Where did the Czech gold go at the end of the Second World War? Part 5

First we should evaluate the evidence of Hitler's suicide. If they are truly bulletproof, any further analysis is completely useless. If the evidence of suicide is not conclusive, it is worth analyzing.

The skull and jaw fragment attributed to Hitler is in Moscow today. Relatively recently (in 2018), a French specialist, Philippe Charlier, gained access to it and confirmed that it is an exact match to Hitler's dental chart, as well as confirming traces of cyanide and the fact that the deceased was a vegetarian. The conspiracies are over. Hitler died in a bunker, a test of his teeth has shown - iDNES.cz

Is that enough as conclusive proof? If it was any "normal" person, sure. Nowadays, a citizen of a civilized country usually goes to the dentist once every six months to a year, who examines his teeth, fixes the cavities and records the findings in his dental records. If something unpredictable happens, such as a car accident in which a body burns beyond recognition, the corpse can be safely identified from these records.

The problem is that Hitler is in a completely different situation. If he wanted to escape, he would have had to leave behind a plausible dead body double. Of course he had look-alikes, good enough to stand on a platform a hundred yards away from the cheering crowds (in case someone shot at him). But a physical body (alive or dead) that could withstand the forensic identification methods of Allied doctors or pathologists and fool them is basically impossible. The only way is that it would basically be all that's left of the teeth. Could it have been faked? Sure, and easily. Hitler's dentist and his assistant were in the bunker with him, and it was no easier for the dentist to take his own form and fill in someone else's teeth. We will discuss this in more detail below. In other words, all evidence of Hitler's death is completely worthless.

Now let's look at the theories about Hitler's escape from the bunker and the evidence that he lived in South America.

There are plenty of sightings of Hitler, for example here: Could Hitler really have lived in Argentina? - (ceskezpravy.eu) or here: FBI files prove that the US government knew Hitler was still alive in 1984 | AC24.cz

What is the conclusive value of such observations? There are thousands of testimonies where Martin Borman was spotted and eventually proven to have died in Berlin on May 1, 1945. He wasn't a Skorzeny with two metres of height and a scarred face. Such sightings would certainly have been made even if Hitler had indeed committed suicide.

So let's ask the question whether Hitler WANTED to flee. What kind of person was Hitler, anyway? Was he a brave and courageous captain who would rather go down with his ship than board a lifeboat? Or was he a man who was convinced of his genius and of his defeat only because the nation and the soldiers had betrayed him? And that it would have been better to start over and do better? Perhaps he was convinced that - if he survived - there would be a war between the Allies and the Soviets, and the Allies would gladly welcome him when he, as Führer, brought a renewed Wehrmacht under their banners?

It may very well be that the latter is true. That he wanted to save himself and Eva Braun, hide for a while and then celebrate a triumphant comeback. Like most dictators surrounded by sycophants, he was detached from reality and thought that the Allies would start a war against Stalin, they would need experienced Wehrmacht and SS officers to do it, and they in turn would need their leader. He did not understand that he aroused such hatred among the population that cooperation with him was quite impossible. It is therefore quite possible that he decided to throw most of his closest collaborators overboard and save himself.

But organizing such a thing would be by no means easy.

An ordinary SS officer could have disguised himself as a civilian, or as a common soldier, and hoped that no one would recognize him. But it doesn't work that way with high officials. The East Prussian gaulautier Erch Koch tried it, was recognized and executed. Himmler tried it, was recognized and chewed up a cyanide vial. Besides, Hitler had no privacy, there were always many people around him. He simply could not take Eva Braun by the hand and go for a romantic walk in Berlin and get lost there and try to tell the Russians that he was a grocer with a wife. He would have been recognized immediately. Besides, the people in his immediate circle, who felt that they would also be condemned to death, would not for a moment cover for him. If it were known that he had escaped, he would be found by the secret services wherever in the world he was hiding. The only option he had was to convince everyone of his death (and fake the relevant evidence) and escape. He couldn't do this alone, for that he needed the help of several people who would also have a chance to survive. If he was thinking of this, probably the only person who could organize and execute such an operation would be Skorzeny.

How could it be done technically? I've tried to go through all the various documents that have come out today. I confess, I was disgusted. You don't find a collection of crap like that any time soon. On one TV program they came out with the premise that Hitler had escaped from the bunker, crawled with Eva, with the help of two SS men, through some sewer to Berlin's Tempelhof airport. The author of this fiction did not even bother to check that the Tempelhof airport was occupied by the Red Army as early as 28-29 April 1945, so it is probably difficult for Hitler to have left it sometime during the night of 30 April to 1 May.

Another fairly recent multi-part series declared the story of Hitler's escape from Berlin. The guides were former CIA and FBI investigators and analysts. I was looking forward to seeing something. Although the series was I think 5 or 8 hour long, it didn't provide a single usable piece of information. The investigators went to Goebbels' Karin Hall and climbed into the basement, walked through the ruins of a Nazi hospital, looked at the border between Austria and Italy.where the SS fled after the end of the war, they've been to the ruins of a barracks in South America without explaining what it might have to do with Hitler. In all this, they shook their heads sagely. A complete overview of nothing. If that bunch of morons were really ex-FBI and CIA investigators then God help America.

