A blurred portrait is visible in the controversial photos of Adolf Hitler's "doppelganger suicide." In the picture above on the left, the out of focus portrait was placed directly onto the corpse. In the Russian movie footage frame on the right, the blurred portrait appears as a prop in the background. This change of position invites serious speculation that the body may also have been moved, switched, or meddled with between photos.
The out-of-focus portrait is probably a photograph of Eva Braun. It's size, contours, shadows, and range of luminance all bear marked similarities to a now-famous series of photos taken by Heinrich Hoffmann, who was Hitler's personal photographer and "corporate" image maker. Eva Braun was Hoffmann's model and darkroom assistant. Whoever included that portrait in the morbid bunker death scene may have done so to lend authenticity to Hitler's suicide deception. But instead of inspiring pity for the Fuhrer's parting gesture to the only woman who could have known him, it cast a spotlight directly on Heinrich Hoffmann's delight for photographic trickery and the likelihood of fraud. The ridiculous presence of a Hoffmann pinup exactly on Hitler's own dead body was almost an outright confession of photographic hocus-pocus, with some help from Eva Braun.
Imagine that you're a high-ranking public official for one of the world's most powerful governments.
The phone rings and suddenly a man who introduces himself as "the butler" calmly informs you that the head of your government is dead. But the courteous butler asks you to trust him on this, because there's nothing to prove his claim, other than disfigured parts of a charred corpse with one testicle, and some gasoline rags, rammed into the ground-soil of a garden with a clumsy wooden club.
Being a responsible civil servant, you quiver and wonder why it was necessary to shame your leader's body in such a macabre way. No funeral or burial rites? Diplomatic Corpus strictly forbids the morbid abuse of the deceased body of a head of state. Doing so would constitute a serious crime...
"I did it with the bodyguard," the butler's voice politely cuts you off, "to prevent the enemy from desecrating his body."
While the reason for destroying vital evidence may seem dubious, if not bogus, you must now make a critical choice: Either insist on more proof, including photographs, or simply trust the butler and affix your signature to a formal agreement for the transfer of world power.
For obvious reasons, this report assumes that at least one of the exhibited Hitler suicide photos was authentic. Other photos were of his dead look-alike.
The top photo is how Hitler's suicide picture was shown in most reports. Visible parts of his white shirt (below the blue arrow) suggest that his vest-front was fastened or buttoned on the left side of his uniform. But according to western military dress regulations, the side-fronts of vests, shirts, and coats should always be fasten with rows of buttons located on the right side of the male soldier's uniform.
The confusing vest evokes the idea that the picture may have been intentionally printed in reverse from left to right, to mirror the image and misrepresent details of locality. The correct dress orientation is in the bottom photo.
Printing negatives backwards is a trick used by portrait photographers to present desirable views because their subjects are accustomed to seeing themselves in mirrors. (See: photographer Hoffmann; assistant, Eva Braun.)
Although the Berlin bunker witnesses never mentioned it in their testimonies, there is a high probability that the successors of Nazism would have required an authentic image of Hitler's corpse before it was destroyed by fire. The photographic evidence would not have been intended for Allied investigators, but for remaining top-ranking Germans who would have certainly desired legitimate details of his death. Such admissible proof would need to serve two purposes: to convince Reich hardliners that Hitler was indeed dead, yet to also mislead the Allies in their inquiry, without failing lie detector tests. Therefore, at least one suicide picture may have been a genuine image of Hitler, not his double (or doppelganger). The photographic negatives, or exposed film in a camera, may have been intentionally left in the Berlin bunker for the Russians to discover. The photo would almost exactly match the movie film footage of Hitler's dead double, taken by the Red Army.
While we know that one of Hitler's doppelgangers died in the Berlin Chancellery bunker, the real Adolf Hitler may have died elsewhere, perhaps even in the German National Redoubt, which was never found by the Allies. If so, an elaborate suicide cover-up would have been required for an important reason: to hide the true whereabouts of the National Redoubt, which according to some observers, was the secret site of Nazi nuclear weapons research. To conceal its location, it would have been necessary to spread a new propaganda myth that there never was a hidden mountain Redoubt, no Nazi nuclear weapons site, and the Fuhrer directed the war from his Berlin bunker, where he finally committed suicide.
An authentic image of Adolf Hitler's corpse was perhaps needed to circulate throughout the world and inform escaped or imprisoned Nazi activists, while deceiving the Allied search. Here is where Hoffmann's photographic trickery came into play: the well-known portrait of Eva Braun was printed in reverse, as a mirror image from left to right, and placed on the body of the real Adolf Hitler laying dead on a floor, somewhere in the German National Redoubt. The corpse's death scene was then carefully photographed and also printed in reverse (duplicated on film). The portrait of Eva on Hitler's body would now appear normal again; with its left and right appearance restored to the correct, original view. Although there would be a slight increase in image contrast, no one would suspect tampering.
