Top Nazi Leader's Car - Amazing Barn Find

[Music] it had sat quietly rusting away in a nondescript barn in a small village in Denmark since 1959 at some point the garage had collapsed on the car and the elements had really done their work for 21 years this car had sat ignored awaiting perhaps scrapping and no one knew its historical significance that was until 1980 in late 1979 the owner of the car had dragged the wreck out from the remnants of the barn and stuck a for sale sign on it in January 1980 a man who knew cars and particularly Mercedes got wind of his existence and arrived to purchase it laurits Lauridsen had been an engineer for mercedes-benz for decades and he had realized that the ruin from the barn was at least a significant vehicle that if restored would be a valuable and collectible item but like any good detective story the more Lauritzen examined and worked on restoring the car the more strange things he noticed and the more historically importance of the car became in his mind the wreck was identified as a 1938 mercedes benz Cabriolet type b model 320 only 34 of these cars were manufactured but this car had features not found on the standard model boot scrapers on the running boards ashtrays a cabin heater with a windscreen defroster and sun visors the chassis number revealed that this particular car had been built by Mercedes at its Mannheim factory and incredibly of the 34 built only lauridsen's wreck had been constructed in Mannheim making it unique but the question was to whom had the Mercedes belonged Mercedes Benz said they had no information the clues are bounded on the car itself even though dilapidated lauridsen's trained I could see that shoddy repairs had been made sometime in the past a bump in the right rear end had been temporarily repaired the right side and right rear end bodywork had been repaired at some time using a lot of tin the rear end was originally designed with an integrated frame for the rear number plate but this had been filled out and covered by tin and once Lauritzen had repaired the car sufficiently that it could be driven he noticed that the right rear wheel shaft was bent clearly the Mercedes had suffered very serious damage earlier in its life to the right rear of the vehicle shoddy and cheap repairs had been made presumably during World War two as the previous owner stated that the car had been driven to German occupied Denmark late in the war by two German officers and had been used briefly by the Danish resistance after the German surrender before being sold off in a military surplus sale but who had driven this Mercedes during the war who had used a mercedes-benz 320 with these unique features and additions as well as the damage after much research Lauritzen came up with a chilling name reinhard heydrich the butcher of Prague even more incredibly the old damage to the car exactly matched the damage caused by the bomb that mortally wounded hide lish on a Prague Street on the 29th of May 1942 one of the most significant events of World War two the unique specifications on the Mannheim equipped car the same damage it was incredible the car of the second-in-command of the SS and the ruler of German occupied Czechoslovakia had somehow wound up rotting in a country barn in rural Denmark it seemed to be the barn find of the century so who was Hydra SH and why was the car significant Reinhard Heydrich was Himmler's number two in the SS chief of the Reich main security office controlling the Gestapo the SS security police the Zickuhr height steam store SD and the Creepo the Criminal Police he would also chair the January 1942 vans a conference that worked out the details of the final solution to the Jewish Question setting in motion the Holocaust even Hitler once described the six foot three inch hide wish as the man with the iron heart and in September 1941 he had been appointed Deputy Reich protector of bohemia and moravia in place of the Reich protector Konstantin von Neurath judged by Himmler and Hitler to be too soft on the czechoslovaks from day one hider ish terrorized the Czech population the Germans needed Czech prettiest weapons and we're determined to stamp out resistance organizations in the former Czechoslovakia Heydrich had hundreds executed and thousands sent to concentration camps earning him the nickname among the Czechs of the butcher of Prague as well as plenty of stick Heydrich also used some carrot to establish order increasing food rations and pensions and suppressing the black market but the ultimate German plan was to remove two-thirds of czechoslovaks to the east so that the land could be settled by ethnic Germans the Czech resistance and government in exile in London decided to strike at Heydrich himself to SOE trained officers one check one Slovak were parachuted into Czechoslovakia by the British and a scheme enacted to assassinate Heydrich in Prague called Operation anthropoid Heydrich was so confident that no one would ever dare lift a finger against him that he was driven around Prague in an open-top Mercedes 320 the very car mr. Lauritzen found rotting in a barn in Denmark in 1980 on the 27th of May 1942 the assassins struck one stepped in front of Heydrich Smurfs ADEs causing it to stop and pulled out a stencil machine gun but the weapon jammed or misfired at the critical moment and the assassin ran off pursued by Heydrich Stryver Klein in the meantime the second assassin threw a bomb into the rear of Heydrich Smurfs ADEs the explosion badly wounded hide leash Heydrich was taken to hospital with severe injuries to his spleen diaphragm and left lung after surgery Heydrich appeared to be recovering but then he slipped into a coma and died of sepsis on the 4th of June the backlash was appalling the assassins and their helpers were cornered in a Prague Cathedral and killed after a long gunfight two villagers believed to have harbored the assassins were destroyed with nearly all of their inhabitants women and children included massacred it has been estimated that across Czechoslovakia about five thousand people were killed by the Germans in revenge for Heydrich the hastily repaired damage on lauridsen's Mercedes exactly matched the well-documented damage to Heydrich scar caused by the modified British anti-tank mine that was flung into the rear of the car in Prague Lauritzen spent 11 years lovingly restoring Heydrich scar back to immaculate condition concerning its dark past Lauritzen was unfazed he decided that the past quote was no fault of the car unquote in February 2018 Heydrich Smurfs a DS was sold by at Lauritzen to the egg home museum in Roskilde Denmark where it is on public display but there is a problem since 2002 the military historical Institute in Prague has displayed another black mercedes-benz 320 that they have claimed to be Heydrich scar investigated by historians and car experts they have determined that the damage on the 320 in Prague does not correctly match photographs of Heydrich scar and indeed the Mercedes has some design features slightly different from Heydrich so unique 320 the features are only found in photographs of Heydrich scar in Prague after the bomb attack and on the 320 now in Denmark it appears at the 320 in the Prague Museum belonged to the commandant of Trajan at prison and concentration camp in Czechoslovakia ss-hauptsturmführer Hainish Yoko who was hanged for war crimes in 1946 it has been damaged to make it appear to be hydric Svea chol perhaps what is more surprising is the survival to the present day of not one but two Mercedes 320 s intimately involved in one of the darkest chapters of European history both cars stand as memorials to the plight of the Czechoslovak people and their brave assassination of the man with the iron heart and in a final peculiar twist to this story Heydrich hit the news again recently and not because of his old car his unmarked grave in a Berlin Cemetery was recently partially dug up by personal persons unknown though his bones were undisturbed thanks for watching please subscribe and share and also help support my channel at PayPal and patreon details in the description box below and don't forget to visit my new audiobook channel war stories with mark Felton details below [Music]

Channel: Mark Felton Productions

Views: 1,931,965

Keywords: Mark Felton Productions, Reinhard Heydrich, Operation Anthropoid, Prague, Barn find, Mercedes

Id: yP4DA0PSegs

Length: 10min 10sec (610 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 01 2020