Conspiracy theories have been running rampant recently.
Sometimes they can be harmless; other times they can cause serious confusion.
What would happen if the most evil man in history didn’t die the way we thought he
had?
What if Adolf Hitler actually escaped his fate, and was able to live out his life in
relative peace?
It is unthinkable, yet, some people believe this is what happened.
The conventional theory is that Hitler took his own life by cyanide and a gunshot to the
head in a Berlin bunker as Soviet forces closed in from all sides.
But, another theory has been floating around for decades; that Hitler actually escaped
Germany and fled to Argentina where he lived out the rest of his days in secret.
Is there any evidence to support this escape theory?
Where did this theory even start?
Let’s find out.
Hitler’s death is recorded as being April 30, 1945.
On May 1, 1945 Supreme Commander of the Navy Admiral Karl Dönitz, who was designated successor
to Hitler, officially announced the death of the Führer.
That same year the war came to an end in Europe and British counter-intelligence officer Hugh
Trevor Roper was tasked with determining the actual cause of death for Adolph Hitler.
To this point in time the Soviet forces were the only ones in Berlin who had access to
the remains of Hitler, and they were not very forthcoming with the details of the Führer’s
death.
Not only were the Soviets shady about releasing the information on what happened to Hitler,
but since they refused to hand over any remains or evidence as to what happened to the Nazi
leader, rummors started to circulate.
Even Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union, was recorded as mentioning that perhaps Hitler
had escaped to Argentina after all.
This had Hugh Trevor Roper worried.
He needed to get to the bottom of what actually happened to the leader of the Axis powers.
As he dug deeper Trevor Roper found that the disorganization of the Soviets was part of
the problem.
They may not have been withholding information, so much as just misplacing or not knowing
where things were.
All Trevor Roper knew at this point in time was that the Soviets possessed a statement
of Hitler’s death, they had conducted an investigation at the bunker where the suicide
took place two days after it happened, and they had captured key members of the Nazi
party who claimed to be eyewitnesses to the events in said bunker.
Trever Roper worried that the lack of evidence the Soviets were providing, may have somehow
been motivated by the beginnings of the Cold War.
The Soviets may have been posturing and taking credit for Hitler’s death as a show of power,
without concrete evidence, Trevor Roper could not be sure.
It did not help that the Soviet leaders were uncooperative or forthcoming with information
pertaining to Hitler’s death.
Trever Roper would wait long periods of time before questions were answered, or any tangible
evidence was provided.
Again it did not help that the leadership of the Soviet Union was doing very little
in public statements to dissuade any conspiracy theories about Hitler’s death, or provide
the public with concrete information to prove that Hitler had killed himself in the bunker.
In a public address, Soviet Marshal Zhukov and Colonel-General Berzarin went as far as
to speculate that perhaps Hitler had escaped from the bunker and was hiding out in Spain.
It seemed that even the communication within the Soviet leadership was in conflict, so
it was no wonder that Trevor Roper couldn’t obtain clear evidence.
The British intelligence officer was unable to make sense of the messaging, or lack of
evidence, and concluded that it may have been a tactic used to create suspicion and distrust
among Allied forces.
This would leave the Soviet Union in a more powerful position as the Cold War started
to unfurl.
Trever Roper himself even said: “the infallible Stalin had declared the truth, before which
inconvenient evidence must bow and retire,” meaning the misinformation campaign could
all be a matter of Stalinist orthodoxy to further the Soviet Union’s agenda.
Trever Roper would leave Germany empty handed, with only speculation and the word of the
Soviets that Hitler was in fact dead.
The alternative was unthinkable.
But the messaging was mixed and there were no official documents or remains handed over
to the British intelligence officer to come to a concrete conclusion.
In fact, it would take until 1968 until the Soviets divulged the information that resulted
from the detailed investigation they had conducted at the bunker.
The results of the investigation were finally made public, and the cause of Hitler’s death
as sucide could be confirmed… at least for the time being.
So, it would seem the theory that Hitler escaped with his wife Eva Braun to Argentina started
as early as 1945 by the Soviets, right after the war in Europe ended.
But there were other aspects that fueled the fire of this conspiracy theory.
Even in the United States people started believing that American intelligence officials allowed
Hitler to escape in return for advance Nazi technology.
In 1945 Britain newspapers repeated the comments of disinformation from the leaders of the
Soviet Union, creating a sense of uncertainty as to what actually happened to Hitler.
The papers even reported that the charred body discovered by the Soviets in the bunker,
was actually “a very poor double” of the Führer.
This rhetoric led to several wild conspiracy theories about Hitler’s escape.
Some claimed he went to Argentina or Spain, others that he somehow made it to the moon
and built a Nazi empire there.
However, all credible historians agree that Hitler killed himself on April 30, 1945 in
Berlin.
Is there any real evidence to contradict the historical account of what happened to Adolf
Hitler?
Some rogue researchers would argue that several lines of evidence point to Hitler fleeing
to Argentina, instead of meeting his ultimate demise in Berlin.
There were declassified FBI documents that contained a number of alleged sightings of
Hitler after he was supposed to have died.
However, mustaches similar to Hitler’s—think Charlie Chaplin— were in fashion during
this time, and peoples eyes and brain can trick them into seeing things that are not
actually there.
Just think of how many people see a man’s face on the moon.
