Svetlana Parshina, MA in History
In May 2015, my French colleague Jean-Christophe Brisard and I participated in a History Festival E-STORIA in an Italian town of Gorizia. We presented his book “Children of the Dictators”, for which I wrote a chapter on Joseph Stalin`s children.
This is when my colleague Jean-Christophe took an opportunity to talk me into a project that involved digging up some secret archives in Russia and USA. In May 1945, when Soviet troops first entered Adolph Hitler`s bunker, they found the bodies of Goebbels, his wife Magda and their six children. All of it was documented with photo proof. But, no one saw the body of Hitler, given the fact that history books and Wikipedia claimed that he committed suicide on April 30thin Fuhrer bunker, giving plenty of space for various rumors and speculations. Some still believe that he escaped and his suicide was staged. The only way to find the truth was access to the Russian archives, that stored evidence from the bunker, and American archives, that also had documents, in addition to becoming the last resort for the last Hitlers, who carried the same DNA as Europe`s most bloody maniac.
Where do we start? This question puzzled me, as I was a professional journalist and a documentary filmmaker, but finding the right archive for such a mission could be tricky, if not impossible. It takes five years of special education in Russia to become a specialist with access to work with the archives of different level of secrecy. Fortunately for me, I found a former director of RGVA (Russian Government Milirary Archive), which is part of the Rosarchive system, to give me a helping hand and a crash course in that department. Rosarchive system includes many archives in Russia that are interconnected, except for Ministry of Defence archives or the FSB system archives that are separate entities.
RGVA stored files from the Third Reich`s Chancellery, such as Hitler`s Journal of Visitors, his photos and letters, addressed to him, even his own aquarelles! But, more importantly, this archive stored the files of POW`s. Among those files we found Valet Heinz Linge, who famously said in a video interview to Associated Press in 1955 that Hitler committed suicide by shooting himself in the head, Hitler`s personal driver Erich Kempka, who reassured Americans that Hitler shot himself in the mouth, and Fuhrer`s pilot Hans Baur, who conspired all the captured close circle of Hitler`s aide to keep silence in prison or tell lies about Hitler`s death. But why, oh why did he do it?
Every story has a motive! And, we have found that motive in a different archive of the same Rosarchive system! But, first off, let me tell you a pre-story to understand how certain items, including a piece of human skull, ended up in the GARF (abbreviation for the Government Archive of the Russian Federation).
In 1962, then totally secret RGVA received a directive from the Soviet Government to move around some items within the archival system. So, the archive mailed by a special internal post office service “The Myth” case that also included physical evidence, such as pieces of the couch with blood stains and… “supposedly the skull of Adolf Hitler”! The items were received and filed on a certain floor of the archival storage. Each archival staff member was in charge of his one floor only and had no knowledge whatsoever of what was happening on the other floor. And, each and every archivist had only certain special security level access. In 1975, then 36-year-old Dina Nikolaevna Nokhotovich was appointed as the chief of the archival storage on the fifth floor. Her predecessor left unexpectedly and didn`t brief her on the contents of the storage she became in charge of. So, she had to check every item manually all by herself. This is when she unexpectedly found the skull and six files of “The Myth” investigation. She was shocked, to say the least.
So, what is “The Myth” case and how come a human skull ended up in the archival storage? In December 1945, Soviet MVD system initiated opening an investigation into a case of disappearing of Adolph Hitler. This investigation was curated by Bogdan Kobulov. Since Hitler`s remains were never ‘found” or 100% evidence was never present to the public about Hitler`s death, MVD system initiated an investigation into the case to find Hitler`s remains or where he disappeared to. For that purpose, investigators searched prisons and identified among POW`s people from the close circle of Adolph Hitler who were present with him in the bunker when he committed suicide. All of them were interrogated and, when enough information was gathered, compared and analyzed, all POW`s were brought to Berlin by a special train with convoy to conduct investigative activities on the spot in the Fuhrer bunker and the surrounding area. On May 30th, 1946 colonel Klausen, who conducted investigative experiment, found a piece of the skull in a shell hole/crater in the Reichs Chancellery Garden exactly in the spot where, according to Hitler`s Valet and the main witness Heinz Linge, he and a few other people buried the bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun after they burned them upon Hitler`s wish. Colonel Klausen ordered for the pieces of the couch with blood stains in Hitler`s room where he committed suicide were removed and taken to Moscow as evidence.
But, where is the body? Colonel Klausen found only a piece of the skull, not the whole body. And, could the POW`s mislead investigation by pointing out some random location? When dealing with the archives? It is important to understand the authenticity of the documents we deal with, where they come from and also have an idea about that time, mentality and the main characters we deal with. Otherwise, a researcher is like a blind kitten hitting the corners in search of the exit from the room. In “The Myth” we find reference to a telegram communication between Lavrentiy Beria and the Commandant of Berlin general Serov, where Serov asks Beria how to respond to a request from the British Intelligence on the whereabouts of Adolf Hitler. Beria says that Serov shall share this information accordingly, as he wished, but mind that the more information the Brits receive, the more questions they ask.
