LONDON, April 11 (PTI): The FBI believed that Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler faked his suicide in 1945, and tried to track him down for nearly 30 years after his death, according to de-classified files. On 29 April 1945, Hitler and his lover Eva Braun killed themselves in the Berlin bunker. Now, 66 years on, the FBI files reveal that the United States agency had maintained a detailed dossier on the Fuhrer and closely investigated any report that indicated he still was alive.
The files reveal how FBI agents thought he was living in a ranch in Argentina, a hotel in Denmark and in New York City. He was bearded, clean-shaven, suffered from asthma and stomach ulcers, according to informants who wrote their sightings in to the then FBI director, J Edgar Hoover. The FBI office in Los Angeles noted on 21 Sept, 1945: "Hitler and 50 of his closest family landed approximately 10 days after the fall of Berlin in two submarines in southern Argentina. Hitler has grown a beard and is hiding on a ranch."
One theory Hoover ordered his agents to pursue was an extensive 11-year probe into the possibility that Hitler faked his own death with a bogus suicide in 1945. One sighting came from a doctor in 1954 who claimed to have treated Hitler for an intestinal disorder in St Louis. Others told tales of Hitler dining in a Washington restaurant in 1946, The Scotsman reported on Sunday.
Years later, the truth emerged from the files of SMERSH — Russia's elite intelligence service meaning "Death to Spies" — which proved from reports of Hitler aides in the bunker that he shot himself. His ashes and bones were buried and uprooted several times in then East Germany before being disinterred one last time from a military base near Magdeburg in 1970s and flung into a river.
The files reveal how FBI agents thought he was living in a ranch in Argentina, a hotel in Denmark and in New York City. He was bearded, clean-shaven, suffered from asthma and stomach ulcers, according to informants who wrote their sightings in to the then FBI director, J Edgar Hoover. The FBI office in Los Angeles noted on 21 Sept, 1945: "Hitler and 50 of his closest family landed approximately 10 days after the fall of Berlin in two submarines in southern Argentina. Hitler has grown a beard and is hiding on a ranch."
One theory Hoover ordered his agents to pursue was an extensive 11-year probe into the possibility that Hitler faked his own death with a bogus suicide in 1945. One sighting came from a doctor in 1954 who claimed to have treated Hitler for an intestinal disorder in St Louis. Others told tales of Hitler dining in a Washington restaurant in 1946, The Scotsman reported on Sunday.
Years later, the truth emerged from the files of SMERSH — Russia's elite intelligence service meaning "Death to Spies" — which proved from reports of Hitler aides in the bunker that he shot himself. His ashes and bones were buried and uprooted several times in then East Germany before being disinterred one last time from a military base near Magdeburg in 1970s and flung into a river.
