Death of Hitler. The Fuhrer's last secret. What year did Hitler die: the last days of the Fuhrer

It would seem that the answer is obvious and unequivocal: the possessed Fuhrer and his newly-made wife Eva Braun committed suicide on April 30, 1945 at 15:30 in Berlin, in underground bunker, equipped in the courtyard of the Imperial Chancellery. This is confirmed by people from Hitler's inner circle, as well as the results of the identification and examination of his exhumed corpse. However, there is another version: Hitler did not commit suicide at all, but, together with Eva Braun and his associates, fled from besieged Berlin to South America and died there in 1964 at the age of 75 years. And this version is supported by a number of documents and evidence.

First inconsistencies

The American historian and writer William Shearer, in his seminal study The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, published in 1960, claims that the bodies or bones of Hitler and Eve were never found because they were swept away and destroyed by Russian shell explosions.

And almost half a century later, the Argentine historian and documentary writer Abel Basti took up the clarification of the true fate of Hitler, Eva Braun and all the top Nazi leaders. The results of his research are presented in the book "Hitler in Argentina" published in 2006.

The author bases his conclusions and conclusions on numerous documents and testimonies of witnesses, on the basis of which he claims that the suicide and subsequent burning of the corpses of Hitler and Eva Braun was falsified. Hitler and his wife managed to hide in South America and live there to old age.

Facts and eyewitness accounts

What are these documents and testimonies? Here, for example, aircraft engineer Hans Bauer informs; On April 30, 1945, at 16:30 (that is, an hour after the declared suicide), he saw Adolf Hitler, dressed in a light gray suit, in the center of Berlin near the Junkers-52 aircraft.

According to another document, on April 25, a secret meeting was held in the Fuhrerbunker on the issue of Hitler's evacuation, in which the famous "pilot" Hanna Reitsch, ace pilot Hans-Ulrich Rudel and Hitler's personal pilot Hans Bauer participated. The Fuhrer's secret evacuation plan was codenamed Operation Seraglio.

And five days earlier, on April 20, the list of passengers flying from Berlin to Barcelona was approved. Hitler was listed first, but the names of Goebbels, his wife and children were deleted from the list.

So Adolf Hitler and, apparently, the entire "roster" on April 30, 1945, flew from Berlin to Spain, and from there the Fuhrer, Eva Braun and their extensive retinue and guards arrived in Argentina at the end of summer in three submarines, which then, in for the purposes of conspiracy, were flooded.

The reality of such an underwater flight is confirmed by the fact that off the coast of Argentina, at a depth of about 30 meters, divers discovered large objects covered with sand. The same objects are visible in the picture taken by the Americans from space.

The fact that these are Nazi submarines is also evidenced by the testimony of witnesses who observed the arrival of three submarines with a swastika in the Caleta de los Loros Bay, located in the Argentine province of Rio Negro, in the summer of 1945.

The US FBI archive contains a report from an American agent in Argentina - a gardener of wealthy German colonists, the Eichhorn spouses from the village of La Falda. The agent reports that the owners have been preparing the estate since June for the arrival of Hitler, which will take place in the very near future.

A letter from the Nazi General Seydlitz, dated 1956, has also been preserved - he reports that he is going to be present in Argentina at a meeting between Hitler and the "Fuhrer" of the Croatian nationalist Ustashe Ante Pavelić.

Bad performance?

As for the testimony of witnesses who allegedly buried Hitler's corpse, it turns out that there is not a single person who would have seen with his own eyes how the Fuhrer bit through an ampoule of poison and shot himself in the head. Most likely, the story of the suicide of the head of the Third Reich was invented from beginning to end by people from his inner circle in order to confuse everyone.

And if you carefully study archival documents, you can find a number of contradictions in the testimony of "eyewitnesses" to Hitler's death. First, he was poisoned. Then - no, he shot himself in the temple. After - sorry, first he poisoned himself, and then he shot himself. Potassium cyanide causes convulsions and instant death: after that, how could a person pull the trigger of a gun?

In general, all witnesses to Hitler's death are confused in their testimony. For example, SS officer Heinz Linge claims that Hitler shot himself in the left temple with a Walther pistol and blew off half his skull, while another SS man Otto Günsche (who carried out the body of the Fuhrer) shows: “Adolf hit the right temple, but his face was not injured at all” . Ten years later, for some reason, he changed his testimony - the shot through the temple of Hitler again became left.

