Adolf Hitler may not have shot himself dead and perhaps did not even die in his bunker, it emerged yesterday.
A skull fragment believed for decades to be the Nazi leader’s has turned out to be that of a woman under 40 after DNA analysis.
Scientists and historians had long thought it to be conclusive proof that Hitler shot himself in the head after taking a cyanide pill on 30 April 1945 rather than face the ignominy of capture.
Hitlers supposed skull
The piece of skull – complete with bullet hole – had been taken from outside the Fuhrer’s bunker by the Russian Army and preserved by Soviet intelligence.
Now the story of Hitler’s death will have to rewritten as a mystery – and conspiracy theorists are likely to latch on to the possibility that he may not have died in the bunker at all.
The skull was taken by Soviet forces in 1945 when they found charred remains outside the Nazi dictator’s bunker in Berlin.
The Russians said at the time that the findings backed claims that Hitler had shot himself on April 30, 1945, and then been cremated along with his wife, Eva Braun.
Adolf Hitler with Eva Braun
Now, however, archaeologist and bone specialist Nick Bellantoni says the skull really belonged to a woman aged under 40 and not Hitler – who was 56 when he died.
Neither does Mr Bellantoni believe the skull belongs to Braun, Hitler’s long-time girlfriend and last-minute wife, who is thought to have killed herself by taking cyanide and would therefore not have had a bullet wound – as this skull has.
The Russians say they have never claimed the skull itself was the chief reason for their belief the skull was Hitler’s.
Instead, they point to dental records as confirmation that Hitler killed himself.
Some historians have believed for years that the Nazi dictator did not die in Berlin.
“There is no forensic evidence whatsoever that Hitler died in the bunker,” historian and journalist Gerrard Williams told Sky News Online.
Soviet troops guard the remains of Hitlers bunker
“The Nazi high command had been making plans since 1943 to get out of Germany and to set up a Fourth Reich mainly in South America so they had no need to die in situ in Germany.
“There was a very effective route out of Germany to South America and the Nazis had help from various factions, in particular a Croatian cardinal from the Vatican called Alois Hudel.
“As for the dental records, they were destroyed on the orders on Martin Borman in 1944. So there were no records on top Nazi leaders with which to compare the charred findings.”
One reason why there was such a belief at the end of World War II that the skull was Hitler’s, Mr Williams suggests, is that everyone needed Hitler to be dead.
“Everyone wanted to close the chapter very quickly because, of course, the Cold War was just starting up. It was convenient, that’s all.”
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January 12th, 2010 at 2:27 pm
A tape recording of Nazi officers describing the moment they found Adolf Hitler’s body in his Berlin bunker has been discovered.
The recording was made on October 25 1956 in a courtroom in Berchtesgaden, site of the Fuehrer’s mountaintop home in Bavaria. The court was convened to officially declare the former leader of Nazi Germany dead so that his fortune and rights to his book “Mein Kampf” could be seized by the state government.
Among those giving evidence that day were Otto Guensche, an SS officer, and Heinz Linge, a valet, who first discovered the corpses of Hitler and his new bride Eva Braun.
On the recording, discovered by researchers for the German Spiegel TV channel, the men speak under oath of entering the Fuehrer’s study after hearing shots ring out on April 30 1945.
“When I entered to my left I saw Hitler on the sofa,” said Linge, who died in 1980.
“Hitler had his head bent forward somewhat and I could see a bullethole approximately the size of a penny on the right side of the temple.”
May 2nd, 2010 at 4:29 am
Exactly 65 years after Adolf Hitler perished in his Berlin bunker, the man who Moscow claims destroyed his bones today refused to reveal the exact spot in Germany where he ‘cremated’ the Fuhrer.
Vladimir Gumenyuk, a 73 year old retired KGB officer, vowed to take his secret to his grave so that the location in the countryside around Magdeburg would not become the focus of pilgrimages by neo-Nazis.
The veteran is said to be the last man alive from a team of three who were secretly tasked in 1970 by Yuri Andropov – then KGB leader and later head of the Soviet Union – with digging up the bones of Hitler, his mistress Eva Braun along with the remains of Joseph Goebbels and his family.
He told a Russian newspaper that having burned the bones of the Nazi leader and his entourage, he and two colleagues drove the ashes to the top of ‘a cliff on a small unnamed stream’ before they were released to the wind.
It was a pre-determined location decided by Moscow. ‘No-one was there,’ he said. ‘Twenty seconds – and job was done. It was just the last flight of the Fuhrer.’
Gumenyuk’s role was first claimed by Moscow in revelations from the secret services in 2001.
Yesterday he gave a few additional details but said he had turned down large sums from the German media to identify the exact spot he disposed of Hitler.
‘I believe that the coverage of this subject is not appropriate,’ he said.
August 22nd, 2010 at 5:00 pm
In Nazi propaganda, he was a gallant First World War corporal who frequently risked his life.
Now the myth of Adolf Hitler’s heroism in the trenches has been debunked by research revealing he was little more than a ‘teaboy’ messenger dubbed a ‘rear-area pig’ by frontline soldiers.
No individual has been more scrutinized than Hitler, but detective work by Dr Thomas Weber, lecturer in modern history at Aberdeen University, unearthed new evidence.
Previously unpublished letters from veterans of Hitler’s regiment have challenged the Nazi portrayal which suggested his virulent nationalism was prompted by his experience on the Western Front.
They overturn his image of his unit, the List Regiment, as a band of brothers, intolerant and anti-Jewish with Hitler ‘a hero at its heart’.
