88

The censors in the occupied zones sent selected letters to the Allied authorities to illustrate the latent threat of National Socialist revival. One letter, sent two years after the end of the war, opens a remarkable window on to the nature of the Third Reich and the millions of ordinary Germans who supported it:

[... ~sq]

There are thousands of different opinions re A.H. here. I myself spoke to a U-boat sailor, who says that 2 boats of his flotilla were set aside which took him to SP [Spain?]. One of the two, either 88 [code for Hitler] or M.B. [Bormann] is said to have lost a leg. Even English people are of the opinion that both are alive. I can well believe that 88 was mentally or physically broken.

[....~sq]

Richard Overy, Interrogations: The Nazi Elite in Allied Hands, 2001, p. 537, emphasis mine.