JFK Believed Hitler May Have Been Alive

Late President John F. Kennedy seemed to have believed that Adolf Hitler, the notorious Nazi leader whose rhetoric and desire to see the Jewish populace, among others, completely eliminated, could have still been alive in the aftermath of his apparent suicide, according to Kennedy's diary.

The diary was written around 1945 while a 28-year-old Kennedy was touring Europe as a war correspondent for Hearst Magazines. During his time in Germany, Kennedy visited Hitler's bunker, where he apparently took his life as the Russians closed in, and his "Eagle's Nest" - the mountaintop retreat which was presented to him on his 50th birthday but which he only visited 14 times. After visiting both places, Kennedy concluded that there was a possibility at the time that Hitler may have yet been alive.

“[Hitler] had boundless ambition for his country which rendered him a menace to the peace of the world, but he had a mystery about him in the way he lived and in the manner of his death that will live and grow after him,” he noted in the 61-page diary.

He wrote that the Russians believed that Hitler may have still been alive, as there was no concrete evidence that the body found in the bunker was, indeed, Hitler's.

The diary is currently up for auction through RR Auction, and it's believed that the document could receive some $200,000 USD. It's suspected that this was the only diary that Kennedy kept during his life. He gave it to research assistant Deirdre Henderson in the late 1950s, and now, in honor of the 100th anniversary of his birth, the diary is being auctioned off.

Concerns that perhaps #Kennedy might be expressing some admiration for the German dictator in his writing were quickly put to rest by Bobby Livingston, executive vice president of RR Auction.

“There’s no glorification, and I wouldn’t take this out of context,” he said. “I think Kennedy was a historian, and he’s writing his understanding of Hitler’s place in history.”

Kennedy also suggested in the diary that if Hitler had faked his own death, he would simply wait a few years for the hatred surrounding the mere mention of his name to settle down before re-emerging.

”You can easily understand how that within a few years Hitler will emerge from the hatred that surrounds him now as one of the most significant figures who ever lived," he said, acknowledging the place in history that Hitler now occupied.

The famed former president, who was assassinated in 1963 in Dallas, TX, had just finished serving in the United States Navy when he began work as a war correspondent for Hearst Magazines. While Kennedy did put forth some conspiracy theories about whether or not Hitler was truly dead, he seemed to have an understanding of the unique, horrific historical significance that the late German leader had.

In addition to the revelations from the Kennedy diary from World War II, old personal photos from Eva Braun's photo album were also up for auction. Braun was Hitler's lover, and her photos are being auctioned off through C&T Auctioneers. The album was ultimately sold for $41,000 to an unnamed buyer; while artifacts of such a personal nature would be rare to find of the late German leader, they still hold a great deal of fascination and notoriety. It comes as no surprise that anyone buying such artifacts at auction would be remaining anonymous as a result of the negative associations that could come with possessing anything even remotely associated with Adolf Hitler or the Nazi Party.

Kennedy's World War II diary is set to be auctioned at RR Auction in Boston on April 26 of this year.