TECH
Analysis of teeth overturns myth about Hitler
Adolf Hitler had bad teeth: what may sound like more random information to arouse sensational fascination around the Nazi dictator is in fact evidence that he actually committed suicide on April 30, 1945.Recently a team of French pathologists was allowed to examine part of a dental arcade found in Berlin in early May 1945. It was the first time in seven decades that specialists had access to the finding - and the result, published in the European Journal of Internal Medicine, leaves no doubt:"The teeth are authentic - there is no doubt," chief pathologist Philippe Charlier told the AFP news agency. "Our study proves that Hitler died in 1945."The team was also allowed to analyze fragments of Hitler's skull to confirm how he committed suicide. The teeth fit the description given by the dentist of the Nazi dictator and reveal no trace of flesh, which is consistent with the fact that he was a vegetarian.The study may - but probably will not - put an end to the conspiracy theories that Hitler escaped the destruction of the final days of World War II."We can stop the conspiracy theories about Hitler," Charlier said. "He did not flee to Argentina on a submarine, it is not hidden on an Antarctic base or on a hidden side of the Moon."On the contrary: Hitler ended as every respectable historian claims - in a collective suicide in his bunker amid the ruins of the Nazi capital, while the Soviets were approaching.
Siege and Suicide
On April 30, 1945, Soviet troops had advanced up to 500 meters from Hitler's command center in the heart of Berlin. Surrounded and almost unable to communicate with what was left of his Army, Hitler realized that dreamed Reich was finished.In the early afternoon, Hitler retired to his quarters with his long-time companion, wife only two days ago, Eva Braun. The two of them ingested cyanide capsules and shot themselves. Their bodies - along with those of two dogs of Hitler - were discovered at 15.15.Knowing what the Italians had done with the body of Benito Mussolini, Hitler had left clear instructions on how to proceed with his corpses and Eva Braun. They were taken out of the bunker and burned. On May 5, Soviet forces discovered a charred body and identified it as being of Hitler."Hitler's teeth were so bad - so badly bad - they were enough to identify the body," wrote forensic pathologist Mark Benecke, hired by the National Geographic channel to investigate the remains of the Nazi dictator.
On April 30, 1945, Soviet troops had advanced up to 500 meters from Hitler's command center in the heart of Berlin. Surrounded and almost unable to communicate with what was left of his Army, Hitler realized that dreamed Reich was finished.In the early afternoon, Hitler retired to his quarters with his long-time companion, wife only two days ago, Eva Braun. The two of them ingested cyanide capsules and shot themselves. Their bodies - along with those of two dogs of Hitler - were discovered at 15.15.Knowing what the Italians had done with the body of Benito Mussolini, Hitler had left clear instructions on how to proceed with his corpses and Eva Braun. They were taken out of the bunker and burned. On May 5, Soviet forces discovered a charred body and identified it as being of Hitler."Hitler's teeth were so bad - so badly bad - they were enough to identify the body," wrote forensic pathologist Mark Benecke, hired by the National Geographic channel to investigate the remains of the Nazi dictator.
The Soviets compared the dental arch, which had unusual and prominent dentures and bridges, with descriptions provided by dental assistant Kathe Heusermann. Later, Hitler's personal dentist, Hugo Blaschke, would confirm the information to the Allies.
"The teeth were in such bad condition that the dentist was with him in the bunker," Liubov Summ, the granddaughter of Heusermann's Russian interpreter, Elena Rzhevskaya, told The Times of Israel. "There are pictures that are very unpleasant to see."
"The teeth were in such bad condition that the dentist was with him in the bunker," Liubov Summ, the granddaughter of Heusermann's Russian interpreter, Elena Rzhevskaya, told The Times of Israel. "There are pictures that are very unpleasant to see."
"The boys of Brazil"
Interpreter Elena Rzhevskaya was temporarily put on her teeth because, she said, there was a fear that Red Army soldiers would get drunk and lose them. She took the material to Moscow. But even though the Soviets were now certain that Hitler was dead, Stalin ordered the news to be muffled as he spread rumors that allies had helped the dictator escape.
"It was a dishonest farce, an attempt to disguise the fact that his body had been found," wrote Rzhevskaya in his memoirs, The End of Hitler. "Hitler was no longer a badge of war, he had become an emblem of the top peace that was to come."
The Russians called Operation Misinformation's misinformation campaign.
"Stalin's strategy, of course, was to associate the West with Nazism by inventing that Americans or British were hiding it," writes historian Anthony Beevor in the Berlin 1945 book - The Fall.
Interpreter Elena Rzhevskaya was temporarily put on her teeth because, she said, there was a fear that Red Army soldiers would get drunk and lose them. She took the material to Moscow. But even though the Soviets were now certain that Hitler was dead, Stalin ordered the news to be muffled as he spread rumors that allies had helped the dictator escape.
"It was a dishonest farce, an attempt to disguise the fact that his body had been found," wrote Rzhevskaya in his memoirs, The End of Hitler. "Hitler was no longer a badge of war, he had become an emblem of the top peace that was to come."
The Russians called Operation Misinformation's misinformation campaign.
"Stalin's strategy, of course, was to associate the West with Nazism by inventing that Americans or British were hiding it," writes historian Anthony Beevor in the Berlin 1945 book - The Fall.
When combined with the fact that prominent Nazis such as Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele had in fact fled to South America, the story invented by Stalin may be at the root of the legend that Hitler survived the war. Ideas like this were popularized in the 1976 film Boys in Brazil, in which Mengele made Hitler clones, in an essay for a return to Nazism.
The sad story of an interpreter
The fiction was absurd, but the reality, tragic. Rzhevskaya, who would later become a writer, would have to wait until Stalin died so she could tell her story. And Heusermann would face a much worse fate.As part of Stalin's campaign to suppress the truth, she was taken to the Soviet Union and sentenced to ten years in a gulag, six of them in solitary confinement, for helping Hitler with the dental prosthesis."They told her that by helping to fix Hitler's teeth, she contributed to the continuation of the war and that she should have hit him in the head with a bottle," Summ told the Times of Israel.Ironically, according to Rzhevskaya, Heusermann was not a Nazi militant and had hidden a Jewish dentist, a former employee of his office, at his home during the war. Heusermann died in Düsseldorf in 1995. He had an insignificant role in history, of which he was one of countless innocent victims.
The fiction was absurd, but the reality, tragic. Rzhevskaya, who would later become a writer, would have to wait until Stalin died so she could tell her story. And Heusermann would face a much worse fate.As part of Stalin's campaign to suppress the truth, she was taken to the Soviet Union and sentenced to ten years in a gulag, six of them in solitary confinement, for helping Hitler with the dental prosthesis."They told her that by helping to fix Hitler's teeth, she contributed to the continuation of the war and that she should have hit him in the head with a bottle," Summ told the Times of Israel.Ironically, according to Rzhevskaya, Heusermann was not a Nazi militant and had hidden a Jewish dentist, a former employee of his office, at his home during the war. Heusermann died in Düsseldorf in 1995. He had an insignificant role in history, of which he was one of countless innocent victims.
dw.com
No comments:
Post a Comment