Debunked: CIA Claimed Hitler Survived WWII

[MikeG]

On Monday, Newsweek published a story that the CIA claimed Hitler survived WWII and was living in Argentina in the fifties. It looks like the magazine is jumping on the current bandwagon about JFK documents declassification.

¿Dónde está el Führer?

A newly declassified document from the CIA claims that Adolf Hitler apparently survived World War II and lived in Colombia for several months in 1954.

http://www.newsweek.com/cia-investi...rvived-world-war-ii-and-moved-colombia-696847

If you look at the actual documents, it quickly becomes clear that the CIA never made any such claim and saw the alleged bombshell for what it was: outright speculation from an uncorroborated source.

The story is not new. Both Veterans Today and Sputniknews.com published the same news this summer.

https://sputniknews.com/latam/201709081057225023-hitler-cia-documents-alive-argentina/

https://www.veteranstoday.com/2017/...was-alive-and-well-in-argentina-in-the-1950s/

Newsweek and Veterans Today cite a document dated 3 October 1955 that states a CIA source (codenamed CIMELODY-3) was in contact with Phillip Citroen, who claimed to have met Hitler in Colombia. [My emphasis]

https://www.veteranstoday.com/2017/...was-alive-and-well-in-argentina-in-the-1950s/

Citroen also provided a picture (above) alleged to be of Hitler to prove his story.

Importantly, the CIA document is prefaced with the disclaimer that:

Neither CIMELODY-3 nor this Station is in a position to give an intelligent evaluation of the information and it is being forwarded as of possible interest.

A second document dated 17 October 1955 from the CIA station in Maracaibo, Venezuela also commented on Citroen's story and the photograph [Again, my emphasis]:

https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/HITLER, ADOLF_0005.pdf

It looks to me the CIA was skeptical at best about Citroen's story, which remained uncorroborated and not worth further action. In no way, shape, or form did the agency claim that Hitler survived World War II.

 

[deirdre]

https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/HITLER, ADOLF_0003.pdf


He couldn't give up the name Adolf?

 

[Trailblazer]

It's worth mentioning that there are hundreds of pages of government files (FBI rather than CIA) already released, dealing with potential claims that Hitler was alive and living in South America.

eg see Snopes: https://www.snopes.com/fbi-files-prove-adolf-hitler-escaped-to-argentina/

which links to this vast repository of "tips" from numerous sources on what Adolf was up to through the 1940s and 1950s. https://vault.fbi.gov/adolf-hitler/adolf-hitler-part-01-of-04/view

 

[Nada Truther]

He couldn't give up the name Adolf?

Or the mustache?

If I was trying to hide out and convince the world that I was dead.... I would probably shave that little Hitler stache and maybe change my name to Mike or Bill or something. That is assuming that he faked his death and is trying to hide. Also, that picture looks like a much you8nger Hitler than the ones we have seen towards the end of WW2. He looked pretty beat down and old in the last few pictures that we see of the ACTUAL Hitler. Is it possible that the picture is, in fact a picture of Hitler, but from long before WW2?



Last known photo of Hitler? On the right. Hard to make out an age, but I DO remember hearing that he started to get Parkinson's or something like that and often had his arm behind his back to hide the shakes. The OP picture is too grainy to make out hands, but to me, he looks younger.

 

[Trailblazer]

View attachment 29998

https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/HITLER, ADOLF_0003.pdf


He couldn't give up the name Adolf?

Incidentally, the writing on the back of the photo looks more like "Schüttelmayer" than "Schrittelmayor".

I think whoever typed up the report misread it, perhaps because they were unfamiliar with umlauts.

 

[Mick West]

Incidentally, the writing on the back of the photo looks more like "Schüttelmayer" than "Schrittelmayor".

German press reports it as Schüttelmayer
https://www.stern.de/politik/auslan...huettelmayer-in-kolumbien-gelebt-7682012.html

Das Dossier des US-Auslandsgeheimdienstes beinhaltet als vermeintlich aussagekräftigsten Beleg ein äußerst grobkörniges Bild, auf dem angeblich SS-Mann Citroen und ein weiterer Mann zu sehen sind, der wie Adolf Hitleraussieht. Dazu der Vermerk: "Adolf Schüttelmayer, Columbia, Tunga, America del Sur 1954". Im Zusammenhang der CIA-Dokumente legt dies also nahe, dass Hitler damals in Südamerika lebte.
[Google Translate]
The dossier of the US foreign intelligence service contains as allegedly most significant evidence a very coarse-grained image on which allegedly SS man Citroen and another man are seen, who looks like Adolf Hitler . In addition the note: "Adolf Schüttelmayer, Columbia, Tunga, America del Sur 1954". In the context of the CIA documents, this suggests that Hitler was then living in South America.

 

[deirdre]

think whoever typed up the report misread it, perhaps because they were unfamiliar with umlauts.

yea they hand corrected it in a few docs

https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/sep/07/cia-hitler-1955/

 

[John_Sheldon]

I remember a documentary that interviewed alleged "witnesses" of Hitler being in Argentina,
as well as books like: The Grey Wolf: The Escape of Adolf Hitler (Mentioned here)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/27/hitler-lived-1962-argentina-plagiarism

I know it has been theorised for a very long time, (I would assume since his death)
But after watching the documentary (I will try to find it) where they seem quite convinced it was him due to the reverence he received. I never heard any more about it.
It is true that nazis escaped there,

Josef Mengele, fled to Argentina in 1949, then to other countries; died in Brazil in 1979. Ante Pavelić, escaped to Argentina in 1948; died in Spain, in December 1959, of wounds sustained two years earlier in an assassination attempt. Erich Priebke, fled to Argentina in 1949; arrested in 1994; died in 2013.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratlines

What happened to the theory in the end?
was it mostly just stories, like people seeing "Elvis" alive?

 

[JMartJr]

It's worth mentioning that there are hundreds of pages of government files (FBI rather than CIA) already released, dealing with potential claims that Hitler was alive and living in South America.

Probly worth mentioning that there are a lot of files of "this person told me" whatever you can imagine, and I'm not paid to filter stuff, I'm paid to pass it up the chain. Then somebody else isn't paid to throw stuff away, he's paid to put it in a filing cabinet.

"It's in a CIA/FBI file" is not a good guide to truthfulness.