Argentina

 

20 July 1944 was an important day for Hitler. From this point on, Hitler prepared many options for his escape, sowing confusion as to his whereabouts using Doppelgängers for his public appearances.

By publicly presenting only body doubles during the last year or two of his life it would be entirely possible to privately change his own appearance.

Hitler Hiding in Monastery
Barrier Miner [Broken Hill, NSW]
7 February 1945

NEW YORK: Hitler's present headquarters is a small monastery on the outskirts of Salzburg, reports the "United Press" correspondent in Rome.

The report was obtained from "usually reliable Vatican informants" who state that the Führer is using the monastery as a hide out. The report was brought to Rome by three Jesuit priests closely associated with the monastery. The priests state that a few days after the attempt on Hitler's life last year the monastery was made a secret refuge for him, and the monks were turned out. According to the priests Hitler has a large wound on his scalp which has not yet healed, but it is lightly bandaged, as the surgeon hopes that the air and sun will have a curative effect.

Hitler has become dreamy and apathetic, and finds it hard to concentrate.

The priests added that Hitler refused to go to Berchtesgaden after the attempt because of the morbid fear that the Allies would attempt his assassination.

One, of his doubles was shown on "Movietone News" in 1945 with the title 'German Newsreels on Hitler’s Escape'.

Newsreel narrator:

"Looking rather more round-shouldered than usual, he goes from bed to bed commiserating with the casualties. Maybe this is Hitler’s double or perhaps his double was killed by the bomb. Though there are scores of theories, the facts are not yet known".

The fact that "Movietone News" had the newsreel showed that it was leaked for Propaganda purposes.

The "Movietone News" Doppelgänger was an entirely bigger person, with round shoulders, a chin, jowls, different-shaped ears, hairline and neck thickness.
He was 1-2 inches taller [25-50 mm] had muscular arms, a thick chest and large farmer’s hands.
He was a bigger man altogether but wore the trademark moustache which drew attention away from all other features.
He had also had plastic surgery to imitate Hitler’s nose. Hitler, at this stage, was square-shouldered and thin, with a hollow chest.

Narrator:

“In the final months of the war, even the Germans couldn’t be certain. Since the 1944 bomb plot, Hitler kept well out of sight hidden away in Bunkers. The last ordinary Germans who saw him in the open were a handful of the Hitler Youth".

Abel Basti, reveals that one of the piece of evidence he investigated about Hitler's active double existence in the last days of Nazism is found in an apparently innocuous book published in Spain. 

He refers to the memoirs of Joaquín Navarro Cristóbal correspondent of "La Vanguardia" in Berlin during World War II -which he signed with the pseudonym of Cristóbal Tamayo- reissued in 2005 under the title of "The Last Days of Berlin".  Navarro, who died in 1970, describes in this book his experience aboard the last Lufthansa air service between Spain and Berlin in April 1945.

"For someone who is not very familiar with the subject of Hitler's death, the passage is irrelevant, just another story of the last days of war in Berlin.  But it contains a fact that contradicts all the official versions. 

"Navarro wanted to see Berlin fall, wanted to get there before the Russians took it.  He arrived at the Tempelhof airport, located 20 kilometers from Berlin, mid-morning on 20 April 1945. There was no way to get to the capital, besieged by the Red Army, so he stays at the airport until German fighters soon appear.  He asks what is happening of some SS officers and they tells him that it is the Führer arriving.  Indeed, he sees Hitler coming down from a Junker 290 and being transferring for the trip to Berlin.  Navarro manages to travel in a military truck as well, and he bumps into Hitler's car in the streets of Berlin.

"The astonishing thing is that the official history maintains - and in that everybody agrees - that Hitler entered the Bunker 16 January 1945 and that he never left there". 

"Navarro's innocent testimony highlights the theme of Hitler's doubles, which is to be used in the farce of suicide in the Bunker. The truth is that nobody knew for sure where Hitler was in those chaotic days of the fall of Berlin".

Abel Basti's statement is proven wrong by these pictures....
 

German troops on the Oder front, salute Adolf Hitler  in March 1945





 Hitler visiting Berlin defenders in early April 1945 with Hermann Göring

The Nazis had captured British planes at hand to try and make their escape without being shot down, one of which was an 'Auster' with RAF markings.

The Auster was an observation and liaison aircraft based on the American Taylorcraft design, that.served with several Air Forces during WW2.

Its slow speed [130mph] and large glass area made it ideal for observation duties, and it could also land in a short distance which made it useful for casualty evacuation.

Flight out of Berlin was certainly possible. Rochus Misch, Hitler’s switchboard operator stated:

"There were two planes waiting to the north of Berlin. One of them was the Ju390 and a Blohm and Voss [Bv222] that could fly the same distance. It could fly 18,000 km without refuelling, so Hitler could have escaped if he wanted to".

Stalin’s deputy, Marshal Georgy Zhukov had announced Hitler was dead on 1 May 1945, but had changed his mind. Hitler could easily have escaped. The runway was open and he was probably in Spain or Argentina, both of which were fascist.

At a  press conference on 9 June 1945, Colonel General Nikolai E. Berzarin, Soviet commander of Berlin, turning to the question of whether Hitler had died in Berlin, said:

"There are all sorts of people who were close to him who say that he killed himself. Still others say he was killed by an exploding shell, however, Russian soldiers had not yet found Hitler’s body. My personal opinion is that he has disappeared somewhere into Europe. Perhaps he is in Spain with Franco. He had the possibility of getting away". 

So the newspapers published articles with the headings, 'Hitler’s Argentine Connection'. This was another cover-up. 

Despite strong indications that Hitler had escaped to Barcelona, all search efforts were directed elsewhere.

"There was a heap of ashes. Someone said it was Hitler"
David Smith
The Observer
1 May 2005

For most people old enough to remember the war, next Sunday's 60th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day will evoke images of mass euphoria in Trafalgar Square and towns and cities on the home front. For one man, however, it revives memories of walking with giants - the statesmen who won the Second World War and shaped the postwar world.

Hugh Lunghi is thought to be the first Briton to have entered Hitler's Berlin Bunker and was one of Winston Churchill's interpreters at the key conferences with Josef Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman.

On VE Day, Lunghi was with the British military mission to Moscow, and by July he was in Berlin, which had fallen to Soviet troops.

"I was in uniform and the Russian sentries allowed me to step down into Hitler's Bunker, which was flooded by two or three inches," the 84-year-old told "The Observer" in a rare interview. "It was damp and nasty and there was a lot of dirty clothing - a horrible, grim place which smelt terribly.
   
"However, it was fascinating, and that was a moment when I thought: 'My God, this is history'. Outside there was a heap of ashes and a pile of stuff and I said, 'What was that?' One of the soldiers, a major, said: 'Oh, that's Hitler and his mistress'. I don't think he realised he wasn't supposed to be telling me this".

Lunghi was allowed to take a memento from the Bunker.

"There were several rooms down there, including a medical room with a herb rack full of glass phials, which I suppose had both medicines and poisons in. Another room was like a studio and sitting-room with books in, including a set of Hitler's "Brockhaus" [the equivalent of Encyclopaedia Britannica]. I took one volume and when I went up the steps again asked, 'Can I take this?' They said: 'Oh yes, take it, by all means'.

