Friday, December 11, 2009

KGB Destroyed Hitler’s Remains in 1970

This was probably for the best. 

Gen. Vasily Khristoforov told Interfax in an interview published Monday that previously secret documents show that KGB chief Yuri Andropov, with prior consent from the Soviet Communist Party leadership, ordered a top secret operation to destroy the remains of Hitler, his wife Eva Braun, Nazi Germany’s propaganda chief, Joseph Goebbels; and Goebbels’ entire family.

Khristoforov said according to the documents, Andropov’s decision to destroy the remains of the Nazi leaders and their family members was motivated by the fears of the KGB and Soviet Communist Party leadership that Hitler’s burial site could become a place of worship for supporters of fascist ideas.

Neither the FSB nor Khristoforov were immediately available to comment on the secret documents, when asked by CNN.

The operation, code-named “The Archives,” was carried out by a group of special KGB agents in Magdeburg, East Germany, where the bodies had been secretly buried February 21, 1946, on the territory of a Soviet military facility, Khristoforov said.

Two protocols were compiled after the operation was carried out on April 4, 1970, the general said. The first documented the opening of a grave that contained the remains of the Nazi leaders and their family members, and the other one detailed their physical destruction.

“The remains were burnt on a bonfire outside the town of Shoenebeck, 11 kilometers away from Magdeburg, then ground into ashes, collected and thrown into the Biederitz River,” the second document reads, according to Khristoforov.

(4) Comments
Posted by Owen at 0647 hrs
Culture + Foreign Affairs + Military

  1. Hitler’s burial site could become a place of worship for supporters of fascist ideas

    D.C. is now the spot, anyway.

    Posted by dad29 on December 11, 2009 at 0927 hrs


  2. The Russians may have been right, but I would rather imagine his ashes laying on some dung heap along with the ashes of the system of government that he defined.

    Unfortunately, neither has happened.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on December 11, 2009 at 0946 hrs


  3. Actually, this isn’t really oh so secret. It was well documented in the book “The Death of Hitler” by Ada Petrova and Peter Watson published in 1995.

    Accordingly, Operation Archive was begun. Because the corpses were buried deep and under asphalt, the disinterment was no minor matter. Mechanical digging equipment was required and that would generate noise, a lot of it. A large marquee was therefore erected to keep away prying eyes and a cover story concocted to stop rumors among the locals. It was said that Counter Intelligence had learned the Nazis buried some very important documents in the courtyard in 1945. To help the deception, the Hitler excavation was given the codename “Archive”.

    It’s a pretty good read as it tries to piece together what happened in the bunker in the final hours through eyewitness accounts and forensic evidence. I would recommend it.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on December 11, 2009 at 1039 hrs


  4. I have no reason to doubt this story—which version is it? The 13th?—except that for years the Soviets lied and said Allied bombing had destroyed the treasure hoard of Troy in the Berlin Museum. 

    It isn’t so much that Moscow always recorded lies for internal Party consumption.  The lies were in what they told the public, in what information they released, and what data they suppressed.

    Oh dear, and I was trying to avoid talking about the Global Warming debate ....

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on December 11, 2009 at 2303 hrs


Commenting is not available in this channel entry.