In 1950, Günsche recalls: when he entered the room, the corpses were lying nearby on the sofa. And ten years later he changed his mind and said that they were lying at different ends of the sofa.

But the most interesting thing is that the Soviet physician, Lieutenant Colonel Shkaravsky, who took part in the autopsy of the bodies, pointed out that there were no traces of bullet wounds anywhere on them, only the remains of ampoules with potassium cyanide in their teeth.

From all this, the conclusion suggests itself: the SS men themselves never saw a dead Hitler, and hence such a discrepancy in the picture of his death. They were ordered in advance to categorically state that the Fuhrer was dead, but they did not learn their roles.

Stalin and Zhukov also doubted

No wonder that, reading the babble of such "witnesses", Stalin did not believe in Hitler's death. It is known that Soviet intelligence was looking for the Fuhrer in several countries at once. South America, which is confirmed by declassified archival documents of the KGB.

And on June 9, 1945, at a press conference for foreign journalists, Marshal Georgy Zhukov said: that the Fuhrer and Eva Braun secretly flew by plane to Hamburg, from where they sailed in a submarine.

It is also known that there are three verbatim records of Stalin's conversations (one of them with US Secretary of State Byrnes), in which the leader of the USSR frankly says that the Fuhrer managed to escape.

The Fuhrer was "covered" by a double?

Hitler lived in Argentina after the official date of his death for another twenty years. This does not fit with the large number of testimonies about the miserable state of the Fuhrer in March-April 1945: a physically exhausted person who has lost his understanding of the reality of what is happening, half-blind, sitting on tranquilizers.

However, there is no contradiction here - it must be borne in mind that in the spring of 1945, one of the Fuhrer's doubles appeared before the public, who looked older than his years. This man, who portrayed Hitler, remained in the bunker to the end - as a result, he died there.

Living in hospitable Argentina

All witnesses in Argentina describe the appearance of late Hitler as a fairly healthy person, although he moved with some difficulty, leaning on a cane - apparently, the consequences of a shell shock after the 1944 assassination attempt affected. He never learned Spanish and spoke it very badly. He no longer wore the famous mustache, and his hair was cut short, almost under a beaver, and turned gray.

Upon arrival in Argentina, the Fuhrer lived for a long time in a hotel owned by the Eichhorn spouses (they were mentioned in the report by an American agent). Repeatedly he visited the luxurious villa of a large businessman Jorge Antonio (a friend of the country's president Juan Peron) and visited the mountain resort of Bari Loche, where his favorite pilot Hans-Ulrich Rudel, SS Hauptsturmführer Erich Priebke and the fanatic doctor from Auschwitz Josef Mengele settled. He especially liked Bariloche, the Fuhrer and Eva Braun lived there for several years in a two-story wooden mansion.

Eva Braun deserves special mention. She was born in 1912, was 23 years younger than Hitler. It is possible that Eva Braun and Adolf Hitler had children in Argentina.

good luck for the country

In one of the documents from the US FBI archive, declassified in 1997 and dated September 21, 1945, the informant reports that he is ready to provide evidence that three Argentine ministers met a submarine carrying Hitler.

It is worth adding to the above that Hitler and his henchmen sent huge financial resources to Argentina. Submarines U-235 and U-977 in August 45 unloaded more than four kilograms of diamonds, tons of gold and platinum in Argentine bays.

A CIA report declassified in 1996 shows that Argentine President Juan Peron received seven million dollars from SS-controlled secret accounts in Switzerland after the collapse of the Third Reich - this was the payment for silence.

Peron's statement on this matter is known; “This is good luck for us. The Germans have invested a lot of money in our economy, built factories and factories, placed billions of gold in our banks. Isn't that a good deal?"

To remember in what year Hitler died, it is enough to remember the year of graduation. In the spring of 1945, Soviet troops advanced from the east and pushed the Wehrmacht towards Berlin. The Anglo-American troops that landed in France and Italy advanced from the west and south. It was clear that the war was lost.

In January 1945, the Fuhrer left his headquarters in the Bavarian Alps and arrived in Berlin. Allied air raids forced him to place his headquarters in a specially prepared underground bunker. The last time Hitler left the bunker was in March and visited the Reich Chancellery. One of the air raids found the Fuhrer upstairs, and after this incident he did not dare to leave the shelter. In the bunker, Hitler was accompanied by some of his associates.

