Hitler's skull? It's female...

[Myra Bronstein]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/opinion/11beevor.html

Op-Ed Contributor
Hitler’s Jaws of Death

By ANTONY BEEVOR
Published: October 10, 2009
Lynsore Bottom, England

THE assertion by American researchers that Hitler might have escaped from Berlin because a skull fragment in a Moscow archive was not his but a young woman’s is rich in paradox. Stalin went to great lengths in 1945 to conceal the fact that Hitler’s body had been identified by pathologists working for Smersh, the Soviet military counterintelligence agency. Stalin even misled his own commander in chief, Marshal Georgi Zhukov, demanding to know why he had failed to find Hitler’s corpse. And Pravda declared that rumors of the discovery of Hitler’s body were a fascist provocation.

Stalin ruled by creating fear and uncertainty among both subordinates at home and among his Western allies abroad, who were of course seen as potential enemies. Even after Hitler’s jaws, with their distinctive bridgework, had been identified by the assistant to the Führer’s personal dentist, the Soviet authorities nurtured rumors that Hitler was hiding in Bavaria. As Bavaria was part of the American zone of occupation, the implication was that the Americans had concealed him and were somehow in league with the Nazis. Now, 64 years later, an episode of the History Channel series “MysteryQuest” — with the outrageous title of “Hitler’s Escape” — has distorted the revelation of the skull to scare up a similar fugitive ghost, to the furious exasperation of the Russian authorities.

On May 2, 1945, members of the Smersh detachment of the Soviet Third Shock Army, having heard of Hitler’s suicide two days earlier, sealed off the Reich Chancellery garden and Hitler’s bunker there as they searched for the body. All those on the Smersh team were sworn to secrecy and warned that any mention of their work would be treated as treason. Even Marshal Zhukov was refused entry to the bunker during the search on the ground that “it wasn’t safe down there.”

All members of Hitler’s household who had been identified were held in the Reich Institute for the Blind, on the Oranienstrasse. One after another they were interrogated by a major known to history only as Bystrov. Stalin was so desperate for news that a general from the N.K.V.D., the K.G.B.’s predecessor, was sent to supervise the interrogations. He was given a secure line with a scrambler so that he could report back to Moscow after each interview.

On May 5, Smersh operatives finally discovered Hitler’s body along with that of Eva Braun in the chancellery garden; the two corpses had been doused in gasoline and set on fire by SS aides, in accordance with Hitler’s orders, and then buried in a shell crater. The Soviets smuggled the remains to an improvised morgue in Buch, a suburb of Berlin. Hitler’s body was too badly burned to be recognizable, so the jaws were removed since they offered the best means of identification. The assistant to Hitler’s dentist was tracked down and brought to examine them.

Yelena Rzhevskaya, the interpreter with the Smersh group, later recounted how on the evening of May 8, when Soviet troops prepared to celebrate the German surrender, she was given a box covered in red satin and told to guard it with her life. She described it as “the sort used for cheap jewelry.” The box held Hitler’s jaws. Rzhevskaya was given it because, as a woman, she was considered less likely to get drunk that night and lose it.

The skull and the jaws are still separate because Smersh hung on to its precious evidence. The cranium, recovered later, allegedly at the same site, was taken by the N.K.V.D., and that is why it has been in the State Archive of the Russian Federation since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The jaws are almost certainly still held in the Lubyanka, the Moscow headquarters of the Russian secret police, along with other prizes retrieved by Smersh from the garden, like Hitler’s Nazi party badge, which was taken from the body of Magda Goebbels.

Although we have been subjected over the last few months to a barrage of disinformation from the Russians about the start of World War II — including attempts to blame the Poles and the British for its outbreak — I would tend to believe their version in the case of its ending. Even if the cranium is not Hitler’s but some unknown woman’s, the jaws are almost certainly genuine. The Russians could end speculation and ridiculous conspiracy theories by allowing an international team to carry out DNA tests on them.

