QuoteTests 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
The Observer, Sunday 27 September 2009
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.
Uki Goñi is author of The Real Odessa (Granta), about the escape of Nazi war criminals from Europe
I dug up Jubal Early's skull and fucked it.
Quote from: Ed Anger on October 01, 2009, 09:53:25 AM
I dug up Jubal Early's skull and fucked it.
This thread transitioned to a Civil War thread too quickly. RUINER.
Isn't it obvious? Hitler was a woman all along.
Quote from: Brazen on October 01, 2009, 09:55:47 AM
Isn't it obvious? Hitler was a woman all along.
Second Transition: Pope Joan debate. :cool:
Quote from: Ed Anger on October 01, 2009, 09:53:25 AM
I dug up Jubal Early's skull and fucked it.
I dug up Prince Rupert's skull and fucked it.
Quote from: Brazen on October 01, 2009, 09:55:47 AM
Isn't it obvious? Hitler was a woman all along.
Or at least a womanish head.
Quote from: Caliga on October 01, 2009, 09:55:10 AM
Quote from: Ed Anger on October 01, 2009, 09:53:25 AM
I dug up Jubal Early's skull and fucked it.
This thread transitioned to a Civil War thread too quickly. RUINER.
I am the: King of Threads.
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.roflcat.com%2Fimages%2Fcats%2F270913943_d775923b1a.jpg&hash=e573a1a1f50c05ac04f7564d2882c8e62e43ca45)
Now that is a cat picture.
Of course Hitler escaped, that is common knowledge. The Russians are always so behind when it comes to knowledge.
If Hitler hadn't escaped than he wouldn't have been around to father both George W. Bush and Barrack Obama.
I heard he became an ardent zionist and moved to Israel in the mid-60s, settling on a kibbutz
I heard he's a particularly tough judge on "The Reich's Has Got Talent".
Quote from: Brazen on October 01, 2009, 10:52:43 AM
I heard he's a particularly tough judge on "The Reich's Has Got Talent".
That show is a real gas.
My Dad had the "I was Hitler's Dentist" book. Apparently a direct match.
anyhow, I can't imagine a jawless Hitler surviving very long. this is not a theory I can sink my teeth into.
Maybe it was Hilter who did those moon landings?? :tinfoil:
So his body was found and buried, but the paranoid Russkies dug it up later and burned it. <_<
lol I knew I didn't need to post this story when I saw it this morning. If the jaw was a real thing then either the conspiracy is huge or jawless Hitler moved to Peru?
Quote from: Strix on October 01, 2009, 10:44:19 AM
Of course Hitler escaped, that is common knowledge. The Russians are always so behind when it comes to knowledge.
If Hitler hadn't escaped than he wouldn't have been around to father both George W. Bush and Barrack Obama.
I was looking for this
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.salon.com%2Fcomics%2Fboll%2F2009%2F09%2F17%2Fboll%2Fstory.jpg&hash=02778e74c79e5386be2fedc3890858658ec49bed)
so I googled "hitler obama" and google gives me this guy
QuotePaul Collins Broun, Jr. (born May 14, 1946[1]) is a Republican United States Representative from Georgia's 10th congressional district. He is a member of the House Homeland Security Committee and the House Science & Technology Committee.
While Georgia Republicans are per definition prone to stupidity.. is he the only one this stupid?
Quote from: Strix on October 01, 2009, 10:44:19 AM
If Hitler hadn't escaped than he wouldn't have been around to father both George W. Bush and Barrack Obama.
:lol:
Quote from: Viking on October 01, 2009, 12:13:45 PM
so I googled "hitler obama" and google gives me this guy
QuotePaul Collins Broun, Jr. (born May 14, 1946[1]) is a Republican United States Representative from Georgia's 10th congressional district. He is a member of the House Homeland Security Committee and the House Science & Technology Committee.
While Georgia Republicans are per definition prone to stupidity.. is he the only one this stupid?
Well, Georgia Republicans are often pretty stupid, but having an actual quote might help better to judge if he's outside the norm or not.
:lmfao:
The "Hitler Escaped" theories were more fun in the old days when he might still be alive.
