Russia Defiant in Claim It Has Hitler Skull

Russia’s FSB intelligence service is now insisting that what the country’s been calling a fragment of Hitler’s skull is the real deal, despite DNA evidence to the contrary. Russia presented the skull fragment, which sports an appropriate bullet hole, in 2000, to debunk rumors that the fuhrer had somehow survived World War II. But in October, American researchers said a DNA test had proven the skull actually belonged to a woman.

Now the FSB’s archive director is insisting those findings are incorrect. He says Stalin himself had ordered an investigation of the fragment, to ensure Hitler was dead. “These researchers never got in contact with us,” he said. “With what could they have compared the DNA?” Researchers actually did have something to compare it to—a blood stain on the couch where Hitler is said to have shot himself. But the female DNA made the non-match incidental. (More Adolf Hitler stories.)