I am sorry I do not recall the dentist's name and cannot easily retrieve the article. I sent it to Mae Brussell and it appears that it may have been noted in the Boston Globe as well. I might be able to find the reference in her tape outlines with some work. Here are some confirmations below and the clear implication that one had to trust Blaschke for any identification of the remains. He was also the dentist for Bormann and Goering and may have played a similar role in allowing Bormann to escape - John Judge
A clue from one website commntary:
Hitler’s dentist, [Blaschke] who reportedly said in the 1980’s while living in America that “we switched the dental records” of some poor schlub in the German Army (this last detail was according to a Boston Globe article cited by Radio show host Mae Brussel).
Here is Wikipedia confirming that Blaschke studied at University of Pennsylvania as the Vermont article noted:
Dr
Hugo Johannes Blaschke (14 November 1881 – 6 December 1959) was a German
dental surgeon notable for being
Adolf Hitler’s personal dentist from 1933 to April 1945 and for being the chief dentist on the staff of
Heinrich Himmler with the rank of SS
Brigadeführer.
Blaschke was born in
Neustadt and studied dentistry in
Berlin and at the
University of Pennsylvania. He then trained as a dentist in
London and during
World War I he served as a military dentist. After treating
Hermann Göring he joined the
Nazi party in 1931 and then the SS. As well as Hitler he also treated
Eva Braun,
Joseph Goebbels and
Heinrich Himmler.
He was interrogated by the Americans after the war about Hitler’s dental treatment in the hope that this would lead to the identification of his remains. He stated that he fitted a large
dental bridge to Hitler's upper jaw in 1933 and that on 10 November 1944 he carried out surgery to cut off part of the bridge due to a gum infection that was causing Hitler severe toothache. In May 1945 the Soviet victors showed a dental bridge to Blaschke's technician Fritz Echtmann and his dental assistant Käthe Heusermann and they both identified it as being Hitler's.
[1] Blaschke also reconstructed the dental records of
Martin Bormann from memory and these were later used to identify his skeleton when it was discovered in Berlin in 1972.
After his release from captivity in 1948 Blaschke continued to practice as a dentist in
Nuremberg and died there aged 78.
[2]
Here's one dentist that tried to match the X-rays:
TIME, Milestones, October 8, 1984
DIED. Reidar Sognnaes, 72, a pioneer of forensic dentistry, the founding dean of UCLA's school of dentistry, and the man who in the early '70s confirmed the deaths of Adolf Hitler and Martin Bormann by comparing dental remains with existing X rays; of a heart attack; in Thousand Oaks, Calif. The Norwegian-born Sognnaes also disproved the theory that George Washington wore wooden teeth, demonstrating that his dentures were probably made of cattle, hippopotamus, elephant and walrus teeth.
He also relied on Blaschke
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/articl...z0dkuQreUA
Hitler had fillings made from gold torn from mouths of Jews
Source: Telegraph (UK) (10-8-09)
The theory is based on a newly discovered document that shows Hitler's dentist had about 11lbs of dental gold from the concentration camps at his disposal for the treatment of senior Nazis.
Co-author Henrik Eberle, a historian who has written several successful books on the Nazi leader, said dentist Hugo Blaschke had put 10 fillings in Hitler's mouth in 1944.
"The most likely place the gold came from is from the supply Blaschke had from the concentration camps," Dr Eberle told the Daily Telegraph.
Here is an excerpt from a Dave Emory site on Bormann who had Blaschke as a dentist as well:
The corpses placed in the ruins of Berlin were, in fact, concentration camp inmates whose dental work was meticulously altered under the supervision of Dr. Hugo Blaschke, Hitler and Bormann’s personal dentist. The inmates’ dental work was made identical to Bormann’s, right down to the wear and aging of the oral architecture. The inmates were then killed, and their remains buried in the rubble of Berlin. These corpses were the remains found—and tested—by the German government to “verify” Bormann’s supposed death in World War II!
http://ftrsummary.blogspot.com/2007/07/f...races.html
He notes that the main book supporting Bormann's demise is written by Gerald Posner, whose Case Closed tried lamely to defend the Warren Commission conclusion and blame Oswald alone.