In any case, Stalin was obsessed with every detail about his archenemy Hitler, whom he both feared and admired in a distorted way. The investigations of his death were meticulous, as the Smersh reports show. Witnesses to the suicide and the burning of the bodies were interviewed again and again by Smersh and the N.K.V.D., and some by the British — in fact, by the historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, who wrote “The Last Days of Hitler.”

There were no major discrepancies in any of the accounts, so suggestions that Hitler did not commit suicide and had escaped from Berlin represent nothing but gratuitous sensationalism. It is just another attempt to exploit the nightmare conspiracy theory that the source of unparalleled evil lived on somewhere, in secret.

Antony Beevor is the author of “D-Day: The Battle for Normandy” and “The Fall of Berlin 1945.”

[Myra Bronstein]

...Even if the cranium is not Hitler’s but some unknown woman’s, the jaws are almost certainly genuine. The Russians could end speculation and ridiculous conspiracy theories by allowing an international team to carry out DNA tests on them.
...

According to this article the Hitler’s jawbone as well. But I haven't seen accounts of analysis on the jaw.

http://www.therightperspective.org/2009/...lf-hitler/

"A bullet-holed skull fragment, long believed to be that of der Fuher, is actually from a woman under the age of 40, says University of Connecticut archeologist Nick Bellantoni.

The American researcher obtained special access to the skull fragment, as well as Hitler’s jawbone and the blood-stained sofa where he allegedly committed suicide in 1945. Samples were taken and sent to the University of Connecticut’s applied genetics lab, which devoted three days to exhaustive analysis."

[David Guyatt]

It is useful in this case to remember that there is sound evidence that Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler, probably did not commit suicide as was reported by the British, but disappeared into the future - as suggested by the highly credible Hugh Thomas in his book SS-1 The Unlikely Death of Heinrich Himmler.

Bormann also got out via the Ratlines by leaving at least one badly mutilated body behind him to convince the allies he had died in the last days of the battle for Berlin.

Why not Hitler too? Stalin was indeed captivated by the idea that Das Fuhrer had escaped justice. Was this paranoia or the fact that he had good reason to suspect allied treason in all sorts of matters?

Personally, I think it likely Hitler did commit suicide - or was murdered at the end. He was a trembling morphine addict who was no longer presentable and had, in any case, outlived his usefulness.

[Myra Bronstein]

It is useful in this case to remember that there is sound evidence that Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler, probably did not commit suicide as was reported by the British, but disappeared into the future - as suggested by the highly credible Hugh Thomas in his book SS-1 The Unlikely Death of Heinrich Himmler.

Bormann also got out via the Ratlines by leaving at least one badly mutilated body behind him to convince the allies he had died in the last days of the battle for Berlin.

Why not Hitler too?.. .

That's what I'm leaning towards thinking.

Among the known high level nazi officers that were welcomed into South America with open arms were:

Adolf Eichmann
Josef Mengele
Klaus Barbie
Franz Stangl

Given that so many nazis escaped, would it even make sense that the head nazi didn't?

...
Personally, I think it likely Hitler did commit suicide - or was murdered at the end. He was a trembling morphine addict who was no longer presentable and had, in any case, outlived his usefulness.

I disagree. I think history has taught us that experts at crushing labor unions, oops I mean "Communism," are always useful to Capitalists.

[Myra Bronstein]

Interesting article claiming that Eva Peron helped arrange the mass exodus of nazis to Argentina.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Global...Nazis.html
[B]
Evita, the Swiss and the Nazis[/B]

[B]by Georg Hodel[/B]

[B]iF magazine, January / February 1999[/B]

[B]On June 6, 1947, Argentina's first lady Eva Peron left for a glittering tour of Europe.[/B]

[B]The glamorous ax-actress was feted in Spain, kissed the ring of Pope Pius Xll at the Vatican and hobnobbed with the rich-and-famous in the mountains of Switzerland[/B]

