shocking newly declassified FBI files make a startling discovery, which suggest Hitler may not have died in his bunker at the end of the Second World War after all. Instead, he could actually have been spirited out of Berlin under the noses of the invading Soviets.

Then, having travelled on a U-boat from Spain, he may have spent the rest of his life plotting the rise of the Fourth Reich at a secret compound in the Argentine jungle.

On April 21, 1945 eight planes were apparently loaded with the Führer’s personal effects – this has been proven

Now, they have found a false wall in a Berlin subway station which could have facilitated the Führer’s escape 70 years ago.

Last year, the FBI declassified 700 confidential documents. These indicate that perhaps the greatest war criminal in history may not have committed suicide in the “Führerbunker” but instead fled to South America as Nazi Germany collapsed.

A secret memo from FBI director J Edgar Hoover declared that: “American Army officials in Germany have not located Hitler’s body, nor is there any reliable source that will say definitely that Hitler is dead.”

In the aftermath of the war, many experts wondered if the Führer had faked his death and the US Army even mounted a clandestine operation to search for him in Spain.

Armed with cutting-edge technology and these newly released FBI files, a team of renowned investigators approached this like a cold case.

In Berlin last week, the Express met the investigators, including Bob Baer, an ex-CIA veteran, the model for George Clooney’s character in the 2005 film Syriana and one of America’s most elite intelligence officers; Tim Kennedy, a top US special forces operative who was part of the unit tracking Osama Bin Laden after 9/11, and Sascha Keil, a German historian from the Berlin Underworlds Association.

hitlers escape

It is true there was a mass Nazi exodus from Tempelhof Airport on April 21, 1945, the day after the last recorded public sighting of Hitler.

An expert team on Hunting Hitler initially worked out that the Nazi leader could have made it from his bunker to the airport almost entirely underground, except for the final 200 yards.

Rumours have long circulated of a hitherto unknown tunnel connecting this final 200 yards from a nearby subway station (once known as U6 and now called Luftbrücke) to the airport. And now, using a state-of-the-art sonar device regularly employed by the US military in their manhunts, the team investigating the mystery of Hitler’s possible evasion have unearthed that tunnel.

This provides the “missing link” from what was the U6 subway station to Tempelhof and could have allowed the Führer to escape without being captured above ground by the marauding Soviets.