Colin1
Senior Master Sergeant
The Daily Telegraph 8 May 2010
By Andrew Osborn
in Moscow
Adolf Hitler poisoned himself rather than committing suicide with a gun in the manner of a soldier, according to Russia's top security service archivist.
Lt Gen Vasily Khristoforov said Soviet military medical staff at the time were able to determine only that the Nazi leader and his mistress, Eva Braun, had died after ingesting cyanide on April 30 1945.
He said the 'myth' that Hitler died an honourable death by shooting himself in the head at the time he took a cyanide capsule appeared wide of the mark. "The presence of the remains of crushed glass capsules in the mouth and the sharp odour of bitter almonds from the corpses, and the results of an internal post mortem led the [Soviet] commission to conclude that it was death by cyanide poisoning" he said.
"Thus the myth put about by those Nazis left in Berlin that 'the Fuhrer died like a soldier having shot himself in his bunker' was shattered. Soviet medical staff found no serious wounds on Hitler's heavily burned body either, he added.
If accurate, Lt Gen Khristoforov's account casts doubts on the widely accepted version of how Hitler died. It also raises questions over the authenticity of a skull fragment kept in Russia's state archive that purportedly came from Hitler. The fragment has a bullet hole in it yet American researchers claim that DNA testing of the skull has shown it belonged to a woman aged between 20 and 40 and could not be Hitler's.
The Russians have defended the skull's authenticity but have not offered their own DNA proof. The Soviets, who were paranoid about anyone finding Hitler's resting place, lest it became a place of pilgrimage for Nazis, dug up what they said were Hitler's remains as late as 1970 and burned them before scattering the ashes in a river.
Conspiracy theorists have claimed that the Nazi leader escaped to South America and even Stalin was thought to have gone to his grave thinking that his nemesis had survived the war.
By Andrew Osborn
in Moscow
Adolf Hitler poisoned himself rather than committing suicide with a gun in the manner of a soldier, according to Russia's top security service archivist.
Lt Gen Vasily Khristoforov said Soviet military medical staff at the time were able to determine only that the Nazi leader and his mistress, Eva Braun, had died after ingesting cyanide on April 30 1945.
He said the 'myth' that Hitler died an honourable death by shooting himself in the head at the time he took a cyanide capsule appeared wide of the mark. "The presence of the remains of crushed glass capsules in the mouth and the sharp odour of bitter almonds from the corpses, and the results of an internal post mortem led the [Soviet] commission to conclude that it was death by cyanide poisoning" he said.
"Thus the myth put about by those Nazis left in Berlin that 'the Fuhrer died like a soldier having shot himself in his bunker' was shattered. Soviet medical staff found no serious wounds on Hitler's heavily burned body either, he added.
If accurate, Lt Gen Khristoforov's account casts doubts on the widely accepted version of how Hitler died. It also raises questions over the authenticity of a skull fragment kept in Russia's state archive that purportedly came from Hitler. The fragment has a bullet hole in it yet American researchers claim that DNA testing of the skull has shown it belonged to a woman aged between 20 and 40 and could not be Hitler's.
The Russians have defended the skull's authenticity but have not offered their own DNA proof. The Soviets, who were paranoid about anyone finding Hitler's resting place, lest it became a place of pilgrimage for Nazis, dug up what they said were Hitler's remains as late as 1970 and burned them before scattering the ashes in a river.
Conspiracy theorists have claimed that the Nazi leader escaped to South America and even Stalin was thought to have gone to his grave thinking that his nemesis had survived the war.
