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FTR #914 This program was recorded in one, 60-minute segment.
FTR #915 This program was recorded in one, 60-minute segment.
Introduction: Both interviews with Gerrard Williams, the co-author of Grey Wolf: The Escape of Adolf Hitler, are covered by this description and the respective audio files are embedded here as well. The broadcasts highlight some of the relationships among powerful institutions and individuals that are fundamental to the analysis of the flight of “Der Fuehrer.”
The book is a detailed, scholarly working hypothesis by authors Simon Dunstan and Gerrard Williams concerning the possible escape of Adolf Hitler at the end of World War II. (Note that the authors began this investigation as an exploration of something they considered to be no more than a “conspiracy theory” and wound up being an in-depth analysis and investigation. They view the escape as a strong possibility.)
A previous program dealing with the book is FTR #791. The material in these programs overlaps that program and description.
The authors posit that the key players in the realization of Aktion Feurland–the code-name for the operation facilitating Hitler’s escape to Patagonia, Argentina (“Tierra del Fuego”)–were names well known to regular listeners and users of this website: Allen Dulles on the Allied side and Martin Bormann for the Third Reich. (The authors give great credence to Paul Manning’s work and reference it heavily.)
Centered on a quid pro quo arrangement, the authors hypothesize that Aktion Feurland involved the transfer of Nazi technology to the U.S. and the West (known as Project Paperclip) and the saving of priceless works of art from destruction. In return, Dulles et al guaranteed the safe passage of Hitler, Eva Braun, SS General Hermann Fegelein (Braun’s brother in law), General Heinrich Muller (head of the Gestapo) and Bormann himself.
The deal at the core of Aktion Feuerland is to be seen against the trans-national corporations that were central to the prosecution of the Axis war of aggression. “. . . . The cartels created in the aftermaths of World War I and the Great Depression were now more powerful than many governments, and these international corporations were so deeply intertwined that national identity became increasingly opaque. This would be a major factor in the later German execution, under the direction of Martin Bormann, of Aktion Feuerland–Project Land of Fire. . . .”
As an attorney for Sullivan & Cromwell, Allen Dulles was deeply involved with the treason by American corporations. In particular, the implementation of Operation Safehaven propelled Dulles toward Bormann. Safehaven was the U.S. Treasury Department’s unsuccessful attempt to interdict the Nazi flight capital program overseen by Bormann.
As chief of the Berne (Switzerland) station of the OSS (America’s World War II intelligence service), he was in a unique position. Targeted by U.S. and British intelligence and facing the possibility of indictment for violating the Trading with the Enemy Act, Dulles found common cause with Bormann and the Third Reich:
“. . . . However, this effort required the cooperation of OSS agents already on the ground, and in Switzerland this was problematical–since one of the suspects of Operation Safehaven was Allen Dulles himself, because of Operation Safehaven was Allen Dulles himself, because of his extensive corporate connections and his links with various Nazi groups. Despite this difficulty, the investigation necessarily focused on the gold dealings undertaken by Swiss banks. This became of major concern to Swiss ambassador Bruggmann once he learned of Operation Safehaven through his indiscreet brother-in-law, Vice President Henry Wallace. The exposure of the explicit links between Swiss banks and Nazi Germany would be a major potential embarrassment to the Swiss government once the war was over; accordingly, the Swiss Secret Service alerted Allen Dulles about the Safehaven investigation into his affairs. . . .
. . . . Dulles was also targeted by German intelligence, including an elite Luftwaffe code-breaking unit designated Luftfahrtforschungsamt (Luftwaffe radio intercept unit). When Abwehr agents learned of Operation Safehaven through their agent Habakuk, they set about frustrating its efforts, particularly in Switzerland, where it was potentially most dangerous to the ongoing German capital transfers. The Abwehr agents passed the word to Dulles that both the British and the Americans were intercepting his communications–as they themselves had been, but would now no longer be able to, thanks to their revealing their hand in this way. They, too, told Dulles that he was a subject of investigation by the Treasury Department through Operation Safehaven. He immediately changed his encryption methods to the more secure “one-time pad” system and from then on his message traffic remained secure. Transcribing the messages from the Vernam cipher is a laborious handwritten process, hence Dulles’s need for the cipher is a laborious handwritten process, hence Dulles’s need for the services of interned USAAF personnel for encryption.
Dulles also exposed Henry Wallace as the source of the revelation of both the Morgenthau Plan and Operation Safehaven to Ambassador Bruggman and ultimately to the Germans. President Roosevelt had no choice but to ditch Wallace and nominate the senator from Missouri, Harry S. Truman, as his candidate for vice president in the upcoming Presidential election. As a committed opponent of communism, Truman was far more acceptable to Dulles. . . .”
By staging a diversion in which a U‑boat wolf pack was allegedly going to bombard New York and the American East Coast with V‑1 rockets filled with Sarin nerve gas, American anti-submarine naval forces were drawn to the north, facilitating the escape of the Hitler party via a southern route.
The transfer of Hitler to Latin America was predicated on the establishment of an extensive German-friendly infrastructure in Argentina and elsewhere. In addition to German commercial interests in Argentina, there was a vibrant Nazi party in Argentina, which was ruled for much of the period in question, by Juan Domingo Peron, a fascist and Nazi sympathizer.
