Did The Nazis Hide Treasures In An Alpine Fortress? | Secrets Of The Third Reich

this channel is part of the history hit network stick around to find out more [Music] by 1945 the nazis were on the run the allies were flying high and about to roll over germany's flat western borders [Music] but in the deep southern heartland of hitler's reich loomed the threat of the unknown fears grew of a last-ditch nazi fight back in the alps in terms of a defense it was an ideal place to defend yourself this one this was high mountains very difficult to know how could you wage a war with tanks there almost not possible very low experience from the allied side um to wage a war in this mountain region a lot of experience from the german sides a lot of elite troops there they knew a lot of ss troops in austria so uncertainty amid such uncertainty came evidence of the western allies worst fears neutral switzerland bordered part of the german alpine region the american intelligence chief in band it suggested that a fanatical elite was massing in the mountains a hard core led by those with death heads on their caps the merciless ss would spearhead a desperate guerrilla war from an alpine fortress it was the very fact that the bavarian and austrian mountains seemed to lend themselves so well to guerilla warfare that this horrible idea because it represented a nightmare for allied military strategists that this horrible idea started to gain currency the horrible idea was an ultimate nightmare for the advancing allies an alpen festung or alpine fortress extending into northern austria defended by thousands of troops stealing themselves for a final do-or-die fight for the fatherland their fingers on the triggers of an arsenal of secret weapons hidden in crags and crannies at this time in say in january 1945 they didn't know what was going on when they entered germany and they were taken by surprise by the battle of bulge was a german counter-attack in december 1444 and they didn't expect that so the question was yes we have won the war this is clear but i mean are we able to cross the rhine are there some secret weapons still is there somehow a secret counter-attack prepared so it was all uncertain uncertainty and fears of so-called wonder weapons were understandable the germans had already developed ballistic missiles and jet planes and other more fearsome more destructive horrors were on nazi drawing boards what the allies decided to do was to be prudent to assume given hitler's nature given the fanaticism of the ss and the fact the ss probably controlled the german state by then to prepare for the worst the alpine redoubt was the worst it was the worst case scenario that anyone could imagine and they felt they had to prepare for it some tunnels and bunkers had already been excavated in existing salt mines even today the crumbling remains of the would-be alpine fortress are well hidden [Music] one tunnel complex near the austrian city of salzburg was to be the command center of the nazi alpine fortress such tunnels were also used to build planes and rockets as allied bombing reduced conventional german factories to rubble this is where according to the plans for the alpine fortress the high command of the ss would have been situated himmler's documents in berlin were already packaged and addressed the complex extends over six thousand square meters as well as bunkers below the germans seem to be amassing manpower above senior nazis gathered in the alps ss chief heinrich himmler's deputy ernst kaltenbrunner moved back to his native austria to a villa above the spa town of altause history hit is a streaming platform that exclusively releases quality historical documentaries covering fascinating figures and moments in history from all over the world from ancient neolithic cultures to the dawn of the space race history hit has thousands of hours of content with unrivaled access to the world's best historians we're committed to bringing history fans award-winning documentaries and podcasts that you cannot find anywhere else sign up now for a 14 day free trial and timeline fans can get 50 off their first three months just be sure to use code timeline at checkout himmler named him commander-in-chief of all forces in southern europe he would coordinate the nazi fight back from a region he knew well he was somehow in charge of the secret police and the political police so he was quite a very important figure in the ss world another influential austrian ss man was lurking in the alps the presence of ss commando leader lieutenant colonel otto scott ceni was yet more evidence of an alpine fortress cassini was austrian and by birth and moses was a weird figure with almost no military training and but he was very clever to establish himself in the ss world at this time of the war in april 1945 he was in command of the what we call the special forces as special forces command units and he was able to withdraw two of his um command units from the eastern front to austria and this should have been to the core of the defense force of the alpine fortress the region bordering southern bavaria and austria was already riddled with old mining tunnels some of them were extended and used to build weapons [Music] schwarz is the site of old austrian silver mines near the german border one shaft runs deep into the mountain and a haunting nazi ruin the dank dark subterranean world is