I've never heard of Tim Kennedy and neither have I heard of "Hunting Hitler". Whatever, probably an American thing. Let's get into it.

#Let's talk about skulls

There is absolutely no doubt that Adolf Hitler committed suicide on 30 April 1945. Absolutely none.

The Soviets had multiple fragments of Hitler's remains, and his dental records are among the most fruitful. With the help of Käthe Heusermann and Fritz Echtmann, these dental remains were positively identified as Hitler's. Heusermann and Echtmann were previous assistants of Hugo Blaschke, Hitler's personal dentist.

Something that Kennedy says is true is that the Americans spent a lot of money hunting Nazis, and while Hitler wasn't the sole focus (they were also looking for Eichmann and Mengele (among others), who were actually in fact hiding in South America), they spent a lot of time and resources looking for him and producing mock up portraits of how Hitler could have altered his appearance.

The reason was that the Soviets did not want the western Allies to know with certainty that Hitler was indeed dead, so they deported their important witnesses into the gulags. Both Heusermann and Echtmann, the aforementioned dentist assistants who by proxy now had undeniable proof for Hitler's death, were deported into the USSR in the late 1940s. Hugo Blaschke, who had in the meantime been captured by the Americans, also provided some assistance in identifying Hitler's teeth for the Americans by recounting, from memory, a description of Hitler's teeth. Both he and his two assistants correctly identified the positions of Hitler's artificial teeth and bridges which matched the skull in possession of the NKVD. Blaschke became a witness during the Nuremberg Trials for his abilities to identify deceased high ranking Nazis.

And, speaking of the Nuremberg Trials, Kennedy hilariously misrepresents them in the clip above. I can elaborate on this if someone wishes me to, but just know that his characterization of the Nuremberg Trials as an American ruse ultimately aimed to transition into the Cold War against communism is completely stupid. His assertion that many top Nazis escaped also ultimately breaks on the definition of "many" and "top" - but most top Nazis either died in the war or were executed at Nuremberg.

Now, Kennedy is partially correct with the whole DNA thing. There is a fragment of human skull in the Russian state archives that the Russians insist is Hitler's, but that a 2009 DNA test apparently indicates belongs to a woman. That however does not prove at all that Hitler didn't die on 30 April 1945, but rather speaks to the constant Soviet attempts to obfuscate and to use Hitler's fate against the western Allies. It is also not established whether the skull fragment and the jawbones checked by the NKVD and identified by Hitler's dentist and his assistants were one and the same. To draw the conclusion from this that Hitler somehow made his way to South America is ludicrous.

#But more importantly, let's not talk about skulls

Okay, so we of course can't know that the NKVD isn't lying. Maybe they never had Hitler's remains. Maybe the dentists made up the story. But to draw from Hitler's skull fragment (or lack thereof) a grand conspiracy of Hitler fleeing halfway across the world to escape Berlin is a non sequitur.

We know that Hitler was in Berlin for his last birthday, 20 April 1945. We know this because, for the occasion, he went out and gave a bunch of awards to Hitler Youth members. There you see him. This is his last "public" appearance and he subsequently retreats to the Führerbunker. From here, we can take the words of Traudl Junge (1920-2002), his personal private secretary, who was with him until the very end and wrote a memoir about the last days in the bunker that became the main historical source behind 2004 German historical movie Downfall featuring the recently passed away Bruno Ganz as Adolf Hitler.

On 26 April, the bunker is now cut off from the rest of world except for a wireless connection to Keitel and OKW, with the relief army under Felix Steiner (of Downfall meme fame) nowhere to be seen.

Still, the Führer leads his shadow being in the bunker. Restless he wanders the rooms. Sometimes I ask myself what he is waiting for, why he doesn't make an end to it all, there is nothing more that could be saved. But the thought of his suicide disappoints me. The "first soldier of the Reich" commits suicide while children protect the Reich's capital.

I speak to him about it once and ask: "My Führer, don't you think that the German people expect you to fall in combat at the head of your troops?" At this point, you could speak to him about anything. His answer sounds tired: "I am physically no longer able to fight. My shaking hands cannot hold a pistol properly. If I get wounded, I'll not find one of my soldiers who would be willing to shoot me. And I don't want to fall into the Russians' hands." He's right. His hand shakes while eating, he only slowly rises from his armchair and when he walks, his feet drag over the floor.

Junge, Traudl. Bis zur letzten Stunde: Hitlers Sekretärin erzählt ihr Leben. pp. 199-200

On 27 April, Hitler hears of the betrayal of Hermann Fegelein (also of Downfall meme fame) (see Junge p. 203), brother-in-law of Eva Braun, Hitler's mistress; and on 28 April, he hears that Heinrich Himmler initiated peace negotiations with the Allies without his approval (see Junge p. 205).

Also on the 28th, Fegelein is executed on Hitler's orders, much to the dismay of his wife's sister Eva Braun, who by this point had her farewell letters to her loved ones prepared in anticipation of her joint suicide alongside Hitler (see Junge p. 203). Meanwhile, Magda Goebbels informs her five children of possible vaccinations because of the many people in the bunker, preparing them to accept the lethal injections with which the Goebbels couple intends to kill their offspring. The children are, according to Junge, not afraid at all (see Junge p. 211). Furthermore, and perhaps most critically, the 28 April 1945 is also the date on which Hitler dictates to Junge his political testament. Instead of an apology, a recognition of guilt, even an admission of military failure, it is a dry, mechanical political declaration of who succeeds into what political office after his death. In his separate personal testament, he separates his belongings (see Junge, p. 202-203).

Hitler marries Eva Braun in the night from the 28th to the 29th of April. Throughout his rule, very few people outside of his inner circle knew of her existence - he was officially a bachelor, prided himself that he was only married to Germany. In the early morning on the next day, he hears of the death of his closest ally, Benito Mussolini, who was executed by Italian partisans on 28 April 1945.

On the 30th, Hitler addresses his private secretaries one last time, then retreats together with his new wife. Junge describes that there was a loud and audible gunshot from behind the door (see Junge, p. 206).

The corpses of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun were carried outside of the bunker on 1 May, where petrol was dumped on their bodies and they were burned, with Joseph Goebbels, among others, in attendance. Goebbels succeeded Hitler as Chancellor and as his sole act in office attempted to negotiate peace with Vasily Zhukov. The Soviets refused. Goebbels killed himself, along with his wife and their five children, later on 1 May 1945.

So that answers your first question, that's what happened. Regarding the second question, the demand for "evidence" is what caused this whole mess in the first place. The Soviets burned Hitler's remains and dumped it into a river in 1970 and apparently, the skull fragment they kept around is not Hitler's, so that's no good. However, sometimes we have no human remains to work with - and unless someone finds Adolf Hitler's grave in Argentina, I remain unconvinced. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and the fact that the Soviet skull fragment is not Hitler's is regrettable, but not proof of a grand conspiracy to smuggle Hitler out of the country. We have excellent first hand witnesses, reports and historical documents that exactly fit the timeline described by Traudl Junge and equivocated and endorsed by numerous historians. Regarding the credibility of Tim Kennedy - no idea, as I don't know the remaining body of his work. But on this, he is definitely far off track.

By the way, I assumed everything he said in the clip that I didn't absolutely know to be false was true. I believe him when see says there are eye witnesses in South America who claim to have seen a guy they claim to be Hitler act in various shady and Nazi-going-abroad ways. I believe him about all the CIA operatives they hired to find Hitler with the same strategies used for Bin Laden. But with all that being said...

Hitler died on 30 April 1945 in Berlin. Sorry, Tim.