If there is one topic that still sparks controversy and even conspiracy theories to this day, it is this one. What happened to Adolf Hitler’s body after he committed suicide in the Führerbunker, along with his new wife, Eva Braun? Even the suicide itself is still questioned by some people to this day. But what is the truth?
The Death of Adolf Hitler
To this day, there are stories that Hitler never committed suicide in the Führerbunker on April 30, 1945. Many people believed, and still believe, that Hitler had fled to South America in a submarine, just as many Nazi leaders had done. From sightings of Hitler to conspiracy theories, it’s all been discussed. But if we take a close look at the facts and the testimonies of eyewitnesses, such as Traudl Junge, among others, we can quickly form a clear picture of events that are both realistic and plausible. This is also evidenced by the photograph showing Red Army soldiers standing by the bench where Hitler is said to have shot himself, illuminated by candlelight.
After Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide in the Führerbunker, their bodies were carried outside. In the small garden outside the entrance to the bunker complex, their bodies were laid in a bomb crater. Heinz Linge, Hitler’s valet, and Otto Günsche, Hitler’s adjutant, carried Hitler’s body outside. Martin Bormann carried Eva Braun’s body. But halfway down the bunker stairs, Hitler’s driver, Erich Kempka, took over carrying her body to the garden. When Kempka was later questioned about this event, he recalled that she was wearing a blue summer dress made of real silk, that her shoes had cork heels, and that her hair was “artificially blond.” In addition to all this, it was also Kempka who had been tasked with procuring the gasoline needed to burn both bodies.
A group gathered around the bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun. Among them were Goebbels and Bormann, as an eyewitness later recounted. The bodies were doused with gasoline, and the group retreated to a doorway under artillery fire from the Red Army. Hitler’s aide-de-camp, Günsche, lit a gasoline-soaked rag and threw it onto the bodies. This happened after an initial attempt by Bormann had failed; he had tried to light the gasoline with a match. Günsche later stated in an interview that he was the one who had personally received the order from Hitler to ensure that Hitler’s body would be completely burned. He therefore took charge and claimed to be the one who threw the decisive torch himself.
The so-called cremation was Hitler’s own wish to prevent the desecration of his body. He had, in fact, seen what had happened to Mussolini when he was assassinated. Hitler wanted to prevent this at all costs.
About half an hour after the bodies had been set on fire, SS-Sturmbannführer Ewald Lindloff received an order from Günsche. Lindloff was to go to the garden of the Reich Chancellery to check how far the cremation had progressed. The bodies turned out to be “skeletal, charred, and torn open.” This was also the result of the Red Army’s artillery fire and the resulting flying shrapnel. However, this proved insufficient due to the poor weather conditions as well. Extra gasoline was therefore poured over the bodies, at the risk of their own lives. Toward the end of the afternoon, further attempts at cremation were halted. Around 6:30 p.m., Lindloff, together with SS-Obersturmführer Hans Reisser, began burying the ashes and remaining bones so that the remains would not fall into the hands of the Soviet Union.
The Exhumation
After Berlin fell, one unit arrived at the Führerbunker very quickly. That unit was called SMERSH, an acronym for the Russian phrase “Smert Shpionam,” meaning “Death to Spies.” It was the Red Army’s military counterintelligence service. They reported exclusively and directly to Stalin and the High Command. When Berlin fell, only one question remained: Where is Hitler?
The Red Army had also received the news, broadcast across Germany by radio on May 1, 1945.
Original radio broadcast:
“Aus dem Führerhauptquartier wird gemeldet, daß unser Führer Adolf Hitler heute nachmittag in seinem Befehlsstand in der Reichskanzlei, bis zum letzten Atemzuge gegen den Bolschewismus kämpfend, für Deutschland gefallen ist.”
“Deutsche Männer und Frauen, Soldaten der deutschen Wehrmacht! Unser Führer Adolf Hitler ist gefallen.”
This message was very misleading, because it stated that Hitler died fighting to the last breath against Bolshevism. And also that he fell for Germany in his command post in the Reich Chancellery. The broadcast continued stating:
“German men and women, soldiers of the German Armed Forces! Our Führer Adolf Hitler has fallen.”
It wasn’t just the Germans who had received this report. The Red Army and the rest of the Allies also heard about it. But for the Red Army, it was particularly relevant, since they had been the first to capture Berlin. It was up to them to investigate the matter, because they didn’t simply take this report at face value. Stalin was already known as someone who could sometimes become paranoid. This was also the case with this report, as he demanded hard evidence to support the claims. As a result, interrogations and a field investigation around the Reich Chancellery became a top priority.
SMERSH was tasked with searching for Hitler’s remains and with interrogating those who had witnessed Hitler’s final moments.
The remains had actually already been discovered on May 4-5, 1945. But all the Red Army soldier saw were two severely burned bodies. They were unrecognizable and deemed irrelevant. The remains were therefore quickly reburied. At the same time, however, SMERSH was also interrogating witnesses, which gradually revealed a clearer picture of the events of April 30, 1945. The witnesses were told how and where the bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun had been cremated. Those specific human remains were exhumed once again. Even among primary sources, the timelines differ here and there by about a day. What was clear, however, was what happened next. To understand this, we look primarily at what Elena Rzhevskaya remembered from those extraordinary days. She was an interpreter within SMERSH, which was part of the 3rd Shock Army.
