Contrary reports about Adolf Hitler's death

Two achromatic photographs: the top one shows a male dummy in a suit sitting on the couch with the head slumped to the side and, to the right, a female dummy sitting on a sofa with her legs drawn up on the cushions; the bottom picture shows a similar male dummy sitting in a chair with the head slumped down and, to the right, a female dummy laying down on a sofa.

Reconstructions by West Germany (1956) showing how the bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun were found: per Artur Axmann and Heinz Linge (top), and Otto Günsche (bottom)

The death of Adolf Hitler on 30 April 1945 was followed by various contradictory reports, including from eyewitnesses, as well as the Soviet Union, which carried out the initial investigations and restricted the release of information. Objective facts regarding both Hitler and Eva Braun's deaths were largely obscured by the burning of their bodies (according to eyewitnesses, to near-ashes), leaving only dental remains for identification. Following newspaper rumors of Hitler's escape (some asserting that a body double was left in his place), in June 1945 the Soviets seeded separate false narratives that he died by cyanide and that he escaped—with Joseph Stalin stating support for the latter in July 1945. Western historians regard this as disinformation and propaganda. In 1946, the Soviets harshly interrogated eyewitnesses, resulting in inconsistencies but implying that Hitler died by gunshot; a skull fragment with gun damage was produced, allegedly from the place where Hitler's body was purportedly discovered.

The first eyewitness interrogated by the United States, Hitler Youth leader Artur Axmann, dubiously asserted—reputedly at the behest of SS-Sturmbannführer Otto Günsche (who denied coaching Axmann)—that Hitler took cyanide and then shot himself through the mouth, with the temple blood a result of internal trauma. West Germany dismissed Axmann's Nuremberg testimony that he had seen Hitler's body being carried in a blanket as insufficient evidence of the dictator's death; this led to an extensive investigation and the taking of new testimony. In the mid-1950s, Günsche and Schutzstaffel (SS) valet Heinz Linge testified that Hitler appeared to have shot himself through the temple. The eyewitnesses disagree with one another—and commonly with themselves in statements made over the years—about various details including how the bodies were found and disposed. Western historians assert that these discrepancies could be due to failures of memory, while acknowledging that some individuals (e.g. Hitler's chauffeur Erich Kempka and SS-Rottenführer Harry Mengershausen) made disreputable claims. After conducting criminological and ballistic studies, West Germany formally recognized Hitler's demise as an assumption of death on the (false) basis that no eyewitnesses had seen his body.

The 1968 Soviet propaganda book The Death of Adolf Hitler asserts that Hitler died by poisoning and/or a coup de grâce, but these claims have been largely dismissed, including by the author. Only the Soviet description of Hitler's dental remains, consisting of a golden bridge and a mandibular fragment with teeth sundered around the alveolar process (the bulge that encases the tooth sockets) is regarded as reliable. The 1968 book features previously unreleased photographs of these (previously implied by historians to have included a complete jawbone).

In 2009, the skull fragment found in 1946, claimed by the Soviets to belong to Hitler, was DNA-tested and concluded to belong to a woman. By the early 2010s, FBI documents reporting alleging post-war sightings of Hitler began to be released. These details have bolstered the fringe theory that Hitler faked his death, although mainstream historians hold to the eyewitness account of his body being burnt to near-ashes, ostensibly explaining why only dental bridges and a mandibular fragment were produced.

Events of 1945

Hitler's death

Main article: Death of Adolf Hitler

Front page of U.S. Armed Forces newspaper Stars and Stripes of 2 May 1945 (citing the German radio report)

On 22 April 1945, as the Red Army was closing in on the Führerbunker during the Battle of Berlin, Hitler declared that he would remain in the city until the end and then shoot himself. That same day, he asked Schutzstaffel (SS) physician Werner Haase about the most reliable method of suicide; Haase suggested combining a dose of cyanide with a gunshot to the head. SS physician Ludwig Stumpfegger provided Hitler with some ampoules of prussic acid (hydrogen cyanide), which the dictator initially planned to use but later doubted their efficacy.

In late April 1945, a rumor was circulated by a German group in Stockholm that a Hitler double had been called to Berlin to be filmed dying in place of the dictator, acting "as Hitler's trump card, creating a hero legend around the Führer's death, while Hitler himself goes underground."

