Truth and reason behind Stalin promoting the conspiracy theory that Hitler lived?
Hi, last night at a party some friends were talking about conspiracy theories they believed in and I was browsing the wikipedia page on common theories when I came across one I hadn't heard before : that Hitler didn't commit suicide but lived and escaped to South America or elsewhere and furthermore that this rumor was spread by the order of Stalin.
How true is this (that it was spread by Stalin's orders, I know Hitler died in Berlin) and if it is true, why? It seems like a nice feather in the cap of the USSR to reinforce that they were largely responsible for the downfall of the Nazis.
The sources listed on wikipedia for this are:
- Joachimsthaler, Anton (1999) [1995]. The Last Days of Hitler: The Legends, The Evidence, The Truth. London: Brockhampton Press. ISBN 978-1-86019-902-8.
- Eberle, Henrik; Uhl, Matthias, eds. (2005). The Hitler Book: The Secret Dossier Prepared for Stalin from the Interrogations of Hitler's Personal Aides. New York: Public Affairs. p. 288. ISBN 978-1-58648-366-1.
- Kershaw, Ian (2008). Hitler: A Biography. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. p. 1037. ISBN 978-0-393-06757-6.
Posted Jan 1, 2020, 5:59 PM UTC
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I have no source for this because I never saved it, but I remember reading somewhere that is was more that Stalin wanted to explore the possibility in case it was true. Since Hitler was responsible for the death of millions of Soviet people, if there was any chance that he did escape, Stalin wanted to find out for sure so that they could find him and bring him to justice. It's not hard to see how the Western Powers could propagandize that into saying he definitely spread that rumour as if it was definitely true.