In the end the Russians managed to swathe the whole question in such obscurity that the wildest versions concerning the end of Hitler circulated . . . fleeing in a submarine to a remote island, living in a Spanish monastery or on a South American Hacienda.

Amongst those most taken with the news that Hitler was alive was General Eisenhower. Months after Berlin was taken, he said publicly:

“We have been unable to find one tangible piece of evidence of Hitler’s death. Even though I initially believed Hitler was dead, there are now reasons to assume that he is alive".

A radio bulletin stated:

“The United States Army does not know whether Hitler is alive or dead." An Associated Press heading read “Zhukov Says Hitler Wed Actress In Berlin, May Be Alive in Europe ... Berlin, 9 June [1945] - Adolf Hitler not yet found".

On 19 December 1945 a newspaper article read:

“Soviets not convinced Hitler Dead". Other articles read, "Far from being brought to justice, Hitler had melted away" and "Court Ruling sought on Hitler’s Death".

After all of these headings the Soviets then claimed the British were holding Hitler alive. 

After the Potsdam conference the false trail was developed to Argentina and was continued through into the mid-1970s. This involved a U-Boat leaving Norway for Argentina in great secrecy and was followed by a well-publicised landing and surrender on the coast of Argentina on 17 August 1945.

The FBI then became involved and searched for Hitler from the subways of the Bronx to the jungles of Latin America. This was only ever going to be a wild-goose chase.

The FBI began to investigate if Hitler had made it across the Atlantic, and recently released FBI documents point to worry and hysteria surrounding the possibility that Hitler was alive and in their neighbourhood.

The documents presented had all traceable detail blacked out, so little or no follow-up was possible. Some of these documents were letters sent in by players to create false leads and other leads were treated as hoaxes, like "If you want to know where Hitler is call xxx-xxxx". The name and address was also blacked out.

Polls at the time showed that over 50% of people believed Hitler was still alive and this led to a lot of Hitler sightings.

The most enthusiastic Hitler hunter was "The National Police Gazette - Sports, True Adventure, People" [America’s first pictorial, established 1845]. The front cover of the December 1945 showed two American actors looking like suburban versions of Hitler and Eva at 40 and 30 years of age. The cover read "Hitler is Alive! His Marriage to Eva Braun - Their Fake Suicide and Escape from Berlin".

One story goes that a double had died for Hitler at the Bunker and Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun had escaped to Norway through Denmark, and from there were taken by U-Boat  U-977 to Latin America.

This was a voyage many had thought physically impossible but the U-977, a Type VIIC made it to the coast of Argentina on 17 August 1945.

On the same day the newspaper headline read "102 Days Late, German Sub Surrenders to Argentina". The crew were immediately taken prisoner and accused of hiding Hitler on board.

John Walsh, an American FBI G-Man [a spy working for the American Embassy in Buenos Aires on the fruitless Hitler-hunt in Argentina]:

"The U-Boats came and surrendered to Argentina. The press reports there indicated that someone in Montevideo [Uruguay] or Argentina suggested that Hitler had been on these boats and that caused a number of people to say, ‘Well, we have to look into that possibility’.

More reports of U-Boat landings came into the FBI over the next couple of weeks:

"Reports of Hitler Hideout - Los Angeles, [redacted] Bureau, 21 September 1945 - The first sub came close to shore after it had been signaled safe to land and a doctor and several men disembarked and Hitler and two women. Another doctor and seven more men said Hitler had suffered from asthma and ulcers and had shaved off his moustache and had a long ‘butt’ on his upper lip".

Hitler was supposed to be hiding in the foothills of the Southern Andes but reports remained unconfirmed. The Argentina’s navy tried to capture the U-Boats but the huge coastline made it easy for the Nazis to evade capture and get ashore on German-owned coastal farms in Patagonia.
 

The FBI then set up an operation behind the walls of the American Embassy in Buenos Aires but its power of interrogation was restricted and the agents had to operate covertly. They had difficulty establishing the crucial network of informants on the ground and were limited by their conspicuousness. They were also under constant surveillance from local police and Nazis who hid behind newspapers.

Messages from outside Argentina were relayed to the FBI Hitler-hunters by the FBI Radiogram system. These instructions kept the team of G-Men busy chasing the ever-elusive, never-present Hitler for over four decades.

The FBI G-Men would even report on footprints found in mudflats near San Gelling [25 June 1948], leading to a car and would then follow up in Veronica. 

Another U-Boat was spotted on 18 July 1948 at Mar del Plata, then Hitler was seen heading across the Argentine pampas towards the southern Andes towards the German-owned Eden Hotel in La Falda, a remote region of Cordova nestled in the foothills of the Andes. This was a crop circle investigation, defined by the Oxford Reference Dictionary as caused by “whirlwinds, fungi, alien spaceships and/or hoaxers".

In November 1945, the FBI had linked Hitler to the Eden Hotel, a centrepiece of a long-established wealthy German community. This was an international hotel where aristocrats from Cordova and Buenos Aires danced to the orchestra into the early hours.

Since the 1930s, the Eden had been a paradise for its predominantly German clientele. It was run by Ida Eichhorn whose connections reached the highest echelons of the German Reich.

According to the FBI, who established a dossier on Eichhorn after the war, she had close links with the German Reich. Before the Nazis had come to power she placed her entire bank account of 30,000 Marks at Göbbels’ disposal. Over the years she became one of Hitler’s closest friends and confidants although there is no mention of her in Joachim C. Fest’s authoritative "Hitler".

It was difficult for the FBI G-Men to get to La Falda in person, because they stuck out like sore thumbs. The FBI never went to the Eden Hotel. They used locals and got all of their information second-hand. A lot of photos of Hitler had been placed around the hotel and the hotel was in a constant state of readiness for his arrival. It was considered to be the natural place for him to be in Argentina.

This was a fabrication and showed the FBI’s collusion in taking the world’s attention off the scent, onto Argentina and away from Spain.

Spain was where Hitler was and, quite purposely, no postwar-controlled media published anything of him being there.

The FBI didn’t close the files on Adolf Hitler until the mid-1970s, after J. Edgar Hoover had died in 1972. After this the Americans started to liberalise their attitude towards the secret matters of WWII and a flood of documents were declassified in the spring of 1975 containing secret papers on cover and deception.

John Walsh stated:

“Much of the information was not credible ... others where there was a possibility of some credibility... we made enquiries .. . but [in] none of them we found any true indications that Hitler was in Argentina or the United States, or in any place where we had any responsibility. All the investigations we made came to a dead end because nothing really specific had been found.”

The narrator of the documentary "Hitler of the Andes" states that Stalin had deliberately confused and misinformed the West about Hitler’s fate in Spain or Argentina. This is an interesting end to the documentary as it never investigated Spain.

It is designed to confuse, introduce an erroneous story, affirm lost leaders and discredit truthful leads.

Hitler wanted to continue his most far-reaching missions, and these did involve Antarctica, particularly the secret German submarine base at South 69° 10’ and West 4° 15’.