On 29 April, Hitler ordered Haase to test one of the poison pills on his dog Blondi; the dog died instantly. On the afternoon of 30 April, Hitler committed suicide (established by historians to have been a gunshot from his Walther PP or PPK) with Eva Braun in his bunker study. The former Reich minister of propaganda and Hitler's successor as chancellor of Germany, Joseph Goebbels, informed the Reichssender Hamburg radio station, which broke the initial news of Hitler's death on the night of 1 May; an announcer claimed he had died that afternoon as a hero fighting against Bolshevism.

On 2 May, United States President Harry S. Truman stated in a press conference that "We have [it] on the best authority possible to obtain at this time that Hitler is dead. But how he died ... we are not familiar with the details as yet." When asked, he did not explain what authority he was referring to.

Initial Soviet surveys

See also: Alleged doubles of Adolf Hitler and Conspiracy theories about Adolf Hitler's death

On 9 May 1945, The New York Times reported that a body was claimed by the Soviets to belong to Hitler, but that an anonymous servant disputed this—claiming that the body belonged to a cook who was killed because of his resemblance to the (allegedly escaped) dictator. By 11 May, two colleagues of Hitler's dentist, Hugo Blaschke, confirmed the dental remains of Hitler and Eva Braun; both subsequently spent years in Soviet prisons. A number of other Nazis were detained and interrogated concerning Hitler's death. During his Soviet internment, SS-Rottenführer Harry Mengershausen reputedly provided his captors one account, which head chef Wilhelm Lange revealed was false. Mengershausen then claimed that Stumpfegger killed Hitler with a cyanide injection.

On 5 June, Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov's staff officers stated that Hitler's body had been examined and claimed that he had died by cyanide poisoning. On 6 June, the United Press reported that four bodies, purportedly burned by the Red Army's flame throwers, had been found in Berlin resembling Hitler; one, reputedly killed by poison, was considered likely to be him. At a press conference on 9 June, Zhukov stated that "We have failed to discover a body confirmed as Hitler's. ... he could have flown out of Berlin because there were runways available". According to Western sources, this was the beginning of a Soviet disinformation campaign on the orders of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. The next day, newspapers quoted Soviet Colonel General Nikolai Berzarin as stating, "Perhaps [Hitler] is in Spain with Franco." In early July, Time magazine cited the ongoing Soviet investigation as having produced no conclusive evidence and asserting that Hitler had ordered his men to spread news of his death; Time quoted the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force as stating, "We have every reason to believe [Hitler] is dead, but no evidence that he is not still alive."

When asked at the Potsdam Conference in July 1945 how Hitler had died, Stalin said he was either living "in Spain or Argentina." The same month, British newspapers quoted a Soviet officer as saying that a charred body they had discovered was "a very poor double." U.S. newspapers quoted the Russian garrison commandant of Berlin as claiming that Hitler had "gone into hiding somewhere in Europe," possibly with the help of Francoist Spain. In mid-1945, Soviet Major Feodorovitch Platonov told American sources that Hitler had survived and claimed of the place in the Reich Chancellery garden where his body was said to have been burned, "It is not true that Hitler was found there! Our experts have established that the man found here didn't look like Hitler at all. And we didn't find Eva Braun either!" The major speculated that Hitler, who held obscure religious views, could have faked his death partly in imitation of the resurrection of Jesus.

U.S. involvement

In July 1945, Life magazine photographer William Vandivert became the first Westerner to photograph the Führerbunker. Life writer Percy Knauth cited Hitler's chauffeur Erich Kempka as stating that Hitler died by a gunshot through the temples while sitting in the middle of his sofa, slumped against the knees of Braun, who had supposedly shot herself through the heart and bled on the arm of the sofa. Kempka later admitted that he had not seen the aftermath of the suicides, only seeing Hitler's body after it had been wrapped in a blanket. In 1950, Kempka wrote that he had heard a shot prior to entering the study, which he later retracted. Both Kempka and U.S. jurist Michael Musmanno (presiding judge at Nuremberg) wrote that Hitler shot himself through the mouth and that Stumpfegger inspected the body. Kempka claimed that Günsche had told him that Hitler shot himself through the mouth, but Günsche later denied telling him this (and Kempka walked back many statements about the whole affair). Kempka claimed he saw Linge and Stumpfegger move Hitler's body. He also claimed that Hitler's private secretary, Martin Bormann, handed him Braun's body, which was wearing a black dress (contrary to most eyewitnesses) and both that it was bleeding from the breast and that it was damp on one side but not bleeding. Kempka asserted in his memoirs that the cremations began at least an hour earlier than the suicides are otherwise known to have occurred. He stated in June 1945 about the cremations, "I doubt if anything remained of the bodies. The fire was terrifically intense. Maybe some evidence like bits of bone and teeth could be found but ... Shells probably landed there and scattered things all over."

