hebrewscriptures: with BENJAMIN LEON
French researchers claim to have put an end to conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Adolf Hitler, after a study of his teeth proved he definitely died after taking cyanide and shooting himself in the head in Berlin in 1945.
“The teeth are authentic, there is no possible doubt. Our study proves that Hitler died in 1945,” said Professor Philippe Charlier.
“We can stop all the conspiracy theories about Hitler. He did not flee to Argentina in a submarine, he is not in a hidden base in Antarctica or on the dark side of the moon,” he told AFP.
The teeth were put on display in 2000 in Moscow as part of an exhibition to mark the 55th anniversary of the end of the war.
They were back in the news again last month when the memoirs of a Russian interpreter who worked in Berlin in 1945 were published in English for the first time.
She recounted how she had been tasked with proving Hitler’s death by tracking down his dental records in the ruined German capital and seeing if they matched a set of teeth she had been entrusted with — which they did.
In March and July 2017, Russia’s FSB secret service and the Russian state archives authorised a team of French researchers to examine Hitler’s bones for the first time since 1946, said Professor Charlier, who was one of the scientists chosen.
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They were able to look at a skull fragment presented as being from the Fuhrer, which showed a hole on the left side which was in all probability caused by the passage of a bullet.
The scientists were not authorised to take samples from this fragment, they noted in their study published recently in the scientific magazine European Journal of Internal Medicine.
The skull fragment’s morphology was “totally comparable” to radiographies of Hitler’s skull taken a year before his death, the research found.
The analysis of the Nazi leader’s bad teeth and numerous dentures found white tartar deposits and no traces of meat fibre — the dictator was vegetarian.
The examination of the teeth did not find any traces of powder, which indicates there was not a revolver shot to the mouth, more likely the neck or the forehead.
Equally, bluish deposits seen on his false teeth could indicate a “chemical reaction between the cyanide and the metal of the dentures”, the researcher said.
If this study confirms the generally accepted view that Hitler died on April 30, 1945, in his Berlin bunker with his companion Eva Braun as the Soviets were capturing the city, it also sheds new light on the exact causes of death, said Charlier.
“We didn’t know if he had used an ampule of cyanide to kill himself or whether it was a bullet in the head. It’s in all probability, both,” he said.
Charlier, a specialist in medical and legal anthropology, was also involved in the analysis of the mummified heart of Richard the Lionheart.
This is in direct contradiction of the satellite History Channel “Hunting Hitler” series. If the details about the Hitler dentures are true, then the TV channel is on a wild goose chase!
The “Hunting Hitler” documentary is speculative nonsense, so it cannot be claimed to be “accurate” in any way. It is about entertainment for no specialists, because anyone with real knowledge about the fall of the Nazi regime and Hitler’s death in the bunker would not even pretend to take it seriously. It is the type of entertainment that is extremely harmful for a real understanding of history, because it makes speculative claims without any evidence, which the casual viewer then absorbs as “fact”.
There was a tunnel to the bunker! Hitler could have gotten out! Sure, and the Russians could have gotten in.
There was a submarine sighted off the coast of Argentina! No kidding. Many submarines were at sea at the end of the war. How exactly does that suggest that Hitler could have fled there? Because there was a German community in Argentina, and they were pro-Nazi! Well, there was a German community on eastern Long Island in New York, too, and they were also pro-Nazi, apparently.
There is no evidence that Hitler escaped, and an enormous amount of evidence that puts him in the bunker on the day he died; that he shot himself while his wife took poison; that his followers either killed themselves afterwards (like the Goebbels, who also massacred their children because Frau Goebbels could not imagine them living in a world without the Fuehrer), or fled the bunker, some to die in the street fighting, others (like Martin Bormann) to kill themselves subsequently. If Hitler could have escaped, they all would have escaped together.
It is silly and misnamed. Read books instead. Books are scholarly. Books have footnotes. Books are reviewed in professional journals by other experts. If a book is poorly written, the historical community judges it so, and it disappears. If it adds value, it becomes the basis for new study.
l Benjamin Leon is a member of the Jewish community in Zimbabwe.
Feedback: vleon@ mango.zw