In April, the situation looked hopeless. Goebbels read Hitler the History of Frederick the Great, written by the philosopher Thomas Carlyle. The minister chose an episode describing the difficult winter of 1761-1762 for the king, when Prussia was losing the war. Carlyle then wrote about the death of the Russian empress and Russia's withdrawal from the war. At this moment, according to Goebbels, tears appeared in Hitler's eyes.

On April 13, the Minister of Propaganda brought the Führer the news of Roosevelt's death. Hitler gathered his comrades-in-arms on this occasion in the bunker. There was a festive mood among the Nazis that day, but it soon passed because it became clear that the offensive of the American troops would continue.

On the eve of his birthday, Hitler wanted to leave the capital and continue directing the war from the Alpine fortress of Obersalzberg. Goebbels dissuaded him from this, urging him to lead the decisive battle of the war near the walls of their capital.

On April 20, 1945, the Fuhrer's 56th birthday was celebrated in the bunker. The ministers of the regime and the top leadership of the Wehrmacht gathered around the table. In the garden, Hitler met with representatives of the Hitler Youth and presented an award to those of them who had distinguished themselves in recent battles.

The Führer decided to stay in Berlin, but most of the Nazi leadership was leaving the city, which was about to be besieged. On April 22, during a meeting with the leadership remaining in the city, he confirmed his desire to stay. Keitel even planned to take Hitler to the Alps by force, but decided that this was unrealistic. The Fuhrer said that he would not leave the stage of history as an inglorious fugitive, that he had the right to call himself the Fuhrer only as long as he could lead people.

Evenings in the bunker, Hitler spent with the remaining associates - Goebbels, Ley, Bormann. He summed up his policy at length and in many words. The Fuhrer lamented that he could not conclude an alliance with Britain and blamed Churchill for this. He argued that, from a military point of view, the war should have started a year earlier, when it still did not seem inevitable to everyone, and from a moral point of view, much later, when the new German elite would be ready. The Führer denounced his own policy of alliance with Italy and noted the problems and failures that followed.

On the night of April 28/29, Hitler received the news that Reichsführer Himmler was negotiating surrender. Adolf went berserk again. He considered one of his associates, Fegelein, an accomplice to the betrayal and ordered him to be shot. The Fuhrer also ordered Grime to try to get out of Berlin and arrest Himmler. But this order was not fulfilled. It is believed that on the same day Hitler decided to commit suicide.

On April 29, before his death, Hitler decided to marry. His wife was Eva Braun, who had been his unofficial mistress for several years before. The couple decided to hold an abbreviated marriage, which corresponded to the situation of wartime. After the holiday, the Fuhrer retired to dictate his personal and political wills. In the latter, he justified his policy, talked about the harmfulness of Jewry and expressed hopes for the revival of Nazi ideas in the future.

In a political testament, he wrote about the deprivation of all the posts of Himmler and Goering. The Fuhrer appointed Admiral Doenitz as his successor as Reich President and Commander-in-Chief. Goebbels was appointed head of government by Hitler. In conclusion, he urged his subjects to continue the fight against Jewry and honor racial laws.

In his personal will, the Fuhrer wrote that his duties prevented him from starting a family, but now his wife is ready to share his fate (suicide). Hitler bequeathed his personal property to his party and (in the event of its collapse) to the state. He asked that all the paintings he acquired be included in the collection of Linz, his hometown. The Fuhrer appointed Bormann as the executor of the posthumous will. He had to provide everything necessary for the Fuhrer's brother and sister, Eva Braun's mother and Hitler's secretaries. Three couriers left the bunker with copies of their wills.

In the afternoon, Hitler received news of Mussolini's capture and execution, which strengthened his desire to commit suicide. Before taking the poison, the Fuhrer tested it on his shepherd Blondie. The dog died a minute after taking the poison capsule. In the conference room on the night of April 30, the remaining comrades-in-arms gathered to say goodbye to Hitler. At about 3:30 pm, Hitler and Eva Braun, after saying goodbye to everyone, retired to their private rooms. Soon a shot was fired from there. Those who entered discovered that the Fuhrer had shot himself, and his wife had taken an ampoule of poison.

The bodies were carried out into the yard, doused with gasoline and set on fire. One of the soldiers guarding the bunker, after half an hour, could not identify the charred body of Hitler. By the end of the day, the bodies of the spouses were wrapped in a tarpaulin, placed in one of the craters from the shelling of Soviet artillery and tamped down.