His wife, Eva “Evita” Peron, had been a Nazi spy prior to marrying Peron and became a key element of the Bormann capital network after the war. “. . . . Martin Bormann, as always, was entirely clear-sighted, and during that year he put in hand his plan to prepare and fund that refuge–Aktion Feurland. The Nazi sympathizers in Argentina enjoyed a virtually free rein, continuing to operate schools with Nazi symbols and ideology and meeting regularly (although by 1943, not as publicly as before), but the key conspirators were few–a group limited to people Bormann had reason to trust. These included a clique of powerful, venal bankers and industrialists such as Ludwig Freude; a charismatic ambitious army officer, Juan Domingo Peron; and a beautiful, intelligent acress, Eva Duarte. . . . . . . . Ludwig Freude’s and Eva Duarte’s involvement in the smuggling operation was made clear in an Argentine police document of April 18, 1945. This detailed the operations of Freude, “agent of the Third Reich,” and his dealings with an Argentine agent, “Natalio.” This informant reported that Freude had made very substantial deposits in various Buenos Aires banks in the name of the “well-known radio-theatrical actress Maria Eva Duarte.” Freude told Natalio that on February 7, 1945, a U‑boat had brought huge funds to help in the reconstruction of the Nazi empire. Subsequent police investigations revealed that cases from the U‑boat with the woreds Geheime Reichssache (“Reich Top Secret”) stenciled on them, had been taken to a Lahusen ranch run by two “Nazi brothers, just outside Buenos Aires.” Deposits of gold and various currencies were later made in Eva’s name at the Banco Aleman Transatlantico, Banco Germanico, and Banco Tornquist. . . .
In follow-up discussion in FTR #915, the carrots and sticks multiply: the inclusion of the Gehlen spy organization into Western intelligence was a different “carrot,” while the potential of the Werewolf guerilla organization was another potential “stick,” which–had it been activated beyond the limited scope that it was–could have been a major thorn in the Allies’ occupation forces.
One of the elements of discussion in FTR #915 concerns the re-institution of Nazi elements in Germany after the war, who remained under the direction of Martin Bormann and a Third Reich gone underground. The primary position of Hans Globke in the “new” German government, the role of the Vatican in establishing the Ratlines through which so many Nazis escaped and the Naumann coup of 1953 are reviewed and expanded.
In particular, FTR #915 highlights the role of the capital successfully secreted abroad by Bormann in the German economic “miracle” after the war.
Of paramount importance is the authors’ belief that the Nazis ran the Cold War, a thesis we have been advancing for some time. The Nazi and SS composition of the Gehlen organization is a major feature of this analysis.
In conclusion, there are a number of elements of circumstantial evidence pointing toward Hitler’s successful escape. Note that documents from the late 1940’s on Hitler and his possible escape and whereabouts at that time are STILL classified, the better part of a century after the end of World War II.
Stalin and General Zhukov (the Red Army’s top general) didn’t believe that Hitler was dead. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was deeply skeptical, as well.
Some of Gerrard Williams’s associates involved with the investigation have received death threats. WHY would anyone receive death threats for involvement in a frivolous dissemination of “conspiracy theory”? Note that an earlier post about the threats contained an error. Neither Simon Dunstan nor Gerrard Williams received the threats–associates of theirs in Germany and Latin America were the targets of the hostility.
Program Highlights Include:
- The roles of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris and General Wilhelm von Faupel in creating the German infrastructure in Latin America that proved so vital to Aktion Feuerland and the other operations of the Bormann network and the Underground Reich.
- In discussion of the Naumann coup attempt of 1953, Gerrard notes that Bormann did not feel that an above-ground, banner-waving “Fourth Reich” as envisioned by the conspirators was the most intelligent course of action. Bormann felt it best that the Reich remain “Underground” and behind the scenes, rather than flaunting its presence so soon after the end of hostilities. Bormann, himself, may well have betrayed the Naumann conspirators to the British.
- The order by Juan Peron to discontinue all coastal patrols off Argentina when Hitler’s arrival via submarine was anticipated.
- The brutal elimination of some of Peron’s associates, who had been attempting to extort the Bormann network for a larger “slice of the pie.” “. . . . However, the Borman “Organization” had a keen memory. After the spring of 1948, when Muller based himself in Cordoba and became directly responsible for the security of the Organization, the bankers who had betrayed Bormann would begin to suffer a string of untimely deaths. Heinrich Doerge died mysteriously in 1949; in December 1950, Ricardo von Leute was found dead in a Buenos Aires street, and Ricardo Staudt would survive him by only a few months. Ludwig Freude himself, the kingpin of Aktion Feurland in Argentina, died in 1952 from drinking a poisoned cup of coffee, and Evita’s younger brother Juan Duarte met his end in 1954 with a gunshot to the head. Officially, he was said to have committed suicide. . . . .”
- Discussion of the Eichhorns, who were central to Hitler’s activities in Patagonia after the war and had been supporting Hitler financially since the early 1920’s.
- Discussion of Che Guevara’s father, an anti-Nazi activist.
- The fact that Hitler’s name “Adolf” was from Old German for “noble wolf.”
- The Nazi sympathies of Eleanor Dulles, the sister of Allen and John Foster Dulles.
- Numerous accounts in the mainstream press of Hitler possibly having escaped to Latin America.
- The role of British intelligence officer Ian Fleming (later author of the James Bond novels) in securing both art works and advanced military technology involved in the deal underlying Aktion Feuerland.
- The role of designer clothing manufacturer Hugo Boss in making uniforms for the SS and other branches of the Nazi government.
- The role of Spain as a staging place for the U‑boat escape of Hitler.
- Operation Bernhard, the Nazi forging of pound notes and dollars and the role of the counterfeit currency in the postwar Nazi operations.
- Pressure from right-wing German sources on the authors to suppress their investigation.
- The faking of the “DNA test” supposedly confirming Bormann’s death at the end of the war: The DNA sample was taken from a then 86-year-old allegedly distant relative of Bormann’s, who his children (still alive at the time) had never heard of; the fact that the original 1972 “discovery” of Bormann’s remains was overseen by a veteran of the Nazi party; the fact that the “Bormann remains” were destroyed after the test, making it impossible to verify the results.
1a. In high German, “Adolf” is the word for “wolf.”
