On May 23, 1945 Britain's secret agents had secretly and criminally liquidated one of the most wanted men in history, for whose proper public trial and punishment the blood of millions of his victims cried out.

---

British archives reveal

British secret service did murder SS chief Heinrich Himmler
(to stop him talking to the Americans)

DOCUMENTS discovered in Britain's Public Records Office, Kew, London, confirm revisionist claims that Himmler was liquidated by the British secret service on Churchill's orders, and did not commit suicide shortly after his capture as conformist historians have long maintained.

WINSTON Churchill had long agitated in his War Cabinet for a secret plan to be approved between the Allied leaders ordering the execution without trial of a number of the enemy leaders, including Himmler.

Meeting at Hyde Park in September 1944, Churchill had readily persuaded Franklin D Roosevelt to sign on to this plan for lynch justice, but after Churchill carried the document to Moscow in October 1944 Joseph Stalin surprisingly refused to agree, insisting instead on proper trials for all enemy war criminals.

THE "silencing" of Himmler raises again the question of whether Churchill really had been negotiating with Himmler for nearly a year.  In August 1944 the head of the secret service showed him at least one document "from Himmler," and Churchill assured the secret service chief that after reading it he had safely destroyed it: 'Himmler telegram kept and destroyed by me. WSC.31.viii'.   Himmler's Great Betrayal   Hitler was evidently aware of what Himmler was up to, because on September 12 the Reichsführer discussed with Hitler "peace feelers to Russia or Britain. A few days later, however, on September 18, 1944, the British intercepted a German intelligence signal that Himmler 'forbids by W/T (wireless traffic) all contact with English since their offers are bluff' -- as no doubt they were.

Rumours emerged last year that Churchill had personally ordered the alleged silencing of Benito Mussolini, and that the order had been handed by an SOE officer to Italian partisans soon after. Mussolini and his entire Cabinet were liquidated by machine gun squads without trial in the closing days of the war.

In April 1945, Himmler moved to northern Germany and began negotiations through his own Intelligence chief Walter Schellenberg and Count Bernadotte, the Swedish emissary, to end the bloodshed in Europe. The negotiations went through Sir Victor Mallet, the British minister in Stockholm. Stalin was by this time pathologically suspicious of any separate negotiations between the Allied governments and the Nazi leadership. Himmler was thus the repository of some awkward secrets when he fell into British hands in May 1945.

For a while Churchill was inclined to deal with him. Admiral Cunningham, Britain's First Sea Lord, visited Churchill on April 13, 1945 and wrote this startling passage in his diary afterwards:

"During our interview the PM mentioned that Himmler appeared to be trying to show that he wasn't so bad as painted & PM said if it would save further expenditure of life he would be prepared to spare even Himmler. I suggested there were plenty of islands he could be sent to."

Real historians have long doubted the conformist version of how Himmler died, namely that he obligingly swallowed poison when he realised the game was up.

Patient research revealed that the official files on his death had oddities, discrepancies, and inconsistencies: the autopsy performed on the corpse did not give the cause of death; a vital page had been retyped; there was no message in the files of 21 Army Group, Field-Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery's headquarters, reporting the event to London. Whatever had been there, it had gone.

Now come documents from the Public Record Office (record group FO 800, file 868), which provide more than just a smoking gun. What is truly extraordinary is not so much that the conformists have willingly overlooked the inconsistencies for over sixty years but that those involved in, or aware of, the murder -- who included Prime Minister Churchill himself -- had kept quiet about it.

The documents:

 

The first, dated May 10, 1945 is a Personal and Secret letter on Foreign Office stationery from Sir John Wheeler-Bennett, later a noted Establishment and Royal historian, to the famous British agent Sir Robert Bruce-Lockhart, of the Political Intelligence Department off the Foreign office -- which conducted Black propaganda against the enemy:

Further to our meeting yesterday morning, I have been giving some serious thought to the little H. situation.

