Fringe and
conspiracy theories
A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that asserts the existence of a conspiracy (generally by powerful sinister groups, often political in motivation), when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources:
*
...
about the death of
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
, dictator of Germany from 1933 to 1945, contradict the accepted fact that
he committed suicide in the ''
Führerbunker
The () was an air raid shelter located near the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, Germany. It was part of a subterranean bunker complex constructed in two phases in 1936 and 1944. It was the last of the Führer Headquarters (''Führerhaupt ...
'' on 30 April 1945. Largely stemming from a campaign of
Soviet
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
disinformation
Disinformation is misleading content deliberately spread to deceive people, or to secure economic or political gain and which may cause public harm. Disinformation is an orchestrated adversarial activity in which actors employ strategic dece ...
, most of these theories hold that Hitler and his wife,
Eva Braun, survived and escaped from
Berlin
Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
, typically asserting that he fled to
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...
.
In the post-war years, the United States
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...
(FBI) and
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...
(CIA) investigated related reports and an alleged photograph but did not endorse their veracity. The 21st-century declassification of these files has helped fuel fringe theories, in addition to the revelation that a skull in the Soviet archives purported to be Hitler's actually belonged to a woman.
The claims have received some exposure in popular culture, but are regarded by historians and scientific experts as being disproven by the
hard evidence of Hitler's dental remains (including teeth on a
mandibular fragment, the only part of his body confirmed) and certain eyewitness accounts.
Origins
Prior to
Hitler's demise in Berlin, some dubious sources claimed that the dictator's death would be (or had already been) obscured through the use of
a double. In 1944, ahead of , the
United States Secret Service
The United States Secret Service (USSS or Secret Service) is a federal law enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security tasked with conducting criminal investigations and providing protection to American political leaders, thei ...
imagined
several ways Hitler could potentially disguise his appearance to evade capture.
The narrative that Hitler did not commit suicide, but instead escaped Berlin, was first presented to the general public by Marshal
Georgy Zhukov
Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov ( 189618 June 1974) was a Soviet military leader who served as a top commander during World War II and achieved the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union. During World War II, Zhukov served as deputy commander-in-ch ...
at a press conference on 9 June 1945, on orders from
Soviet
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
leader
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...
. That month, 68% of Americans polled thought Hitler was still alive.
When asked at the
Potsdam Conference in July 1945 how Hitler had died, Stalin said he was either living "in Spain or Argentina", where the Nazis had
escape routes. In July 1945, British newspapers repeated comments from a Soviet officer that a charred body discovered by the Soviets was "a very poor double". American newspapers also repeated dubious quotes, such as that of the Russian garrison commandant of Berlin, who claimed that Hitler had "gone into hiding somewhere in Europe".
In October 1945, ''
France-Soir'' quoted
Otto Abetz, Nazi ambassador to
Vichy France
Vichy France (; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was a French rump state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II, established as a result of the French capitulation after the Battle of France, ...
during World War II, as saying that Hitler was not dead.
The
Soviet disinformation has been a springboard for various conspiracy theories, despite the official conclusion by Western powers and the consensus of historians that Hitler killed himself on 30 April 1945.
Forensic evidence
In May 1945, the Soviets found a jawbone fragment (sundered at the
alveolar process) and two
dental bridges in the
Reich Chancellery garden. These were shown to two associates of Hitler's personal dentist,
Hugo Blaschke
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 ''Reichsführer-SS'' Heinrich Him ...
: his assistant Käthe Heusermann and longtime dental technician Fritz Echtmann. They identified the dental remains as Hitler's and Braun's, as did Blaschke in later statements. In 1972, forensic odontologist
Reidar F. Sognnaes helped confirm Hitler's dental remains, but later argued that the alleged Soviet autopsy of Braun's corpse did not match her dental records, citing Heusermann as stating that a bridge was designed for Braun but never fitted. Author Hugh Thomas theorized that only Hitler's dental remains belonged to him (i.e. being
surgically removed), which reporter Ada Petrova and
Peter Watson dismissed, citing the debunked Soviet autopsy report. In 2017, a team led by French forensic pathologist
Philippe Charlier reconfirmed Hitler's dental remains, finding that teeth on one of the jawbone fragments were in "perfect agreement" with an taken of Hitler in 1944. The findings of this investigation were reported in May 2018. Charlier stated that "There is no possible doubt. Our study proves that Hitler died in 1945".
