THE STRANGE DEATH OF ADOLF HITLER "An Amazing Document of World-Shaking Importance." T HE S T R A N GE D E A TH OF A D O LF H I T L ER PUBLISHER'S NOTE: We predict that the facts disclosed by this astounding book will develop world interest un equalled since Chamberlain's visits to Germany last Fall. • What is the sensational suppressed truth behind the zig-zag course of German diplomacy since the day of the Munich Pact? • What was the appalling situation that confronted Chamberlain in the carefully darkened rooms at Munich and Godesberg? And how does this account for his mystifying hesitations during those hours of life or death? • What are the details of Hitler's threats of suicide? • How did Julius Schreck, Hitler's "double" and chauffeur, meet his death in 1936? • What is in back of the strangely persistent rumors in London and elsewhere that the real Adolf Hitler is dead? THE STRANGE DEATH OF ADOLF HITLER fires a bombshell whose detonations will be heard around the world. Its appalling revelations, the intimate details which attest their authenticity, will give you the most astounding reading ever printed. The Strange Death of Adolf Hitler Anonymous New York The Macaulay Company COPYRIGHT, 1939, BY THE MACAU1AY COMPANY Printed in the United States of America PUBLISHER'S STATEMENT On the last Friday in January, 1939, we were presented with the most unusual manuscript that has come to us in thirty years of publishing. The unimpeachable sources from which it emanated were a guarantee of its authen ticity. The immense world-importance of the facts stated in the document gave us no alternative but to present it to the world without delay. The central and most vital fact is that Adolf Hitler, the Nazi Fuehrer and dictator, was assassinated at 2:13 A.M. on September 29, 1938, the night before the consummation of the Munich Pact; and that an opportunist double is ruling in his stead. In view of the importance of this matter, a brief state ment of the facts connected with our receipt of the manu script is essential. It was handed to us by a German officer high in the German merchant marine, who had just ar rived from the other side, and at once telephoned for an appointment and called on us. We had known him for a number of years; and knew that, like so many of his fellow-officers, he did not approve of Nazi excesses or the Nazi philosophy, although his position of course depended upon his concealing this. "When asked for the particular purpose of this unexpected visit, he stated that he was the bearer of an inter national secret of immense importance, which he wished us to publish, if we thought it wise. This secret, he said, was the fact that Adolf Hitler was dead, and had been dead since the night before the Munich Pact was arrived at. PUBLISHER'S STATEMENT We brought out the January 14th copy of The New Yorker from our files, and showed him the two-column story there on page 66, claiming that Hitler had been killed in Hamburg in 1935, and that from one to four doubles were ruling in his place. But we explained that this was a facetious spoof story, not meant to be believed. His face grew grave, as he read through the article. The facts in it were nonsense, he said; but he had the real facts, and a full statement as long as a book to prove it. We asked to see the statement. He first secured our promise never to connect his name with the matter; for that would mean more than his loss of livelihood; it would mean at the least disgrace and imprisonment, with a strong probability of death, the usual punishment for tactless frankness in Germany today. And then he brought out a huge grimy manila envelop, which had been hidden inside his coat, liberally marred with broken red wax seals, and laid it before us. He pulled out first a brief note in French, and laid it before us. It was simple enough to translate: M. Michel Simon Compagnie Transatlantique Nice, France Dear Unknown Friend: I am asking you to treasure the enclosed statement, and at the time of my death make it public to the world. As to why I have a right to ask this favor of you, you may ascertain by asking your mother who Maximilian Bauer was, and whether you do not owe him at least this. Respectfully, Maximilian Bauer PUBLISHER'S STATEMENT We asked him to tell just how the document came into his possession, which he proceeded to do. This note, he said, had been outside of the sealed package. On this present cruise trip they had put up in Monte Carlo, and he had run up to Nice for the day. Michel Simon was a young friend in the office of the Compagnie Transatlantique in Nice. He had dropped in to see him. They had gone to a cafe together, and then, at Michel's insistence, to the young Frenchman's rooms, two squares away. There Michel had told him of receiving this parcel by special courier from Switzerland the day before. Out of curiosity, after read ing the note, Michel had opened it. But it was all in Ger man, he pointed out, and he knew no German. Moreover, his mother had been dead for eleven years. The German seemed to be something about Adolf Hitler. Could it all be a joke? Would not his friend the German officer glance at it, and say whether it should be thrown away, or what? But by this time the German merchant marine officer had to catch the bus to return to Monte Carlo and his ship; and so he said that it was impossible. Michel an nounced that he did not want the document; it might amuse his friend to translate it on the long trip across the Atlantic, and, the