So many people noticed this story, and sent it along - including colleague Richard Hoagland - that I have to resort to some high octane speculation today. As you may or may not have heard, a large cache of "Nazi memorabilia", if we may call it that, was recently discovered in Argentina and put on display:

Behind a bookcase, a secret passageway leads to a trove of Nazi artifacts in Argentina

(See also this article in the National Post, copy and paste into your browser: http://nationalpost.com/news/world/behind-a-bookcase-in-argentina-nazi-artifacts-including-toys-to-inculcate-children/wcm/0e8c64b3-4345-4be0-9a36-40ae9f930b83)

There is a paragraph in the second article that made me chuckle:

Police say one of the most-compelling pieces of evidence of the historical importance of the find is a photo negative of Hitler holding a magnifying glass similar to those found in the boxes. “We have turned to historians and they’ve told us it is the original magnifying glass” that Hitler was using, said Nestor Roncaglia, head of Argentina’s federal police. “We are reaching out to international experts to deepen” the investigation. ... The main hypothesis among investigators and member of Argentina’s Jewish community is that they were brought to Argentina by a high-ranking Nazi or Nazis after World War II, when the South American country became a refuge for fleeing war criminals, including some of the best known.

Now, note the last sentence above is widely separated from the first two in the article, but nonetheless, the implication is clear: (1) high-ranking Nazi's escaped at the end of World War II, (2) many made their way to Argentina.

Really!?!?!? Say it isn't so!!!

Now, as someone who has spent years investigating this story of postwar Nazi survival in some detail, I always have to laugh when stories like this capture the attention of the corporate controlled lamestream media, who always manage to make the story about "isolated fugitives" of relatively low rank, like Eichmann or Barbie or Mengele. Occasionally, as in this article, they show us pictures of the house, or the "Nazi stuff" in it, and we're supposed to be appropriately awed and "creeped out" that anything like this would survive anywhere, much less be collected by anyone. And that's the way we're supposed to react to this story...

...we're not supposed to read between the lines...

...which, of course, I did and am about to do again. Notice two things here: (1) the timing of this find, and (2) the implications of what was found, for if one reads the above three quoted statements carefully and in conjunction with each other, what they are saying is (a) we found a magnifying glass, (b) it looks like a magnifying glass in a picture of Hitler holding a magnifying glass and looking at something, (c) this could therefore be Hitler's magnifying glass, and we're checking into the possibility with "experts".

Implication: "Gee, this may be Hitler's magnifying glass... (insert nervous chuckle here)... Gee, I wonder what it's doing here in Argentina and how it got here (insert another nervous laugh)."

Most readers of my books are aware that, like many people, I initially "bought" the story that Hitler died in the bunker under the Reich Chancellery in Berlin in 1945, the victim of suicide. And why shouldn't we believe the story? After all, all the people reporting the story were Nazis, and we know what paragons of virtue and truth they were, right? It was precisely that "little" problem that has caused many researchers to examine the suicide-in-the-bunker story, and while we may be disagreed on the details of his escape, there is mounting evidence that he did make it out of Berlin and spent some time in South America...

...perhaps with "artefacts" such as these, for the hint of the article, at least with respect of the magnifying glass, is that it was Adolf Hitler's magnifying glass, and that implies that some of the rest of the trove might also be his personal possessions.

Which brings us to the question of timing. A number of people who shared various versions of this story with me, including Mr. Hoagland, wondered about the timing of the find: why now? I have no easy answer to that, but it is intriguing that this would be "discovered" and released now amid a climate of growing tensions in Europe over Merkel's austerity and immigration policies, amid growing tensions between Washington and Berlin over Russia and over Europe's very evident desire to move to closer relationships not only with Russia but with China.

Here it may be a case of "you tell me," for why, now, would anyone want to draw attention, via this not-too-subtle means, to the potential survival of Hitler after the war, and to "treasure troves" of Nazi memorabilia hidden in a secret passageway behind a bookcase in Buenos Aires?

See you on the flip side...