1. Professor Hugo Blaschke- Hitler’s Dentist.
According to the book “Was Hitler III?” Professor Blaschke used the gold from the mouths of Jewish people in the concentration camps to fill Hitler’s teeth. In 1944, Hitler had 10 fillings placed made from this gold. There was about 12 pounds of this extracted gold available to use on Nazi senior officers by Professor Blaschke. The only thing Hitler feared was going to the dentist, according to a book called “Dentist of the Devil”. Professor Blaschke had to do a root canal on Hitler. Adolph Hitler insisted it be spread over a period of eight days because he couldn’t stand the pain. Hitler had bad breath, abscesses and gum disease, according to the book.
From "15 Infamous Dentists" at
http://www.examiner.com/x-23824-Milwauke...s-Dentists
Hitler had fillings made from gold torn from mouths of Jews
Adolf Hitler had dental fillings made from gold torn from the mouths of Jews in concentration camps, a new book on the Führer claims
The theory is based on a newly discovered document that shows Hitler's dentist had about 11lbs of dental gold from the concentration camps at his disposal for the treatment of senior Nazis.
Co-author Henrik Eberle, a historian who has written several successful books on the Nazi leader, said dentist Hugo Blaschke had put 10 fillings in Hitler's mouth in 1944.
"The most likely place the gold came from is from the supply Blaschke had from the concentration camps," Dr Eberle told the Daily Telegraph.
"Most of this came from Jews. Gold from other sources was very hard to find in Germany and that is why I believe that Hitler's fillings came from Jewish victims of the Nazis."
It is well established that the Nazis removed gold teeth and fillings from their concentration camp victims.
The new document is a 1941 letter from one of Blaschke's underlings to the office of SS commander Heinrich Himmler. It states that Blaschke had 50 kilograms of dental gold enough to last for years.
Blaschke was also the personal dentist to Luftwaffe commander Hermann Göring and other senior Nazis.
The new book, titled Was Hitler Ill?, and coauthored by Hans-Joachim Neumann, a professor of medicine at Berlin's Charité University, also dismisses popular rumours about Hitler: that he may have had Jewish ancestry, that he was beaten by his father, and that he had a long term drug addiction.
By David Wroe in Berlin
Telegraph, October 11, 2009
http://www.effedieffe.com/content/view/8528/152/
Health
Hitler's health has long been the subject of debate. He has variously been said to have had
irritable bowel syndromeIrritable bowel syndrome
Irritable bowel syndrome is a functional gastrointestinal disorder. Also called spastic colon, it is a functional bowel disorder characterized by chronic abdominal pain, discomfort, bloating, and alteration of bowel habits in the absence of any detectable organic cause. In some cases, the symptoms...
,
skin lesionSkin lesion
A skin lesion is a superficial growth or patch of the skin that does not resemble the area surrounding it. They may take the form of bumps, blisters, or general sores...
s, irregular heartbeat,
Parkinson's diseaseParkinson's disease
Parkinson's disease is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that often impairs the sufferer's motor skills, speech, and other functions....
,
syphilisSyphilis
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease caused by the spirochetal bacterium Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. The route of transmission of syphilis is almost always through sexual contact, although there are examples of congenital syphilis via transmission from mother to child in utero.The...
,
Asperger syndromeAsperger syndrome
Asperger syndrome is an autism spectrum disorder, and people with it therefore show significant difficulties in social interaction, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests. It differs from other autism spectrum disorders by its relative preservation of linguistic and...
and a strongly suggested addiction to
methamphetamineMethamphetamine
Methamphetamine also known as metamfetamine , dextromethamphetamine, methylamphetamine, N-methylamphetamine, and desoxyephedrine) is a psychostimulant and sympathomimetic drug. Methamphetamine enters the brain and triggers a cascading release of dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine...