Quote from: Viking on October 01, 2009, 12:13:45 PM
QuotePaul Collins Broun, Jr. (born May 14, 1946[1]) is a Republican United States Representative from Georgia's 10th congressional district. He is a member of the House Homeland Security Committee and the House Science & Technology Committee.
While Georgia Republicans are per definition prone to stupidity.. is he the only one this stupid?
I didn't know you were so opposed to the Science and Technology Committee, Viking. I'm sure he had his reasons for joining.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on October 01, 2009, 12:27:14 PM
Quote from: Viking on October 01, 2009, 12:13:45 PM
so I googled "hitler obama" and google gives me this guy
QuotePaul Collins Broun, Jr. (born May 14, 1946[1]) is a Republican United States Representative from Georgia's 10th congressional district. He is a member of the House Homeland Security Committee and the House Science & Technology Committee.
While Georgia Republicans are per definition prone to stupidity.. is he the only one this stupid?
Well, Georgia Republicans are often pretty stupid, but having an actual quote might help better to judge if he's outside the norm or not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Broun
QuoteRemarks Comparing Barack Obama and Adolf Hitler
On November 10, 2008, one week after the 2008 presidential election, Broun drew national attention[9] when he criticized then President-elect Barack Obama's call for a civilian national security force, suggesting that Obama might use it to establish a Marxist dictatorship.[10]
In an interview with the Associated Press, Broun said, "That's exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it's exactly what the Soviet Union did. When he's proposing to have a national security force that's answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he's showing me signs of being Marxist." Broun later clarified his statement by saying, "We can't be lulled into complacency. You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. I'm not comparing him to Adolf Hitler. What I'm saying is there is the potential of going down that road."[10]
Broun cited a July 2008 speech by Obama in which the then-Democratic presidential candidate had said, "We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded." A spokesman for Obama indicated that he had been referring to a civilian reserve corps intended to handle postwar reconstruction efforts, such as rebuilding infrastructure. The Bush administration has endorsed this idea,[10] and a Civilian Response Corps, described as similar to the one proposed by Obama,[11] was formed in 2006 by the Bush Administration after a bipartisan Congressional vote.
QuoteLegislation
Broun introduced a military anti-pornography bill into the House of Representatives. The bill is meant to stem the sales of pornography on U.S military installations. This bill basically notes that the there should be no loopholes in a former piece of legislation (Title 10 of the United States code), effectively banning military personnel from viewing pornography (Now entitled the "Military Honor and Decency Act").[5] According to Broun's website, legislation will only be passed based on his "Four Way Test", which includes, "1) Is it moral/right?, 2) Is it constitutional?, 3) Is it necessary?, and 4) Is it affordable?".[1]
On September 29, 2008, Broun voted against H.R. 3997, the economic relief or "bailout" plan addressing the recent economic crisis.[6]
In May 2009, Broun proposed legislation that 2010 be proclaimed "The Year Of The Bible".[7]
In June 2009, Broun voted against a climate change bill, calling entire concept of global warming a "hoax" perpetuated by the scientific community. [8]
Yeah Habs, his reasons were to sabotage science.
Quote from: alfred russel on October 01, 2009, 12:34:39 PM
The "Hitler Escaped" theories were more fun in the old days when he might still be alive.
Good point.
Back then it was "Hitler escaped... and may be planning a coup in Argentina!"
Now: "Hitler escaped... maybe he died in Argentina!"
As to the latter... who really cares?
The guy was born 120 years ago. He's dead and obviously did nothing of note post-1945 even if he did escape.
Just like Elvis, he is not dead, he just went back to his planet.
Quote from: Caliga on October 01, 2009, 12:47:19 PM
Quote from: alfred russel on October 01, 2009, 12:34:39 PM
The "Hitler Escaped" theories were more fun in the old days when he might still be alive.
Good point.
Back then it was "Hitler escaped... and may be planning a coup in Argentina!"
Now: "Hitler escaped... maybe he died in Argentina!"
As to the latter... who really cares?
The guy was born 120 years ago. He's dead and obviously did nothing of note post-1945 even if he did escape.
:tinfoil: Maybe he was born just 60 years ago?
