El cráneo atribuido a Hitler por los rusos corresponde a una mujer

La historia de la muerte de Hitler tendrá que reescribirse como un misterio, y los teóricos de la conspiración podrán volver a especular con que Hitler no murió en el búnker después de todo

EP | MADRID

Adolf Hitler pudo no haberse disparado a sí mismo y quizás ni siquiera murió en su búnker. Un fragmento de cráneo supuestamente del Führer y que era conservado desde hace décadas por los rusos ha resultado ser en realidad de una mujer de unos 40 años, de acuerdo con nuevos estudios de ADN.

Científicos e historiadores han discutido durante largo tiempo sobre la autenticidad de lo que era prueba concluyente de que Hitler se disparó en la cabeza después de tomar una píldora de cianida el 30 de abril de 1945 para evitar caer en manos de los soviéticos. El trozo de cráneo, que presenta un agujero de bala, había sido sacada del búnker de Hitler por el ejército ruso y fue preservada por la Inteligencia Soviética.

Ahora, la historia de la muerte de Hitler tendrá que reescribirse como un misterio, y los teóricos de la conspiración podrán volver a especular con que Hitler no murió en el búnker después de todo.

La historia tradicional es que Hitler se suicidó junto con Eva Braun mientras los rusos bombardeaban Berlín. Aunque algunos historiadores dudaron de que se disparase a sí mismo y sugirieron que se trataba de propaganda nazi para hacerle un héroe, el agujero en el fragmento de cráneo parecía consolidar la teoría inicial cuando fue presentado en Moscú en el año 2000. Pero análisis de ADN realizados ahora por investigadores estadounidenses cambían todo.

«Sabemos que el cráneo corresponde a una mujer de entre 20 y 40 años» ha declarado la arqueóloga de la Universidad de Connecticut, Nick Bellantoni. «Los huesos parecían muy finos. Los huesos de varón tienden a ser más robustos. Y las suturas donde su juntan las placas del cráneo parecen corresponder a alguien con menos de 40 años, cuando Hitler tenía 56 cuando murió", explicó, según publica el rotativo británico Daily Mail.

El profesor Bellantoni voló a Moscú para tomar muestras de ADM de los Archivos del Estado donde también se conservan los restos de sangre hallados en el sofá del búnker donde se cree que Hitler y Brown murieron juntos. «Yo tenía la referencia de fotos que los soviéticos tomaron del sofá en 1945 y estuve viendo extacamente los mismos restos en los fragmentos de madera y tela que tenía ante mí. Asi que supe que estaba trabajando en el camino adecuado», dijo.

En la imagen, el hasta ahora supuesto cráneo de Hitler / ABC

Restos en MoscúTodos los restos de Hitler trasladados a Moscú al término de la guerra fueron almacenados en secreto durante décadas, hasta que en 1970 el KGB los incineró y arrojó las cenizas a un río.

Unicamente la mandíbula, el fragmento de cráneo y los trozos de sofá impregnados con restos de sangre fueron preservados hasta nuestros días.

Bellantoni estudió los restos tras volar a Moscú para inspeccionar los truculentos restos de Hitler en los archivos del Estado. Sólo se le permitió estudiarlos durante una hora, tiempo durante el que obtuvo muestras de ADN, para su traslado posterior a su laboratorio en Connecticut.

En el centro de genética aplicada, se aplicaron técnicas propias de medicina forense aplicadas al esclarecimiento de crímenes. Para su sopresa, una pequeña cantidad de ADN viable fue extraída.

Entonces, lo replicó a través de un proceso conocido como copia molecular para proporcionar suficiente material dedicado al análisis.

ABC.es

Italian far-right on Facebook: "kill them all in Zingonia"

Snapped in a supermarket in San Marino, Italy:
the tourists that took the shot were so scandalised
that they created a Facebook protest group

On Facebook, the group ‘Let’s invade Zingonia and kill them all’ has gathered 700 members. Volunteer teacher Miriam talks about how spiralling anti-immigrant rhetoric is making life difficult for Italy’s new arrivals

‘What’s Zingonia?’ Miriam Franchina lives five kilometres from Italy’s most notorious ghetto, and it’s not a question she’s asked too often. ‘It’s a place forgotten by god. But we Milanese cannot forget about it, and nor can the people living there.’ Zingonia was conceived as a utopia, a model city equipped with its own hospital, a hotel and parks. There are few who would holiday there now. ‘It ended up a Bronx,’ says Miriam. ‘If you asked my parent’s they’d say it was a hot-bed of terroni (southern Italian immigrants - ed). But any Italians have now moved out.’ The tumble-down palazzi are now inhabited by people of African and Asian origin.

