Avenging an Allied Hoax: Hitler Part 3

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?

In 1943, the body of a Royal Marines captain was washed ashore on the coast of Spain. His case contained the Allied invasion plans for Europe. The Germans believed what they found. But little did they know that the body had been packed in dry ice and dropped from a submarine as part of one of the most elaborate hoaxes of the war.

This war hoax became the subject of a recent BBC documentary called "The Corpse that Fooled the Axis." Based on the discovery of the captain's body, the Germans erroneously concluded that the Allies planned to attack Greece, rather than Sicily. It marked a major turning point in the war and signaled the final downfall of Nazi power and control over Fortress Europe. Since the Allied forces used a dead body to dupe and defeat Germany, it may have been a tit for tat retaliation, to repay in kind, for Nazi agents to do just the same thing with Hitler's corpse.



Reich leaders may have avenged the Allied hoax by packing Adolf Hitler's dead body and transporting it from their hidden mountain Redoubt fortress to his Berlin bunker garden, where it was incompletely destroyed by fire. When the Russians finally pieced together the clues and discovered his actual remains, it appeared to the Allies that Hitler had been in his Berlin bunker all along, and probably died there. But it was really a double who died in Berlin. Fooled by an Axis corpse? In this way, the existence of the Nazi National Redoubt was never publicly acknowledged, and its location was never revealed. Hitler's most important and most dangerous doppelganger was able to escape punishment, leaving behind him the bodies of Gustav and Adolf.

The Final Switch-Over

A few days before Hitler's alleged 1945 suicide, some bunker guests began to suspect that he was an impostor. According to reports, "all his movements were those of a senile man" who appeared to be about 70 years old, somewhat older than his actual age. As if to celebrate imposture, during the last days of the war, Germany launched "Operation Greif" (Skorzeny's Panzer Brigade 150) with its men outfitted in American uniforms and driving captured American tanks, trucks and jeeps. Thus, thousands of US soldiers as far away as Paris had to be stopped by Allied military police and asked to prove their nationality by telling who won the baseball World Series. Even Himmler was later caught trying to pass through British and American lines between Hamburg and Bremerhaven with his mustache shaved, wearing a black patch over his left eye.

Modern historians maintain that the Americans would probably have reached Berlin before the Russians if Eisenhower had not tried to find Hitler's Alpine mountain retreat. The Nazi National Redoubt was assumed to have been somewhere near Hitler's "Eagle's Nest" mountain villa, the Berghof in Berchtesgaden. It was rumored to have been stocked with Nazi jets, rockets, and possibly nuclear weapons. Eisenhower's chief of staff, General Bedell Smith, warned "of a prolonged campaign in the Alpine area." But a Nazi Redoubt fortress was never found in the Alpine mountains.

To the Allies, Hitler's final war actions seemed absurd and contradictory. While Berlin was being attacked by Russian troops from the north, Hitler ordered an all-out counterattack in the southern suburbs of Berlin, led by S.S. General Felix Steiner. Perhaps the actual reason for that Nazi build-up was to form a column for the "final switch-over" to be carried out. The authentic Hitler corpse and its death scene photo would secretly be moved into the Berlin Chancellery bunker, from the hidden Nazi southern Redoubt. The death scene setting would then be carefully reconstructed on the Berlin bunker floor, with a murdered doppelganger, while the real Adolf Hitler's last remains would be burned outside in the garden. If such a final switch-over mission occurred it might answer a critical question of the last days of the war: General Steiner did indeed assemble a massive German arrangement of troops south of Berlin. But he never launched a counterattack. What were the German troops really there for?

"The withdrawal of troops from the north of Berlin to support Steiner had so weakened the front there that the Russians had broken through and their tanks were now within the city limits."

There can be little doubt that Steiner's military column in the southern suburbs of Berlin was privately linked to Obergruppenfuehrer Gottlob Berger, who was head of Himmler's Prisoner-of-War Administration. Captured official Nazi documents clearly stated that "important prisoners were being moved."

Eva Braun arrived in Berlin to join Hitler on April 15. The last visitors to the Chancellery bunker were Hanna Reitsch, a crack woman test pilot, and General Ritter von Greim. Those high ranking visits would have provided the best cover for the final body switch-over, perhaps flown in and regulated by "an unidentified S.S. orderly." We also know that Hitler's double or doppelganger was in the Berlin bunker at that time. On April 30, for example, at about 2:30 in the morning, it was probably a doppelganger who emerged from Hitler's private quarters and appeared in the general dining passage where some 20 persons were assembled. He walked speechlessly down the line shaking their hands with tears in his eyes. Then, an uncanny "party" began in the canteen which went on through the night. Hitler's so-called suicide finally took place at about 3:15 in the afternoon. Shortly after 3:30 Heinz Linge and an unidentified S.S. orderly carried out a male body to the Chancellery garden, wrapped in a blanket.