Pretty much the only competent source and analysis of Hitler's possible escape from the bunker comes from no officialbut from the fantasy novelist Ludwik Soucek, who described it in his books "The Case of Hitler's Teeth" and "The Case of the Amber Chamber". It is very well handled (I would like to write it in comparison with everything else, but basically there is nothing else worth reading that is not just a collection of nonsense). Maybe it's because MUDr. Soucek was originally a dentist by profession and this is very much about teeth. But that doesn't mean that Soucek doesn't have errors, logical fallacies, and that his conclusions are not often wrong - nowadays we have google to check a lot. In any case, his reasoning and conclusions can be used (after careful examination) as the backbone of our analysis.

In order to orient ourselves to what we write, it is necessary to know the official narrative of what took place in the last hours in Hitler's bunker. So before reading the continuation of this text, I recommend (for the sake of clarity) reading the article Adolf Hitler's Last 24 Hours, Minute by Minute: He committed suicide 71 years ago! | Blesk.cz was discussed in more detail in the extrastory - article at the end of this text, the link no longer works.

But one thing is certain. If Hitler had entertained the idea of escape, Skorzeny would have been in charge of organizing it, already given his famous reference to the kidnapping of Mussolini. There is something else, something else, something that is called "modus operandi" in criminals. To have Hitler surrounded in a bunker, and finally let him escape at the last moment, is like having Skorzeny sign off. That's exactly what he would have thought of.

Hitler was offered many times to escape from the bunker. For example, the fresh Marshal Schörner was ordered to break out of Bohemia and break the encirclement of Berlin on April 21, 1945, for which he promised to do his utmost.

21. On April, Schörner was invited to the headquarters by the commander of Army Group Mitte. Hitler ordered him to break through with his army group to help Berlin. Schörner replied firmly that the Führer's order would be carried out to the letter. Source http://www.ceskenarodnilisty.cz/clanky/Berlinska-operace-z-hlediska-170502.htm

On paper the order was not entirely out of line, Schörner had a massive army fairly close by (see above). However, in the Ostrava region the Red Army broke through the main Opava defensive line with a massive offensive on 20-22 April, so what could have been realistic on 21 April was already impossible on 23 April. Schörner sent the following letter to Hitler (probably on 23 April 1945):

"I would like to ask you to leave Berlin at this funeral hour and take command from the southern sector. If you fall, Germany will also fall. Millions of Germans are waiting for the opportunity to rebuild Germany together with you."

Hitler replied on April 24, 1945 as follows (the document was auctioned in 2019):

"I am staying in Berlin so that I may take part in the decisive battle for Germany in honorable style and so that I may set a good example for all those who also stayed. I believe that only in this way will I do the best service for Germany. The rest of you must make every effort to win the battle for Berlin. It will certainly help if you advance north as soon as possible."

Which makes sense, moving to the Alps would delay his capture or death by a few days at most.

His personal pilot, Hans Baur, offered Hitler on 29 April 1945 to take one of the two existing prototype Ju 390s (an improved Ju 290 with a range of up to 9,700 km) and take it to a neutral country. Hitler again refused.

Baur pleaded with Hitler to leave Berlin. The men volunteered to fly Hitler out of Germany in a Ju 390 and to safety. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Baur

Which again makes sense, no neutral state would grant asylum for Hitler against extradition requests from the US, Soviet Union and England.

Evidence of Hitler's suicide

Just recently, again, an article came out claiming that after the examination of the remains of Adolf Hitler's jawbone by French scientists in Moscow, it has been definitively proven that the jawbone belongs to Adolf Hitler and that he is therefore definitely dead. The researchers even proved that the jawbone belonged to a vegetarian.

https://www.wbur.org/npr/612932451/french-researchers-hitler-really-did-die-in-the-bunker-in-1945

A brief description of Hitler's suicide. It has been described in detail many times, for example here (link no longer works unfortunately, text at the end of this article):

https://www.extrastory.cz/poslednich-7-hodin-adolfa-hitlera.html?utm_source=www.seznam.cz&utm_medium=sekce-z-internetu

30.4.1945 15:15 Marta Goebbels begs Hitler to go to the Alpine fortress, Hitler throws her out.

15:30 - A shot rings out from the closed room. Borman and Linge (Hitler's butler) wait 10 minutes, then go in. Radio operator Misch peeks in through the open door, then Hitler's aide Otto Günsche closes the door behind them.

Hitler and Eva Braun are carried out wrapped in a carpet (according to another version, with their heads covered) into the courtyard of the Chancellery. Eva Braun is carried to the stairs by Bormann, where her body is taken over by Hitler's driver Erich Kempka (allegedly carried by Bormann like a sack of potatoes), carried up the stairs and there the body is taken over by Otto Günsche.(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Kempka) There they pour gasoline on it (Kempka provided about 180 - 200 liters) and burn it.