usually off limits to visitors two kilometers inside the mountain a broken steel and concrete shell of an underground aircraft factory is slowly rotting away bits of rusting metal lie scattered across the stony floors the corroded remains of aircraft parts abandoned before workers had the chance to put them together the whole complex is in entirely the same state as it was when it was left following the detonation at the time and the workers had only just left the complex everything is still standing on mounting racks it really is unbelievable deep underground far from the threat of allied aerial bombing the old mining tunnels were ideal places to build weapons including a new generation of planes die hard nazis hoped would repel the allies rampaging into the rice these are the remains of one of the first jet fighters in the world the messerschmitt 262 almost one and a half thousand were built but only a few hundred flew in combat the germans had also developed a jet powered bomber hermann goering the head of the luftwaffe had dictated a requirement to the aircraft industry that he wanted this thousand kilometer aircraft thousand kilometer range that could fly at a thousand kilometers an hour and carry a thousand kilograms of bombs and at the time it was a huge a very very uh challenging requirement for any any manufacturer to meet german engineers overcame another great challenge and had developed the world's first long-range ballistic missile the v-2 ss chief heinrich himmler was one of many top nazis who had visited the v2 testing facility at penamunder more than a thousand v2s were fired at britain they were the pinnacle of rocket technology at the time flying some 80 kilometers above the earth v2 has sparked fear and devastation they are estimated to have killed almost 3 000 people launched from mobile ramps v2s were another potential threat from an alpine fortress [Music] and there was another even greater horror emerging from nazi drawing boards a longer range version of the v2 dubbed the america rocket such horrors were the brainchild of nazi engineers like verna von braun with allied invaders closing in around them in early 1945 they were redirected south to the so-called alpine fortress von braun was ordered to go to the alps so he received an official order to leave pina mundo so we didn't flee but it was requested that we go to the alpine fortress in the south of germany the original plan was which we had never believed to continue building v2s down there the nazi germans may have had a technological advantage but they were vastly outnumbered by conventional planes tanks and troops german airfields and factories were overrun in central germany the advancing allies found the remains of another wonder weapon a menacing bat-like jet fighter bomber partially made of wood [Music] looked sexy and looked efficient and fast and uh and you know menacing was a unique configuration and a unique shape advanced technology jet powered interceptor faster than anything the allies could feel the horton h9 was also covered in carbon and plywood making it more difficult to detect by radar it was perhaps the world's first stealth type aircraft the horton brothers hoped their plane would eventually carry a one ton bomb if the horde 9 could have been put into production perhaps even fitted it with rockets which rockets unguided rockets that they could use to get used against the bombers i think all these things are quite possible and fielded in significant numbers it would have been certainly faster than the allied piston driven airplanes and it could have had a significant impact on on the air war [Music] conventional planes were still winning the war for the allies but the possibility of a german counter-strike from the alps forced a change in tactics potential threats like hitler's rocket engineers had to be stopped from reaching the mountains in the south eisner because of his fear of a final nazi campaign in the mountains of southern bavaria and austria decides to cut germany in half to prevent troops vermont and ss troops from the northern part of germany to go south to bavaria and austria [Music] eisenhower changed the direction of his main thrust and directed a spearhead south towards the alps he doesn't want to see them filling the mountains with material ammunition or troops so allied strategy is directly affected how long would it take to defeat 300 000 nazis armed to the teeth in the mountains no one knew the rocket engineers from the baltic coast evaded the allied advance and made it to the alps they were a vital asset to be protected in the barracks of the gebiaksiega or mountain troops originally the ss had planned that we all moved into the barracks they wanted to concentrate us all there the bomber can do but then one bomb could have killed the entire team so this convinced the ss commander that we should disperse across the country clinton rocket engineers were not the only assets moved to the relative safety of the alps the reichsbank in berlin was badly bombed gold cash and other reserves were no longer safe in the capital hundreds of millions of dollars worth of government and private treasure was shipped south i believe that this is the only time in history that so much treasure has been consolidated together a treasure of such uh incalculable value has been concentrated in one area at one time most of the reichsbank gold