At the end of 1945, Stalin ordered a second commission to investigate Hitler's death, in part to investigate rumours of Hitler's survival. On 30 May 1946, part of a skull was found, ostensibly in the crater where Hitler's remains had been exhumed. It consists of part of the
occipital bone
The occipital bone () is a neurocranium, cranial dermal bone and the main bone of the occiput (back and lower part of the skull). It is trapezoidal in shape and curved on itself like a shallow dish. The occipital bone lies over the occipital lob ...
and part of both
parietal bone
The parietal bones ( ) are two bones in the skull which, when joined at a fibrous joint known as a cranial suture, form the sides and roof of the neurocranium. In humans, each bone is roughly quadrilateral in form, and has two surfaces, four bord ...
s. The nearly complete left parietal bone has a bullet hole, apparently an exit wound. In 2009, on an episode of
History
History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...
's ''
MysteryQuest'',
University of Connecticut
The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university system with its main campus in Storrs, Connecticut, United States. It was founded in 1881 as the Storrs Agricultural School, named after two benefactors. In 1893, ...
archaeologist and bone specialist Nick Bellantoni examined the skull fragment,
which Soviet officials had believed to be Hitler's.
According to Bellantoni, "The bone seemed very thin" for a male,
and "the
sutures where the skull plates come together seemed to correspond to someone under 40".
A small piece detached from the skull was
DNA-tested, as was blood from Hitler's sofa. The skull was determined to be that of a woman—providing fodder for conspiracy theorists—while the blood was confirmed to belong to a male.
Later claims
The first detailed investigation by Western powers began in November 1945 after
Dick White, then head of counter-intelligence in the British sector of Berlin, had their agent
Hugh Trevor-Roper
Hugh Redwald Trevor-Roper, Baron Dacre of Glanton, (15 January 1914 – 26 January 2003) was an English historian. He was Regius Professor of Modern History (Oxford), Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford.
Trevor-Rope ...
investigate the matter to counter the Soviet claims. Trevor-Roper concluded that Hitler and Braun died by suicide in Berlin, expanding his report into a book in 1947. In April 1947, 45% of Americans polled thought Hitler was still alive.
In 1946, an American miner and
Baptist
Baptists are a Christian denomination, denomination within Protestant Christianity distinguished by baptizing only professing Christian believers (believer's baptism) and doing so by complete Immersion baptism, immersion. Baptist churches ge ...
preacher named William Henry Johnson began sending out a series of letters under the
pen name
A pen name or nom-de-plume is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name.
A pen name may be used to make the author's na ...
"Furrier No. 1", claiming to be the living Hitler and to have escaped with Braun to
Kentucky
Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...
. He alleged that tunnels were being dug to
Washington, D.C., and that he would engage armies,
nuclear bombs and invisible spaceships to take over the universe. Johnson was able to raise up to $15,000 (over $240,000 in 2025 currency), promising lofty incentives to his supporters, before being arrested on charges of
mail fraud
Mail fraud and wire fraud are terms used in the United States to describe the use of a physical (e.g., the U.S. Postal Service) or electronic (e.g., a phone, a telegram, a fax, or the Internet) mail system to defraud another, and are U.S. fede ...
in mid-1956.
In the introduction to the 1947 American book ''Who Killed Hitler?'', US intelligence officer
William F. Heimlich asserts that a one-day investigation of the ''
Führerbunker
The () was an air raid shelter located near the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, Germany. It was part of a subterranean bunker complex constructed in two phases in 1936 and 1944. It was the last of the Führer Headquarters (''Führerhaupt ...
'' grounds produced no evidence of Hitler's death. The book itself asserts that
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician and military leader who was the 4th of the (Protection Squadron; SS), a leading member of the Nazi Party, and one of the most powerful p ...
introduced a double to the bunker in hopes of keeping Hitler alive. Himmler then purportedly conspired with Hitler's physician to kill the dictator via poison, with Hitler's adjutant
Otto Günsche apparently delivering a
coup de grace-style gunshot to a corpse at the time of the recorded suicide. The book suggests that, barring further revelations, Hitler's death remained "a mystery without an ending", but argues that the myth of his survival was Soviet propaganda to motivate "Communist totalitarian" forces against "the continuing menace of Fascism".