18:00 From the bunker to the garden, SS officer Ewald Lindloff goes with a spade, He finds that the bodies of Hitler and Braun are not only burned, but also torn apart by artillery shells. He buries them in a grenade crater.

A week later, Russian soldiers find the remains. Russian intelligence agents recover them from them.

The teeth were identified as Hitler's by his personal dentist Hugo Blaschke and his assistant Kaethe Heusermann, and Hitler's dental records were also found.

Seemingly perfectly clear forensic evidence.

The possibility of evidence being tampered with

If Hitler wanted to escape, he had to convince both the Allies and the Soviets, as well as the highest officials of Nazi Germany, that there was credible evidence that he had died. If a body were found, it would be perfectly safe to identify him. If cremated remains are found, then forensic analysis would be based on analysis of skeletal remains (age, height, general stature) but primarily teeth. Without the false teeth, it wouldn't even make sense to run.

If Otto Skorzeny and Heinrich Müller (head of the Gestapo) organized this - Wikipedia (wikipedia.org), it could have been done in the following way:

They needed doubles of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun. They didn't have to be volunteers, anyway any witnesses would only see them from afar and dead. Heinrich Müller as head of the Gestapo had access to thousands of prisoners, he could select suitable types quite easily.

Furthermore, they needed men of age and skull at least roughly corresponding to Hitler with fixed teeth and golden bridges. The fact that Hitler had a mouthful of dentures was probably known to somebody, but only Blaschke knew the details.

They visited Blaschke and his assistant Heusermann and made them an offer that was not to be refused. Either they would certify the jawbone as their work, or one of the thousands of Gestapo and SS members would find it after the war.

It was a small matter to rewrite the dental chart to the fact that the poor prisoner had it in his mouth. And the current forensic analysis confirms he was a vegetarian? Well, the Gestapo fed their prisoners steaks quite rarely. There's one other odd thing. The prosthesis was very expensive gold, but the forensic analysis spoke of a very neglected dentition. This really almost seems like someone who took care of their teeth (gold dentures) ended up in a Gestapo prison where they certainly didn't have the opportunity to take much care of their teeth in the last few years. That Hitler's personal dentist, Hugo Blachke, would leave Hitler's teeth in a state that would be characterized after his death by the words "very neglected" would indeed be strange enough.

For this to work, close cooperation with Blachke and Heusermann was necessary. Their job would be to testify and confirm the authenticity of the jaw and teeth. It was clear that they would be interrogated by specialists - experts in interrogation from both Soviet and American intelligence. They had deployed psychological methods that usually got the truth out of amateurs. Therefore, agents destined for deployment behind enemy lines were given special training in how to behave in the event of capture and interrogation. If Blaschke and Hauserman were to withstand such interrogation, they had to undergo short and intensive training. Who would be better suited for such training than Gestapo interrogation experts? After all, the head of the Gestapo, Heinrich Müller, could have arranged it right in the bunker or in the Chancellery building.

I checked the biographies of Blaschke and Heusermann on wikipedia. Interestingly and, I think, importantly, both were among a select few people (mainly generals) who were in Hitler's bunker in April 1945. That Hitler would have taken such care of his teeth that he would have had to have not only his personal dentist in his immediate vicinity, but also his assistant? This, of course, is not suggested by the conclusions of forensic specialists who describe Hitler's teeth as "very neglected." Blashke flew to Salzburg on April 20, 1945 (to be captured by the Americans so that he could testify to them and confirm Hitler's death toward the Allies?)

In 1945 as the end of Nazi Germany drew near, Blaschke accompanied Hitler to the Reich Chancellery in Berlin and later the Führerbunker. As the Red Army was closing in on Berlin, on 20 April, Hitler ordered Blaschke, Albert Bormann, Admiral Karl-Jesko von Puttkamer, Dr. Theodor Morell, secretaries Johanna Wolf, Christa Schroeder, and other staff to leave Berlin by aircraft for the Obersalzberg. The group flew out of Berlin on different flights by aircraft of the Fliegerstaffel des Führers over the following three days. Blaschke's longtime dental assistant Käthe Heusermann had been offered a chance to fly out of Berlin with the others, but declined and stayed behind with Hitler until his death. Heusermann left on 1 May in one of the break-out groups and made her way back to her apartment by the morning of the following day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Blaschke

Heusermann remained in the bunker until May 1, 1945, when she and Hitler's driver Kempke, Bormann and other prominent people escaped from the bunker. Hitler's co-pilot Beetz was mortally wounded in the process and Heusermann stayed behind to nurse him.

One is almost led to believe that she still checked the teeth on the charred corpse so that she would later be able to identify them safely.