The Germans had frequented Antarctica since the 1920s. Here they discovered an undersea entrance to a cavern south of South America in Queen Maud Land on the Princess Astrid Coast and named the mountains of their chosen area after German bureaucrats of the time like the Mühlig-Hofmann Mountains and the Wohlthat Mountains. These names remain today.

Richard E. Byrd was the most famous American Antarctic researcher and was the first person to fly over the South Pole in 1929. In mid-November 1938 [10 months before WWII] he showed a movie of his Antarctic flight in Hamburg, Germany. Very soon after Byrd was promoted from civilian to high-ranking US Navy Admiral.

The Germans went to Antarctica two months later based on what Richard E. Byrd had shown them. Under polar-experienced Captain Alfred Ritscher, the Germans made 15 flights over some 600,000 square kilometres [4%] of Antarctica from 19 January 1939 and took 11,000 pictures of the area. They discovered ice-free areas with lakes and small signs of vegetation. These aerial photographs showed that the 1931 Norwegian maps of the interior were fake.

Immediately after this, Nazis began building an underground city on the Princess Astrid Coast, and in 1940 Nazi engineers began construction of buildings to withstand 60°C below zero. During the war, underground bases were the de rigueur for protection and secrecy [Harz and Thüringen] and the Germans have maintained underground construction activity at Antarctica since 1941.

The Nazis referred to this impregnable city as Neuberlin [New Berlin] in an area called Neuschwabenland or Base 211. It is built to withstand an atomic attack and a nuclear winter.

Where were operations conducted, if they really were the result of rogue Nazi activity after World War II?  That is, apart from captured Nazis post-World War II now working within the military programs of the U.S. or Soviet Union, is there any evidence that points to the location accommodating this potentially threatening activity?

There are two alternatives frequently discussed:  One location is barely possible while the other location is firmly accepted with a mountain of historical data proving it a safe haven for Nazis. 

First up, there is the fantastic possibility that at the end of the War, a German flotilla of U-Boats headed to Antarctica and set up shop in an acknowledged German naval base there.
 

According to Stevens, the Allies believed many Nazi scientists survived the war and established themselves in one or both Polar Regions, residing under the ice to remain covert.  It seems evidence soon arose inferring Nazis were alive and operating with total latitude. This possibility led the U.S. military to take action. Stevens comments:

"The U.S. military spent huge amounts of time, money and manpower in the years following the war in secret missions, flying over the Arctic.  This is no secret now since we have the testimony of Col. Wendele Stevens who took part in these operations while serving in the USAF. 

In these operations, B-29 bombers were outfitted with the latest electromagnetic sensing gear and flown all over the American and [apparently Stevens is speaking generally of "North American" and specifically] "Canadian Arctic" allegedly looking for "flying saucers". 

The Western Allies, the Russians, and the Germans all relied heavily on weather reports to plan and execute their campaigns, and for this purpose, accurate up-to-the-minute reporting on Arctic conditions was crucial. 

To this end it is not surprising to find the Germans in particular outfitting special commando units - usually Waffen SS - to operate independently in Spitzbergen Island north of Norway, in Greenland, and in Arctic Canada. Such teams were delivered to their operational areas via U-Boat. Spitzbergen in particular seemed to trade hands between the British and the Germans, as each side mounted commando operations to destroy the other's weather stations and listening posts.

On one such occasion, the most famous perhaps, the German battleship 'Tirpitz', sister ship to the 'Bismarck', sailed to the island where one such British station was operating, leveled her 15 inch heavy guns at it, and promptly dispatched it, no doubt to the complete shock and surprise of the British manning it. 
 

Other allegations have a secret German weather base and listening post operating in Franz Josef Land, the islands to the north of Finland and the Soviet Union.

However, with the allegations of German bases in Greenland, one again enters the realm of the surreal. These bases were allegedly comparatively large, as were the contingents of Germans operating them. While they were supposedly known by the Greenlanders and occupying American forces, most efforts to find them ended in failure. One postwar German source places as many as three independent SS battle groups [Kamfgruppen] operating in Greenland, under the code name of Thulekampfgruppen [Thule battle groups]. 

Predictably, these "Thule battle groups" become the subject of another series of survival legends, as former SS officers supposedly reported seeing U-Boats loaded with rates designated "Thule 1 K" and so on departing Germany in the final days of the war. Sworn to secrecy by the SS, the "clear implication is that the 'Thule 1 K' is the Thule Kampfgruppe 1" and that it had "no intentions of surrender; and that there was still a mission to accomplish". 

"The Americans, so the story goes, were unsuccessful in locating them bases for two reasons: The area was too large, and the bases were, "like the German fortifications built in Neuschwabenland... tunneled deep underneath the glaciers of ice [into presumably solid rock] and that they were bored to a length of 2000 meters". 

-- O. Bergmann, "Deutsche Flugsheiben und U-Boote Überwachen die Weltmeere"

This allegation is surely implausible, since the transport of sophisticated mining and boring equipment, let alone enough explosive, for such a task by U-Boat would have been an enormous undertaking, one quite beyond the labor capabilities of small SS battle groups – consider the fact that the huge underground factories in Germany were built over several months by thousands of slave laborers working around the clock with the best available existing mining and tunneling technology.

But this is not the end of the surreal aspects of the story.

Should the bases have been detected, they were supposedly defended with exotic electromagnetic weapons, one of which had a short range, but that could cause the ignition of aircraft engines to fail completely.

One of the many Third Reich construction projects that was started but never finished was a series of underground complexes in central Thüringen, southeast of the city of Gotha [near the concentration camp at Ohrdruf, the first such camp found by the Americans on German soil].

This project had several code names, depending on what part was meant, and the names also changed over time - the following names were used for all or part of this complex - Siegfried, Olga, Burg, Jasmin; the designation S/III was sometimes used for the entire project. The main works were dug into a hill forming the north side of the Jonas Valley, between Crawinkel and Arnstadt.

Part of the project was reportedly intended as a last-ditch headquarters facility for Hitler and his staff, should they fall back from Berlin into the interior of Germany [some reports say Hitler actually spent the end of March 1945 in this or another nearby underground Führer Headquarters].

Other theories say this or a nearby site were intended for production of the intercontinental "Amerika" rocket, and even testing and production of a Nazi atomic bomb. Most of the complex never advanced much further than the tunnel digging stage, and the Soviets blasted most of the tunnel entrances after the war. The exact purpose of this facility remains in doubt, as does its code-names ["Siegfried" and "Olga" may actually have been names of other sites].

Ohrdruf was reached by General Patton about 11 April 1945.

The Oberkommando der Wehrmacht [OKW, High Command] and Luftwaffe war diaries and all copies of them for the period March 1945 have disappeared and are suspected to be in American keeping.

On 17 April 1945, the United States Atomic Energy Commission inspected various underground workings at Ohrdruf, and removed technical equipment before dynamiting surface entrances.

The US authorities have classified all 1945 documents relating to Ohrdruf for a minimum period of 100 years.

Fortunately for researchers, in 1962 a quasi-judicial tribunal sat at Arnstadt in the then DDR, to take depositions from local residents for an enquiry entitled "Befragung von Bürgern zu Ereignissen zur örtlichen Geschichte". The enquiry was principally interested in what went on at the Ohrdruf Truppenübungsplatz [TÜP] in the latter years of the war. The depositions became common property in 1989 upon the reunification of Germany and may be viewed at Arnstadt town hall.