next time they met, tell him what it was all about. He had never heard of Maximilian Bauer, he insisted, and he washed his hands of the matter. And so the German officer bundled up the documents in their original envelop, and left with them. The night after leaving Funchal, having nothing to do, he opened the package and read all night. It was all so incredibly important that he finished it the next night, and began to decide what to do with it. The world must know it now, that was clear; and yet, his own name could PUBLISHER'S STATEMENT not be connected with it. He thought of his friendship with us, and set to work translating it. Already much more than half of it was completed. We asked to see the translation. He handed us the meticulously written version in English, starting with these words that will soon be so familiar to the world: My name is Adolf Hitler. By this name the world knows me, and it knows me by no other name. Since two-thirteen A.M. on the morning of September 29, 1938, I have been the only Adolf Hitler alive on earth. We read through the first few pages with growing amazement, and asked him if, in his opinion, it was au thentic. "There is no possible doubt of it," he said. "No one but one at the very heart of the Nazi machine could have known some of the things there put down, that have never been told to the world, although we in Germany know them, but not so definitely, or in such detail." Like all Germans visiting outside of the Reich, he suf fered from the government veto of his having money to spend in foreign ports. We assured him that we would see that he received the translator's fee, and that there would be royalties for him later. He was to have eight days in New York City before being transferred to another ship on a South American cruise line. He agreed to finish the translation in a week, and did. Even while he was working on it, we had the accuracy of his translation checked, to make sure that the very idiom of the original had been wholly preserved. We checked up on two other matters. We looked first into the matter of Hitler's doubles, and the attempts on his PUBLISHER'S STATEMENT life. So accurate and conservative a commentator as John Gunther, in his standard masterpiece Inside Europe * had this to say of his major double: Another member of this company, whose name is unknown, and who has fancifully been called the highest paid man in Ger many—according to the London Daily Telegraph—is Hitler's double, a man who resembles him so startlingly that he can sub stitute for him, if necessary, on public occasions. An article in The New Yorker, December 10, 1938, described the four official doubles, one of whom even had a voice like Hitler's,** with the suggestion that there might be more; and with data about the doubles of Musso lini and Stalin as well. The theme of this article was, "Why doesn't somebody shoot Hitler?" I found that many of the authorities amplified this data. The facts, then, in THE STRANGE DEATH OF ADOLF HITLER came entirely within the range of possibility. We next checked the utterances given to Hitler, Göring, Goebbels, von Arnheim, and the other Nazi leaders. When we first read them, they seemed to be perversions or carica tures of Nazi sayings. We found it hard to believe, for in stance, that Hitler had actually said that Germany must annihilate France; that Nazis seriously said that the Jew was a parasite instead of a human being; that they called the Lambeth Walk a Jewish conspiracy; and so on. We found that all of these attitudes were given accurately in this book, and that here we had the first full-length por trait of all the major leaders in the movement. Last of all, we tried to check the facts included. Most of * 1938 Edition, page 11. ** p. 118. PUBLISHER'S STATEMENT them are entirely accurate. A few have eluded us. We can find no official record of the suicide of Ulrica von Arnheim. On one occasion, when Hitler is said to have spoken at Nürnberg, we find authorities who place him in Vienna on that day; but, again, this may have been intentional obfuscation by the use of doubles. A few incidents appear to be slightly out of order,—but these never affect the framework of the whole. And certainly the hysterical course of German machinations since the Munich Pact indicates that something is sorely wrong with the rowdy Nazi machine there; as if the flywheel had been unex pectedly removed, permitting the most eccentric excesses of conduct, from lesser, more undisciplined minds, lacking the former internal stabilizer. When the Nazi government openly adopted its incredible policy of anti-Semitic rapine in late 1938, when each German was officially invited to surrender his mistress to productive labor and mother hood, when plans for a Pan-Nazi Europe were stressed in public utterances, it is clear that the voice of shrewd au thority is missing. When the lion is away, the jackals go berserk. As to the attempts to kill Hitler, the record is fuller. Most of these have been rigorously minimized or denied in Germany; yet word leaks out. We know now rather surely the facts of the death of his double and chauffeur, Julius Schreck, in 1936, and certain earlier and later incidents. The same applies to Hitler's plans, threats, and faculties for suicide. The only difference is that this statement is amplified, and for the first time gives the world more of the true story. The book will speak for itself. Since it has become available, it has world importance enough to cause its immedi-