dumped in a mine was recovered by the allies a small percentage remained unaccounted for there are still nazi relics in the tunnels mines and alpine lakes around germany's southern borders some believe that fabled nazi treasure still lies hidden in the region where hitler's die-hard disciples planned to raise an alpine fortress [Music] some tantalizing tales of nazi treasure are based on supposed eyewitness accounts in the last days of the war but not all can be dismissed as fanciful a mule train spotted traveling up an alpine mountain one night attracted attention who had relatively little to do with the confusion of the war realized something was going on including my mother she was a young girl then and after doing the chores in the stables one evening she saw a column of mules making its way up the mountain path one special thing she always mentioned was that there was a white mule among them saw what was supposed to be a secret transport of hundreds of gold bars worth millions of dollars it didn't stay a secret for long this gold was also eventually recovered by american troops after rumors spread about the mysterious mule train in the night club [Music] many [Music] rumors and stories persist of other buried treasures that were not recovered according to local legends some people grew suddenly rich after the war such tales have attracted a new generation of treasure hunters in the old alpine fortress territory it's very kind of nobody would admit that it happened in this way but there are rumors there are reports at times it is children who tell the stories that their father suddenly had a lot of money and wealth that is of course always interesting for us to follow up you could find a further trail through one of these connections [Music] marked on jurgen pros map are potential sites that he thinks could hold nazi loot [Music] armed with local knowledge and a metal detector he scours the hills near gamish garmisch-partenkirchen in the far south of germany he and his fellow treasure hunters have found a variety of relics from bullets to rusty helmets but no nazi gold that is that is the former training area of the mountain troops and they knew every stone every rock every chronicles which were then used to stash known shipments treasure that came to the area but some shipments weren't recorded not all transports were treasure and on a former military training ground they have to tread carefully [Music] oh yeah oh there's something here we're at the end of our expertise here we need someone to help us a bomb disposal team confirmed that they were right to be cautious jurgen and fellow treasure hunters found a cache of live rifle grenades this is the area where the reichsbank gold treasure also ended up it was a kind of retreat route that had been drawn through this area at the time they left ammunition in different depots so when an attack had happened they could withdraw fire and re-arm they had the possibility to defend themselves the nazi gold trail extends further east to the picture postcard lakes and mountains of the zaldskamagut near salzburg in austria this was also to be part of the alpen festival it's another place where stories of hidden treasure proliferate there were also treasure cases which came from the ss and um and the foreign office everybody had evacuated their individual treasures as you might say down to this area as well as gold priceless artworks taken from private collectors churches and museums were sent south hitler had intended to display art acquired by his agents in a special museum in his austrian birth town of lintz but as defeat loomed the treasures were sent to salt mines for safe keeping but not all treasures required the protective rarified atmosphere of a mine the stunning lakes that are part of the unesco world heritage site have an added allure as fabled dumping grounds for nazi gold the zaltz kamagut has been dubbed the devil's dustbin nazi relics have been recovered from the grand lakes like this sign that proclaims nazis enjoy visiting here it probably adorned one of the many local inns until such advertising suddenly became unfashionable in 1945. one of the many alluring stories surrounds the deep remote lake top let's say a local farmer is said to have been summoned in the dead of night to help ss men dump truckloads of heavy boxes into the lake packed with gold and secret nazi files such alleged eyewitness accounts sparked a kind of gold rush divers dreamt of scooping up a fortune but alpine lakes are dangerous at least two divers have drowned in the top lid say its dark waters full of snags and hidden obstacles [Music] but in 1987 it seemed that the deadly risks were worth it a breathtaking treasure was apparently recovered from the treacherous mud it was a glittering example of gerhart sauna's mischievous sense of humor the gold ingots were bars of bronze but his hoax proved to be a 24-carat sensation the fake gold features in a display in his dive shop along with a huge range of nazi and other relics recovered from the lake he's found everything from medals to a working anti-aircraft gun but no gold thousands of people have seen gold transports yes there was some gold there but this record was was recovered it was found already and and it's very very unlikely and it's all driven by this myth oh there must be you know a secret nazi network there must be some some treasures and so so