Grey Wolf: The Escape of Adolf Hitler

by Simon Dunstan

  257 “through the Nazi bishop’s hands”: Michael Phayer, Pius XII, the Holocaust and the Cold War (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007); Goñi, Real Odessa. See also Shuter, Aftermath of the Holocaust; Meding, Ruta de los Nazis; also see references to Eichmann and Meding’s status in http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,754486,00.html and http://www.lanacion.com.ar/202464.

  258 “Hudal wrote to President Perón”: Greg Whitlock, “Alois Hudal: Clero-Fascist Nietzsche Critic,” in Nietzsche-Studien 32 (2003). Hudal would be the “guardian” of Father Adolf Martin Bormann, the Reichsleiter’s eldest son; Adolf Martin later resigned the priesthood, married a former nun, and became a teacher of theology in South America. See also L. Bezymensky, Tracing Martin Bormann (Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2001); Farago, Aftermath; and Stevenson, The Bormann Brotherhood. Hudal was also the bishop under whose patronage Jesuit father Avery Dulles, son of John Foster Dulles and nephew of Allen, trained at a monastery in Villach, Austria. Avery Dulles became a cardinal in 2001. See Bezymensky, Tracing Martin Bormann.

  258 “Evita left Spain for Rome”: Fraser and Navarro, Evita.

  258 “arranged to meet Bormann”: Santander, Técnica de una Traición.

  258 “no honor among thieves”: Chesnoff, Pack of Thieves, 243.

  259 Ricardo Staudt: Time magazine, “Argentina: The Coddled,” December 17, 1945, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,776519,00.html.

  259 “had no option but to accept”: Farago, Aftermath.

  259 “far more intelligent than her husband”: Interview with Araceli Méndez, published in La Mañana del Sur, part of the Diario Ambito Financiero news group, Buenos Aires, 1996; also researcher conversations with Araceli Méndez, Buenos Aires, 2008.

  259 “when Müller based himself in Córdoba”: Personal papers of Hans-Ulrich Rudel, auctioned by Signature House, Lot 236, www.signaturehouse.net/.

  259 “a string of untimely deaths”: Time magazine, “Milestones,” May 7, 1956, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,937348,00.html; Gérald L. Posner and John Ware, Mengele: The Complete Story (Lanham, MD: Cooper Square Press, 2000); Bar-Zohar, Avengers.

  259 Duarte’s suicide: Life magazine, “A Dictator Goes A-Wooing,” May 25, 1953.

  260 “in the morning gave her a substantial check”: Fraser and Navarro, Evita.

  260 Jacques-Albert Cuttat and Instituto Suizo-Argentino: Grank Garbely, Evitas Geheimnis: Die Nazis, Die Schweiz, und Perón’s Argentinien (Zurich: Rotpunktverlag, 2003).

  260 “information the FBI took seriously”: FBI report, D. M. Ladd to Hoover, May 15, 1948, NA, RA RG 65 65-55639 (1-24) Box 38, cited in Breitman, U.S. Intelligence and the Nazis.

  260 “a guide led him and his bodyguards”: In August 1961, the West German magazine Revue published an interview with an Austrian Alpine guide who claimed he guided Bormann over a secret route through the Alps to Italy on August 16, 1947.

  260–63 “Udine in Italy” and Capt. Bell: Ian Bell, No Place to Hide (London: Minerva Press, 1998). Bell was also interviewed about his work, and sighting of Bormann, in “Nazi Hunter,” a program in the documentary series War Stories on Granada Television (a British television network), 1999.

  263 Giovanna C: The Giovanna C was built in Japan as the Eastern Trader for the U.S. Shipping Board in 1919. It was sold in 1922 to the Luckenbach Steamship Company in New York, serving as the Horace Luckenbach until bought by Linea C (part of the Costa Crociere S.p.A. shipping line) in 1947. It plied routes to South and North America until 1953. See http://www.simplonpc.co.uk/CostaPCs.html#anchor559191 and http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/lines/costa.htm.

