What Really Happened: The Death of Hitler

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After World War II, many Americans doubted that Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun had committed suicide in their bunker, believing instead that he faked his death and escaped, possibly to Argentina. This skepticism was echoed by Joseph Stalin, who claimed that Soviet forces never found Hitler's body. Reports indicated that German submarines reached Argentina, where a significant German colony existed, suggesting that top Nazi officials might have fled there. The mystery intensified in 2009 when a U.S. forensic team revealed that a piece of skull held in Soviet archives was not Hitler's. Interest surged in 2014 when the FBI declassified files on Hitler's possible escape, followed by a History Channel series exploring the same topic. Popular history writer Robert J. Hutchinson examines the evidence surrounding Hitler's last week in Berlin, addressing questions such as the reliability of surviving Nazi eyewitnesses, the absence of Hitler's body, and the use of body doubles. He also investigates why the FBI pursued reports of Hitler's survival for over a decade and the sensational claims in books suggesting he lived in the Andes until 1962. Forensic tests on crucial evidence were only conducted in 2016, raising further questions about what truly happened in those final days.