if you speak to treasure hunters i mean they're absolutely convinced and nobody found anything and yet another kind of treasure has been found in the top let's in the 1980s biologist hans fricker ventured deep into the lake searching for a wealth of wildlife stupidly i hadn't followed the story of the lake if i had i would have thought twice about going diving there and so i walked right into the media trap when i dived down there and uh they weren't interested in what this guy was actually doing there if he's looking for bacteria and worms they thought that under the guise of scientific research someone was looking for gold instead called suffocate as usual exploration in the legendary lake of nazi gold attracted all kinds of attention people from all corners and of all shades came to us we met a lot of people with dowsing rods and others who all knew where the gold was hidden and told us that's where we should really dive and so on the biologists discovered a previously unknown worm but that's not what made headlines the lake yielded an intriguing wartime secret bundles of british pound notes perfectly preserved in the oxygen deprived mud and water at the bottom it was the second time that british banknotes were found in the top lid say i knew that the austrians had apparently cleared out the lake as part of the recovery of a german diver in 1963. so i was amazed that we still found these huge amounts of money down there there's a reason ming can't get perhaps that's what was in the boxes a local farmer claimed to have seen when he allegedly helped the ss dump them in the lake a printing press had also been recovered relics of nazi attempts at economic sabotage they were targeting the british economy system the british money system so the whole idea behind that forged banknotes wars to cause inflation in britain the banknotes were forged in the zachsenhausen concentration camp under the command of ss major bernhard kruger unlike most prisoners in the death camps stuart kruger survived the war and was invited to see the remains of his work amazing first because of the success it initially had and secondly because the inmates managed to save their own lives this way to an extent they were printing for freedom the former concentration camp officer was deluding himself there was no freedom for inmates forced to forge for hitler behind the myth of nazi treasure and the alpine fortress lie real war crimes as well as counterfeit currency nazi victims were also forced into working on underground missile factories nordhausen or dora mittelbau was one of them it wasn't in the bavarian alps but in the central german hearts mountains when american forces liberated the camp only a few victims remained the rocket engineers they were enslaved to serve had fled south to the so-called alpine fortress in the alpine underworld like this tunnel near salzburg the nazis continued to work their victims to death a memorial stone and graffiti testament to the horrors that were once inflicted in the tunnels usually locked up and largely forgotten polish italian and french prisoners from the nearby mount house and concentration camp were among those forced into slavery [Music] few survived and fewer still live to bear witness to the human cost of the nazi alpine fortress fantasy some returned to commemorate fellow victims of mauthausen like austrian priest johan cuba who smuggled food and money into the camp but was found out and french priest per jacques who was sent to the camps for trying to save jewish boys from the holocaust both were unable to save themselves but fellow prisoner jean monnar managed to hold on to life [Music] i was already in the barracks for the dying i thought it was all over [Music] i weighed 38 kilos then [Music] [Music] mauthausen was one of many horrors that the western allies and russians would uncover as they advanced into what was left of hitler's reich the regime responsible for the murder of millions was in ruins wary that they could face a final fanatical fight in a nazi alpine fortress the allies had cut escape routes to the south and stormed into bavaria itself the american seventh army advanced into the traditional nazi heartland and marched into nuremberg once an imposing staging ground for hitler's elaborate rallies the medieval city was bombed to ruins as was much of munich the city that bred the nazi movement bore telling graffiti concentration camps felden buchenwald i'm ashamed to be german but few had dared to speak out when hitler was in power and millions paid the price dachau was the first concentration camp established under nazi rule the survivors were liberated the oppressors became the oppressed hunted down and forced to answer for their crimes [Music] others like adolf eichmann who played a key role in planning the mass murders of the holocaust retreated into austria before he died a fellow nazi who worked with ss deputy ernst kaltenburner recalled a lakeside stroll with adolf eichmann i [Music] and had presented him with a role of sovereigns english gold coins through an adjutant eichmann said i don't give a damn about that i have my own feeling i want orders on how to proceed he was one of the few who really believed in the alpine fortress the allies cautiously closed in around what they thought could be the dreaded alpen festival or alpine fortress [Music] south of austria the german garrison in italy