Soldiers and police outside a kebab shop in Zingonia

Miriam volunteers as an Italian language teacher. Most of her students live in Zingonia. They come after twelve hour shifts working in Milan ‘to broach syllables, articles and verbs.’ Ali is an Egyptian bricklayer with a degree in psychology, whose father was a political opponent to Mubarak. Jaspreet walked from the Punjab across Russia, entering Italy on foot. Asma left Morocco to follow her Senegalese love; her family wouldn’t let her marry a black man. ‘She was sent back in a coffin after being knocked down on her way to work, biking there at 4am regardless of the chronic lack of bicycle lanes. The last I knew of her was a two line obituary in the local paper.’

Before the infection spreads

The centre of Zingonia is Piazza Affari. The square is named after the stock exchange in Milan, but the only trading going on now is rather more illicit. Prostitution is open. ‘Once you make it clear you’re not here for drugs you have to put up with a lot of glances,’ Miriam says. ‘Well, maybe these Moroccans and Pakistanis are just sexually-repressed, or more likely they’re wondering why the hell an Italian is walking among them, trying to make contact with them.’ Lombardy has traditionally voted to the right, but recent years have seen the rise of a particularly extreme right-wing political movement, the Lega Nord (‘Northern League’). The party is no fringe group; their support was crucial to Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s victory in the last elections. In 2008 the Lega launched a campaign ‘to clean out Zingonia, before it infects the nearby towns’, setting up an election stall in the middle of Piazza Affari.

The Lega Nord has been behind a swathe of eccentric anti-immigrant measures across northern Italy. Kebab shops have been banned from Capriate. In the north-eastern region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, the Lega has pushed for ambulances not to be made available to non-citizens. Their deputy, Matteo Savini, has gone as far as to demand that the seats on the Milan metro be reserved for the Milanese.

Wearing of the so-called ‘burkini’, the swimming costume that preserves islamic modesty, is punishable by a 500 euro (£438) fine in Verona. When questioned about the law, the mayor Gianluca Buonanno commented that ‘muslims can choose to swim in their own bathtubs.’ Giancarlo Gentilini, one of the Lega’s most well known members, expressed a wish for the ‘elimination’ of ‘gypsy children’ and the ‘ethnic cleansing’ of ‘faggots’. In September 2008, he called for a ‘revolution against those who want to open mosques, phone centres and foreign shops.’ Such outbursts have done nothing to dent his popularity with the electorate; he served the maximum two terms as mayor of Treviso and is now the deputy mayor. As mayor, he is notorious for his decision to remove all the benches from the local park to ‘stop immigrants from gathering on them.’ The water and electrity of the Treviso mosque was cut off on the first day of ramadan in 2009.

CaféBabel.com

Trade of Nazi propaganda is booming in Poland

Punishable in Germany, legal in Poland: SS badges, swastikas, t-shirts illustrated with extreme-right symbolism and far-right music are sold in border markets on the Oder and Neisse. Poland is the biggest producer of nazi propaganda in Europe. Although the marketing of political goals is forbidden, trade with Nazi devotees is not

by n- ost

Translation: Steven Lydon

In the obscure stands of a market in Küstrin on the Oder, t-shirts are emblazoned with the words Deutsche Wut (German fury). Pictures of soldiers in the armed forces are placed beside the text. Next to the heads of decapitated SS members, other tricots are adorned with messages from the extreme-right music group Landser. They cost five euro. ‘These are clothes for teenagers,’ Marian Kalicki, the stand’s owner, casually interjects. He says that he had no idea that Landser are the first band in Germany to be labelled a ‘criminal association’ by the federal court of justice. Or that the band leader was jailed for three years for sedition.