We cannot allow Himmler to take to the stand in any prospective prosecution, or indeed allow him to be interrogated by the Americans. Steps will therefore have to been taken to eliminate him as soon as he falls into our hands.

Please give this matter some thought, as if we are to take action we will have to expedite such an act with some haste.

Lockhart minuted two days later in handwriting: "I agree, I have arranged for Mr Ingrams to go for a fortnight. R B-L, 12/May/1945."

It is significant to note from the diary of General Dempsey, commanding the British Second Army in Northern Germany (PRO file WO/285/12), that on Monday, May 21 he visited both the detention camp at Westertimke and the German concentration area between Bremervörde and Stade. We know that Himmler and his two adjutants Macher and Grothmann had been arrested at Bremervörde on May 21, 1945, but -- so the story goes -- Himmler was not identified until they arrived at Westertimke on May 23, 1945.

The former Reichsführer SS was carrying a letter to Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery, the British field commander (which has vanished). His only cyanide capsule was found in his clothing after he had been ordered to strip naked, and it was handed to Michael Murphy, head of British Intelligence at the Second Army. According to The Illustrated London News story a few days later, a "second" capsule was surrendered to the medical officer at Himmler's final destination, the ominous house at No. 31a Ülzener Strasse in Lüneburg -- which raises a number of obvious questions.

After his identification, according to the official accounts, Himmler had answered questions, eaten a thick British Army sandwich, and been driven to the house in Lüneburg -- from which he emerged dead.

Although the British military files appear meticulous, even listing with suspicious detail every person present in the room at the moment of death, many facts did not fit into place.

The prisoner's nose had been broken, according to The Illustrated London News artist who sketched the body. How had he obtained the cyanide capsule he had allegedly been hiding in his mouth (let alone answer questions and bite into that sandwich)?

The capsule descriptions varied, and bore no resemblance to what the standard issue capsule actually looked like.

At 2:50 a.m. that night (it was now May 24, 1945) "Mr Thomas" wired from Bremen to the Foreign Office for Bruce Lockhart in a top secret code (jj jj jj jj is the clue: it was a one-time pad).

"Further to my orders we successfully intercepted H.H. last night at Lüneburg before he could be interrogated. As instructed action was taken to silence him permanently. I issued orders that my presence at Lüneburg is not to be recorded in any fashion, and we may conclude that the H.H. problem is ended."

Bruce Lockhart significantly noted on this telegram, "copy to PM" -- i.e., to Churchill -- "May 25".

Brendan Bracken, Churchill's obnoxious red-headed confidant, was also in on the action -- a war crime, despite Heinrich Himmler's dark record, as he was a prisoner of war who had surrendered to British custody.

"Mr Dear Top," he wrote on May 27 to Lord Selborne at the Ministry of Economic warfare, head of the SOE (PRO file HS series HS8/944),

"Further to the good news of the death of Little H, I feel it is imperative that we maintain a complete news blackout on the exact circumstances of this most evil man's demise. I am sure that if it were to become public knowledge that we had had a hand in this man's demise, it would have devastating repercussions for this country's standing."

Quite so: Britain's secret agents had secretly and criminally liquidated one of the most wanted men in history, for whose proper public trial and punishment the blood of millions of his victims cried out: and for no other visible reason than to conceal that for a few days toward the end of the war, Churchill had negotiated with him on peace terms.

"I am also sure [continued Bracken] that this incident would complicate our relationship with our American brethren; under no circumstances must they discover that we eradicated 'Little H', particularly so since we know they were keen to interrogate him themselves.

I am of the opinion that the special SOE/PWE Committee and team can now be dissolved, even though Mallet is still negotiating with W.S. [Walter Schellenberg] in Sweden. Perhaps you could let me know your opinion on this matter."

REAL historians will now need to do further work to identify the murderer, "Mr Thomas," and the part played by Robert Bruce-Lockhart, who was a principal figure in Britain's Black propaganda war together with Sefton Delmer.

Bracken ordered that all his papers be destroyed before his death. Bruce-Lockhart's diaries and papers are in the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, California; a sanitized edition of his diaries was published many years ago, and his papers have probably been weeded too.

