The German dictator and leader of the Nazi, Adolf Hitler was responsible for the death of approximately eleven million people and justice was never served for any of those victims (“Adolf Hitler Biography”1). He also initiated World War II and The Holocaust. What happened to Adolf Hitler? There are three main conspiracy theories about his death:
1. Did he commit suicide?
2. Did he fake his own death and escaped to South America with his wife?
3. Is he still alive?
Let’s examine these theories about Adolf Hitler’s death, with the most possible solution that he faked his own death and escaped with his wife.
Character Analysis
One of the first characteristics of Adolf Hitler is that he was extremely racist; he believed that the Germans or as he called them, “The Aryan” were superior and were supposed to rule the world one day. According to Hitler, the ideal master race was “blond, blue-eyed, and tall” (“Nazi Racism” 1). Hitler wanted to get these ideas inside of the German’s head, and eventually the people began to follow his orders and obey him. In an article called “Nazi Racism”, it points out how Hitler started to segregate the Jews and anyone else who he felt did not belong to his race, “After Hitler took power, Nazi teachers in school classrooms began to apply the ‘principles’ of racial science, they measured skull size and nose length and recorded the color of their pupils' hair and eyes to determine whether students belonged to the true ‘Aryan race’, Jewish and Romani students were often humiliated in the process” (1). The following quote explains how the Holocaust started in Germany:
Across Germany the local police and SA and SS rounded up many thousands of communists, socialists, church leaders and anyone else who might criticize the Nazis. As prisoners were physically concentrated in one place the Nazis called these first camps concentration camps. Over the next twelve years, as they invaded and occupied lands all over Europe, the Nazis would build over 40,000 camps of various kinds. These included concentration camps, transit camps, forced labor or work camps and death camps. ("What Were Hitler's And the Nazi Party's Ideas?” 1)
The evidence proves that Hitler was a discriminatory person, and he even influenced others to segregate minorities and mistreat them, which lead to causing the Holocaust, where millions of minority groups including Jews, were abused and killed for no reason.
Adolf Hitler can also be described as a hateful person. This all started when he was a child, as he had a feeling of hate towards his father. According to psychoanalyst Michael Stone, “Hitler's father reportedly beat both Adolf and his older brother with a whip regularly, meting out daily whippings to the more rebellious Adolf, who, by the time he turned 11, refused to give his father the satisfaction of crying, even after 32 lashes” (“How Mad was Hitler?” 1). It is very hard and traumatic when a child is abused, let alone by his own father, a person that a child looks up to and sees as a role model. Stone also adds that, “Hitler's hatred for his father fueled his hatred of Jews, who, after his father died when Adolf was only fourteen, served as scapegoats for his residual fury” (1). It is believed that the childhood traumas turned Hitler into a hateful person later in his life. According to psychiatrist Henry A. Murray, “the adult Hitler was a ‘counteractive type,’ by which he meant a person primarily motivated by resentment and revenge in response to prior narcissistic wounding and profound feelings of inferiority” (1). In conclusion, Hitler felt angry and humiliated ever since he was a child. Because there was nothing he could do at the time, he then decided to take his hate towards the Jews and mistreat them, much like his father did to him. This led to him becoming the dictator of Germany, causing the Holocaust and World War II, resulting in the death of millions of innocent people, including women and children.
Conspiracy Descriptions (Main Idea and Details with Survey Results)
The first conspiracy theory surrounding Hitler’s death is that he killed himself along with his wife Eva Braun whom he married only two days before their double suicide in his bunker in Berlin on April 30 of 1945. Hitler had repaired his bunker on January 16 of 1945, after deciding to stay in there for the last moments of the war. The shelter was fifty-five feet under the chancellery (Hitler’s headquarters as chancellor), and it contained eighteen small rooms and was fully self-sufficient with its own running water system and electrical service. It is believed that they both swallowed cyanide pills which had been tested for their efficacy on his “beloved” dog, an Alsatian named Blondi. He then shot himself in the head for good measure (“Adolf Hitler commits suicide in his underground bunker” 1). One of the most asked questions surrounding his death is what led him to commit suicide? Although nobody is entirely sure why he did it, many historians and theorists have speculated, but they are not certain because he did not leave a suicide note and the truth was only known by Hitler. Days before his death, “Hitler’s officers warned him that the Russians were on their way and that it would only take them a day or two to take the chancellery” (“Why Did Hitler Kill Himself?” 1). When he found out they were coming for him and he was going to lose the war, he decided to give up and kill himself instead of turning himself in to the Russians. Hitler was very loyal to his Nazi’s rules and he was not allowed to abandon his people. The following quote explains his beliefs for which he stood until the end; “One of the Nazi principles was that death was better than dishonor which may have prompted Hitler to rather chose suicide than be captured and be tried for his crimes against humanity” (1). Many people did not believe that he committed suicide because after his death, the dead body was never seen; “The bodies of Hitler and Eva were cremated in the chancellery garden by the bunker survivors (as per Der Fuhrer’s orders) and reportedly later recovered in part by Russian troops. After 11 years a German court finally officially declared Hitler dead in 1956” (1).
