5. Why did the Soviets muddy the waters over Hitler’s death?
In 2017 a team of French forensic specialists announced that through an examination of Hitler’s teeth, or rather the remains of portions of his teeth retained by the Russians, that they had determined beyond doubt that Hitler died in or near his bunker in Berlin in 1945. The announcement was made more than four decades after the Soviet KGB, under orders of Soviet premier Yuri Andropov, had according to their own records cremated all remains of the bodies recovered from the bunker, crushed the remaining fragments, and disposed of them in a river. As part of the announcement the leader of the French study announced, “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,” according to accounts published by Agence France Presse.
In the summer of 1945 Josef Stalin was no longer dealing with the Allied leaders with whom he had prosecuted the war. Harry Truman had replaced Franklin Roosevelt as President of the United States, and Winston Churchill was no longer the Prime Minister of the British government; Charles de Gaulle had emerged as the spiritual leader of France and a thorn in the side of the Allies. Stalin had an opportunity to create dissension among the Allies and he deliberately fostered rumors of Hitler’s escape, telling Truman personally at the Potsdam Conference that he believed the Fuhrer to be alive, either in the custody of British Intelligence or having escaped via Franco’s Spain. He even mentioned “evidence” of the fact. At the same time rumors began, principally among the French, that Hitler was alive in the custody of the Soviets. Stalin’s rumor mongering led to the belief of Hitler’s survival and escape which is still investigated by those so inclined more than seventy years later.