It is known that when Himmler first established contact with the British, Churchill's initial response was to deal with him regardless of his reputation. But then the secret services stepped in. A fake communiqué was issued claiming that Himmler had offered to betray Hitler, and this caused much confusion and fury in Hitler's bunker in the last few days -- not to mention anguish to Himmler himself.

Himmler's Last Days

 

Until the last moment, he believed that he was to meet Montgomery, and when he took off his eye patch and identified himself as Himmler to the British camp commandant, he believed that he would be in the presence of the British commander soon after.

Instead, as Colonel Michael Murphy wrote in a handwritten report in an odd turn of phrase , "I therefore told him to dress, and wishing to have a medical search conducted, telephoned my G-II at my H.Q. and told him to get a Doctor to stand by at a house I had had prepared for such men as Himmler." This was the house from which Himmler emerged lifeless, wrapped in a blanket.

 

Now we know why.

 

From the files of the British Special Operations Executive, part of a series on Foxleys and Little Foxleys (assassination squads)......... There are several references to both Heinrich Himmler and his masseur Felix Kersten in the Foxley files; also present is a list of Sicherheitsdienst/SS personnel (including Walter Schellenberg, Otto Skorzeny, Heinrich Müller, etc., to be liquidated as little Foxleys) There is further a list of questions to put to Rudolf Hess in early 1945 about the situation in Germany and the suggestion that he be hypnotised to make him malleable. [In May 1944 the British used a truth drug on Hess, but failed to get anything out of him. [See David Irving, Hess, the Missing Years]. In the file HS 6/626 a document dated March 16, 1945 lists only four authorised targets for assassination: these are Josef Göbbels, Otto Skorzeny, Otto Ernst Remer and Bruno von Hauenschildt (no mention of Himmler).   February 24, 1945 Six to eight thousand Russian tanks had been claimed destroyed since mid-January.  Still the General Staff’s belief was that the Red Army’s next move would be the assault on Berlin—regardless of the danger from Himmler’s army group.  General Ritter Bruno von Hauenschildt was designated commander of the Berlin district.  He attended Hitler’s daily war conferences.  The city’s antiaircraft batteries were regrouped into tight clusters situated where they could also command the main approach roads. The very day proved Guderian’s experts wrong.  Instead of continuing westward toward Berlin, Marshal Zhukov turned north against Himmler’s army group in Pomerania.  ~David Irving, Hitler's War     The Foxley Report - an assessment of a plan to assassinate Hitler towards the end of World War Two - gives a fascinating picture of covert British operations in the later war years. The intelligence historian Mark Seaman discusses whether the plan had any chance of success. Duncan Anderson considers what might have happened the plan  had gone ahead, and had succeeded.   Total War

 

 

 