A man in the neighbouring stand sells counterfeit Thor Steinar clothing. In Germany, the brand is a symbol of the extreme-right movement. In April 2008, civic protests in Frankfurt on the Oder led to the close of a branch in Frankfurter Bahnhofsplatz. The proprietors will hear nothing of it, and look forward to having new customers from the other side of the Oder. The same goes for the owners of a neighbouring kiosk, who sell music and DVDs: the Landser albums Rock against the System and The Empire will Return are displayed unabashedly at the front of the display table, next to traditional saxon melodies.

Both covers are illustrated with soldiers of the armed forces in the midst of battle. One CD costs twelve euro. ‘Illegal products are expensive,’ explains the stall owner, who plays Landser on his CD player without a moment’s hesitation. Provocative texts wave from these stands all the way up to the shops in Boguslaw. He has been selling SS-symbols, swastikas and busts of Hitler for six years. Poland is the biggest European producer of historical and imitation objects from the Nazi period.

Most customers come from East Germany. The federal police repeatedly confiscate objects that display symbols which are forbidden in Germany. The Polish press reports on production halls in Breslau, where thousands of commemorative Nazi replicas are produced. In west Poland alone, there are two stitching rooms dedicated to the production of Nazi uniforms. In July 2008, Brandenburg’s home secretary Jörg Schönbohm (CDU) asked the Polish government to halt the production and trade of Nazi memorabilia.

But not much has happened in the mean time. ‘The Police have begun surveillance, but no investigations have been carried out by the Department of Public Prosecution,’ says Artur Chorazy, spokesman for the police in Gorzów. He refers to Polish law, where only the circulation of Nazi propaganda for political goals is forbidden, but not its trade. Lawyers talk about a loophole in the Polish legal system.

CaféBabel.com

Holocaust denier Irving sparks new controversy over interview with Spanish newspaper

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

Eminent historians, as well as the state of Israel, have condemned a Spanish newspaper for publishing an interview with Holocaust denier David Irving as part of its World War II coverage. El Mundo's interview, which they say is justified by freedom of expression, saw Irving make statements such as: 'The Holocaust is just a slogan, a product like Kleenex or Xerox printers. ''They've turned it into a commercial phenomenon, and succeeded in making money out of it - producing films about it which have made millions,' he said.

Israeli ambassador Raphael Schutz called Irving a 'con man' and called it an insult to free speech, legitimate historians and to those reading it.

Irving went on: 'Until the 1970s [the Holocaust] was just a speck of dust on the horizon. The proof is that it doesn't appear in any of the biographies of the great leaders of the Second World War. But from then on it became fashionable. 'The Jews turned it into a brand, using the same technique as Goebbels. They invented a slogan... and repeated it ad nauseam. 'In the past, Irving has said he believed the figure of 6million Jews murdered by the Nazis was an exaggeration.

When asked by El Mundo about this, he said: 'I'm not interested in figures. I don't count bodies. I'm not all that interested in the Holocaust.' He also denied that Hitler was to blame for what occurred during the Second World War, or that he wanted to exterminate the Jews. 'Hitler was a simple man constantly deceived by his subordinates', he said. He added: 'In Hitler's speeches there is only one anti-Semitic sentence. Something about "when the war begins, I want the Jews to suffer". But that's just a stereotypical expression.' Instead, Irving blames Churchill for the war because he 'was in the hands of the Jews'.

Avner Shalev, the director of Israel's Holocaust Museum, wrote to El Mundo to complain about the interview. He said: 'There are subjects about that don't permit a 'for' and 'against'. The paper gives legitimacy to a man who doesn't deserve it... It is inconceivable that a serious newspaper should provide a platform for anti-Semitism.'

Hitler was a simple man for ever being hoodwinked by his subordinates.

David IrvingBritish historian. Shunned by most of his colleagues.

