The Mammoth Book of Conspiracies

Hammarskjold’s aides, Conor Cruise O’Brien and George Ivan Smith, both became convinced after their own investigations that the Secretary-General had been shot down by mercenaries working for European industrialists in Katanga, with the British covering up the shooting and possibly sponsoring it. (O’Brien knew of what he spoke: he had been the target of assassination by pro-Katanga mercenaries.) Norwegian Major-General Egge, the first UN officer to see Hammarskjold’s body, declared that the Secretary-General had a hole in his forehead, which was subsequently airbrushed from photos. Even the official reports agree that six of the DC-6 passengers’ bodies showed evidence of bullet wounds, but attribute these to exploding ammunition in the fire after the plane’s crash. This contention was refuted by Major C. F. Westell, a ballistics expert, who said: “I can certainly describe as sheer nonsense the statement that cartridges of machine guns or pistols detonated in a fire can penetrate a human body.” He based his opinion on a large-scale experiment that had been done to determine if military fire brigades would be in danger working near munitions depots.

Is there any tangible evidence of British—or even American—involvement in Hammarskjold’s death? In 1997, documents uncovered by the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission indicated a conspiracy between the CIA and MI5 to remove Hammarskjold in “Operation Celeste”. It is perhaps timely to recall here that the CIA, by its own later admission, assassinated Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba in January 1961. According to press reports, one document turned up by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission refers to a meeting between the CIA, South African and British intelligence in which CIA chief Allen Dulles agreed that “Dag is becoming troublesome… and should be removed.” Dulles, according to the documents, promised “full cooperation from his people”.

The British Foreign Office have declared the documents to be Soviet disinformation.

Further Reading

Arthur Gavshon, The Mysterious Death of Dag Hammarskjold, 1962

Lisa Pease, “Midnight in the Congo: The Assassination of Lumumba and the Mysterious Death of Dag Hammarskjold”, Probe, March–April 1999

HEINRICH HIMMLER

In conspiracy land, bad Nazis never die. Either they are taken by Vril-powered UFOs to Antarctica (like Hitler) or remodelled by plastic surgery to live in the USSR (like Martin Bormann). Then there is the strange case of Heinrich Himmler.

In April 1945, as the end of the Third Reich loomed, Hitler’s number one—and the architect of the Holocaust—found a sudden and urgent desire to make peace with the Allies. When he was rebuffed, and his treason made public, Hitler ordered his arrest. Luckily for Himmler, Hitler promptly committed suicide in his Berlin bunker and news of the excommunication seems never to have reached Grand Admiral Karl Donitz, the Reich’s new chief, whose Flensburg Government Himmler joined. To curry favour with the oncoming Allies, Donitz dismissed Himmler on 6 May 1945.

Himmler then tried his luck with the Americans, offering Dwight Eisenhower the surrender of all Germany if he was spared from prosecution. He even suggested to Ike that he, Himmler, be the Minister of Police in the new Germany. Ike said, “‘Nein!” and Himmler was declared a war criminal. Now actively hunted by the Allies, Himmler wandered around Flensburg near the Danish border disguised as a member of the gendarmerie. However, the stamps on his papers raised the suspicions of a British soldier, Arthur Britton, who arrested “Heinrich Hitzinger” on 22 May 1945 on suspicion of being a member of the SS. In captivity he was soon recognized. According to the official account, before Himmler could be interrogated he committed suicide in Luneburg by swallowing a potassium cyanide capsule. Attempts to revive him were unsuccessful.The date was 23 May 1945.

The Himmler conspiracy is two-fold: was the man who committed suicide in Luneburg Himmler or a double? And, if it was Himmler, was he “suicided”.

Among the first to proclaim that a “fake” Himmler died in Luneburg were members of the Nazi “ratline” ODESSA, who maintained that the real Himmler escaped to the village of Strones in the Waldviertel, a hilly forested area in Lower Austria, where he was involved in reviving the Nazi movement. Conspiracies make odd bedfellows; the ODESSA “double” case is somewhat supported by the British forensic historian Hugh Thomas who in SS-1 questions whether the body examined by British military authorities was really that of the ex-chicken farmer and SS leader. Certain physical details of the dead man photographed lying on a bed at Luneburg do, indeed, seem different from Himmler’s. One nostril is larger than the other; Himmler’s were symmetrical. The corpse seems to be free of a duelling scar, meaning he wasn’t the boy born to Anna and Dr Gebhard Himmler on 7 October 1900. Of course he might have been wearing make-up, which Nazi leaders were rather fond of. What bangs a nail into the “Himmler double” theory, grainy photography aside, is Himmler’s daughter. Gudrun Himmler (born 1929) was devoted to her father (and his politics, being a member of Stille Hilfe, the SS veterans’ support group), and he to her. If he had survived 1945, it is near inconceivable that they would have not been in touch. And there is not the slightest whiff of their corresponding or meeting.

Revisionist author Joseph Bellinger and British writer Martin Allen are amongst the most prominent promoters of the alternative version of Himmler’s death. Both suggest that Himmler was assassinated by the British, with Allen claiming that Himmler had secretly negotiated with Britain as early as 1943. Churchill had him murdered to cover up the fact. Much of Allen’s “evidence” from the National Archives turned out to be twenty-nine forged papers. Allen’s protestations of innocence or deliberate planting by MI5/the Establishment/jealous historians to discredit his thesis were undone by his professional record: his two previous books also seem to have relied on documents of dubious provenance and authenticity.

The mystery surrounding Himmler’s death is unlikely to be settled anytime soon. Army personnel at Luneburg were ordered to sign the Official Secrets Act, and unusually the relevant papers—those, that is, that haven’t conveniently disappeared—are not due for release until 2045. The mystery is compounded by the fact that British soldiers took Himmler’s body and buried it in an unmarked grave on Luneburg Heath. It has never been found.

Further Reading

Martin Allen, Himmler’s Secret War, 2005

Joseph Bellinger, Himmler’s Tod: Freitod oder Mord?, 2005

Hugh Thomas, SS-1: The Unlikely Death of Heinrich Himmler, 2002

HOLLOMAN AIR FORCE BASE

Situated 15 km south-west of Alamogordo, New Mexico, Holloman Air Force Base is reputedly one of the first places where ETs and humans had a close encounter of the third kind. Conspiracists believe that a UFO landing at Holloman may have occurred as early as the mid-1950s, and was attended by no less than President Eisenhower. This saved the aliens saying, “Take us to your leader,” because he was already there. The more storied UFO touchdown occurred on 25 April 1964 (twelve hours after the Soccoro, New Mexico UFO occurrence), when a trio of UFOs hovered into view, one of which landed. Three aliens got out of the craft and talked with base officials. A retired counter-intelligence officer with the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations (OSI), Richard Doty, later confirmed the event.

A busy place Holloman. In 1973, documentary film-makers Robert Emenegger and Alan Sandler were informed by Air Force officials that footage existed of a 1971 UFO visit to the base. The 16 mm film was confirmed as genuine by Paul Shartle, an officer at nearby Norton AFB. According to Shartle the film showed aliens who were “human-size. They had an odd, gray complexion and a pronounced nose. They wore tight fitting jump suits, [and] thin headdresses that appeared to be communication devices, and in their hands they held a ‘translator’.”

Emenegger claimed he was later given a personal tour of Holloman AFB, and shown the site where base officials chatted with the ETs; in the conversation, the AF apparently informed the ETs that they [the AF] had been monitoring signals from an alien group with which they were unfamiliar, and did their ET guests know anything