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I always found WWII to be boring, so I never formed any strong opinions or historical knowledge about it. After watching a few dozen Hitler Ranting videos, however, I picked up a few documentaries and news articles specifically relating to Hitler's death and what all went on while the Allied forces were trying to figure out what happened. One thing that bothers me is that, while most things seem to be cut and dry, Hitler's teeth are a different story.

According to most sources, when the Soviet army was looking for Hitler's corpse, they ran across a corpse that was charred beyond recognition, and they were only able to gather the teeth to use in making an identification. From there, however, what happens seems to diverge.

From different sources:

  • A History Channel documentary about a 2009 investigation into Russian evidence of Hitler's death didn't mention the teeth at all, although they were allowed access to all Russian evidence regarding Hitler.
  • A NatGeo documentary was allowed access to the same evidence, and had both the teeth as well as a 1944 x-ray of Hitler's teeth that prove they belong to him.
  • A different news source said that the Soviets searched Berlin but weren't able to find any dental records, so they had to find his dentist's assistant, who drew the records from memory.
  • A different news source said they carried the teeth to the dental assistant in a box and showed them to her, and she gave a positive ID.
  • All of the sources that mention the dental assistant also mention that no dental records were found, but the Nat Geo documentary doesn't mention the dental assistant but mentions that they actually had X-Rays from 1944.

So, considering that every historical source I've checked has a slightly different story, I was wondering if there was an authoritative historical accounting of what was used to make the positive ID on the teeth, and if this is a case of everyone has a different story or a case of everyone is telling a different part of the same story (such as they didn't have the dental records at first and had to go to the assistant to Hitler's dentist, but then found x-rays or something like that).

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Facts

Wikipedia has a good account of the facts:

by 11 May 1945, the Soviets had already confirmed through Hitler's dentist, Hugo Blaschke, and his dental technician that the dental remains found were Hitler's and Braun's.

(as usual, you should check their references).

PS. In general, I don't think it is a good idea to rely on TV for any information.

Trustworthiness of the Soviet sources

In response to the discussion in the comments: of course Stalin lied quite liberally:

When President Harry S. Truman asked Stalin at the Potsdam Conference in August 1945 whether or not Hitler was dead, Stalin replied bluntly, "No".... For politically motivated reasons, the Soviet Union presented various versions of Hitler's fate. In the years immediately following 1945, the Soviets maintained Hitler was not dead, but had fled and was being shielded by the former western allies.

However, internally, USSR was perfectly sure that Hitler was dead and they shared the evidence with the West in early 1990-ies.

Common sense

Hitler was such an odious figure, that the idea that he could escape and live in obscurity is preposterous. His personality, as emerges from his public and, especially, private behavior, militates against such an attempt, let alone its success.

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    The OP posted four different sources and their claims, and now you just add another? How does that help? What makes your source better or more accurate?
    – V.E.
    Mar 18, 2015 at 3:35
  • I would like to point out Stalin targeted Hitler as a trophy by the end of the war, and by knowing Sovietunion's history, there were numerous lies especially to build up totalitarian dictatorship of Stalin. If the question is would Stalin counterfeit the proof of death of Hitler if he has to? The answer is clearly yes. I would be interested if Hitler's death was confirmed by anybody else than soviets independently.
    – CsBalazsHungary
    Mar 18, 2015 at 7:16
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    Good advice to not relying on TV documentaries, especially the Alternative History Channel. NatGeo is a bit more reliable.
    – Schwern
    Mar 18, 2015 at 8:49
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    @V.E. Of the OP's "sources", two are "a different news source", one is some doc on the hilariously unreliable History Channel, and the other is "a NatGeo documentary" we know nothing about. None of these are sources, they're not even identifiable, they're all derivatives. The Wikipedia article at least cites sources.
    – Schwern
    Mar 18, 2015 at 8:52
  • Yes, same and several or many sources are available. Such as en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Blaschke or edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/12/11/russia.hitler.remains/… alike. If Russians are yet hiding something, how can we know...........+1
    – user12387
    May 20, 2015 at 4:21
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Adding info to an old post for the record.

I was on a walking tour of Berlin today and the guide stated that they had Hitler's dental records before bridge work, and then went to the dental assistant for a drawing of the effects of the bridge work and used both sources as confirmation.

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Considering it was Hitler's personal dentist who confirmed the identity of the jaw/teeth you really cannot consider it objective evidence. He would've been given instructions to that effect.

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  • Do you have evidence suggesting that this is correct?
    – Steve Bird
    Nov 22, 2017 at 6:19
  • If they had X-rays, they probably got therm from his dentist.
    – jjack
    Dec 5, 2017 at 2:30
  • @SteveBird I suppose common sense won't satisfy you. You CANNOT use testimony from Hitler's allies and close acquaintances as solid evidence that he was indeed dead. That's just silly.
    – Charlie
    Dec 5, 2017 at 18:16

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