BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN
The rumours that Hitler escaped Europe after the Second World War only became credible to conspiracy theorists because the Russians hid the truth from the West – they had collected a file of witness statements relating to Hitler’s suicide and had taken Hitler’s teeth and part of his skull from Berlin to Moscow in May 1945.
Totalitarian Stalin’s strategy was to instead associate the West with Nazism by pretending that the Brits or Americans must be hiding Hitler. Known as the “Operation Myth” file, its official number was 1-G-23. Its subtitle was “Hitler and His Entourage.” The point of the operation was to spread rumours that the Western Allies had secretly helped Hitler escape – rumours that gathered momentum after Eichmann and Mengele’s escape to South America. Look up “Hitler” and “Patagonia” on YouTube and you’ll see the conspiracy sparked by Operation Myth perpetuates to this day – oddly, people seem more easily duped today than was the case during the Cold War.
The Myth documents show that some 800 people were interrogated about Hitler’s last days in the Berlin bunker. 70 members of Hitler’s entourage were taken to Russia in 1945, including Hitler’s dog handler, secretaries, chauffeur, signals and telegraph officers – anyone who could have been an eyewitness to those days. The testimony of Hitler’s head bodyguard, Johann Rattenhuber – as revealed in the Myth File – was extensive and contains important pieces of information relating to Hitler’s suicide and the days preceding it.
During his last days, Hitler, the chief architect of Nationalsozialismus, used to rail at Hermann Goring, the air force chief who had just been fired as the fuhrer’s deputy. “The fat pig!” Rattenhuber says Hitler screamed. “The fat pig! He doesn’t have enough courage to die with us!”
Rattenhuber’s information shows how bizarre and desperate talk in the bunker was – giving an extraordinary insight into the dying, deluded days of an ideology.
Comrade Murphy: “The fat pig! The fat pig! Who the hell does Thornberry think she is telling the papers that Jeremy’s advisers must resign? How the hell did we fatally undermine the Semtex Grandpa? I mean, come on! He was designed to be fatally undermined at every turn! Talk about the useful idiots’ prize idiot!”
Comrade Milne: “Thank God it’s Christmas. This incessant barrage is getting on my nerves. The nonsense will soon pass over. We must stay the course as we planned. Comrade Thornberry shall be punished accordingly. I shall call her to the bunker for vodka one day soon and slap her buttocks repeatedly with Volume One of Das Kapital.”
Comrade Murphy: “I am so glad to hear this. Discipline is slipping. Just imagine if Grandpa had been forced to resign prematurely, let alone we steerers! The project would actually be over. Comrade Lansman would go back to being a property magnate. Comrade Jones would return to writing silly books for the bourgeoisie. Comrade Mason may regain some sanity. These four months of interregnum are an ingenious bridge. We have kept the project alive, Comrade Milne! By fooling the public and those ghastly commentators with the McDonnell declaration and Grandpa stating he will step down in the spring, all eyes are on their corpses now and we’ll have escaped with our plot intact. They have no idea that we planned this all along. With innocent Comrade Long-Bailey as our puppet we just need to rejig the syllables in the Oh, Jeremy Corbyn chorus, wait until the Tories run out of years and we are home and hosed.”
Comrade Milne: “I suppose Oh, An-ge-la Ray-ner fits the syllable count?”
Comrade Murphy: “Far too thick.”
Comrade Milne: “You’re right. Pidcockian dense. At least Long-Bailey has a clean CV. No one will smear her pro-Palestinian positions as antisemitism, will they?”
Comrade Murphy: “She’ll be OK. The only other Manchurian is Burgon and there’s that video of him ranting about Israel doing the rounds – I think we’ll leave him switched off for now?”
Comrade Milne: “God, yes. How the f**k he got into Cambridge I have no idea. Marxist tutor perhaps? We must stick with Long-Bailey. She’s sufficiently compromised, and she’ll do as we say – anyone with the trigger code “Rover” is likely sufficiently compliant. This was always going to be a fifteen-year project, as Andrew suggested. The Derer template shall inevitably come to pass – it has thus far. Choose a cross-haired dunce as wave one leader, he said, – to wash the ideology and create time to own the party – then pick a Manchurian. Times will soon change. Boris’ lot may be crowing today but we’ll have the streets blocked soon enough. Extinction Rebellion are not going to suddenly run out of glue! ASLEF aren’t going to suddenly run out of strike days! We’re certainly not going to suddenly run out of useful idiots’ funds – there’s plenty in the coffers and our placers are still filling their accounts with public cash.”
Comrade Murphy: “I do hope you’re right, Comrade Milne. This bunker is giving me sleepless nights. What if Starmer somehow gets the leadership?”
Comrade Milne: “How the hell will shoe-platform-Keir get in? Impossible. We’re prepared. Jon owns all the data. Jeremy for Labour Limited – who’s the sole director?”
Comrade Murphy: “Of course! Genius!”
Comrade Milne: “I know, Comrade Murphy. And a very Happy Christmas to you too. Here, keep your spirits up and have another blini.”
Comrade Murphy: “Thanks. That caviar is to die for. But just one other thing that’s bothering me – when Comrades Corbyn and McDonnell return from their extended vacation to South America will they ever rejoin the revolution?”
Comrade Milne: “No. And they know it. The lizard loses its tail – not to reattach it at some future date. Although the people will know the Marx brothers are as good as dead, they can never be sure they are dead even when they are dead. The purity of the project remains, Comrade – as pure as Moscow snow. Those who are seen to lead it home are renewed and refreshed. Those in power always decay – power always corrupts. We will have spent our days of sacrifice and England will soon turn red. The caricatures we concocted for these last five years of wave one will make whatever follows seem super-competent and electable even if we choose the mediocre from mediocre. The old guard will be gone forever and free of the need to foul up. Diane can go back to wearing shoes from the same pair!”