Tokyo denied any involvement in a reported plan by Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler to escape to Japan, declassified Foreign Ministry documents showed Thursday.

On Oct. 19, 1945, more than two months after Japan’s surrender and half a year after Hitler’s reported suicide in his Berlin bunker, a U.S. newspaper, citing Japanese sources, reported that the dictator had planned to escape to Japan, according to one of the documents dated Oct. 21 that year and compiled by the now-defunct Central Liaison Office, the intermediary between Tokyo and the Allied Occupation powers.

In response, the liaison office denied Japan’s involvement in any plan to rescue Hitler and his mistress, and later wife, Eva Braun, saying Japan did not send a submarine to Germany to rescue the couple, the documents showed.

Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide in April 1945 shortly before Germany’s surrender in World War II.

KEYWORDS Hitler, escape