Hitler's Children | Hakenkreuz

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Hitler’s Child

The Soviet Army and SMERSH

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With his ambitions thwarted, Stalin burned for personal revenge against Hitler. The Soviet occupation army's intelligence service, SMERSH, was ordered to find him. SMERSH meant ‘Death to Spies’ and was renowned for the ruthlessness with which it carried out its tasks.

Immediately after Berlin fell, SMERSH searched the Reich Chancellery exhaustively. The Nazi empire had collapsed after tyranny and slaughter on an immense scale. The search continued through the heaps of wreckage.

At last an entrance to the air-raid bunker was found in the Chancellery garden. Full of anticipation, SMERSH entered rooms believed to be the Führer's bedroom and sitting room, but Hitler was nowhere to be found.

Vasily Orlovsky was a member of SMERSH at the time.

Vasily Orlovsky, then a SMERSH member: "It was May 2. SMERSH men from the 79th Infantry unit found two bodies at the entrance to the Chancellery's air-raid shelter. They were the badly burned remains of Goebbels and his wife Magda."

Nazi Vice Admiral Voss testified that the Goebbels couple poisoned their children, then killed themselves, and that their bodies were burned by the SS.

Blashchuk, who was also a member of SMERSH, says:

Ivan Blashchuk, then a SMERSH member: ‘My assignment was to identify the two bodies lying at the entrance to the air-raid shelter. I was responsible for that task. The captured Nazi Lieutenant General Voss was made to attend the identification. Seeing the bodies of Goebbels and his family seemed to upset him greatly.

Because they had been quite close. When Vice Admiral Voss returned to the cell, he cut his wrist with scissors. He panicked and began shouting that he too was going to die. I called a doctor to treat him.”

Interrogations of Nazis captured by Soviet troops shed light on Hitler's final days. Many testified that he was extremely weak and that his hands trembled constantly.

To test the cyanide's effectiveness, Hitler poisoned his beloved dog. Then, in the early hours of April 29, he married Eva Braun in a brief ceremony in the bunker.

Soviet Marshal Zhukov showed no interest in these reports. He was obsessed solely with finding Hitler.

Vladimir Antonov commanded the Red Army unit that captured the Reich Chancellery.

Vladimir Antonov, then in the Soviet Red Army: “As soon as Marshal Zhukov arrived at the Chancellery, his first question was, Where is Hitler? I replied, Goebbels is lying over there, and we have captured General Rattenhuber and an SS commander. We still know nothing about Hitler. Then the marshal declared: Find Hitler, whatever it takes.”

Hitler's Double

Hitler seemed to have escaped his Soviet pursuers. But two days after the Chancellery was occupied, a body resembling his was found near the air-raid shelter.

Former Red Army cameraman Pozelsky testified as follows.

Mikhail Pozelsky, then a Red Army cameraman: ‘We were told to go to the Chancellery and take photographs of Hitler. Of course, I had never seen Hitler in personin person. But judging from photographs and films, the corpse seemed to resemble him closely. The Germans called in to identify it also disagreed. Some said it was definitely Hitler; others said it was a double. It was difficult to reach a conclusion about whether or not it was Hitler.

So we decided to bring in a specialist doctor. He asked to see a photograph of Hitler so that he could check the details of the corpse’s ears. He carefully compared the ears in the photograph with those of the body. Human ears differ from person to person, just like fingerprints. After examining them, the doctor declared that the body was not Hitler’s. His opinion was passed to military specialists, and it was ultimately concluded that the corpse was not Hitler but his double.’

Hitler's doubles. Soviet intelligence already knew they existed.

Mikhail Milstein, then at Soviet headquarters for the Berlin operation: “There were very few doubles, but their existence was certain. I do not know the exact number, because their existence was top-secret information. The doubles appeared at parades and similar occasions. Since Hitler sometimes appeared in different places at the same time, we believed doubles definitely existed.”

The false body may have been that of a double intended to confuseconfuse the search. Soviet forces intensified their investigation at the Führer’s Chancellery.

Hitler's and Eva's Bodies — Compelling Evidence

Three days later, early on May 5, a SMERSH member noticed a large bomb crater in the Chancellery courtyard. Excavation revealed the burned bodies of a man and a woman, and the bodies of two dogs.

The human remains were placed in wooden ammunition boxes. This is the body believed to be Adolf Hitler's. Eyewitness testimony was also obtained.

The record of SMERSH's interrogation of SS member Harry Mengershausen describes in detail how Hitler's body was burned and buried. Shown a photograph of the courtyard, Mengershausen placed ✕cross marks at the cremation site, burial site and emergency exit of the air-raid shelter.

