Paperback: The Unlikely Death of Heinrich Himmler

The author is a surgeon and forensic expert who previously alleged, fairly persuasively, that the "Hess" who died in Spandau was a doppelganger. Here, Thomas suggests that the suicide of Himmler in 1945 was equally fishy, but his evidence is much more flimsy, amounting to little more than disappearing duelling scars and dubious dental records. He gives a chilling portrait of the desiccated bureaucrat and his plans for a Fourth Reich outside Germany, but admits that "his true fate will never be known." Thomas points to Kim Philby's belief that Himmler did not die, but the king of double agents is scarcely an infallible source.