London, Saturday, July 2, 2005   AS Ben Fenton reports today, allegations that British intelligence was responsible for the poisoning of Heinrich Himmler in 1945 were based on forged documents, apparently planted in folders in the National Archives [Public Record Office] at Kew. So these claims which have dragged so many reputations through the mud, are complete rubbish. Somebody, somewhere, wanted to plant the idea that Himmler, the head of the SS, had been suing for peace between Britain and Germany since 1943, and that Winston Churchill was therefore terrified of allowing the Americans to interrogate him. The success of the forger's ploy opens up tremendous opportunities for us all to re-write history. We could all award ourselves dukedoms -- or the mineral rights to Yorkshire -- simply by slipping a fake document or two into the National Archives. On a whim, we could file a forged document recording the repeal of the European Communities Act, 1972. Or we could counterfeit the surrender of the American rebels to George III, giving the New World to the United Kingdom in perpetuity. This is, of course, precisely how totalitarian states operate. In George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four, Winston Smith worked in a department dedicated to rewriting the past. It is deeply disquieting that somebody succeeded in corrupting files detailing such an important part of our history.     Files on Himmler 'murder' exposed as fake By Ben Fenton    Murder of Himmler   DOCUMENTS from the National Archives used to substantiate claims that British intelligence agents murdered Heinrich Himmler in 1945 are forgeries, The Daily Telegraph can reveal today. The results of investigations by forensic document experts on behalf of this newspaper have shocked historians and caused tremors at the Archives, the home of millions of historical documents, which has previously been thought immune to distortion or contamination.   The allegation that the SS leader was murdered, with the knowledge of Churchill and War Cabinet ministers, appeared in Himmler's Secret War, published in May [2005]. What made the claim stand out from other allegations over the years was that it referred to specific documents in the National Archives at Kew - [the Public Record Office] usually an absolute guarantee of validity. But after The Daily Telegraph, like other newspapers, was approached to publicize the book, the documents began to raise suspicions. The improbability of allegations that flatly contradict the accepted fact that Himmler killed himself and the use of language in documents that read more like excerpts from a spy thriller than dry civil service memos prompted this newspaper to raise concerns with the National Archives. Officials gave permission for documents to be taken to the laboratories in Amersham, Bucks, of Dr Audrey Giles, one of the foremost forensic document specialists. She discovered that letterheads on correspondence supposedly written in 1945 were created on a high-resolution laser printer, technology not developed until at least 50 years later. Signatures supposed to be those of Brendan Bracken, the minister of information and head of the Political Warfare Executive, which aimed to subvert the German war effort, were found to be written over pencil tracings. Dr Giles also found that it was almost certain that letters from two different government departments were written on the same, authentically contemporary, typewriter. She concluded that at least four of the five suspect documents were forgeries and probably the fifth. The findings were communicated to the National Archives this week, where a spokesman said: "We are very concerned and have commissioned an official forensic examination of these papers." Asked if there would be a police investigation, he said: "We are taking this one step at a time, but we are taking it very seriously." There is no suggestion that the Archives could have prevented papers being smuggled in. The forged documents suggest that Himmler was killed by a PWE agent called Leonard Ingrams, the father of Richard Ingrams, the former editor of Private Eye. The assassination was the supposed idea of two senior Foreign Office men, John Wheeler-Bennett and Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart. But it was allegedly supported by Bracken and the Earl of Selborne, the head of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), the sabotage organization set up by Churchill with the order to "set Europe ablaze". Prof M R D Foot, the SOE official historian, said: "This story was twisting history and it will not do. "It was obviously bogus, but I am very grateful that it has been proved to be so." The findings of Dr Giles's examination were put yesterday to Martin Allen, the book's author. There is no suggestion that he was anything but a fall guy for the forgers. "I think I have been set up," he said. "But I do not even know by whom. I am absolutely devastated." He denied having anything to do with the creation of the documents.     