The testimony matched the conditions at the scene.

Vasily Orlovsky, then a SMERSH member: "The bodies believed to be Hitler and Eva Braun were placed in boxes and delivered to the Third Army's SMERSH unit stationed at Buch, outside Berlin. They were laid in an underground place like a barn or storeroom. In the May warmth, the bodies had begun decomposing and gave off a terrible stench.

So identification was expedited, and the bodies were taken to the field hospital in Buch."

The field hospital still looks exactly as it did then. In this hospital, on this table, in May 1945, the Soviet forensic commission carried out a relentlessly thorough identification of charred, decomposing human remains.

Vasily Orlovsky, then a SMERSH member: "We SMERSH men were questioning witnesses at headquarters when the autopsy results arrived. The same poison had been found in the stomachs of the people believed to be Hitler and Eva, and also in the dog's stomach. It was potassium cyanide."

Because the bodies were badly burned, dental evidence became the key to identification. An assistant to Hitler's dentist was captured and ordered to draw sketches of Hitler's and Eva's teeth.

The sketches matched the bodies' teeth almost perfectly. The examining commission had obtained strong evidence that the bodies were those of Hitler and Eva.

The official autopsy report states the following.

'The male corpse is aged fifty to sixty. It is burned beyond recognition. Glass fragments believed to be from a potassium cyanide capsule were found in the mouth.'

The report identified potassium cyanide as the cause of death. It also noted that part of the skull was missing.

Hitler’s Skull

The investigation returned to Moscow, focusing on the KGB archives, long rumored to hold Hitler's remains. The head of the Russian Federation's archives said the following.

Anatoly Prokopenko, Russian Federal Archives: ‘In the spring of 1992, officials from Moscow came to me and asked what to do with Hitler’s remains, which they had kept for decades. I replied, “So it really is true that they are in Moscow. Let me see them first, and then we will decide.” I went to the KGB. A man in charge brought something wrapped in brown paper and set it on the desk in a businesslike manner. Inside was something like a hatbox or shoebox, wrapped upwrapped up. And inside that box were three fragments of skull.’

The skull's existence was a state secret for many years. Only recently, after lengthy discussion and negotiation, was special permission finally granted to film it. For decades, the remains had lain in the KGB archives, wrappedkuru(mu) in plain wrapping paper. Is this really Hitler's skull?

A bullet exit hole is visible. Another packagepackage contained small fragments.

If this skull belonged to Hitler, as the Russians claim, why was it brought to Moscow? The answer is said to lie in eight volumes of top-secret documents concerning it. Sergei Mironenko of the Central Archives gave this testimony.

Sergei Mironenko, Russian Federal Central State Archive: “For reasons I do not know, those top-secret documents were transferred from the KGB to our archive. I do not know why. The materials brought here were not even registered. They were trying to conceal their existence.”

The top-secret documents recorded investigations into Hitler's end.

A giftsouvenir for Stalin

[Pictured left: secret police chief Lavrentiy Beria] The ordermei was given to secret police chief Lavrentiy Beria about a year after Germany's surrender. Visiting the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, Beria ordered the shallow depression in the garden where Hitler had first been buried to be dug up again. A fragment of skull bearing a bullet hole was discovered. Beria took it back as a unique, personal giftmiyage itemmono for Stalin.

The skull provided further evidence of Hitler's suicide. The discovery of this fragment also matched the finding at the first autopsy that part of the skull was missing.

Fragments of the skull were pieced together to show Stalin. Bloodstained wood and clothcloth materialmaterial were found alongside part of the skull.

These matched material from the sofa in the air-raid shelter where Hitler and Eva were said to have killed themselves. Evidentiary photographs of the sofa are also included in the secret documents. Stalin’s anxieties were gradually eased.

Hitler’s Child

Sergei Mironenko, State Archive of the Russian Federation: “The memorandumoboe recordgaki of the man who attended Hitler is also filed here. His name was Linge. It says he was beaten so badly during interrogation that he bled.”

This is the plan of the Führer's bunker that Linge was made to draw. Having witnessed events from Hitler's suicide to the burning of his body, Linge was arrested by SMERSH and repeatedly interrogated for years.

Sergei Mironenko, Central State Archive of the Russian Federation: "The documents contain some very interesting facts. This is the first time I have spoken of this, but according to the testimony of Hitler's chief pilot (note), Eva was pregnant when she died by suicide."

New facts and fragments of intriguing rumors have emerged. Yet most of Hitler's remains are still missing.

Sergei Mironenko, State Archive of the Russian Federation: “The bodies must have remained buried until at least 1946. The question is what happened afterward. That is outside the archives' jurisdiction.”

〈End〉