According to the official version, the death of Adolf Hitler occurred on April 30, 1945 in an underground bunker located under the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, at Wilhelmstrasse 77.
But was the man found really Hitler? This is a question that still worries researchers. Indeed, due to the fact that the corpse was heavily charred, even the age of the deceased could only be judged presumably: about 50-60 years.
Operation "Archive"
It is not surprising that over the years there have been reports that the Fuhrer was seen and identified - now in South America, then in Spain, then in Japan. Someone will say: why guess? After all, nowadays there is already a genetic examination. You just need to exhume the remains and check what happens.
However, this is not possible.
In March 1970, under the leadership of the then chairman of the KGB, Yuri Andropov, a secret operation was carried out under the code name "Archive" with a specific task: to seize and physically destroy the remains of those buried on February 21, 1946 in Magdeburg in a military town on Westendstrasse street, near house N236 of war criminals …
According to the documents preserved in the archive, the destruction of the remains was carried out in a vacant lot by burning at the stake, and the ashes were thrown into the Bideritz River.
Promotional video:
The most similar double
From the testimony of personal guards, it is known that the Fuhrer had several doubles. The most similar of them is recognized as Gustav Weller, who was almost an exact copy of Hitler. Until 1942, Weller worked at a printing factory in Breslau, from where he came under the hood of Gestapo chief Müller. Weller was a distant relative of Hitler (although he did not know about it) and was also born in Austria.
The future double was slightly shorter than the dictator and fuller than him, in addition, unlike the leader of the nation, he had a craving for smoking. According to the memoirs of Mueller (they were published in the 1990s in the United States, although many consider them a literary hoax), “he had to work”: he had to unlearn smoking, lose weight and adopt the gestures and manners of the Fuhrer. The lack of height was compensated by boots with thick soles.
Müller, already in 1942, suggested using Gustav Weller for security reasons at some ceremonial events, but Hitler did not like this idea. The double began to replace the Fuhrer only after the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944.
For the first time, as a test, Weller replaced Hitler during the Fuehrer's traditional dog walk. Such walks were made daily, and no one even suspected that Hitler came out of the bunker with the Blondie shepherd dog, and a double with a shepherd like her returned.
The second time, the personal secretary of the Fuhrer was chosen as an object for verification. Weller summoned him to Hitler's bedroom and gave a deliberately ridiculous order. Immediately the real Hitler came out from behind the curtain and also gave an order canceling the first one. The poor secretary was confused when he saw two Fuhrer in front of him and did not know what to do. Moreover, each of the Hitlers pointed a pistol at the other and began to claim that he was the real one.
Then Weller confessed that he was a double, and the real Fuehrer scolded the secretary for being ready to carry out the order of the impostor. Hitler demonstrated to himself and Weller the differences that the secretary had to notice.
A completely different Hitler
Many witnesses claimed that after April 20, 1945, Hitler's physical and moral condition deteriorated sharply. His speech became incoherent and indistinct, his memory often refused, but most importantly, his handwriting changed.
This evidence suggests that after April 20, it was not Hitler, but his double, Gustav Weller, who was in the bunker. Trying to hide the difference in life habits and stereotypes, he feigned memory loss and speech impairment.
An illustrative episode is when on April 24 Artillery General Weidling arrived in the bunker, whom the Fuhrer ordered to shoot for retreating without an order. The general entered the bunker, already prepared for the worst, but did not even have time to say anything, because Hitler suddenly patted him on the shoulder and unexpectedly appointed him commandant of Berlin.
According to Weidling, the Fuhrer, who knew him by sight, unexpectedly mistook the general for someone else and, realizing this, at the end of the conversation made excuses: "I remember the names, but I do not remember the faces."
That is, in the bunker, instead of Hitler, the general could receive a double, which later turned out to be indispensable for staging the death of the dictator.
According to some versions, Bormann and Müller were in charge of the replacement. On April 22, at about half past eight in the morning, the dictator, as usual, went out into the garden for a walk with the same Blondie shepherd dog. Here he was met by Müller. The Fuhrer thanked the chief of the Gestapo for his service, expressed hope for a quick meeting, then left the garden, got into the car and drove away.