How Himmler's death was turned into a British murder plot By Ben Fenton   IT is hard to imagine a more serious charge against a government than that it would sanction the murder of a senior member of an enemy regime, especially when it was planning the trials of defeated combatants. But that is the main allegation in the final pages of Martin Allen's new book, Himmler's Secret War. Much of the rest contends that Heinrich Himmler, the brutal head of the Nazi killing machine that operated under the lightning strike symbol of the SS, was involved from early in the war in trying to supplant Adolf Hitler and sue for peace with the Allies. The publicity for the book, not surprisingly, concentrates on the sensational material in the last few pages. Here, Mr Allen makes an accusation that might have been dismissed as the sort of unsourced claim that popular history revels in. But the charge that British intelligence -- with the knowledge of Churchill -- had assassinated Himmler was sourced and it was supported. Or so it seemed. Two files were produced in evidence. In one, categorized in the National Archives as FO 800/868, miscellaneous correspondence of the Political Warfare Executive (PWE), are two documents. The first purports to be a letter from John Wheeler-Bennett of the Foreign Office who was its liaison officer with the PWE, the shadowy group committed to subverting the Nazis with propaganda, subversive broadcasts and other subliminal tactics. But the letter of  May 10, 1945, written as the Nuremberg trials are being prepared, is suggesting something far more active. He tells Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart, the head of the Political Intelligence Department of the Foreign Office and one of the men with operational control of PWE, that Himmler must die. "We cannot allow Himmler to take to the stand in any prospective prosecution, or indeed allow him to be interrogated by the Americans. Steps will therefore have to be taken to eliminate him as soon as he falls into our hands." Prof M R D Foot commented that this does not sound like the language Wheeler-Bennett, whom he knew well, would ever use, especially not to a superior, as Bruce Lockhart was. The need to kill Himmler, according to the Allen thesis, arose from fears that under interrogation he would tell the Americans that Britain had been taking part in peace negotiations without informing Washington. Bruce Lockhart, it is claimed, writes at the bottom: "I agree. I have arranged for Mr Ingrams to go for a fortnight." Mr Ingrams is Leonard Ingrams, the father of Richard Ingrams, former editor of Private Eye. He was a fixer for PWE and the Special Operations Executive (SOE), but until now never identified as a possible assassin. The second document in the file is a flimsy sheet, supposedly the deciphered version of a telegram sent by "Mr Thomas" - presumably Ingrams - to Bruce Lockhart. "As instructed action was taken to silence him [Himmler] permanently … we may conclude that the HH problem is ended." This is also supposedly noted by "R B-L" - Bruce Lockhart's name is not hyphenated - with the instruction to a subordinate "Copy to PM", which neatly incriminates Winston Churchill in the assassination. The last of the documents used to support the allegation is supposed to be a letter from Brendan Bracken, the minister of information, thus ministerial head of PWE, and Churchill's closest ally in the War Cabinet, to the Earl of Selborne, titular head of SOE. It is found in the file HS 8/944, Selborne's personal correspondence and represents, or is supposed to represent, the cover-up. In this strangely modern-sounding document, Bracken says to Selborne: "Further to the good news of the death of Little H [Himmler], I feel it is imperative that we maintain a complete news blackout on the exact circumstances of this most evil man's demise. "I am sure that if it were to become public knowledge that we had had a hand in this man's demise, it would have devastating repercussions for this country's standing." Two other Bracken letters, in the same file, one dated late 1943 and the other early 1944, both of which have been found to be forgeries, were involved in setting the scene for the assassination. They lay out supposed details of the way in which Bracken and Selborne were encouraging Himmler to negotiate peace terms with Britain through intermediaries. In the German case, this was Walter Schellenberg, referred to as "WS", head of the SD, intelligence arm of the SS, and on the British side Sir Victor Mallet, our ambassador to neutral Sweden. The CIA has in the past released documents showing that they had conducted similar negotiations with Himmler through Schellenberg and Felix Kersten, a physiotherapist who exercised a Rasputin-like influence on the SS chief. But evidence of British duplicity has been less easy to pin down. In the world of the forgeries, the British, in particular Bracken and, by extension Churchill, seem sinister, shifty, dishonourable and, by the end of the show, murderous. Perhaps consideration of that might help uncover who it was who wished to portray this view of "history" and who has perpetrated the forgeries.       