Now, it is time to reveal the intrigue why this communication between Beria and Serov about the English inquiry happened in 1945! For that, we need to go back in time to May 5th, 1945 Berlin. Soviet soldiers already searched the Fuhrer bunker for the remains of Hitler, starting May 2nd, when they first entered the underground bunker, but no results to report, so the search extended to the surrounding areas above ground level. On that date May 5th, when searching the area of the Reichs Chancellery Garden, three Soviet soldiers found a suspicious shell hole that hit somebody, they thought. It could be anybody, but digging up a bit, they found the bodies of Adolph Hitler, Eva Braun and their dog Blondie. It was SMERSH that took the bodies and conducted autopsy on the highly disformed bodies, burned by fire. To identify the bodies, medical specialists of the Soviet Army had to find Hitler`s dentist Hugo Blaschke and the woman who assisted him in dental work – Kathe Heusermann for a unique bridge work that they did for Hitler, who, apparently, had very bad teeth! The bridge between Hitler`s teeth is known as ‘The widow bridge’. All of it is known and confirmed in the FSB archive in Lubyanka, where the files of SMERSH are stored along with… Hitler`s teeth and Eva Braun`s teeth in a cigar box, where they were originally put by the doctors that extracted them during autopsy, so, later on Elena Rzhevskaya, a well-known interpreter, would walk through Berlin to the office of Dr. Blaschke for identification.
Now we turn to the FSB archive and the content of Hitler`s file to find out what really happened to Hitler and his remains! For that, we needed help of the world`s famous forensic doctor Philippe Charlier. Dr. Charlier examined the teeth of Hitler via new modern technology microscope scan and that allowed him to make some historical discoveries. First off, he confirmed that Hitler took cyanide, as he found blue oxidant on the teeth. The kind of microscope Philippe used allowed him to even confirm that Hitler was, indeed, a vegetarian and he found the remains of his last meal in between his teeth even 70+ years after his death. Of course, we were not allowed to take the teeth for a more detailed expertise outside of Lubyanka building or take any, even a small piece of it for some chemical or DNA examination to determine the Genome of an obsessed maniac, but we still got lucky! Philippe Charlier used medical rubber gloves to touch the teeth and hold them, so that his DNA would not remain on the teeth and to comply with FSB requirements. When he took off his gloves after finishing the work on the teeth, he automatically put them in the container for the disposed gloves, which he always carries for work. Philippe returned to France the same day; his flight was later that day when we were granted access to the teeth. Little did he know that he`d find some small particles on the gloves that he could use to further determine the elements on the teeth. That allowed to make a scientific discovery and confirm that Erich Kempka lied to Americans, when he claimed that Hitler shot himself in the mouth. No gun powder was found on the teeth, yet there was a trace of cyanide. According to the FSB version, Hitler simultaneously crushed the cyanide capsule in his mouth and shot himself in the temple.
Why did we care about Hitler and the mystery of his death to spend two years researching and investigating this case? Still, may believe that Hitler`s suicide was staged and he escaped punishment. While Borman was in absence judged by Nuremberg Court, Hitler was not. His body was never shown to the public, nor any death certificate was issued, given the fact that two doctors were present in the Fuhrer bunker and either one of them could issue a Death Certificate, or, at least, could confirm death by examining the body, but they didn’t see the body. Is that OK, if a mass murderer escape justice? No! That is why Soviets and Jewish Nazi hunters searched for Nazi criminals to serve them justice for the victims years after World War II was over.
In the end, what happened to the body? And what was that all about separate files and investigations, when obviously Beria and Serov were aware that Hitler`s body was found? After the autopsy, SMERSH took all the bodies and they were buried in a secret place in Ratenow, later moved to Magdeburg, until in 1970 then KGB chief Andropov signed operation “Archive” to burn the bodies. All we have left of the remains is the teeth in the FSB archive, along with SMERSH files, and the supposed skull of Hitler that was found during “The Myth” investigation in the very same shell hole, where the remains were originally discovered by three Soviet Army soldiers. Back in 1945 Beria and his protégé Abakumov became rivals. It was Beria who moved up the career stairs 39-year-old Abakumov to put him in charge of SMERSH, but when Abakumov started gaining more influence and power than Beria, he decided to play him down with the intrigue about Hitler`s remains that remained under Abakumov`s SMERSH unit. The Myth case was used to gain access to Hitler` remains for skull comparison and a new investigation whether it was really Hitler`s. Both Beria and Abakumov ended up their career tragically, losing their lives via gun shot execution.
In conclusion, authenticity of Hitler`s teeth are confirmed not only by his German dentist and the Russian archives, our team also had access to USA archives to fill in some missing pieces of that historical puzzle. Separately, during Normandy invasion in 1944, Mr. William Philp became the owner of Hitler`s X-Rays, among other medical stuff. In 1968, Mr. Philp gave this collection as a gist to the Hoover archive at Stanford Library. When compared to the teeth in the FSB archive, no doubt these teeth are authentic and belong to Hitler.
That is why it is important to compare different archives in various countries and many sources to find the truth, that is definitely out there, if you search for it and use critical thinking!