. . . The name Adolf derives from the Old High German for “noble wolf.” From early on, Adolf Hitler used the nom de guerre of Wolf. It was a title he used throughout his life. His first mistress, Mitzi Reiter, called him Wolf and it was as Herr Wolf that he was introduced to Eva Braun. To intimates such as the Wagner family, heirs of composer Richard Wagner, he was known as Uncle Wolf. As Hitler became more famous, he had the sur-name of his younger sister Paula changed to Wolf so that she could live quietly in Vienna while running an arts and crafts shop; she was buried as Paula Wolf at Berchtesgaden when she died in 1960. Hitler’s yache was called Seewolf (Sea Wolf) and his personal plane Fliegende Wolf (Flying Wolf). His field headquarters in East Prussia was the Wolfschanze (Wolf’s Lair): in the Ukraine it was Wehrwolf (Werewolf), while for the battle for France, it was the Wolfsschlucht (Wolf’s Gorge). Among the most potent of Hitler’s weapons during World War II were the wolf packs of U‑boats that preyed on Allied shipping. U‑boats themselves were known as grey wolves and it was in one of them from a wolf pack code-named Gruppe Seewolf that Hitler escaped to Argentina, where he spent his declining years as the proverbial Grey Wolf. . . .
1b. The authors posit that the key players in the realization of Aktion Feurland–the code-name for the operation facilitating Hitler’s escape to Patagonia, Argentina (“Tierra del Fuego”)–were names well known to regular listeners and users of this website: Allen Dulles on the Allied side and Martin Bormann for the Third Reich. (The authors give great credence to Paul Manning’s work and reference it heavily.)
. . . . To the end, Bormann was determined to save the looted wealth of Germany for his own nefarious ends and to sustain a select band of Nazis following military defeat and the fall of Berlin. Massive funds were channeled abroad, while large stashes of bullion and stolen artworks were hidden underground in deep mines across the Third Reich. These were primed with explosives for demolition, which Bormann considered preferable to allowing them to fall into the hands of the Bolshevik hordes. But to Bormann, the artworks were also a bargaining tool. It seems evident that Bormann offered the OSS a Faustian pact: the fruits of one thousand years of Western art, together with the secrets of Nazi Germany’s advanced military technology in exchange for the escape of one man–Adolf Hitler. The alternative was the total destruction of the jewels of Western civilization. This was the key to Aktion Feurland. The deal was done and on the night of April 28, 1945, the plan was put into place. The Grey Wolf was on the run. . . .
2. Centered on a quid pro quo arrangement, the authors hypothesize that Aktion Feurland involved the transfer of Nazi technology to the U.S. and the West (known as Project Paperclip) and the saving of priceless works of art from destruction. In return, Dulles et al guaranteed the safe passage of Hitler, Eva Braun, SS General Hermann Fegelein (Braun’s brother in law), General Heinrich Muller (head of the Gestapo) and Bormann himself.
. . . . In Bormann’s characteristic style–the carrot and the stick–Kaltenbrunner and [SS Lt. Col. Hans Helmut von] Hummel indicated to Dulles that Bormann was willing to provide the Allies, as an inducement or “carrot,” with information as to the whereabouts of all the Nazi looted art. It would be handed over intact, together with the national treasure of Germany, including its gold deposits, currency reserves, bearer bonds, and industrial patents–except, of course, for the substantial part of this treasure that Bormann had already secreted abroad. An additional and supremely attractive carrot was Bormann’s undertaking to deliver to the Allies examples of the most modern weapons technology together with the whereabouts of the designers, such as Werner von Braun and his V‑2 team, and the nuclear scientists [and uranium ore] of the Uranium Club. Furthermore, the ceasefire in Italy would be ratified immediately. But what was the desired price for such treasures? A blind eye turned to the escape of Adolf Hitler, Eva Braun, Martin Bormann, Heinrich “Gestapo” Muller, Hermann Fegelein, and Ernest Kaltenbrunner. The rest of the Nazi hierarchy was to be abandoned to their fate.
The “stick” was simple. Germany now claimed to be capable of bombarding the eastern seaboard of the United States with weapons of mass destruction: considerable effort had been invested in selling the disinformation to U.S. intelligence agencies, with some success. (See Chapter 16). These weapons incorporated warheads armed with the most toxic nerve agents ever devised, sarin and tabun. In addition, many repositories of the greatest works of art produced during centuries of Western civilization was now held hostage, and this threat was entirely credible, following Hitler’s “Nero Decree” of March 19. Officially titled “Demolitions on Reich Territory,” this decree ordered the utter destruction of all German industrial infrastructure and technology; although not included in the official order, it also implied the destruction of cultural assets and the elimination of any key personnel who might be useful to the Allied powers. . . .
3. In order to understand the Bormann/Dulles deal, it is important to revisit a subject we have spoken about many times–the cartels that enfolded both American and German corporations in a commercial relationship that transcended national, ideological and even moral bounds.
. . . . The cartels created in the aftermaths of World War I and the Great Depression were now more powerful than many governments, and these international corporations were so deeply intertwined that national identity became increasingly opaque. This would be a major factor in the later German execution, under the direction of Martin Bormann, of Aktion Feuerland–Project Land of Fire. . . .
4. More about the U.S. corporations that helped arm Germany:
. . . . American corporations such as the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa), DuPont, International Business Machines (IBM), General Motors, International Telephone & Telegraph (ITT), the Ford Motor Company and General Electric made significant investments in Germany. Joint enterprises were created to exchange technical innovations and to divide market shares around the world. This led to the merging of existing German companies into powerful and influential conglomerates, such as Interessen-Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie (IG Farben), which was founded in 1925. IG Farben was a market leader in the manufacture of chemicals, dyes, pharmaceuticals, explosives, rubber, and a host of other products–indeed, IG Farben was the protoypical “military industrial complex.” In April 1929, Standard Oil of New Jersey joined Forces with IG Farben to develop a hydrogenation process for converting coal to oil. Again, American money funded the research and development in Germany while the world markets were to be shared between the two companies. In return, IG Farben promised to provide the technical specifications for its new “buna” process for the production of synthetic rubber, a vital strategic resource for both countries. As America’s stake in Germany expanded, so U.S. government officials were less inclined to support the repeated for demands for reparations by France and Britain, for fear of jeopardizing American investments. . . .
