-Caveat Lector-
Published in Washington, D.C. Vol. 15, No. 11 -- March 22, 199 .
www.insightmag.com
Adolf Hitler's Secret FBI Files
By Timothy W. Maier
For almost 30 years, J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI maintained a detailed
dossier on Adolf Hitler and closely investigated any report that indicated
he still was alive.
Adolf Hitler lives -- in cyberspace, that is, where 734 pages of Hitler's
raw FBI file can be downloaded from the Internet. The files contain
speeches, rare photographs, old newspaper clippings, details about
discovery of the Führer's personal notes and chinaware and assassination
plots -- as well as an extensive 11-year probe into the possibility that
Hitler faked his own death with a bogus suicide in 1945.
At times these files read like a supermarket tabloid, with outrageous
conspiracy theories that remind readers that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover
was a suspicious man. At other times, the files reveal how serious the FBI
considered allegations that one of this century's most evil despots may
have escaped his Berlin bunker.
The records begin with President Franklin Roosevelt becoming enraged upon
learning of a 1933 New York conspiracy to kill Hitler and continue into the
fifties with a Western Union telegram declaring, "I have positive proof
that Hitler is living."
There are seven volumes of these records. A photographic exhibit of Hitler
in uniform dominates the final volume. Scattered throughout are clippings
from newspapers. The last story is a 1956 article about the plans of
Hitler's sister, Paula Wolf, to write a book about her brother to "set some
facts straight" as soon as a Munich court declares her brother dead. "The
readers will forgive me," she says, "if I abstain from depicting my brother
at all costs as a wicked character just for the sake of profit." An
accompanying Associated Press article noted boldly, "He Is Officially Alive
'Til Court Issues Certificate."
As for that Western Union tipster, the FBI never tracked down the sender
nor did it ever identify the members of the 1933 conspiracy plot to kill
Hitler. But that plot sure kept Hoover's G-men busy. The file reveals that
the plot began when the German Embassy asked the State Department to
initiate an investigation based upon a letter signed by a "Daniel Stern,"
which said that unless FDR rebuked Hitler for his outrages against Jews,
then "I notify you that I shall go to Germany and assassinate Hitler."
The State Department handed off the probe to the FBI, which never found
Stern. But the probe opened the door for Hoover to look at pro-Nazi
organizations. Don Whitehead, one of the few authors to research the plot,
wrote about it in his book, The FBI Story, A Report to the People. He calls
it a "diplomatic fumble" by the German ambassador in Washington, who
probably wished he never had called the State Department. That's because
Hoover's investigation ultimately became "a valuable reference when the
Department of Justice requested additional investigations. And Hoover
passed the information to the president," Whitehead observes.
All of this is in Hitler's FBI file --even Whitehead's observations -- and
now is available at www.fbi.gov. Between the poor copies -- some nearly
impossible to read because, says FBI Freedom of Information Officer Linda
Gloss, the copies were not made from originals -- and the heavy black ink
blocking out what today still is considered classified, there rests a
fascinating tale of the FBI's role during the World War II era.
For example, deep in the files are a series of memos written by Hoover on
Oct. 5, 1939, reviewing intelligence from a confidential informant. The
Hoover memos to various U.S. military-intelligence agencies and the
president's chief of staff warned of future Japanese aggression and
Germany's attack on France. "The Japanese will attack British Indochina and
other colonies without warning, simultaneously with the German advance on
France," Hoover wrote.
And there is ample evidence in the files to undermine rumors that Hitler's
personal physician tried to poison him or "administer narcotics that might
have contributed to the impairment of Hitler's health" or that "Hitler
inherited certain [psychophysical] traits in his childhood and later on,
and that these might account for his crimes and other actions," according
to an FBI investigation into the matter.
The FBI's Hitler files have been available for some time to anyone who
cared to schedule an appointment at FBI headquarters in Washington, but few
have done so. Two recent critically acclaimed books, Hitler: Diagnosis of a
Destructive Prophet by Fritz Redlich and Explaining Hitler by Ron
Rosenbaum, fail to mention the FBI files -- although some of the records
used to support these authors' opinions, such as Hitler's medical records,
are duplicated in the files from other sources.
Redlich and Rosenbaum may have avoided Hitler's FBI file because some of
the information there concerns allegations that border on