A witness stated that in 1944 there was an installation below the Ohrdruf Truppenübungsplatz which created an electro-magnetic field capable of stopping the engines of a conventional aircraft at seven miles.

During the war, the Allies never photographed Ohrdruf from the air, nor bombed it, even though their spies must have assured them it was crawling with SS and scientific groups.

The American military knew about the Nazi forced labor camps and concentration camps because Allied planes had done aerial photographs of numerous factories near the camps in both Germany and Poland, and many of these camps, including Buchenwald, had been bombed, killing thousands of innocent prisoners.

In fact, General George S. Patton bragged in his autobiography about the precision bombing of a munitions factory near the Buchenwald concentration camp on 24 August 1944 which he erroneously claimed had not damaged the nearby camp. Not only was the camp hit by the bombs, there were 400 prisoners who were killed, along with 350 Germans.

Why did all the US Army generals visit this small, obscure forced labor camp, and no other? Could it be because there was something else of great interest in the Ohrdruf area besides the Führer Bunker and the salt mine where Nazi treasures were stored?

There has been some speculation that the Germans might have tested an atomic bomb near Ohrdruf.

In his book entitled "The SS Brotherhood of the Bell," author James P. Farrell wrote about "the alleged German test of a small critical mass, high yield atom bomb at or near the Ohrdruf troop parade ground on 4 March 1945".

The "troop parade ground" was at the German Army Base right next to the Ohrdruf labor camp.

Why did General Eisenhower immediately order a Propaganda campaign about Nazi atrocities? Was it to distract the media from discovering a far more important story? The first news reel about the Nazi camps called Ohrdruf a "murder mill".

A German electro-magnetic field which interfered with their aircraft at altitudes of up to seven miles is admitted by a 1945 United States Air Force Intelligence document. The USAF suspected that it was a device to bring down their bombers, but it obviously had some other purpose, or it would have been operating in Berlin.

On 6 December 1944, the US Military Intelligence Service commenced Research Project 1217 "Investigation into German Possible Use of Rays to Neutralize Allied Aircraft Motors".

This resulted from "recent interference phenomena occasionally experienced on operations over Germany in the Frankfurt/Main area". It was usually described as "freakish interference to engines and electrical instruments" over the north bank of the Main River, about ten miles from Führer headquarters Adlerhorst.

In a top secret report entitled "Engine Interference Counter-Measures" addressed to the Director, Air Technical Service Command, Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio, reference was made to OSS discussions about a German unit somewhere near Frankfurt/Main operating:

"An influence interfering with conventional aircraft... however incredible it may appear to project from the ground to a height of 30,000 feet sufficient magnetic energy to interfere with the functioning of the ignition system of an airplane, it must be concluded that the enemy not only intends to interfere with our aircraft by some immaterial means, but has also succeeded in accomplishing this intention..."

Many Arnstadt witnesses described occasions when electrical equipment and automobile engines cut out. They always knew when this was about to happen, for the ship's Diesel engine at Amt 10 would smoke. A Diesel motor is not affected by an electro-magnetic field.

In 1980, Russians scientists were still able to measure the field on their equipment, but they were never able to identify the source.

 

After the war, the Austrian "Wiener Montag" reported in its 29 December 1947 edition that Eskimos reported to American authorities that an SS battle group of fully 150 men had been encountered. 

The number 150 is realistic for a battle group, but quite below the labor requirements for the construction of such large bases.

Besides these allegations of large bases and battle groups and exotic weaponry, there is a similar account circulated by the distinctly pro-Nazi novelist Wilhelm Landig in his 1971 novel "Götzen gegen Thule", a novel he billed as "full of realities" [voller Wirklichkeiten], of a large German base in the Canadian Arctic, near the magnetic North pole. 

This base, he alleges, was serviced by the German military using special long-range aircraft and, of course, flying saucers! 

As if that were not enough, Landig maintains that these aircraft were not equipped with normal machine guns or cannon for their defensive weaponry, but utilized a "Metallstrahl", essentially an electromagnetic "rail gun" used to propel tiny pellets with extreme velocity, a kind of hyper-velocity shotgun that would more than rip apart any Allied aircraft, and do so at great distances. 

The Electro Magnetic Railgun launcher is a long-range weapon that fires projectiles using electricity instead of chemical propellants. Magnetic fields created by high electrical currents accelerate a sliding metal conductor, or armature, between two rails to launch projectiles at 4,500 mph.

Argentina and the Escape of the German Reich

So much for the extraordinary answer to the question of "where" the flying saucer "base" may have been, to turn to the much more conventional, and certain location of post-war Nazi activity operating independent of U.S. or Soviet control: South America.  With its many German newspapers, German street names, and "Teutonic" influence over the past one hundred years, there are few if any skeptics alive today who continue arguing Nazis never made it there.

There are a number of news accounts from major "news outlets" confirming the "advance planning" of Martin Bormann facilitating the placement of Nazi industrialists into dozens of countries at the end of the War.  Beginning in 1944, Bormann ordered experts from the various key German corporations dispersed along with hundreds of millions in financing.  Bormann was no small lieutenant.  He was head of the party, the Reichsleiter [second in command to Hitler], who all but took over for the Führer days before Hitler’s alleged [and much debated] suicide in "the Bunker" on 30 April 1945.

The Argentinian dictator Juan Perón was strongly fascist in orientation and was cozy with the Nazis before being forced, under political pressure by the Americans only two months before the end of the war, to declare war on Germany [March, 1945].  Later Perón asserted the declaration of war was a lie with an ulterior motive.  Once identified as an official "Ally", Argentinian planes would be allowed into Europe and could serve as "useful purpose"; namely, flying Nazis out of Europe and to Argentina where they could continue the geopolitical fight for Fascism.

Joseph P. Farrell, in his book "Nazi International" cites Argentinian author Uki Goña who interviewed Perón extensively and provides lengthy quotations in his book about "The Real ODESSA"—the term used to describe the "Ratlines" that moved thousands of Nazis out of Germany and into various South American countries, most notably Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Paraguay, and Bolivia.  Argentina was the most frequent destination for the Nazis—since the government was so friendly toward fascists, it was a natural hideout.

This false declaration of war had a clear purpose: "We hadn’t lost contact with Germany, despite the break in diplomatic relations," Perón would say in 1967. 

Continuing with his assertion:

"Things being so we received an ususual [sic] request. Even though it may seem contradictory at first, Germany benefits from our declaration of war: if Argentina becomes a belligerent country, it has the right to enter Germany when the end arrives; this means that our planes and ships would be in a position to render a great service. At that point we had the commercial planes of the FAMA line [Argentine Merchant Air Fleet] and the ships we had bought from Italy during the war. That is how a great number of people were able to come to Argentina".

"Air Argentina" was not the only means by which the Nazis got to Buenos Aires. 

The accounts of daring U-Boat excursions abound; and indeed, constitute some of the most intriguing stories of escape at the end of the war.  However, the assistance of the Argentine Merchant Air Fleet is by far the most feasible method to transport the thousands of persons, documents, and perhaps, advanced technological "devices" to South America.

