Hitler At The White House...Almost

[Music] during the presidency of harry s truman hitler where at least some of hitler was due to visit the white house in washington dc for a rather macabre exhibit let me explain the story begins before truman became president on the 20th of july 1944 hitler narrowly survived the famous assassination attempt at the wolf's lair his eastern front headquarters one of his staff officers colonel count von staufenberg managed to smuggle a bomb inside his briefcase into the fuhrer's military conference that was being held in a briefing hut the bomb detonated but hitler somehow survived his legs were lacerated by hundreds of wood splinters from the huge map table his elbow badly bruised his hair singed and both of his eardrums burst but otherwise he was not badly injured his uniform showed how powerful the blast had been his black trousers torn into strips like a raffia skirt his tunic holed and bloodstained hitler believed his survival to be divine intervention and proof that he had not yet completed his mission he ordered that the torn and bloodstained uniform be preserved having it sent to his girlfriend who lived at his private home the berghoff in southern bavaria ava brown carefully preserved the uniform as if it were a holy relic fast forward to april 1945 and hitler's fortunes had badly deteriorated now living in his berlin bunker the city being enveloped by soviet forces ava brown had against his wishes joined him hitler was now concerned that none of his personal possessions and files and documents should fall into allied hands to this effect on the 22nd of april 1945 he ordered his chief aide ss obergruppenfuhrer julia schaub to go to the bearcoff and ensure that his and ava brown's personal items and correspondence were either destroyed or hidden shaop was accompanied by another member of hitler's staff ss stumban fura johannes gurler however the royal air force heavily bombed the private nazi village where hitler had his residence on the 25th of april 1945 afro lancaster's badly smashed up the aubersalzberg complex including hitler's house but most of hitler and ava brown's property was safe already stored underground in a network of passengers and rooms that no bombs could reach on the 1st of may 1945 ava brown's sister gretel who was heavily pregnant asked girler to take charge of a large chest that had belonged to her sister ava brown had married hitler in the bunker and on the 30th of april the two of them had committed suicide gretel's husband hermann feigerline heinrich himmler's adjutant to the fuhrer headquarters was also dead he had been caught attempting to abscond from ruined berlin and after interrogation shot on hitler's orders so on the 1st of may 1945 girler took charge of ava brown's trunk which contained some 250 personal letters written between herself and hitler there were also photo albums plus photographic negatives 28 rolls of motion picture film of the private life of hitler and ava brown some silverware watches and us and british currency and the uniform hitler had been wearing when he was blown up the year before girla placed a telephone call through to ss hobstum fuhrer airvin halfler at fishhorn castle the castle was being used as a collecting point for nazi artifacts and documents that needed to be saved quickly moved out of danger or indeed destroyed the castle was also the headquarters of the florian gaia ss cavalry division commanded by none other than hermann feigerline's brother valdemar in the meantime piles of property were dragged out of the underground tunnels beneath the beokov on the oberzelzberg and burned including hitler's uniforms and clothes documents photo albums linen and so on although this process was far from thorough and us troops would find plenty of souvenirs once they capture the village on the fourth of may captain hoffler dispatched a truck from fishhorn castle to the berkoff and ava brown's personal items were loaded aboard on the 2nd of may girla along with his wife accompanied the truck to fishhorn castle the castle was in a state of chaos shipments of looted art massive amounts of documents and personnel were arriving all the time and the castle's furnaces were working overtime burning many items for example a truck arrived carrying a large four foot square metal chest that belonged to heinrich himmler it was accompanied by his private secretary erica lorenz the shipment also included all of himmler's uniforms from his house near bactusgarden on the 5th of may halfler began burning some of the correspondence hanging around all the time was an interesting character ss hobstone fuhrer franz conrad had formally been in charge of robbing the jews a warsaw of their wealth and had become known as the ghetto king making sure to enrich himself as well by may 1945 conrad a wanted war criminal was at fishhorn castle itself a sub-camp of dachau concentration camp helping out and helping himself conrad saved several caches of hitler-related documents from the flames along with other material of great historical interest the large himmler safe was opened and frau lorenz oversaw the burning of its contents along with himmler's uniforms conrad and another ss officer made several discrete trips to conrad's mother's house and to that of his brother fritz hiding some of hitler's letters drawings and ava brown's property some radios cases of champagne and all manner of loot for the rainy days to come a small advanced party of american soldiers arrived at fishhorn castle on the 7th of may 1945 the last full day of the war in europe they came to meet up and accept the surrender of reich's marshal hermann gouring a topic i've covered in my video get guring link in the end screen the americans noted that the ss at the castle under valdemar feigerline didn't seem very interested in the american presence perhaps because of what they were secretly watching over hidden at the castle and elsewhere the ss remained fully armed and posted guards at the castle alongside gis until guring eventually arrived accompanying the gis was a small detachment from the us army's counterintelligence corps the cic once the war was over the cic began extensive investigations to locate the missing documents and valuables and define and arrest nazi war criminals alongside the work of the monuments men who were recovering stolen art and other treasures girla was arrested and interrogated but stated that the items he had taken from the belkov he had in fact ordered burned the