The second conspiracy states that he never actually committed suicide, and instead, he escaped with his wife and children, living the rest of their lives peacefully where nobody could find them, like somewhere in South America. He made everybody think that he was dead, so they would not go looking for him. Although many theorists still believe that he managed to escape, this theory has been proved to be false because Hitler refused to escape, even when his men begged him to leave; “They urged him to escape to the Bavarian Alps, to a small town in Berchtesgarden, but he chose suicide” (1). Hitler decided to kill himself because he knew that it was nearly impossible to escape without getting caught by the thousands of Soviet troops invading the country (1). Hitler also did not want to escape because he heard about what happened to the Italian leader Benito Mussolini; “Mussolini was captured when trying to escape with his mistress and they both were shot, and their bodies hung a town square where they were reviled by vengeful people. Hitler didn’t want anything like that to happen to him and wrote in his last will and testament that he didn’t want to become a ‘spectacle’” (1). Hitler believed that if he even tried to escape, he would get captured and tortured which led him to committing suicide; “Hitler may have chosen to, rather than spending his last days fleeing in fear before eventually getting captured, humiliated and executed, get married, spend his wedding night in peace and quiet and say his farewells” (1).
The last conspiracy is that Hitler managed to somehow escape from his bunker in Berlin and went to Argentina where he lived in peace, and supposedly is still alive after all these years. Recently an Argentinian man named Herman Gunthenberg, who is 128 years old, claims that he is Adolf Hitler and he left Germany in 1945 using a fake passport (O'Donoghue 1). It is very unlikely that he is in fact Adolf Hitler, and the points he makes do not seem to make much sense. In the interview, he states the following: “Mr. Gunthenberg even claimed in a supposed interview that he does not need to be punished for his ‘role’ in killing more than six million Jewish people, claiming he has served his sentence in hiding” (1). His wife was also interviewed, and she did not believe the claims he was making “His wife, Angela Martinez, who has been married to him for 55 years, is quoted in the reports as saying he is likely to be an ex-Nazi. But she said he is not Hitler, saying his ‘memories of the past’ are in fact caused by dementia. She said: ‘He often did not remember where he was, he seemed to go into a trance and start talking about demons and Jews’” (1). Like his wife said, it could be possible that he was a Nazi when he was young, but there is absolutely no way that he is Adolf Hitler because professionals have performed many tests using his teeth to prove that he died back in 1945. The following quote proves that Hitler is in fact dead:
A team of French pathologists was recently allowed to inspect a set of teeth kept in Moscow that were recovered in Berlin in early May 1945 — the first time that Russian authorities had allowed anyone to examine the remains in over 70 years. And the researchers' conclusions are unambiguous. ‘The teeth are authentic — there is no possible doubt,’ lead pathologist Philippe Charlier told the AFP news agency. ‘Our study proves that Hitler died in 1945’. (Chase 1)
Thanks to the number of tests that they performed, they proved that Hitler committed suicide; “The research team was also allowed to look at fragments of Hitler's skull to confirm the means by which he committed suicide. The teeth matched descriptions provided by Hitler's dentist and revealed no trace of meat — consistent with the fact that the Führer was vegetarian” (1).
All the evidence proves that Adolf Hitler committed suicide with his wife. In fact, a survey of twenty college of the mainland students revealed that 90% of the students agree that this theory best solves the death of the German dictator. It is a fact that Hitler is death because he killed himself along with his wife right before he was about to lose the war.
Conclusion
After examining the death of the German dictator Adolf Hitler, who was responsible for the deadliest events in history, World War II and The Holocaust (“Adolf Hitler Biography” 1), three conspiracies theories are left to ponder:
1. Did he commit suicide?
2. Did he fake his own death and escaped to South America with his wife?
3. Is he still alive?
After years of numerous tests performed by professional investigators using Hitler’s teeth and skull, they were able to prove that he committed suicide back in 1945 (Chase 1). Although some theorists still believe that he escaped to South America or that he is still alive, they should put the absurd theories to rest.
Works Cited
“Adolf Hitler.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 17 Jan. 2019, www.biography.com/people/adolf-hitler-9340144.
“Adolf Hitler Commits Suicide in His Underground Bunker.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 5 Nov. 2009,www.history.com/this-day-in-history/adolf-hitler-commits-suicide-in-his-underground-bunker.
Chase, Jefferson. “Hitler's Teeth Analysis Dispels Myths of Nazi Leader's Survival.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 21 May 2018, www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/05/21/hitler-teeth-test-dispels-myths-nazi-leaders-survival/627831002/.
"How Mad Was Hitler?". Psychology Today, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/evil-deeds/201412/how-mad-was-hitler.
"Nazi Racism". Encyclopedia.Ushmm.Org, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-racism.
O'Donoghue, Rachel. “'I Am ADOLF HITLER' Shock Claims Argentinian Man, 128, Is Nazi Leader Sparks Frenzy.” Dailystar.co.uk, Daily Star, 29 June 2017, www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/626025/adolf-hitler-alive-argentina-man-herman-gunthenberg-nazi-leader-south-america.
"What Were Hitler's And the Nazi Party's Ideas? – The Holocaust Explained: Designed for Schools". Theholocaustexplained.Org,https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/the-nazi-rise-to-power/the-early-years-of-the-nazi-party/what-were-hitlers-ideas/.
“Why Did Hitler Kill Himself?” History, 7 May 2018, www.historyonthenet.com/why-did-hitler-kill-himself.
