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[Zmeselo]

US News
CIA files reveal search for Hitler in South America 10 years after his suicide as Argentina prepares to release classified docs on Nazi fugitives

By Richard Pollina

https://nypost.com/2025/04/09/us-news/c ... ign=nypost#

April 9, 2025

CIA documents show agents were on the hunt for Adolf Hitler in South America for 10 years after the world believed he was dead as Argentina prepares to declassify government files on Nazi fugitives who fled to the country at the end of World War II.

As Soviet troops battled their way into the heart of Berlin on April 30, 1945, Hitler and longtime girlfriend Eva Braun, whom he had married the day prior, killed themselves in his underground führerbunker to avoid capture.

Their bodies were partially burned and buried in a shallow bomb crater. Soviet soldiers later exhumed the remains, which the USSR identified through dental records, and held them in East Germany until KGB agents destroyed Hitler’s body in April 1970, preserving only a jawbone and skull that were taken to Moscow, according to MI5. https://www.mi5.gov.uk/history/world-wa ... 0the%20KGB.


Adolf Hitler during his speech at the 1935 Nuremberg Rally. ullstein bild via Getty Images

However, immediately after reports of Hitler’s death, conspiracy theories that he survived the war and fled Germany through Nazi “ratlines” began.

While the CIA has an autopsy https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/%2 ... 063%5D.pdf report confirming Hitler’s death, other documents show field agents suspected Hitler may have taken refuge in South America under an alias and obtained a photo of a man with a striking resemblance to the Nazi leader.

A declassified file from October 1945 https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/HI ... 257%5D.pdf shows that agents with the US War Department told the FBI of a possible secret hideout at a spa hotel in La Falda, Argentina, that Hitler may have used if he survived.

The document states that the owner of the hotel and her family were

enthusiastic supporters of Adolf Hitler

and had made financial contributions to the Nazi party in its early days in the 1920s through Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels.

This voluntary support of the Nazi party was never forgotten by Hitler,

the docs claim.

During the years after he came to power, her friendship with Hitler became so close that she and members of her family lived with Hitler in the same hotel on the occasion of their annual visit to Germany.

A declassified file from October 1945 shows that agents with the US War Department told the FBI of a possible secret hideout at a spa hotel in La Falda, Argentina, that Hitler may have used if he survived. CIA

The report claims that the hotel had

already made the necessary preparations

for Hitler to take refuge at their hotel in Argentina if he

should at any time get into difficulty

and needed a

safe retreat.

Another document from October 1955 https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/HI ... F_0003.pdf from a CIA agent with the code name “CIMELODY-3” said he received information from a friend who spoke to a man claiming to be former Nazi SS soldier Phillip Citroen, who “confidently” told him Hitler was still alive in Colombia.

Citroen claimed to have talked to the former Nazi leader monthly and provided CIMELODY-3’s friend with a photograph showing him with the man he claimed to be Hitler on a beach in Tunja, Colombia.

CIMELODY-3’s friend, whose name was not provided in the document, unknowingly stole the picture from Citroen long enough for the agent to make a copy.


Citroen with the man he claimed to be Hitler on a beach in Tunja, Colombia. CIA

The man alleged to be Hitler was going by “Adolf Schrittelmayor,” and he left Colombia for Argentina in January 1955.

Philip Citroen – commented that in as much as ten years have passed since the end of World War II, the Allies could no longer prosecute Hitler as a criminal of war,

the document stated.

On Nov. 4, 1955, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/HI ... F_0006.pdf the CIA approved agents contacting a person known in the files as “GIRELLA” to further investigate the history of “Adolf Schrittelmayor” in Colombia before 1955.


“CIMELODY-3” reported that he received information from a friend who spoke to a man claiming to be former Nazi SS soldier Phillip Citroen, who “confidently” told him Hitler was still alive in Colombia. CIA

However, the same document states that

enormous efforts could be expended on this matter with remote possibilities of establishing anything concrete. Therefore, we suggest that this matter be dropped.

It appears that following 1955, no other documents have been made publicly available in the CIA’s declassified files to suggest agents were hunting for Hitler.

While there’s no concrete proof of the theory that Hitler may have survived the war and fled Germany, members of the Nazi party did use “ratlines” to reach Argentina https://www.state.gov/reports/just-act- ... argentina/ and other South American countries to avoid prosecution for their crimes after World War II.


The CIA later suggested that the search for “Adolf Schrittelmayor” be dropped. CIA

In 1960, Israeli Mossad agents covertly captured one of the masterminds behind the Holocaust, Adolf Eichmann, in Argentina and brought him back to stand trial in Jerusalem, where he was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging.

