Friday, 23 August 2013

Hitler in disguise: U.S intelligence prepped for Nazi leader fleeing by creating images of what he would look like minus the mustache. 1940s.

By 1944 Adolf Hitler’s image - with his trademark toothbrush mustache and dark hair slicked into a side parting - was known by the world. 

However, U.S intelligence officers feared the Nazi leader would be able to flee from Germany by assuming a disguise and - to prepare for this eventuality - ordered his portrait to be cloned. 


The following pictures, released by the U.S. National Archives in Washington, show head shots of 'Der Fuehrer'  in numerous guises. 

The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), an early version of the CIA set up during World War II, asked Eddie Senz, a New York make-up artist, to produce the altered portraits after D-Day on 6 June 1944.

Photos of Senz's re-imaginings of Hitler were circulated to Allied Commanders during the War but were not seen by the public until German magazine, Der Spiegel, discovered and published them in the 1990s.

American fears of the dictator escaping Berlin were unfounded and within a year of the portraits being commissioned he had committed suicide. 

By early 1945 Hitler’s Third Reich was losing power and allied forces were advancing on Berlin while German troops were losing territory.

Rather than fleeing in disguise Hitler instead retreated to his Fuhrer bunker.

By Hitler’s birthday on April 20 the German capital was bombarded with Soviet artillery and, the following evening, Red Army tanks were on the outskirts of the city. 

On April 30 Hitler committed suicide with Eva Braun, the wife he had married shortly after midnight the previous day. Hitler shot himself while his wife poisoned herself with cyanide. 
 
Extraordinary claims that Hitler staged his suicide and fled to Argentina with Braun where he lived until old age have been dismissed as ‘rubbish.’ 

Authors of the book ‘Grey Wolf: The Escape Of Adolf’, released last year, argued that evidence of the tyrant’s suicide is flawed and that he did managed to escape to South America.

The sensationalist claims were ridiculed by leading historian Guy Walters as ‘2,000 per cent rubbish.’


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