What Really Happened: The Death of Hitler

By: Robert J. Hutchinson

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

After World War II, 50 percent of Americans polled said they didn’t believe Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun had committed suicide in their bunker in 1945, as captured Nazi officials claimed. Instead, they believed the dictator faked his death and escaped, perhaps to Argentina. 

This wasn’t a crazy opinion: Joseph Stalin told Allied leaders that Soviet forces never discovered Hitler’s body and that he personally believed the Nazi leader had escaped justice. 

At least two German submarines crossed the Atlantic and landed on the coast of Argentina in July 1945. Plus, there were numerous reports of top Nazi officials successfully fleeing to South America, where there was a large German colony. 

So what really happened?

Popular history writer Robert J. Hutchinson, author of What Really Happened: The Lincoln Assassination, takes a fresh look at the evidence and discovers, once and for all, the truth about Hitler’s last week in Berlin. Among the questions the book explores are:

• What did surviving Nazi eyewitnesses really say about the Führer’s final days in the bunker - and could they have been lying to aid Hitler’s escape? 
• If Hitler didn’t escape, why did the Allies not find his body? 
• What about Hitler’s proven use of body doubles? Could Hitler have used a body double in the bunker while he and Eva Braun flew to safety in a long-range aircraft that took off from a runway in Berlin’s Tiergarten? 
• Why did the FBI continue to investigate reports of Hitler’s survival for more than a decade after World War II - reports that were only declassified in 2014?
• What about sensational claims in books such as The Grey Wolf that Hitler and Eva Braun lived in an isolated chalet in the Andes - and that Hitler died in 1962?
• Why were forensic tests on crucial physical evidence only conducted in 2016, more than 70 years after World War II ended? 
• And much more

©2020 Robert J. Hutchinson (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing

Loved this book!

This book is a great listen. It will really open your eyes to the atrocities committed by the Nazi’s-highly entertaining and wonderfully narrated a must listen!! Gets to the facts-but very historically accurate

Very informative didn't seem too biased

Regardless regardless Grover Gardner is one of my absolute favorite narrators raiders in fact, I listen to this book because he narrated it

Misleading title

Title leads you to believe this book will spend most of its page count going into the details of Hitler's death and the mystery of his disappeared corpse. Not so at all - - the author felt it necessary to flesh out a miniature "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" combined with a biography of Hitler and a deep-dive into the 20 July conspiracy (and every other conspiracy to kill Hitler) before getting into Hitler's final days toward the end of the sixth chapter.

When he finally addresses the main issue, the author dedicates a sizeable section to discussing and dismissing the contentions of other authors at length, most of whose suppositions are ludicrous on their face anyway. Fortunately, he wastes little time on each individual theory.

Initially, this book adds scant information to that presented in Trevor-Roper's 1947 masterwork on the subject. No significant alternative theories or explanations are offered. However, if you're the type who wants more than that tome offered and needs all the little details expanded (like me), then this book is for you. You'll just have to wait through all the preamble to hear the part you actually want. Eventually, the author chases down all remaining questions as to Soviet handling of bones and teeth purported to have been Hitler's and makes a definitive statement about his fate. As a bonus, the ends of several other missing Nazis are demystified.

Well read throughout, albeit slowly. I listened at 1.40 speed with ease.

Thanks to Audible for making this book available free of charge.

Very good and yet concise!

This is a very interesting book dealing with the history of the end days of Hitler and the Third Reich.

Definitive Demise of Der Fuhrer.

First of all, the narrator is the best ever. Excellent pronunciation of German words and overall delivery is concise. In depth research by the author lays to rest any doubts about the death and remains of a ghoulish monster known as Hitler.

Got it Because of Grover

I wasn’t sure whether or not to get this book, then I saw that the narrator was Grover Gardner. I bought it immediately. I’d pay to hear Grover read the phone book. He’s the best in the business. Great book too. Very interesting.

Very informative

Being someone who has taken a shine to history this was a really awesome book to read through, as it gives both sides of all stories involved. Thoroughly enjoyed it

Interesting

So many different versions of events, who really knows what happened. I love me some Grover though.

Great read

It was a great read, chronicling the life and I’m scared German politician in the late 30s early 40s. It’s really a rags to riches to rags story. I enjoyed it.

Very listenable but some very basic errors

Within 20 min the author erroneously calls Hitlers beloved dog Trudie instead of Blondie. (Trudyl is the name of one of Hitlers’ secretaries.) Also he claims Hitlers’ birthday is August 20th (it’s April 20th). So although this book so far has been very listenable I can’t commit to it since he might have other facts wrong if he blunders on these basic things. I’m not a historian, just interested in the Nazis because - who would do such a thing???? Really. Did an entire country lose their collective minds???? So in most other introductions April 20th and Blondie are mentioned frequently.