Himmler murder files are fakes Forgeries exposed by a hunch and by science By Ben Fenton At first sight the three documents seized on by Martin Allen to underpin allegations that the Political Warfare Executive was responsible for the assassination of Himmler looked remarkable. At second sight they looked even more remarkable because their language just did not ring true Surely, civil servants of the 1940s simply did not use language like "eliminate him" as John Wheeler-Bennett was supposed to, nor would even as flamboyant a man as Brendan Bracken have spoken of "devastating repercussions for this country's reputation". These are the words of the late 20th century, not its middle years. Suspicions aroused, the next step was to look more carefully at the documents and compare them with handwriting and signatures known to be genuine. The Daily Telegraph was then able to provide David Thomas, the director of government and archive services at the National Archives, with a sufficient prima facie case of forgery for him to agree to a full forensic examination. Four thick files from Kew were taken to the Buckinghamshire laboratory of Dr Audrey Giles, formerly of Scotland Yard's forensic science laboratory and a scientist of unquestioned reputation. She subjected five questionable documents to minute examination and also looked at several papers known to be genuine, for comparison. First, she examined three letters purporting to come from Brendan Bracken, Churchill's confidant, minister of information and head of the Political Warfare Executive. One of those three, dated May 27, 1945, apparently implicated Bracken in the cover-up of the killing of "Little H" while the other two were earlier letters suggesting that PWE was encouraging Himmler to believe that he could negotiate a peace deal with Britain. All three were claimed to have been sent to the Earl of Selborne, the minister responsible for the SOE, and were found by Mr Allen in the Archives document HS 8/944. All three were supposedly typed on Ministry of Information headed notepaper, with a salutation to "My Dear Top" - Lord Selborne's nickname - and a signature in Bracken's distinctive handwriting. Dr Giles was also given six genuine original letter headed letters from Bracken. She examined the letterheads at x500 magnification and concluded that the relatively ragged outline of the letters showed that"the printing of the letterhead of each of the [suspect] Bracken letters is composed of dry toner deposit consistent with having been produced on a laser printer". In the genuine letters, though, the heading was produced by a traditional embossing technique that under the microscope produced a smooth edge. She was able to go further, and concluded that the laser printer, not in use until the 1980s, was a model of relatively high definition and therefore of fairly recent manufacture. These were the findings that seemed to carry most weight with the National Archives. Next, Dr Giles studied the salutation and signatures on the suspect Bracken letters using a Video Spectral Comparator which "allows the ink of the signatures and handwritings on the documents to be viewed in infra-red light" and she made another damaging discovery. "My examination of the inks of the writings on the Bracken documents clearly revealed the presence of pencil lines under the writings of the greeting and signature on each of these documents." She studied the ink under a particular infra-red wavelength. "Under these conditions, the ink of the handwriting is almost transparent but the pencil guide lines remain dark. Indeed if the original documents are examined carefully under a microscope, fragments of the pencil lines are visible." After studying genuine Bracken signatures and handwriting that had no such lines, she reported: "There is conclusive evidence that the Bracken letters … are not genuine, but are simulated documents." She also said that there was "conclusive evidence" that the letterheads were of "relatively recent" fabrication. Under international forensic standards, there is no higher level of certainty than "conclusive evidence". Dr Giles found the same level of certainty for the view that the alleged handwriting and initials of Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart on the letter purported to have been sent by John Wheeler-Bennett on May 10. 1945,  was not his handwriting. She also found "very strong evidence" - the next highest level of certainty on the international scale and likened to being "almost certain" of a fact - for the proposition that the Wheeler-Bennett letter was written on the same typewriter as the Bracken letters, which she has conclusively found to be forgeries. On the telegram allegedly sent by "Mr Thomas"  to Bruce Lockhart, confirming the murder of Himmler at Luneberg, Dr Giles found that the amount of writing was not enough for a definite conclusion, but she came to the conclusion that there was "strong support" for its being forged as well. It certainly appears very similar to the forged handwriting of Bruce Lockhart. All in all, Dr Giles has told The Daily Telegraph that she is convinced that all the suspect documents provided to her are forgeries.           Himmler murder files are fakes 'You expect everything in PRO to be real. It's a disaster'   By Ben Fenton "Crikey," Martin Allen said when he was told that the documents on which he based the climax of his book were forgeries. "Bloody hell, how could that have had happened?" The historian, who lives in Gillingham, Dorset, denied absolutely any previous knowledge that the papers he had discovered in the autumn of 2003 were bogus. "It never occurred to me that anything in the PRO wouldn't be real. You go to the PRO and expect to find kosher documents. "It undermines the whole process of National Archives." Mr Allen, whose other two books focused on the flight of Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess to Scotland in 1941 and the alleged pro-German activities of the Duke of Windsor, offered to help the investigation in any way. He would also be contacting his publisher, Robson Books, to discuss whether or not the book should be withdrawn. "I think I will ring my publisher and say that we have got something of a disaster here. "Something strange has happened indeed. I really don't understand, I really don't. "It's not within my skill to do something like this or in my interest because I'm a bona fide historian with several books behind me. I do my research. I spend a lot of money doing it and I didn't expect this. I am absolutely devastated. "You read an awful lot of documents without finding anything at all and then when suddenly, at the end of the day, at 4 o'clock on a wet winter evening you find something like this.   