5. The Dulles/Bormann deal at the core of Aktion Feuerland must be evaluated against the background of Operation Safehaven--the attempt at interdicting the Nazi flight capital program.
. . . . Operation Safehaven was implemented on December 6, 1944, with the aim of tracking the movement of Nazi loot and assets around the world and locating those hidden in neutral countries. However, for Roosevelt and Morgenthau this plan had a wider purpose. They needed concrete evidence of illegality to bring against the major American corporations that had traded with Nazi Germany and those members of the political establishment who were sympathetic to the Nazis: men such as the crypto-Nazi Henry Ford: Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., former U.S. ambassador to London; and John D. Rockefeller Jr., son of John D. Rockefeller Sr., the founder of Standard Oil and advocate of eugenics. Some of these corporations and individuals had tried to undermine the New Deal and destabilize Roosevelt’s administration during the 1930s.
This ambitious operation sought the prosecution as war criminals of all those who ran the Nazi war machine and the industrial concerns that sustained it. Bankers and industrialists such as Abs, Schacht, Schroder, Krupp, Flick, Schmitz and a legion of others were to stand in the dock of an international tribunal and be judged for their actions. Once they were in open court, [Treasury Secretary Henry] Morgenthau would reveal years of intercepted documentation, wiretap evidence, and decrypts of Swiss bank codes and cables, courtesy of Ultra intelligence via MI6. In order to redeem themselves, the defendants would have to reveal their dealings with American corporations such as Ford Motor Company, General Motors, and Standard Oil. All the companies and banks found to have traded with the enemy would then face the full rigor of the law in the United States. It was an elegant plan for revenge, legitimized by the victory of good over evil on the battlefield. . . .
6a. As an attorney for Sullivan & Cromwell, Allen Dulles was deeply involved with the treason by American corporations. As chief of the Berne (Switzerland) station of the OSS (America’s World War II intelligence service), he was in a unique position.
. . . . However, this effort required the cooperation of OSS agents already on the ground, and in Switzerland this was problematical–since one of the suspects of Operation Safehaven was Allen Dulles himself, because of his extensive corporate connections and his links with various Nazi groups. Despite this difficulty, the investigation necessarily focused on the gold dealings undertaken by Swiss banks. This became of major concern to Swiss ambassador Bruggmann once he learned of Operation Safehaven through his indiscreet brother-in-law, Vice President Henry Wallace. The exposure of the explicit links between Swiss banks and Nazi Germany would be a major potential embarrassment to the Swiss government once the war was over; accordingly, the Swiss Secret Service alerted Allen Dulles about the Safehaven investigation into his affairs. . . .
6b. We have spoken at length about the Bormann flight capital network in numerous programs. The Thyssen-owned Union Banking Corporation was used for the Bormann capital transfers to the U.S. Prescott Bush,Sr. and George Herbert Walker were head of the Union Banking Corporation at this time.
. . . . With exquisite hypocrisy, Bormann made use of the Thyssen family’s private bank in Rotterdam, Bank Voor Handel en Scheepvaart N.V., which had originally been founded by August Thyssen in 1918 in order to send illicit funds out of the Kaiser’s Germany as defeat in World War I approached. Money was channeled to the Union Banking Corporation of New York, which was wholly owned by Fritz Thyssen’s Vereignigte Stahlwerke AG (United Steelworks). From there it was disbursed to accounts in other American banks, including National City Bank, Chase National Bank, and Irving Trust, and used to buy stocks in U.S. companies and corporations. . . . .
7. In what might be termed “association by guilt,” Dulles and Bormann’s people connected.
. . . . Dulles was also targeted by German intelligence, including an elite Luftwaffe code-breaking unit designated Luftfahrtforschungsamt (Luftwaffe radio intercept unit). When Abwehr agents learned of Operation Safehaven through their agent Habakuk, they set about frustrating its efforts, particularly in Switzerland, where it was potentially most dangerous to the ongoing German capital transfers. The Abwehr agents passed the word to Dulles that both the British and the Americans were intercepting his communications–as they themselves had been, but would now no longer be able to, thanks to their revealing their hand in this way. They, too, told Dulles that he was a subject of investigation by the Treasury Department through Operation Safehaven. He immediately changed his encryption methods to the more secure “one-time pad” system and from then on his message traffic remained secure. Transcribing the messages from the Vernam cipher is a laborious handwritten process, hence Dulles’s need for the services of interned USAAF personnel for encryption.
Dulles also exposed Henry Wallace as the source of the revelation of both the Morgenthau Plan and Operation Safehaven to Ambassador Bruggman and ultimately to the Germans. President Roosevelt had no choice but to ditch Wallace and nominate the senator from Missouri, Harry S. Truman, as his candidate for vice president in the upcoming Presidential election. As a committed opponent of communism, Truman was far more acceptable to Dulles. . . .
8a. A key to the clandestine handling of Hitler and Eva Braun was the use of doubles, a Hitler double named Gustav Weber, in particular.
. . . . Gustav Weber had been standing in for Hitler since July 20, 1944, when the Fuhrer had been wounded in the bomb attempt on his life at his Wolf’s Lair field headquarters near Rastenburg in East Prussia. Hitler had suffered recurrent aftereffects from his injuries; he tired easily, and he was plagued by infected wounds from splinters of the oak table that had protected him from the full force of the blast. (His use of penicillin, taken from Allied troops captured or killed in the D‑Day landings, had probably saved his life.)