Also, the FBI made public statements saying that the sightings of Hitler could not be
verified in any credible way.
Some other rogue researchers use lack of evidence early on to suggest that Hitler’s body was
never actually found.
This meant that he must have escaped.
Unfortunately, forensic methods at the time of Hitler’s death were not as advanced as
they are today.
But recently forensic anthropologists and scientists have gone back to analyse the bone
fragments and teeth of Hitler that are housed in Russia.
Their findings are very interesting.
More recently the theory that Hitler escaped to Argentina became popular again in 2014
with a book called Grey Wolf.
It seems like around this time there was no shortage of conspiracy theory shows circulating
the television networks or books being published.
The book Grey Wolf was researched and written by the British authors Simon Dunstan and Gerrard
Willliams.
The authors proposed that rather than Hitler killing Ava Braun and himself, he faked their
deaths, boarded a U-boat acommpanied by high ranking Nazi officials and treasures collected
during the war, and made their way to South America.
The authors claim that Hitler already had connections to the future president in Argentina,
Juan Perón, who had received money from the Nazis during World War II.
In Grey Wolf Hitler makes a daring escape, crosses the Atlantic completely undetected,
sails around the tip of South America, and lands in Argentina.
He moves around for a bit and then settles to live out the rest of his life quietly and
happily, two things that Adolf Hitler was not known for.
The book claims Hitler actually died in February of 1962.
Just thinking about Hitler’s personality it seems that he would not have been able
to contain his enthusiasm for destruction and genocide.
He most likely would have tried to carry out his vision of a Third Reich in South America,
but like the entirety of the Grey Wolf book, this is just speculation.
Dunstan and Williams explain that it may have been possible for Hitler to fund his escape
using the treasures he stole from around the world.
He may even have been the wealthiest person on the planet during the height of World War
II.
The funds would have been used to hire the men he needed to flee to Argentina, and keep
everyone silent about his plans by paying them off.
Again, all of the evidence that Grey Wolf presents is tentative at best, and easily
disprovable at worst.
In fact, the authors were accused by Argentinian researcher and author Abel Basti for plagiarizing
his work.
Basti claims that his research was used by Dunstan and Williams without citing him properly.
He also claims they misrepresented some of his research in their book.
Basti signed a contract with Williams stating that he would introduce the author to two
key witnesses that would provide credibility to his theory.
Basti held up his end of the bargain, but was never paid by Williams.
It doesn’t bode well for the reliability of Dunstan and Williams that they used people
in Argentina to try and fit evidence to their theory, instead of allowing the evidence to
speak for itself and coming to a logical conclusion.
It also doesn’t seem like Dunstan and Williams treated the people they hired, or other researchers,
with respect, but that’s just an observation.
Regardless, Grey Wolf was torn apart by historians and established World War II researchers as
soon as it came out.
There was no actual evidence in the book that could prove the theory of Hitler escaping
to Argentina, or contradict history.
Around the same time as Grey Wolf the History Channel premiered a series called Hunting
Hitler.
The show claimed to have uncovered previously classified documents of interviews with witnesses
who claimed Hitler escaped from Germany and traveled to Argentina by U-boat.
However, upon scrutiny of the documents by historians they were debunked.
This was not discussed on the Hunting Hitler TV show, which probably led to people further
spreading unsubstantiated claims that Hitler made it to Argentina.
This brings us to the end of our journey down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories about
Adolf Hitler escaping to Argentina.
So, what really happened to Adolf Hitler and how do we know?
The answer is simple.
Hitler killed Eva Braum, and himself, in the Berlin bunker just like historians have maintained
all these years.
We know this from several lines of evidence, but it is also okay to trust experts in their
fields.
Historians have their work peer reviewed and scrutinized over by other academics.
When experts in their field come to a consensus, it is a safe bet you can believe them.
But if you want even more evidence that Hitler committed suicied here you go.
In a recent study French scientists analyzed the fragments of Hitler’s teeth that are
kept secured in Russia.
We know they are his teeth because experts scoured dental records from the Nazi regime
and found multiple copies of Adolf Hitler’s dental files.
The teeth the Russians have are an exact match.
At the time of death Hitler only had four real teeth remaining, which were all in very
bad shape.
Upon analysis, the scientists confirmed that the residue and deterioration of the teeth
are consistent with the vegetarian diet that Adolf Hitler ate.
They also concluded that Hitler did in fact take cyanide before the gunshot to his head,
but it is still unclear if it was enough of the poison to have killed him on its own.
The experts who examined the teeth and fragments of the skull concluded that the remains belonged
to Hitler, and as the Soviet reports indicated, he was killed by a gunshot wound to the head.
All of the evidence corroborates what historians have known for decades, Hitler committed suicide
in a Berlin bunker on April 30, 1945.
As it turns out Hitler’s escape to Argentina was just a fabricated myth.
It may have started as a misinformation campaign by Stalin and leaders of the Soviet party,
or it could have just developed from the media and public wanting a little more excitement
in their lives.
Either way, there is no concrete evidence to support the escape to Argentina conspiracy
theory, and there is ample amounts of evidence to support what experts have been saying all
along.
Hitler committed sucide.
Now go watch “How Hitler Survived Assassination Attempts.”
Or check out our video “How Rich Was Hitler (Where Did All His Money Come From).”