On April 30, 1945, as Soviet troops were rushing into the center of Berlin, Adolf Hitler and his fiancée Eva Braun, to whom he had become engaged only the day before, committed suicide in an underground bunker. Their bodies were taken to the courtyard of the Reich Chancellery, doused with petrol and set on fire.
The remains were buried in a shell crater, and later Soviet soldiers discovered them and conducted an expert examination. According to the official version, Hitler's death was confirmed by dental records, and in 1970 the KGB destroyed his remains, leaving only fragments of his skull and jaw.
But as soon as the world learned of the Führer's death, rumors began to circulate: what if he had escaped? After all, the body was only partially identified, and in the last days of the war in Berlin reigned chaos. Almost immediately, theories emerged that Hitler could have escaped through underground routes, the so-called ‘rat trails’, through which hundreds of Nazis fled to South America. These trails were used by high-ranking SS men, Nazi scientists and even concentration camp doctors. Why shouldn't the Führer himself disappear in the same way?
Rumors were fueled by unexpected evidence. In 1945, the Spanish press reported that Hitler was seen in a submarine off the coast of Argentina. Later, people remarkably similar to him began to be spotted in various parts of Latin America. Even the CIA, despite official reports of death, spent decades verifying these accounts. Recently declassified documents show that U.S. agents seriously considered the possibility that Hitler might have survived. (You'll find a link to the declassified material at the end of this article.) And if that's true - then where did he disappear to?
Among the declassified CIA documents, a report from October 1945 attracts particular attention. Agents of the U.S. War Department reported about a strange place in the Argentine Andes - a luxury spa hotel ‘Edelweiss’ in the town of La Falda. What could link this picturesque resort to the Nazi leader? It turned out that the owner of the hotel and her entire family had been ardent supporters of Hitler since the 1920s.
The documents state that this family did not just sympathies with the Nazis - they personally knew Hitler and even lived in the same hotel with him during their visits to Germany. Moreover, the report states, ‘They had prepared a safe haven in advance in case the Führer ever needed a safe place to retreat to.’ The report emphasizes that Hitler never forgot their loyalty and generous financial support in the early formative years of the party.
Particularly intriguing is the description of the hotel itself - remote from major cities, surrounded by dense forests, with many secret rooms and underground passages. Modern researchers who have visited the place confirm - the architecture of the building is indeed suspicious. Numerous cellars, strange tunnels that lead to nowhere..... Local residents still tell legends about an ‘important German guest’ who allegedly lived here in the post-war years under a false name.
The most mysterious document is dated October 1955. A CIA agent codenamed CIMELODY-3 received startling information from his informant. He met a man who introduced himself as former SS man Philippe Citroen, who claimed to have personally communicated with Hitler... in Colombia! in Colombia!
According to the report, Citroen showed a photograph taken on a beach in the town of Tunha. The photo shows himself and an elderly man with distinctive facial features: a familiar moustache, a piercing stare, and even a familiar hairstyle. The man allegedly introduced himself as ‘Adolf Schrittelmayor’ and said he had travelled to Colombia from Germany after the war.
Most surprisingly, Citroen claimed to have met with the man regularly, almost every month. ‘He said that ten years after the war, the Allies would no longer be able to try Hitler as a war criminal,’ the document reads. The CIA agent was even given a copy of the very photograph that the informant had temporarily ‘borrowed’ from Citroen.
But why, then, did the CIA stop investigating? In the same document there is a remarkable phrase: ‘We can spend huge resources on this case, but the chances of finding something concrete are extremely low.’ Perhaps the American intelligence services found the information insufficiently convincing. Or. maybe they'd learnt something they'd decided not to disclose?
After 1955, the declassified archives no longer mention the search for Hitler. But the photograph from Colombia remains - today it can be seen by anyone in the CIA's document database. And looking at this image, you can't help but think: what if at least part of this incredible story is true?
Even if Hitler did not survive, the escape system created for his associates is amazingly elaborate. After the collapse of the Third Reich, thousands of Nazis literally vanished into thin air, only to reappear later under assumed identities in far-flung corners of the Earth. Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, Chile - these countries became the new home for those who had something to hide. How did they do it?
The path of the fugitives began in chaos-ridden post-war Europe. Special underground networks set up during the war helped former SS and NSDAP functionaries to obtain false documents. Then, through monasteries in Italy or Spain, where they were sheltered by sympathetic Catholic priests, they were transported by ship to South America. The ‘Organization of Former SS Members’ (ODESSA) played a special role in this, creating a veritable ‘underground railway’ for the Nazis.
Argentina under President Perón became a particularly hospitable haven. The local authorities did not just turn a blind eye to arriving Germans with dubious backgrounds; they actively helped them settle in. German schools were opened in Buenos Aires, newspapers were published in the native language, and some fugitives even held prominent positions in Argentine industry and the army. It was not until 1960, after Eichmann's kidnapping, that this idyll began to crumble.
When the Argentine government announced in 2023 that it was declassifying archives on Nazi criminals, historians around the world froze in anticipation. These time-yellowed documents could change the way we think about post-war history. What exactly do researchers hope to find in these files?
First of all, financial traces. How did Nazi criminals transfer their fortunes across the ocean? Through which banking structures were these transactions channeled? It is already known that some Argentine banks willingly accepted the ‘gold of the Third Reich’, but the scale of these operations is still unclear. No less interesting are the passenger lists of ships arriving from Europe in 1945-1950. Many of the names there are obviously false, but modern methods of analysis will help to identify the real owners of these passports.
Of particular interest are the local intelligence files. According to rumors, the Argentine intelligence services did not just know about the incoming Nazis - they actively recruited some of them to fight the Communists and Peronist opposition. If confirmed, this will shed light on one of the darkest pages of the Cold War in Latin America.
In 1955, the CIA abruptly called off all active searches for Hitler. The official reason was the lack of credible evidence of his survival. But many researchers wonder: were there not other, less public reasons for this decision?
One theory says that the Americans did find some evidence of the Führer's death, but decided not to make it public so as not to deprive the Soviet Union of a propaganda trump card. Another theory suggests that Western intelligence services preferred not to ‘wake up the storm’, fearing that a living Hitler (if he was indeed in hiding) could become a symbol for neo-Nazi movements.
But the most intriguing speculation concerns a possible deal. It is known that after the war the Americans actively recruited German scientists, including those who worked on missile technology. What if among the terms of their co-operation was also silence about the possible fate of the Führer? Of course, this is only speculation, but the history of operations like ‘Paperclip’ shows that for the sake of technological superiority, the West was willing to turn a blind eye to many things.
