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.