Trick by Nazis, Russians charge
Reds scoff at report of Hitler’s death
MOSCOW, USSR (UP) – Reports of Adolf Hitler’s death were described by the official TASS News Agency today as a Nazi trick.
It appeared the Russians were not likely to accept the German radio announcement without independent supporting evidence.
The TASS dispatch said the Nazis, by disseminating news of Hitler’s death, “obviously hope to enable Hitler to vanish from the scene and assume an illegal underground position.”
Called usual propaganda
It charged that the appeal by Adm. Karl Doenitz was the “usual fabrication of German propaganda calculated to provoke discord among members of the anti-Hitlerite coalition.”
It can be assumed reasonably that until the Russians actually see Hitler’s body, they will not be convinced he is dead.
Other recent events also caused considerable skepticism here over the authenticity of the report. Some sources pointed out that the report was made even more suspicious by the fact that not only Hitler, but Reich Marshal Hermann Goering, Propaganda Minister Paul Joseph Goebbels and Gestapo Heinrich Himmler allegedly vanished from the scene when Doenitz was elevated to Fuehrer.
Disguise hinted
Only two days ago, in commenting on Goering’s rumored execution, Leonid Leonov wrote in the newspaper Izvestia that plastic surgeons probably were working hard on Hitler, Goebbels and other Nazis to change their physical appearance so they could escape.
The general feeling here was that, regardless of the truth of the report, Hitler’s death would not materially affect the duration of the war. The Russians believe the German Army has been crushed decisively and its days of continued resistance numbered.