Son of a professional illustrator and Royal Navy officer, he worked as a young man at the Torrejón air base [of US Strategic Air Command outside Madrid] as a clerk-stenographer, (marrying the Spaniard Pilar Stuyck -- from whom he separated in 1981), and as a steel worker in the Ruhr, and then as a night watchman on a construction site in London [the New Commonwealth Institute]. There he wrote his first book, The Destruction of Dresden. This gave him fame and academic prestige until his more or less pro-Nazi ideas began to emerge. [In 1977] he published Hitler's War (Spanish edition: Planeta, 1989), a book in which he placed the reader in the dictator's shoes and suggested that he knew nothing of the Holocaust. The work has been noisily criticized by other historians, who consider it inaccurate and intellectually dishonest. Over the years his views about the Holocaust have varied. He has never denied that it happened, but has questioned its importance. This was the reason for his conviction in Austria in 2006 where he spent nine [sic. fourteen] months in prison. He spent them writing memoirs and a biography of Himmler which will appear next year. Since the early 1990s he has no publishers. He publishes his own works and sells them on the Internet with the help of fans. He lives in a country house near to Windsor. He spent the summer speaking from coast to coast in the United States.

THE FIRST surprising thing about David Irving is that he drives too fast. As if he had somebody at his tail. It's less surprising that his home is filled with files and microfilms. He is an historian, after all. Or at least so he says. Our conversation takes places in his garden - marked by the noise of the planes landing and taking off Heathrow.

Irving drinks a lot of coffee. The girl who prepares it is called Gabriela. He prefers to call her Miss Peru.