Weber had impersonated Hitler on his last officially photographed appearance, when he handed out medals to members of the Hitler Youth in the Chancellery garden on March 20, 1945. Weber’s uncanny resemblance to Hitler deceived even those quite close to him, and on that occasion the Reichsjugendfuhrer (Hitler Youth national Leader) Artur Axmann was either taken in or warned to play along. The only thing liable to betray the imposture was that Weber’s left hand suffered from occasional bouts of uncontrollable trembling. Bormann had taken Hitler’s personal doctor into his confidence, and SS Lt. Col. Ludwig Stumpfegger had treated Weber with some success. Weber was often kept sedated, but his trembling became more noticeable when he was under extreme stress.
Eva Braun’s double was simply perfect. Her name is unknown, but she had been trawled from the “stable” of young actresses that Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, the self-appointed “patron of the German cinema,” maintained for his own pleasure. The physical similarity was amazing, and after film makeup and hairdressing experts had done their work it was very difficult to tell the two young women apart. . . .
8b. As the Fuehrer and his party were preparing for their exit from Berlin, Bormann and Heinrich Muller were disposing of unnecessary and/or strategically awkward individuals.
. . . . In Berlin, Bormann and Muller were meanwhile “tidying up” with ruthless efficiency. During april 28–29, the two actors in the private quarters of the Fuhrerbunker played out a ghastly pantomime orchestrated by the Nazi Party’s grand puppet-master, Martin Bormann. It ended on April 30 in a fatal finale that would have been executed by “Gestapo” Muller. At some time that afternoon Eva Braun’s double was poisoned, and Hitler’s double, probably Gustav Weber, was shot at close range by Muller in person. Shrouded in blankets, the two bodies were carried upstairs to be burned in the shell-torn chancellery garden, as described by Erich Kempka, the head of the Chancellery motor pool. Although accounts by witnesses are confused and sometimes contradictory, this iconic scene has become an accepted historical fact. Indeed, everything about it may be correct–apart from the true identities of the two burning corpses. A picture of an unburned Hitler “corpse” with a gunshot wound to the forehead circulated extensively after the war. It is now believed to be possibly that of a cook in the bunker who bore a vague resemblance to Adolf Hitler. It was just one of at least six “Hitler” bodies, none of them showing any signs of having been burnt, that were delivered to the Soviets in the days after the fall of Berlin. . . .
. . . . Bormann communicated the news of “Hitler’s” death to Adm. Karl Donitz, appointed as the new Reich president in Hitler’s will. Before Bormann and Muller could finish their “cleaning,” there was one more potential witness to be silenced. SS Lt. Col. Peter Hogl, the last person to have seen Hermann Fegelein, was also shot in the head, as the final groups of would-be escapers left the bunker on the night of May 1–2 (see Chapter 14, page 154). At this point, SS and Police Gen. Heinrich Muller, Bormann’s principal co-conspirator and hit man, disappeared from the “official” history record without a trace. A few days later his family would bury a body in a Berlin cemetery; the casket bore the touching inscription “To Our Daddy,” but it would later be determined that it contained body parts from three unknown victims. . . .
9b. The “stick” alluded to in paragraph #2 was a disinformation operation, convincing the Allies that Germany was going to attack the Eastern Seabord of the U.S. with submarine-launched V‑1s filled with Sarin nerve gas. This had the effect of drawing off Allied naval forces, permitting the U‑boats carrying Hitler and company to safely navigate the South Atlantic.
. . . . In July 1944, news agencies reported that Hitler had approved a plan for an imminent attack on New York, with “robot bombs” launched from submarines in the Atlantic. On August 20, the Type IXC boat U‑1229 (Cdr. Armin Zinke) was attacked and forced to surface off Newfoundland on the Canadian east coast, and among the captured survivors was a German agent, Oskar Mantel. Under interrogation by the FBI, he revealed that a wave of U‑boats equipped with V‑1 flying bombs was being readied to attack the United States. In November 1944, U‑1230 landed two agents off the Maine coast; they were spotted coming ashore and arrested. During their interrogation, Erich Gimpel and William Colepaugh (an American defector) corroborated Mantel’s story. This also seemed to be supported by the prediction in a radio broadcast by the Reich armaments minister, Albert Speer, that V‑missiles “would fall on New York by February 1, 1945.”
On December 10, 1944, New York’s mayor Fiorello La Guardia broke the story to an astonished American public. On January 8, 1945, Adm. Jonas H. Ingram, commander of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet, announced that a new wave of U‑boats approaching the United States might be fitted with V‑1 rockets to attack the eastern seabord. The Nazis might launch “robots from submarine, airplane or surface ship” against targets ranging from Maine to Florida, but the U.S. Navy was fully prepared to meet the threat. Many Americans took this V‑1 scare seriously. The British dismissed it as propaganda, and–with the grim experience of four years’ bombardment and some 60,000 civilian deaths behind them, about 10 percent caused by V‑1s–believed that even if such attacks occurred, they would not cause a great deal of damage. After all, Hitler’s Operation Polar Bear had succeeded in hitting London with 2,515 V‑1s (about one-quarter of those launched), so the handful that might be fired by a few U‑boats seemed negligible. On February 16, 1945, a British admiralty cable to the U.S. Navy chief of operations, Adm. Ernest J. King, played down the threat, while conceding that it was possible for U‑boats to store and launch V‑1 flying bombs. (The Germans had indeed tested a submarine-towed launch platform with some success, but were nowhere near any operational capability. There was even an embryo project, Prufstand XII, to launch the much larger V‑2 ballistic missile at sea from a sealed container, which be flooded at the base to swing it upright.) However the planted misinformation achieved its purpose. It would focus American attention toward any detected pack of U‑boats, such as the majority of Gruppe Seewolf, thus drawing USN and USAAF assets in the Atlantic eastward and northward–away from the latitudes between Spain’s southern territories and Argentina. . . .
10a. Two key figures in laying the ground work for the Hitler escape to Patagonia were Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Abwehr (German military intelligence) and General Wilhelm von Faupel.