  263 “Bormann was now known”: Farago, Aftermath. There have been claims that Farago was duped by being shown fake papers. We are not convinced; there is still a complete disinformation operation in Argentina led by staunch Perónists who want nothing to sully the memory of their fascist First Couple. Farago’s documentation came from many sources, including the Catholic Information Agency of Argentina (AICA), Argentine senators Silvano Santander and Julio Busaniche, Argentine naval intelligence, and Spruille Braden, former U.S. ambassador to Argentina.

  264 Nazi treasure and “major factor in the economic life”: Farago, Aftermath. Separately, the respected French daily newspaper Le Figaro published corroborating evidence of the details of the physical treasure and investments in 1970. There are suggestions that, before Perón’s return from exile in 1972, he offered the ruling junta a slice of what was left of the Nazi treasure he controlled as part of what Farago calls his “admission fee” back to power in Argentina.

  264 “Bormann once again met with his Führer”: Kristenssen (Manuel Monasterio), Hitler murió en la Argentina.

  265 “the necessary preparations”: Letter via U.S. Army Courier Service from Legal Attaché, American Embassy London, to Director Hoover, September 17, 1945. Letter from Director Hoover to the American Embassy in Buenos Aires, November 13, 1945. FBI Files on Hitler available online at http://vault.fbi.gov/adolf-hitler.

  265 Gold Party Badge: Research carried out for authors by www.oocities.com/goldpartypin/index.html.

  265 “since joining in 1924”: Documentary film Hotel Eden by Cuini Amelio Ortiz, Deutschland 1995 / 3sat / MDR. Ms. Ortiz had suggested the story of Hitler possibly being in Argentina to her German commissioning editors, but they decided not to run with it.

  265 “when they first met Hitler”: Ortiz, Hotel Eden.

  268 Hotel Eden: Authors’ visit, 2007, and various articles by historian Carlos Panozzo, La Falda. Also Carlos Panozzo, El Hotel Edén de La Falda (La Falda, Argentina: privately published, n.d.). See also Jorge Camarasa, “La Falda tiene también su secreto nazi,” La Nación, Buenos Aires, July 27, 1998, www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=104816; Ortiz, Hotel Eden. During this visit, author Gerrard Wiliams spoke to Ida Eichhorn’s great-nephew through the iron gate of the Eichhorns’ old house near the hotel: “He told me that he had burned all of the material shown in Cuini’s film [see note about documentary film Hotel Eden by Cuini Amelio Ortiz above] and accused her of betraying his confidence; he also mistakenly accused Catalina Gomero of being paid for her interviews, which both she and her interviewers denied [see note about video interview with Catalina Gomero below]. He denied the stories about Hitler staying with his great-aunt and great-uncle. On turning away to end our conversation, he stopped, looked back at me, and said, ‘One day the truth will come out.’ He has since refused to talk further.”

  268 Prince of Wales: Simon Edge, “The Nazi King,” London Daily Express, May 23, 2011, http://dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/113232.

  268 “German School in La Falda”: Various articles by historian Carlos Panozzo, La Falda. Nazi doctrine in schools: Ronald C. Newton, The “Nazi Menace” in Argentina, 1931–1947 (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992).

  269 “commemorative ceremony”: Various articles by historian Carlos Panozzo.

  269 “police and armed German sailors”: Ibid.

  269 Acción Argentina: Lynch, Young Che; also authors’ conversations with Dr. Floreal Vajlis, Buenos Aires, 2008. Dr. Vajlis, now in his eighties, was Gerrard Williams’s landlord in Buenos Aires and is still vehemently antifascist. Dr. Vajlis was present outside the Hotel Eden on this occasion.

