Alleged doubles of Adolf Hitler

Although there is no evidence that Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler used look-alikes as political decoys during his life, some stories propagated as early as 1939 assert his death and replacement with an imposter.

[12] In 1939, the Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA), while admitting that the book has "practically no direct evidence of authenticity", defended it by dubiously citing the purported death of Julius Schreck in 1938[d] as support for Hitler's use of doubles.

[15] The NEA also cited public appearances of Hitler look-alikes in Europe as fueling belief in his use of doubles: one man was photographed in 1935 in Nice, France, wearing a pinstripe suit (said to have been accompanied by two bodyguards and to have caused a commotion) and another in 1936, spotted at the zoo in Vienna, Austria.

[27][28] A few days later, on Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's orders, Zhukov presented the official narrative that Hitler had escaped,[29] stating, "We have found no corpse that could be [his].

[38] Himmler supposedly had to reckon with the double's existence after hatching a (purportedly successful) plan to assassinate Hitler via the dictator's physician Ludwig Stumpfegger.

[39][i] The double was killed via gunshot and partially burned, with the Soviets mistaking his body for Hitler's, which a Nazi servant debunked due to his cheap clothing.

[53] According to Telpuchovski, this individual had an exit wound through the back of the head[m][g] and several dental bridges were found next to the body because "the force of the bullet had dislodged them from the mouth",[48][n][a] ostensibly from an oral gunshot.

[o] In his 1965 biography of Stalin, English Robert Payne claimed that this body was Hitler's, as did Ryan in his 1966 book, The Last Battle, saying the corpse had been found "under a thin layer of earth".

[57][58][p] According to Telpuchovski, a total of three Hitler candidates had been burnt, apparently including a body double wearing mended socks which he described as being in "remnants".

[64] Bezymenski quotes Ivan Klimenko, the commander of the Red Army's SMERSH unit, as stating that on the night of 3 May 1945, he witnessed Vizeadmiral Hans-Erich Voss seem to recognize a corpse as Hitler's in a dry firefighting water tank filled with other bodies in the Reich Chancellery garden.

[72] In 1992,[73] journalist Ada Petrova found the footage in the Russian state archives; the body double had reputedly been identified as Gustav Weler.

[74][r] In their 1995 book, Petrova and Peter Watson opined that 'Weler' may have worked a menial job in the Reich Chancellery and occasionally stood in for Hitler as a political decoy.

[78] Hofbeck further stated that in 1946 he witnessed Baur telling the Soviets that the Nazis had once found a baker from Breslau (modern Poland) who strongly resembled Hitler, but the dictator refused to employ him as a doppelgänger.

[78] Presiding judge at the Einsatzgruppen trial at Nuremberg Michael Musmanno wrote in 1948, "There is not a shred of evidence to show that Hitler ever had a double."

[84][85][86][87] Historian Mark Felton further surmises that after the cremations failed, the Germans planted the dental remains[a] on other cadavers, perhaps taken from the nearby hospital—explaining certain defects—and expertly concealed Hitler and Braun's real bodies.

[23] Historian Sjoerd deBoer also states that the stories of a double are highly suspect and found no evidence to support that there was one used in Berlin in April 1945 or that Hitler escaped.

[94][95] In 1998, British author Ian Sayer received from an anonymous source what alleged to be a photocopy of a 427-page report from the U.S. Army's Counterintelligence Corps (CIC), apparently containing a 1948 interview of Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller, who went missing in action in 1945, but claimed to have been retained by the CIC as an intelligence adviser and to have joined the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

[90][98] Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino said that he opted not to include a bait-and-switch with a double in the version of Hitler's death he depicted in Inglourious Basterds (2009), saying it was something he had "seen before" and that it would be more interesting to "just fucking kill" the dictator.

[101] Baumann claims that the darned-sock-wearing double, whose ears he points out are different than Hitler's[s] and allegedly was two inches shorter,[u] was killed by the Germans on 30 April 1945.

[101] Baumann cites the purported account of Müller that Hitler was replaced by a double called Sillip, saying that this explains his weakened and otherwise uncharacteristic appearance.

Achromatic close-up of a suited body with a toothbrush moustache, a bloody gunshot wound to the forehead, and a darkened right temple
The corpse of an apparent Hitler body double with a gunshot wound to the forehead, a battered right temple, and sunken vestibules (filmed by the Soviets )
Adolf Hitler (right) and his chauffeur Julius Schreck (left), both wearers of the toothbrush moustache —their only substantial physical similarity (1925)
Achromatic photograph of a soldier standing next to a fallen Nazi eagle statue, on which a dark linen rests, in a ruined courtyard
The double was filmed next to a fallen Nazi eagle in the ruins of the New Reich Chancellery courtyard (July 1945, British Army Film and Photographic Unit ). [ q ]
Hitler's dental remains, [ a ] the only confirmed forensic evidence of his death [ g ]
In 1998, it was dubiously claimed that Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller ( missing in action as of May 1945) had survived the war and told the U.S. that a double was used to help Hitler escape. [ 90 ]