Skeletons with hands and feet missing are discovered buried at 'Wolf's Lair' ... trends now
Skeletons without hands or feet have been discovered beneath the home of Nazi war criminal Hermann Goring in the sprawling bunker complex Adolf Hitler used as a headquarters during World War II.
Part of Hitler's inner circle who went on to be the highest-ranking Nazi official tried at Nuremberg, Reichsmarschall Goring is responsible for some of history's most heinous crimes against humanity.
His home in northeastern Poland was considered to have been thoroughly researched, until a team of local researchers and amateur archaeologists set out to uncover a wooden floor in the concrete building.
The German-Polish excavators went to the haunting site in the hope of finding some nails or other building materials, and instead uncovered something much darker.
The remains of three adults, a teenager and a baby were exposed in the dig, each of which appeared to have been buried naked and had no hands or feet. A murder inquiry has now been launched into their gruesome deaths.
Hermann Goring's house in Wolf's Lair. Former war headquarters of Adolf Hitler in Poland
Hermann Goring was the highest-ranking Nazi official tried for World War II war crimes in tribunals held in Nuremberg
Wolfsschanze, where Hitler's bunker was located, is situated in the northeast region of Poland
Goring (right) was part of Hitler's inner circle who went on to be the highest-ranking Nazi official tried at Nuremberg
Located in the Masurian woods in northern Poland, the Wolf's Lair was used as a base for Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union
'We were completely shocked,' says Oktavian Bartoszewski, who has been working with the research association at the site for some years, Der Spiegel reports.
It is unclear if Goring's residence in the building predated the deaths, with Bartoszewski claiming that the bodies may have been dumped before the house was built in 1940.
He said that workers who laid the pipes would have been unable to miss the bodies if they had been there at that point, meaning Goring himself may have known about the deaths.
However, there are also theories that they could have been victims of a mass killing that came after the Nazi hideout was abandoned.
It is also not known if the victims' bodies had their hands and feet amputated or if their bones decomposed over decades.
Piotrek Banaszkiewicz from the Latebra Foundation which was involved in the discovery said: 'During the uncovering of the first skeleton, as they moved from the ribs through the pelvis to the shinbones, another skull unexpectedly appeared, surprising them.
The Wolf's Lair: It was from this secret complex in northern Poland that Hitler orchestrated some his most terrorizing campaigns on the Eastern Front
Chilling images show the reinforced bunker overrun by foliage and moss, but its looming structure still stands in place
The site already attracts 300,000 tourists visit every year at a fee of 15 zloty (£3.18), but organisers say that they want to draw in more visitors
'This prompted the police to decide on conducting a series of exploratory digs to determine if more human remains were beneath the floor.'
'Upon uncovering the second skeleton, below the shinbones, infantile remains appeared.
