In Search Of: Evil Axis Secrets of WWII (S2, E6) | Full Episode

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[music playing] Quinto: World War II was the deadliest conflict in modern history. But it was also one of the greatest heists ever pulled. In their quest for world domination, Germany's Third Reich amassed what might be the largest collection of stolen wealth ever acquired. And those aren't the only secrets the Nazis kept hidden away. Equally valuable, they were protecting knowledge, advanced weapons technology completely unknown to the Allies, which, if unleashed, could have led World War II to a very different outcome. Tonight we aim to uncover the Nazis' most enduring secrets, from an incredible stockpile of lost gold to a first-ever television look at a cutting-edge machine thought to have vanished 70 years ago and one treasure so priceless, it's been called the missing Eighth Wonder of the World... as we go in search of Nazi secrets. From 1939 to 1945, more than 50 countries were embroiled in World War II. But Adolf Hitler's atrocities actually started six years earlier. When he became chancellor of Germany in 1933, he immediately began preparing his Third Reich to take over Europe and perhaps the entire world. To do this, Hitler needed two things, weapons and wealth. To achieve the first, the Nazis began hiring and even kidnapping Europe's top scientists, putting them to work on new weapons technology. To achieve the second, the Nazis looted almost four tons of gold from central banks across Europe and vast troves of priceless artwork. While some of the Nazis' stolen loot and technology has been recovered, much more is still missing. The question is, where did it all go? NYU Professor Dr. Timothy Naftali is a leading expert on Nazi plunder. Today he's gotten a rare opportunity to visit what might be the Nazis' favorite hiding spot for their secret stolen goods. - Today I'm two hours outside of Frankfurt. I'm headed to Merkers mine to see where the Nazis put the gold that they had plundered from Europe at the end of World War II. Quinto: The town of Merkers is still home to a working salt and potassium mine, and, just like in 1945, the Nazis' secret treasure room is not easily accessible. The journey starts with a 2,000-foot descent in the mine's industrial lift. - When you descend in the elevator, you have this sense of claustrophobia. And when you leave the entryway, you have a sense that you're completely locked away. Quinto: Dr. Naftali has never had the chance to visit this site before. Luckily, he has the advantage of a mining truck and a driver who knows the way. A visitor in 1945 could have spent years wandering these tunnels without ever finding the stolen gold. - Here we are 500 meters down, traveling in a truck. It's very dark. There are 30 kilometers of passageways in this mine. You could take the map of this mine and put it over the map of Leipzig, a large city in Germany. That's how extensive the mine is. Quinto: Dr. Naftali has finally reached a nondescript entrance to the room the Nazis simply called number eight. Behind this door sat one of the greatest treasure hoards ever assembled. - Wow. Quinto: 75 feet wide and 150 feet long, with 12-foot-high ceilings and its own tram railway leading in and out, this space once contained the lion's share of Nazi Germany's secret wealth. - I could see why the Nazis had selected this place, because I don't know how anyone, without a little bit of luck, could have found it. Quinto: But how did the Allies find this room thousands of feet below ground along one of a near-infinite series of tunnels? Actually, it was completely by accident. - Two French women told American soldiers that they had seen sacks of money being taken out of the mine. Well, at that point, the U.S. Army took notice. Quinto: But the Nazis wouldn't give up their secret treasure so easily. There was an intense battle before the U.S. took control of the mine and discovered the door of room number eight. Fearing the door would be booby-trapped, troops blew a hole in the wall. It wasn't until the dust settled that they realized the enormity of their discovery. - U.S. soldiers come into this room, and they discover 8,198 of these gold bars. Quinto: In addition to 110 tons of gold bars, the army found 55 crates of gold bullion... 5,000 bags of various currency, and hundreds of priceless artworks. And when they reached the back wall of room number eight, they found something even more shocking. - Behind me, there were 189 suitcases and trunks. They were filled with silverware, jewelry, gold teeth. The Nazi war machine's hunger for gold was such that the S.S. was looking for the gold in the teeth of its victims. And so, the teeth were stolen so that they could be added to the plunder of the Nazi state. Quinto: Along with the treasure, the U.S. Army found a detailed inventory of every item in every container. They spent several days loading up the stolen goods and taking them to an abandoned bank in Frankfurt for safekeeping. But despite all of the meticulous oversight, it's here that the true mystery begins, because, as it turns out, the secret treasure of Merkers mine was quite a bit lighter than expected. - The fact of the matter is the sums don't add up, and there still is some mystery as to what happened to all of that gold. It is estimated that the Nazis stole $598 million-- this is 1945 dollars-- worth of gold. What was found here was not all of it. Quinto: The