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

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, who 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 was taken to Moscow, according to Mi5.

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 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 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.”

The report claims that the hotel had “already made the necessary preparations” for Hitler to take refuge that their hotel in Argentina if he “should at any time get into difficulty” and needed a “safe retreat.”

Another document from October 1955 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 a 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.

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, 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.

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 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 conspiracy that Hitler may have survived the war and fled Germany, members of the Nazi party did use “ratlines” to reach Argentina and other South American Countries to avoid persecution for their crimes after WWII.

In 1960, Israeli Mossad agents covertly captured one of the masterminds behind the Holocaust, Adolf Eichmann, from 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 later died from drowning after suffering from 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 reported.

“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 persecution for their roles in the Holocaust by fleeing to Argentina and other Latin American countries.