There's one other thing that's strange. By all accounts, Hitler committed suicide with a pistol. There are blue flecks on the jawbone that the French examined, showing cyanide poisoning. Cyanide poisoning kills almost instantly. Some writers suppose that he chewed the ampoule with the pistol while asleep and shot himself in the head in a death throes. That strikes me as an odd explanation, to say the least. Not to mention the other gun.

How could this have taken place in the bunker (analysis based on available facts)

The prisoner with the gold teeth was killed inconspicuously somewhere off to the side, probably with cyanide, traces of which are still on his jaw.

The doubles of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun were taken to a room where "Hitler and Braun then committed suicide". All the documents agree that from this room there was a direct exit from the bunker out into the garden of the Chancellery.

The doubles were dressed in Hitler and Braun's clothes, then killed and arranged. The 10 minutes between the shot (16:30) and the opening of the door (16:40) were amply sufficient for this. It makes the open-door show look like a bad amateur performance. They also accidentally tossed him two guns instead of one. The "He took it that way - if the cyanide failed he'd shoot himself in the head, and if that gun failed too he'd take a spare" explanation seems pretty far-fetched to me.

Hitler and Braun, accompanied by two members of the SS (from Skorzeny) or two Gestapo men (from Muller), go to a pre-arranged hiding place and wait for the night flight.

Hitler's double is dumped somewhere, with dead civilians lying everywhere. (The corpse of a man remarkably similar to Hitler was indeed found at the entrance to the Reich Chancellery, the resemblance was such that for several hours the Russian soldiers thought they had found Hitler. Source including film footage of the body double: 100 Days to Surrender - Countdown to Surrender The Last 100 Days - a film by Michael Kloft production Spiegel TV GmbH, comissioned by zdf info - episode 3 minute 55 - 56)

A corpse with the right teeth and Eva Braun's double are cremated and blown up for good measure.Nothing easier than to blame it on a random Russian artillery shell. At this point, there's only the jaw and some skull fragments to examine. Enough for forensic analysis.

Transport Berlin - Alps

Escape from besieged Berlin would have been possible by air or by land. Hitler was not physically fit enough to travel by land, so air was the only option. Was this possible on the night of 30.4. to 1.5. 1945?

Certainly, but it was associated with a great risk of being shot down by Russian anti-aircraft artillery during take-off. We know that Hitler called Fieseler-Storch to the Bunker on 24.4.1945 with two great aviators - General von Greim and Hanna Reitsch. During the landing on 26.4.1945(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Baur) von Greim was wounded and Fieseler-Storch was damaged. Von Greim was appointed Marshal and Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force. Greim and Reisch flew out on 28.4.1945, the Russian soldiers fired at them because they thought Hitler was escaping .1945 in Rosenheim, Skorzeny waited with the deputy Gestapo commander for the arrival of the "boss" in his Fieseler-Storch - this fits with the accuracy of the clock! Only Skorzeny could not have known that the Storch would be damaged and replaced by a more suitable JU88)

It is also known that on 29.4.1945 4 couriers left the bunker with the task of delivering Hitler's last orders and his last will. They made their way through the centre of Berlin to the river where they requested to be picked up by flying boat. The boat did indeed find them, landed, but the couriers capsized the boat and due to heavy fire the pilot flew off without picking them up. In any case, arrival in Berlin, landing and departure were possible even with the full fire of the Russian guns at the end of April.

Source: https://www.novinky.cz/veda-skoly/clanek/hitlerova-zavet-se-nasla-v-podsivce-v-kufru-a-v-lahvi-40032216

Moreover, a ceasefire was agreed with the Russians.

Soucek writes the following in his book The Amber Chamber:

"4 p.m.: Hitler, Bormann, Eva Braunova and Beetz met in the Tiergarten at the refueled JU 52. Beetz, however, refused to take off, fearing for Hitler's life. The Russians increased their fire, the shells just rained down. It was completely out of the question to try to take off. Once the plane rolled out of the sandbag-protected area, it would have been hit. The situation was resolved by Bormann. Through Goebbels, he sent a parliamentarian, General Krebs, to General Chujkov. According to preliminary negotiations, the firing was to be stopped in the entire stretch where Krebs would pass through the front line. This, as it were, throws light on a mystery which still puzzles Marshal Chujkov and many historians. Why, after all, did the thug Goebbels, who continued to direct an utterly senseless battle up to the last moment, and who hours later killed his six children and himself in cold blood, why did he only send a negotiator to the Soviet command? A clueless negotiator, without specific tasks and without full powers, who relied only on the dubious sensation he would cause by announcing Hitler's death? The reason is obvious. Hitler needed the guns and mortars around the Tiergarten to fall silent for a while. He succeeded. JU 52 took off around midnight. The noise of the engines was drowned out by fire in the other sections. And the plane was hidden from the eyes of the Soviet air defences by a mighty cloud of dust and smoke over the whole of Berlin."

If we replace Beetz (who was proven to have died a day later in Berlin) with a nameless pilot sent by von Greim with a Junkers and replace JU52 with JU88, this is exactly how it could have gone.