[B]Eva Peron, known as "Evita" by her adoring followers, was superficially on a trip to strengthen diplomatic, business and cultural ties between Argentina and important leaders of Europe.[/B]

[B]But there was a parallel mission behind the high-profile trip, one that has contributed to a half century of violent extremism in Latin America[/B]

[B]According to records now emerging from Swiss archives and the investigations of Nazi hunters, an unpublicized side of Evita's world tour was coordinating the network for helping Nazis relocate in Argentina[/B]

[B]This new evidence of Evita's cozy ties with prominent Nazis corroborates the long-held suspicion that she and her husband, Gen. Juan Peron, laid the groundwork for a bloody resurgence of fascism across Latin America in the 1970s end '80s.[/B]

[B]Besides blemishing the Evita legend the evidence threatens to inflict more damage on Switzerland's image for plucky neutrality. The international banking center is still staggering from disclosures about its wartime collaboration with Adolf Hitler and Swiss profiteering off his Jewish victims.[/B]

[B]The archival records indicate that Switzerland's assistance to Hitler's henchmen didn't stop with the collapse of the Third Reich.[/B]

[B]And the old Swiss-Argentine-Nazi connection reaches to the present in another way. Spanish "superjudge" Baltasar Garzon is seeking to open other Swiss records on bank accounts controlled by Argentine military officers who led the so-called "Dirty War" that killed and "disappeared" tens of thousands of Argentines between 1976-83.[/B]

[B]During World War IL Gen. Peron -a populist military leader -- made no secret of his sympathies for Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany.[/B]

[B]Even as the Third Reich crumbled in the spring of 1945, Peron remained a pro-fascist stalwart, making available more than 1,000 blank passports for Nazi collaborators fleeing Europe.[/B]

[B]With Europe in chaos and the Allies near victory, tens of thousands of ranking Nazis dropped out of sight, tried to mix in with common refugees and began plotting escapes from Europe to Argentina across clandestine "ratlines."[/B]

[B]At the Argentine end of that voyage was Rodolfo Freude. He also was Juan Peron's private secretary, one of Evita's principal benefactors and the chief of Argentine internal security.[/B]

[B]Freude's father, Ludwig, played another key role. As managing director of the Banco Aleman Transatlantico in Buenos Aires, he led the pro-Nazi German community in Argentina and acted as trustee for hundreds of millions of German Reichsmarks that the Fuehrer's top aides sent to Argentina near the war's end.[/B]

[B]By 1946, the first wave of defeated fascists was settling into new Argentine homes. The country also was rife with rumors that the thankful Nazis had begun to repay Peron by bankrolling his campaign for the presidency, which he won with his stunning wife at his side.[/B]

[B]In 1947, Peron was living in Argentina's presidential palace and was hearing pleas from thousands of other Nazis desperate to flee Europe. The stage was set for one of the most troubling boat-lifts in human history.[/B]

[B]The archival records reveal that Eva Peron stepped forward to serve as Gen. Peron's personal emissary to this Nazi underground. Already, Evita was an Argentine legend[/B]

[B]Born in 1919 as an illegitimate child she became a prostitute to survive and to get acting roles. As she climbed the social ladder lover by lover, she built up deep resentments toward the traditional elites.[/B]

[B]As a mistress to other army officers, she caught the eye of handsome military strongman Juan Peron. After a public love affair, they married in 1945.[/B]

[B]As Peron's second wife, Evita fashioned herself as the "queen of the poor," the protector of those she called "mis descamisados" -- "my shirtless ones." She created a foundation to help the poor buy items from toys to houses.[/B]

[B]But her charity extended, too, to her husband's Nazi allies. In June 1947, Evita left for post-war Europe. A secret purpose of her first major overseas trip apparently was pulling together the many loose ends of the Nazi relocation.[/B]

[B]Evita's first stop on her European tour was Spain, where Generalissimo Francisco Franco - her husband's model and mentor -- greeted her with all the dignified folderol of a head of state.[/B]