SS physician Josef Mengele — dubbed the “angel of death” for his disturbing medical experiments on prisoners at Auschwitz — escaped through “ratlines” and eluded capture. He died from drowning after suffering a heart attack while swimming in Brazil in 1979.

Late last month, Argentina’s interior minister, Guillermo Alberto Francos, announced that classified files relating to

Nazis who sought refuge in Argentina and were protected for many years

after World War II would be released, the Buenos Aires Times https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/argenti ... r-ii.phtml reported.


The home of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, in San Fernando, a suburb of Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he fled after World War II, circa 1960. Getty Images

The President has instructed that all relevant documents from any state institution be made public because there is no reason to keep them classified,

Francos said.

The records will detail banking and financial transactions and the use of Nazi “ratlines.”

It is estimated around 10,000 Nazis and other fascist war criminals escaped prosecution for their roles in the Holocaust by fleeing to Argentina and other Latin American countries.




_________________






Seeing this confusing sh!t, everything is possible.

[Zmeselo]

History
What did the Vatican know about the Nazi escape routes?

Oliver Pieper

https://www.dw.com/en/the-ratlines-what ... a-52555068

03/01/2020

After World War II, thousands of Nazis fled to South America along so-called ratlines — often with the help of Catholic clergy. The Vatican is now opening its archives from the time. Will it be a moment of truth?


Just how much did Pope Pius XII know about the 'ratlines' used by thousands of Nazis? Image: picture-alliance/dpa/inp

In 1948, just three years after the end of World War II, a leading Nazi war criminal managed to escape from a prison in Linz, Austria.

Franz Stangl, a former SS-Hauptsturmführer and commander of the Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps, was responsible for the deaths of almost 1 million Jews. Via Graz, Merano and Florence, he made his way to Rome and — most importantly for him — to the Vatican.

In Rome, Bishop Alois Hudal, a fellow Austrian, greeted him with the words:

You must be Franz Stangl — I've been expecting you.

He then handed Stangl forged documents that allowed the Nazi war criminal to travel to Syria, where his family eventually joined him. In 1951, the Stangl family emigrated to Brazil. The man who perfected mass murder in the concentration camps spent years assembling cars at a Volkswagen plant near Sao Paulo.

Franz Stangl is one of thousands of Nazis and collaborators who, with the help of the Catholic Church, escaped Europe via routes called "ratlines" — some of which ran from Innsbruck over the Alps to Merano or Bolzano in South Tyrol, then to Rome and from there to the Italian port city of Genoa.

Stangl chose a detour via Syria, but the majority of Nazis boarded ships headed directly to South America — mainly to Argentina, the country Holocaust survivor and writer Simon Wiesenthal named the Nazis'

Cape of Last Hope.

Argentina was that last country to declare war on Nazi Germany.


Franz Stangl during his trial in Düsseldorf Image: picture-alliance/AP/H. Ducklau

Spontaneous cooperation?

The ratlines were not a thoroughly structured system, but consisted of many individual components,

said Daniel Stahl, a historian at the Department of Modern and Contemporary History at Jena's Friedrich Schiller University.

It was more of a spontaneous cooperation of different institutions that gradually established itself after World War II.

Some 90% of Nazi perpetrators who escaped Europe are thought to have fled across the Alps to Italy — that was the first loophole.

Their first stop was in the South Tyrol region of northern Italy: the monastery of the Teutonic Order in Merano, the Capuchin monastery near Bressanone or the Franciscan monastery near Bolzano. The war criminals would often hide out in monasteries — these ratlines are also known as the "monastery route" — for years, collecting money to continue their escape overseas. Sometimes, the Nazis were accommodated right next to their former victims, Jews headed to Israel.

Rome was the next stop. The Nazis who had a letter from the Catholic Church confirming their identity were handed a passport by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which issued about 120,000 papers until 1951 — a mere formality.

The story goes that even before the end of the war, there was a clearly thought-out and elaborate plan for Nazi escapees,

Stahl said.

That is wrong, even the likes of Franz Stangl first wandered around Rome without knowing what to do next.

Information was passed on word of mouth.

A name that regularly crops up is Alois Hudal. The Austrian bishop had clearly positioned himself as a Nazi sympathizer during Nazi rule, and later he said many of those persecuted were "completely blameless" and that he

snatched them from their tormentors with false identity papers.

Adolf Eichmann's fake passport with the alias Ricardo Klement Image: Getty Images/AFP/HO

Popular clandestine route

It would have been much more difficult for Stangl and the others to flee

if the Catholic Church had not protected many Nazis, Stahl said.

The list of infamous Nazis who used the ratlines is long.

