Post by Graveyardbride on Jan 15, 2016 14:46:33 GMT -5
Hunting for Hitler: Did the Führer Escape to South America?
Using a collection of never-before-seen documents, a team of CIA investigators claims to have proof Hitler did not kill himself in his underground bunker at the end of World War II. Instead, the investigators believe Hitler faked his own death before escaping to the Canary Islands to live out his days in the sunshine.
CIA veteran Bob Baer says: "The narrative the government gives us is a lie. If you look at the FBI files, it throws open the investigation. What we are doing is re-examining history, history that we thought was settled that Hitler died in the bunker, but the deeper we get into it, it's clear to me we don't have any facts for it."
The team has access to 700 pages of newly declassified information, with one document stating: "American Army officials in Germany have not located Hitler's body, nor is there any reliable source that Hitler is dead."
The team, featured in a series on The History Channel, uses sonar, historical maps and cutting-edge technology, as well as interviews with a series of alleged witnesses to the dictator's escape.
According to team members, Hitler easily faked his own death through the use of a double, and the corpse found by the Russians was actually five inches shorter than Hitler with a smaller skull. There’s also the fact the body disappeared before American or British authorities could examine it. Some reports suggest Hitler lived to age 95 with a lover in Brazil after an unusual photograph emerged.
Former United Nations (UN) war crimes investigator John Cencich is one of the leaders of the investigation. Initially a skeptic, Cencich insists there is evidence both Hitler and Eva Braun had doubles. "We do know from evidence both of them had doubles,” he insists. "If someone was going to stage a crime scene, this was the perfect way to do it. The accepted truth that he committed suicide is ambiguous."
As the war came to an end, many Nazis fled and started new lives in warmer climes, many making it all the way to South America. According to the team, there was a mass Nazi exodus from Templehof airport the day after Hitler was last seen in public. In a further twist, the plane even contained Hitler's luggage.
The team concludes Hitler could not have made the long journey in a single trip and evidence leads to the Canary Islands and Greece. Interviewing an alleged witness to Hitler's escape, Cencich speaks to a former construction worker who claimed to have seen Hitler in May 1945, days after he supposedly died in Berlin. "In 1945, I was building a secret construction inside the monastery in Samos," the man says. "I had to build secret tunnels and compartments for Germans. Yes, the Germans were Nazis and one of these guys was Adolf Hitler. He was right there, he wasn't wearing a moustache or anything. This was May 1945. I realized it was really Hitler because of the airplane," he continues. "I went to work in another town. The first thing I saw in this town was a German airplane. It had landed in an old potato field. The farmer told me there were five people who landed, they were German." From this location it is believed Hitler traveled by U-Boat to Argentina to be reunited with his Nazi comrades. A complex network of tunnels and secret airplanes made the journey possible.
In the series, the team travels to Argentina to uncover a school that was part of the Nazi Youth movement, before heading into the jungle to search a recently discovered Nazi compound and from there, the investigation leads them to the Canary Islands.
The series is the latest in a long line of theories surrounding the fate of the Nazi dictator with mystery surrounding the exact details surrounding the aftermath of his death and concerns about the Russians, who discovered the bunker, and their subsequent investigation.
Source: Kate Mansfield, The Daily Express, January 8, 2016.