But the very small background details of the National Redoubt floor's surface would be seen the other way around, and not match properly with other Allied intelligence photos. An authentic photo of Hitler's death could thus be released for Nazis in custody and on trial to view and allude to as an absolute fact, without failing lie detector tests. But the details of the Redoubt killing floor would never be compromised or shown plainly to Allied investigators. To complete the cover-up, all that was left to do now was to reconstruct the very same scene, using one of Hitler's doubles on the Berlin bunker floor, for the Russians to discover. Of course, Eva Braun's famous portrait would also be placed conspicuously among the bunker debris, as the misleading "clincher." Soon enough, the burnt remains of the real Adolf Hitler would turn up in the Chancellery garden, nowhere near the hidden National Redoubt.
Was the same person in both photos?
One of the Hitler suicide photos displays greater contrast and sharper focus than the other pictures. It may have been taken by a still camera with well-defined exposure settings and better lens quality than the photos which were printed from blurred Russian movie footage. The bunker room lighting contrast is not identical in both pictures below. In the well-defined photo (left), the shadows are dark enough to block out all details under the chin. But the Russian film frame photo shows softer shadows, allowing us to see skin tones and fabric textures in the shaded regions. There is also a barely noticeable difference from the light source (of just a few degrees) in the angle of the shadow which falls from the nose to the mouth. In the Russian film frame photo (right), the angle of the shadow is very slightly displaced toward the center of the upper lip. If the Nazis did indeed produce a multiple fraud with near-microscopic precision, it would have probably been the most important, and expensive, cover-up in history. Remarkably, the characteristic mustache which Hitler was well-known for is not clearly discernible in either of the photos. Below are some other confusing points:
The missing mattress: In the well-defined photo (above), Hitler's corpse is laying with his head at the corner of a stained mattress. But in the Russian movie film frame (right), the mattress is not visible. Although the film frame was shot from a different camera angle than the other photo, the edge of the mattress should be visible above the body's shoulder or behind his coat lapel. A portrait (of Eva Braun?) on Hitler's body in the left photo was moved to the background in the right frame. Perhaps the body and other objects were also moved.
Was one scene a reconstructed copy of the other?
The open mouth: In the well-focused photo (left), Hitler's mouth is gaping wide enough to expose a tooth or part of his tongue. His upper lip appears to be cracked and smudged. But in the Russian film frame the mouth seems almost shut, with no visible smudge marks on the upper lip. When a camera lens is out of focus, details will appear blurred and lines will thicken as the light rays scatter from edges and contours. This can be seen in the apparently larger size of the forehead bullet wound in the blurred frame on the right. Yet, the outline of the mouth does not appear to be thicker or larger in that photo, but thinner and narrower than in the picture on the left.
The mutilated or cauliflower ear: The anatomical structure of the external ear changes from person to person. A doppelganger who may otherwise appear to be an exact look-alike of someone else will probably have noticeable differences in the elevated ring of cartilage on the external ear. The fleshy ear lobe may also display separate features. As a means of removing undesirable clues, the ear was apparently mutilated to avoid comparison. In both photos, the ear seems thickened and deformed, perhaps by repeated blows.
In the frame on the right, the corner of some light-colored, rectangular object(s) can be seen on the floor, just behind the back of Hitler's head. But the converging edges of this flat-sided object are not visible in the photo on the left.
The reality of no floor object(s) seen in one picture seems to indicate (together with the missing bloodstained mattress) that Hitler's body may have been moved between photos. But if so, it appears that the corpse was carefully lifted up and placed on the floor again with near exact precision. This probably would have required a team of photo-stylists to make sure each detail, including the folds on both sides of the coat-front and the hanging strands of hair, matched as much as possible in both pictures. Yet there is no reason why the Russian Army would have contrived such a deception. It is more likely that one of the two suicide photos was produced by a different camera, perhaps even in a different bunker or at an earlier time. How the Soviets may have taken possession of it remains a mystery. Various Reich military cameras were no doubt found on the Chancellery bunker shelves and in pieces of luggage.
While it may not be possible to determine if it's the same person in these photos, sufficient evidence seems to indicate that the body was moved between photos. How far had Hitler's body been moved, just a few feet - or almost two thousand kilometers?
If the man who died in the Berlin bunker was actually Gustav Weber, one of Hitler's doubles whose body was found and photographed by the Russian Army, then how did the real Adolf Hitler's corpse end up being burned in the Chancellery garden?
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