On 10 October 1945, the day Hitler's pilot Hanna Reitsch was arrested by U.S. officers in Germany, The New York Times reported that she was with Hitler "a few hours before the Russians captured" the Führerbunker. In his 1947 book on Hitler's death, Trevor-Roper summarized published accounts of Reitsch's time at the bunker (calling them "rhetorical") and concluded that she left in the early hours of 29 April, a day and a half before Hitler's death. In her 1955 autobiography, Reitsch corroborated that she left the bunker after midnight on 29 April, although she later criticized Trevor-Roper's version of events.

Further conflicts (1946–1968)

In an alleged report of January 1946, a report by the Soviet People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) raised issues including the lack of a medical certification of death, eyewitness contradictions (including about the appearance of the bodies and how they were moved into the garden), the lack of details about what was done with Hitler's body after it was burned, and why Soviet counterintelligence organization SMERSH had found Hitler's remains before they were pointed out by Mengershausen, cited as "the only person to give [details] about the burial of the corpses that proved to be correct".

In 1946, the NKVD's successor, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, conducted a second investigation (known as "Operation Myth"), during which eyewitnesses were harshly interrogated; their often inconsistent testimony agreed that Hitler died by gunshot. Blood from Hitler's sofa and wall was reportedly matched to his blood type and a skull fragment was found with gun damage to the posterior of the parietal bone. These two discoveries led to the Soviet admission that Hitler died by gunshot, as opposed to cyanide poisoning or not at all. In the early 1950s, U.S. intelligence officer William F. Heimlich contended in the National Police Gazette, an American tabloid-style magazine, that according to U.S. tests the blood found on Hitler's sofa did not match his blood type. Heimlich also claimed, without evidence, that during their one day of access to the bunker complex grounds in December 1945, the Americans sifted the garden dirt and found no trace of burnt bodies. He further conjectured that Hitler's body would not have completely burned to ashes in the open air.

According to SS valet Heinz Linge, his interrogators repeatedly questioned him about whether Hitler was dead or if he could have escaped and perhaps left a double in his place; the Soviets told him that they had found a number of corpses but were unsure about Hitler's remains. Linge later wrote that in 1950 the Russians "were still doubtful that Hitler was dead". During violent interrogations, the Soviets accused Hitler's pilot Hans Baur of flying the dictator out of Berlin. They further questioned whether Hitler had a left a double and told Baur he would be shown the bodies of Hitler and Braun to identify them, but this never occurred. The Soviets also told the captive SS guard Josef Henschel that Hitler escaped, with another body cremated and either Baur or Reitsch suspected of flying him out. In 1956, the German tabloid Das Bild quoted a Soviet captain as claiming, "Hitler's skull was [found] almost intact, [including] the cranium and the upper and lower jaws."

Until 1968, Western historians referred to Hitler's mandibular remains without mentioning their fragmentary nature.

Eyewitness testimony

Only three main eyewitnesses to the state of Hitler and Braun's bodies in the immediate aftermath of their deaths survived to provide their accounts: Linge, SS-Sturmbannführer Otto Günsche, and Hitler Youth leader Artur Axmann. Contrarily, in a purported Soviet transcript of a statement made on 17 May 1945 (and not released for six decades), Günsche allegedly first saw the bodies after they had been wrapped in blankets. Günsche, Linge, and Führerbegleitkommando Rochus Misch disagreed about details including how the bodies were found and disposed. British MI6 intelligence officer Hugh Trevor-Roper argued that discrepancies in truthful eyewitness accounts could be due to differences in "observation and recollection", while German historian Anton Joachimsthaler interpreted them as possibly being due to poor memory formation during the turbulent event. The three eyewitnesses to the immediate aftermath agree in their reports to Western authorities that Hitler was found seated upright at the end of the sofa (or in an armchair next to it) and Braun was next to him with no visible wounds.