You think: 'Yippee, I've found something. That gives me the lead on to something else'. But if you think the archive was seeded in such a way by the time you get the information - that's devastating, absolutely devastating."   The implications for historians in general are profound.   "Documents I find in the archives I tend to treat as gospel," Nigel West, the intelligence expert and historian of the SOE, said.   The sort of fabrication uncovered in the Himmler affair was unprecedented in Britain, said Prof Richard Aldrich of the University of Nottingham.   "It has happened with the UFO lobby in America and we have to face the fact that we are going to have to be more sceptical where the subjects are ones that people obsess about: UFOs, royalty, the Kennedy assassination, or in this case the Nazis.   "The second worrying thing is that we know the SOE had plans to bump off Hitler and there are documents showing - although perhaps I ought to say that appear to show - that we were planning the same for Mussolini and his deputy.   "So they are something we could almost believe before we see them."       Himmler files confirmed as forgeries By Ben Fenton NEW disclosures about forged documents at the National Archives emerged yesterday as officials in Kew formally confirmed that documents in its files about Heinrich Himmler, recently identified as bogus by The Daily Telegraph, were counterfeit. The first set of five forged papers were used by the historian Martin Allen to support allegations in his book Himmler's Secret War that the head of the SS did not commit suicide, but was murdered by British intelligence agents. But two new papers brought to the attention of experts at the Archives by this newspaper and which they are now examining, refer to Allen's previous book, The Hitler/Hess Deception, published in 2003. The official inquiry into the first five papers was ordered by Sarah Tyacke, the chief executive of the National Archives, after The Daily Telegraph provided copies of a detailed forensic examination by Audrey Giles, former head of Scotland Yard's Questioned Documents Unit. Ms Giles found damning evidence that the papers had been counterfeited relatively recently and smuggled into the Archives. A statement posted on the National Archives' website last Friday evening confirmed Ms Giles's conclusive findings that four letters were forged and her strong suspicion over the fifth document, a telegram supposedly confirming that Himmler, the head of the SS, had been murdered by British agents in May 1945. The statement reads: "The National Archives has taken these allegations very seriously. We commissioned an official forensic examination which has now concluded that these five documents are, indeed, forgeries. "In the light of this, we are reviewing our own procedures and taking legal advice, with a view to further action." It is not clear whether this will include a police investigation because neither the Archives nor the Department for Constitutional Affairs, which is responsible for it, knows whether or not an offence has been committed. Asked about the new suspect documents, which are referred to in The Hitler/Hess Deception, a spokesman for Allen, said that because he researched every scrap of available evidence in the Archives, the writer was likely to be the person who first, unwittingly, came across the forgeries. The most suspicious of the two papers under new examination was used by Allen in his second book to support a strong suggestion by him that a Nazi ideologue who might have had the key to why Rudolph Hess, Hitler's deputy, flew to Scotland in May 1941, was murdered in his Bavarian home by two British agents after the end of the war. Allen suggests that Karl Haushofer, a geo-political theorist who was Hess's mentor at university and whose son Albrecht was one of the Nazi deputy's closest friends and advisers, was killed along with his wife Martha to stop him giving evidence at the International Military Tribunal, otherwise known as the Nuremberg War Trials. Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat MP who takes a special interest in freedom of information and Archives matters, has tabled a parliamentary question on the forgeries. He said: "If this isn't illegal, then I think everyone would agree that it should be. We can't allow people to get into the Archives and literally rewrite history for their own ends. The implications are horrific." Historians have called for a police investigation of the forgeries, warning that the implications for the study of history were dire. Now that the Telegraph's investigation has been officially confirmed, attention will focus on who has had access the files.