When I was in elementary grades [US public schools] we were taught that Hitler's body had been discovered in Berlin after the German surrender in WWII, but it was unclear how he had died.
When we studied WWII in more depth in high school, we were taught that "nobody knows" what happened to Hitler, and the teacher cited "unconfirmed reports" that he had escaped to South America. I'm an old fart, so this was in the 1970s, about the time that The Boys from Brazil was a hit movie.
Wikipedia says Hitler committed suicide by shooting himself, but the footnoted sources are decades delayed (books published in 1980 and 1995), and I'm wondering how reliably anyone could "know" that he shot himself. As I understand this version of events, only he and his wife were present at the end.
So I ask, do we actually know how Adolf Hitler died?
Not to discourage further answers, but here is a previous discussion on the same topic.
I am no subject matter expert by any stretch. However, I found a few articles about the DNA testing and physical examination of the sole forensic evidence of Hitler's remains.
{Edited to add link from the researchers' university website} http://today.uconn.edu/blog/2009/09/premiere-of-new-history-channel-series-features-uconn-faculty/
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/sep/27/adolf-hitler-suicide-skull-fragment
From the The Guardian:
According to Connecticut archaeologist and bone specialist Nick Bellantoni, it was clear from the outset that something was amiss. "The bone seemed very thin; male bone tends to be more robust," he said. "And the sutures where the skull plates come together seemed to correspond to someone under 40." In April 1945 Hitler turned 56.
Bellantoni had flown to Moscow to inspect the gruesome Hitler trophies at the State Archive, which included the skull fragment as well as bloodstains from the bunker sofa on which Hitler and Braun were believed to have committed suicide. He was allowed only one hour with the Hitler trove, during which time he applied cotton swabs and took DNA samples. "I had the reference photos the Soviets took of the sofa in 1945 and I was seeing the exact same stains on the fragments of wood and fabric in front of me, so I knew I was working with the real thing."
The samples were then flown back to Connecticut. At the university's centre for applied genetics, Linda Strausbaugh closed her lab for three days to work exclusively on the Hitler project. "We used the same routines and controls that would have been used in a crime lab," she said. To her surprise, a small amount of viable DNA was extracted. She then replicated this through a process known as molecular copying to provide enough material for analysis. "We were very lucky to get a reading, despite the limited amount of genetic information," she said.
The result was extraordinary. According to witnesses, the bodies of Hitler and Braun had been wrapped in blankets and carried to the garden just outside the Berlin bunker, placed in a bomb crater, doused with petrol and set ablaze.
But the skull fragment the Russians dug up outside the Führerbunker in 1946 could never have belonged to Hitler. The skull DNA was incontestably female. The only positive physical proof that Hitler had shot himself had suddenly been rendered worthless. The result is a mystery reopened and, for conspiracy theorists the tantalising possibility that Hitler did not die in the bunker.