Martin Bormann immediately sent messages to Hitler's successor, Admiral Doenitz, notifying him that he was now the new leader of Germany. Yet Bormann did not even once mention to Doenitz that the Fuhrer was dead. Was he? Meanwhile, the Goebbels family, also temporarily living in the Berlin bunker, decided to poison their six children. An unidentified S.S. orderly then supposedly killed Goebbels and his wife with two shots in the garden, at their request. The rest of the guests made efforts to escape along the subway. In a ghastly display of villainous irony to avoid punishment, an "important prisoner" was moved for the last time and finally put to rest; deserted by everyone, betrayed by all. "Nothing remains. Every wrong has already been done me."

Two "Hitler corpses" were actually discovered at the Berlin bunker, although only one gunshot sound was ever reported by the bunker witnesses. One of the men was shot in another setting and his body was then moved into the Berlin bunker. How far was he moved? A few streets or almost 2,000 kilometers? Which corpse belonged to the "real" Hitler could not be established by the Allies until after a long-running forensic investigation.

They should have kicked it.


The bloodstained mattress (above right) was discovered in 1980, in a hidden underground World War II bunker. On a map of the world, this bunker is located in a Greek rock called Lycabettus almost 2,000 kilometers below Berlin, or south of Germany. The mathematical likelihood that similarities between mattress folds, blood spots, and markings on the floor are due to random coincidences, is astronomical. In other words, it is more probable that a comet will fall into your tea cup, than for the bunker resemblances to be the results of sheer chance. A body was not found in the Lycabettus bunker, but the evidence of torture was obvious.
They should have kicked that mattress across the floor.




Visible portion of mattress in the
official photo (above) corresponds
to destroyed part of mattress in
the Lycabettus bunker (middle).
Compare to sofa (bottom) where
Hitler allegedly shot himself.

But why dirty their boots?



With radioactive oxide.

The chair with a hole in it (above) was found near the mattress in a corner of the Lycabettus bunker, next to a pile of burnt newspaper shreds from the early 1940s featuring articles about the Nazis. A small ball of clay or soil, pressed around the foot of the chair, bewildered the investigators. It was later concluded that "feet of clay" were used to psychologically torture a hostage tied to the chair, who was probably ordered not to move, but to remain perfectly still and motionless at all times. Any movement of the chair would cause the clay lump to crumble and break into smaller fragments. The guards could then measure even the slightest movements that had occurred while they were not in the bunker, and punish the hostage accordingly. A hole in the seat of the chair may have been due to an act of extreme violence or a malicious experiment. The male body discovered in the Berlin Chancellery garden had only one testicle, according to the Russian autopsy report.



In 1980 I briefly rented a basement apartment in Athens, Greece (Lycabettus - Kolonaki district). One day while cleaning, I discovered a framed canvas that covered a metal door in one of the walls. It looked like a submarine door with an air lock. I called some friends over to help me open it. We had to remove parts of the wooden floor-boards. The bunker walls were a few feet thick. When we opened the door, we found the evidence of a Nazi torture chamber, which I immediately photographed.



The chair with a hole in it was found near the bloody mattress in a corner of the Lycabettus bunker next to a pile of burnt newspaper shreds from the early 1940s featuring articles about the Nazis.

A small ball of clay or soil, pressed around the foot of the chair, bewildered us. We later concluded that "feet of clay" were used to psychologically torture a hostage tied to the chair, who was probably ordered not to move, but to remain perfectly still and motionless at all times. Any movement of the chair would cause the clay lump to crumble and break into smaller fragments. The guards could then measure even the slightest movements that had occurred while they were not in the bunker, and punish the hostage accordingly. A hole in the seat of the chair may have been due to an act of extreme violence or a malicious experiment. I sent the photos to the local police department, but they arrived too late. When the authorities finally got there about a month later, I had been evicted and the evidence had already been removed.

It haunted me for some time. The big question was: who was the Lycabettus hostage or victim of this torture chamber? I visited libraries and bookstores looking for war photos that might resemble the Kolonaki bunker. Then in 1997, I found an official war picture that matched up perfectly.





The mathematical likelihood that similarities between mattress folds, blood spots, and markings on the floor are due to random coincidences is astronomical. In other words, it is more probable that a comet will fall into your tea cup than for the bunker resemblances to be the results of sheer chance.

Please note that I am not out to "prove" anything with this description. I mainly wish to publish a report of what was found in the Lycabettus bunker so that legal investigators can establish what may have happened there. The only problem is this: The dead person in the official photo appears to be Adolf Hitler's double. The alleged body of the Nazi Fuehrer discovered in the Berlin Chancellery garden had only one testicle according to the Russian autopsy report.

What was a "ghost detainee" doing in the Kolonaki bunker? Was this a case of identity theft or extraordinary rendition? How long was the victim being held as a tortured hostage? How were the Nazis using the Kolonaki - Lycabettus district of Athens during World War Two? A war crime appears to have been committed in the Lycabettus bunker. But why are the authorities today not willing to discover who the victim actually was?

Was the same person in both photos? Hitler Part 2

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?