. . . . During the Nazi era, the two key figures in German penetration of Latin America were Adm. Wilhelm Canaris, from 1935 the head of the Abwehr, and Gen. Wilhelm von Faupel, head of the Ibero-American Institute, the headquarters for German espionage and conspiracy in the Western Hemisphere. . . .
. . . . His [Canaris’s] brilliant talents and unusual firsthand knowledge of the Patagonian region would be invaluable during the development of the Nazi intelligence network in southern Argentina.
The preexisting basis and principal cover for this activity was the Lahusen company, a major enterprise with offices and shops throughout Patagonia since before World War I (now defunct). Central to its early profitability was the wool trade, supplied by the German sheep ranches of Patagonia; before refrigeration made meat shipments to Europe possible, wool was Argentina’s largest export and its trade fueled the country’s vibrant economy. The Lahusen organization facilitated the German espionage system throughout Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay in both world wars. . . .
. . . . From 1938 on, from a mansion on Fuerenstrasse in Berlin, Faupel organized the training of German and South American agents and saboteurs. He had contacts with the Falange Espanola–the Spanish fascist political party that underpinned the Nationalist uprising by rebel army officers in July 1936–and was instrumental in the creation of the Condor Legion soon afterward. This force combined cadres of German military instructors and squadrons of combat airmen that assisted the Nationalist forces–and acquired useful experience themselves–during the Spanish Civil War, Wilhelm von Faupel’s activities over three decades would bring him huge influence in Spain after the Nationalist leader, Gen. Francisco Franco, established his military dictatorship in 1939. In time this influence would enable Martin Bormann’s plans for a “Fourth Reich in the South” to move toward reality. . . .
10b. In contemplating Aktion Feuerland, it is important to remember how sparsely populated Patagonia is and how big it is:
. . . . It is difficult to comprehend the scale of Patagonia: one and a half times the size of Texas or nearly four times that of Great Britain. Most tellingly, its population in 1945 was minimal. By comparison, if New York City had the same population density, there would be jut thirty-five people living in Manhattan. [As seen in the previous paragraph, much of the existing population there was German.–D.E.] . .
10c. Central to the realization of Aktion Feurland were the activities of the Eichhorns, who had funded Hitler from the 1920’s on.
. . . . The relationship between Ida Eichhorn and her “cousin,” as she always called Hitler, went back much further than 1944, though there is some dispute over the date the Eicchorns actually joined the Nazi Party. On May 11, 1935, Waler and Ida were awarded the “honor version” of the Gold Party Badge; fewer than half a dozen of the 905 such badges awarded were given to non-Reich citizens. The Fuhrer sent the Eichhorns a personal congratulatory letter dated May 15, an unusual extra compliment accompanying the award. In the letter, which thanked Walter Eichhorn for his services, the Fuhrer used the words “since joining in 1924 with your wife,” which seems to indicate that the Eichhorns were among the earliest members of the party. They were also personally given No. 110 of the limited edition of 500 copies of Mein Kampf when they first met Hitler at his apartment in 1925–the year the book was published. The Eichhorns saw him again in 1927 and 1929, and thereafter they began to travel more regularly to Germany. . . .
10d. Among the reports about top Nazis fleeing Europe by U‑boat, was Che Guevara’s father.
. . . . Che Guevara’s father, Ernesto Guevara Lynch, who was an active anti-Nazi “commando” in Argentina throughout the 1930s and ’40s, was also convinced: “Not long after the German army was defeated in Europe, many of the top Nazis arrived in our country and entered through the seaside resort of Villa Gessell, located south of Buenos Aires. They came in several German submarines.” . . .
11a. Part of the carrot alluded to above, was the transfer of German military technology to the West, under what was to become known as Project Paperclip. Ian Fleming, later well known as the author of the James Bond novels, was a key British officer involved in locating key Nazi military technological targets, both mechanical and human.
. . . . Among the British forces that landed in French North Africa during Operation Torch in November 1942 was a new unit on its first major operation–30 Commando Unit (CU). Primarily, 30 CU was tasked with gathering military intelligence documents and items of enemy weapons technology before they could be hidden or destroyed. The unit had been conceived in the British Admiralty, and the Royal Navy was particularly anxious to gather any intelligence concerning the sophisticated Enigma encryption machines that were used to communicate with Adm. Donitz’s U‑boats at sea. The Naval Intelligence Commando Unit was the brainchild of Lt. Cdr. Ian Fleming of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR)–the future creator of the quintessential fictional spy James Bond. . . .
11b. More about Ian Fleming and his commando/intelligence unit:
. . . . Among the allied troops poised to deny the Nazis the chance to destroy their secrets were Cdr. Fleming’s Red Indians of 30 Advance Unit. Intelligence on where to search was now flooding in from the OSS office in Bern, thanks to the dialogue between Dulles and Bormann. The unit’s Team 4, under Lt. Cdr. Patrick Dalzel-Job, began driving northward between Bremen on the Weser River and Hamburg on the Elbe. . . .
13. Before the submarines carrying Hitler, Eva Braun and company landed, the chief of staff of the Argentine navy, Admiral hector Lima, issued orders to “Call off all coastal patrols,” this on the direct order of Juan Peron.
. . . . On July 21, just a week before the landing at Necochea that delivered Hitler, the Argentine navy’s chief of staff, Adm. Hector Lima, issued orders to “Call off all coastal patrols.” This order, from the highest echelon of the military government, effectively opened up the coast of Argentina to the landings described by the Admiral Graf Spee men. . . .
14a. “Evita” Duarte, later Eva Peron, was a Nazi spy, even before she married Juan Peron.
. . . . Martin Bormann, as always, was entirely clear-sighted, and during that year he put in hand his plan to prepare and fund that refuge–Aktion Feurland. The Nazi sympathizers in Argentina enjoyed a virtually free rein, continuing to operate schools with Nazi symbols and ideology and meeting regularly (although by 1943, not as publicly as before), but the key conspirators were few–a group limited to people Bormann had reason to trust. These included a clique of powerful, venal bankers and industrialists such as Ludwig Freude; a charismatic ambitouis army officer, Juan Domingo Peron; and a beautiful, intelligent acress, Eva Duarte. . . .