The stories of fantastic tunnels running beneath the towering peaks of Chile are equaled only by the tales of remote cities cut out of the jungles of Argentina, Bolivia, and Paraguay to conceal the secret weapons of the Reich. 
 

Apparently, if bank robbers Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid could hide out in South America, Nazi war criminals could too. 

The Escape of Martin Bormann

How Martin Bormann, the mastermind of the Nazi escape, made his way to South America from Hitler’s Bunker sometime after 21-30  April  1945 remains a highly contentious subject today—a controversy which began over 30 years ago with a book entitled "Aftermath: The Final Search for Martin Bormann", by Hungarian Ladislas Farago. 

Most authorities regard Farago an excellent author and historian.  Indeed, Farago’s book on General George Patton was much acclaimed and became the basis for the movie, "Patton" [1970].  His book, "The Broken Seal", was one of the background books for the movie, "Tora Tora Tora" [1970].  However, a few scholars dispute his storytelling when it comes to where Bormann wound up after the War. And yet, his version of the facts may have been doubted simply because "truth is sometimes stranger than fiction".

The actual escape of Bormann as told by Farrell [citing several sources] involved a German U-Boat carrying Uranium 235, a necessary isotope for the atomic bomb.  Ironically, it was carried on U-Boat 234. 

Bormann was well aware of this precious cargo and hitched a ride on the "protected" submarine to Spain, where he holed up for a year, before he moved on to Argentina.

To add insult to injury, according to Farago, when Bormann arrived in Argentina he was in full regalia—as a Catholic priest.  To stretch the facts practically to the point of incredulity, it is stated that he even performed sacred church rites when in Bolivia, after Argentina had become "too hot".  Just how absurd is this idea? 

A Belgian ex-Nazi asserts that the Nazi war criminal Martin Bormann, lived in Paraguay and in Bolivia after the war where he met him, in an interview published in the newspaper, "Derniere Heure".

Paul van Aerschodt, a collaborator sentenced to death in Belgium in 1946, lived under the name of Pablo Simons in San Sebastian, Spain, where he met a journalist, Gilbert Dupont. Paul van Aerschot claims to have met Martin Bormann "four times around 1960" in La Paz, Bolivia, where he had taken refuge in 1947 "thanks to a Visa obtained in a few days by a Claretian father, Mgr Antezana ".

His statements revive the controversy over the death of Adolf Hitler's Deputy, officially declared dead, and revive the controversy over the Church's support for the fugitive Nazi criminals.

"Bormann was also in  Paraguay, where he was preparing with a score of officers a coup to overthrow Peron in Argentina," Aerschodt said. 

"Bormann remained a fanatic [...] Under the name of Augustin von Lembach, he pretended to be a Redemptonist father and wore a black cassock, which made him laugh," he added.

"He celebrated communions, weddings, funerals and administered the last sacraments".

Van Aerschodt frequently visited Belgium, where his death sentence was invalidated in 1976 when Brussels abandoned the penalty.

As it turns out, using the priesthood as a cover was a frequent alias for the fugitive Germans.  Another Nazi war criminal found the priestly frock hospitable.  It was in Bolivia where Klaus Barbie was discovered living with a Croatian war criminal  who had murdered hundreds of thousands of Eastern Orthodox Serbs.  This murderer was also posing as a priest.

Klaus Barbie had escaped to Bolivia after the war aided by the Rat Lines established by the Vatican and by help from US intelligence services. In 1947, Barbie was recruited as an agent by the 66th Detachment of the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps [CIC]. In 1951, he escaped to Argentina by means of the Rat Line organized by U.S. Intelligence services and the Croatian Ustasha Roman Catholic priest Krunoslav Draganovic. Barbie arrived with his family in La Paz, Bolivia on 23 April 1951. A CIC memorandum described the successful outcome of the operation by noting that “the final disposal of an extremely sensitive individual has been handled".

In La Paz, he met with Father Rogue Romac, described as a Draganovic exile, a member of his network, as detailed in "Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press" by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair [New York: Verso, 1999]. Romac’s real name was Osvaldo Toth, a Croatian Roman Catholic priest who was himself wanted for war crimes. Toth assisted Barbie in operating saw mills in the rain forests near Santa Cruz and lumber yards in La Paz. He became a successful businessman and entrepreneur.

Therefore, we can be assured that Bormann posing as a Priest would not be the first time a wolf donned sheep’s clothing.

We know that Farago conducted many interviews as documented in his book on Bormann.  He also included Argentinian intelligence documents in his account.  Despite this, a British "historian" Stephen Dorril, in his book, "MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service" [2000] called Farago "the most successful disinformer or dupe" concerning the presence of Nazis in South America. To him it seemed the notion thousands of Germans riddled with the reprehensible Nazi political philosophy had migrated to South America was just too incredible to accept.

Throw in the accusations against the Catholic Church for playing a pivotal role in the escape and many academics contend we have descended into the realm of insanity. Then again we should remember that with Dorril we have yet another Intelligence agent writing "history".  Was he telling the truth or just contributing more disinformation to the already heaping pile of incongruous truths?

Red Cross and Vatican helped thousands of Nazis to escape
Research shows how travel documents ended up in hands of the likes of Adolf Eichmann, Josef Mengele and Klaus Barbie in the postwar chaos
The Guardian
25 May 2011    
 
The Red Cross and the Vatican both helped thousands of Nazi war criminals and collaborators to escape after the Second World War, according to a book that pulls together evidence from unpublished documents.

The Red Cross has previously acknowledged that its efforts to help refugees were used by Nazis because administrators were overwhelmed, but the research suggests the numbers were much higher than thought.

Gerald Steinacher, a research fellow at Harvard University, was given access to thousands of internal documents in the archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross [ICRC]. The documents include Red Cross travel documents issued mistakenly to Nazis in the postwar chaos.
 
They throw light on how and why mass murderers such as Adolf Eichmann, Josef Mengele and Klaus Barbie and thousands of others evaded capture by the allies.

By comparing lists of wanted war criminals to travel documents, Steinacher says Britain and Canada alone inadvertently took in around 8,000 former Waffen-SS members in 1947, many on the basis of valid documents issued mistakenly.

The documents –which are discussed in Steinacher's book "Nazis on the Run: How Hitler's henchmen fled justice"- offer a significant insight into Vatican thinking, particularly, because its own archives beyond 1939 are still closed.

The Vatican has consistently refused to comment.

Steinacher believes the Vatican's help was based on a hoped-for revival of European Christianity and dread of the Soviet Union. But through the Vatican Refugee Commission, war criminals were knowingly provided with false identities.

The Red Cross, overwhelmed by millions of refugees, relied substantially on Vatican references and the often cursory Allied military checks in issuing travel papers, known as 10.100s.

It believed it was primarily helping innocent refugees although correspondence between Red Cross delegations in Genoa, Rome and Geneva shows it was aware Nazis were getting through.

"Although the ICRC has publicly apologised, its action went well beyond helping a few people," said Steinacher.

Steinacher says the documents indicate that the Red Cross, mostly in Rome or Genoa, issued at least 120,000 of the 10.100s, and that 90% of ex-Nazis fled via Italy, mostly to Spain, and North and South America – notably Argentina.