Later, Soviet experts conducted research on the place where the German Fuhrer was buried. The parietal part of the skull containing a bullet hole and fragments of jaws were found. According to them, it was possible to identify the remains and prove that Hitler was buried in this place. Now fragments of the Fuhrer's jaws are stored in the FSR archive, and fragments of the skull -.

Shortly after the Fuhrer's suicide, the Berlin garrison capitulated. Germany's surrender followed a week later. The victory was followed trials surviving NSDAP members who continued to serve Hitler's cause until May 1945. The tragic and heroic events of the spring of 1945, victories for which they paid dearly, remind us of the year in which Hitler died and the open fascist regime was destroyed.

Here is a chronicle of the events leading up to the death of Adolf Hitler. AT last days On April 1945, the shock units of the Soviet troops completed the operation to defeat Nazi Germany. The Fuhrer's plans collapsed, which led him to despair. A few days before his death, Hitler took refuge in an underground bunker located in the immediate vicinity of the Reich Chancellery, waiting with desperation and anxiety for new news from the battlefields. There were also his girlfriend Eva Braun and a number of high-ranking figures in Germany.

Hitler gave the impression of an immensely tired person with a completely upset mind, who had lost interest in life. He often yelled at his subordinates, rushed around the room and showed all the signs of a person with a disintegrating personality, close to insanity. He no longer resembled the confident leader of the nation that the German people used to see Hitler in the old days.

The day before his death, Hitler arranged an official marriage ceremony with Eva Braun, which ended with a modest feast. After the first and last family celebration in his life, the Fuhrer retired to his office to draw up a will.

Apparently, by this time the leader of Nazi Germany had made the final decision to die.

How Hitler died

April 30, Adolf Hitler said goodbye to senior representatives Reich and with other people close to him. After the farewell ceremony, everyone left the room, going out into the corridor. Hitler and Eva Braun were left alone. The Führer's personal valet wrote in his testimony that Hitler and his girlfriend committed suicide at half past four, shooting themselves almost simultaneously. The valet who entered after the shots saw the leader of the nation sitting on a sofa; blood was dripping from his temple. Eva Braun's body was located in another corner of the room.

Many researchers are convinced that immediately before the shot, Hitler took an ampoule of potassium cyanide.

Martin Bormann, Hitler's closest assistant and ally, gave the order to wrap the bodies of the dead in blankets, transfer them to the yard, douse them with gasoline and burn them in a funnel from an exploding shell. The corpses that did not have time to burn to the end were buried in the ground right there, in the courtyard of the imperial office. The remains of the Fuhrer and Eva Braun were subsequently discovered by Soviet soldiers, after which a thorough examination was carried out. The study was conducted by experienced forensic experts, so there is no reason to doubt the authenticity of the remains.

But the story of the remains of the leader of Nazi Germany did not end there. Hitler's body was reburied several times. Already after the war, some eyewitnesses to the death of the German leader withdrew their testimony. There were also new witnesses who had previously been silent. The story of the death of the Fuhrer began to acquire fantastic details that could well be fiction.

Adolf Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945 in his Führerbunker in Berlin. Later, the remains of the dictator were discovered by the Soviet military and taken to Moscow.

But the very fact of Hitler's death is still shrouded in all sorts of secrets and mysteries. There are many theories, in addition to the official version, according to which the remains of Hitler were not genuine, he did not commit suicide or even survived.

26 April. Soviet troops occupied three-quarters of Berlin. Hopeless Hitler is in a two-story bunker at a depth of 8 meters under the courtyard of the imperial office.

Together with him in the bunker are his mistress Eva Braun, Goebbels with his family, chief of the general staff Krebs, secretaries, adjutants, security guards.

According to the testimony of an officer of the General Staff, on this day Hitler presented a terrible picture: he moved with difficulty and clumsily, throwing his upper body forward and dragging his legs ... The Fuhrer could hardly maintain his balance. His left hand did not obey him, and his right hand was constantly trembling ... Hitler's eyes were bloodshot ...

In the evening, one of the best female pilots in Germany, Hanna Reitsch, fanatically devoted to Hitler, arrived in the bunker. She later recalled that the Fuhrer invited her to his place and said: "Hannah, you belong to those who will die with me. Each of us has an ampoule of poison."

He handed the ampoule to Hanna, saying: "I don't want any of us to fall into the hands of the Russians, and I don't want our bodies to go to the Russians. Eva's bodies and mine will be burned."