.
He had problems with his teeth and his personal dentist
Hugo BlaschkeHugo Blaschke
Dr Hugo Blaschke was a German dental surgeon notable for being Adolf Hitler’s personal dentist from 1933 to April 1945 and for being the chief dentist on the staff of Heinrich Himmler with the rank of SS Brigadeführer....
stated that he fitted a large
dental bridgeBridge (dentistry)
A bridge, also known as a fixed partial denture, is a dental restoration used to replace a missing tooth by joining permanently to adjacent teeth or dental implants....
to his upper jaw in 1933 and that on 10 November 1944 he carried out surgery to cut off part of the bridge due to a gum infection that was causing him severe toothache. He reported that he was also suffering from a
sinus infectionSinusitis
Sinusitis is a condition consisting of infection or inflammation of the paranasal sinuses, which may or may not be as a result of infection, from bacterial, fungal, viral, allergic or autoimmune issues...
Adolph Hitler, Facts, Discussion at
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Adolf_Hitler
Following his
suicideSuicide (from Latin sui caedere to kill oneself) is the act of ending one's own life. It is considered a sin in many religions, and a crime in some jurisdictions. On the other hand, some cultures have viewed it as an honorable way to exit certain shameful, Hitler's remains along with those of Eva Hitler were doused with
petrolPetrol gasoline in the United States and Canada) is a petroleum-derived liquid mixture consisting primarily of hydrocarbons, used as fuel in internal combustion engines. The term gasoline is the common usage within the oil industry, even within companies and set alight by Linge and members of Hitler's personal
SS bodyguard. The SS guards and Linge later noted that the fire did not completely destroy the remains, but Russian shelling of the compound made any further attempts impossible. The badly burned and partially buried remains were recovered by a
SMERSH unit which had been assigned the task of locating Hitler's body. (This unit was attached to the 79th Rifle Corps of the Third Shock Army and is frequestly referred to simply as "79th SMERSH".) An autopsy was performed by the SMERSH unit, led by Chief Forensic Pathologist Dr. Faust Sherovsky in an attempt to determine the exact cause of death. The team first positively identified Hitler using
odontological records relating to dental bridgework performed on Hitler by his dentist Hugo Blaschke . (Two of Blaschke's assistants, Fritz Echtmann and Kaethe Hausermann, confirmed the dental records as being accurate.) The autopsy ultimately led to the discovery of traces of cyanide in body tissue of both Adolf and Eva Hitler, and the officialcause of death published by the team was poisoning by cyanide with no mention of any gunshot wound. The findings were made public by the USSR on May 16th 1945 and the matter was thought to have been settled.
However the autopsy report was soon publicly questioned by Allied forces due to persistent testimony from other members of the Führerbunker staff that Hitler had shot himself.
Stalin, now worried that the autopsy had been flawed and that the Soviet Union had a major embarrassment on its hands, directed
Marshal Zhukov to announce on June 9th 1945 that the remains of Hitler had not been found, and that Hitler was probably still alive. This statement was never retracted, and was only definitively proved false when the
KGB/
FSB opened its files on the matter to the public in 1993. (A book by Soviet journalist Lev Bezymensky which detailed the SMERSH autopsy report had been published in the west in 1968, but was associated with other disinformation attempts and was therefore considered untrustworthy.)