surrendered time was running out for senior nazis hoping to make a last stand or desperate escape the allies continued their advance around the mountains where fanatical german forces might fight a final battle but for important nazis like adolf eichmann there was no alpen festung in which to hide he was captured but later escaped others like himmler's deputy ernst kaltenburner used the threat of an alpine fortress as a bargaining chip ance cartenbrunner realized well the war's over and and how can i rescue myself but then he said well there is an an alpine fortress and there is a danger of a last battle and he knew that the americans the british were keen to end the war as soon as possible so he must build up the danger of a last battle and then to offer something to say well we can avoid that we can avoid that and if you're going to rescue me and if i'm safe then i i will do everything possible to avoid that last battle carlton bruno was one of many nazi war criminals who thought they could negotiate and get away with murder a group of ss men led by heinrich himmler's former chief of staff carl wolf began sending messages to alan dulles in baron that they that they wanted to talk about surrender alan dulles was the most unsecret secret agent in europe if you wanted to send a message to the west talk to alan dulles dallas was shocked why would these people want to talk he was being a little naive karwolf was not thinking about the future of germany karl wolfe was thinking about the future of karl wolfe karl wolff had participated in the deportation of the jews of italy to auschwitz he had to sell something to save himself and so what he offered was the key to unlocking the alpine fortress once they got into the alps the allies realized there was no fortress no fanatics wielding wonder weapons in a last-ditch fight [Music] the problem is if you want to have a fortress you must build a fortress you must have time to put fortifications barbed wire trenches bunkers shelters whatever it was far too late so even if we asked the question what happens if and there was absolutely no chance for them to have more than just just a last battle of one or two days for some senior nazis the alpine fortress was a ruse that bought them time to escape justice [Music] a group of ss men who should have gotten to know the hangman uh retired and lived out their days that was the basic effect of the negotiation these ss men who offered something they couldn't give managed to escape justice other prominent germans were also keen to talk to the western allies [Music] rocket engineers like verna von braun developed the v2 missiles that killed many thousands of innocent civilians yet they were given new lives in the united states to continue their work i don't think it was a big problem for him it certainly wasn't a big problem for me i could see the advantages that we could continue working on rockets here under relatively good conditions while there was pretty much nothing happening in germany for many years [Music] the germans had run out of manpower materials and perhaps the will to mount any kind of meaningful resistance in the alps [Music] the wehrmacht and the waffles s was beaten by april 1945 there was almost nothing left so there was resistance west of the rhine but not very much east of the rhine there was resistance in hungary from hardcore ss units but not in austria anymore nothing was prepared there was no fortress there was nothing there it was just a peaceful lakes peaceful alpine region there was a spring nice weather in the calm that followed the spectacular fall of hitler's reich lesser-known nazis like adolf eichmann slipped away but there was no escape for the larger-than-life figure of luftwaffe chief hermann goering who also fled south his flamboyant tastes extended beyond elaborate uniforms the reichsmarshall was an avid art collector but the art treasures of senior nazis like goring and albert bear came from dubious sources ironically some nazi art ended up hidden in austria where it had originated taken from jewish owners after the nazi annexation in 1938 they set up an organized system of expropriation called aryanization by which they registered the property the assets of jews in austria and then systematically stripped them of their wealth now the art collections were part of that asset stripping process and german art dealers moved in and removed systematically metaphorically speaking at gunpoint the art collections of jewish art dealers and and art collectors thousands of artworks destined for hitler's fuhrer museum were recovered from an austrian salt mine himmler's deputy ernst kaltenburner was also extracted from his alpine hideout he was tried for war crimes and hanged in october 1946 according to some accounts a large quantity of gold was found hidden in his alpine villa ss commando leader otto scorseni was also captured he's also said to have had a horde of nazi gold [Music] he was interrogated by the american army counter-intelligence corps and when he was interrogated it seems that he forgot to mention anything about the vast treasure that he'd actually taken possession of the ss major is the subject of many intriguing tales one says he was sent to france in search of the holy grail despite admitting that he and his men fought in american uniforms he was spared and some say extremely rich school zeni received a treasure from