On one of the History channel shows, I believe Nazi hunters, they allege that Martin Bormann was not killed in Berlin in 45 but rather was dug up from Argentina and his body placed to be found recently in Berlin.
I find these shows to be at best, dubious. Is there any legitimacy with this?
I would think it hard to sneak a body into how many flights and into Germany not to mention the difficulty of reburying a body in downtow Berlin.
Just looking at the Wikipedia entry, it seems like there was some legitimate controversy at the time (which was 1972, so not exactly “recent”) whether the remains were Bormann or not, partly fueled by the perception at the time that the West German government was covering up for former Nazis. The DNA test in '98 seems rather rather conclusive.
On the other hand, the idea that he died in Argentina after the war, was buried there, then dug up, smuggled into Berlin, reburied, and then “discovered” is pretty absurd. What would be the point?
Good point. If the people who had been hiding him in Argentina were worried that someone would find the body there and start looking for the Nazi helpers*, all they would have needed to do was dump the body in the ocean or cremate it or …
What could possibly be the point of taking it all the way back to Berlin, especially given the risk of being caught doing all that? To have Bormann “officially” listed as having died during the Battle of Berlin? That was the presumption anyway. (There was even an eyewitness who saw his dead body.) And being killed trying to flee Berlin after Hitler died would hardly up the heroic death motif.
A high risk conspiracy to achieve nothing. It’s all pretty silly.