The Death of Himmler - Episode 4: Himmler's Missing Brain

[Music] 23rd of may 1945 the reich's fuhrer ss was dead at the age of 44 lying on the floor the front parlour of 31a ozenastrasse lunenburg germany but that was by no means the end of the story regarding heinrich himmler in many ways it was just the beginning some sort of investigation would have to follow to establish officially at least what had occurred that led to himmler's death at the time of his demise himmler was in the custody of colonel michael murphy chief of intelligence british second army the witnesses corroborate that murphy most likely had left the room before himmler's death to run to the lavatory as he was hung over with an upset stomach the only persons in the room before himmler died officially at least were medical doctor clement wells and company sergeant major edwin austin of the headquarters defense company however from the commotion that followed himmler's allegedly biting down on a cyanide capsule when dr wells examined his mouth other intelligence officers at the house rushed into the room noticeably major norman whitaker helping with efforts to flush the poison out of himmler one of whitaker's friends was visiting him when the drama occurred captain norman rimmer shortly after himmler's death went to the padres mess and on his own initiative asked the army priests who were involved in a game of whiskey bridge at the time if himmler would be given a decent christian burial among the officers playing cards was brigadier hugh glynn hughes senior medical officer for the british second army the impatient and testy glynn hughes telephone colonel murphy and asked him to send a doctor who could satisfy himless cause of death he also told murphy that in due course a post-mortem examination would be conducted the report to act as an identification document in the meantime himmler's corpse remained on the parlor floor naked covered by a single army blanket and would remain under guard all night the next morning 24th of may a group of army padres arrived at 9 30 to view the body followed by a group of british female soldiers of the auxiliary territorial service the guards entertained them by lifting the blanket and showing them himmler's genitals to much ribble commentary and laughter but higher up the chain of command nobody was laughing the other allied nations would be extremely dismayed when they found out that the prize prisoner himmler had died in british captivity some damage control was necessary and with this in mind the still hungover colonel murphy called a conference at 1 30 pm to decide on the party line dr wells was summoned to appear before the committee and murphy warned him in no uncertain terms not to discuss what had occurred in the front parlour with anyone also present with murphy was the second in command lieutenant colonel joe ewet and another intelligence officer lieutenant colonel stapleton and two officers whose identities have never been revealed but i should hazard a guess were from mi6 the murphy committee decided to curtail exposure and get himmler's body buried as quickly as possible however at 1 40 pm murphy excused himself from the meeting apparently too unwell to continue left in charge of the body was intelligence officer major norman whittaker and company sam major austin he was decided to photograph the corpse in situ and three men were involved in this sergeant carl sutton of the army photography unit and sergeant mccandle and ken gordon of cafe news who were shoot some film of the scene the room now having been refurnished to make it appear more homely instead of an interrogation center just as filming finished at 2 pm a u.s liaison officer arrived to view the corpse he was followed at 4 pm by three soviet liaison officers captain kucin demanded to speak to colonel murphy who remained conveniently unavailable due to his surprisingly long lasting hangover frustrating soviet attempts to find out what had happened to himmler in british custody instead major whitaker showed the soviets the corpse the soviets did not agree that the body was himmler's instead on arriving back at flensburg captain kuching cabled berlin asking if senior soviet intelligence officer colonel vasily gorbushin come to luneburg at once the circus continued into the evening with famous australian war correspondent chester wilmot and three other reporters viewing the corpse wilmot's broadcast of himmler's death was aired by bbc radio at 8 pm before any medical examination had been made or the corpse properly identified himmler spent another night lying on the front parlor floor drummitch timed two soldiers broke into the room propped up his corpse and photographed him again at 9 30 on the morning of the 25th of may brigadier glynn hughes phoned colonel brown of the royal army dental corps and asked him to come over and take medical and dental records to aid identification of the corpse brown quickly collected his equipment and some rubber and plaster of paris and drove to ul's in the strasser with his assistant major george atkins waiting for them at the house was army pathologist captain m.c bond the 74th british general hospital luneburg dr bond commenced his post-mortem examination of himmler at 11 am present also were major atkins and colonel brown mortary attendant private white and laboratory assistant sergeant glenn the examination was not made under ideal conditions being performed on the floor under the natural light coming in through the bay windows the report as i noted in the previous episode was nonetheless exceptionally thorough the army dentist examined himless teeth though their report seen here does not note any fragments of glass in the mouth that would have been present if himmler had bitten down on a glass ampoule of cyanide this is a strange omission and perhaps is evidence that the cyanide story wasn't yet quite right or at least worked out by the intelligence officers brown and atkins then made two latex death masks of himmler one would be sent to general eisenhower's headquarters and the other one was retained by brown colonel murphy probably not realizing that brown had done this this mask was later donated to the army medical services museum by brown providing some interesting evidence concerning the state of himless face the time of his death in comparison to film and photographs of him alive many have suggested that the mask face shows signs of damage inconsistent with the official report of cyanide poisoning finally we have evidence of a procedure being conducted on the corpse one of the guards outside the door corporal bill carrett was called in to assist at this point dr bond removed