Q -  Had Hitler not existed, would there have been WWII?
A - Of course. In the '30s the war was inevitable, but not because of the Nazis, because Europe had ill-fitting frontiers. Churchill occupied himself with the Nazis only from 1936 on. And he did that because he was helped into power by the Jews of London.
Q - How is it possible that you are the only historian who says this?
A - Because it's not politically correct to say it. Only Mel Gibson says it.
Q - Don't digress. I've asked you about WWII. Would it have been possible without Hitler?
A - Yes. Then again, Hitler only wanted a small war: to absorb Austria and the Sudetenland and then provoke Poland by taking Danzig. But then after a while he realized that the war wasn't going to be a short one.
Q - You have once stated that Churchill was as bad as Hitler.
A - What I did say is that Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Truman are all burning in the same hell.
Q - That is, in your opinion they were all equally bad.
A - Of course. They had no respect whatsoever for human life. The real crime of WWII was not genocide; it was what I call innocenticide. The killing of innocent people. The murder of the Jews was a crime not because they were Jews, but because they were innocent. But the Jews don't want to hear this, because it lets the Holocaust stop being something special.
Q - You mean that there were Jews who were not innocent?
A - What I mean is that their murder was a crime because they were innocent. Do you want to say that all Jews are innocent? Because in every segment of the population there are elements that tend toward the criminal, and the Jews are no exception.
Q - You put Churchill and Hitler on the same plane, then.
A - I've read Churchill's papers, and I remember what he told the officers planning the invasion of France in spring '44. The generals told him that a lot of [French] civilians were going to die and he answered, "How many?" - They told him "About 10,000" And Churchill said, "Okay. That's the tariff they have to pay." To Churchill, human life was irrelevant. Think about the calculated brutality of the bombing of Dresden.
Q - And Hitler, wasn't he more bloodthirsty?
A - The key question is how much Hitler knew about what Himmler and his SS were up to. And the answer is that Himmler took very great care not to tell him anything. On one occasion Himmler's chief of staff, Karl Wolff, found him depressed and asked him "What's the matter?" - And he answered, "I am doing something that the Messiah of the coming 2000 years must never know." By "the Messiah", he was alluding to Hitler.
Q - But why hide the Holocaust from Hitler, if they both had the same goal of exterminating the Jews?
A - The allegation that the Nazi leader sought to exterminate the Jews is a propaganda lie. In Hitler's speeches he just repeated the one anti-Semitic utterance. Something about "if they ever begin a world war, the Jews will be the ones to suffer". But it was always the same stereotype expression.
Q - Do you mean that Hitler was the only innocent in the Nazi circles of power?
A - Hitler was the Head of State, and because of that, he was accountable for what was happening. But one can be both accountable and ignorant. Hitler was a simple man constantly deceived by his subordinates.
Q - But you do accept that the Nazis wanted to exterminate the Jews.
A - Goebbels and Himmler, yes. But it would be interesting to know why neither the UK nor Sweden nor any other country wanted to accept Europe's Jews? And for that matter also why when Germany asked the Hungarians, the Rumanians, and the Slovaks if they might take care of their Jews, all willingly agreed. Even if as I suppose the mere fact of raising these questions makes me an anti-Semite.
Q - Are you?
A - I try not to be one.
Q - Are you or are you not one?
A - I try not to be one, but believe me, it's not easy.
Q - In a nutshell, your thesis is that Hitler was a good guy, but he was surrounded by bad people.
A - Hitler himself said, nearing the end of his days, that National Socialism was good but he had trusted the wrong people.
Q - And that is also what you believe?
A - I am not interested in politics. National Socialism worked well in Germany, but I am not sure it would be as successful in other countries.
Q - Has Hitler become a scapegoat for the Germans?
A - He has proved useful to many people because he is dead.
Q - How do you explain, that no historians except you say that the real holocaust did not take place in Auschwitz?
A - Because they all copy each other. To jump those rails would condemn them to jail, retribution, and poverty, which is what happened to me.
Q - Are you a Nazi?
A - That's what they say, but it's not true. The only thing that matters to me is that in a thousand [actually said: hundred] years people won't buy Ian Kershaw's orAndrew Roberts' books, but mine. Because I write Real History.
Q - Wouldn't it be less pretentious to say that what you tell is nothing more than just one version of the facts?
A - I always encourage my listeners to read other authors too. I am a very liberal guy.
Q - Was Hitler a democratically elected leader or a tyrant?
A - There comes a moment when even a tyrant is unable to rule without the people's support. Hitler had that support until the very end. In part that was because of Goebbels' propaganda.
Q - What about Churchill? Was he a tyrant?
A - He was a corrupt politician. He did what the Jews told him to do, and he replacedNeville Chamberlain, who was a man of peace. He pushed the UK into the war and destroyed the British Empire. Churchill was in the hands of the Jews, and if he'd surrendered [actually said: accepted Hitler's 1940 peace offer] he'd have gone down in history as a failure. People would have laughed at him. The war was a personal matter to Churchill.
Q - So should he have done a deal with Hitler?
A - Of course. We were very close to ending the war in 1940 and then there probably would not have been any Holocaust. Because you can do such things only under cover of the smoke of war.
Q - Do you think that the figure of Six Million murdered Jews is exaggerated?
A - I'm not interested in figures. "I don't do body-counts." Nor am I all that interested in the Holocaust. I am interested in Himmler. A man who died at age 44, built an enormous industrial empire, raised the Waffen SS out of nothing, and was the architect of the Holocaust. What an "achievement" for a man of forty-four.
Q - You will agree with me that the people responsible for the Holocaust are not the Jews, but their killers.
A - The problem is that you can't even ask in public whether they were not the architects of their own destruction, because asking that you would land you in jail. That's why no-one asks, no-one answers; and it'll all end up again just as in the 1930s. That's what I want to prevent. I am a humanitarian person.
Q - Do you believe that the Holocaust is just a footnote in history books?
A - Until the 1970s it was just a blip on the horizon. The proof of that is that it doesn't figure in any of the biographies of the great leaders of the Second World War. But since then it has become fashionable. The Jews have marketed it as a brand, using the same techniques as Dr Goebbels. They have invented a slogan... and repeat it ad nauseam.
Q - In other words, in your opinion the Holocaust is nothing more than a slogan.
A - A slogan yes. The Holocaust has become just a slogan, a brand-name like Kleenex or Xerox printers. Until the 1970s it was just a haphazard concept, one which included gas chambers, shootings, deportations, slavery... It was a horrific phenomenon, but it was not commercially marketable. They've turned it into a commercial phenomenon, and succeeded in making money out of it - producing films about it which have made millions.
Q - You've been accused of absolving Hitler.
A - I take the uncertainty out of History.
Q - But you used to say that you had to identify with him. Do you consider yourself an admirer of Hitler?
A - I admire him because he persevered. In the same sense that I admire Hillary Clinton in her perseverance in pursuing the presidency of the United States. Hitler had ranged against him the most powerful armies in the whole world, but he decided to resist until the end. And had the war lasted another year, he would have - not won, but he would have not lost either. By 1945 the British and the Americans were heartily tired of the war, and they would not have wanted to go on any longer.
Q - Was Nazism a step backwards for civilization?
A - In some things, yes. For instance, there was nobody controlling the police. But maybe such a regime needs the police to be able to conduct its social experiments.
Q - What kind of experiments?
A - Those regarding the welfare state.
Q - Do you really think that in a thousand years the general judgment on Hitler will improve?
A - Of course. There will be squares named after him in Germany, and maybe elsewhere.

