“Do we have a problem?”

Rather than answer, he gestures to me to be patient. After several long minutes the bald man comes and stands in front of me and holds out a big brown paper envelope. “Open, open!” I do so, as Lana explains herself more and more excitedly to her compatriot. Or semi-compatriot, I should say.

Mug shots, or not really mug shots, more anthropometric photographs, in black and white verging on sepia. They are enlargements. One shows a quite young man with his hair slicked back. His name is written in big Cyrillic letters: Echtman F., followed by a date: 1913.

On the other, a woman, also in the prime of life, wearing a gingham blouse. Her name written in Russian is translated as Hoizerman K., just beside another date: 1909.

Anthropometric photographs taken by Soviet investigators of Fritz Echtmann, Hitler’s technician-prosthetist. (TsA FSB).]

Anthropometric photographs taken by Soviet investigators of Käthe Heusermann, assistant to Hitler’s personal dentist (TsA FSB).

In fact the two individuals are Fritz Echtmann (with two n’s) and Käthe Heusermann, the two Germans who took part in the dental identification of the bodies found outside the bunker. Fritz Echtmann, as a technician-prosthetist, worked with Hugo Blaschke, Hitler’s personal dentist; Käthe Heusermann was Blaschke’s assistant. Two biographical files accompany the photographs. We learn that in 1951 they were both sentenced to ten years’ forced labour by the Soviet Union. One for “having been dental prosthetist to Hitler and his close circle,” the other “for having served Hitler, Himmler and other senior fascists.” On the other hand, nothing on the conclusions of their macabre forensic examination, no photograph of the teeth in question. The bald man who handed me the kraft envelope notices my huge disappointment, not without a certain satisfaction. Is this really all they have to give us? Our allotted time is trickling away. We only have half an hour left. My visa expires this evening, and they know that my flight to Paris takes off in the afternoon. While we despair of obtaining concrete information, formal proof, our severe and taciturn “friend” takes some latex gloves from a pocket of her skirt. Gloves like the ones used by surgeons. At last, without a word, she picks up the “shoe box,” sets it down firmly in the middle of the table and removes the lid. As if drawn by a magnet, Lana and I immediately lean forward to catch a glimpse of its contents. No sooner have we realised what we are dealing with than the young woman is roughly manipulating the objects in the box. I hear myself shouting “stop!” I don’t know which of the two of us is more surprised by my daring. None the less, she obeys and puts everything back. I want to take the time to discover and understand what we have in front of our eyes. Too bad if I miss my plane. Discreetly, I signal to Lana to do the act that we’ve perfected together. The principle is a simple one: Lana talks and talks without interruption. Her task is to keep the minds of our interlocutors busy and let me observe and take photographs, as many as necessary. It’s quite simple and, thanks to Lana’s uncommon ability to talk for hours at a time, fiendishly effective. Without having to be asked, she launches into a monologue directed at our hosts.

The box is full of thick layers of cotton wool. Three objects are set on top of it, occupying all the room in it. The biggest consists of a large curved metal rod connected to a leather membrane the size of a leg below the knee. Immediately I think of the orthopaedic apparatus that Goebbels wore because of his club foot. Is it his? The whole thing is blackened and badly damaged as if burnt by a violent but short fire.

There is also a small golden object that has also been severely damaged by fire. It is a cigarette case. The inside is equally charred, but an engraved signature can be very clearly made out. It is the image of Hitler’s. I recognise that kind of stripe, like a lightning flash, crossed with a small line at the bottom, and that characteristic capital H. Below it, a date: 29.10.1934. Was it a present from the Führer to Magdalena Goebbels? Is this the “cigarette case” mentioned in the NKVD report from 28 May 1945? It said: “The woman’s body had on it a gold cigarette-case damaged by fire…” It would match. If it is authentic, the object was signed on 29 October 1934. On that date, Hitler had recently concentrated all powers in Germany. With the death of Marshal President Hindenburg on 3 August, he became both chancellor and president of the German state. And then he became the Führer.