gold stored at Merkers mine was worth about $250 million in 1945, less than half of the alleged $598 million total. So where was the rest of it? - The fact of the matter is we don't know where all of it went. - Imagine a multi-billion-dollar lost treasure out there waiting to be discovered. It sounds like a pipe dream, but it may actually be true. Though the U.S. Army recovered a vast amount of stolen Nazi gold in Merkers mine, it's been estimated that an even larger quantity is still unaccounted for, a sum that today is worth about $5 billion. Without a doubt, a great deal of that was spent to fund the war, but did the Nazis actually spend all of it? We know for a fact that the answer is no. In April of 1945, nearly 10 tons of gold was found by the Allies near the town of Einsiedl. Even as recently as 2015, amateur treasure-hunter Florian Bautsch found a cache of 217 buried Nazi gold coins outside the town of Luneburg. Why were these smaller amounts of gold separated from the Nazi stockpile? It's a simple matter of greed and opportunity. As the war ended, soldiers from both sides couldn't help but be tempted to take some of the treasure for themselves and hide it away. How much of this now twice-stolen gold remains hidden somewhere, still waiting to be found? Treasure hunter Jurgen Proske believes it could be a staggering amount. In fact, he has an incredible new lead on one particularly large cache of stolen Nazi loot. - Now we are going to the Lake Walchen, which was the final destination of the gold from the former national bank of the Nazis. [speaking English] Quinto: We know the Nazis transferred gold from their national bank to Merkers mine. From there, Jurgen believes 10 tons of it was brought here to Einsiedl... where the Allies found it buried in 1945. But, according to Jurgen, they didn't find everything. Quinto: 150 kilograms may not sound like a lot, but it's actually $7 million worth of gold. Jurgen has been looking for it for 10 years. But recently he's found an incredible new clue as to its whereabouts. Quinto: According to Jurgen, in the diary, the officer confesses to stealing the gold. But when he returned years later, the landscape had changed, and he could no longer find his buried treasure. The question is, did someone else find it, or could it still be here? Quinto: If he's right, Jurgen could be about to close the case on a 75-year-old, $7-million mystery. [music playing] [beeping] Quinto: This is a German M43 hand grenade, which would have originally been mounted on a stalk for throwing. [detector beeping] Quinto: But despite the danger, this is a good sign for Jurgen. Because there was no active fighting here during the war, it would be unusual to find a grenade. Unless, of course, some disgruntled soldiers were here guarding something they'd stolen... like a $7 million treasure. [detector beeping] - Aha. Quinto: There are rounds of ammunition from Nazi machine guns. And remnants of a World War II belt buckle. Quinto: But where is the gold? So far, Jurgen's metal detector has only turned up small objects. 330 pounds of gold would generate a much larger reading. [detector beeping] [clinking] Quinto: It may not be the gold, but this helmet is an incredibly rare find. There are also remnants of a gas mask inside. Quinto: As today's search comes to an end, Jurgen is more confident than ever that he's on the right track. The grenade, ammunition, insignia, and helmet found today could well indicate that something valuable was being guarded here. - As we've already seen, on any given day, German treasure hunters might just be one turn of the shovel away from millions of dollars or even billions in Nazi gold. But let's not forget that stolen money was only a small part of the Nazis' many secrets. They also pulled off the biggest art heist in history, hundreds of thousands of priceless works by artists like Michelangelo, Rembrandt, and Van Gogh. Hitler had plans to exhibit all of his stolen artwork at a new museum to be built in his hometown of Linz, Austria. At the centerpiece of the<i> Führer</i> museum was to be perhaps the single greatest treasure the Nazis ever stole. What was this incredible treasure? It's a work of art so massive and so valuable that it's been called the missing Eighth Wonder of the World. But to those who lost it, it's simply known as the Amber Room. Historian David Caldwell-Evans is an expert on the Third Reich's many stolen treasures. But none has captivated him as much as this one in particular. - The Amber Room is a unique work of art. It was a room entirely paneled with nearly 190 square feet of decorated, carved, embellished amber. Quinto: Estimated to be worth as much as half a billion dollars, the Germans gave the Amber Room as a gift to Russia in 1716. It was installed in St. Petersburg's Catherine Palace. That is, until the Nazis invaded and looted the palace in 1941. They dismantled the Amber Room, packing it into 24 large crates. Then they brought it to Konigsberg castle in the German state of Prussia. But the Soviets wouldn't give up so easily. In 1944, they advanced on Konigsberg and destroyed the castle. As they searched the ruins, they were shocked to discover that the Amber Room wasn't there. So where could it have gone? Today David is in the Polish town of Mamerki hoping to answer that very question. Just 60 miles from Konigsberg, Mamerki was the center of German command on the Eastern Front. Here you can find remnants of the Nazis all around. - This