In the late 1940s, Axmann told U.S. officials that he saw thin ribbons of blood coming from both of Hitler's temples and that his lower jaw seemed slightly askew, leading him to think that Hitler had shot himself through the mouth—with the temple blood a result of internal trauma. According to Axmann, Günsche affirmed that the gunshot had been through the mouth. Axmann did not check the back of the head for an exit wound, and stated both that he saw no blood coming from the mouth and that the mouth "was bloody and smeared". Somewhat self-contradictorily, Axmann said Günsche told him that Hitler had taken poison then shot himself; Günsche later denied telling Axmann that Hitler took poison. According to a U.S. official who interviewed Axmann, the latter believed that "one of the reasons Hitler's body was never discovered is because the impact of the shot fired into his mouth destroyed his dental fixtures".

West Germany's investigation and subsequent statements

In 1948, the Berlin Records Office cited Axmann's testimony at the Einsatzgruppen trial in Nuremberg that he had seen Hitler's body being carried in a blanket as insufficient evidence of the dictator's death; this led to an extensive investigation and for new testimony to be taken.

In 1956, Linge and Günsche were released from Soviet prisons, after undergoing years of extensive questioning under torturous conditions. Linge told U.S. officials that he saw a pfennig-sized wound on Hitler's right temple with a trail of blood running down to his cheek and a puddle on the floor; contrarily, he told Der Spiegel in 1965 that the entry wound was to the left temple with no sign of blood; he subsequently returned the wound to the right temple and blood to the floor, writing in his memoir that it had not occurred to him to scrutinize these details. Günsche told U.S. officials in 1956 that Hitler's right temple had a dark spot the size of a small coin, with a puddle of blood on the floor. The discrepancies between eyewitnesses spurred a criminological report for West Germany officials, which contrasted Axmann and Linge's description of the suicide aftermath against Günsche's, the latter claiming that Hitler was sitting in a chair next to the sofa. Ballistic experiments were arranged to learn which interpretation of the fatal gunshot was most likely. Hitler's death certificate was registered in 1956 as an assumption of death on the basis that no eyewitnesses had seen his body—which Joachimsthaler points out is false.

Contradictory to his claims to the Soviets that Hitler died by cyanide, Mengershausen told Western officials that he saw the temple entry wound. In 1956, Trevor-Roper quoted Mengershausen as contending that the air pressure from a gunshot through the mouth would have certainly broken the jaws. SS-Oberscharführer Schwiedel corroborated that Hitler was seated on the sofa and said he placed the dictator's Walther pistol on the desk, but did not remember seeing his second pistol, a 6.35 mm, which Günsche reported seeing. Günsche claimed both guns were kept as keepsakes by an adjutant of Axmann's who was captured by the Russians. According to a purported Soviet transcript of SS general Johann Rattenhuber's May 1945 interrogation, Linge claimed to have carried out Hitler's order to deliver a coup de grâce-style gunshot to ensure the dictator's death. Linge then allegedly placed the pistol on Hitler's office table, and Axmann took it for safekeeping.

According to Rochus Misch (in statements made much later), Hitler's doctor recommended that he take poison and shoot himself at the same time. In his autobiography of 2008, Misch states that he looked into Hitler's study for only a "few seconds" in the immediate aftermath of the suicides. He said he "saw no blood", that Hitler's eyes were open, and his head was "slightly" tilted forward. Contrarily, in an interview aired in 2009, Misch claims Hitler's body was slumped forward, "his head on the table".

Regarding the disposal of remains

Misch states that he saw that Hitler's body had been moved to the study floor and wrapped in a blanket by Linge, Günsche, Kempka, and a Reichssicherheitsdienst (RSD) man he did not recognize. Rattenhuber purportedly saw Linge, Günsche, Kempka, a couple of other SS officers, Goebbels and Bormann move Hitler and Braun's bodies out of Hitler's study. Linge stated that he thought Bormann might have helped him carry Hitler's body before realizing he was being aided by two SS officers—with no recollection of Stumpfegger there. Mengershausen reputedly saw Linge and Günsche carry Hitler and Braun's bodies outside, and also allegedly claimed that during this time he could see both Hitler and Braun's faces and clothing (with Braun supposedly wearing a black dress). According to his purported 1945 testimony: Günsche did not see the corpses until they were wrapped in blankets and being moved; he saw the corpses being carried by Linge, SS-Hauptscharführer Kruge, Waffen-SS officer Ewald Lindloff, and another SS officer he did not recognize; these four were joined by Kempka and Sturmbannführer Medle, with Günsche helping move Braun's body after it had begun to be burned. Günsche later said he took Braun's body from Kempka inside the bunker. SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Schneider claimed to have helped move Hitler's body, but also reportedly did not know the dictator was dead until the following evening. Linge and Günsche gave opposite accounts regarding the direction Hitler and Braun's bodies were laid relative to the bunker. Günsche said that after he moved Braun's body, Bormann uncovered Hitler's face and Günsche saw that it was "clearly recognizable" although "the bloodstains from the temple had spread further over the face". RSD guard Hermann Karnau, who chronically misstated the time of the cremation, said that before it began Hitler's skull was "partially caved in and the face encrusted with blood".

