Adolf Hitler and his wife, Eva Braun, committed suicide 70 years ago—or so they’d like us to believe.

Of all the Nazi conspiracy theories (buried gold sunken in Austrian lakes; jungle hideaways; U-boats filled with treasure off the coast of New Zealand), the most pervasive and indefatigable legend is that the fascist lovebirds survived the war and lived the rest of their lives in peaceful South American retirement.

The origins of these rumors lie in the fact that, though scholars agree Hitler and Braun carried out a suicide pact in an underground bunker, their remains were never publicly and formally identified. If they had made a daring escape as Berlin fell, say, the next stop would have been to Latin America, which was rolling out the red carpet for fleeing Nazis.