Former SS members often mixed with genuine refugees and presented themselves as stateless ethnic Germans to gain transit papers. Jews trying to get to Palestine via Italy were sometimes smuggled over the border with escaping Nazis.

Steinacher says that individual Red Cross delegations issued war criminals with 10.100s "out of sympathy for individuals … political attitude, or simply because they were overburdened". Stolen documents were also used to whisk Nazis to safety. He said: "They were really in a dilemma. It was difficult. It wanted to get rid of the job. Nobody wanted to do it".

The Red Cross refused to comment directly on Steinacher's findings but the organisation says on its website:

"The ICRC has previously deplored the fact that Eichmann and other Nazi criminals misused its travel documents to cover their tracks".

Regardless, as time goes by, the evidence mounts that Bormann was a distinct presence in Argentina and later on, in Bolivia.  Joseph Farrell even provides a bank statement facsimile for the joint bank account held by Bormann and Perón cleared by David Rockefeller’s Chase Manhattan Bank.

Another colorful and noted historian [majoring in the occult] is Peter Levenda who offers this summation of the Catholic connection and Ladislas’ account in his book, "Unholy Alliance: A History of Nazi Involvement with the Occult":

"What does seem fantastic, however, is the assistance given to many of these men by what was always believed to be their sworn enemy: the Roman Catholic Church. While Ladislas Farago—mentioned in the Introduction to this [Levenda’s] book—must be credited with bringing this story to worldwide attention, it is useful to know that, since then, it has been corroborated many times over by other authors.

"Why would the Catholic Church help the very men who had vowed to eradicate it, who had participated in pagan rituals designed to replace those of Christianity, who worshipped Baldur and Thor and Freya in candlelit ceremonies in the forests and castles of Bavaria, Thuringia, Westphalia, and the other German Länder? Men who had caught and imprisoned thousands of Catholic and Protestant clergymen, sent them to the camps, and executed them in cold blood?"
 

Wewelsburg is a Renaissance castle located near the town of Büren, in the Landkreis of Paderborn in the northeast of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
The castle has a triangular layout - three round towers connected by massive walls.
After 1934, it was used by the SS under Heinrich Himmler and was to be expanded into a complex acting as the central SS cult-site.
Work concentrated on conducting pseudo-scientific research in the fields of Germanic early and medieval history,  history, folklore and genealogy {Sippenforschung]

 

Levenda supposes that the quid pro quo was the expected future alliance between the two [Fascism and Catholicism] to fight "godless communism".  Others, like evangelical author Dave Hunt, argued a more intriguing case. Hunt contends [arguing from both historical and biblical rationales] the Catholic Church and Fascism shared the view humankind should not be permitted the liberal system of self-government known as democracy—for this system inevitably leads to chaos.  To Hunt, the Catholic Church is "Mystery Babylon"—the whore of Babylon, who is drunk with the blood of the Saints.

-- See Dave Hunt’s "A Woman Rides the Beast", for the historical and biblical arguments associated with this viewpoint

To the Roman Catholic mind, says Hunt, Fascism was merely an evil means to a necessary end.  It was a convenient albeit evil way to return political government back to Theocracy where it originated and place authoritarian rule back in the hands of the Church.  Just as the priesthood of Catholicism had devised an uneasy governing alliance with authoritarian monarchists for over a thousand years, it seemed that teaming with another authoritarian form of government—Fascism in this case—might be the mandated toll reseating the Roman Church back in the political driver’s seat.

Levenda hints the same motive was in play when discussing Hitler’s courtship of the German Church:

"Hitler very carefully sought to cultivate Christian [and especially Catholic] support for the Party as they remained a substantial voting bloc within the country. Indeed, the Catholic Center Party played a pivotal role in Reichstag, elections that catapulted Hitler to power. And just as he wooed the financial support of leading industrialists in contradiction to his personalbeliefs concerning the evils of that 'Jewish invention,' Capitalism, he also courted the powerful Catholic and other Christian lobbies in the country. He knew he could not afford to alienate them entirely from his program, at least not until after he had won the war, for this reason he occasionally found it valuable to attack occultism and völkisch paganism in his speeches, even while encouraging it among his entourage and condoning its manifestation in the SS".

Perhaps we will never really know why the Vatican felt it was in their best interests to provide an escape path for the Nazis.  But one thing is certain:  the power quest makes for some strange bedfellows.

"Both the USA and the Vatican... wished to help the flight of war criminals from Europe, each with its own objectives. Whereas the USA wanted to rescue them to carry out political operations against Soviet Russia and the oncoming Cold War, the Vatican, while thinking upon the same lines, had been motivated by an additional objective. Namely to help former political and religious supporters whom it had blessed during, the reign of terror under the Nazi imperium. The basic motivation of such strange Vatican-USA fellowship... [was] derived by the necessity... to recruit, as energetically and as quickly as possible, trustworthy anti-Russian, anti-communist battalions ready to fight against Bolshevik Russia. And where could Vatican and the State Department find such ready, dedicated, anti-communist recruits, if not in the rank and file of... the fleeing war criminals now seeking asylum in the Americas and the USA? The fugitives... were now ready to... help the USA fight Soviet Russia, her former ally.

"The recruitment of proven anti-communist individuals, from the fleeing war criminals, therefore became part and parcel of the USA-Vatican grand postwar strategy.

"While Vatican City and its many extraterritorial buildings in Rome turned into the protective semi-official refuge for hundreds of war criminals, the USA State Department became busy integrating many of them within its multi-varied branched subterranean machinery, operating outside official officialdom".

-- Baron Avro Manhattan, "The Vatican's Holocaust"

---

 

It has always been maintained that Hitler died in the Berlin Reichs Chancellery Bunker on 30 April 1945. However an American War Correspondent, James P O’Donnell, made the effort to interview all the available Bunker survivors in 1969. Having pieced together their stories he declared not one single eyewitness account of Hitler’s last days agreed with any other. It was as if a group of people had been told what to say and all got their story wrong. 

Secretly taped recorded conversations of Major General Walther Dornberger during his captivity by the British in early August 1945, was used in evidence at Nuremberg to try Dornberger for war crimes. Dornberger disclosed his own role in secret surrender talks at Lisbon in 1944 with two American representatives of General Electric.

The United States seems to have been promised exclusive custody of Germany’s wartime patents, surrender of Germany’s senior scientists and engineers in return for the discreet survival of key people. 

There are suggestions that as late as 21 March 1945 Hitler was fully briefed on the secret Operation Sunrise surrender talks in Italy with SS Lt General Karl Wolff. Hitler approved of these talks.

Officially Operation Sunrise was said to have taken place without Hitler’s knowledge.

Hans Kammler was also reported by Albert Speer to be trying to work out his own deal to sell secrets to the Allies to save himself.

The secretly recorded discussions by nuclear scientists at Farm Hall after the war, in particular Dr Paul Harteck, reported that the US threatened Hitler in July 1944 with a nuclear attack on Dresden within six weeks unless Hitler abandoned Germany’s nuclear weapons project and commenced peace talks.

It is known from the table talks with Romania’s Marshal Antonescu on 5 August 1944, that Antonescu was briefed about Germany’s development of a powerful Uranium bomb.