Mengershausen reputedly claimed that he was the closest guard to the bunker during the burning and that he only saw officials like Goebbels, Bormann, Günsche and Linge near the bodies. Additionally, Mengershausen purportedly saw two of Hitler's guards move the charred remains into a crater and cover them with soil, but also claimed that Rattenhuber commanded him to bury the bodies and that they had not been fully burned, with Hitler's charred face still recognizable. Rattenhuber allegedly said that after the bodies were first set alight, they "were not burning well" and he went to order more fuel; upon his return the bodies had been partially buried, with Mengershausen explaining that (being unable to tolerate the odor) he had helped roll them into the hole where Hitler's dog was buried. Günsche said he ordered Lindloff to dispose of the bodies, but Linge said that while in captivity Günsche stated he had left this to SS-Obersturmführer Hans Reisser and some men of the Leibstandarte. Reisser said Günsche dismissed him from helping Lindloff with the disposal and told him that Lindloff had taken care of it, but Günsche recalled Lindloff was helped by another officer, whose name Lindloff reputedly told him was Reisser. RSD guards Erich Mansfeld and Karnau testified that the remains were reduced to something between charred bones and piles of ashes which fell apart to the touch. Karnau reported seeing that Hitler's feet and lower-leg flesh had burned away and Mansfeld reported seeing that the flames eventually diminished. Various witnesses and analyses agree that there was more than enough petrol to achieve extensive burning, although Trevor-Roper opines that the bones would not likely have completely disintegrated due to the burning taking place in open air. Trevor-Roper cites Linge as saying "nothing remained" of Hitler, but Linge later wrote that the "carbonised bodies" were buried by an SS guard.

Later Soviet assertions

Dead body with a toothbrush moustache and an apparent gunshot wound to the forehead

An alleged Hitler body double with gunshot damage to the forehead filmed by the Soviets in 1945

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. This supposed individual had been killed by a gunshot through the mouth, with an exit wound through the back of the head. Several dental bridges were purportedly found next to the body, because, Telpuchovski stated, "the force of the bullet had dislodged them from the mouth". In his 1966 book, The Last Battle, Ryan describes this body as being Hitler's, saying it had been buried "under a thin layer of earth". According to Telpuchovski, a total of three burnt Hitler candidates had been produced, apparently including a body double wearing mended socks, as well as an unburnt body.

The Death of Adolf Hitler

Main article: The Death of Adolf Hitler

First German paperback edition (1968) of The Death of Adolf Hitler

Achromatic photograph of a large box in a garden area, shown from an angle barely revealing a lump of indistinguishable mush inside.

Box purportedly containing Hitler's badly burnt body; photograph released by the Soviet Union in 1968

Four achromatic photographs: the left two are of a metal maxillar bridge, the right two of a jawbone fragment with dental work sundered around the alveolar process.

These photographs of Hitler's dental remains are included in the book. The lower jaw fragment (right images) was broken and burnt around the alveolar process, the bulge that encases the tooth sockets.

Lev Bezymenski's book, released in 1968, summarizes the Battle of Berlin and its aftermath including the investigation by SMERSH, and features a reproduction of the purported Soviet autopsy report of Hitler's body. Bezymenski asserts that the autopsy reports were not released earlier "in case someone might try to slip into the role of 'the Führer saved by a miracle.'"

Bezymenski quotes SMERSH commander Ivan Klimenko's account, which states that on the night of 3 May 1945, he witnessed Vizeadmiral Hans-Erich Voss seem to recognize a body as Hitler's in a dry water tank filled with other corpses outside the Führerbunker, before recanting this identification. Klimenko noted that the corpse had mended socks, initially giving him doubt as well. Klimenko then relates that on 4 May, Soviet Private Ivan Churakov found legs sticking out of the ground in a crater outside the Reich Chancellery. Two corpses were exhumed, but Klimenko had these reburied, thinking that the doppelgänger would be identified as Hitler. Only that day did several witnesses say it was definitely not Hitler's body, and a diplomat released it for burial. On the morning of 5 May, Klimenko had the other two bodies reexhumed.