himmler's brain this fact was reported widely in 1945. i have discovered references to this removal in several contemporary newspapers and magazines the 26th of may 1945 edition of the daily news of perth australia picked this story off the wire in an article titled himmler buried quote before the burial doctors and detectives took fingerprints examined the nails and teeth and measured each limb they also took the death mask and a cast of his ears the brain and part of his skeleton were removed the following day's edition of the second army troops news journal an army newspaper for soldiers serving in germany ran a story titled unmarked grave for himmler in which it was stated quote british army surgeons took cars of his features and removed the brain and parts of the skull end quote time magazine also asserted that the brain was removed noting in an article on the 4th of june 1945 quote medical authorities removed the brain took plaster casts of the skull end quote thereafter the story of the removal of himmler's brain went incredibly quiet for 40 years until the mirror a famous british newspaper ran a series of articles on the 6th of may 1985 close to the anniversary of the end of world war ii in europe in a side article entitled riddle of the lost brain they reported quote bill carrick helped the pathologist who carried out the post-mortem examination he said i was told to hold himmler's head the doctor cut the top with a knife and i looked away afterwards the doctor put himmler's brain in a container which held a solution end quote the mirror reported that quote the brain was sent to london for examination by scientists so they could discover the source of his evil but since then its location has remained a mystery end quote the removal of the brains of world war ii leaders for study was not limited to himmler's following italian dictator benito mussolini's execution probably by italian partisans and the public display and abuse of his corpse in milan the u.s army had it removed to a local mortuary for a post-mortem examination mussolini's brain was removed and sent to the u.s for study doctors hoping to find the root cause of the duchess behavior as they suspected he suffered from syphilis in the event they didn't discover syphilis but the brain subsequently disappeared only in 1966 was most of the brain returned to mussolini's widow but some slices were retained by the us government incredibly parts of mussolini's brain and some blood samples ended up for sale on ebay in the 2000s priced at 15 000 euros they were quietly removed from cell following an outcry from mussolini's granddaughter another axis leader whose brain was removed post-mortem was german labour front leader robert lye lie on trial at nuremberg managed to hang himself in his cell on the 25th of october 1945. it was supposed that lie was mentally ill and the brain was removed and sectioned this only came to light in 2007 when glass photographic transparencies of lye's brain were found among the effects of nurenberg trials psychiatrist dr douglas kelly who himself had committed suicide a decade or so after the war returning to the problem of himmler's corpse colonel murphy decided to get rid of it and quickly in the early hours of the 26th of may 1945 after himmler's third night on the front parlor floor a british army truck from the headquarters defense company backed up to the rear of 31a osnostrasse himmler's body had been prepared for burial by major whitaker and company sergeant major austin and his men it had been wrapped in the length of camouflage material bound with wire loaded aboard the truck which was driven by sergeant weston the body was escorted in the back by sergeant ken ottery the truck was followed by major whitaker driving a jeep with austin in the passenger seat after driving around for hours whitaker settled on a burial site on luneburg heath weston and artery dug a grave himmler's body was unceremoniously thrown in and then covered over the site disguised with branches and leaves and whitaker noted its coordinates on a map the party then drove back to luneburg and whitaker reported to murphy though the allies were upset by not being able to identify the body themselves any questions regarding the manner of himmler's death were now conveniently and neatly curtailed by the hasty burial the biggest piece of evidence his corpse later on the 26th of may murphy once again decided not to meet with a delegation of soviet officers led by colonel gorbuchen the soviets demanded however that himmler be exhumed a request that was ignored it is interesting to know that gobushin carried with him a set of himless actual dental records captured in berlin which could have been used to positively identify the body even more incredibly gurubushin was denied a copy of colonel brown's dental chart seen here hand drawn by him and major atkins during the post-mortem we have to ask the question why colonel brown also asserted that himless fingerprints were not taken at variance with the established story next to arrive were two americans at 3 p.m they told murphy that they were holding himless brother gephard and his mistress hedwig pothaust who could be brought to identify the body less than impressed to learn that the body had already been buried colonel murphy was forced to talk to them a blazing row followed though the british managed to resist exhuming the corpse at least for now everything went quiet until early 1946 by that time most of the players from the events of the 23rd of may 1945 at olsen ostrassa had moved on to jobs in civilian life but quite out of the blue several were suddenly contacted by the war office in london and told to be prepared to appear before a board of inquiry to be held in germany including dr wells who had been examining himmler's mouth when he allegedly bit down on the cyanide capsule a major whitaker who had buried the body on lunenburg heath it appears that some doubt had crept into the identification of heinrich himmler in may 1945 doubts that led to the decision to exhume himmler's corpse and conduct a second examination the man chosen to conduct this examination was the highly experienced dr ian morris of unit number two war crimes commission then collating evidence of nazi atrocities in the british occupation zone of germany himless corpse was exhumed a second time after being relocated by major whitaker and taken by truck to the morgue the british military hospital in hanover apart from dr morris two unidentified british civilians were present along with corporal d.w williams of the royal army medical corps morris reported that the corpse was in reasonable condition its skin