The initial announcement of the discovery of Hitler's remains, quickly followed by a Soviet denial that the remains had been found and a statement that Hitler was probably still alive, led many to believe that Hitler had indeed escaped to South America along with many other prominent Nazis. (See the article on the
ODESSA organisation.)
http://www.economicexpert.com/a/Hitler:s:death.html
In December, 1972, during construction near the Lehrter Station (near to where Bormann's diary had been found in a discarded leather jacket in 1945, and close to the spot where Axmann said he had seen Bormann's body in the moonlight of that fatal night) two skeletons were unearthed. After extensive forensic examination, using the dental records of Bormann's dentist (Prof. Hugo Blaschke, who was also Hitler's dentist) the shorter of the two skeletons was identified as that of Martin Bormann, and West German authorities officially declared him dead. The forensic identification was validated by Dr. Reidar F. Sognnaes, a celebrated U.S. expert in such matters. (Reidar F. Sognnaes, "Dental Evidence in the Postmortem Identification of Adolf Hitler, Eva Braun and Martin Bormann", in Legal Medicine Annual, 1976.) This new evidence caused Roper to write in the 1978 edition of The Last Days of Hitler that "...in view of new evidence which has recently been found, I believe that it [the question of Bormann's death] can now be closed."
Note Blaschke's role in yet another deception here http://www.anesi.com/east/bormann.htm
A paper was presented yesterday at an international conference in London by Prof Michel Perrier, 52, of the University of Lausanne, and will be published in the Journal of Forensic Science. It links newsreel footage with X-rays of Hitler's skull, jaw remains found in the bunker beneath the Reich Chancellery garden and his dental records.
Even if Hitler had a double, so many characteristics in his teeth match in each source of evidence that Prof Perrier said yesterday he had no doubt that Hitler died in the bunker.
Hitler married his mistress,
Eva Braun, during the night of April 28/29, as Soviet troops advanced towards his bunker complex. On April 30 he committed suicide with his wife. In accordance with his instructions, their bodies were burned.
Russian forces found the remains and conducted the autopsy of the bodies the following month, said Prof Perrier. "What they found were charred pieces of bone, such as pieces of skull, the lower jaw and part of the upper jaw consisting of a bridge with nine units."
Nothing was revealed to the public until 1968, fuelling speculation about Hitler's fate. That year a book by
Lev Bezymenski contained a description of Hitler's autopsy and his remains.
The jaw remains were compared with dental evidence given to the Americans by Hitler's American-trained dentist,
Hugo Blaschke, who had been arrested in 1945. Blaschke, an SS general, had treated Hitler from 1934 until shortly before his death.
When his testimony was added to that of his assistant,
Kate Hausermann, there was a great deal of material to check the jaw remains against, and they seemed to match. "Hitler had very bad teeth. He had periodontal disease. He had many reconstructions, some done before the time of Blaschke," said Prof Perrier.
There were no X-rays of Hitler's jaw available at the time, which could have helped to provide even better confirmation. Then, in 1972, archives in Washington released five X-rays of Hitler's head, taken on July 20, 1944. They revealed bridge work, periodontal (gum) disease and "very unusual dental work", said Prof Perrier. These matched Blaschke's evidence and the Russian autopsy.
London Daily Telegraph, October 26, 1999
Dental detective work gets to the root of Hitler mystery
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
http://www.fpp.co.uk/Hitler/docs/death/CorpseID2.html
Note the total reliance on Blaschke here.
London Observer, Sunday, May 8, 2005
Secret evidence of Hitler's identity
IN the smouldering ruins of Berlin, Elena Rzhevskaya stooped by a radio to hear the announcement of the Nazis' final capitulation, a small box clutched to her side. It was 8 May 1945 and at Karlshorst, on the edge of the city, the German high command had surrendered to Russian, British and American forces.
But the young interpreter from Soviet military reconnaissance was subdued as her comrades across the city broke into wild celebrations.
Tucked in the satin-lined box she was clutching were the flesh-specked jawbones of Adolf Hitler, wrenched from his corpse just hours earlier by a Russian pathologist.
A burnt body thought to be the Führer's had been found by a Red Army soldier near his bunker days before, but Joseph Stalin ordered the discovery be concealed.