A report on the purported forensic examination of Hitler's body conducted on 8 May states that the "remains of a male corpse disfigured by fire were delivered in a wooden box ... On the body was found a piece of yellow jersey ... charred around the edges, resembling a knitted undervest." The height of the body was judged to be about 1.65 metres (5 feet 5 inches). (Hitler stood 1.76 m or 5 ft 9 in tall.) Part of the skull was missing, as was the left foot and the left testicle. The upper dental remains consisted of nine upper teeth, mostly gold, with dental work connected by a gold bridge. The lower jawbone fragment had 15 teeth, 10 of them apparently artificial; it was found loose in the oral cavity, and was broken and burnt around the alveolar process, the bulge that encases the tooth sockets. Splinters of glass and a "thin-walled ampule" were found in the mouth, apparently from a cyanide capsule, which was ruled to be the cause of death. Soviet physician Faust Shkaravsky, who oversaw the alleged autopsy, declared that "No matter what is asserted ... our Commission could not detect any traces of a gun shot ... Hitler poisoned himself."

Bezymenski also criticizes discrepancies of prior reports. Günsche allegedly told the Soviets in 1950 that both Hitler and Braun were seated on the sofa, but in 1960, said both were on chairs. Bezymenski points out that Linge's 1965 claim of Hitler's entry wound being to the left temple is unlikely as Hitler was right-handed and his left hand trembled significantly. Bezymenski quotes testimony given to the Soviets by Rattenhuber, in which he claimed that before killing himself with cyanide, Hitler ordered Linge to return in ten minutes to deliver a coup de grâce-style gunshot to ensure his death. Bezymenski calls it "certain" that if anyone shot Hitler, it was not himself. To support this claim, he cites the little black dog found nearby, which was killed in a similar fashion. The author also refers to a skull fragment recovered in 1946, which had a gunshot wound to the back of the head, saying it most likely belonged to Hitler. Bezymenski asserts that sometime after the forensic examinations, the corpses of Hitler and the others were completely burned and the ashes scattered.

The purported autopsy of the body presumed to be Braun's noted the corpse as being "impossible to describe the features of", owing to its extensive charring. Almost the entire upper skull was missing. The occipital and temporal bones were fragmentary, as was the lower left of the face. The upper jaw contained four teeth, mostly molars, while the lower jaw had six on the left; the others were missing—according to the report "probably because of burning". The alveolar process of the maxilla was also absent. A piece of gold (probably a filling) was found in the mouth cavity, and a gold bridge with two false molars was under the tongue. There was a splinter injury to the chest resulting in hemothorax, injuries to one lung and the pericardium—accompanied by six small metal fragments. Pieces of a glass ampule were found in the mouth, and the smell of bitter almonds which accompanies death from cyanide poisoning was present; this was ruled to be the cause of death.

Previously unreleased photographs include Hitler and Braun's alleged corpses in boxes (angled so that unidentifiable masses can barely be glimpsed), front and back views of Hitler's golden upper dental bridge and a lower jawbone fragment connecting his lower teeth and bridges, as well as Braun's dental bridge.

Criticism and legacy

Upon the book's publication, Trevor-Roper wrote that it was "remarkable that [Bezymenski's] book is apparently for Western consumption only", with no Russian release and the book's original language apparently being German. Trevor-Roper says, "No explanation is offered ... [suggesting] a propagandist ... purpose." In his 1971 book about Hitler, German historian Werner Maser expresses doubt about Bezymenski's book, including the autopsy's insinuation that Hitler had only one testicle.

Soviet war interpreter Elena Rzhevskaya claimed to have seen Hitler's charred corpse in the Chancellery garden. She wrote that Hitler's dental remains were removed during the alleged autopsy (at which Bezymenski asserts she was not present), and the pages of the report about them were recorded on "two large non-standard sheets of paper". Rzhevskaya then safeguarded the dental remains until they could be identified by Hitler's dental staff. Shkaravsky (d. 1975) wrote to Rzhevskaya that the commission had been forbidden to photograph Hitler's body for unknown reasons.