According to historian Luke Daly-Groves, declassified American intelligence files show that certain information from the investigations of Hitler's death was kept from Heimlich "because higher-ranking American intelligence officers were aware that he was attempting to capitalise on sensational rumours". Daly-Groves contends that Heimlich's statements in the 1947 book proved these suspicions to be correct, and that his arguments show that he was not fully informed of the evidence. Historian
Richard J. Evans states that Heimlich resented "being side-lined in favour of Trevor-Roper's investigation
nd wasill informed" and that the story about Hitler being murdered on Himmler's orders "has never been taken seriously by historians".
In March 1948, newspapers around the world reported the account of former German lieutenant Arthur F. Mackensen, who claimed that on 5 May 1945 (during the
Soviet bombardment of Berlin), he, Hitler, Braun and
Martin Bormann
Martin Ludwig Bormann (17 June 1900 – 2 May 1945) was a German Nazi Party official and head of the Nazi Party Chancellery, private secretary to Adolf Hitler, and a war criminal. Bormann gained immense power by using his position as Hitler ...
had escaped the ''Führerbunker'' in tanks. The group allegedly flew from
Tempelhof Airport to
Tønder, Denmark, where Hitler gave a speech and took a flight with Braun to the coast. In a May 1948 issue of the Italian magazine
''Tempo'', author
Emil Ludwig wrote that a double could have been cremated in Hitler's place, allowing him to flee by submarine to Argentina. Presiding judge at the
Einsatzgruppen trial at Nuremberg
Michael Musmanno wrote in his 1950 book that such theories were "about as rational as to say that Hitler was carried away by angels," citing a lack of evidence, the confirmation of Hitler's dental remains, and the fact that Ludwig had expressly ignored the presence of witnesses in the bunker. In his refutation of Mackensen's account, Musmanno cites a subsequent story of Mackensen's, in which the lieutenant allegedly flew on 9 May to
Málaga
Málaga (; ) is a Municipalities in Spain, municipality of Spain, capital of the Province of Málaga, in the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia. With a population of 591,637 in 2024, it is the second-most populo ...
, Spain, when he was attacked by 30
Lightning fighters over
Marseille
Marseille (; ; see #Name, below) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Bouches-du-Rhône and of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region. Situated in the ...
(despite the
war having ended in Europe), purportedly killing all 33 passengers except himself.
From 1951 to 1972, the ''
National Police Gazette'', an American
tabloid-style magazine, ran a series of stories asserting Hitler's survival.
Unproven allegations include that Hitler conceived children with Braun around the late 1930s, that he was actually in prime
physical health
Health has a variety of definitions, which have been used for different purposes over time. In general, it refers to physical and emotional well-being, especially that associated with normal functioning of the human body, absent of disease, pain ...
at the end of World War II, and that he fled to
Antarctica
Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...
or
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...
. Writing for the ''Gazette'', Heimlich claimed that the blood found on Hitler's sofa did not match his
blood type
A blood type (also known as a blood group) is based on the presence and absence of antibody, antibodies and Heredity, inherited antigenic substances on the surface of red blood cells (RBCs). These antigens may be proteins, carbohydrates, glycop ...
.
As Richard Evans points out, tabloid magazines such as the ''Gazette'' have made a "career" out of sensational stories of Hitler's survival since the war ended.
Reports to U.S. intelligence agencies
FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...
documents declassified by the 1998
Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, which began to be released online by the early 2010s, contain a number of alleged sightings of Hitler in Europe, South America, and the U.S., some of which assert that he changed his appearance e.g. via
plastic surgery.
Richard J. Evans notes that the FBI was obliged to document such claims no matter how "erroneous or deranged" they were, while American historian Donald McKale states that their files did not produce any credible indication of Hitler's survival.