14b. More about Bormann and Eva Duarte (later Eva Peron):
. . . . Ludwig Freude’s and Eva Duarte’s involvement in the smuggling operation was made clear in an Argentine police document of April 18, 1945. This detailed the operations of Freude, “agent of the Third Reich,” and his dealings with an Argentine agent, “Natalio.” This informant reported that Freude had made very substantial deposits in various Buenos Aires banks in the name of the “well-known radio-theatrical actress Maria Eva Duarte.” Freude told Natalio that on February 7, 1945, a U‑boat had brought huge funds to help in the reconstruction of the Nazi empire. Subsequent police investigations revealed that cases from the U‑boat with the woreds Geheime Reichssache (“Reich Top Secret”) stenciled on them, had been taken to a Lahusen ranch run by two “Nazi brothers, just outside Buenos Aires.” Deposits of gold and various currencies were later made in Eva’s name at the Banco Aleman Transatlantico, Banco Germanico, and Banco Tornquist. . . .
14c. After marrying Juan Peron, Evita helped finalize Bormann’s decampment to Argentina:
. . . .The all-conquering Evita left Spain for Rome on June 25, 1947. Father Benitez would smooth her way in the Vatican with the aid of Bishop Alois Hudal [one of the key members of the Vatican/Nazi “Ratline”]. Two days after she arrived she was given an audience with pope Pius XII, spending twenty minutes with the Holy Father–“a time usually allotted by Vatican protocol to queens.” However, there was a more sinister side to the Rome trip. Using Bishop Hudal as an intermediary, she arranged to meet Bormann in an Italian villa at Rapallo provided for her use by [Argentine shipping billionaire Alberto] Dodero. The shipowner was also present at the meeting, as was Eva’s brother Juan Duarte. There, she and her former paymaster cut the deal that guaranteed that his Fuhrer’s safe haven would continue to remain safe, and allowed Bormann to leave Europe at last for a new life in South America. However, she and her team had one shocking disappointment for Bormann. . . .
14d. The authors contend that Evita, her husband and others of the Argentine end of the Nazi flight capital program in Argentina doubled on Bormann and Mueller, with lethal results for the conspirators. In 1952, Evita died of cancer at age 33. Much of her husband’s popularity stemmed from her public persona. Deprived of it by her untimely death, he was overthrown in a military coup.
. . . . Proving that there is no honor among thieves, the Perons presented Bormann with a radical renegotiation of their earlier understanding. Evita had brought with her to Europe some $800 million worth of the treasure that he had placed in supposed safekeeping in Argentina, and she would deposit this vast sum in Swiss banks for the Perons’ own use. . . .
. . . . However, the Borman “Organization” had a keen memory. After the spring of 1948, when Muller based himself in Cordoba and became directly responsible for the security of the Organization, the bankers who had betrayed Bormann would begin to suffer a string of untimely deaths. Heinrich Doerge died mysteriously in 1949; in December 1950, Ricardo von Leute was found dead in a Buenos Aires street, and Ricardo Staudt would survive him by only a few months. Ludwig Freude himself, the kingpin of Aktion Feurland in Argentina, died in 1952 from drinking a poisoned cup of coffee, and Evita’s younger brother Juan Duarte met his end in 1954 with a gunshot to the head. Officially, he was said to have committed suicide. . . . .
15. Note that documents from the late 1940’s on Hitler and his possible escape and whereabouts at that time are STILL classified, the better part of a century after the end of World War II. WHY?
. . . . During this period [the late 1940’s], the FBI was taking reports of Hitler being in Latin America very seriously. Thousands of documents pertaining to Hitler from these years are still classified as Top Secret on both sides of the Atlantic; nevertheless, and despite the very heavy censorship of the few files released into the public domain, some information can be gleaned. . . .
16. Stalin and General Zhukov (the Red Army’s top general) didn’t believe that Hitler was dead. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was deeply skeptical, as well.
. . . . Stalin never believed Hitler was dead, insisting at the Potsdam Conference on July17, 1945, that he had escaped–probably to “Spain or Argentina.” Stalin’s top general, Marshal Georgy Zhukov, said on August 6, 1945; “We found no corpse that could be Hitler’s.”
Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower stated publicly on October 12, 1945, “There is every assumption that Hitler is dead, but not a bit of conclusive proof that he is dead.” He told the Associated Press that “Russian friends” had informed him that they had been “unable to unearth any tangible evidence of his death.” One U.S. senator went as far as offering one million U.S. dollars for proof of Hitler’s death. It has never been claimed. . . .
17. There were numerous reports of Hitler’s possible escape in the mainstream press at the time. Syndicated columnist Drew Pearson noted on July 24 and 26, 1945:
. . . . Along the coast of Patagonia, many Germans own land, which contains harbors deep enough for submarine landings. And if submarines could get to Argentine-Uruguayan waters from Germany, as they definitely did, there is no reason why they could not go a little further south to Patagonia. Also, there is no reason to believe why Hitler couldn’t have been on one of them. . . .
. . . . It may take a long time to find out whether Hitler and his bride Eva Braun escaped to Patagonia. The country is a series of vast Nazi-owned ranches where German is spoken almost exclusively and where Hitler could be hidden easily, and successfully for years. The ranches in this southern part of Argentina cover thousands of acres and have been under Nazi [note: there were Germans in the area long before the Nazis dominated] management for generations. It would have been impossible for any non-German to penetrate the area to make a thorough investigation as to Hitler’s whereabouts. . . .
18. Some members of the research team employed by the authors received death threats. (Note: this article is slightly inaccurate, in that the threats were not received by the authors themselves.)
“Death Threats for Hitler Book Author Gerard Williams;” Wales Online; 3/21/2013.