is just one of the bunkers surviving today at Mamerki. As you can see, they're full of earth. They've not been properly explored. Only one percent of the area has been properly explored or been examined. So, from bunkers like this, there could be a branch, a network of tunnels, reaching out across this area to connect who knows what, with other bunkers, air-raid shelters, or maybe a chamber holding the Amber Room. But the important question is, why would the Amber Room come here? Quinto: That question has a very simple answer. This is high-ranking Nazi official Erich Koch. He oversaw the Amber Room at Konigsberg. After his capture and imprisonment, he told investigators that the room was brought here to Mamerki and kept in a bunker just 200 yards away. When that bunker was searched, nothing was found. But Bartek Plebanczyk of the Mamerki Museum is convinced it must still be nearby. Today he's brought a new tool to aid in his search, a ground-penetrating radar. - How does it actually work, then? What is it showing us on the screen here? - I'm making the lines, like one line for five meters, and if something is different in the ground, like, let's say a concrete wall or metal parts, the machine will calculate any differences, and I will see something is under the ground. Quinto: It's a painstaking process that involves crossing back and forth through an area in precisely aligned paths. - If the Amber Room is at Mamerki, it's not gonna be in one of the obvious bunkers that anyone can visit today. It must be buried somewhere. It must be underground. Quinto: It takes nearly four hours to fully map the area surrounding the bunker identified by Erich Koch, but the search has turned up one very promising lead. - This, this point is very interesting for me. The bunker is here. We make--We searched the square area and all the colors are the same, and this color has changed, so I have very strong belief that, uh, we've found what we are looking for. - So what's next? - I think we should start digging. Quinto: The object on the radar scan is less than a foot below the ground. Even so, reaching it won't be easy. - Mamerki, today, is a largely unspoiled area. It's sort of natural forest. It's been growing here for many years. So when you think you have 70 years of neglect to dig through to find anything, then any task is gonna be extremely difficult here. - [shovel clatters] - I-Is that a line there? - Yes, it's a straight line, so this is exactly what we are looking for. Quinto: The excavation has revealed a concrete hatch. Now the pair must determine if it's safe to enter. - Previous searches here at Mamerki have found German explosive devices from World War II, hand grenades, mines lying around the woods. Very often, they're inert, because they've been immersed in water for many years, but you simply can't take that risk. - Bartek works with a local expert in underground surveys. - The reason for bringing him in is he actually designs systems, cameras that can be used by the security and the search and rescue services around the world to actually explore cavities, things like that. Quinto: This could be the first glimpse anyone has had of this chamber in over 70 years. - I'm getting a picture. It's pretty dark in there. Okay, now I can see something. There's something right by the camera now. Steel, uh, steps, rungs, ladder going down the side of the--the brick. It's very solid-looking brickwork after all this time. Quinto: The camera doesn't show any immediate hazards, but there's only one way to tell just how large this bunker might be. Could this be the resting place of the Nazis' most valuable stolen treasure? If so, we're finally on the verge of finding out. What is the single greatest treasure the Nazis ever stole? One candidate is the famed Amber Room... a lavish chamber taken from a Russian palace, worth up to half a billion dollars, that has been missing since 1944. - I can say that something is different under the ground. Quinto: But today there's a chance it might soon be found in a complex of underground bunkers in Mamerki, Poland. - Is it safe to go down? - It seems like it's safe to go inside. - Well, the hatch is open, so there's only one way to find out whether we found the Amber Room, and that's go down and look. Right, well, I'm down now. Uh, let me give you an idea what I can see if I just turn on the light I brought. It's an extremely strange feeling going down into a brick chamber... at the site of the German Army's high command headquarters in World War II. You do realize that no one has touched those iron rungs for 70 years. Quinto: The chamber is dry and secure, suggesting that, if the Amber Room is here, it might remain well-preserved. - And so, brickwork, solid concrete roof above me, and sand, sand and mud filling the bottom of this. Looks as though the brickwork has fallen away. This does look, unfortunately, like a dead end. Quinto: Even if it were buried under the sand, this chamber appears too small to hold the 24 crates that contain the dismantled Amber Room. But David and Bartek still believe it could be hidden nearby. - It's important to remember, when Erich Koch, the Nazi governor of East Prussia, was brought back to this site in 1970, he identified a site only 200 yards away and said that's where the Amber Room was buried. So, between there-- between that site and this site, who knows? There could be other chambers, other ways. Even if this doesn't connect, another chamber