International: Where There’s Smoke . . .

Said a SHAEF spokesman last week, summing up the Hitler situation: “We have every reason to believe he is dead, but no evidence that he is not still alive.”

The Führer’s chauffeur, slim, blue-eyed Erich Kempka, told U.S. interrogators that he had helped burn the bodies of Hitler and his newlywed mistress, Eva Braun. Kempka’s story:

He last saw Hitler alive on April 29 in the Führer’s shelter at the Berlin Reichs-Chancellery. He was “quiet and normal.” The next afternoon Elite Guard Leader Otto Guensche telephoned Kempka to get a quantity of gasoline and report to the Führer’s shelter. Party Chancellor Martin Bormann, Joseph Goebbels, Elite Guardsman Heinz Linge were there. “I … found Bormann carrying the body of Frau Hitler—I learned later about the wedding two days before. I took the body from Bormann. It was warm and limp. Blood trickled from her left breast. I carried it to an exit leading to the garden. . . . Someone else had carried out Hitler’s body, wrapped in a grey blanket. . . .

Both bodies were put in a shallow hole. Men arrived with five cans of gasoline which was poured on the bodies.

“Bormann, Goebbels, Guensche, Linge and I stood at attention and gave a final Hitler salute. The artillery shells were coming in from all sides … we were all very shaken.

“Guensche, carrying out Hitler’s last order, set the bodies afire. … I doubt if anything remained of the bodies. Maybe … bits of bone and teeth could be found but I doubt it. Shells probably . . . scattered things all over.”

Kempka said that Guensche had found the two bodies in Hitler’s shelter. Hitler was shot through the head; a 7.65-mm. Walther pistol was on the floor beside him. Eva was shot through the heart; a 6.35-mm. pistol was beside her on a sofa.

The Russians, who had done all the investigating in Berlin, had not amended their reports that 1) no trace of Hitler had been found; 2) no believable witnesses in their custody had actually seen him die; 3) Hitler had ordered his henchmen to spread the story that he was dead.