"Only two officers knew what I was carrying and I had to keep my tongue," Rzhevskaya (85) told The Observer in a rare interview at her Moscow apartment.
Hitler's teeth would be key to proving the corpse was his and only a select few knew what had been entrusted to Rzhevskaya.
It was not until the 1960s that her secret would be revealed, and the full truth only emerged in Russia a decade ago.
Her story is a telling reminder of the jealousy and rivalries that split the Allies even in their hour of victory, and foreshadowed the Cold War.
On 8 May, as Soviet soldiers in Berlin's streets shouted with joy at the news of German surrender, Rzhevskaya poured wine for her colleagues with one hand -- while clamping the little box to her side with the other.
"Can you imagine how it felt? A young woman like me who had travelled the long military road from the edge of Moscow to Berlin; to stand there and hear that announcement of surrender, knowing that I held in my hands the decisive proof that we had Hitler's remains.
"For me it was a moment of immense solemnity and emotion; it was victory."
Rzhevskaya was ordered to carry the bones by Colonel Vassily Gorbushin, the head of a tiny secretive Soviet team tasked with identifying the remains.
Soviet troops were obsessed with finding Hitler and competing groups roved around hunting for him.
A Red Army soldier spotted the edge of a blanket poking from freshly turned earth in a bomb crater, near the bunker.
Adolf and Eva Hitler's bodies were soon unearthed and forensic experts were delighted to find the Nazi leader's jaw bones in perfect condition. "These are the key," said one doctor.
After a brief pause to celebrate VE Day and a frantic search through the ruined city, Rzhevskaya and her two superior officers tracked down an assistant [Käthe Häusermann] to Hitler's dentist [Hugo Blaschke] who was able to confirm his identity.
With an aside on Trevor-Roper:
A SMALL, BUT IMMODEST FOOTNOTE: From historian Hugh Trevor-Roper I had obtained in Jan 1968 a perfect set of the X-rays taken of Hitler's head at Lötzen in Sept 1944 (as an MI6 officer he had directed the British investigation into Hitler's demise).
From the American archives I had the sketches of Hitler's jaw, drawn from memory by his dentist Hugo Blaschke; and from my friend Lev Bezymenski I had the photographs of the upper and lower jaw.
All three were a perfect match, revealing in particular a solid gold "telephone" bridge inserted to replace three teeth in the lower right jaw (click the image above, from my books on Hitler and on his doctor Morell, to enlarge it)..
Over thirty years ago, in a letter published in Die Zeit (Hamburg) in the early 1970s, I brought all three images together as proof of Hitler's death. Others (like Norwegian forensic expert Dr Reidar F Sognnaes) have since then padded down the same track -- but I was first.
Another unverified but interesting account of the facts from Graeme at http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/ww2-gen...87-3.html:
(Apparently based on testimony)
Testimony from SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer Karl Schneider (supervisor of garages) made on 5 February 1948 in Nuremberg:
"I had more petrol available to me than during the whole of the war. It had been brought over from the airports that had to be evacuated. And I had 20 to 30 or even more barrels filled with petrol in the garden of the Propaganda Ministry. On 27 or 28 April I called the Chancellery and asked if they needed petrol because I had so much and actually thought it was a bit dangerous. Those in the Chancellery told me, 'We have too much ourselves.'..In my opinion there can be no doubt that there was enough petrol available". (For the cremation).
Many testimonies (including Russian) put the conservative figure at twelve 20 litre cans (240 litres) utilised on the 'bonfire'.
This is more than enough (Joachimsthaler) to reach a temperature where adipose tissue becomes an accelerant in the cremation process. When this point has reached, further fuel is not required.
SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer Edwald Lindloff testified that after only 30 minutes the corpses were already "charred and torn open".
The fire burnt for another two hours.
All that remained of Hitler "was some charred bones with burnt particles of tissue attached".
According to Joachimsthaler, up to 300 litres of gasoline were used on Hitler and Braun.