Colonel General Nikolay Berzarin placed the State Chancellery under guard. That same day, the remains were carried over the fence of the State Chancellery’s garden and loaded onto a truck. The truck departed for Buch, located on the outskirts of Berlin. There, a commission had been hastily assembled and was already waiting for the remains. This so-called commission consisted of doctors and pathologists. Under the leadership of Lieutenant Colonel Faust Shkaravsky, the commission performed the autopsies. The dissection was carried out by Anna Martans, a medical officer. Although the remains were severely and extensively burned, not everything had been lost. This makes sense, because burning bodies on the surface, using gasoline as fuel, never actually reaches a temperature high enough to completely reduce the entire body to ashes. The most important remains to have survived the makeshift cremation were fragments of the jaw and teeth. These were placed in a burgundy-colored box. SMERSH regarded this find as Hitler’s dental remains. But whether that was actually the case remained to be seen. Although Elena Rzhevskaya was “only” an interpreter, the box was pressed into her hands.
The Identification
On May 11, 1945, the story took a new turn. After the discovery of the dental remains, it was time for Lieutenant Colonel Faust Shkaravsky to question Käthe Heusermann. She was the dental assistant to Hitler’s dentist, Hugo Blaschke. Käthe Heusermann was actually the first to provide a positive identification. She sketched Hitler’s dentition and pointed out the unique details of his teeth. The dental remains consisted largely of a denture. Fritz Echtmann was the dental technician who had made the dentures for Hitler. He, too, confirmed that these were the dentures he himself had made for Hitler. In particular, the characteristics of the crowns, bridges, and fillings matched the X-rays and the dental chart, which were still in good condition. Incidentally, it was no secret that Hitler had particularly poor teeth.
The identification was thus essentially complete. Hitler’s end unfolded as we now know it: suicide inside the bunker, followed by an improvised cremation in the garden of the Reich Chancellery. Together with his new wife, Eva Braun. Ultimately, after the war, the remains were taken to East Germany, to the city of Magdeburg, according to MI5. An operation that The Times of Israel referred to as Operation Archive took place in April 1970. To prevent the site from becoming a neo-Nazi pilgrimage site, the KGB was determined to completely destroy the remains. What remained was a jawbone and a skull fragment that were displayed in a Russian State Archive in Moscow in the year 2000.
However, there was still a problem. The skull fragment turned out not to be Hitler’s at all. In 2009, researchers confirmed through DNA analysis that the skull fragment belonged to a woman who was apparently younger than 40 years old. What did hold up, however, was the identification based on the dental remains. In a recent medical study conducted in 2018, the tooth and jawbone fragments were reexamined using the latest technology. But even then, it was confirmed once again that these dental remains were, in fact, Hitler’s.
So the Soviet Union already knew in May 1945 that Hitler was dead and that they had his remains in their possession. Yet the message from the Red Army in June 1945 was quite different. The Red Army spread the story that Hitler’s remains had not been found at all and that he might still be alive. However, the interrogations of staff members and witnesses did continue.
Beginning of the Conspiracies
However, on June 9, 1945, Georgy Zhukov, Marshal of the Soviet Union, made a statement to the contrary. Although the Red Army, and Stalin in particular, already knew in May 1945 that Hitler was dead and that they were in possession of his remains, Zhukov stated during a press conference that Hitler’s body had not been found at all. In fact, he said the circumstances surrounding the matter were “highly mysterious.” He went on to say that Hitler might even have managed to escape from Berlin at the last minute. Colonel General Nikolay Berzarin added that Hitler might even be in Spain. Might be, in principle, anything was possible. But not if you already knew that you had Hitler’s remains in your possession.
Meanwhile, people all over the world were reporting sightings of Hitler. The announcement had sparked a veritable wave of Hitler sightings. However, as early as June 10, 1945, a Red Army officer had already informed the Americans that the Red Army had revised its earlier assessment, because the evidence available at that time had not yet proven that Hitler was definitely dead. Stalin himself was also a source of these mysteries. On July 17, 1945, Stalin told James F. Byrnes that, in his opinion, Hitler was still alive and might even be in Spain or Argentina. According to Stalin, the Red Army’s searches had not yielded any conclusive evidence. And on July 30, 1945, Colonel General Alexander Gorbatov reiterated that there was no conclusive evidence that Hitler had died. He indicated that if Hitler were still alive, he was probably not in the territory of the Soviet Union. He might even be hiding in Hamburg, Westphalia, or elsewhere in Germany, according to Soviet newspapers in September 1945.
During and around the summer of 1945, there was a thick fog of information, disinformation, and, dare I say it, deliberate lies. But why?