:lol:
Quote from: The Brain on October 01, 2009, 12:55:10 PM
:tinfoil: Maybe he was born just 60 years ago?
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lovefilm.com%2Flovefilm%2Fimages%2Fproducts%2F7%2F2007-large.jpg&hash=23d4767a9dbd805ef3da9e97b68cb8ee7087d870)
:shifty:
So they picked up the wrong skull fragment in a city where perhaps half a million people died in about two weeks; so what?
I'd only do more than yawn tiredly if it was a story that provided proof that the Soviets lied about the jawbone.
And anway, as people have said, even if he did survive he'd be dead by now.
Quote from: Agelastus on October 01, 2009, 01:16:29 PM
So they picked up the wrong skull fragment in a city where perhaps half a million people died in about two weeks; so what?
I'd only do more than yawn tiredly if it was a story that provided proof that the Soviets lied about the jawbone.
And anway, as people have said, even if he did survive he'd be dead by now.
The "Hitler survived" meme was way more concerning in like 1945, yep. Stalin himself engaged in a considerable amount of handwringing over it... I *could* see Soviet military intelligence faking evidence of Hitler's death just to get his ass off their back, but this isn't a dispute over the accuracy of the jaw vs. his dental records, as others have pointed out.
I have forged my dental records for years. I'm sure Hitler could have done the same.
Quote from: The Brain on October 01, 2009, 01:45:15 PM
I have forged my dental records for years. I'm sure Hitler could have done the same.
:lol:
And why would you do that?
Quote from: jimmy olsen on October 01, 2009, 01:57:37 PM
Quote from: The Brain on October 01, 2009, 01:45:15 PM
I have forged my dental records for years. I'm sure Hitler could have done the same.
:lol:
And why would you do that?
Just in case I lie defeated in the shattered remains of my European empire, looking up at the blue sky and feeling that the future still is wide open. Cataclysmic defeat doesn't have to be final.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on October 01, 2009, 01:57:37 PM
Quote from: The Brain on October 01, 2009, 01:45:15 PM
I have forged my dental records for years. I'm sure Hitler could have done the same.
:lol:
And why would you do that?
Drax needed him on his space station.
Quote from: Caliga on October 01, 2009, 12:47:19 PM
The guy was born 120 years ago. He's dead and obviously did nothing of note post-1945 even if he did escape.
...
that you know about. [cue ominous music]
Quote from: Syt on October 01, 2009, 12:58:42 PM
Quote from: The Brain on October 01, 2009, 12:55:10 PM
:tinfoil: Maybe he was born just 60 years ago?
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lovefilm.com%2Flovefilm%2Fimages%2Fproducts%2F7%2F2007-large.jpg&hash=23d4767a9dbd805ef3da9e97b68cb8ee7087d870)
:shifty:
Book was better than the movie.
Nazi hunter in one movie, Angel of Death in another. That's acting range baby.
Quote from: Malthus on October 01, 2009, 05:13:15 PM
Quote from: Caliga on October 01, 2009, 12:47:19 PM
The guy was born 120 years ago. He's dead and obviously did nothing of note post-1945 even if he did escape.
... that you know about. [cue ominous music]
OMG NO! http://settlers.ytmnd.com/ (http://settlers.ytmnd.com/)
http://nazipaperclip.ytmnd.com/ (http://nazipaperclip.ytmnd.com/)
Quote from: Caliga on October 01, 2009, 12:47:19 PM
Quote from: alfred russel on October 01, 2009, 12:34:39 PM
The "Hitler Escaped" theories were more fun in the old days when he might still be alive.
Good point.
Back then it was "Hitler escaped... and may be planning a coup in Argentina!"
Now: "Hitler escaped... maybe he died in Argentina!"
As to the latter... who really cares?
The guy was born 120 years ago. He's dead and obviously did nothing of note post-1945 even if he did escape.
He was killed in 1958 by the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense. :contract:
Did you guys NOT watch Inglorious Basterds are what? Died in 1944.
The craziest, funniest conspiracy theory concerning Hitler I have heard is, Von Stauffenberg really got him on 20th July 1944. From then on, "Hitler" was supposedly a role played by a lookalike!