 

Hitler knew Antonescu permitted a political opposition and this opposition was in regular contact with London. Secret peace feelers were exchanged via Antonescu by radio with London in August 1944.

Antonsecu was captured tried and hung by the Soviets in September 1944, so whatever he knew, the Soviets also knew which may explain the dropping of the Iron Curtain immediately after the war finished.

How did Hitler escape?

One suggestion made was in the mysterious submarine, U-534 which departed Kiel in May 1945 bound for Argentina. It transpires after the raising of U-534 from the seabed that it was actually bound for Japan via a secret refueling base in the Lena Delta in Siberia.

U-534 was a German type IXC/40 long-range ocean going U-Boat commanded by Kapitänleutnant Herbert Nollau.  She was mainly used as a weapons testing platform, and until the late summer of 1944 was also used as a weather ship in the North Atlantic, and during her service she sank no other ships. On 28 October 1944, she arrived in Kiel where she was transferred to the 33rd U-Boat Flotilla and underwent an extensive refit in Stettin, which put her out of duty until 1 May 1945.

On 3 May 1945 approaching Allied Forces made it necessary to flee her homeland, and she slid silently out of the submarine pens and made her way towards Kristiansand in Norway. She was the last U-Boat to leave Germany. Apparently she had been specially provisioned and armed in the bombproof pens at Kiel weeks before. 

She headed northwards when in the early hours of 5 May, a partial surrender was ordered by Admiral Dönitz of German forces in Denmark, Germany and other areas went into effect. The U-534 was informed by the harbour master at Oresund Elsinore in Denmark,  that the ceasefire was in effect south of the 56th parallel. Captain Nollau refused to surrender and decided to defend the boat and its cargo.

Allied ships headed to Norway where, the British feared, the Germans would regroup and continue to fight. That is why in early May 1945 they began a large-scale campaign against submarines.

On 5 May 1945, the U-534 was 2 nautical miles [3.7 km] north of the 56th parallel, and Nollau decided to form a convoy with two Type XXI U-Boats, the U-3523 and U-3503, and continue sailing north on the surface of the Kattegat sea in an area too shallow for crash diving, when two British RAF Liberator aircraft attacked [G/86 George from Tain and E/547 Edward from Leuchars]. The crew managed to shoot one bomber down, with boat's anti-aircraft gun, and nine depth charges from the bombing runs missed, but then the boat received a direct hit by a depth charge from G/86. The U-534 began to take on water as a result of the damage to her aft section by the engine rooms, and sank 20 kilometres northeast of the Danish island of Anholt. The shot-down Liberator crashed 3 nautical miles [5.6 km] away, and all on board the plane were lost, shot down after the ceasefire.

The two type XXIs were quicker boats and they successfully crept away to Norway where later they too were captured.

U-534 had a crew of 52 men, all of whom escaped and 49 survived.  Five were trapped in the torpedo room as she began to sink, but they managed to escape through the torpedo loading hatch once the boat had settled on the sea bed. They planned their escape the way that they had been trained, exiting through the forward torpedo hatch once the U-534 had settled on the seabed and swimming to the surface from a depth of 67 metres [220 ft]. One of these crewmen was a 17-year old Argentine wireless operator, Josef Neudorfer, fueling suspicions that U-534 was bound for South America on a secret mission. The other two deaths were caused by exposure.

U-534 had a range of over eleven hundred miles, so could have easily reached South America. Was she going to carry a leading Nazi to South America via Norway? Or was she carrying treasure looted from the occupied countries to help those Nazi who had already escaped to South America by other routes?

The only person who definitely knew was Captain Herbert Nollau, who was the only one aboard who had that information, and when he committed suicide in 1968, he took this the secret to his grave. It is possible that throughout the whole period from the end of the war he was harassed with Secret Services wanting to discover the real aim of his expedition.

As the years rolled on, rumours became more persistent and the accounts of the treasures supposed to be on board ever more extravagant. More than forty years after she sank a Danish diver, called Aage Jensen found U 534 and once again the rumours started to fly.  The sub was found in 1986 and,  raised in August 1993 . Despite rumors of treasure, stolen art, and important Nazi documents, nothing of the kind was found. In 1992 a Danish publisher, Karsten Ree became interested in the submarine and decided to mount a salvage operation, using private funding, to find out once and for all what the "Mystery of the U 534" was all about. In 1993 the U-534 was lifted to the surface with the close co-operation of the Dutch Navy. The wreck remained in surprisingly good condition. Contrary to expectations, apart from personal belongings of crew members, nearly one hundred bottles of wine and a box of condoms, no gold or other valuables was found. 

Five tons of explosives, however,  were found, and the U-534 had three of the acoustic "Zaunkönig" torpedoes aboard. Their most important feature was insensitivity to "Foxer" acoustic decoys. They were devices towed behind Allied ships. Old type torpedoes would get a fix on the decoys instead of the ship, which would often save the U-Boat's target. Only 32 of these T-11 Zaukönig torpedoes were ever made, and three of these high-tech weapons, were aboard U-534. 

The reason for the fierce resistance, risking one's own life and the lives of the crew members, especially on 5 May 1945, gives rise to two hypotheses. The first is the question whether Captain Nollau was so ardent a Nazi that he did not accept the possibility of surrender. Rather, it must be assumed that he was a reasonable man, after all, not everyone becomes a Captain of the Kriegsmarine. The load of T-11 torpedoes and the desperate attempt to defend it do not characterize a man who knows he lost the war. They rather show that he was convinced that the end of the war had not yet come and the weapons he carried would still be needed.

The second hypothesis is the desire to sell the torpedoes and setting up in Argentina for the rest of his life. If so, however, would he risk the lives of the whole crew? There are many doubts as to what motivated the Captain to fight. Perhaps it was a sense of duty; he was given orders that had to be carried out although the war was lost. Perhaps, however, the destination was not Argentina, but Japan.

There is little doubt that this boat was headed for Japan.  Many U-Boats were headed for Japan in the closing months of the war, loaded with Germany's high-tech weaponry technology so the Japanese could continue the fight and hopefully bring the Axis back to a point where a negotiated peace could be reached and all would not be lost. U-Boats carried crated Me 163 'Komet' and Me 262 jet fighters with the technological data for Japan to build them as well as other jet and rocket technology plus weaponry of all types.  Several U-Boats were loaded with uranium for Japan's nuclear war machine.  Japan test fired her first nuclear device a week before the Americans, but they ran out of fissionable material and the German U-Boats were supposed to bring it to them.

The supposed condoms really were not condoms at all, but balloons, filled with hydrogen to lift aluminum strips aloft - known as "Afrodita" [Aphrodite] to foil radar.  The hydrogen bottles were still aboard along with many of these "condoms" but the aluminum had long since been dissolved by the sea.

The U-534 also carried the rare Twin 3.7 cm Flakzwilling M43U on the DLM42 mount. This was one of the best AA weapons of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine. The DLM42 mount was used mainly on the Type IX as it was heavy for the Type VII U-Boats, and just above the propeller shaft on the starboard side was the exit chute of a "Pillenwerfer". It could deploy an anti-sonar decoy called "Bold", named after "Kobold", a goblin in German folklore. This made a false target for the enemy's sonar by creating a screen of bubbles from the chemical reaction of calcium hydride with sea water.

