Five skeletons missing their hands and feet were recently discovered beneath the Wolf’s Lair home of Hermann Göring, Adolf Hitler’s No. 2 who served as commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe during World War II.
The remains were of three adults, a teenager and a baby. An additional human skull was also found.
German and Polish archaeologists discovered the remains under a wooden floor about four inches underground while digging at the Wolf’s Lair, The Telegraph reported.
Wolf’s Lair (Wolfsschanze), then in East Prussia, now located in Poland, is a complex of about 200 buildings. It served as Hitler’s first Eastern Front headquarters during WWII.
Given that the bodies were missing their hands and feet, Polish prosecutors have launched a probe to determine whether they were victims of Nazi war crimes.
No clothing or jewelry was found on the bodies, suggesting they were looted and stripped before burial.
Oktavian Bartoszewski, one of the researchers, said the bodies were probably buried after the house had been built as the remains were found under pipes.
“Those who laid the pipes should have discovered the human remains,” he told Der Spiegel magazine. “We were completely shocked.”
Polish police said they had found no evidence of a recent crime, adding that the evidence indicates that the case dates to the Second World War.