But back to Moscow. I concentrate on this last object, the one that intrigues me the most. A small square box with a transparent lid. Written on one of the sides, in French and Russian, are the words “25 cigarettes No. 57, Société Bostanjoglo.” Apparently it was a box of cigarillos. I can see the inside through the transparent lid. Not a sign of any tobacco, but more cotton wool, on which the remains of a human jawbone have been thrown at random. A jawbone broken into several pieces. Even though I don’t say a word, the gloved hands of the FSB official delicately open the box and take out the four parts of the jaw one by one. Lined up in front of me are twenty-four teeth fixed to blackened bony tissue. Most of them false or covered with implants and gold bridges. I can only make out a few natural teeth, perhaps three or four. The others are made of either porcelain or metal. The man, or woman, to whom they belonged, had absolutely terrible teeth. “That’s the proof that you were looking for.” Arms crossed, and her expression still just as severe as before, my demonstrator for today at last decides to address me in English. I am bold enough to ask her for confirmation: “Are these Hitler’s teeth?” The “da” which is all I receive by way of answer is supposed to satisfy me. It doesn’t. Or at any rate it isn’t enough for me. Since we’re here, I’m going to take all my time and photograph these teeth and the remains of jawbones that go with it from every imaginable angle.

While Lana goes on deluging everyone else with her torrent of words, I manage to make myself understood to my watchdog. One by one, I ask her to position the human fragments in front of me. From the front, from the back, from either side, I don’t want to leave anything out. And, most importantly, there is this very unusual bridge connecting two teeth by passing in an arch over a third.

Box containing, according to the FSB archives, Joseph Goebbels’ prosthesis as well as Magda Goebbels’ gold cigarette case given to her by Hitler. Also visible is the small box supposedly containing Hitler’s teeth.

My photographic session comes to an end. Tensions ease. I save Dmitri and his colleagues from Lana’s logorrhoea and thank them. They have played the game. At least partly, because we still haven’t seen any photographs from the time of the corpses of Hitler or Eva Braun. “There aren’t any,” Dmitri cuts in. Of course we don’t believe a word of it. But it doesn’t matter. We are pursuing our inquiry. The puzzle is slowly beginning to come together. It was the forensic examination carried out by Hitler’s personal dental prosthetist and his assistant that would have persuaded the Soviets in May 1945. They were the ones who laid hands on the body of the Nazi dictator.

“Before you leave, look at this…” Dmitri holds out one of the files that we hadn’t yet consulted. He opens it up on one of the bookmarks placed there earlier on. “This is what was done to Hitler’s body after it was formally authenticated.”

I avidly decipher a few words in the document. At the top of the page on the right, “Top Secret,” the general title, “File,” the date, “4 June 1945,” and the signatures as well as the stamp at the bottom of the page. Lana translates the rest for me:

As the result of later research on 5 May 1945, a few metres away from the place where the bodies of Goebbels and his wife were found, two badly burned bodies were found in the crater of a bomb: the body of the Reich Chancellor of Germany Adolf HITLER and the body of his wife Eva BRAUN. These two bodies were transported to the “SMERSH” counter-espionage of the 3rd Assault Army in the district of Buch in Berlin.

All the bodies brought to the “SMERSH” department of the 3rd Assault Army were subjected to a medico-legal examination and presented for identification to individuals who knew them well when they were alive.

After being subjected to medico-legal examination and the entire set of identification procedures, all the bodies were buried near the Berlin district of BUCH.

Because of the redeployment of the “SMERSH” counter-espionage department, the bodies were withdrawn and transported first to the area around the town of Finow [60 km north of Berlin], then on 3 June 1945 to a place near the town of Rathenow [80 km west of Berlin], where they were buried once and for all.

The bodies are in wooden boxes and have been buried at a depth of 1.7 metres and placed in the following order:

From East to West: HITLER, BRAUN Eva, GOEBBELS, Magda GOEBBELS, KREBS, the GOEBBELS children.

The western part of the grave also contains a basket with the bodies of dogs, one of which belonged to HITLER in person, and the other to BRAUN Eva.

The location of the buried bodies is as follows: Germany, province of Brandenburg, near the town of Rathenow, forest to the east of the town of Rathenow, on the motorway from Rathenow to Stechow, just before the village of Neu Friedrichsdorf, 325 metres from the railway bridge, gap in the forest, from the stone post number 111–to the north-east as far as the stone marker bearing the same number 111–635 metres. Then from that marker in the same direction to the next stone marker bearing the number 111–55 metres. From this third marker due east–26 metres.

The grave has been flattened out at ground level, and small pine seedlings have been planted on the surface forming the number 111.

The map with the diagram is attached.

This file exists in three copies.

I was also allowed to photograph a hand-drawn map, carefully coloured in green and red. It shows very precisely where the remains of the Nazi ruler were buried. The town of Rathenow was not chosen at random by the Soviets. This small town which had about ten thousand inhabitants in 1945 and was situated in the Red Army-controlled zone was easily and quickly accessible from Berlin.