  269 “Hotel Eden was seized”: Various articles by historian Charles Panozzo, La Falda; Panozzo, El Hotel Edén de La Falda; Alfredo Ferrarassi, Eden Hotel y Pueblo La Falda (Córdoba, Argentina: privately published, 2006). Japanese internment: Ayako Tomii, A Japanese Diplomat’s Daughter: An Outsider’s Childhood in the 1930s and 1940s (iUniverse, 2004).

  269 “told her closest circle”: Video interview with Catalina Gomero in Secret History: Hitler of the Andes, Barking Mad Productions.

  269 Horst Eichmann: Ernesto Bohoslavsky, Contra la Patagonia judía: La familia Eichmann y los nacionalistas Argentinos y Chilenos frente al Plan Andinia … (Santiago de Chile, 2008, PDF online), http://ungs.academia.edu/ebohos/Papers/86439/Contra
_la_Patagonia_judia._La_familia_Eichmann_y_los_nacionalistas_argentinos_y_chilenos_frente_al_Plan_Andinia_de_1960_a_nuestros_dias_; Time magazine, “Milestones,” September 1, 1961, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,939852,00.html.

  270 “they owned a property”: Authors’ visit to Miromar, Mar Chiquita, Córdoba province, Argentina, 2007. We were shown around the hotel by one of its “guardians” from the local community; she had heard many uncorroborated rumors of the Hitlers’ presence at the hotel. See also “Hitler’s Ghost,” Ghost Hunters International, U.S. television series on the SyFy channel, January 2010, shot at Hotel Viena.

  270 “head of security, Col. Krueger”: Roland, “Hotel Viena.”

  270–71 Catalina Gomero’s account: Authors’ conversations with documentary-maker Cuini Amelio Ortiz (see note above), Rome, 2008; also video interview courtesy of Diario Ambito Financiero news group, and in the Howard and Roberts documentary, Secret History. See third note for Chapter 22, on page 323, for further provenance.

  271 John Walsh’s account: Howard and Roberts, Secret History.

  271–73 Jorge Batinic and Mafalda Batinic’s account: Video interview with Jorge Batinic, courtesy Ricardo D’Aloia, editorial director, Diario Ambito Financiero news group, Buenos Aires, 2008. See also Hoy en la Noticia, “El Pais: Hitler en Chubut,” La Plata, Argentina, July 24, 1997, pdf.diariohoy.net/1997/07/240797CU.PDF.

  Chapter 22: DEPARTURES

  274 Ante Paveli: IV/D/4 RSHA Gestapo report to Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, February 17, 1942. See also Sra Trifkovi, “The Real Genocide in Yugoslavia: Independent Croatia of 1941 Revisited,” Center for Peace in the Balkans, April 21, 2000, http://www.balkanpeace.org/index.php?index=article&articleid=13742.

  274 “Croats in the years after the war”: Yossi Melman, “Tied Up in the Rat Lines,” Haaretz, Tel Aviv, January 17, 2006; also U.S. Army file on Ante Paveli, report by Capt. Marion Scot, http://www.jerusalim.org/cd/biblioteka/pavelicpapers/pavelic/ap0015.html.

  274–76 Ancin’s testimony: Video interview, courtesy Ricardo D’Aloia, editorial director, Diario Ambito Financiero news group, Buenos Aires, 2008. The video interviews with Catalina Gomero and Jorge Batinic (see Chapter 21) and with Hernán Ancin have never been broadcast. An unfinished program made by the newspaper group’s TV arm in the 1990s was shown by the group’s owner to his friend, Argentine president Carlos Menem. Menem requested that nothing further be done with it. See also “Man Says He Saw Hitler After War,” Agence France Presse, May 31, 1997; see http://www.indianexpress.com/Storyold/2523/.

  276 “Carlos Luecke”: Michael D. Miller with Andreas Schulz and Ken McCanliss, Leaders of the SS & German Police, vol. 1 (San Jose, CA: R. James Bender, 2008).

  277 Hans-Ulrich Rudel: One of only twenty-seven men to be awarded the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds, Col. Rudel was unique in that a version with Golden Oak Leaves was created specifically for him.