slimy and swollen incredibly morris was not given dr bond's original postmortem report nor colonel brown's dental report he instead had some german x-rays of himmler's teeth but incredibly most of himless teeth were missing as colonel brown's diagram shows himmler had all of his teeth when examined on the 25th of may 1945 but at some time between then and his burial most of them had been pulled out was this deliberate destruction of dental evidence to prevent identification of the body particularly as the soviets turned up with himmler's actual dental chart for comparison dr morris could not really come to any conclusions regarding the identity of the body due to its state of preservation and missing teeth meaning that the identification of the man who died in the front parlour at 31a oznastrassa remains contentious today so what about the missing brain i've spent the best part of a year trying to locate it and i believe it still exists frustratingly dr bond did not leave any records concerning where the brain was sent by a deductive reasoning we can assume that such a significant object was sent to one of the world's leading neuropathologists in london for study the files on himmler held at the museum of military medicine only cover the post-mortem examination and the dental chart created by colonel brown as well as the aforementioned press cuttings concerning the removal of himmler's brain however a little research reveals that the preeminent brain study center in britain in 1945 was the institute of neurology in london now subsumed into university college london from this lead research shows that the leading neuropathologist in the post-war period was professor john corcellis who maintained a brain bank a collection of specimen brains at runwell hospital a ucl archivist highlighted that after corcelles death the brain bank was kept going until the runwell hospital was closed in the 1990s the famous brain bank and all of its specimens were sold to synapse the scientific initiative for neuropsychiatric and psychopharmacological studies in belgium this collection is currently housed at the duffel psychiatric hospital in belgium i recently received a reply from my inquiry saying that a thorough search of their records reveals nothing regarding himmler another name given to me in connection with the national hospital for neurology and neurosurgery in london was professor joseph godwin greenfield sometimes described as the father of neuropathology and in post at the time of himmler's death had the brain been sent to him a thorough search of his personal papers held at university college london library did not turn up any references to himmler whatsoever another avenue that might shed light on where the brain was sent was an examination of the private papers of brigadier hugh glynn hughes the commander of the medical services for the british second army in may 1945 the man who actually ordered dr bond to conduct the post-mortem examination of himmler his papers reside at the welcome institute in london i made a thorough search of his extensive papers and found nothing concerning himmler's brain strangely i also found no mention of himmler whatsoever which considering the high profile nature of the prisoner and the controversy surrounding his death appears odd glyn hughes papers certainly contain plenty of references to events before and after himmler's death but make no mention of anything concerning himmler himself we can surmise from this that glyn hughes was being careful not to highlight his involvement or he had been told to remain silent on the subject so another dead end regarding the quest for the missing brain casting my net more widely i contacted the handful of brain banks that still exist in the uk in the hopes of a lead more rejections though some were friendly others almost legal in their replies for example the cambridge brain bank gave me the following very non-committal reply quote in compliance with the human tissue act post-mortem material held in our brain bank is anonymized for researcher inquiries and requests end quote in other words if we have it we won't tell you if we don't have it we won't tell you the conclusion i must draw from my research is that himmler's brain may still exist but the likelihood of any institution admitting that they actually have it is remote undoubtedly due to the negative publicity such an admission would generate particularly in the press it would also open a terrible can of worms concerning what to do with such an object however i'd like to ask anyone with information to come forward and contact me at hello mark felton dot co dot uk as i'm sure somebody knows something several people have already contacted me regarding the previous videos about himmler's capture and death providing fascinating information that is credible yet at odds with the official british story indicating that the whiff of conspiracy still lingers over the death of the reich's fuhrer ss as for what became of himmler's body following the second post-mortem examination in 1946 the head was x-rayed by the authorities apparently for purposes of identification but these x-rays have never been made public himless corpse far from what is reported in most history books was not reinterred in his grave on lunenburg heath but instead corporal d.w williams a mortuary assistant at hanover military hospital was ordered to take it to the hospital crematoria where it was incinerated so if himmler's brain can be found dna testing will at least settle one important question that has lingered over his death was the man who died in the front parlour of 31a ulzanastrassa heinrich himmler or a double the willful destruction of forensic evidence while the corpse was in british hands including the pulling out of the teeth prior to the first burial and the withholding of important identifying evidence from the pathologists primarily himmler's actual dental x-rays and several other points i've raised have certainly contributed to the conspiracy that himmler actually escaped justice in 1945. my personal view based on everything i know about the case so far is that the man who died in luneburg in may 1945 was heinrich himmler but i'm not satisfied with the official story of his death and i feel that the british authorities hid or suppress the truth of what occurred in that room either himmler died due to incompetence on the part of his captors or due to malice and realistically we will probably never know the truth for when the records concerning himmler's death are finally released in 23 years time perhaps finally the truth will out [Music] many 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

