Jean-Christophe Brisard - The Death of Hitler - The Final Word

The exhibition was an international success. The Western media flocked to see it. The Russian authorities had won their bet. Or almost. Doubts concerning the authenticity of the skull arose very quickly. The organisers were embarrassed by the questions of the press. These included the director of the State Archives, the famous Sergei Mironenko–the same Mironenko whose shadow we have spotted in the long corridors of GARF. In 2000, he wasn’t yet hugging the walls, and still held his head high. He reigned over the Russian archives like a tsar. Journalists and historians wooed him with glasses of increasingly strong vodka in a bid to get into his good graces. And more importantly, to get closer to that bit of skull exhumed from the secret store-rooms. In the full glare of publicity, Western doubts put proud Mironenko in a delicate situation. How could he assert that this human fragment was really a part of Hitler? The director of the archives heard these remarks constantly. While he replied that there was no doubt about its authenticity, he felt that it wasn’t enough. Even Alexei Litvin, one of the curators of the exhibition in 2000, had to acknowledge: “It’s true that we haven’t subjected it to a DNA analysis, but all statements conclude that this is Hitler.” [2] Libération , 2 May 2000, Hélène Despic-Popovic. Statements? Not indisputable scientific analyses? It was at that moment that Mironenko became aware of the risk of losing control of the situation and seeing a revival of the controversy over Hitler’s death.

Rather than taking a step back, he went into action and dared to go a step further. A new forensic analysis? Carried out by foreign scientists? No problem! The director of the archives was quite proud of himself. Except that he couldn’t close the Pandora’s box that he had just opened.

Of course the Russian authorities wouldn’t grant authorisation for those analyses. However, Mironenko’s offer got people’s hopes up and, with or without authorisation, became one of the last mysteries of the Second World War.

Larisa Rogovaya had been Mironenko’s deputy. Today, the new director of GARF is using the same methods as her illustrious predecessor. Never confronting journalists head on. Around the big rectangular table there are four of us, standing up, looking at the skull. Lana, the two archivists Dina and Nikolai, and me, my eyes fixed on this brownish bone. Apart from Larisa, who is still sitting in her black leather armchair. She seems to be amused at the sight of us, impressed and keen to take things further. She expected that we would want to subject it to forensic analysis. Like Mironenko sixteen years earlier, she too confirms that analyses of the skull are entirely feasible. She even adds that she has dreamed of such analyses. “It would be a lovely opportunity for us,” she claims, giving us her first smile since we arrived. “Yes, that would be perfect. We will support you in this project, you can count on us.” Dina and Nikolai cry in chorus. “That would give us a chance to establish the truth. And to put an end to this disastrous controversy. The one sparked a few years ago by that so-called American researcher.”

Larisa grimaces suddenly as she struggles to conceal her profound revulsion. Her two colleagues freeze as if someone has poured a bucket of icy water over their heads. They try very hard to put on a bold front. Why this unease? Is the director of GARF alluding to the work carried out by a team of American investigators in 2009? The case caused a considerable stir at the time. Nick Bellantoni, an archaeology professor at Connecticut University, claimed to have taken a sample of the skull. That bone sample had then been analysed in his university’s genetics laboratory. And the result was broadcast in a television documentary on the History Channel. “The bone seemed to be very thin,” the American archaeologist says. “Male bone tends to be more robust, and the sutures where the skull plates come together seem to correspond to someone under forty.” Bellantoni was undermining the story put forward by the Russian authorities. Basing his analysis on a DNA test, he also claimed that the skull preserved in Moscow was that of a woman. Nothing to do with Hitler. Doubts resurfaced. The theories of the Führer’s plot and escape gained currency with the American revelations.

Bellantoni’s scoop was immediately repeated in the world’s press. The information was summed up as follows: for years, the Russians have been lying! For Moscow, the insult was both painful and humiliating. Even today it’s a bitter pill to swallow. All the more so in that the director of GARF claims never to have seen that American archaeologist within her walls. Or have authorised the taking of a sample.

Dina picks up the visitors’ log that Lana has filled in. There are several names in the columns above our own. Only a very few visitors have had the privilege of seeing the skull. No more than ten in over twenty years. “All the teams of journalists and researchers who have seen this skull have signed this document. Look, that American’s name doesn’t appear there. He never came here.” Curiously, his visit to GARF has never been recorded in the registers. Unlike our visit. Nick Bellantoni doesn’t deny this administrative oddity. When we asked him the question by email, he replied simply that “all procedures for my work in the Russian archives were managed by the producers of the History Channel. So it is no surprise that my name does not appear on this list. It must have been recorded under the name of the History Channel or the producers.” An argument refuted by the director of the Archives. To be clear, she wrote us an official letter: “I wish to inform you that GARF did not sign any agreements with any television channel, Mr. Bellantoni or anyone else to carry out a DNA examination based on the fragment of Hitler’s skull.”

Might the American archaeologist have acted without permission? The Russian media were categorical. The case became a national scandal. The scholar from Connecticut found himself at the heart of an almost ideological controversy: West vs East, the capitalist bloc against the former Communist bloc. On the Russian national television channel NTV (close to Russian power), in 2010, a whole programme was devoted to Bellantoni’s “scoop.” In the presence of Russian Second World War historians and other popular personalities old enough to remember the war, the American tried to reassure everyone. Above all, he was keen not to come across as a looter of archives. First, he assured everyone that his work had been completely legal. “We received official authorisation from the Russian Archives, with whom we signed a contract to carry out our work.” A claim refuted by GARF, as we have already seen.

But let us return to the thread of the interview with Nick Bellantoni on NTV. The presenter quizzes him about the analyses that he has carried out on the skull:

Bellantoni: “No. We didn’t do that! […] You know, there are a lot of difficulties involved in working on burnt remains. For geneticists, exploring this subject is a real nightmare. It’s extremely difficult to extract markers from this matter that capture the sex of the subject. But we can conclude that the skull in your collection belonged to a woman. Perhaps it was Eva Braun, but we can’t be sure.”

On the stage of the programme, among the guests, an elderly lady comes forward. Her name is Rimma Markova. This actress, famous for acting in Soviet films, embodies the nostalgia for the Stalinist regimes. Even though she is eighty-five, she is still furious: “How did he manage to take those samples? He is telling the world that he’s a thief! He needs to go to prison for what he did.”

Bellantoni: “I’m just a scientist who was invited to examine this skull.”