[B]A fascist who favored the Axis powers but maintained official neutrality in the war, Franco had survived to provide a haven for the Third Reich's dispossessed Franco's Spain was an important early hide-out for Nazis who slipped through the grasp of the Allies and needed a place to stay before continuing on to more permanent homes in Latin America or the Middle East.[/B]

[B]While in Spain, Evita reportedly met secretly with Nazis who were part of the entourage of Otto Skorzeny, the dashing Austrian commando leader known as Scarface because of a dueling scar across his left cheek.[/B]

[B]Though under Allied detention in 1947, Skorzeny already was the purported leader of the clandestine organization, Die Spinne or The Spider, which used millions of dollars looted from the Reichsbank to smuggle Nazis from Europe to Argentina.[/B]

[B]After escaping in 1948, Skorzeny set up the legendary ODESSA organization which tapped into other hidden Nazi funds to help ex-SS men rebuild their lives -- and the fascist movement --- in South America.[/B]

[B]Evita's next stop was equally fitting. The charismatic beauty traveled to Rome for an audience with Pope Pius Xll, a Vatican meeting that lasted longer than the usual kiss on the ring.[/B]

[B]At the time, the Vatican was acting as a crucial way station doling out forged documents for fascist fugitives. Pope Pius himself was considered sympathetic to the tough anti-communism of the fascists although he had kept a discreet public distance from Hitler.[/B]

[B]A top-secret State Department report from May 1947 - a month before Evita's trip - had termed the Vatican "the largest single organization involved in the illegal movement of emigrants," including many Nazis. Leading ex-Nazis later publicly thanked the Vatican for its vital assistance.[/B]

[B]As for the Evita-Pius audience, former Justice Department Nazi-hunter John Loftus has charged that the First Lady of the Pampas and His Holiness discussed the care and feeding of the Nazi faithful in Argentina.[/B]

[B]After her Roman holiday, Evita hoped to meet Great Britain's Queen Elizabeth. But the British government balked out of fear that the presence of Peron's wife might provoke an embarrassing debate over Argentina's pro-Nazi leanings and the royal family's own pre-war cuddling up to Hitler. Instead Evita diverted to Rapallo, a town near Genoa on the Italian Rivera.[/B]

[B]There, she was the guest of Alberto Dodero, owner of an Argentine shipping fleet known for transporting some of the world's most unsavory cargo.[/B]

[B]On June 19, 1947, in the midst of Evita's trip, the first of Dodero's ships, the Santa Fe,. arrived in Buenos Aires and disgorged hundreds of Nazis onto the docks of their new country.[/B]

[B]Over the next few years, Dodero's boats would carry thousands of Nazis to South America including some of Hitler's vilest war criminals, the likes of Mengele and Eichmann, according to Argentine historian Jorge Camarasa.[/B]

[B]On August 4, 1947, Evita and her entourage headed north to the stately city of Geneva a center for international finance. There, she participated in more meetings with key figures from the Nazi escape apparatus.[/B]

[B]A Swiss diplomat named Jacques Albert Cuttat welcomed the onetime torch singer. The meeting was a reunion of sorts, since Evita had known Cuttat when he worked at the Swiss Legation in Argentina from 1938 to 1946.[/B]

[B]Newly released documents from Argentina's Central Bank showed that during the war, the Swiss Central Bank and a dozen Swiss private banks maintained suspicious gold accounts in Argentina Among the account holders was Jacques Albert Cuttat.[/B]

[B]The Swiss files accused Cuttat of conducting unauthorized private business and maintaining questionable wartime contacts with known Nazis. In spite of those allegations, the Swiss government promoted Cuttat to chief of protocol of the Swiss Foreign Service, after his return from Argentina to Switzerland[/B]

[B]In that capacity, Cuttat escorted Eva Peron to meetings with senior Swiss officials. The pair went to see Foreign Minister Max Petitpierre and Philipp Etter, the Swiss president.[/B]

[B]Etter extended a warm welcome to Evita even accompanying her the next day on a visit to the city of Lucerne, "the doorway to the Swiss Alps."[/B]