A digression on the credibility of the sources:

In my work, I have often run into the question of whether I can trust what a source states. My biggest problem is with Ludvík Souček. This gentleman is known to have collected an enormous amount of material for his books. Unfortunately, he worked with these documents in a very uncritical way and the sources of these documents are usually unreliable. With minimal other sources available, to rule out his claims would be too much of a luxury. I have therefore tried to work with this information with the utmost caution and to verify it from other sources wherever possible.

To give an example:

A German aviator, Captain Gerstenkorn, took off from Barajas Airport, Spain, on the night of 21 April 1945 with JU 290. It was the last trip on this route in the Madrid-Berlin direction. At the same time, Colonel Siegfried Knemeyer and another German fighter ace, Colonel Werner Baumbach (a cute codename Vinnetou), at Berlin's Tempelhof airport, the escape plans of Nazi notables.

The best machines of the secret squadron 200, experienced Lufthansa pilots, familiar with overseas routes and airfields, the best gunners, mechanics, radio operators, are concentrated at Tempelhof. Several dozen long-haul planes with extra tanks, six months' supply of food, medicines, even hunting rifles and fishing gear (!). Maps of flight routes to Spain, South America, and even to islands in the Pacific were distributed. (Greenland? No mention!)

Minister Speer himself was in command - he commanded Kneo and Vinnetou. ...

... Excerpt from the book, Karl-Heinz Eyermann: Der grosse Bluff, Berlin, 1962, p. 303: "The experts in aerial espionage have disappeared... There is no trace of Rowehl and Knemeyer.

It's as if they've been swallowed up by the earth. Kue's gone, where's Vinnetou? There's no mention of him either."

Source: (Ludvík Souček - The Secret of the Amber Chamber)

The reality is this:

• Perú 200 existed and really had the planes that Soucek describes.
• Werner Baumbach really commanded it, Siegfried Knemeyer was in charge and even Speer was really with them in early 1945.

During the month of February we saw Himmler once more together with Colonel Baumbach, the commander of the Kampfgeschwader 200 assigned to me, and with the Minister of Armaments, Albert Speer Source.

• The scene on the Tempelhof was created only in Herr Eyermann's imagination. All of the above gentlemen have been traced on Wikipedia, including where they were captured and how long they stayed in internmentcamps, what they did after their release (incidentally, Baumbach flew to Argentina where he worked in aviation and died in a plane crash).
• According to P.W.Stahl's claim, all the planes of 200 Squadron were traced after the war and all were on German territory and fell into captivity. The question is what he was comparing it to. Probably with the situation at the beginning of May 1945. Stahl was, of course, the commander of a detached unit and not in the thick of it. Such a massive departure as described above would not have escaped him, of course, but if one wanted to go to theone or two planes in March, it would have been quite possible with the huge losses on missions in March and April 1945. Especially if that "someone" was Skorzeny and Baumbach's commanders covered by Hitler himself.

Now let's try to continue the critical analysis of Soucek's claims, a little longer excerpt from the book:

24. April: Air Force General and Hitler's personal confidant von Greim is hastily summoned to the bunker. On direct orders, the fanatical Nazi Hanna Reitsch, who fought as a fighter pilot, arrives in the same plane. She first tried piloting a manned V-l rocket in preparation for the establishment of a suicide squadron on the Japanese model. She almost died in the process, but by April 1945 she was back to normal. Her injuries did not cure her of fascism. So Hitler got a plane and two excellent pilots. Von Greim, however, was wounded by Soviet air defenses over Berlin and fell unconscious. Reitsch took over the controls, weaved her way over the city and landed the little Fieseler-Storch acrobatically on a patch of undamaged pavement near the Brandenburg Gate, a few feet from Hitler's bunker. A few hours later, Hitler visited von Greim, who had of course lost value to him after his injury, and appointed him Field Marshal. If Hitler had summoned the general to Berlin hell just to tell him in person what he could telegraph - for the connection worked - he would have been one of the greatest practitioners of Canadian pranks in history. But Hitler certainly wasn't.

He might have considered Hanna Reitsch, but in the end he changed his mind. Fieseler-Storch was badly damaged by Soviet shells and mines within minutes.

26. April: Hitler summons two planes from one of the last Luftwaffe airfields at Rochlin by a personal telegram, the form of which has been found.
27. April: the two planes happily penetrated a Soviet firing barrage, escaped the fighters and landed at Tiergarten, a zoo where a landing strip had been hastily prepared for them. First to land was a three-engine JU 52, followed a few hours later by a fast Arado 96.
28. April: Many things happened at once. Hitler learned first thing in the morning that the indispensable Himmler was negotiating behind his back with the Western troops, offering them surrender. Enraged into a frenzy, he sent the wounded Marshal von Greim to fly off with Arad and Hanna Reitsch as pilot, arrest and punish the traitor. He reserved himself an obsolete but reliable JU 52. All that remained was to choose a pilot. If his personal pilot, Bauer, disappeared, it would be too obvious. Hitler wisely dispensed with his services. He gave him a painting of Frederick II and, somewhat illogically, an ampoule of lethal poison. But Bauer's loyalty to his benefactor did not extend that far. He was captured alive and well by Soviet soldiers when he tried in vain to escape from Berlin.

