When was Adolf Hitler’s death, how did he die and what are the conspiracy theories about him fleeing to South America?
Hitler engulfed the world in a brutal war and was responsible for 11 million deaths in concentration camps
ADOLF Hitler engulfed the world in a brutal war and was responsible for 11 million deaths in concentration camps.
But how did he die, and what conspiracy theories surrounded his death? Here’s our lowdown on the twisted tyrant…
When was Adolf Hitler’s death?
Adolf Hitler died on April 30 1945 in his fortified Berlin bunker.
He was found dead alongside wife Eva Braun as Soviet Red Army closed in on the heart of the German capital.
The pair committed suicide together after eating cynanide capsules that had been tested on Hitler’s beloved dog Blondi.
German troops then reportedly burned the bodies to stop Allied troops showing off the remains.
How did Adolf Hitler die?
Adolf Hitler died after shooting himself in the head – shortly after taking a cyanide pill to be sure.
He committed suicide alongside Eva Braun, who he had married just 40 hours earlier.
He died 50 feet under the Chancellery in his Fuhrerbunker – despite SS officers begging him to flee to his holiday home in Berchtesgarden, Bavaria.
After years of beauracratic wrangling, a German court finally officially declared the tyrant dead in 1956.
What are the conspiracy theories about Adolf Hitler fleeing to South America?
US investigated whether Hitler was alive in South America as late as 1955.
The official files show a former SS soldier told spies he regularly met with the Nazi leader in Colombia.
It goes on to suggest that Hitler, who would have been aged 66, worked as a shipping company employee before fleeing to Argentina.
in Venezuela, included a picture the informant, Phillip Citroen, claims is him with the fuhrer in the mid-50s.
An extract reads: “CIMELODY-3’s [CIA informant] friend states that during the latter part of September 1955, a Phillip Citroen, former German SS trooper, stated to him confidentially that Adolph Hitler (sic) is still alive.
“Citroen claimed to have contacted Hitler about once a month in Colombia on his trip from Maracaibo to that country as an employee of the KNSM (Royal Dutch) shipping Co.”
Hitler shot himself and lover Eva Braun in their Berlin bunker in April 1945 – with Soviet troops just a few hundred yards away.
His body was later found by Soviet soldiers in a shell hole and is buried in an unmarked spot.
Germany surrendered to Allied forces a week later.
But rumours that Hitler survived and fled to South America continued to abound for decades.
They were fuelled by the discovery of Holocaust planner Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele – the doctor who carried out sick experiments on Auschwitz inmates – in Argentina and Brazil.
The former was captured by Israeli intelligence services and hanged for his crimes in 1961, but evil Mengele evaded capture and drowned while swimming off the Brazilian coast in 1979.
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The documents – released in November 2017 – show that American spooks were serious enough about Hitler’s survival that they filed evidence back to the US.
The file, written by Caracas bureau chief David Brixnor, was wired to Washington in 1955 alongside a picture allegedly showing Hitler with the CIA source Citroen.
Handwritten notes on the document claim a second confidential informant – given the codename CIMELODY-3 – was “fairly reliable”.
The document adds that the picture included “was taken with Hitler not too long ago”.
It added Citroen’s belief that the Allies would be unable to prosecute Hitler for war crimes because ten years had passed since the end of the war.
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