'' complex, where Hitler spent his last days in Berlin, before demolition in 1947 The first detailed investigation by Western powers began in November 1945 after
Dick White, then head of counter-intelligence in the British sector of Berlin, had their agent
Hugh Trevor-Roper investigate the matter to counter the Soviet claims. Trevor-Roper concluded that Hitler and Braun died by suicide in Berlin, expanding his report into a book in 1947. In April 1947, 45% of Americans polled thought Hitler was still alive. In 1946, an American miner and
Baptist preacher named William Henry Johnson began sending out a series of letters under the
pen name "Furrier No. 1", claiming to be the living Hitler and to have escaped with Braun to
Kentucky. He alleged that tunnels were being dug to
Washington, D.C., and that he would engage armies,
nuclear bombs and invisible spaceships to take over the universe. Johnson was able to raise up to $15,000 (over $240,000 in 2025 currency), promising lofty incentives to his supporters, before being arrested on charges of
mail fraud in mid-1956. In the introduction to the 1947 American book
Who Killed Hitler?, US intelligence officer
William F. Heimlich asserts that a one-day investigation of the
Führerbunker grounds produced no evidence of Hitler's death. The book itself asserts that
Heinrich Himmler introduced a double to the bunker in hopes of keeping Hitler alive. Himmler then purportedly conspired with Hitler's physician to kill the dictator via poison, with Hitler's adjutant
Otto Günsche apparently delivering a
coup de grace-style gunshot to a corpse at the time of the recorded suicide. The book suggests that, barring further revelations, Hitler's death remained "a mystery without an ending", but argues that the myth of his survival was Soviet propaganda to motivate "Communist totalitarian" forces against "the continuing menace of Fascism". According to historian Luke Daly-Groves, declassified American intelligence files show that certain information from the investigations of Hitler's death was kept from Heimlich "because higher-ranking American intelligence officers were aware that he was attempting to capitalise on sensational rumours". Daly-Groves contends that Heimlich's statements in the 1947 book proved these suspicions to be correct, and that his arguments show that he was not fully informed of the evidence. Historian
Richard J. Evans states that Heimlich resented "being side-lined in favour of Trevor-Roper's investigation [and was] ill informed" and that the story about Hitler being murdered on Himmler's orders "has never been taken seriously by historians". In March 1948, newspapers around the world reported the account of former German lieutenant Arthur F. Mackensen, who claimed that on 5 May 1945 (during the
Soviet bombardment of Berlin), he, Hitler, Braun and
Martin Bormann had escaped the
Führerbunker in tanks. The group allegedly flew from
Tempelhof Airport to
Tønder, Denmark, where Hitler gave a speech and took a flight with Braun to the coast. In a May 1948 issue of the Italian magazine
Tempo, author
Emil Ludwig wrote that a double could have been cremated in Hitler's place, allowing him to flee by submarine to Argentina. Presiding judge at the
Einsatzgruppen trial at Nuremberg
Michael Musmanno wrote in his 1950 book that such theories were "about as rational as to say that Hitler was carried away by angels," citing a lack of evidence, the confirmation of Hitler's dental remains, and the fact that Ludwig had expressly ignored the presence of witnesses in the bunker. In his refutation of Mackensen's account, Musmanno cites a subsequent story of Mackensen's, in which the lieutenant allegedly flew on 9 May to
Málaga, Spain, when he was attacked by 30
Lightning fighters over
Marseille (despite the
war having ended in Europe), purportedly killing all 33 passengers except himself. From 1951 to 1972, the
National Police Gazette, an American
tabloid-style magazine, ran a series of stories asserting Hitler's survival. Unproven allegations include that Hitler conceived children with Braun around the late 1930s, that he was actually in prime
physical health at the end of World War II, and that he fled to
Antarctica or
South America. Writing for the
Gazette, Heimlich claimed that the blood found on Hitler's sofa did not match his
blood type. As Richard Evans points out, tabloid magazines such as the
Gazette have made a "career" out of sensational stories of Hitler's survival since the war ended.
Reports to U.S. intelligence agencies FBI documents declassified by the 1998
Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, which began to be released online by the early 2010s, contain a number of alleged sightings of Hitler in Europe, South America, and the U.S., some of which assert that he changed his appearance e.g. via
plastic surgery. Richard J. Evans notes that the FBI was obliged to document such claims no matter how "erroneous or deranged" they were, while American historian Donald McKale states that their files did not produce any credible indication of Hitler's survival.
Alleged Soviet autopsy In 1968, Soviet journalist Lev Bezymenski released his book
The Death of Adolf Hitler. It includes a purported Soviet autopsy report which concludes that Hitler died by
cyanide poisoning, despite no dissection of internal organs being recorded to confirm this and eyewitness accounts to the contrary. Bezymenski claims that the autopsy reports were not released earlier to discourage anyone from trying to assume the identity of "the Führer saved by a miracle". He further asserts that any gunshot would have been fired as a coup de grâce, most likely by Günsche. He later admitted that he was acting as "a typical
party propagandist" and intended "to lead the reader to the conclusion that [a gunshot] was a pipe dream or half an invention and that Hitler actually poisoned himself".
Grey Wolf near the current settlement of
Villa La Angostura. According to the fringe theory, Hitler would have lived some years here after 1945. The 2011 book
Grey Wolf: The Escape of Adolf Hitler by British authors Simon Dunstan and Gerrard Williams, and the 2014 docudrama film by Williams based on it, suggest that a number of took certain Nazis and
Nazi loot to Argentina, where the Nazis were supported by future president
Juan Perón, who, with his wife
Evita, had been receiving money from the Nazis for some time. As reported claims received by the FBI stated, Hitler allegedly arrived in Argentina, first staying at Hacienda San Ramón (east of
San Carlos de Bariloche), This theory of Hitler's flight to Argentina has been dismissed by historians, including
Guy Walters. He has described Dunstan and Williams' theory as "rubbish", adding: "There's no substance to it at all. It appeals to the deluded fantasies of conspiracy theorists and has no place whatsoever in historical research." Walters contended that "it is simply impossible to believe that so many people could keep such a grand scale deception so quiet," and says that no serious historian would give the story any credibility. Historian Richard Evans has many misgivings about the book and subsequent film. For example, he notes that the story about Ursula or 'Uschi' is merely "second-hand hearsay evidence without identification or corroboration". Evans also notes that Dunstan and Williams made extensive use of the unreliable book
Hitler murió en la Argentina (1987) by Manuel Monasterio, who later admitted including made-up "strange ramblings" and speculation. McKale notes that
Grey Wolf repeats many claims made over the preceding decades which are implied by remote association, stating that one has no factual or otherwise reliable proof, one resorts to associating... with something else or to using hearsay and other dubious evidence, including unnamed or unidentified sources."
Hunting Hitler On the
History Channel series
Hunting Hitler (2015–2018), investigators (including Gerrard Williams) cite declassified documents and interview witnesses which allegedly indicate that Hitler escaped from Germany and travelled to South America by . He and other Nazis then allegedly plotted a "
Fourth Reich". Such conspiracy theories of survival and escape have been widely dismissed. Contradictorily, in 2017 the series was praised by the tabloid-style
National Police Gazette, which historically was a supporter of the fringe theory, while calling on Russia to allow Hitler's jawbone remains to be DNA-tested. == Legacy ==