Hitler’s Death

Luke Daly-Groves is a PhD researcher based at the University of Leeds. His doctoral research analyses Anglo-American intelligence relations in occupied Germany. In 2015 he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree with First Class Honours in History from the University of Central Lancashire and was awarded the Sydney Lee Prize for History. In 2016 he was awarded the degree of Master of Arts in Modern History with Distinction from the University of Leeds. His MA dissertation won the Marion Sharples Prize.

Abbreviations
Illustrations
Preface

Introduction: Is History Wrong?

1 The Evolution of Facts and Conspiracies
I Hitler Waves
II A New Approach

2 British Intelligence and Rumours of Survival
I ‘Sheer Poppycock’: The Foreign Office Investigates
II ‘Baumgart is Telling Lies’: The War Office Files
III Double Trouble: Debunking the Escape Theories

3 American Intelligence and Rumours of Survival
I ‘A Dollar to a Doughnut’: Hitler in America?
II Hitler in Argentina?
III Recurrent Legends: The CIA Investigations
IV ‘Is Hitler Dead?’ American Military Intelligence Investigates
V Hitler Everywhere? The Importance of Context

4 Political Motivations? British, American and Soviet Conduct
I Why Trevor-Roper? Investigating the British Investigations
II Preventing a Hitler Myth: Rumours, Motivations and Context
III Triumph of the Wills
IV Anglo-American Solidarity
V Appeasing the Soviets? British Intelligence and Soviet Conduct

5 Helping Hitler Escape? The Hunt for Hitler’s Henchmen
I Bormann is the Key?
II The Hunt for Heinrich ‘Gestapo’ Müller
III The Mass Suicide
IV ‘Why Not Hitler?’ Real Escapes from the Bunker

6 The Evidence Still Stands
I Positive and Consistent Evidence
II Alternative Versions of Hitler’s Death
III The Skull Changes Everything?

Conclusion: ‘The Onus is on Hitler’

Acknowledgements
Bibliography
Notes
Index