After World War II ended, the world was essentially plunged into the Cold War right away. Although that may sound unrealistic, it is actually the reality. After all, a certain degree of mistrust had already been simmering between the Americans and the Russians for some time. Now that the arch-enemy of both countries had disappeared from the scene, the two nations essentially turned against each other immediately. At first, they remained largely friendly for appearances’ sake, but behind the scenes, they were on high alert. We interpret this stream of deliberate disinformation primarily as a conscious attempt to sow confusion among the Western allies. This allowed Stalin to maintain control over the postwar narrative. Stalin also saw absolutely no need to share all the information he had with the Americans, among others.
And so, statements such as “not found” and “may have escaped” provided fertile ground for conspiracy theories.
Most Believed Conspiracies
The fog of disinformation and contradictory statements coming from the Soviet Union provided fertile ground for conspiracy theories. And sometimes these theories weren’t all that crazy or far-fetched. After all, they were based on information released by the Soviet Union. Who else should people have believed but the victor who was the first to reach Berlin? Consequently, a number of conspiracy theories were very realistic and were the ones most often believed.
Escape to Argentina
This was true, for example, of the theory that Hitler had escaped to Argentina. After all, he wouldn’t have been the first Nazi to flee there after World War II. In fact, the vast majority of escaped Nazis went to Argentina. Even high-ranking Nazis and outright monsters such as Joseph Mengele, Adolf Eichmann, Klaus Barbie, and Erich Priebke, to name a few. A very plausible and realistic theory, then.
But if you view the theory for what it is, a theory, and look at the facts, then it’s clear. In fact, no evidence has ever been presented that Hitler left Germany. If even “lower-ranking” Nazis were found in Argentina, for example, then Hitler himself surely would have been found as well. Furthermore, it was a matter of record that Hitler’s remains and dental records had been found and positively identified. Not to mention that all the witnesses who were interviewed had also stated the same thing. Furthermore, American, British, West German, and later Russian investigators never found any credible evidence of an escape. Even after the FBI spent years investigating hundreds of reports of Hitler sightings, not a single one proved to be reliable or plausible.
Escape to Spain
Another theory that many people believed, and some still believe, is that Hitler fled to Spain. He is said to have sought refuge in complete secrecy with fellow dictator Francisco Franco. There was just one problem, though. There is absolutely no documentary evidence that Hitler was ever seen alive in Spain after April 30, 1945. Of course, the Allies also launched an investigation. Because even though some theories didn’t seem very plausible, they had to be certain. After all, it would have been quite something if they had actually found Hitler alive. But none of the people present in the bunker ever said anything about Hitler having fled.
Hitler Was Taken
One of the most striking theories was that Hitler had been captured by the Red Army. He was said to have been arrested alive and held in hiding somewhere in the Soviet Union. However, the missed opportunity for the Red Army to gain prestige makes this completely unrealistic. This would have been a fantastic weapon against the Western Allies. It would have been the “almighty” Red Army that had captured Hitler alive. Stalin certainly would not have wanted to keep such a major discovery a secret.
Moreover, the facts show that no evidence has ever been found to support such a scenario, not even after the Soviet archives were opened and made available for research following 1991.
The Doppelganger Theory
As a final theory, I couldn’t deny you this one. This is because there is reportedly even a photo circulating of a dead Hitler, or a dead Hitler lookalike. While this photo is genuine, the claim that it depicts Hitler or a Hitler lookalike has already been debunked.
There was a theory circulating that Hitler had actually escaped and that the remains found belonged to a lookalike. But the problem with this theory is that Hitler’s identification was not based on facial recognition, but rather on unique dental remains. Such identifications are extremely reliable and are still performed daily in modern criminal investigations. Both Hitler’s dental assistant and his dental technician had independently and positively identified his dental remains. And in 2018, this identification was confirmed once again using modern DNA technologies.
Lesson Learned?
It’s strange that a lie told by Stalin can still preoccupy us even 81 years later. We should have known better, though. Hitler knew what awaited him if he were captured alive. His final act was to prevent that at all costs.
Despite Stalin’s deliberate attempts to sow confusion and mystery surrounding the end of Adolf Hitler’s life, we fortunately know better now. When one examines everything and truly delves into the matter, only one truth remains. A truth based entirely on facts, not opinions or disinformation. On April 30, 1945, Adolf Hitler, together with his new wife Eva Braun, committed suicide. That very same day, the bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun were cremated. In the days that followed, the Red Army discovered the remains of both, and Hitler’s teeth confirmed their identities. What remained of the bodies was later completely destroyed by the KGB.
And so this is what happened to Hitler’s body. No dramatic last-minute escape. No decades of living in hiding. No submarine carrying Hitler to Argentina, where he would have continued his life. An isolated and lonely death, together with his wife, in a country that he himself had driven completely into ruin. While Germany would remain for years to come the scene of the Cold War and domestic strife, a pawn of the Soviet Union and the United States, Hitler had chosen the easiest and most cowardly way out.
Field Command members: the Author’s Note for this article is available in the Field Command area.
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By Nick Ravenshade — Founder & Editorial Director, WarCommons
Header image: American soldiers read of Hitler’s death in an “extra” edition of “Stars and Stripes.”. May 2, 1945. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
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