[B]After her "official" duties had ended, Evita dropped out of pubic view. Supposedly, she joined some friends for rest and recreation in the mountains of St. Moritz.[/B]

[B]But the documents recounting her Swiss tour revealed that she continued making business contacts that would advance both Argentine commerce and the relocation of Hitler's henchmen. She was a guest of the "Instituto Suizo-Argentino" at a private reception at the Hotel "Baur au Lac" in Zurich, the banking capital of Switzerland's German-speaking sector.[/B]

[B]There, Professor William Dunkel, the president of the Institute, addressed an audience of more than 200 Swiss bankers and businessmen -plus Eva Peron - on the wonderful opportunities about to blossom in Argentina.[/B]

[B]Recently released Swiss archival documents explained what was behind the enthusiasm. Peron's ambassador to Switzerland, Benito Llambi, had undertaken a secret mission to create a sort of emigration service to coordinate the escape of the Nazis, particularly those with scientific skills.[/B]

[B]Already, Llambi had conducted secret talks with Henry Guisan Jr., a Swiss agent whose clients included a German engineer who had worked for Wernher von Braun's missile team. Guisan offered Llambi the blueprints of German "V2" and "V3" rockets.[/B]

[B]Guisan himself emigrated to Argentina where he established several firms that specialized in the procurement of war material.[/B]

[B]His ex-wife later told investigators, "I had to attend business associates of my former husband I'd rather not shake hands with. When they started to talk business I had to leave the room. I only remember that millions were at stake."[/B]

[B]Intelligence files of the Bern Police Department show that the secret Nazi emigration office was located at Marktgasse 49 in downtown Bern, the Swiss capital. The operation was directed by three Argentines - Carlos Fuldner, Herbert Helfferich and Dr. Georg Weiss. A police report described them as "110 percent Nazis.[/B]

[B]The leader of the team, Carlos Fuldner, was the son of German immigrants to Argentina who had returned to Germany to study. In 1931, Fuldner joined the SS and later was recruited into German foreign intelligence.[/B]

[B]At war's end, Fuldner fled to Madrid with a planeload of stolen art, according to a U.S. State Department report. He then moved to Bern where he posed as a representative of the Argentinean Civil Air Transport Authority. Fuldner was in place to assist the first wave of Nazi emigres.[/B]

[B]One of the first Nazis to reach Buenos Aires via the "ratlines" was Erich Priebke, an SS officer accused of a mass execution of Italian civilians. Another was Croat Ustashi leader Ante Pavefic. They were followed by concentration camp commander Joseph Schwamberger and the sadistic Auschwitz doctor, Joseph Mengele.[/B]

[B]Later, on June 14, 1951, the emigrant ship, "Giovanna C," carried Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann to Argentina where he posed as a technician under a false name. Fuldner found Eichmann a job at Mercedes-Benz.[/B]

[B](Israel intelligence agents captured Eichmann in May 1960 and spirited him to Israel to stand trial for mass murder. He was convicted, sentenced to death and hanged in 1962.)[/B]

[B]Through Evita's precise role in organizing the Nazi "ratlines" remains a bit fuzzy, her European tour connected the dots of the key figures in the escape network. She also helped[/B]

[B]clear the way for more formal arrangements in the Swiss-Argentine-Nazi collaboration.[/B]

[B]Additional evidence is contained in postwar diplomatic correspondence between Switzerland and Argentina. The documents reveal that the head of the Swiss Federal Police, Heinrich Rothmund, and the former Swiss intelligence officer Paul Schaufelberger participated in the activities of the illegal Argentine emigration service in Bern.[/B]

[B]For instance, one urgent telegram from Bern to the Swiss Legation in Rome stated: "The (Swiss) Police Department wants to send 16 refugees to Argentina with the emigration ship that leaves Genoa March 26 [1948]. Stop. All of them carry Swiss ID cards and have return visa. Stop."[/B]