They confront long-held views on Hitler’s brave war record, revealing that front soldiers shunned him as a “rear area pig” several kilometres from danger.
The letters and a diary also disclose that List men regarded him as an impractical object of ridicule, joking about his starving in a canned food factory, unable to open a can with a bayonet.
He was viewed by his comrades in regimental HQ as a loner. He was neither popular nor unpopular.
They referred to him as the ‘painter’ or the ‘artist’ and noticed that he did not indulge in their favourite pastimes – letter-writing or drinking – but was often seen with a political book in his hand or painting. He was also particularly submissive to his superiors.
September 16th, 2010 at 6:41 pm
To the wartime world, he was nothing less than a monster. In private, it seems, Adolf Hitler was equally unappealing.
According to an aide, the German dictator had ‘shocking’ table manners, constantly bit his nails and suffered from a ‘digestive disorder’ that may have resulted in severe flatulence.
The secret documents also reveal that he believed official Nazi propaganda about himself and thought ‘he was the greatest military genius of all time’.
The Fuhrer’s daily routine and ‘uncouth’ behaviour were revealed in notes taken from a captured high-ranking Nazi and handed to a British agent.
The typed four-page profile is dated May 1945 – the month Hitler died – and states on the front: ‘This summary must be destroyed within 48 hours.’
Despite the instructions, the papers were retained by the agent and returned to England.
They have surfaced after 60 years following a recent house clearance and are expected to raise more than £1,000 at auction.
The unidentified German soldier revealed he dined with Hitler about 30 times and kept his diary in the bunker where the Fuhrer saw out the last few weeks of the Second World War.
He wrote: ‘Hitler eats rapidly, mechanically; for him food is merely an indispensable means of subsistence.
‘He does not smoke and it is strictly forbidden to smoke in his presence as he seems to be very susceptible to laryngitis.
‘He talks in a mellow baritone, without that raucous, unpleasant stridency of his public speeches.
September 24th, 2010 at 3:43 pm
Adolf Hitler and his mistress Eva Braun’s silver cutlery is go up for auction later this month.
The bespoke pieces of silverware were taken by his housekeepers at the lavish mountain retreat ‘Eagle’s Nest’ before Allied forces arrived in 1945.
But now the cutlery used by the leader of the Nazi party and Braun has been rediscovered and is expected to be auctioned off for thousands.
Willi and Gretl Mitlstrasser gathered up as many items as possible from the residence in the German Alps, also known as Berghof, before fleeing the sprawling home.
They took a silver knife, fork, spoon and teaspoon engraved with Eva Braun’s initials and a silver fish knife bearing the name Adolf Hitler.
In addition, the couple stole a bone china plate and linen napkins.
These were adorned with the initials ‘A.H’ on along with the Nazi emblem of an eagle and a swastika.
The Mitlassers later gave the collection to their son.
It was then acquired by private collectors who are now selling them at a British auction.
September 25th, 2010 at 10:51 pm
Relaxing with a cup of tea and sharing a joke with a crowd of admiring women – these are the rarely seen intimate portraits of Adolf Hitler at the height of his power.
The snapshots of the dictator were taken between 1936 and 1945 as the Nazi party strengthened its grip on Germany and then waged war against its European neighbours.
In one series of pictures from 1939, Hitler is shown admiring his 50th birthday present – a specially designed convertible VW, which was given to him by Ferdinand Porsche.
He received the glossy black automobile at his Eagle’s Nest home in the Alps. The mountain-based chalet was built as a retreat for Hitler and a place for him to entertain visiting dignitaries.
In another set Hitler is seen laughing at a Christmas party in 1941. By this point over 43,000 British civilians had been killed in German bombing raids.
The photographs were taken by Hugo Jaeger, who had privileged access to the Fuhrer during those tumultuous years. Jaeger was one of the early adopters of colour photography and created clear, evocative images.
September 29th, 2010 at 11:31 pm
The First World War will officially end on Sunday, 92 years after the guns fell silent, when Germany pays off the last chunk of reparations imposed on it by the Allies.
The final payment of £59.5 million, writes off the crippling debt that was the price for one world war and laid the foundations for another.
Germany was forced to pay the reparations at the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 as compensation to the war-ravaged nations of Belgium and France and to pay the Allies some of the costs of waging what was then the bloodiest conflict in history, leaving nearly ten million soldiers dead.
The initial sum agreed upon for war damages in 1919 was 226 billion Reichsmarks, a sum later reduced to 132 billion, £22 billion at the time.
The bill would have been settled much earlier had Adolf Hitler not reneged on reparations during his reign.
Hatred of the settlement agreed at Versailles, which crippled Germany as it tried to shape itself into a democracy following armistice, was of significant importance in propelling the Nazis to power.
“On Sunday the last bill is due and the First World War finally, financially at least, terminates for Germany,” said Bild, the country’s biggest selling newspaper.
Most of the money goes to private individuals, pension funds and corporations holding debenture bonds as agreed under the Treaty of Versailles, where Germany was made to sign the ‘war guilt’ clause, accepting blame for the war.
France, which had been ravaged by the war, pushed hardest for the steepest possible fiscal punishment for Germany.
The principal representative of the British Treasury at the Paris Peace Conference, John Maynard Keynes, resigned in June 1919 in protest at the scale of the demands.
“Germany will not be able to formulate correct policy if it cannot finance itself,’ he warned.
When the Wall Street Crash came in 1929, the Weimar Republic spiralled into debt. Four years later, Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany.