“Here we have a likely candidate, we’ll have to keep him in mind. He was captured by the Americans, and I believe he is now engaged in the agricultural engineering business. That said, he’s been a very good boy lately, and he is crossed out. Maybe he’s not our man. Any other Wilhelm?”

“Wilhelm Mohnke, captured by the Soviets I believe,” said Horst.

“Correct,” confirmed Kelly. “Manfred?”

“No!”

“Richard?”

“No!”

“That’s it!” sighed Kelly resignedly. “No more on the list and we’ve failed to make any connection.”

“Sounds like you have a problem, Onkel Dan,” said Hellie.

“Yes, I do, Hellie. I’m trying to work out why a woman would write a list of names on her wall.”

“Oh, that’s easy,” said the boy, “she must be having a baby!”

Part III

Down the Ratline

Hitler Alive?

Dan Kelly and Horst Manteufel stared at each other open-mouthed. They looked at the boy, quietly playing at their feet, then looked back at each other.

“What did you say, Hellie?” asked Kelly incredulously.

“I said she must be having a baby. Mama told me that when she was having Siggy, she always kept a pencil and paper by her bed so she could write down the names she liked. If she wrote one that she didn’t think Papa would like, she crossed it out and wrote down another one.”

The two men gawped at each other again until Horst threw up his arms.

“Dan, we’re imbeciles! It’s been staring us in the face all this time. What were the names crossed out?”

“The first is Alois—”

“Hitler’s father! He would never agree to that name. He hated his father,” cut in Horst.

“The other is Wilhelm,” said Kelly.

“The name of the old Kaiser, again someone Hitler hated vehemently. He blamed the Kaiser, along with the Jews and the generals, for Germany’s defeat in the First World War.”

“I’m struggling to get my head around this, Horst. If Eva Braun died in the bunker on 30 April, then there isn’t a problem, but what if she didn’t? And if she didn’t, what if Hitler didn’t?”

“But what about the evidence?”

“What evidence?” asked Kelly. “Consider, in Britain, we have based our belief that Hitler is dead on a report by Trevor Roper, who claimed he had interviewed the eyewitnesses. It now appears that Roper’s report was based on transcripts of eyewitness statements given to him by the Soviets. Many of the eyewitnesses have since retracted their statements, claiming that they were not accurately reported.

“Britain is the only one of the Allies not actively still searching for Hitler. The CIA most certainly is, concentrating its investigations in Argentina. Dwight Eisenhower has conceded that Hitler may be alive.

“It was the German radio, controlled by Goebbels, that initially told the world that Hitler was dead. The Soviets have since contradicted that. One senior Soviet officer told a British journalist that the bodies found were not fully burned, and that the man was a very poor double for Hitler.

“Marshall Zhukov, the soldier tasked with discovering the whereabouts of Hitler as early as the beginning of June, stated that they had not found Hitler, and he believed he was still alive. Stalin himself confirmed this in July. Then there’s the mystery of the pictures.”

Horst raised his eyes interrogatively.

“The Soviets published pictures of Goebbels’s burnt body as he was found, and again during the autopsy, also of Magda, his wife, and—sick as it may seem—pictures of the dead children, as they were found and again later during the autopsy. Why no photographs of Hitler and Braun’s bodies?

“Let’s consider the eyewitnesses. Let’s start with you! You were in the bunker, Horst, did you see Hitler or Eva Braun’s bodies?”

“Yes, I did,” said Horst nodding.

“You saw Hitler’s features and he was clearly recognisable?”

“No, not exactly. He was being carried up to the emergency exit wrapped in a blanket. Eva Braun was also carried up wrapped in a blanket.”

“So, you couldn’t say with a hundred per cent certainty, that it was Hitler you saw?” asked Kelly.

“Well, no, but who else could it have been?”

“Let me throw that back to you, Horst. Did Hitler employ any doubles?”

“Of course,” said Horst, “several.”

“What happened to them after the war?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea. Shaved off their moustaches, parted their hair on the correct side then tried to become invisible, I should think,” said Horst with a shrug.

Kelly nodded and smiled. “Yes, you’re probably right, but I wonder if one of them ended up in a bonfire in the chancellery garden.” He thought for a moment then asked, “Could the double or doubles, if we include Frau Hitler, be brought into the bunker without arousing interest?”

“Yes, they could, but not the way I got out. That involved going through the Vorbunker, which was fine for me. My bunk was there, and I was often seen in that area, but to bring outsiders in that way would have been problematic. The state of the tunnels, for one thing, would have made it difficult, and then you would have to walk the entire length of the Vorbunker in full view of secretaries, typists, guards, cooks and so on. No, it couldn’t be done that way. However, they could come down through the emergency exit into the Führerbunker, as that led directly into the conference room and hence into Hitler’s study. You would be in sight of guards, but with Bormann as escort, that would have been no problem. Hitler himself often went out that way to get some fresh air, and I know Martin Bormann used it on occasion, when he wanted to reconnoitre the area near the chancellery or meet one of the Storks that landed from time to time.”

“Fieseler Storks were still landing nearby at that stage?” asked Kelly in surprise.

“Right up to the end. The Fieseler Stork was an amazing little aircraft. It could land on a ten-mark note, providing it was laid flat. We had a number of visits, most notably from Hanna Reitsch a couple of days before Hitler killed himself, if he did. I went with Bormann to the Tiergarten to meet

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