Adolf Eichmann


Eichmann was kidnapped and brought to Israel to stand trial Image: picture-alliance/IMAGNO/Votava

Using the name Riccardo Klement, the man who organized the Holocaust fled from Bolzano to Argentina in 1950. His family later joined him. Grateful for the Vatican's help in his escape, Eichmann converted to Catholicism. He worked as an electrician at a Daimler-Benz truck factory. In 1960, he was kidnapped by Mossad, Israel's secret service, and brought to trial in Israel. He was executed in the night from May 31 to June 1, 1962.

Josef Mengele

The sadistic Auschwitz concentration camp doctor fled to South Tyrol in 1949, where supporters provided him with a new passport. His new name was Helmut Gregor, 38, a Catholic and a mechanic, born in the South Tyrolean village of Tramin. The detail of his birth in South Tyrol would prove the most important condition for leaving the country. As a South Tyrolean citizen, he was considered an ethnic German as well as stateless, and therefore entitled to an ICRC passport. Mengele lived in Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil, where he suffered a stroke while swimming and drowned on February 7, 1979.


The man believed to be Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele, third from right, during a picnic with friends in Sao Paulo, Brazil Image: picture-alliance/AP Images

Klaus Barbie

Known as the "Butcher of Lyon," the French city's former Gestapo chief set off for South America as Klaus Altmann of Romania. With the help of the CIA, Barbie obtained a visa for Bolivia in 1951 and continued to receive orders from the US foreign intelligence service and the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND). His whereabouts became known to the public in 1970. Bolivia extradited him to France in 1983. He received a life sentence and died of cancer in prison on September 25, 1991.

Erich Priebke

The SS captain was partly responsible for the massacre of 335 civilians in a reprisal killing in the Ardeatine Caves near Rome in 1944. He fled from Latvia to Bariloche in Argentina under the pseudonym Otto Pape. Argentinian authorities extradited him to Rome in 1995. Three years later, he was sentenced to life in prison and died under house arrest on October 11, 2013.

Walther Rauff

Rauff invented mobile gas chambers, in which exhaust fumes were fed directly into the back of redesigned vans. According to his arrest warrant, he was responsible for at least 97,000 murders. In 1949, he fled along the ratline together with his wife and two children, to the Ecuadoran city Quito, then continued on to Chile. West Germany requested his extradition in 1963, but it was rejected as the crimes Rauff was accused of had expired under Chile's statute of limitations. Rauff became a wealthy food producer and died of a heart attack on May 14, 1984.

What did Pope Pius XII know about the ratlines?

Despite all the evidence historians have compiled about the ratlines, one questions still remains unanswered 70 years on: How much did Pope Pius XII know about them?

That's exactly what church historian Hubert Wolf intends to find out. Together with dozens of colleagues from around the world, he plans to spend the next four months combing through Vatican documents. On March 2, the Holy See will publish the archives from Pius' tenure for the first time.

It's an incredible opportunity to answer several pending questions from the era, and a huge challenge,

the professor of church history at the University of Münster told DW.

We're talking about 300,000 - 400,000 documents of 1,000 pages each.

Wolf knows from past experience scrutinizing the archives of the Inquisition, that researchers will spend weeks studying nothing of importance before stumbling across a "treasure trove."

Hoping for answers

A serious verdict on the contents of the archive will take years, Wolf warns. However, he is still optimistic about gaining meaningful insight into the ratlines.

For example, did the pope issue direct instructions or was it a more general order to help people without papers,

Wolf says.

Or is there concrete evidence that the pope, with encouragement from the CIA, thought: 'it would be a good idea to send nationalistic people to Latin America because Communists were actively trying to overthrow the continent'.

Pius XII's fear of communism is well-documented, and was a point of reference for clergy helping on the ratlines. The justification was that whatever the National Socialists did during the war, at least they fought communism and had to be protected from political persecution. Communism was seen as the greatest threat to the Catholic Church.

It may transpire that the pope knew nothing of any concrete help and that some people ruthlessly exploited that. Or Pius knew all about it, and turned a blind eye,

Wolf told DW.

So the all-important question that the opening of the archives must answer is:

Was the pope manipulated or did he know about people like Josef Mengele? That would be a whole new dimension.

Oliver Pieper Reporter on German politics and society, as well as South American affairs.

[Dark Energy]

Constraversy theory ! With vengeful western allies, the fuc..ker splattered brain parts, the proof has been in the pudding. Hitler died in the bunkers like the coward that he was.

[Odie]

A hyena preaching about the vices of a lion eating other animals
What a shame a shabiya cadre, a maoist chilling pastors in a container is preaching about the vices and genocidal actions of or histories of naziss

Amazing

[Zmeselo]

You make zero sense, as usual.

A hyena preaching about the vices of a lion eating other animals
What a shame a shabiya cadre, a maoist chilling pastors in a container is preaching about the vices and genocidal actions of or histories of naziss

Amazing