Reports in the German media say that genetic tests on a body unearthed at a Berlin building site a quarter of a century ago confirm it to be Hitler's private secretary, Martin Bormann.

Bormann's dental records had already been successfully matched to those of the body at the time of the discovery, but his descendants wanted to quell any doubts.

According to the reports, an eighty-three-year-old relative of Bormann supplied the samples and they matched DNA taken from the body.

The announcement comes after recent fresh claims that Bormann did not commit suicide at the end of the war in 1945, but was smuggled out of Germany.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service