might connect to the last resting place of the Amber Room. Quinto: There are 200 buildings in this complex, covering over 600 acres, with many more miles of tunnels underneath. Each year, Bartek hopes to scan and excavate at least two new hidden chambers, but, at that rate, the work will still take over a decade. - It's bound to be a painstaking process, and something that's easy to find, you don't get quite the same reward. And the story of the Amber Room, it's so complex, so mysterious that every time you chip away at that fundamental underlying mystery, one more place that it isn't, just brings you closer to the place that it is. - The Amber Room appears to be a Nazi secret that will remain hidden for at least a little while longer, but let's not forget that the entire concept of Nazi secrets could be interpreted in many ways. So far, we've focused on stolen gold and hidden treasures, certainly items of great intrigue, but we're ignoring something that could be even more important. What if the Nazis had a secret that could have changed history? As it turns out, they actually did, a devastating technology that destroyed nearly 3,000 Allied ships. And, in fact, it could have been even worse, because, as we're about to find out, Hitler was on the verge of launching a weapon that could potentially have won the war for the Third Reich. What was the single greatest secret the Nazis possessed? Was it the billions of dollars in stolen gold they hid deep underground? Was it their collection of artistic, religious, and cultural masterpieces from across Europe? Or was it something else, something that could have actually won them the war? To achieve their goal of world domination, the Third Reich rapidly researched weapons technologies, making incredible advances in a short period of time. They developed long-range missiles and jet airplane engines well before the Allies. Fortunately these breakthroughs happened late in the war, when the tide had already turned against Hitler. But there was one secret technology that actually made a significant impact, the U-boat. German U-boats sunk 3,000 ships during World War II, causing the destruction of over 5 million tons of Allied goods. And, according to military historian Dr. Geoffrey Wawro, it could have been a whole lot worse. Today Dr. Wawro is sailing from Denmark with a six-man underwater salvage crew in search of the Nazis' most powerful top-secret weapon, which was lost just before the end of the war. - We're going to look for U-3523, one of the most advanced German U-boats in World War II. Quinto: Dr. Wawro's team hopes to solve several mysteries on this voyage, including what secret technology the U-boat may have been equipped with and why it was here in the first place. - Was it just a crew that was on a routine mission, or were there Nazi grandees aboard who were trying to flee, or was it loaded with Nazi gold and other treasure? Quinto: Thought to be the deadliest submarine ever made, the U-3523 could very well have changed the outcome of World War II. - This was the first fully submergible for long periods of time, long-endurance submarine that was designed primarily to operate underwater, and that restored stealthiness to the submarine service. It meant that subs, which were always very vulnerable 'cause they had to come up to the surface to get air, now they could stay underwater with this ingenious German invention called the snorkel tube. Quinto: This submarine was the first in history that could outmaneuver an Allied ship while remaining unseen underwater. And it wasn't just built for speed. It was also built to destroy. - The Type XXI U-boat was better armed than the other German submarines. It had six bow-facing torpedo tubes that--that could be electronically reloaded with these hydraulic assisted machines, which meant that you could fire six torpedoes faster than you could fire one torpedo on the old Type VII U-boat. So this thing was really gonna be a game changer as far as the Germans were concerned. Quinto: What other secrets could these U-boats potentially be hiding? The Allies never got the chance to find out, because the Nazis were defeated before construction was finished. - There were 118 of these Type XXI U-boats commissioned. 3523 was one of the four that became operational. Quinto: And, of those four, only two were deployed. The one we're searching for today, U-3523, launched just one day before Germany officially surrendered, as the Nazis were attempting one final effort to win the war. - Admiral Dönitz, who replaced Adolf Hitler as German<i> Führer</i> in the last days of the war, was ordering all the U-boats to assemble for a last stand in Norway. They had 350,000 troops up there. They had a lot of naval assets congregated in the ports like Bergen and Trondheim in Norway. Quinto: But U-3523 never made it to Norway. So where exactly did it end up? Geoffrey's team believes the U-boat was hit by an Allied bomb and sunk here, 10 miles off the coast of Skagen, Denmark, a place where the ocean floor is nearly 400 feet down. - We're gonna use this R.O.V., remote operated vehicle, to dive beneath the waves and look for it. - We have the sonar here, so when we reach the seafloor, we can use that to locate the wreckage, and we got three different cameras, and we've got four lights. - So we basically have, uh, eyes and illumination on the seabed, so we're gonna be able - to see everything... - Yep. - hopefully, so let's get this thing in the