As Reitsch testified, during the conversation, Hitler presented a terrible picture: almost blindly rushing from wall to wall with paper in trembling hands. "A completely disintegrated person," the pilot stated.

29 April. The marriage of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun took place. The process took place in accordance with the law: a marriage contract was drawn up and a wedding ceremony was performed.

Witnesses, as well as Krebs, Goebbels' wife, Hitler's adjutants, General Burgdorf and Colonel Belov, secretaries and a cook were invited to the wedding celebration. And after a small feast, Hitler retired to draw up a will.

April 30. The Fuhrer's last day has come. After lunch, on Hitler's orders, his personal chauffeur, SS Standartenführer Kempka, delivers canisters with 200 liters of gasoline to the garden of the Imperial Chancellery.

This is the last photograph of Hitler taken on April 30th. On the threshold of the bunker in the courtyard of the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, the Fuhrer was captured by one of the officers of his personal bodyguard.

In the conference room, Hitler and Braun say goodbye to Bormann, Goebbels, Burgdorf, Krebs, Axman, who came here, to the Fuhrer's secretaries Junge and Weichelt.

According to the first version, based on the testimony of Hitler's personal valet - Linge, the Fuhrer and Eva Braun shot themselves at 15.30. There is even a photo of Hitler's body with a bullet mark, the authenticity of which is in question.

When Linge and Bormann entered the room, Hitler was allegedly sitting on a sofa in the corner, a revolver lying on the table in front of him, blood flowing from his right temple. The dead Eva Braun, who was in the other corner, dropped her revolver on the floor.

Another version (accepted by almost all historians) says: Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun were poisoned by potassium cyanide. In addition, before his death, the Fuhrer also poisoned two beloved shepherd dogs.

By order of Bormann, the bodies of the deceased were wrapped in blankets, taken out into the yard, and then doused with gasoline and burned in a shell crater. Since they burned badly, the SS men buried the half-burnt corpses in the ground.

The bodies of Hitler and Brown were discovered by the Red Army soldier Churakov on May 4, but for some reason they lay for 4 whole days without examination: they were taken for examination and identification to one of the Berlin morgues on May 8.

An external examination gave reason to believe that the charred corpses of a man and a woman were the remains of the Fuhrer and his wife. But, as you know, Hitler and Braun had several doubles, so the Soviet military authorities intended to conduct a thorough investigation.

The question of whether the person delivered to the morgue was really Hitler still worries researchers.

According to an eyewitness, the man's corpse was in a wooden box 163 cm long, 55 cm wide and 53 cm high, respectively. A burnt piece of knitted fabric of a yellowish tint, similar to a shirt, was found on the body.

During his lifetime, Hitler repeatedly turned to his dentist, as evidenced by the large number of fillings and gold crowns on the preserved parts of the jaws. They were confiscated and transferred to the SMERSH-3 department of the Shock Army.

On May 11, 1945, the dentist Gaiserman described in detail the anatomical data of Hitler's oral cavity, which coincided with the results of the study conducted on May 8.

There were no visible signs of severe fatal injuries or diseases on the body damaged by fire. But a crushed glass ampoule was found in the oral cavity. The characteristic smell of bitter almonds emanated from the corpse.

The same ampoules were found during the autopsy of another 10 corpses close to Hitler. It was found that death was the result of cyanide poisoning.

On the same day, an autopsy was performed on the corpse of a woman, presumably belonging to Eva Braun. Despite the fact that there was a broken glass ampoule in the mouth and the smell of bitter almonds emanated from the corpse, chest traces of a shrapnel wound and 6 small metal fragments were found.

Employees military intelligence the remains were packed in wooden boxes and buried in the ground near Berlin. However, soon the Chekist headquarters changed its location, and after it the boxes went.

In a new place, they were buried again, and then, at the next move, they were removed from the ground.

She found a permanent home at a military base near the city of Magdeburg. Here, the boxes lay in the ground until 1970, when the territory of the base came under the jurisdiction of the GDR.

On March 13, 1970, the head of the KGB, Yuri Andropov, gave the order to destroy the remains. They were cremated and the ashes scattered from a helicopter into the air.

For history, only the jaws of the dictator and a fragment of his skull with a bullet hole were left.

This material evidence of the death of Adolf Hitler was sent to Moscow and placed in the archives of the KGB.

Rumors that Adolf Hitler was alive appeared almost immediately after his death. The British, French, and Americans doubted the death of the dictator. There was persistent talk about the amazing rescue of the Fuhrer.