[B]Besides political sympathies, the Peron government saw an economic pay-off in smuggling German scientists to work in Argentine factories and armaments plants.[/B]

[B]The first combat jet introduced into South America-- the "Pulque" -- was built in Argentina by the German aircraft designer Kurt Tank of the firm, Focke-Wulf. His engineers and test pilots arrived via the illegal emigration service in Bern.[/B]

[B]But other Nazi scientists who reached the protected shores of Argentina were simply sadists. One physician, Dr. Carl Vaernet, had conducted surgical experiments on homosexuals at the Buchenwald concentration camp. Vaernet castrated the men and then inserted metal sex glands that inflicted agonizing deaths on some of his patients.[/B]

[B]For the Swiss, the motives for their cozy Nazi-Argentine relationships were political and financial, both during and after the war.[/B]

[B]Ignacio Klich, spokesman for a new independent commission investigating Nazi-Argentine collaboration, said he believes the wartime business between Nazi Germany and Argentina was handled routinely by Swiss fiduciaries.[/B]

[B]That suspicion was confirmed by Swiss files released to the U.S. Senate as well as papers from the Swiss Office of Compensation and correspondence between the Swiss Foreign Ministry and the Swiss legation in Buenos Aires.[/B]

[B]One target of the commission's investigation is Johann Wehrli, a private banker from Zurich. During World War II, one of Wehrfi's sons opened a branch office in Buenos Aires which, investigators suspect, was used to funnel Nazi assets into Argentina.[/B]

[B]The money allegedly included loot from Jews and other Nazi victims. (Later, the giant Union Bank of Switzerland absorbed the Wehrli bank.)[/B]

[B]Swiss defenders argue that tiny Switzerland had little choice but to work with the powerful fascist governments on its borders during the war. But the post-war assistance appears harder to justify, when the most obvious motive was money.[/B]

[B]According to a secret report written by a U.S. Army major in 1948, the Swiss government made a hefty profit by providing Germans with the phony documents needed to flee to Argentina. The one-page memo quoted a confidential informant with contacts in the Swiss and Dutch governments as saying, "The Swiss government was not only anxious to get rid of German nationals, legally or illegally within their borders, but further that they made a considerable profit in getting rid of them."[/B]

[B]The informant said German nationals paid Swiss officials as much as 200,000 Swiss francs for temporary residence documents necessary to board flights out of Switzerland. (The sum was worth about S50,000 at the time.)[/B]

[B]Moreover, that memo and other documents suggest that KLM Royal Dutch Airlines may have illegally flown suspected Nazis to safety in Argentina, while Swissair acted as a booking agent.[/B]

[B]Back in Argentina, the rave reviews for Evita's European trip cemented her reputation as a superstar.[/B]

[B]It also brought her immense wealth lavished on her by grateful Nazis. Her husband was re-elected president in 1951, by which time large numbers of Nazis were firmly ensconced in Argentina's military-industrial apparatus.[/B]

[B]Evita Peron died of cancer in 1953, touching off despair among her followers. The fearful military buried her secretly in an unannounced location to prevent her grave from becoming a national shrine.[/B]

[B]Meanwhile, a feverish hunt began for her personal fortune. Evita's brother and guardian of her image, Juan Duarte, traveled to Switzerland in search of her hidden assets.[/B]

[B]After his return to Argentina, Duarte was found dead in his apartment. Despite her husband's control of the police -- or maybe because of it -the authorities never established whether Duarte was murdered or had committed suicide.[/B]

[B]In 1955, Juan Peron was overthrown and fled to exile in Spain where he lived as a guest of Franco. Peron apparently accessed some of Evita's secret Swiss accounts because he sustained a luxurious lifestyle.[/B]

[B]The money also may have greased Peron's brief return to power in 1973. Peron died in 1974, leaving behind the mystery of Evita's Nazi fortune. In 1976, the army overthrew Peron's vice president, his last wife, Isabel.[/B]