When the human body is burned in the open by means of petrol, the first thing that burns off is the extraneous petrol, which causes a strong heating up of the corpse. Then, because they act like a wick, the fire spreads to the clothes, which burn away more or less quickly depending on the nature and structure of the fabric. When the open flames act directly on the body surface (estimated at 2.5metres squared) for a longer period of time-according to witnesses, the corpses burned from 1600hrs to 1830hrs- the final result is carbonisation. During the process, steam forms in the subcutaneous tissue and in the course of the burning the pressure can rise dramatically, so that the body surface bursts open in many places. The skull can burst from the same effect. The heat causes the protein in the cells of the muscles to congeal, which then contract. This leads to contortions (arms) or the lifting up and contracting of the upper body and legs, which stay in this position because of posthumous heat rigor (so called ‘fencer’s stance’). The heat causes the body fat to melt and the fatty acids released hydrolytically run out of the gashes in the skin, are absorbed by the fabrics still remaining and, because they are flammable just like the fat tissue itself, support the further burning process. Because of the major loss of substance (water and fat), the carbonated corpse or torso shrinks to a substantial degree. If the burning continues for an extended period of time, the soft tissue is almost completely consumed. The only thing that remains is fragile, calcified bones that can easily disintegrate even without external force being applied.
There was no body, there was no autopsy.
When Frau Heusermann ( Blaschke’s dental assistant) was captured and transported to Finow, by the Russians, she was shown a cigar box (containing Eva Braun’s bridge and two of Hitler’s bridge’s,-which survived the ‘cremation’). Laughing the Russian soldiers gathered round, opened the lid and gleefully told her ‘Here is the Fuhrer’.
Joachimsthaler points out;
‘In the final analysis, by presenting the evidence coming from Adolf Hitler (upper bridge and complete lower jawbone with teeth and bridges) and from Eva Braun-Hitler (a small gold filling and a synthetic resin bridge with a gold crown), the Russians themselves-and this must be emphasised-proved conclusively that Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun-Hitler were dead’.
And don't miss this bizarre story in Bizzare magazine about discovery of Hitler's skull and dental bridge in the USSR state archives by a forensic entymologist t http://wiki.benecke.com/index.php?title=..._and_Teeth
Guardian UK
September 27, 2009
Tests on skull fragment cast doubt on Adolf Hitler suicide story
Bone with bullet hole found by Russians in 1946 came from an unknown woman, not the German leader
A general view of what Russian officials claim to be a fragment of Adolf Hitler's skull, at an exhibition in Moscow, Wed April 26, 2000. Photograph: Mikhail Metzel/AP
In countless biographies of
Adolf Hitler the story of his final hours is recounted in the traditional version: committing suicide with Eva Braun, he took a cyanide pill and then shot himself on 30 April 1945, as the Russians bombarded Berlin.
Some historians expressed doubt that the Führer had shot himself, speculating that accounts of Hitler's death had been embellished to present his suicide in a suitably heroic light. But a fragment of skull, complete with bullet hole, which was taken from the bunker by the Russians and displayed in Moscow in 2000, appeared to settle the argument.
Until now. In the wake of new revelations, the histories of Hitler's death may need to be rewritten – and left open-ended. American researchers claim to have demonstrated that the skull fragment, secretly preserved for decades by Soviet intelligence, belonged to a woman under 40, whose identity is unknown. DNA analyses performed on the bone, now held by the Russian State Archive in Moscow, have been processed at the genetics lab of the University of Connecticut. The results, broadcast in the US by a History Channel documentary, Hitler's Escape, astonished scientists.
According to Connecticut archaeologist and bone specialist Nick Bellantoni, it was clear from the outset that something was amiss. "The bone seemed very thin; male bone tends to be more robust," he said. "And the sutures where the skull plates come together seemed to correspond to someone under 40." In April 1945 Hitler turned 56.