It was rumored that he fled from Berlin abroad along the so-called "rat trail". She was a "window" on the border with Switzerland. Through it, high-ranking officials of the Third Reich with forged documents made their way to a neutral country, and from there they were sent to fascist Spain or the countries of Latin America.

Regarding the flight of the dictator to South America, there are even a number of FBI "documents" regarding the investigation of this fact.

However, most historians continue to argue that Hitler had no chance of escaping Berlin.

In response, they put forward a version that Hitler might not have been in the bunker under the Reich Chancellery at all. On this issue, there is a version that all tactical issues were decided by the Fuhrer's double. It was he who was shot on April 30, 1945.

Together with him, Eva Braun was also killed, so that the death of the country's main Nazi would look more natural. Hitler himself, at this time, again sailed away in a submarine towards South America, changing his appearance.

Similar versions are expressed at the present time.

Newspapers wrote about them, publishing the supposedly surviving clothes of the Fuhrer, in which he arrived in Peru or Paraguay.

There were even photos of the surviving Hitler, calmly meeting old age incognito.

But historians say in response that the Fuhrer could not be called a coward. His courage is evidenced by the fact that he volunteered for the front in the First world war and was awarded several iron crosses for bravery, and also had wounds received in battle.

After that, it is simply illogical to state that at the most difficult moment for the nation, the Fuhrer cowardly runs, leaving a double in his place, is simply illogical.

In favor of the fact that Hitler was in the bunker is also the fact that only after his death did the Germans put forward a proposal for a truce. Having been refused, Goebbels committed suicide, poisoning his entire family. Bormann did the same a few hours later.

In 2009, Vasily Khristoforov, head of the Registration and Archival Funds Department of the FSB of Russia, said that in 1946 a special commission carried out additional excavations at the site where the bodies of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun were found. At the same time, "the left parietal part of the skull with an exit bullet hole" was found.

In 1948, the "finds" from the Fuhrer's bunker (several burnt objects, as well as fragments of jaws and teeth, which were used to identify the corpses of Hitler, Eva Braun and the Goebbels) were sent to Moscow, to the investigative department of the 2nd Main Directorate of the MGB of the USSR.

Since 1954, by order of the Chairman of the KGB under the Council of Ministers of the USSR Serov, all these items and materials were stored in a special order in a special room of the departmental archive.

Since 2009, Hitler's jaws have been kept in the FSB archive, and skull fragments in the State Archives.

However, a DNA analysis conducted in 2009 by employees of an American university from the city of Hartford (Connecticut) destroyed the entire evidence base regarding the death of the dictator. According to their version, the badly damaged skull bone did not belong to Adolf Hitler at all. She didn't belong to a man at all. It was a fragment of a woman's skull. Moreover, the woman at the time of her death was in the prime of life - 35-40 years old.

This statement caused a big scandal. The FSB officers completely refused to recognize its authenticity. And later they also expressed a version of the error Soviet soldiers who collected the remains.

It seems that the point in this matter will never be put. Although, at present, most often the "survivor" Hitler and his doubles become heroes of memes, rather than major scientific disputes.

How did Adolf Hitler die? Did he take poison, shoot himself, or did he die peacefully in his own bed? The answer to this question has been worrying many people for almost seventy years. And not in vain. The version of Hitler's successful escape from the Reich Chancellery has been exaggerated from the very moment of the capture of Berlin. It has been refuted more than once, but with enviable persistence it reappears...

Incomprehensible beginning

On April 30, 1945, a message arrived in Moscow about Hitler's death. Stalin's reaction was restrained: "Finished, scoundrel!" Then came the business question: "Where is the body?" In Berlin, the question was forwarded to the parliamentarian, German General Hans Kreb. He replied that Hitler's corpse was burned at the stake ... Apparently, Stalin did not believe the words of the German, and in early May a TASS message appeared in the newspapers: "Hitler's death is a new fascist trick ..."

By that time, groups to search for and capture Hitler had already been formed in all the armies storming Berlin. And on May 2, two dead doubles of Hitler were discovered by Soviet officers on the territory of the Reich Chancellery. One of them was found in an underground bomb shelter, the second - in a fire pool in the yard. Both were shot in the face.

The captured Vice-Admiral Hans Voss, who was brought in for identification, looked at one of the discovered "Fuhrer" and said: "This is Hitler, and no one else." And only when he noticed that the “Reich Chancellor” had darned socks on his feet, Voss began to doubt ...