A few minutes later, Müller's men brought in a new Hitler and a new Blondie. After which the valet of the Fuhrer Linge allegedly said: “The owner has left. It's forever". And the head of the personal guard of the Fuhrer Rattenhuber added: “The Fuhrer has left us. Now we have a new Fuhrer "- and it was clearly about Hitler's double.
Suicide of the newlyweds
As you know, on April 30, shortly before the suicide, the wedding ceremony of Hitler and Eva Braun took place. But, as many historians believe, most likely, it was not the Fuhrer and Eve who participated in it, but their counterparts. The name of the understudy Eva Braun was not preserved, all documents concerning her were destroyed. But the physical resemblance between the two women, according to witnesses, was striking.
If this was the case, then when Hitler and Eve fled, doubles took their places in the bunker. Bormann staged a performance for several days until he was convinced that the real Hitler was safe. After that, there was a double “suicide” of the alleged Fuhrer and his young wife.
According to the testimony of witnesses, the picture of Hitler's suicide was as follows. On April 30 at 15:30, the Fuhrer said goodbye to everyone present in the bunker. The guards left the room, Hitler's adjutant, Sturmbannführer Otto Ponsche, stood at the door leading from the corridor to the reception area. The Fuehrer's personal valet Linge went into the pantry. It was he who smelled gunpowder (the pantry was connected to the office by a ventilation shaft) and reported this to Bormann.
Together with Bormann, they entered the office and saw the Fuhrer and Eva Braun sitting on the sofa with no signs of life. On Hitler's left temple, Linge noticed a bullet inlet. True, later Linge admitted: "I don't know if this is really a bullet wound - this red spot could have been painted …"
The SS men carried the corpses into the garden and laid them on the ground. Gunsche doused them with gasoline from canisters prepared in advance and set them on fire. Earlier, Hitler bequeathed to burn his corpse, as he feared that it could be put on public display in a freak show.
Thus, only Bormann and Linge saw the dead Hitler, the others saw the married couple already wrapped in gray blankets. Even Günsche claimed that he only recognized the Fuehrer by the boots he always wore.
Two corpses
But the main thing - the body of "Hitler" was not the only one! There were at least two of them.
The first body was discovered by a group of Smershevites led by Lieutenant Colonel Ivan Klimenko - in the garden of the Reich Chancellery. These were the remains of Gustav Weller, who was shot but not burned. Apparently, the double was buried just so that the enemy soldiers could easily find him.
Weller himself, most likely, until the last minute did not suspect of an imminent death, hoping to act as a decoy for the allies until the real Hitler hides in a safe place. But no one was going to leave the false Fuehrer alive - after all, in this case, the Allies would never have stopped looking for the real Hitler. The double was shot in the middle of the forehead with a Walther pistol.
Upon detailed examination of the remains, experts noticed some inconsistencies. For example, the killed man had darned socks on his feet - a real Hitler would hardly wear such. In addition, people who knew the Fuhrer closely spoke of the differences in the shape of the ears, which, as you know, each person has as unique as fingerprints.
Stalin, having learned about the find of a double, first ordered to destroy the body, but soon changed his mind, and the corpse was sent to Moscow in an ice box. Later he was secretly burned in the oven of a Moscow crematorium.
That is, Gustav Weller was shot to obscure the tracks. It was he who was found unburned and with his socks darned. But who, then, was killed and burned in a blanket? Whose corpse was found on May 4 in an aerial bomb crater - along with the body of the real or imaginary Eva Braun?
There are two versions here. According to the first of them, the body burned in the courtyard of the Reich Chancellery belonged to another Hitler's double - Klaus Buster, who was kept just for such an occasion and about which no one knew. He was even fitted with dentures identical to Hitler's ones (as you know, both half-burnt corpses were recognized as the corpses of Hitler and Brown, first of all, according to the testimony of their personal dentist Gaiserman).
According to the second version, the real Hitler was killed, and Bormann transported his double to South America for a possible further political game - after all, the Fuhrer, as the number one person in the Reich, could live by his own rules and not obey the person number two …
Victor SVETLANIN