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4 FOREIGN LANGUAGE NEWS 030 CANARY ISLANDS Hiker couple rescued TEIDE NEAR TRAGEDY Did the Nazis flee to Tenerife? HOLA HERR HITLER! Once again, a hiking trip to the El Teide National Park almost ended in tragedy. On the second Sunday in Janu- ary an elderly Belgian couple became lost whilst walking in the park. Night fell and tem- peratures dropped but the two were unable to find their way to safety. Luckily, by 2am the two 70-year-olds had been located, and an hour later were joined by members of the Guardia Civil Mountain Rescue Serv- ice, GREIM. The two seniors were completely exhausted and suffering from hypothermia as they were wearing unsuitable clothes for the overnight near- freezing temperatures and high winds. Due to their weakened state the couple had to be evacu- ated out of the park by hel- icopter, at 7am. They were taken to the University Hos- pital in Santa Cruz and, luck- ily, made a full recovery. n Thankfully, rescuers kept the pair warm until the helicopter could arrive at daybreak A veteran CIA agent claims to have proof that Hitler faked his own death at the end of the Second World War and fled to Tenerife where he awaited a U-boat to take him to Argen- tina. Veteran CIA agent Bob Baer and a team of experts have used a collection of recently- released, unseen documents to back up a long held belief among many that Adolf Hitler did not kill himself in his Ber- lin bunker, and instead fled to the Canary Islands. Baer told the UK’s Daily Mir- ror newspaper: “The narra- tive the government gives us is basically a lie. If you look at the FBI files it throws open the investigation. What we are doing is re-examining history, history that we thought was set- tled and accepted that Hitler died in his bunker. However, the deeper we go it becomes clear that we don’t have any facts for it.” Mr Baer’s team has access to 700 pages of newly declassi- fied information released by the Federal Bureau of Investi- gation, with one document stat- ing: “American Army officials in Germany never located Hitler’s body nor is there any reliable source that Hitler is dead.” Baer and his team believe that the German dictator faked his death with the use of a body double, as the remains found by Russians were said to be of someone five inches shorter than Hitler and with a smaller skull. Ex-United Nations war crimes investigator John Cencich inter- viewed an alleged witness to Hitler’s escape for a History Channel television series. The Greek former builder said: “In 1945 I was constructing a secret site with tunnels and compartments for Germans – Nazi officials – and one of them was Adolf Hitler. I first saw a German airplane. It landed in an old potato field and the farmer told me there were five passengers and they were all German. It was May 1945, and Hitler was right there. He wasn’t wearing a moustache or any- thing but it was clearly him.” It may seem farfetched that the Canaries could have been an escape route from Europe to South America for some of the world’s most notorious war criminals, but considering that Spain’s fascist dictator, General Franco, was a Nazi sympathiser and had sent Spanish merce- naries to fight for the Germans during the war, the scenario may not be so unlikely. Even more interesting is the unclear role played by the famous Villa Winter in Fuerteventura. It was built in the late thirties near the vil- lage of Cofete and its construc- tion was shrouded in secrecy, involving significant invest- ment and the employment of many workers. The villa owner was Gustav Winter, an engineer from southwest Germany, who had been working in the Canary Islands since 1915. The house is mentioned in several guide- books as “the property of a Ger- man general”. There is a nearby landing strip and the villa has a high tower which may have served as a control point for planes and submarines. It has long been rumoured that Cofete had a secret submarine base during the Second World War. A large fuse box only accessible from the tower also indicates that there may have been high-tech equipment installed there once. Furthermore, the villa was long rumoured to have been a Nazi hiding place for officials flee- ing to South America towards the end of the war. Villa Winter has been reno- vated by the Fuerteventura island council and is availa- ble to visit. You can find out more by going to the website: www.villawinter.com. n Adolf Hitler in 1933 The history of the imposing Villa Winter is still a mystery Photo: German Federal Archives