"Auschwitz was a prison camp with a high mortality" David Irving's controversial opinions cast doubts even on the magnitude of the Holocaust. The Englishman has dared to write that "Auschwitz wasn't created to kill human beings" but that it "was a slave-labour camp with a very high rate of mortality." While most other historians agree among themselves in describing this center as the symbol of Nazi horror, Irving believes that "the real Holocaust took place in Treblinka, Belzec, Majdanek and Sobibor". In his opinion Auschwitz inmates died of "typhus and other epidemics". While accepting that gas chambers did exist there, he points out that "they were in two small villas outside the camp perimeter. Nothing like you what see in the movies."

elmundo.es

Moratinos critica a EL MUNDO por dar espacio a un historiador negacionista

María Ramírez | Estocolmo

El ministro de Exteriores, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, ha criticado la publicación en EL MUNDO de una entrevista al historiador David Irving, un revisionista que ha sugerido que Adolf Hitler desconocía el exterminio judío.

Pese a que el texto, dentro de una serie de entrevistas sobre la Segunda Guerra Mundial, deja claro que el historiador ha sido repudiado por sus colegas y a que este diario publica un editorial crítico con el negacionismo –y no sólo de Irving-, Moratinos quiso expresar su malestar.

"Desde el más absoluto respeto a la libertad de expresión, el ministro de Exteriores lamenta que se dedique un espacio a un historiador que niega una de las mayores tragedias de la Historia contemporáneapara la humanidad y quiere hacer llegar su empatía y su comprensión porque este tipo de afirmaciones hieren profundamente la sensibilidad del pueblo hebreo", dijo su portavoz, tras una reunión de ministros de los Veintisiete en Estocolmo.

El editorial de EL MUNDO defiende la libertad de expresión, incluida la de Irving. "No compartimos la mayor parte de lo que dice, pero defendemos su derecho a decirlo", asegura.

Malestar en Israel

También la prensa israelí se ha hecho eco de la publicación de la entrevista. El periódico Yediot Ajaronot dedica al tema una página bajo el título 'A favor y en contra de la Shoah', informa Sal Emergui desde Jerusalén. "El diario español EL MUNDO concede una plataforma al negacionista del Holocausto en una serie por el 70º aniversario del inicio de la II Guerra Mundial", informa en una pieza que recoge el malestar israelí.

Este diario también critica la elección como "gran experto" de Irving, quien "afirmó que el Holocausto es un tema inflado, las cámaras de gas son una invención y los judíos son responsables de la crisis económica".

Asimismo, Haaretz titula sobre el tema: "Israel protestó enérgicamentepor la publicación de los argumentos de un negacionista de la Shoah en un diario español". Indica también que Irving estuvo en la cárcel por negar el Holocausto, y recuerda una de sus famosas frases: "Auschwitz fue una atracción turística".

El periódico Maariv, por su parte, cita la protesta del embajador israelí en España, Raphael Schutz: "Este hombre no tiene ni una gota de credibilidad y no puede ser incluido en la misma serie de entrevistas con reconocidos historiadores".

Todos los medios israelíes recogen la indignación del director del Museo del Holocausto en Jerusalén, Avner Shalev, incluido en la serie sin ser informado de la participación de Irving. "Hay temas en los que no hay a favor y en contra. El diario da legitimidad a un hombre que no se la merece", denuncia Shalev, cuya entrevista realizada por Sal Emergui fue publicada el pasado jueves en EL MUNDO. "Si llego a saberlo, al igual que otros historiadores entrevistados, no hubiera aceptado participar en esta serie de entrevistas", añadió Shalev.

Extractos de la entrevista

A continuación, algunas de las declaraciones de David Irving en la entrevista a EL MUNDO:

"El asesinato de judíos no fue un crimen por ser judíos, sino por ser judíos inocentes"

"La clave es cuánto sabía Hitler... Himmler tenía cuidado de no decirle nada"

"Hasta la década de los setenta no se empezó a hablar del Holocausto"

"Churchill empujó al país a la guerra y destruyó el Imperio británico"

"El de Auschwitz fue un campo de prisioneros con una alta mortandad"