GETTY/CIA The document dump included a photo of a man alleged to be Hitler

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The files show a former SS officer told spies he had regularly met with the Nazi leader in Colombia as late as 1955, ten years after the end of the war. The document dump shows a Mr Phillip Citroen approached agents to say he had met a man who claimed to be Hitler living in Tunja, just north of Bogota. The document said: “Citroen claimed to have met this individual at a place called 'Residencies Coloniales' which is, according to the source, overly populated with former German Nazis.” And the report, filed by the CIA's bureau in Venezuela included a picture of the informant, Phillip Citroen with a man he claims is Hitler. The photo was taken in 1955.

One year later, another man, identified only by his code name of Cimelody-3, approached agents with the same story he said Mr Citroen had told his friend. According to Cimelody, Hitler left Colombia for Argentina in 1955, but he did not say where exactly. He too gave agents a photo of the man he claimed to be the Nazi chief. The name on the back of the photo was “ Adolf Schuttlemayer”. An extract reads: "CIMELODY-3's [CIA informant] friend states that during the latter part of September 1955, a Phillip Citroen, former German SS trooper, stated to him confidentially that Adolph Hitler (sic) is still alive.

CIA The document was brought to the public's attention after it was tweeted by a Colombian journalist

CIA The CIA investigated claims Hitler was alive

"Citroen claimed to have contacted Hitler about once a month in Colombia on his trip from Maracaibo to that country as an employee of the KNSM (Royal Dutch) shipping Co." Agents compiled the information in a memo and sent it to their superiors “as of possible interest”. The documents emerged after Colombian journalist Jose Cardenas tweeted a file that was declassified in the Nineties from the CIA archive. Hitler shot himself in his Berlin bunker in April 1945. His wife Eva Braun committed suicide with him by taking cyanide. Germany surrendered to Allied forces a week later.