There was, of course, a second, replacement pilot in the bunker, the Standard Fuehrer Beetz. Soviet intelligence was also looking for him. In vain. He was chosen to take Hitler, Eva Braun and probably Bormann out of Berlin. Hitler could count on him at least as much as he could count on Bauer. He was a die-hard and fanatical Nazi.

1. Von Greim and Reitsch did not arrive on 24 April, but on 26 April (of course, there may be a difference between being called and arriving). They arrived in a Fieseler Storch plane (just as Soucek writes) from Gatow airport. (source: https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_von_Greim ). Gatow Airport was the central airfield of 200 Squadron and was the headquarters and command of the squadron (Stahl). According to Stahl, at that time it was only possible to fly at night or at dawn, the Allied fighters ruled the skies during the day).

"On 26 April 1945, the improvised landing strip was used by Hanna Reitsch to fly in Colonel-General Robert Ritter von Greim." Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Baur

2. Hanna Reitsch was not injured while attempting to fly the V-1 (although she was involved in that project) but in a technical error on the landing gear of the rocket fighter she was testing (Stahl)
3. I could not find any place named Rochlin on any existing map (google maps, Seznam.cz maps). Rechlin was obviously meant. There are many such stupid typos in Soucek(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Ritter_von_Greim ).
4. Von Greim and Reitsch did not leave on 29.4.1945, but already on 28.4.1945 in the evening

"Robert Ritter von Greim, appointed by Hitler as head of the Luftwaffe after Hermann Göring's dismissal. During the evening of 28 April, Reitsch flew von Greim out on the same road-strip to Plon." Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Baur

5. Beetz (Georg Betz) could not fly with Hitler or Bormann because he was badly wounded on the Weidendammer Bridge. He was put under the care of Käthe Heusermann (incidentally the very dental assistant who later identified Hitler's teeth), but died of his injuries. On the same bridge at the same moment, Martin Bormann is also badly injured and bites into an ampoule of cyanide. Bormann's remains have been safely identified and he still had glass shards from the ampoule in his mouth when found. Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Betz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Bormann

Elsewhere Soucek writes:

At 7.40 a.m. on 1 May 1945, Dönitz received the following telegram from Martin Bormann:

To Grand Admiral Dönitz. The Führer's will is in force. I will join you as soon as possible. In the meantime, I advise you to refrain from publication. Bormann

On the same day Dönitz received a second, unsigned telegram in Flensburg.

Reichsführer Bormann will be with you today to explain the situation.

We have no independent sources for this, although the existence of the telegram (without citation) is referred to, for example, in the book "The Secret Archives Have Spoken".

Soucek assumes that Hitler, Braun and Bormann flew to Flensburg to Dönitz to continue by submarine to Argentina. But this is a complete logical fallacy. If this were the case, it would have been useless to send the above telegrams, because Hitler would have appeared at Dönitz and Bormann's in person. Also, the submarine transport is very doubtful, the submarine has a crew of dozens of men, and that they would all keep quiet about their passengers for the rest of their lives cannot be expected. However, it makes sense if we assume that Hitler flew to somewhere other than Flensburg (for example, to the Alps to see Skorzeny) and to Flensburg to see DöBorman to inform him, or perhaps he sent a submarine or submarines with material and junior officers.

Continued consideration of the possibility of Hitler's escape by air from Berlin:

Hitler had a whole squadron of different aircraft at his disposal, from the tiny "stork" Fieseler Storch to the massive Ju 29 special for 50 people with a pressurized cabin. It seems that a small Fieseler Storch was indeed originally considered for the escape. That's a plane for 2-3 people, which would have been enough for the pilot, Hitler and Eva Braun. This type of plane was used to fly the massive man Skorzeny, weighing 110 kilograms, away with Mussolini (who was no pushover either) and the pilot from Gran Sasso. He was able to take off and land from the minimum runway. This is exactly the type of aircraft that a semi-amateur Skorzeny would probably think of first. Only it's a slow plane (175 km/h at 300m) and short range (380 km). https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fieseler_Fi_156

In such a plane, escape would be a huge risk. It flies low and slow, so it could easily be spotted from the ground and would fall prey to the first interceptor called in by ground or radar patrol. Also, the range is insufficient, the distance between Berlin and Rosenheim, where he was waiting for Chief Skorzeny, was more than 600 km as the crow flies. Which would mean at least one night refueling on the ground with all the risks that entails. The telegram summoning two planes is therefore a logical step and the timing fits perfectly into the supposed plot.

Von Greim is, of course, an aviation professional and as commander of the 6th Air Army he has all the planes left in the Third Reich at his disposal.

