Tests on skull fragment cast doubt on Adolf Hitler suicide story

Bone with bullet hole found by Russians in 1946 came from an unknown woman, not the German leader


In countless biographies of Adolf Hitler the story of his final hours is recounted in the traditional version: committing suicide with Eva Braun, he took a cyanide pill and then shot himself on 30 April 1945, as the Russians bombarded Berlin.

Some historians expressed doubt that the Führer had shot himself, speculating that accounts of Hitler's death had been embellished to present his suicide in a suitably heroic light. But a fragment of skull, complete with bullet hole, which was taken from the bunker by the Russians and displayed in Moscow in 2000, appeared to settle the argument.

Until now. In the wake of new revelations, the histories of Hitler's death may need to be rewritten – and left open-ended. American researchers claim to have demonstrated that the skull fragment, secretly preserved for decades by Soviet intelligence, belonged to a woman under 40, whose identity is unknown. DNA analyses performed on the bone, now held by the Russian State Archive in Moscow, have been processed at the genetics lab of the University of Connecticut. The results, broadcast in the US by a History Channel documentary, Hitler's Escape, astonished scientists.

According to Connecticut archaeologist and bone specialist Nick Bellantoni, it was clear from the outset that something was amiss. "The bone seemed very thin; male bone tends to be more robust," he said. "And the sutures where the skull plates come together seemed to correspond to someone under 40." In April 1945 Hitler turned 56.

Bellantoni had flown to Moscow to inspect the gruesome Hitler trophies at the State Archive, which included the skull fragment as well as bloodstains from the bunker sofa on which Hitler and Braun were believed to have committed suicide. He was allowed only one hour with the Hitler trove, during which time he applied cotton swabs and took DNA samples. "I had the reference photos the Soviets took of the sofa in 1945 and I was seeing the exact same stains on the fragments of wood and fabric in front of me, so I knew I was working with the real thing."

The samples were then flown back to Connecticut. At the university's centre for applied genetics, Linda Strausbaugh closed her lab for three days to work exclusively on the Hitler project. "We used the same routines and controls that would have been used in a crime lab," she said. To her surprise, a small amount of viable DNA was extracted. She then replicated this through a process known as molecular copying to provide enough material for analysis. "We were very lucky to get a reading, despite the limited amount of genetic information," she said.

The result was extraordinary. According to witnesses, the bodies of Hitler and Braun had been wrapped in blankets and carried to the garden just outside the Berlin bunker, placed in a bomb crater, doused with petrol and set ablaze.

But the skull fragment the Russians dug up outside the Führerbunker in 1946 could never have belonged to Hitler. The skull DNA was incontestably female. The only positive physical proof that Hitler had shot himself had suddenly been rendered worthless. The result is a mystery reopened and, for conspiracy theorists the tantalising possibility that Hitler did not die in the bunker.

For decades after the war the fate of Hitler's corpse was shrouded in secrecy. No picture or film was made public. As the Soviet Army secured control of Berlin in May 1945, Russian forensic specialists under the command of the counterintelligence unit Smersh (an acronym for "Death to Spies") dug up what was presumed to be the dictator's body outside the bunker and performed a post-mortem examination behind closed doors. A part of the skull was absent, presumably blown away by Hitler's suicide shot, but what remained of his jaw coincided with his dental records, a fact reportedly confirmed when the Russians showed his surviving dental work to the captured assistants of Hitler's dentist. The autopsy also reported that Hitler, as had been rumoured, had only one testicle.

But Stalin remained suspicious. In 1946 a second secret mission was dispatched to Berlin. In the same crater from which Hitler's body had been recovered, the new team found what it believed was the missing skull fragment with a bullet exit wound through it. The Russians also took fragments of Hitler's bloodstained sofa.

