Declassified CIA file says Adolf Hitler was alive in 1955… and has the photo to prove it

Everyone knows Adolf Hitler died in his Berlin bunker in 1945. What this CIA document presupposes is… maybe he didn’t? Hitler’s ignominious death at his own hands as the Allies closed in his underground bunker is the stuff of historical legend, but wartime chaos has left people wondering what really happened ever since.

The official story is that Hitler’s body was promptly rolled up in a blanket, carried outside the bunker, doused in petrol, and burned. After hours of burning his corpse was reduced to charred bone and ash, with the Soviets only able to positively identify the body by dental remains.

The lack of a body – or even photographs of one – immediately raised suspicions that Hitler had escaped the bunker and was still alive. Those suspicions were heightened when on June 9, 1945, the Soviets suddenly claimed they hadn’t positively identified the body and that they believed he’d escaped, with Stalin going on to say he believed Hitler was living “in Spain or Argentina”.

At first glance, this sounds ludicrous, but there’s a declassified 1955 CIA file that takes this claim seriously. Before you dismiss this as a loopy conspiracy theory, check out the document (hosted on CIA.gov!) for yourself!

The file – sent to the CIA station chief in Caracas – details an anonymous informant living in Maracaibo, Venezuela, who says a former SS trooper named Phillip Citroen “stated to him confidentially that Adolph Hitler is still alive”. According to Citroen, Hitler escaped Germany to Colombia but left for Argentina in Jan. 1955. Citroen is said to have believed that “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 CIA would probably have dismissed this as the ravings of a kook, were it not for photographic evidence to support the claim. Attached to the file is a photo of Citroen with the man alleged to be Hitler, apparently taken in Colombia in 1954.

Okay, I gotta admit. That does look a lot like Hitler. But maybe, arguably, a little too much like Hitler. It’s one thing to argue that Hitler escaped to South America and lived incognito among Nazi sympathizers, but to do that while maintaining that hairdo and toothbrush mustache?! Perhaps this is a case of trying to hide in plain sight, but surely anyone who would have seen that guy strolling around sipping a mimosa would have been all “Hey waitaminute, that’s Hitler!!!”.

It’s unclear what actions the CIA took on this information though, if they did confirm Hitler was still alive, we suspect this document wouldn’t ever have been declassified. Without wanting to sound too cynical, we’d bet that the 1950s-era CIA would Operation Paperclip Hitler so fast his mustache would twirl.

Even so, we’re dying to know the backstory to this bizarre document. Who is the guy in the photo, and is the source really a former SS trooper? Is someone playing a prank on the CIA or did they genuinely believe they were exposing the real Hitler? Sadly, it appears these mysteries – much like Hitler’s bones – are lost to the sands of time.