In his 1978 book The Bunker, journalist James P. O'Donnell argues that contrary to the book's claim that cyanide acts instantly, Hitler could have taken poison and still had enough time to shoot himself. In their 1995 book on Hitler's death, journalist Ada Petrova and historian Peter Watson point out that the alleged autopsies of Hitler and Braun do not record any dissection of internal organs in order to determine whether they died by poison.

In 1982, a second edition of the book was released in German. In it, Bezymenski attempts to account for the failure to produce evidence of Hitler's death by gunshot. In 1992, Bezymenski wrote that Hitler's corpse was cremated in April 1978, contrary to his assertion in the book's first edition that it had been done by 1968. According to a 1992 Der Spiegel article, Bezymenski learned that year that the cremation took place in 1970. The article further asserts that the blood type was not determined in 1946 (contrary to contradictory Soviet and U.S. claims) and that during the 1946 investigation, the Soviets found trickle-like bloodstains on Hitler's sofa, interpreted by Der Spiegel as implying Hitler died slowly. Bezymenski, who described himself as having been "a product of the era and a typical party propagandist", stated that "It is not difficult to guess why the KGB had not given me a document with [findings suggesting Hitler's slow death], me who was supposed to lead the reader to the conclusion that all talk of a gunshot was a pipe dream or half an invention and that Hitler actually poisoned himself."

In 1995, Anton Joachimsthaler criticized Bezymenski's account in his book on Hitler's death, reaching the same conclusion put forward 45 years earlier by Musmanno that the dictator's corpse was almost completely burned to ashes—meaning that no body would have remained to perform an autopsy on. Joachimsthaler implies that another body must have been examined instead, while also pointing out that hydrogen cyanide would have been evaporated by the fire and thus not left an odor. Historian Luke Daly-Groves opines 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", and also denounces "the dubious autopsy report riddled with scientific inconsistencies and tainted by ideological motivations". Only the report's coverage of the dental remains has been substantially verified, with 2017–2018 analysis led by French forensic pathologist Philippe Charlier concluding that the extant evidence "[fits] perfectly" with the Soviet description. Contradicting previous accounts of the finding of the dental remains, Joachimsthaler asserts that the Soviets sifted them from the dirt in the manner Heimlich claimed without evidence that the Americans searched the garden in December 1945.

In their addendum to The Hitler Book (2005), Henrik Eberle and Matthias Uhl quote Bezymenski as admitting in 1995 that his work included "deliberate lies" and criticize his book for advocating the theories that Hitler died by poisoning or a coup de grâce. Despite this, in 2018, investigative journalists Jean-Christophe Brisard and Lana Parshina asserted that Hitler could have commissioned Linge to shoot him through the temples because the dictator's poor health—particularly his hand tremors—would have made it difficult for him to do.

Recent revelations

In 1975, a partially burnt skull fragment was catalogued in the Soviet archives, which was rediscovered in the Russian State Archives in 1993. It was purportedly found on 30 May 1946 in the crater where Hitler's remains had been exhumed, and was long held by Soviet officials to be from Hitler's skull. It consists of part of the occipital bone and part of both parietal bones. The nearly complete left parietal bone has a bullet hole, apparently an exit wound. Forensic biologist Mark Benecke examined the fragment in a 2003 episode of History's Riddles of the Dead and opined that it seemed to correspond to the alleged autopsy report. Benecke also examined fabric from Hitler's sofa and noted that the blood appears to have been washed out, with 20–30 droplets seeming to have been removed. In 2009, on an episode of History's MysteryQuest, University of Connecticut archaeologist and bone specialist Nick Bellantoni examined the skull fragment. According to Bellantoni, "The bone seemed very thin" for a male, and "the sutures where the skull plates come together seemed to correspond to someone under 40". A small piece detached from the skull was DNA-tested, as was blood from Hitler's sofa. The skull was determined to be that of a woman—providing fodder for conspiracy theorists—while the blood was confirmed to belong to a male.

FBI documents declassified by the 1998 Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, which began to be released online by the early 2010s, contain a number of alleged sightings of Hitler in Europe, South America, and the U.S., some of which assert that he changed his appearance via plastic surgery or by shaving off his toothbrush moustache. Although some notable individuals speculated that Hitler could have survived, including General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower and Lieutenant John F. Kennedy in mid-1945, the documents state that the alleged sightings of Hitler could not be verified. Historian Richard J. Evans notes that the FBI was obliged to document such claims no matter how "erroneous or deranged" they were. He also derides alleged evidence of Hitler's survival as generally unreliable and sometimes even deliberately misleading, such as the Soviet disinformation.