Bellantoni had flown to Moscow to inspect the gruesome Hitler trophies at the State Archive, which included the skull fragment as well as bloodstains from the bunker sofa on which Hitler and Braun were believed to have committed suicide. He was allowed only one hour with the Hitler trove, during which time he applied cotton swabs and took DNA samples. "I had the reference photos the Soviets took of the sofa in 1945 and I was seeing the exact same stains on the fragments of wood and fabric in front of me, so I knew I was working with the real thing."
The samples were then flown back to Connecticut. At the university's centre for applied genetics, Linda Strausbaugh closed her lab for three days to work exclusively on the Hitler project. "We used the same routines and controls that would have been used in a crime lab," she said. To her surprise, a small amount of viable DNA was extracted. She then replicated this through a process known as molecular copying to provide enough material for analysis. "We were very lucky to get a reading, despite the limited amount of genetic information," she said.
The result was extraordinary. According to witnesses, the bodies of Hitler and Braun had been wrapped in blankets and carried to the garden just outside the Berlin bunker, placed in a bomb crater, doused with petrol and set ablaze.
But the skull fragment the Russians dug up outside the Führerbunker in 1946 could never have belonged to Hitler. The skull DNA was incontestably female. The only positive physical proof that Hitler had shot himself had suddenly been rendered worthless. The result is a mystery reopened and, for conspiracy theorists the tantalising possibility that Hitler did not die in the bunker.
For decades after the war the fate of Hitler's corpse was shrouded in secrecy. No picture or film was made public. As the Soviet Army secured control of Berlin in May 1945, Russian forensic specialists under the command of the counterintelligence unit Smersh (an acronym for "Death to Spies") dug up what was presumed to be the dictator's body outside the bunker and performed a post-mortem examination behind closed doors. A part of the skull was absent, presumably blown away by Hitler's suicide shot, but what remained of his jaw coincided with his dental records, a fact reportedly confirmed when the Russians showed his surviving dental work to the captured assistants of Hitler's dentist. The autopsy also reported that Hitler, as had been rumoured, had only one testicle.
But Stalin remained suspicious. In 1946 a second secret mission was dispatched to Berlin. In the same crater from which Hitler's body had been recovered, the new team found what it believed was the missing skull fragment with a bullet exit wound through it. The Russians also took fragments of Hitler's bloodstained sofa.
Even this failed to satisfy Stalin, who clamped a secrecy order on all matters related to Hitler's death. Unknown to the world, Hitler's corpse was interred at a Smersh centre in Magdeburg, East
Germany. There it remained long after Stalin's death in 1953. Finally, in 1970, the KGB dug up the corpse, cremated it and secretly scattered the ashes in a river. Only the jawbone, the skull fragment and the bloodstained sofa segments were preserved in the deep archives of Soviet intelligence. The bunker was destroyed in 1947 and eventually paved over. Then, in 2000, the Russian State Archive in Moscow staged an exhibition, The Agony of the Third Reich. The skull fragment was displayed, but only photographs of Hitler's jawbone were on view. The head of the archive, Sergei Mironenko, said he had no doubt the skull fragment was authentic. "It is not just some bone we found in the street, but a fragment of a skull that was found in a hole where Hitler's body had been buried," he said.
In the wake of Bellantoni and Strausbaugh's findings, Mironenko's confidence was clearly misplaced. But could the fragment of skull belong to Eva Braun, who died at 33 and was laid alongside her beloved Führer in the same crater? "We know the skull corresponds to a woman between the ages of 20 and 40," said Bellantoni, but he is sceptical about the Braun thesis. "There is no report of Eva Braun having shot herself or having been shot afterwards. It could be anyone. Many people were killed around the bunker area."
Sixty-four years later, the world is still in the dark about what really happened in Hitler's bunker on 30 April 1945.
Uki Goñi is author of The Real Odessa (Granta), about the escape of Nazi war criminals from Europe