[B]Paradoxically, the cult of Evita flourished still. The idolatry blinded her followers to the consequences of her flirtation with the Nazis.[/B]

[B]Those aging fascists accomplished much of what the ODESSA strategists had hoped. The Nazis in Argentina kept[/B]

[B]Hitler's torch burning, won new converts in the region's militaries and passed on the advanced science of torture and "death squad" operations.[/B]

[B]Hundreds of left-wing Peronist students and unionists were among the victims of the neo-fascist Argentine junta that launched the Dirty War in 1976.[/B]

[B]When the junta started its "war without borders" against the left elsewhere in Latin America, it used Nazis as storm-troopers. Among them was Klaus Barbie, the Gestapo's Butcher of Lyon who had settled in Bolivia with the help of the "ratline" network.[/B]

[B]In 1980, Barbie helped organize a brutal putsch against the democratically elected government in Bolivia. Drug lords and an international coalition of neo-fascists bankrolled the putsch.[/B]

[B]A key supporting role was played by the World Anti-Communist League, led by World War I fascist war criminal Ryoichi Sasakawa of Japan and the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.[/B]

[B]Barbie sought assistance from Argentine intelligence. One of the first Argentine officers to arrive, Lt. Alfred Mario Mingolla, later described Barbie's role to German journalist Kai Hermann.[/B]

[B]"Before our departure, we received a dossier on [Barbie]," Mingolla said. "There it stated that he was of great use to Argentina because he played an important role in all of Latin America in the fight against communism."[/B]

[B]Just like in the good old days, the Butcher of Lyon worked with a younger generation of Italian neo-fascists. Barbie started a secret lodge called "Thule," where he lectured his followers underneath swastikas by candlelight.[/B]

[B]On July 17, 1980, Barbie, his neo-fascists and rightist officers from the Bolivian army ousted the center-left government. Barbie's team hunted down and slaughtered government Officials and labor leaders, while Argentine specialists flew in to demonstrate the latest torture techniques.[/B]

[B]Because the putsch gave Bolivian drug lords free reign of the country, the operation became known as the Cocaine Coup. With the assistance of Barbie and his neo-fascists, Bolivia became a protected source of cocaine for the emerging Medellin cartel.[/B]

[B]Two years later, Barbie was captured and extradited to France where he died in prison.[/B]

[B]Most of the other old Nazis are dead, too. But the violent extremism that the Perons transplanted into South America in the 1940s still haunts the region.[/B]

[B]In the 1980s, the Argentine military extended its operations to Central America where it collaborated with Ronald Reagan's CIA in organizing paramilitary forces, such as the Nicaraguan contras and Honduran "death squads."[/B]

[B]Even today, as right-wing dictators in Latin America are called to account for past atrocities, fledgling democracies must move cautiously and keep a wary eye on rightists in the region's potent militaries.[/B]

[B]The ghosts of Evita's Nazis are never far away[/B]

[Jan Klimkowski]

Yelena Rzhevskaya, the interpreter with the Smersh group, later recounted how on the evening of May 8, when Soviet troops prepared to celebrate the German surrender, she was given a box covered in red satin and told to guard it with her life. She described it as “the sort used for cheap jewelry.” The box held Hitler’s jaws. Rzhevskaya was given it because, as a woman, she was considered less likely to get drunk that night and lose it.

The skull and the jaws are still separate because Smersh hung on to its precious evidence. The cranium, recovered later, allegedly at the same site, was taken by the N.K.V.D., and that is why it has been in the State Archive of the Russian Federation since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The jaws are almost certainly still held in the Lubyanka, the Moscow headquarters of the Russian secret police, along with other prizes retrieved by Smersh from the garden, like Hitler’s Nazi party badge, which was taken from the body of Magda Goebbels.

Although we have been subjected over the last few months to a barrage of disinformation from the Russians about the start of World War II — including attempts to blame the Poles and the British for its outbreak — I would tend to believe their version in the case of its ending. Even if the cranium is not Hitler’s but some unknown woman’s, the jaws are almost certainly genuine. The Russians could end speculation and ridiculous conspiracy theories by allowing an international team to carry out DNA tests on them.

