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

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On April 30, 1945, Hitler committed suicide in his bunker as the Red Army closed in on Berlin. Within four days the Soviets had recovered his body. But the truth about what the Russian secret services found was hidden from history, when, three months later, Stalin officially declared to Truman and Churchill that Hitler was still alive and had escaped abroad. Reckless rumors about what really happened to Hitler began to spread like wildfire and, even today, they have not been put to rest. Until now.
In 2017, after two years of painstaking negotiations with the Russian authorities, award-winning investigative journalists Jean-Christophe Brisard and Lana Parshina gained access to confidential Soviet files that finally revealed the truth behind the incredible hunt for Hitler’s body.
Their investigation includes new eyewitness accounts of Hitler’s final days, exclusive photographic evidence and interrogation records, and exhaustive research into the power struggle that ensued between Soviet, British, and American intelligence services. And for the first time since the end of World War II, official, cutting-edge forensic tests have been completed on the human remains recovered from the bunker graves--a piece of skull with traces of a lethal bullet, a fragment of bone, and teeth.
In The Death of Hitler—written as thrillingly as any spy novel—Brisard and Parshina debunk all previous conspiracy theories about the death of the Führer. With breathtaking precision and immediacy they penetrate one of the most powerful and controversial secret services to take readers inside Hitler’s bunker in its last hours—and solve the most notorious cold case in history. About the Authors

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EPILOGUE

Paris, London, Moscow, New York, Beijing… May 2018

“A scientific study is debunking conspiracy theories about Hitler escaping to South America.” “A new study of Hitler’s teeth confirms that he did indeed die in 1945.”

In English, French, Chinese, German, Vietnamese–the information was relayed by the press all over the world. Thanks to a famous internet search engine, I am able to consult the headlines on my computer screen. They confirm, if confirmation is needed, that Hitler remains an inescapable historical figure. And that in a way the question of his death and the precise conditions under which it occurred still excites the public.

More than two years have passed since my first visit to Moscow, in the rather inhospitable offices of GARF. Two years after my meeting with the archivists Dina Nikolaevna Nokhotovich and Nikolai Vladimirsev. I am thinking about them. We assured them that we wouldn’t make the same mistake as Nick Bellantoni with his team of American journalists, namely asserting scientific facts without validating them in a renowned scientific publication. We didn’t want to lay ourselves open to criticism and create suspicion and doubts about our work. Rumours about Hitler’s survival after the fall of Berlin in early May 1945 would only have been reinvigorated. Philippe Charlier was aware of the obligation to publish his results, which were oh so vital to Lana and me. The French pathologist never doubted. That’s what he kept telling us throughout our investigation. In fact, to be frank, Philippe Charlier did doubt. Just as we did. In silence.

Particularly when the officials at GARF, our dear Dina and Nikolai, denied him the right to analyse the fragment of skull. On the other hand, after the examination of the teeth and particularly the agreement by the Russian authorities to exploit those small pieces of tartar with a scanning electron microscope, hope was reborn. The scientific conclusions of the investigation were drawn up by Philippe Charlier and us, working together with extreme caution, reread several times and then submitted to an international scientific journal, the European Journal of Internal Medicine (EJIM). This journal practices what is called “peer review,” meaning that the work put forward by researchers has been checked and validated (or not) by other researchers. The EJIM is the official journal of the European Federation of Internal Medicine (EFIM), but also of the associations of several European countries such as Iceland, Norway, and Sweden.