The 2005 book Hitler's Death: Russia's Last Great Secret from the Files of the KGB claims to reproduce previously unreleased files from the Soviet archives. In a purported transcript of a statement made in May 1945, Günsche (considered a key eyewitness of the immediate aftermath of Hitler's death) states that he first saw Hitler and Braun's bodies after they had been wrapped in blankets. Additionally, the book includes Rattenhuber's purported statement, in which he claims that Linge ensured Hitler's death with a coup de grâce-style gunshot and that Hitler's and Braun's bodies were only partially burned.

Misch, the last surviving eyewitness, provided more details of his account in later years (circa 2005). According to the 2009 MysteryQuest episode, he changed his story about whether he heard Hitler's suicide gunshot over the years. The episode, titled "Hitler's Escape", supports the fringe theory that Hitler faked his death by leaving a double in his place (with Reitsch possibly flying him out), but does not discuss the confirmation of the dental remains. Amongst other more recent works, the controversial History television series Hunting Hitler asserts that Hitler could have used established ratlines to reach the Americas.

Sources

• Bezymenski, Lev (1968). The Death of Adolf Hitler (1st ed.). New York: Harcourt, Brace & World. Search this book on
• Brisard, Jean-Christophe; Parshina, Lana (2018). The Death of Hitler. Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0306922589. Search this book on
• Charlier, Philippe; Weil, Raphael; Rainsard, P.; Poupon, Joël; Brisard, J.C. (2018-05-01). "The remains of Adolf Hitler: A biomedical analysis and definitive identification". European Journal of Internal Medicine. 54: e10–e12. doi:10.1016/j.ejim.2018.05.014. PMID 29779904.
• Daly-Groves, Luke (2019). Hitler's Death: The Case Against Conspiracy. Oxford, UK: Osprey. ISBN 978-1-4728-3454-6. Search this book on
• de Boer, Sjoerd (2021). Escaping Hitler's Bunker: The Fate of the Third Reich Leaders. Frontline Books. ISBN 978-1-52679-269-3. Search this book on
• de Boer, Sjoerd (2022). The Hitler Myths: Exposing the Truth Behind the Stories about the Führer. Frontline Books. ISBN 978-1-39901-905-7. Search this book on
• Eberle, Henrik; Uhl, Matthias, eds. (2005). The Hitler Book: The Secret Dossier Prepared for Stalin from the Interrogations of Hitler's Personal Aides. New York: Public Affairs. ISBN 978-1-58648-366-1. Search this book on
• Evans, Richard (2020). The Hitler Conspiracies. London: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0190083052. Search this book on
• Isachenkov, Vladimir (20 February 1993). "Russians say they have bones from Hitler's skull". Gadsen Times. Associated Press. Retrieved 11 January 2015.
• Joachimsthaler, Anton (2000) [1995]. The Last Days of Hitler: The Legends, The Evidence, The Truth. Translated by Helmut Bölger. London: Cassell. ISBN 978-1-85409-465-0. Search this book on
• Joachimsthaler, Anton (1999) [1995]. The Last Days of Hitler: The Legends, The Evidence, The Truth. London: Brockhampton Press. ISBN 978-1-86019-902-8. Search this book on
• Linge, Heinz (2009) [1980]. With Hitler to the End. Translated by Brooks, Geoffrey (1st English ed.). Skyhorse Publishing. ISBN 978-1-60239-804-7. Search this book on
• Musmanno, Michael A. (1950). Ten Days to Die. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Search this book on
• Petrova, Ada; Watson, Peter (1995). The Death of Hitler: The Full Story with New Evidence from Secret Russian Archives. W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-03914-6. Search this book on
• Ryan, Cornelius (1995) [1966]. The Last Battle. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-684-80329-6. Search this book on
• Trevor-Roper, Hugh (2002) [1947]. The Last Days of Hitler (7th ed.). London: Pan Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-330-49060-3. Search this book on
• Vinogradov, V. K.; Pogonyi, J. F.; Teptzov, N. V. (2005). Hitler's Death: Russia's Last Great Secret from the Files of the KGB. Chaucer Press. ISBN 978-1-904449-13-3. Search this book on

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