Alleged Soviet autopsy
In 1968, Soviet journalist Lev Bezymenski released his book ''
The Death of Adolf Hitler''. It includes a purported Soviet autopsy report which concludes that Hitler died by
cyanide poisoning
Cyanide poisoning is poisoning that results from exposure to any of a number of forms of cyanide. Early symptoms include headache, dizziness, fast heart rate, shortness of breath, and vomiting. This phase may then be followed by seizures, slo ...
, despite no dissection of internal organs being recorded to confirm this and eyewitness accounts to the contrary.
Bezymenski claims that the autopsy reports were not released earlier to discourage anyone from trying to assume the identity of "the Führer saved by a miracle". He further asserts that any gunshot would have been fired as a coup de grâce, most likely by Günsche. He later admitted that he was acting as "a typical
party propagandist" and intended "to lead the reader to the conclusion that
gunshotwas a pipe dream or half an invention and that Hitler actually poisoned himself".
The book's claims have been widely derided by Western historians.
''Grey Wolf''

The 2011 book ''
Grey Wolf: The Escape of Adolf Hitler'' by British authors Simon Dunstan and Gerrard Williams, and the 2014 docudrama film by Williams based on it, suggest that a number of took certain Nazis and
Nazi loot to Argentina, where the Nazis were supported by future president
Juan Perón
Juan Domingo Perón (, , ; 8 October 1895 – 1 July 1974) was an Argentine military officer and Statesman (politician), statesman who served as the History of Argentina (1946-1955), 29th president of Argentina from 1946 to Revolución Libertad ...
, who, with his wife
Evita, had been receiving money from the Nazis for some time.
[Dunstan, Simon and Williams, Gerrard. (2011) ''Grey Wolf: The Escape of Adolf Hitler''. New York: Sterling Publishing. ] As reported claims received by the FBI stated, Hitler allegedly arrived in Argentina, first staying at Hacienda San Ramón (east of
San Carlos de Bariloche),
then moved to
a Bavarian-style mansion at Inalco, a remote and barely accessible spot at the northwest end of
Nahuel Huapi Lake, close to the
Chilean border. Eva Braun supposedly left Hitler around 1954 and moved to
Neuquén
Neuquén (; ) is the capital city of the Argentine province of Neuquén and of the Confluencia Department, located in the east of the province. It occupies a strip of land west of the confluence of the Limay and Neuquén rivers which form t ...
with their daughter, Ursula ('Uschi'), while Hitler allegedly died in February 1962.
The book passingly asserts that Bormann gave the U.S.
Office of Strategic Services
The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the first intelligence agency of the United States, formed during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines ...
stolen art and military secrets in exchange for Hitler's life.
This theory of Hitler's flight to Argentina has been dismissed by historians, including
Guy Walters. He has described Dunstan and Williams' theory as "rubbish", adding: "There's no substance to it at all. It appeals to the deluded fantasies of conspiracy theorists and has no place whatsoever in historical research." Walters contended that "it is simply impossible to believe that so many people could keep such a grand scale deception so quiet," and says that no serious historian would give the story any credibility.
Historian Richard Evans has many misgivings about the book and subsequent film. For example, he notes that the story about Ursula or 'Uschi' is merely "second-hand hearsay evidence without identification or corroboration". Evans also notes that Dunstan and Williams made extensive use of the unreliable book ''Hitler murió en la Argentina'' (1987) by Manuel Monasterio, who later admitted including made-up "strange ramblings" and speculation. McKale notes that ''Grey Wolf'' repeats many claims made over the preceding decades which are implied by remote association, stating that one has no factual or otherwise reliable proof, one resorts to associating... with something else or to using hearsay and other dubious evidence, including unnamed or unidentified sources."
''Hunting Hitler''
On the
History Channel
History (formerly and commonly known as the History Channel) is an American pay television television broadcaster, network and the flagship channel of A&E Networks, a joint venture between Hearst Communications and the Disney General Entertainme ...
series ''
Hunting Hitler'' (2015–2018), investigators (including Gerrard Williams) cite declassified documents and interview witnesses which allegedly indicate that Hitler escaped from Germany and travelled to South America by .
He and other Nazis then allegedly plotted a "
Fourth Reich". Such conspiracy theories of survival and escape have been widely dismissed. Contradictorily, in 2017 the series was praised by the tabloid-style ''National Police Gazette'', which historically was a supporter of the fringe theory, while calling on Russia to allow Hitler's jawbone remains to be DNA-tested.
