Sensation seekers continue to search for a black cat in a dark room.
A new wave of speculation that the head of the Third Reich did not die in Berlin in the spring of 1945, but fled to Latin America, arose due to the release of previously classified CIA documents.
"Adolf Schrittelmeier" from Colombia
According to the report, the CIA agent, codenamed CIMELODY-3, received information from his informant that the former SS man Philip Citroen, who worked for the Royal Dutch Steamship Company, met with Hitler in Colombia in 1954-1955.
From the CIA report, it follows that in September 1955, CIMELODY-3 received a photograph of "Adolf Schrittelmeier", which supposedly shows Hitler.
At the same time, the report indicates that neither the agent nor the CIA analysts can assess the reliability of this information.
Rumors that Hitler, like many other Nazi criminals, went into hiding after the war in Latin America, have been circulating since 1945. Therefore, supporters of conspiracy theories clung to this document as proof of their innocence. However, this is not the case.
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Why CIA Report Proves Nothing
Firstly, the document, which caused a sensation today, was made public four years ago, and did not cause any stir. He was given a new lease of life by journalists who stumbled upon the report by accident, in search of sensations in the declassified documents in the case of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Secondly, we are not talking about some kind of special investigation aimed at finding Hitler, but about the informant's message, which intelligence receives hundreds and thousands. In the future, all received information is processed and checked to assess their real value.
Thirdly, it would be incredible luck for the US authorities and the American intelligence services to get their hands on a living Hitler, a real breakthrough, allowing Washington to conduct the loudest trial in human history. However, as we all know, there was no such process, nor was there a large-scale operation to capture the leader of the Third Reich in South America.
This means that the information received from the agent did not pass the plausibility check.
How they searched and found the head of the Third Reich
On April 30, 1945, Adolf Hitler and his wife Eva Braun committed suicide in the bunker of the Reich Chancellery. After committing suicide, their bodies were burned in a garden near the bunker.
Hitler hoped that in this way his body would not fall into the hands of Soviet soldiers. However, it was not possible to completely burn the body, and already on May 5 the search group "SMERSH" under the leadership of Senior Lieutenant Alexei Panasov discovered the charred corpses.
The find was classified. A government commission led by Lieutenant General Konstantin Telegin, after conducting a series of various examinations in February 1946, came to the final conclusion that the bodies found belonged to Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun.
In addition to these two bodies, the remains of Joseph and Magda Goebbels, as well as their six children, who were poisoned by their parents, were also found. In addition, the body of Hitler's favorite shepherd was found.
While the examinations were being carried out, the remains were transported from place to place together with the redeployment of the SMERSH counterintelligence department and reburied several times - in the city of Bukh, in the city of Finov, and also in Rathenov.
Operation Archive: How Hitler Remains Was Disposed of
Finally, in 1946, after the completion of all examinations, the remains of Hitler, Eva Braun, Joseph and Magda Goebbels, as well as their children, were buried in strict secrecy in Magdeburg, on the territory of the military town of the 3rd Army of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany. The burial, carried out next to the building of the army counterintelligence department, was rolled up with asphalt, and only a very narrow circle of people knew about its existence.
In March 1970, at the suggestion of the head of the KGB of the USSR, Yuri Andropov, the Soviet leadership agreed to conduct an operation codenamed "Archive".
On the night of April 4, 1970, a task force led by Colonel Kovalenko opened the burial. The boxes in which the remains were kept rotted and turned into dust, the bones mixed with the soil.
The remains were put into boxes, which were taken under protection by operational officers, and the burial place was restored to its original form.
On the morning of April 5, 1970, the last stage of the operation was carried out, which was succinctly recorded in the act on the destruction of the remains: “The destruction of the remains was carried out by burning them at the stake in a vacant lot in the area of Schonebeck, 11 km from Magdeburg. The remains were burned out, crushed into ash together with coal, collected and thrown into the Biederitz River."
Acts on the seizure of the remains and on their physical destruction were drawn up in a single copy and sent to Moscow.
Thus ended the real story of Hitler. But sensationalists continue to look for a black cat in a dark room in the absence of one.
Andrey Sidorchik