A South Wales author who has sensationally claimed Adolf Hitler escaped the bunker to live in Argentina says he and his research team have received death threats.
Former Bridgend Grammar School pupil Gerrard Williams, pictured, spent five years with military historian Simon Dunstan researching Grey Wolf – The Escape of Adolf Hitler. It claims Hitler spent 17 years in the foothills of the Andes in Argentina until his death in 1962.
The book also claims Hitler’s escape was carried out with the blessing of the US authorities who wanted rocket secrets and details of where priceless art treasures were hidden.
Yesterday, Swansea-born Williams, who grew up in Coychurch, Bridgend, said: “We have ruffled some very big feathers.
“Traditional historians don’t like it and certain governments don’t like it. We have had some death threats already.”
Williams, who studied journalism in Cardiff and worked for the BBC and Sky News, said: “I discovered the story while working on a documentary about the Falklands War in Argentina.
”History books say with Berlin’s Reich Chancellery virtually surrounded on April 30, 1945, Hitler shot himself, while his new wife Eva Braun bit into a cyanide capsule to evade capture. Their petrol-soaked bodies were then burned.
But Williams claims Hitler and Braun slipped out of the besieged Führerbunker via a secret tunnel and were replaced by doubles chosen by Reichsfuhrer Martin Bormann.He says they were then whisked by plane to Spain and by submarine to the Argentine coast at Necochea.
The body doubles were shot and burned. They later had two daughters. Williams said: “He and Braun separated in 1953, taking the girls to live in the town of Nequen. In the early 2000s the women were still alive.“Hitler died on February 13, 1962 at 3pm.”
Williams spent five years with military historian Simon Dunstan researching Grey Wolf – The Escape of Adolf Hitler.
It claims Hitler spent 17 years in the foothills of the Andes in Argentina until his death in 1962.
The book also claims Hitler’s escape was carried out with the blessing of the US authorities who wanted rocket secrets and details of where priceless art treasures were hidden.
These declassified FBI files raise questions about Hitler’s death in the Führerbunker, Blake Stilwell, Business Insider, Jan. 21, 2016, (It also includes the declassified documents)
http://www.businessinsider.com/declassified-fbi-files-about-hitlers-death-2015–12
A recently declassified, heavily redacted FBI field report contains information about Adolf Hitler’s alleged escape to Argentina via submarine, which is noteworthy considering that Hitler was reported to have committed suicide in 1945 before the Red Army captured Berlin.
The FBI report, dated September 21, 1945 tells the story of a man who aided six top Argentinian officials in landing Hitler onto Argentine soil via submarine and hid him in the foothills of the Andes mountains.
Unfortunately, the report wasn’t verifiable at the time because something important couldn’t be located.
That’s not a teaser, the item or person in question is redacted.
The document relates the story told to the FBI by a reporter of The Los Angeles Examiner.
In July 1945, the reporter’s friend “Jack” met with an individual from the Argentine government who wanted to relay a story, but only if he could be guaranteed he wouldn’t be sent back to Argentina, which had just experienced a military coup.
The informant claimed to be one of four men who met Hitler on an Argentine shore about two weeks after the fall of Berlin in 1945, where Hitler and his new wife Eva Braun ostensibly committed suicide.
Soviet records claim the bodies of Hitler and Braun were burned and the remains buried and exhumed repeatedly, making verification difficult.
Hitler supposedly came ashore with 50 or so others and went into hiding in the towns of San Antonio, Videma, Neuquen, Muster, Carmena, and Rason, staying with German families. the informant claimed to remember all six officials and the three other men with him on the shore the night the German fugitive arrived, suffering from asthma and ulcers. Hitler also shaved his signature mustache, revealing a distinct “butt” on his upper lip.
A personal letter to J.Edgar Hoover, the FBI director, was also written by the informant. It mentioned specifically that Hitler lived in an underground residence in Argentina 675 miles West of Florianopolis, 430 miles Northwest of Buenos Aires. The former dictator lived with two body doubles in a secret area behind a photosensitive wall that slid back to reveal the bunker entrance.
Hitler and his inner circle made use of a bank account provided by one “Mrs. Eichorn” who ran a large spa hotel in La Falda, Argentina, to the tune of 30,000 Reichsmarks (just over $2 two million dollars in 2015). Eichorn and her family made repeated visits to Nazi Germany where they would stay with Hitler during their visits.
The FBI even looked to world news publications, finding photos with famous Argentines, which lends credibility to the idea that high-placed Argentinian officials might help Hitler enter Argentina.
The informant was paid $15,000 (almost $200,000 adjusted for inflation in 2015) for his help, but he said the matter weighed on his mind too much just to let it go, so he approached the Americans.
He told the reporter’s friend to go to a hotel in San Antonio, Argentina and meet up with a man who would help locate the location of Hitler’s ranch, which was heavily guarded.
The reporter was to put an ad in the local paper and then call “Hempstead 8458” (these were the days before all-number dialing, which meant that Hempstead was the location of the network and the number is the last four digits of the actual phone number) to let the man know to make proper arrangements.
The informant was unable to shed any more light on the story for the reporter and despite attempts to set up a further meeting, the reporter was unable to contact the informant directly. The FBI watched the diner where the reporter ate his meals to see if “Jack” or the informant ever appeared, to no avail.
Though the informant also alleged Hitler may have entered the United States, no records were found with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) for the names of known aliases for Hitler, Jack, or the informant. The FBI deemed the story credible but didn’t have enough information to make a full investigation.
An FBI memorandum to Hoover remarked that the agent in charge of the investigation believed both Hitler and Braun survived the Fall of Berlin. Both their bodies had not been found or identified at the time. He believed they both disappeared the day before the Russians entered Berlin. He believed Hitler’s normal relationship with Switzerland along with Hitler’s lack of any other language would make Switzerland, not Argentina, the ideal place for the two to escape.