water - Let's do it. Quinto: The R.O.V. has a 1,000-foot tether and approximately two hours of battery life. - It definitely has a needle in the haystack feel about it, what we're doing. I mean, 'cause we're way out here in the middle of the ocean, and it's 400 feet down. So we got our work cut out for us. Quinto: If they could locate the wreckage, the team could pull off the first-ever televised look at what might be the Nazis' deadliest secret of all. Quinto: Is it possible that the Nazis possessed a secret weapon that could have changed the outcome of World War II? Military historian Dr. Geoffrey Wawro thinks it is. Today he's out with an underwater search team in the North Sea, which could be the final resting place of an advanced Nazi submarine called U-3523. - What we're doing today is gonna show us one of the only surviving examples of this U-boat. It's gonna show us, maybe, why this thing was leaving. Was it actually heading out into the Atlantic to try to escape with high-ranking German officials? Or was it trying to get up to the German submarine pens in--on the coast of Norway? Quinto: To find the U-boat, Geoffrey's team has sent in a remotely operated drone to scan the seafloor 400 feet down. - Okay, here we got the sonar, and then we're looking for the--the wreckage. It looks like we have a good mark here, and, uh, we're gonna drive over. - So I see, like, some hard object - that the sonar's picking up. - Yep. - And then that's the camera that, whenever we get close enough, we can get a good look at it? - Yep. Yep. - Wow, that's very interesting. G.P.S. and our charts tell us this is where it ought to be, but what if it's not where we think it is? So we're looking at the monitor, and it's just dark, and we're not really seeing anything. We're down pretty deep. Getting closer. I can feel it. W-We're straining for some sight of U-3523 and hoping against hope that it--that it's there. Feel like I see some-- - Coming in here now. - There's some-- I see something right here. Look at that. - There it is. - That's it. That's it. - That's the tail. - There it is. - She's been down here for, what, 74 years, and we just found her. So here it is, a--you know, a top-secret Nazi technology that was designed to win the war. And people were desperate to get hold of a prototype of this thing, and here we are looking at one on the seafloor here. We've got 70-odd years of marine life growing on this thing, so it's pretty obscured, but that's really cool. Quinto: At this level of depth and decay, it's hard to make out the details of the U-boat, but one thing is clear. After it was bombed, it went down fast, and it went down headfirst. - You see that it's driven into the seabed at a 45-degree angle, so it just dove a-as deep as the ocean was at that point, 400 feet, and then it just hit the seafloor and it went in like a lawn dart. Quinto: From the portion sticking up from the sand, we can calculate that U-3523 was approximately 250 feet long and 26 feet wide. It appears to have two turbo-charged diesel engines, allowing it to travel nearly twice as fast as any other sub of its time. - And, really, think about how this was gonna be the backbone of a revived German navy. They were gonna build 1,200 to 2,000 of these. Quinto: A fleet of that size could have completely blocked off the Allied naval forces. - This is just such an advance on the previous German submarines, and, in one year, they made this technology leap? It looks like, you know, a-a nuclear submarine from, you know, the 1950s or 1960s. Quinto: Unfortunately the sub's weapons systems are completely buried at the front of the vessel, and the exterior hatches all appear to be closed. Now that it's been discovered, U-3523 is officially classified as a war grave, meaning its interior cannot be disturbed. Whatever secrets this U-boat is hiding won't be revealed today. - I'm just personally thrilled to have been a part of this expedition, to find this sunken U-boat, and to get such a close and intimate look at it. And to begin solving this mystery of U-3523, to me, that was just a real thrill. thrill of a lifetime. - With the discovery of U-3523, the mystery of one of the Nazi'' most powerful weapons can finally be put to rest. But when it comes to Nazi secrets, there are still important answers that need to be uncovered. Somewhere out there are billions of dollars in lost gold and currency. Still missing are hundreds of thousands of artistic masterworks. All of these items were treasured long before they fell into the hands of the Nazis. It's crucial that our society remains vigilant, because the truth is there won't be justice until the Nazis have no more secrets remaining. The search continues.
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Channel: HISTORY
Views: 26,883
Rating: undefined out of 5
Keywords: history, history channel, history channel shows, history shows, UFO, UFO show, UFO sighting, extra terrestrial, paranormal, paranormal show, paranormal mystery, paranmormal mysteries, paranormal activity, alien encounter, mysterious creature, artificial intelligence, conspiracy, conspiracy theories, In Search Of, In Search Of show, Zachary Quinto, Leonard Nimoy, In Search Of: Secrets, nazi germany, nazi, nazi germany wwii, world war 2, world war II, hitler, stolen wealth
Id: 634sCnMuryY
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 42min 22sec (2542 seconds)
Published: Sat May 04 2024
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