One can agree with Soucek that the two-seat Arado 96 would have been Greim's choice. The second aircraft is a problem. When you say Junkers, everyone thinks of the three-engined Ju-52. That's the very symbol of the brand. But it's also perhaps the least suitable aircraft for escaping a city under siege. It's outdated, huge (it can carry 18 soldiers) and slow (top speed 265 km/h, cruising speed 211 km/h).

If von Greim had a completely free hand, what plane would he have chosen for this mission? It seems to be another Junkers, namely the Ju 88. This aircraft was designed in the 1930s as a night bomber with a crew of four specifically to be fast enough to outrun fighters. The serial types had a top speed without bombs of 500 km/h, the S version up to 615 km/h. The Allied fighters at the end of the war were a little faster (680-700 km/h), but before they could be reportedthe target, before they could take off and climb to the desired altitude, the target would be long gone. In addition, it had an armoured glass cockpit, so it was decently protected from ground troops with machine guns, light machine guns and rifles. And it was the Ju 88 that appeared at the end of the war at Skorzeny.

So let's recap the possible escape by plane:

Hitler summons Greim and Reitsch, they land in the early morning of April 26. Greim wounded on his right leg, Fieseler Storch damaged.

On 26 April 1945 Hitler mobilizes two planes.

28.4.1945 Arado 96 arrives and takes Greim and Reitsch. This including the plane is independently confirmed in the biographies of both Greim and Reitsch.

https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_von_Greim https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanna_Reitsch

The night of 30.4.1945 to 1.5.1945. Bormann sends General Krebs via Goebbels to negotiate, a ceasefire is agreed. Darkness, smoke, clouds everywhere. The Ju 88 arrives, loads Hitler, Braun and Müller and flies away.

On the morning of May 1, 1945, the Ju 88 arrives at Rosnheim, lands, Skorzeny's men mask it, and Hitler and his entourage go into hiding. Müller's deputy and his secretary may already be waiting. Most of Skorzeny's men don't know anything about this, they are 100 km away in Radstadt by the train where they had a funeral for Hitler the day before.

Where was Hitler hiding? I don't think he was hiding in a hut. A few kilometres away they had their Eagle's Nest, the area around which had been carefully cleared of all inhabitants years before. And one more pearl that indirectly confirms it. Herman Göring moved into Berchtesgaden. Göring misjudged the political situation and wanted to take over from Hitler, so Hitler had him arrested. Göring had to flee to Mauterndorf Castle. Berchtesgaden and the Eagle's Nest were free. For Hitler and Eva Braun?

Transport Alps - Argentina

Hitler is in the Alps and needs to get to Argentina undetected. This journey requires preparation, which has probably already begun at the beginning of March. He has chosen a plane. The best would be a Ju 390 with a range of 9700 km, but it exists in only two prototypes and the disappearance of one could not be concealed. However, there are more aircraft with a range of over 6,000 km available. The second most suitable is probably the Ju 290 with a range of 6150 km, 65 of these were produced and one could certainly be "lost on mission". Plus they had a few captured B17 and B25s.

However, the range is calculated at factory design, as the maximum launch weight is a given. So the bigger the payload, the less range. But the reverse is also true. For example, in the book P. W. Stahl's GEHEIMGESCHWADER KG 200, he writes about how, in order to save space and weight, he had the 20 mm gun removed from the Ju 188(the Ju 188 was the successor to the Ju 88, but was slower because of the heavy armament, and thus less suitable for Hitler's escape from Berlin - or can anyone imagine Hitler or Eva Braun firing a 20mm cannon at an American fighter?):

I immediately gave the order for the mechanics to remove these guns from all machines. Firstly, we saved 400 kilograms of weight and secondly, we made room for another V-man in each cabin.

In other words, if the Ju 290 was lightened as much as possible by the armament, the range would certainly increase appreciably over 7000 km.

Stahl also describes in his book how the Germans built three airfields in Western Sahara in 1944, where even the heaviest long-range machines could land. The idea was to have air bases against the air bridge of American forces running from the US through Latin America to West Africa and on to Cairo and the African battlefields. The Americans discovered the airfield and (with the exception of one plane that managed to fly away and report the event) destroyed the objects. However, it could be assumed that by the spring of 1945 there would be no more crews there. A direct flight from the Alps to the western tip of Africa is about 7000 km, and a flight from there to Buenos Aires is also about 7000 km. That's a lot on the edge, but a Ju 290 lightweight and with only a few passengers would probably do it. However, there would have to be plenty of aviation petrol and oil ready at Sahara airport. That, of course, could be arranged. Until mid-April, a civil air service between Spain and Germany was in operation. An agent with a suitcase full of money (by the end of the war, not only English pounds but also American dollars were being counterfeited, and an agenda of counterfeitdocuments and money, including a stock of already printed banknotes, bank paper and plates, ended up with Skorzeny at the end of the war). In Spain he was certainly able to secure enough gasoline for a stopover in the Sahara. There was a connection from Spain to Africa, and dollars could buy everything, including aviation gasoline and its transport to the desert. So the idea of a plane with a few passengers on an overnight flight from the Alps to Spain (neither Switzerland nor France at that had no radar at the time), refueling on a stopover, flying to the Sahara airport, refueling and flying to South America were realistic. The Germans had done similar things before. In his book, Stahl describes the airborne landing in Mosul, Iraq on the 27th.November 1944, when they flew nonstop from Vienna over Mosul, parachuted the paratroopers there, and flew back with a stopover and refueling only on the return trip on the island of Rhodes.