cic also picked up conrad a wanted war criminal due to his involvement with the final solution and he also denied having any of the aforementioned materials that the americans were searching for it has been long suspected by historians that the bulk of the hitler ava brown private correspondence was stolen by a cic major this man who shall remain nameless as he is now dead and can't defend himself certainly took a lot of ava brown's property turning some of it over to the proper authorities during the war but also giving away much more long after the war that's a story for another video but after applying pressure to franz conrad the cic was able to locate a stash of the hitler eva brown material in the hands of conrad's brother fritz himself an ss officer as this inventory of the items received notes the americans led by special agent wallis snelson the 307th cic detachment u.s 7th army headquarters found the suit worn by hitler on the 20th of july 1944. this material which included hitler and ava brown's private photograph albums and photographic negatives the motion picture film rolls some silverware some mark with ava brown's monogram men's and women's gold watches belonging to hitler and ava brown and hitler's gold cufflinks and some cash was sent to the office of the assistant chief of staff g2 intelligence u.s forces european theater which made this material available to the document control section for intelligence study on the 8th of november 1945 major mark spiegel executive of the document control section turned over some of the hitler ava brown items to major e a jessa deputy chief currency section financial branch offers to the military government the safe keeping basically the americans have taken over the reichsbank building in frankfurt a mine and use the vaults to collect and store nazi gold paper currency and our treasures and other valuables however hitler's uniform the photographs and negatives the motion picture films and some of eva brown's clothes and so on were retained and stored at the document control section and here is where the story becomes a little weird on the 8th of november 1946 exactly one year later the document control center received a request from the white house for hitler and ava brown's personal items to be shipped to the war department in washington dc a special exhibition was planned at the white house curated by the national archives of this material including presumably hitler's blood-stained uniform a display for president truman and members of the u.s government and other special guests codenamed shipment number 76 it included 156 pieces of silverware five watches one set of cufflinks some knives and forks marked with ava brown's monogram a silver necklace a diamond brooch the latter two probably gifts from hitler to ava brown and several other items noted as being of no value presumably including ava brown's clothes and hitler's damaged uniform but the exhibition was not to be stars and stripes a u.s army newspaper got wind of the proposed exhibition and ran an article on it the white house then issued a statement disclaiming all knowledge of the hitler eva brown exhibition so hitler's personal items never made it to washington dc what happened next was also rather strange i believe that the idea of displaying hitler's blood-stained uniform inside the president's house caused such negative fallout that the decision was taken to tone down the whole affair the hitler photo albums the negatives and the roles of motion picture film were given to the national archives and indeed much of the film used in this video comes from those 28 roles that used to belong to ava brown as for hitler's uniform it never left germany officially at least this photograph taken in frankfurt on the 29th of august 1947 was the last official record of hitler's battered uniform on the photo's reverse a caption notes that shortly afterwards the uniform was burnt to quote prevent its becoming a holy grail end quote this was a rather peculiar thing to do they didn't destroy hitler or hermann goring's cars they happily used many of the buildings associated with the regime including the famous eagles nest tea house and indeed items belonging to hitler hermann goering heinrich himmler and many other senior nazi leaders remain on public display today inside museums across america and also held in various archives so why was the uniform destroyed considering it was evidence of the plot against hitler and of the bravery of people like count von stauffenberg in attempting to kill him personally i don't think the uniform was burned the men handling these items knew their historical and probably their financial value in the future and took many souvenirs for themselves after all many items associated with top nazis were hinted as destroyed only to turn up long after the war perfectly intact i would hazard a guess that some cic man took the uniform as the ultimate souvenir and it resides forgotten in some attic in america today or was long ago sold to one of those mega-rich anonymous collectors that frequent the third reich militaria world in sifting through the files at the u.s national archives in washington dc about this entire episode although the photograph has a caption on the back saying it was destroyed i can't find one single piece of evidence in the form of a file from some officer ordering its destruction if it does exist and it's a big if the historical importance of the damaged uniform is huge it is as i said physical evidence of how close hitler came to death at the hands of count von stauffenberg it is covered in hitler's blood which would reveal a dna profile from an unimpeachable source to help settle many of the historical questions concerning hitler's ultimate fate and therefore it should really be in a museum the 250 private letters between hitler and ava brown also remain missing to the present day something we will examine in more detail another time thanks for watching please subscribe and share and also visit my audiobook channel war stories with mark felton you can also help to support both of my channels at paypal and patreon details in the description box below [Music]

Channel: Mark Felton Productions

Views: 435,382

Keywords: Mark Felton, Berghof, White House, July Plot, Count von Stauffenberg, Schloss Fischhorn, Obersalzberg, US Occupation Germany, Eva Braun, CIC, Frankfurt am Main

Id: wnc_qbkOzdA

Length: 14min 26sec (866 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 15 2022