In any case, Stalin was obsessed with every detail about his archenemy Hitler, whom he both feared and admired in a distorted way. The investigations of his death were meticulous, as the Smersh reports show. Witnesses to the suicide and the burning of the bodies were interviewed again and again by Smersh and the N.K.V.D., and some by the British — in fact, by the historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, who wrote “The Last Days of Hitler.”

There were no major discrepancies in any of the accounts, so suggestions that Hitler did not commit suicide and had escaped from Berlin represent nothing but gratuitous sensationalism. It is just another attempt to exploit the nightmare conspiracy theory that the source of unparalleled evil lived on somewhere, in secret.

Beevor's official anti-"conspiracy theory" version is convoluted and hysterical. Indeed, it is itself a "conspiracy theory" to explain away a very simple fact: the supposed skull of Hitler is actually a woman's.

It is highly unlikely that we will ever know for sure whether Hitler was one of the numerous top Nazis who escaped, mostly to South America, either via Paperclip/Vatican ratlines or Nazi plane & submarine.

Those are the obvious escape routes. I very much doubt that Hitler would have been spirited to the USSR by the NKVD and hidden. Or given a new role by the West like Gehlen - the other major alternatives.

Part of me suspects that Stalin would have relished a very public blood revenge against Hitler. Brutal events often need brutal and highly symbolic climaxes.

The British royals, once restored to power, stuck Oliver Cromwell's head on a pole and displayed it at the heart of London. In the age of the moving image, Nicolae Ceauşescu had to be shot on video tape to provide proof of the death of the Romanian Vampyre.

It is suspicious that Hitler never received a public and symbolic execution.

Against that, it is entirely possible that Hitler did die in Nazi Germany. However, it is then not unreasonable to ask those who claim that he did perish in Berlin to provide proper forensic evidence to support their argument.

A woman's skull just doesn't cut it.....

[Charles Drago]

Neu Schwabenland.

Operation Highjump.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Neu Schwabenland.

Operation Highjump.

Antarctica is an intriguing possibility. Perfect for a junkie megalomaniac to be Fuhrer of all he surveys.

However, to my mind, Neu Schwabenland is a version of the South American ratline story which - through Farrell - leads to the likes of Banister and Crisman and flying saucer psyops....

The survival of Hitler is not strictly necessary for this path of history.

[Charles Drago]

Agreed.

[Magda Hassan]

...Even if the cranium is not Hitler’s but some unknown woman’s, the jaws are almost certainly genuine. The Russians could end speculation and ridiculous conspiracy theories by allowing an international team to carry out DNA tests on them.
...

According to this article the Hitler’s jawbone as well. But I haven't seen accounts of analysis on the jaw.

http://www.therightperspective.org/2009/...lf-hitler/

"A bullet-holed skull fragment, long believed to be that of der Fuher, is actually from a woman under the age of 40, says University of Connecticut archeologist Nick Bellantoni.

The American researcher obtained special access to the skull fragment, as well as Hitler’s jawbone and the blood-stained sofa where he allegedly committed suicide in 1945. Samples were taken and sent to the University of Connecticut’s applied genetics lab, which devoted three days to exhaustive analysis."

Apparently he only had one hour with the exhibits at the archives so I am not sure he had enough time to gather all the information, DNA, etc needed.

Also as for the 'jaw bone' I am unclear as to if it is an actual bone or not. I have seen bridgework in the photos but no jaw bone as such. If it is bridgework then that could be anyones where as a bone they can test for DNA through Hitler's relatives. The dentist that was called to verify if it was Hitler's jaw was in fact a dental assistant. Also Hitler had form when the Munich Beer Hall Putsch went pear shape he ran away and hid and did not stand and fight. There are many discrepancies with the supposed remains of the body. It was also claimed to be shorter than Hitler by several centimeters. It would be good to know more.