  277 Rudel’s postwar activities: Meskil, Hitler’s Heirs; also United Press, Bonn, August 28, 1953; see also http://www.pilotenbunker.de/Stuka/Rudel/rudel.htm; for Euphorion Books, see Anne de Courcy, “The Dazzling Beauty with a Poison Pen,” Daily Mail, UK, January 9, 2009, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/books/article-1109382/The-dazzling-beauty-poison-pen-DIANA-MOSLEY-THE-PURSUIT-OF-LAUGHTER.html.

  278 “Eva finally left Inalco”: Researcher Nahuel Coca’s conversations in Buenos Aires, 2008, with Alicia Oliveira, who claimed to have met one of the Hitlers’ daughters in that city. Normally such stories can be discounted easily, but Alicia Oliveira was a senior lawyer in the Ministry of Human Rights and had been the first female ombudsman of Buenos Aires. In 1985, Ms. Oliveira was working at a nongovernmental human rights center, the Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS). She was consulted on several occasions by a woman who was contemplating a divorce, apparently because of domestic violence, and who had problems with her documents because both she and her German husband were living under false identities. (Ms. Oliveira has refused to break lawyer-client confidentiality by disclosing names.) After several meetings the lawyer gained her client’s trust, and the woman—whom Ms. Oliveira judged to be sane and lucid—revealed that she was the daughter of Eva Hitler, who had apparently left Adolf at some time in the 1950s. She did not speak fondly of either parent; she said that her father was dead but her mother was still alive. She had “grown up in the Cordillera, I think in Mendoza [sic], near Neuquén [Neuquén province, not Mendoza]. What she said sounded plausible to me. I asked her to come again, but she never did.” The lawyer said that when she saw a photo of Eva Braun she was struck by the resemblance to her client.

  278 “financial dealings across the world”: Interview with Araceli Méndez, La Mañana del Sur, 1996; also researcher conversations with Araceli Méndez, Buenos Aires, 2008.

  278–79 Bormann, Colotto, and Perón: Authors’ conversations with Jorge Colotto, Buenos Aires, 2008.

  279 “luxurious Plaza Hotel”: Argentine government document, Dirección Coordinación Federal, Estrictamente Secreto y Confidential, CF “A” No. 9976, October 5, 1960. Report received September 1953.

  280 Círculo Mílitar: Authors’ visits to Buenos Aires, 2008; see also http://www.circulomilitar.org/Re.htm and http://www.frommers.com/destinations/buenosaires/A34264.html#ixzz0wx55TjO.

  280 “four or five different passports”: Incidentally, the facial analysis expert Professor Alf Linney, of University College London (see note for Chapter 14, “deceived even those quite close to him,” page 308), has proved by scientific comparison that the photograph in one alleged Uruguayan passport of Martin Bormann’s from Argentina, discovered in the 1990s, cannot be his. A fingerprint on the passport has also been examined; it is not Bormann’s.

  280 “financial dealings”: Interview with Araceli Méndez, La Mañana del Sur, 1996; also researcher conversations with Araceli Méndez, Buenos Aires, 2008.

  281 “placed the Führer in Colombia”: Declassified CIA report A02592, October 3, 1955. See page 282.

  281 Rodolfo Freude: Report of investigation by the Delegación de Associaciones Israelitas Argentinas (DAIA), Annual Report, 1997.

  281 “Evita died of cancer”: Fraser and Navarro, Evita.

  283 “The Tyrant”: David Crassweller, Perón and the Enigmas of Argentina (New York: W.W. Norton, 1987).

  283 “I’m not superstitious”: Tomás Eloy Martínez, La novela de Perón (London: Vintage Books, 1997). See also Time magazine, “The Hemisphere: Daddykins & Nelly,” October 10, 1955, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,937225,00.html; Charles Keely, “Peronism Still Strong in Argentina,” Copley News Service, Buenos Aires, December 5, 1964, reprinted in The News and Courier, Charleston, South Carolina, December 6, 1964.