Even this failed to satisfy Stalin, who clamped a secrecy order on all matters related to Hitler's death. Unknown to the world, Hitler's corpse was interred at a Smersh centre in Magdeburg, East Germany. There it remained long after Stalin's death in 1953. Finally, in 1970, the KGB dug up the corpse, cremated it and secretly scattered the ashes in a river. Only the jawbone, the skull fragment and the bloodstained sofa segments were preserved in the deep archives of Soviet intelligence. The bunker was destroyed in 1947 and eventually paved over. Then, in 2000, the Russian State Archive in Moscow staged an exhibition, The Agony of the Third Reich. The skull fragment was displayed, but only photographs of Hitler's jawbone were on view. The head of the archive, Sergei Mironenko, said he had no doubt the skull fragment was authentic. "It is not just some bone we found in the street, but a fragment of a skull that was found in a hole where Hitler's body had been buried," he said.

In the wake of Bellantoni and Strausbaugh's findings, Mironenko's confidence was clearly misplaced. But could the fragment of skull belong to Eva Braun, who died at 33 and was laid alongside her beloved Führer in the same crater? "We know the skull corresponds to a woman between the ages of 20 and 40," said Bellantoni, but he is sceptical about the Braun thesis. "There is no report of Eva Braun having shot herself or having been shot afterwards. It could be anyone. Many people were killed around the bunker area."

Sixty-four years later, the world is still in the dark about what really happened in Hitler's bunker on 30 April 1945.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/27/adolf-hitler-suicide-skull-fragment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mNhZsLxtdY

as I understand it, Hitler died in Argentina in the 60's.

He was killed in a movie theater by The Inglorius Basterds! be seeing you

There has been much speculation over the years as to whether he actually died. There have been rumors that he was taken out of Berlin and either escaped or was a captive of the USSR or both. I doubt anyone will ever know for sure.

WHY IS HITLER BEING DUG UP NOW DAYS ? HE DIED IN 1945 BY HES OWN HAND . THERE HAVE BEEN SO MANY WARS SENCE THEN SO PEOPLE HAVE DIED NOTHING CHANGES . most of the things people claim about him are lies . when he was a young man he talked to the Jewish kid to see if he could help them become more able to be friends with the people they where living around .. ie the Germans ... but they didn't want to so later in life no body liked them . very few Germans would help them in there time of need . but they were the ones who brought down the wrath of god on them .
part of this can be verified by a book Hitler wrote . mien kampf ... and another one written by a Rabi named WHY DO JEWS DO THINGS . IN THE FIRST CHAPTER 1 IT SAYS EVERY THING THE DO IS TO IRATAE THERE NIEABOORS . I know some Jews who had there family almost wiped out completely and the didn't know this . the Shaw's the beanies all to piss you off . now look at what it cost them 6,000,000 people just be cause there leaders refused to good neighbours . now they are doing it again. israel is not there home land they lived in babylon first they move there from the mountains by babelon and before that northeast of the Caspian sea . leave those people alone .

I heard that as well but in was in the 80's or 90's

I have heard this before and a few other versions. Will we ever truly know?

OMG, anti-semitism at it's finest

He changed his name to Hussein and got elected president

To hear some tell it...lol

LOL...here is Hitler gets scammed on Ebay

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tDtoZzIOTw

here, he wants a burger king

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulwy7E0S7a8

that is so ingorant to historical reality that it is offensive

you're saying the Jews deserved the Holocaust?

and you use Mein Kampf as justification?!

THAT thinking is exactly why 6 million Jews died in the Auschwitz and Dachau

Wow!

and before you even dare reply to me you better read some of these so you might actually have some vague idea what you are even talking about


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Laws

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dachau_concentration_camp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einsatzgruppen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichskristallnacht

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auschwitz


and the whole time the rest of the world, notably England, France, and America said, "its not our problem" and stood and watched, and expressed the exact sentiments as you just posted, as all those people were, beaten, maimed, raped and killed and did nothing until the Nazis came for THEM.

or care,,,,?