Channel: Mark Felton Productions

Views: 913,003

Keywords: Mark Felton, Himmler, 1945, Conspiracy

Id: vtP9MqvyrT0

Length: 22min 44sec (1364 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 02 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/TheWoWConspiracist]

I'm going to guess that he was brutally tortured to death and his teeth were stolen to keep as a sort of trophy for people.

The missing brain was either taken for research purposes or possibly cannibalized by people.

Impossible to say either way, I don't think Himmler was one that got away. He was already shunned by the Nazis after he tried to take over for Hitler so he really didn't have any allies left in the world besides some of his SS agents.

[u/Fn4cK]

I have a theory about that that deviates a bit from what Mark Felton concludes, here it goes:

"Taking souvenirs" became a widespread issue amongst the allied soldiers, up to the point that they had to be forbidden from cutting off fingers, etc.

I believe that the "first responders" (for a lack of a better word), that found the corpse, pillaged everything they thought would be of value (hence the missing glas capsule, brain, and probably more). They might have also tried to cut out the tooth the capsule was in, fingers, his SS bloodgroup tattoo and/or more.

They (the brass) knew this would shed light on things they didn't want brought to light, so they decided to cover this up. They replaced the corpse the russians were shown with someone that looked similar, but in an unpillaged state and prepared it to display symptoms of a similar fate to Himmler's.

This might sound outlandish at first, but it wouldn't be the first time that british troops would go the extra mile to cover up malpractice on their end.

[u/cjgager]

pretty sure it's in the vicinity of Hitler's nose

[u/DarkleCCMan]

SS: Did Himmler actually die in British captivity in 1945? How was he able to get cyanide? Why were there no glass fragments in his mouth? Why was the body left on the parlor floor for three days then buried? Why did they remove his brain, and where did it go? Why weren't the Allies permitted to examine the corpse? The Soviets who viewed the body said it wasn't Himmler. They later retrieved his dental records and X-rays, but when the body was exhumed a year later, most of the teeth had been pulled posthumously. No fingerprint records have been found for the deceased. First they said the body was fingerprinted; later they said they never did. One of the officers in charge has no diary entries around the time of the death, just mundane details from before and after. The whole thing stinks.

So what do you all think happened?

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[u/EsotericXianAlchemy]

u/DarkleCCMan : You likely know what I'll suggest; that likely none of it ever happened and it's a romantic narrative, just like all else in this theatrical play. Just another homosexual actor, like Hitler, who retired from character and the world stage after results were achieved.