  284 “president fled the country”: Time magazine, “The Hemisphere: Daddykins & Nelly.”

  284 “move to a smaller house”: Kristenssen (Manuel Monasterio), Hitler murió en la Argentina.

  Chapter 23: GHOSTS IN THE SHADOWS

  285 Heinrich Bethe and the “Lehmann papers”: Kristenssen (Manuel Monasterio), Hitler murió en la Argentina (excerpted throughout chapter); authors’ conversations with Kristenssen (Monasterio), Buenos Aires, 2008. See also Chapter 18, page 223, and note, “Petty Officer Heinrich Bethe and Capt. Manuel Monasterio,” on page 316). At the beginning of Monasterio’s own book is a quotation from Pablo Glocknik/Heinrich Bethe (see note, “Petty Officer Heinrich Bethe and Capt. Manuel Monasterio,” on page 316 for more on Glocknik/Bethe) describing a funeral. It reads, in part:

  “The men move thoughtfully forward, dragging with them an old darkness with memories of glory, of defeat, and of crimes. I watch them silently, from behind, removed, observing expressions, gestures, movements.… I am sure that when the pastor said his words, they all imagined a mausoleum in Berlin … a strong army, hardened and victorious, parading and bidding farewell to the pain of his death with clarinets.… I see them defeated, by the fear and the cowardly pain of having to [keep] closed and silent lips
—unable to shout, to demand silence, and to tell the world: Adolf Hitler died yesterday?”

  Capt. Monasterio recalled spending many hours talking with “Glocknik,” who wanted to tell someone his secrets before he died. The German sailor revealed details of the Nazi spy network in Argentina, the arrival of two submarines, and his life with Hitler “near Bariloche” until the Führer’s death on February 13, 1962. As noted, he also handed over to Monasterio’s keeping the Lehmann papers, apparently lost during one of many house moves since the 1970s. These documents, recounted in Hitler murió en la Argentina, detailed Dr. Otto Lehmann’s life while treating the aging Hitler as his personal physician. Intriguingly, one reference can be found to a man who might fit the doctor’s profile, in a genealogy site hidden in the depths of the Internet. This Dr. Otto Lehmann was born in Stettin in 1894 and later practiced in Buenos Aires. We have discovered no more about him, and anyway “Lehmann” may well have been a pseudonym.

  286 “magical battle”: For more on this supposed conflict, see http://www.foreantimes.com/features/articles/4435/the_magical_battle_of_britain.html.

  289 Gisela Heuser: Gisela Heuser and Philippe Mervyn, Adolf Hitler Mon Père (Paris: ALE Impressions, 1966). See Der Spiegel, “Hitler,” July 18, 1966, http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-46407960.html. Gisela Heuser, on the basis of a “confession” by her mother, published with her husband Philippe Mervyn—who appears to have ghostwritten it on her behalf—a book in which she claimed to be the daughter of the Führer. Mervyn was the son of a rabbi who had died in a concentration camp, and he met Gisela while carrying out research in Germany for his 1964 book À chacun son juif (Everyone Has His Jew). When the young woman told her mother that she was going to marry the son of a rabbi, Frau Heuser suffered a panic attack. “You can’t marry a Jew,” she protested; when Gisela demanded why not, she replied, “Because you’re the daughter of Adolf Hitler. Your father was the Führer.” Gisela left home, left Germany, converted to Judaism, and married Philippe Mervyn in a small town near Paris. In the book she writes: “My mother resides in Frankfurt, West Germany, and was as much against my marriage as she was against my decision to enter the Jewish faith. I believe she is still a staunch Nazi and is still in love with the father of her daughter. But I am of a sufficient age to judge my parents objectively and to decide my own way.” When last heard of, Gisela and Philippe Mervyn were contemplating emigrating to Israel. Her mother denied the whole story.