Why did U-534 carry three of the highest-tech torpedoes developed by any side in World War II?  Why did they have the Afrodita aboard, which normally was only used in the open and mostly unpatrolled stretches of the Indian and Pacific Oceans? 

The conclusion must be that U-534 was bound for the Far East. 

Was U-534 one of these boats, and was she Japan bound?

Many artifacts were recovered from the U-354 by Aage Jensen, such as weapons, equipment, bottles, name plates, stamps, breathing masks, clocks, binoculars, tools, etc. Among the recovered documents was also a large number of cipher text Enigma messages. 

As the contents of these messages was hitherto unknown German researcher Michael Hörenberg set out in 2012 to break the messages again by using distributed computing power.

Starting in July 2012 by combining 112 Intel CPU cores, using a modified software "Turing Bombe" and brute force attacks, he achieved his first break on 31 July 2012, based on a ciphertext-only attack. By 20 October, 46 of the 50 messages had already been broken again.

One message, sent on 1 May 1945 at 06:55, is of particular historical importance, as it was sent by Admiral Dönitz, to announce his appointment as Hitler's successor.

Hitler was already dead at this point, having committed suicide a day earlier, on 30 April at about 15:30 and Dönitz was officially informed about this by Reichsleiter Bormann the same day at 18:35.

The message was sent before Hitler's death was officially announced on 1 May 1945 at 22:30

---

KRIEGSNOTMELDUNG [An] Alle:

Folgendes ist sofort bekanntzugeben:
Ich habe folgende Befehl erhalten: Anstelle des bisherigen Reichsmarschalls Göring setzt der Führer Sie, Herr Großadmiral, als seinen Nachfolger ein.
Schriftlische Vollmacht unterwegs.
Ab sofort sollen Sie sämtliche Maßnahmen verfügen, die sich aus die gegenwärtigen Lage ergeben.
Gez. Reichsleiter [Tulpe] "Bormann"

[Von] Oberbefehlshaber der Marine, durch Funkstelle des Kommandierende Admiral der Unterseeboote 

Translation:

WAR EMERGENCY MESSAGE [To] All:
   
The following is to be announced immediately:
I have received the following order: In place of former Reichsmarschall Göring, the Führer has appointed you, Herr Grossadmiral, as his successor.
Written authorization [is] on the way.
Effective immediately, you are to order all measures that are required by the present situation.
Signed, Reichsleiter (Tulpe) 'Bormann':
   
[From] Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, [sent] by way of the Radio Station of the Commanding Admiral of Submarines 

---

U-534 also carried not one, but two Enigma machines wired together and with a lot of spare rotor wheels, to make a super code scrambler.  The radio operator of the U-534 would have been a good source to get more information from since he was the one who had used the double Enigma' but when the boat went down, but he had died before reaching the surface.

A truck with a very powerful radio transmitter/receiver had been parked atop the Obersalzberg near where Hitler and many of the Party officials had homes and near the "Southern Redoubt" where Germany anticipated holding off the advancing Allies.  This truck was code named "Krokodil," and only it and one other truck like it were to maintain radio contact with certain U-Boats breaking out in the final days of the war. 

 Was U-534 one of them?

 

As late as 29 April 1945 quite large Ju-352 aircraft from TG.4 were operating in and out of a runway on the east-west axis in Berlin’s Tiergarten, along with lesser types like the Ju-52 and at least two Ju-290 aircraft.

The airstrip was created for the purpose of ferrying in naval reservists from Baltic coast garrisons and French SS Divisions to defend Berlin. The East West Axis through Berlin's Tiergarten was used by at least two Ju-52 of Luftwaffe Gen Hans Bauer's FdF [Hitler's personal Squadron], plus up to six Ju-352 aircraft, all aircraft of KG.zbV2 [“Großraumtransportstaffel” II/TG4], Lufttransport Gruppe 4 [aka Squadron Mauß], also by Ju-290 [KG200] piloted by Lt Herbert Wagner and by two FW-200 belonging to FdF. In addition a Ju-352 operated by FdF, piloted by Olt Schultz, is known to have made repeated flights to the East West Axis ferrying in the naval reserve unit 1.FuMLAbt. Four Arado 232 aircraft also made flights into Berlin. One Arado 232B aircraft ended up on display at Farborough airshow after the war. This aircraft is known to have been in service with KG200.
 
One Ju52 flown into Berlin was flown by Oberfeldwebel Böhm from II./TGr 3 and another Ju52 by Uffz. Johannes Lachmund who described events in his 2009 memoir: "Fliegen ; Mein Traumberuf – bis zu den bitteren Erlebnissen des Krieges", pub by Verlagshaus Monsenstein und Vannerdat OHG Münster, 2009

It is also known that on the night of 27 April 1945 a Ju-290-A7 with at least fifty people including high ranking Nazis and their families flew from Prague to Barcelona. This particular aircraft Stammkennzeichnen PI+PS dubbed as "Alles Kaput," is thought to have returned to Prague because some days later the pilot surrendered it intact to US forces near Munich.

It is not to be confused with a Ju 290 flown by I/KG200 from Finsterwalde to Barcelona [Spain] 23 April, 1945, nor to be confused with a Ju-290 A5 aircraft Werk number J900178 [civil register D-AITR] which suffered a damaged tail wheel in a landing accident at Barcelona’s El Prat airport on the foggy night of 5/6 April 1945, and was later adopted into Spanish service. This aircraft made three attempts to land at Barcelona in foggy conditions. Ground personnel laid out flares to guide the landing attempts and on the 3rd attempt the aircraft did land but overshot the runway crossing two ditches coming to rest in a rice field. The pilot was Flugkapitän Paul Sluzalek. The cargo was hastily unloaded and the Spanish government has never disclosed what it was. This crash led to diplomatic protests by Allied Governments.

General Franco's personal driver Stefan Aceituna claimed that Hitler was flown from Berlin on the night of 27 April leaving behind a double who was seen in the Bunker. Aceituna said that he collected Hitler off a large multi-engine German plane which arrived at the airport in Madrid on 30 April 1945.

Aceituna said from Barcelona, Hitler arrived at Madrid under the alias Adis Lupi on 30 April with a large German entourage who took over an entire wing of Franco's Presidential Palace. officially within the Palace he was known as Franco’s personal gardner. Aceituna insists that Hitler died of a massive coronary in the early morning of 2 November 1947. Before his death this man was being medicated with a particular medication identical to Hitler’s prescriptions in Berlin during the war. His death by heart attack was hardly surprising for a man so wracked by anxiety and fallen from grace.

SS Gen Hermann Fegelein also disappeared from Berlin the night of 27 April. Fegelein claimed to his mistress Mdm Rizzler on the eve of his disappearance that Hitler had a body double installed in the Bunker.

It would appear therefore that Hitler was flown from Berlin to Prague on the night of 27 April and from there he flew to Barcelona, then Madrid. Hitler’s fake obituary was read out by radio Hamburg; it seems only after a coded message was sent to Dönitz from Madrid to acknowledge Hitler’s safe arrival.

Some of the escape myths about Argentina seem to have been perpetuated by Ladislas Farago for the CIA to throw investigators off the trail