Der UntergangOur Guests

  • Frank Johnson—researcher for Chris White's Ancient Aliens Debunked documentary and writer for the Ancient Aliens Debunked website (https://www.ancientaliensdebunked.com/)

  • Mark Campbell—creator of the Bowler or Fez Film Review channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSokpkLnhiQ65-AJK8Ru3kQ)

  • Antony Rotunno—podcasts: "Glass Onion : On John Lennon" (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/glass-onion-on-john-lennon/id1473867166); "Film Gold"  (https://anchor.fm/filmgold); "Life and Life Only" (https://lifeandlifeonly.podbean.com/)

 

Special Notes

1) Erratum: In the conversation, I mistakenly said that Joseph Goebbels became Führer for one day following Hitler's death. In fact he became Reichskanzler (Reich Chancellor), while Karl Dönitz became Reichspräsident (Reich President). It seems that, whereas Hitler had combined both Reichskanzler and Führer in himself, he wished that the roles should be split following his death and that Führer should be replaced by Reichspräsident. None of this affects the point I was trying to make—that there are always more goons waiting in the wings to take over when the current goon goes—but I thought I should correct my mistake. (I think that's right now. Let me know if it's still wrong!)

2) I do not wish to be misunderstood on this point, as I think I may have come over as more dismissive in the pocdast than I had intended. As I said in the roundtable, although I am currently not persuaded that Adolf and Eva escaped from the Führerbunker and travelled to Argentina, I am not certain about it. In fact—rather like the Moon Landings issue—I am about 60/40 about it (60 they didn't; 40 they did), and I certainly wouldn't criticise anyone who thinks they did escape or dismiss as crazy attempts to research the matter. Again, rather like the Moon Landings issue, I haven't spent very much time pursuing arguments and evidence for and against. (If listeners think it worthwhile, I am open to the idea of looking into these questions further.)

3) Although these didn't get a mention in the podcast (because the conversation just didn't go that way), I am aware of FBI and CIA interest in claimed sightings of Hitler in South America in the years following the war. I have consulted these documents.

  • FBI Report on Adolf Hitler in Argentina (https://vault.fbi.gov/adolf-hitler/adolf-hitler-part-01-of-04/view)

  • CIA: Hitler, Adolf_0001.pdf; Hitler, Adolf_0002.pdf; Hitler, Adolf_0003.pdf; Hitler, Adolf_0004.pdf; Hitler, Adolf_0005.pdf; Hitler, Adolf_0006.pdf, each accessible via (https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/collection/nazi-war-crimes-disclosure-act?page=1917)

4) In the film Grey Wolf : The Escape of Adolf Hitler, we see a dog that looks like Blondi. Given that later in the film we see two small gravestones, one marked "Blondi" and the other marked "Blondi II", it seems reasonable to think that Gerrard Williams (director, and co-author of the original book which I've not read) is suggesting that either Blondi survived and travelled with Adolf and Eva to Argentina (only to be replaced by another dog later on), or that they carried Blondi's ashes with them. Either way, the claim seems to be that Blondi went with them in some form.

5) Film Gold podcast on Michael Caine was mentioned at the beginning, so here are the URLs:

  • (Part One: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/filmgold/episodes/Episode-22--Michael-Caine-A-British-Icon-Part-1-of-2-e1vuabc)

  • (Part Two: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/pod/show/filmgold/episodes/Episode-23--Michael-Caine-A-British-Icon-Part-2-of-2-e209hhr)

 

Items mentioned in / relevant to the roundtable discussion

  • Downfall (Der Untergang) (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363163/)

  • Traudl Junge, ed. Melissa Müller, Until the Final HourWeidenfeld & Nicolson (2003)

  • Joachim Fest, Inside Hitler's Bunker : The Last Days Of The Third Reich, (2002, German edition)

  • Simon Dunstan & Gerrard Williams, Grey Wolf : The Escape of Adolf Hitler, Sterling (2019)

  • Grey Wolf (film) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gr_YmMfw1Jc) as made available by Mediatime Network on YouTube

  • Gerrard Williams speaks to Howard Hughes (https://theunexplained.tv/episodes/edition-160-did-hitler-escape) [JC: Highly recommended interview.]

  • Hunting Hitler (History Channel TV series) [JC: This contains the fascinating claim that there was an escape tunnel at the Bunker] (Wikipedia entry for description: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunting_Hitler)

  • "High Hitler: how Nazi drug abuse steered the course of history", The Guardian (25 September 2016)

  • "Kein schöner Land in dieser Zeit" (Wikipedia entry with sheet music: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kein_sch%C3%B6ner_Land_in_dieser_Zeit)

  • Dido's Lament (Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dido%27s_Lament)

  • For Magda Goebbels' rationale for murder see (Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magda_Goebbels#Death)

  • Jim Marrs, Rise of the Fourth Reich, William Morrow & Company (2008)

  • Hitler And Stalin, Roots Of Evil (documentary)

  • Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free : The Germans, 1933-45, University of Chicago Press (1955)

  • Kevin P Sweeney, "We Will Never Speak of It : Evidence of Hitler's Direct Responsibility for the Premeditation and Implementation of the Nazi Final Solution", Illinois Wesleyan University (2012) (https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/constructing/vol13/iss1/7/)

  • Helmut Krausnick & Martin Broszat, Anatomy of the SS State, Paladin (1970)

  • Alan Bullock, Hitler : A Study in Tyranny, Odhams (1952)

  • Article in The Advocate (1949) on Peter Baumgart (https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/69327754)

  • Hitler’s Political Testament, Personal Will, and Marriage Certificate (https://text-message.blogs.archives.gov/2014/03/04/hitlers-political-testament-personal-will-and-marriage-certificate-from-the-bunker-in-berlin-to-the-national-archives-in-washington-d-c-part-i-the-creation-of-the-documents/)

  • Gertraud "Traudl" Junge (Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traudl_Junge)

  • "U-Boat rumoured to have helped Nazis escape to Argentina is discovered", The Independent (19 April 2018)

  • "Hitler lived until 1962? That's my story, claims Argentinian writer", The Observer (27 October 2013)

  • "JFK docs show CIA heard rumor that Adolf Hitler escaped to South America", CBS News (01 November 2017)

  • "What Really Happened During Hitler's Final Hours In The Führerbunker?", an interview with historian Luke Daly Groves. [JC: I list this because I consulted it, but I wasn't impressed. The interviewer asked "soft-ball" questions and Dr Groves seemed to rely too heavily on official sources and opinions for my liking.]

 

Acknowledgements

 Downfall

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