10 Weird Conspiracy Theories About Hitler's Death

2. Hitler Escaped And Became A Famous Art Collector Called "Father Crespi"

Before he was a tyrant, Hitler was a painter. Could it possible, then, that he escaped from his bunker, fled - just like in so many of these theories - to South America and assumed a new identity as an Argentine art collector named "Father Crespi?"

According to one theory, that's absolutely what happened. In 1981, a US Army Colonel named Wendell Stephens travelled to Ecuador and encountered a priest who he believed to be Adolf Hitler. Nobody listened to him, of course, because the conviction sounded downright crazy. Stephens also claimed that Crespi - or Hitler - had stashed away a number of priceless paintings. Crespi, as one might expect, denied he was Hitler.

For a lot of conspiracy theorists, this particular theory falls down on the basis that Hitler was believed to have Parkinson's disease in his later years, and would not have been able to live until the year 1993 - as Crespi very much did - without anyone noticing as such (you know, because it was an incredibly plausible theory before that, wasn't it?).