After being featured on the series as an expert on World War II, author
James Holland explained that "
nbsp;was ''very'' careful never to mention on film that I thought either Hitler or Bormann escaped. Because they didn't."
Legacy
The survival narrative caused a minor resurgence in Nazism during the
Allied occupation of Germany.
In spite of the disinformation from Stalin's government and eyewitness discrepancies, the consensus of Western historians is that Hitler killed himself on 30 April 1945. Some explain the limited forensic evidence as due to the burning of the body to near ashes.
In his 2020 book, Richard Evans dismissed all survival stories of Hitler as "fantasies", although he cited the debunked Soviet autopsies as evidence that Hitler's body was found.
Evans wrote:
In popular culture
* In the adventure novel ''On the World's Roof'' (1949) by
Douglas Valder Duff
Douglas Valder Duff Distinguished Service Cross (United Kingdom), DSC (1901, Rosario, Santa Fe, Rosario de Santa Fe, Argentina – 23 September 1978, Dorchester, Dorset, Dorchester, England) was a British merchant seaman, Royal Navy officer, pol ...
, a group of escaped Nazi officers with their Leader (purportedly Hitler himself) plan to bombard capital cities around the world with nuclear weapons from their stronghold in Tibet.
* In the 1965 Japanese comedy film ''
The Crazy Adventure'', Hitler escapes Berlin and travels via to his secret base in Japan where he remains until the
Crazy Cats discover the location decades later. Hitler is played by Turkish actor
Andrew Hughes.
* In a 1968 film, ''
They Saved Hitler's Brain'' and took it to South America.
* In the 1981 novella ''
The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H.'' by
George Steiner
Francis George Steiner, Fellow of the British Academy#Fellowship, FBA (April 23, 1929 – February 3, 2020) was a Franco-American literary critic, essayist, philosopher, novelist and educator. He wrote extensively about the relationship between ...
, Hitler survives the end of the war and escapes to the Amazon jungle, where he is found and tried by Nazi-hunters 30 years later. Hitler's defence is that since Israel owes its existence to the Holocaust, he is really the benefactor of the Jews.
*In the novel ''
The Berkut'' (1987), Hitler escapes from Berlin with the intention of reaching South America, but is secretly captured by elite Soviet commandos under
Stalin's orders. He is imprisoned in Moscow and later executed.
*In a 1995 ''
The Simpsons
''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening, James L. Brooks and Sam Simon for the Fox Broadcasting Company. It is a Satire (film and television), satirical depiction of American life ...
'' episode, "
Bart vs. Australia", Bart Simpson makes a call to Buenos Aires, which is received by an elderly Hitler.
* In the 1999 video game ''
Persona 2: Innocent Sin'', a rumor is spread that Hitler was saved by elite soldiers and fled with those soldiers to Antarctica, resulting in this "Last Battalion" taking over Sumaru City. Unlike most depictions of Hitler's survival beyond 1945, this is not actually true within the story's context; the story concerns rumors becoming reality, and the "Hitler" the party fights turns out to be
Nyarlathotep in disguise.
* In the CGI anime film ''
Lupin III: The First'' (2019),
Interpol
The International Criminal Police Organization – INTERPOL (abbreviated as ICPO–INTERPOL), commonly known as Interpol ( , ; stylized in allcaps), is an international organization that facilitates worldwide police cooperation and crime cont ...
spreads a fake rumor stating that Hitler is alive and living in Brazil, in order to lure his fanatical
Ahnenerbe followers out of hiding.
* In the 2020
Amazon Prime
Amazon Prime (styled as prime) is a paid subscription service of Amazon which is available in many countries and gives users access to additional services otherwise unavailable or available at a premium to other Amazon customers. Services inclu ...
TV-series ''
Hunters'', it is discovered in 1977 that Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun are living in Argentina.
Notes
References
Bibliography
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Further reading
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External links
FBI documents containing alleged sightings of Hitler
{{Nazis South America
1945 in Germany
Hitler, Adolf
Death of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler's death
Nazis in South America
Views on Adolf Hitler