After World War II, 50 percent of Americans polled said they didn't believe Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun had committed suicide in their bunker in 1945, as captured Nazi officials claimed. Instead, they believed the dictator faked his death and escaped, perhaps to Argentina.

 

This wasn't a crazy opinion. Joseph Stalin told Allied leaders that Soviet forces never discovered Hitler's body and that he personally believed the Nazi leader had escaped justice. At least two German submarines crossed the Atlantic and landed on the coast of Argentina in July 1945. Plus, there were numerous reports of top Nazi officials successfully fleeing to South America where there was a large German colony.

 

Incredible as it sounds, the mystery surrounding Adolf Hitler's final days only deepened in 2009 when a U.S. forensic team announced that a piece of Hitler's skull held in Soviet archives was not actually Hitler's. International interest increased further in 2014 when the FBI released previously classified files detailing investigations surrounding Hitler's possible escape. And the following year, The History Channel launched a three-year reality TV series investigating if it was possible Hitler did somehow survive.

 

Popular history writer Robert J. Hutchinson joins me on the broadcast to help us find out what really happened to Adolf Hitler.

 

Get Robert's new book What Really Happened: The Death of Hitler.

 

For additional show notes, visit ShaunTabatt.com/444.

 

The Shaun Tabatt Show is part of the Destiny Image Podcast Network.