One of the 200 Squadron bases was at Horsching near Linz under the command of Captain Braun and he had at least one Ju 290. To quote from the book (as told to Stahl):

Dated 30 April, it says that the captain and his crew of six were to transport a group of people to Barcelona as soon as possible at night in suitable weather with a Junkers Ju 290, registration PJ+PS. If a return flight was not possible and the crew was interned in Spain, Captain Braun was to report to the German air attaché in Madrid. The plane is to be offered for sale to the Spanish.

This was followed by the instruction that soldiers were even then subject to military law and were bound by strict silence. The captain had to confirm this obligation by signing his name.

An express note - shooting or other disguises must be refrained from. The crew flies in uniform as for a combat flight. However, this flight never happened again. The French did not arrive in Horsching, they just stayed "hanging" on the road somewhere in total chaos.

For Captain Braun, however, the written order to fly in the turmoil of the last few days had the effect of protectingthat protected him from taking any further senseless action. He soon met Colonel-General von Greim in Hradec Kralove, who asked him about his duties as commander of Air Army 6. When he showed him the 'letter of protection' and informed him why he had not yet flown to Spain, Greim allowed him to go to Spain without the French government.

So from this we can take it that Braun had a Ju 290 (maybe not one), flew to Hradec Kralove to see Greim and he gave him some orders. They may well have been secret and he didn't disseminate it anywhere, the bit about French officers being stranded somewhere may have been a cover story for a secret order.

We are in Germany on the border with Austria, we have Hitler here, we have Skorzeny and his soldiers here, we have hidden deposits of gold, banknotes (real and fake)We have an airfield with long-range planes where the commander has received orders from von Greim and we know about the existence of German airfields in the Western Sahara.

After the end of the war, sometime between 8 May 1945 and 20 May 1945.1945, a large plane with a few passengers left for Western Sahara (perhaps via Spain, perhaps via the nearby Sahara airport), then a long crossing of the Atlantic to Argentina, landing and refuelling somewhere in Brazil cannot be ruled out to shorten the crossing. They are expected in Argentina. They carry plenty of cash in light bills, and from 1948 Skorzeny begins to bring more money from hiding, either personally or through an intermediary. ODESSA channels open up, and a stream of former SS officers and other lesser prominent people flow into Argentina. By 1954, Skorzeny has a bank at his disposal, and transfers become much easier.

Probability assessment:

Technically, it was certainly possible. The weakness is that even with maximum conspiracy, quite a few people would have had to have been informed of Hitler's escape. Let's summarize:

• Eva Braun, Heinrich Müller, his aide and secretary, the Ju-88 pilot.
• Skorzeny and a few of his men in the Alps.
• The people who stayed in the bunker: Martin Bormann and at least two SS or Gestapo officers who assisted in the exchange of doubles, Hitler's butler Linge and his bodyguard Otto Gü
• Robert von Greim and probably Hanna Reitsch, Baumbach, Captain Braun and the pilot of the Ju-290 (he may be identical to the Ju-88 pilot but they probably needed two pilots for the long route)
• Hitler's dentist Hugo Blaschke and his assistant Käthe Heusermann.

Summary:

• The evidence of Hitler's suicide could have been faked, and very easily. Which is not to say that he did not commit suicide, just that there is no credible evidence of it.
• If Hitler wanted to escape, Skorzeny would have been the logical choice to organize and technically and staff it. There are many clues, but no real proof.

Conclusion:

Unfortunately, we have too few clues and no evidence at all, so the question of suicide versus escape must remain open. If I am to express my personal opinion, I find the escape version a little more likely. The description of the suicide really seems like a theatrical performance. Evidence of suicide is basically the only mechanism where it could be faked. That the occupants of the bunker were not allowed to take a close look at the corpse of the leader and bid him farewell is strange. The burning is logical, but the "accidental" grenade hit that made any forensic analysis other than the teeth impossible is yet another coincidence. And the fact that a dead soldier who bears a striking resemblance to Hitler is accidentally killed on the steps of the Bunker, at a time when thethe corpse of Hitler's doppelganger is in our analysis and needs to be hidden - that's a lot of coincidences. Moreover, the plane that appeared at Skorzeny's out of nowhere and which by complete coincidence would have been just the right one for the escape from Berlin.

Jesse James once said - when I meet someone, it's a coincidence. The second time I meet him, it's a big coincidence. The third time I see him, I pull out my Colt and shoot.

There are a lot of coincidences that fit the pattern.