On 18 May 2018, Philippe Charlier sent me a cryptic text: “It’s coming out today!” So the article had been validated, and the results of the investigation–our investigation–were recognised by the international scientific community. As we expected, its impact would soon go beyond the strict contours of the scientific world. The website of Le Monde , the famous French daily newspaper, almost immediately picked up the information and set out Dr Charlier’s analysis point by point. It underlined the main pillars of our work, particularly the absence of gunpowder in the tartar (which rules out the theory of suicide by bullet in the mouth), but even more so the authentication of the teeth. And Le Monde ’s headline left no room for doubt: “Some teeth preserved in Moscow are indeed those of Adolf Hitler, who died in 1945.” Over the days that followed, the world’s press relayed the news. All the way to Russia, of course. To the FSB and the Kremlin. Lana knew, and called me to tell me. “They’ve read it, they’ve seen it…” she begins nervously on the telephone. I try to ask her who she’s talking about, but I know her too well to hope to stop her halting flow of words. She isn’t listening to me. Too excited, she goes on, her voice a few tones too high: “Alexander, Denis, Dmitri, they’ve all seen…” And Dina Nokhotovich? Does Dina, the keeper of the skull, the faithful archivist of GARF regret preventing the analysis of that key piece of bone from the Hitler mystery? “Ah, Dina…!” Lana sighs. “She’s not at GARF any more!” Dina, not at GARF?! My imagination goes into overdrive. Has she been fired? Exiled somewhere beyond the Arctic Circle, to Siberia, synonymous with the supreme punishment for opponents of the regime? Lana is amused by my fears. “No, she retired.” After forty-three years of good and loyal service, Dina decided to leave that bit of skull and those hundreds of historical documents devoted to Hitler’s death to a new generation of archivists. All through her life she has protected those shades of history from prying eyes. The world was not to know, her superiors told her. But that was another time, the time of the Soviet Union in the 1970s. Today I think of her and of all those Soviet officials (whether they were members of the secret services or the state archives) who, without always knowing why, helped to create the legend of Hitler’s survival. All because Stalin wanted to keep the death of the German dictator secret. I think of them.

PHOTO ADDENDUM

Photo 1 The two main pieces from the Hitler file kept at GARF State Archives - фото 33
Photo 1: The two main pieces from the Hitler file kept at GARF (State Archives of the Russian Federation) in Moscow. According to the Russians, on the left are parts of the sofa on which Hitler committed suicide and on the right, in a computer diskette box, is a piece of Hitler’s skull.
Photo 2 A closeup of the fragment of the top of the cranium stored at GARF in - фото 34
Photo 2: A close-up of the fragment of the top of the cranium stored at GARF in Moscow. It is said to have been discovered outside the emergency exit of the Führerbunker in Berlin in May 1946 during the Soviet counter-inquiry into Hitler’s death. The impact of the bullet as well as signs of cremation and traces of earth are perfectly visible.
Photo 3 These photographs were taken by the Soviet investigators in May 1946 - фото 35
Photo 3: These photographs were taken by the Soviet investigators in May 1946 in the Führerbunker in Berlin. It is said to be the sofa on which Hitler committed suicide. On the right side of the headrests are dark trickles—could this be the dictator’s blood?
Photo 4 Detail of the pieces of the sofa kept at GARF in Moscow The traces of - фото 36
Photo 4: Detail of the pieces of the sofa kept at GARF in Moscow. The traces of dark trickles (just beside the piece of fabric) remain visible seventy years later.
Photo 5 Pieces of Hitlers jaw stored at the archives of the Russian secrets - фото 37
Photo 5: Pieces of Hitler’s jaw stored at the archives of the Russian secrets services (TsA FSB). The Soviet investigators were said to have removed them from the corpse discovered on 4 May 1945 in the gardens of the Reich Chancellery in Berlin.
Photo 6 Detail of part of Hitlers teeth The traces of carbonisation on the - фото 38
Photo 6: Detail of part of Hitler’s teeth. The traces of carbonisation on the remains of the jaw prove that cremation was intense, but not prolonged enough to damage either teeth or prostheses.
Photo 7 Blue stains that appear on one side of the jaw in white circle are a - фото 39
Photo 7: Blue stains that appear on one side of the jaw (in white circle) are a surprisingly bright blue and raised the question if it was possibly a trace left by cyanide.
Photo 8 At the end of his life Hitler only had four good teeth with no - фото 40
Photo 8: At the end of his life, Hitler only had four good teeth with no prostheses. In order to save one of those he asked his dentist to make this prosthesis in the shape of a gutter. Its unique and recognisable shape made it easier to identify these as his teeth.
Photo 9 An xray taken of Hitlers face in Autumn 1944 stored in the US - фото 41
Photo 9: An x-ray taken of Hitler’s face in Autumn 1944 (stored in the U.S. National Archives in College Park, Maryland, No. 27500765). The metallic prostheses of the teeth appear in the form of white patches, particularly the one with the gutter, bottom left.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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