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Hitler's teeth

In 1945 a search begins for Hitler's dentist to prove the Führer's burnt corpse is genuine. A Russian war interpreter, Yelena Rzhevskaya, claims she is put in charge of his teeth.

On 8 May 1945, Yelena Rzhevskaya was handed a small box covered in red satin.

The box once held perfume but now inside - so she says - are Adolf Hitler’s teeth.

Yelena would later claim this would be the beginning of the search for Hitler’s dental records and with it, official confirmation that the Soviet Red Army had found the burnt corpse of the German leader.

According to her memoir, the hunt would take the young war interpreter on a car ride through Berlin in the dying days of World War Two.

And, Yelena says, what happened would be a secret she would have to keep for 20 years.

Her granddaughter Lyubov Summ talks to Jane Wilkinson.

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(Photo: Teeth said by experts to be Adolf Hitler's teeth, Moscow, 2000. Credit: Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters)

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11 minutes

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