germans there explained Hitler had committed suicide and his body had been cremated outside the bunker, along with that of his wife, Eva Braun. The last chapter detailed how the Russians ultimately recovered two corpses that the Russian government ultimately tried to convince the world were the bodies of the Führer and his new wife. Stalin, as we also saw, steadfastly maintained to his death that Hitler had escaped, first to Spain and then to Argentina.
Very quietly, US military intelligence launched a full-scale investigation into Hitler’s last days upon entering Berlin in late May 1945. On July 2, 1945, Newsweek reported that the British and the Americans were convinced Hitler was dead. “As proof, Allied headquarters released the stories of two eyewitnesses of the last days: Eric H. Kempka, Hitler’s chauffeur, and Herman Karnau, one of his police sentries. The details they filled in made the Führer’s death even more fantastic and gruesome than the earlier accounts.” Here’s how Newsweek described Hitler’s final moments:
Kempka, who had been Hitler’s chauffeur since 1936, saw him alive for the last time on April 29, when he went to the Führer’s bunker and reported how he had brought food and supplies to the various command posts. Hitler, he said, seemed “quiet and normal.”
At 2:40 on April 30, continued Kempka, Guensche [one of Hitler’s bodyguards] went into Hitler’s room. There in front of him, grotesquely sprawled together over the couch, were the bodies of the Führer and his wife [Eva Braun], dead in a suicide pact. On the floor in front of Hitler lay a 7.65-millimeter Walther pistol; he had been shot through the head. Eva had a bullet through her heart, and near the couch was a smaller-caliber Walther.38
The Newsweek article continued, detailing how Martin Bormann, Hitler’s secretary, had helped Kempka and Heinz Linge, Hitler’s personal valet, carry the bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun outside the bunker into the Reich Chancellery garden. There, the bodies were placed into “a shallow hole” and unidentified “men” arrived with five cans of gasoline that were poured on the bodies. “Bormann, Goebbels [Reich Minister of Propaganda], Linge, I, and a couple of others stood at attention and gave the Hitler salute,” Kempka told Newsweek, explaining that there was no elaborate ceremony because Russian artillery shells were coming in from all sides. “Guensche, carrying out Hitler’s last order, set the bodies afire. We stayed a couple of minutes and went back to the shelter. We left a single guard to watch the fire. He was a security policeman whom I did not know. I doubt if anything remained of the bodies. The fire was terrifically intense.” Newsweek gave the date of the cremation as May 1. Kempka added that he doubted any evidence of Hitler or Eva Braun’s bodies would ever be found, except for some bits of bone and teeth. “Shells probably landed there and scattered everything all over.”
By October 1945, the US investigation was derailed, with the announcement that the British were sending a young historian to Berlin to write a book.
Enter Trevor-Roper
On Oct. 1, 1945, the US Army issued a typewritten notice documenting that the British army had called to say a Major Trevor-Roper from British military intelligence in London was in Berlin at the request of British Brigadier Dick White, then head of counter-intelligence in the British sector of Berlin, to conduct an inquiry regarding Hitler’s death.39 The following day, the Headquarters of the US Forces, European Theater, Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, issued a bearer-memorandum for Major Trevor-Roper to carry with him in the field, ask
ing US military personnel approached by Trevor-Roper to assist him “to the fullest possible extent, including providing facilities for interrogating those persons, as named by him, who may have information relating to subject inquiry.”40
As noted earlier, Trevor-Roper in 1945 was a history graduate student at Oxford who had been recruited to work in military intelligence during the war. In his career after the war, as Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, Trevor-Roper was faulted for not writing a major work of history and leaving behind a “biography studded with abandoned manuscripts and unfulfilled publisher’s contracts.”41 In 1983, he fell into disgrace when the German magazine Stern asked him to authenticate the so-called Hitler Diaries. Trevor-Roper staked his reputation on his judgment that the diaries were authentic. He suffered international embarrassment when the diaries were proven to be a forgery, but only after The Sunday Times, a publication to which Trevor-Roper was a regular contributor and an independent director, paid a considerable sum to obtain the rights to serialize the diaries.42 This scandal so sullied Trevor-Roper’s career that when The Times in London published his obituary, the headline was: “Hitler diary hoax victim [Trevor-Roper] dies at 89,” making no mention of his wartime work investigating Hitler’s death for British intelligence.43
Hunting Hitler Page 4