um from joseph's spacel a uh senior ss administrator he had orders to get in touch with scorzzini and of course he handed over a tremendous amount of treasure to school zeni which has disappeared it's yet another alluring story of hidden nazi loot that inspires treasure hunters to this day scorcenei and his troops were once camped near the austrian lake of urdensie evidence of their presence was found in the mud i marked all the underground springs here for the hydrographic office this lake is like a gigantic bog and during this work i found the ss ring of honor seemed to have been flung into the lake as the allies approached perhaps it wasn't the only thing dropped into the odenza another tale has emerged of mysterious goods dumped into the water there was a forester who told us there was an alpine hut here and a high-ranking ss officer had come to get the key and then because there is so much mud there it's really difficult to find anything the urdens a is relatively flat carpeted in a thick layer of mud that would swallow a heavy object like a box full of gold it's also a nature reserve and diving is usually strictly forboden tentative permission was given for a search of the lake from a boat loaded with state-of-the-art radar scanning equipment and a gps locator which would record the precise position of any object detected in the mud a radar map of the lake floor revealed a box-like shape in the mud was this otto scotsenis gold [Music] austrian forestry officials were unimpressed and forbade any diving at least one historian is also highly skeptical this is all a myth and it's all driven by this perception of of gianna jones this is a good story for for a hollywood film definitely but has nothing at all to do um with history we know that they sometimes try to hide the gold but this was recovered quite quickly but legends like that of scorcene's loot won't die [Music] if a fortune in nazi gold was dumped in the lake perhaps it's already been recovered and spent after the war ss commando leader otto scotseni left his native austria for good to enjoy an apparently wealthy life was put into a prisoner war camp he was there for approximately three years i believe two or three years and ultimately he just walked out of the prisoner war camp and disappeared until he resurfaced in spain in 1950 at which point he seemed to be much richer than he had been previously artes godzini was interviewed at his holiday home in majorca in 1973 ruled by the fascist dictator franco spain was a safe haven for unrepentant nazis this is every soldier's duty to lengthen the war to hold out as long as he has the order to do so uh whether that is sensible it's for posterity i don't think we have quite reached that point yet personally i don't regret it would you do the same things again today i can tell you that i would do the same things again in exactly the same way today two years later the smoker died of lung cancer farewelled by fellow nazis unashamedly proffering the hitler salute scorceney took any secrets of nazi gold to the grave this is again part of the secret story and and and the true nazis living in madrid and then being millionaires because of the nazi god no it's it's very unlikely it's definitely not possible that he had two tons of gold with him in in his suitcase and then flying to madrid back around the german alpine town of garmisch the hunt for fabled nazi gold goes on it was here in june 1945 that american troops recovered more than 700 bars of pure refined [Music] bullion the horde was worth hundreds of millions of dollars [Music] all that's left is a hole in the forest floor yet treasure hunters still dream of finding a mother lode similar to that unearthed by victorious allied troops [Music] the riches that were recovered were transferred to a special allied commission a lot of the treasure was found in in the 1940s but an awful lot of treasure just disappeared some of it was stolen some of it may very well be still there and somebody one day might just find some of it [Music] it's a prospect that continues to tantalize treasure hunters in the hills and lakes of the alpine region once thought to form an alpine fortress but the alpen festung was a myth there was no fortress and no heroic last stand in the mountains of germany and austria [Music] like the alpine fortress the legends of nazi gold also seem to be no more than a myth yet the scouring of crags and crannies goes on german and austrian lakes have produced a variety of nazi relics tons of wartime detritus have been recovered from the deep waters of the toplitzy bombs mines and rockets but no boxes of gold you don't put a gold treasure into a deep lake because it's just impossible to recover that thing so it's very unlikely very very unlikely that in some deep austrian lakes they're still waiting something for us [Music] you

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

Views: 1,074,441

Keywords: Historical mysteries, History buffs, History documentaries, Nazi escape plots, Nazi gold trails, Nazi hidden artifacts, Nazi hoard, Nazi maps, Nazi relics, Nazi remnant, Nazi stolen art, Nazi treasure, Nazi underground bunkers, Netflix for history, Secret Nazi hideouts, Timeline - World History Documentaries, WWII documentary, WWII gold, WWII history buffs, WWII investigations, WWII mysteries

Id: _W-MAz07dIQ

Length: 50min 47sec (3047 seconds)

Published: Thu May 12 2022