CIA documents show covert hunt for Hitler during the 1950s
US agents searched for the Nazi leader in South America for a decade following his supposed death, newly released documents reveal. The CIA conducted a covert operation to locate Adolf Hitler in South America from 1945 to 1955, as indicated...
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US agents searched for the Nazi leader in South America for a decade following his supposed death, newly released documents reveal.
The CIA conducted a covert operation to locate Adolf Hitler in South America from 1945 to 1955, as indicated by declassified files analyzed by the Washington Post this week. Despite the existence of an autopsy report confirming his death, field agents speculated that Hitler might have escaped to South America under a different identity.
According to MI5 files, Hitler and his long-time partner Eva Braun, whom he had married just a day prior, took their own lives on April 30, 1945, in his Berlin bunker to evade capture. Soviet soldiers later found their partially burned bodies outside the Reich Chancellery. Nevertheless, CIA agents pursued leads well into the mid-1950s.
One file from 1945 notes that US War Department agents informed the FBI of a spa hotel in La Falda, Argentina, that had been prepared as a possible hideout. The hotel's owners, who had donated to propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, maintained close connections with Hitler, leading US intelligence to believe they had made all necessary arrangements to shelter him following Germany’s defeat in World War II.
Another document from October 1955 included a photograph of a man thought to be Hitler, who was reportedly sitting with a friend in Colombia. The man, using the alias Adolf Schrittelmayor, allegedly left Colombia for Argentina in January 1955.
The CIA briefly initiated an investigation into Schrittelmayor’s background but eventually abandoned it, citing that "enormous efforts could be expended on this matter with remote possibilities of establishing anything concrete."
Following 1955, no additional CIA documents have surfaced indicating that agents continued their search for Hitler, the Washington Post reported.
These revelations come as Argentina, a country historically associated with housing Nazi fugitives, prepares to declassify government documents concerning individuals who sought refuge there after World War II.
It is estimated that about 10,000 war criminals utilized ‘ratlines’ to escape Europe, with approximately half settling in Argentina, which was known for its hesitance to comply with extradition requests.
Notable figures among this group include Adolf Eichmann, a principal architect of the Holocaust, and Josef Mengele, the infamous doctor from Auschwitz. Eichmann was captured by Israeli agents in 1960 and tried in Israel, while Mengele evaded capture and passed away in Brazil in 1979 from a heart attack while swimming.
Rohan Mehta for TROIB News
The CIA conducted a covert operation to locate Adolf Hitler in South America from 1945 to 1955, as indicated by declassified files analyzed by the Washington Post this week. Despite the existence of an autopsy report confirming his death, field agents speculated that Hitler might have escaped to South America under a different identity.
According to MI5 files, Hitler and his long-time partner Eva Braun, whom he had married just a day prior, took their own lives on April 30, 1945, in his Berlin bunker to evade capture. Soviet soldiers later found their partially burned bodies outside the Reich Chancellery. Nevertheless, CIA agents pursued leads well into the mid-1950s.
One file from 1945 notes that US War Department agents informed the FBI of a spa hotel in La Falda, Argentina, that had been prepared as a possible hideout. The hotel's owners, who had donated to propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, maintained close connections with Hitler, leading US intelligence to believe they had made all necessary arrangements to shelter him following Germany’s defeat in World War II.
Another document from October 1955 included a photograph of a man thought to be Hitler, who was reportedly sitting with a friend in Colombia. The man, using the alias Adolf Schrittelmayor, allegedly left Colombia for Argentina in January 1955.
The CIA briefly initiated an investigation into Schrittelmayor’s background but eventually abandoned it, citing that "enormous efforts could be expended on this matter with remote possibilities of establishing anything concrete."
Following 1955, no additional CIA documents have surfaced indicating that agents continued their search for Hitler, the Washington Post reported.
These revelations come as Argentina, a country historically associated with housing Nazi fugitives, prepares to declassify government documents concerning individuals who sought refuge there after World War II.
It is estimated that about 10,000 war criminals utilized ‘ratlines’ to escape Europe, with approximately half settling in Argentina, which was known for its hesitance to comply with extradition requests.
Notable figures among this group include Adolf Eichmann, a principal architect of the Holocaust, and Josef Mengele, the infamous doctor from Auschwitz. Eichmann was captured by Israeli agents in 1960 and tried in Israel, while Mengele evaded capture and passed away in Brazil in 1979 from a heart attack while swimming.
Rohan Mehta for TROIB News
