During World War II allied ships and aircraft
operating in the north sea often picked up mysterious signals that seemed to be coming
from somewhere far to the north. With war raging across europe though, and
no vital allied interests anywhere near the arctic, the signals were disregarded as a
curiosity and generally ignored. However, while the allies were ignoring these
mysterious signals, it was the Nazis themselves who were sending them, all from a secret installation
deep in the Arctic and just north of Russia, was this a Nazi super villain base in the
Arctic? A thousand miles shy of the north pole, and
only a few hundred miles from Russian territory, scientists from the Russian Arctic National
Park unearthed the remains of a secret base on a remote island known as Alexandra Land. Spotted from the air in 1947 but not reached
by the Soviets until 1952, a 2016 archaeological investigation made possible by unseasonably
warm weather has yielded hundreds of items that detailed the lives of the German scientists
who worked there. Amongst the items discovered were German mines,
hand grenade fragments, cartridge boxes, ammunition, uniforms, coats, and sacks bearing the label
of the Wehrmacht, or German army. But just what in the world were the Germans
doing so far north, and so perilously deep in Soviet territory? Predicting the weather has been vital for
militaries since antiquity. During the famous Battle of Thermopylae in
ancient Greece, the Persian invaders and their superior fleet were absolutely devastated
by surprise storms, sending hundreds of ships and thousands of men to the bottom of the
Aegean Sea. When the Mongols sent an invasion force of
tens of thousands of warriors to Japan, a storm once more devastated the invasion fleet
and foiled the planned attack. A second invasion attempt would meet with
the same fate, and by then so many men and materials had been lost that any invasion
was canceled forever. Clearly weather, and understanding it, is
critical for military success, yet it wasn't until the advent of radio and modern meteorology
that we began to understand it or how to predict it. The Germans knew that forecasting the weather
in the north seas would be critical in their fight against England's superior fleets, and
just as important for their mighty Luftwaffe which would be useless during bad weather. Understanding how weather systems worked,
and predicting them, could give Germany a critical advantage in the war, and allow their
bombers to strike enemy targets without fear of running into storms which would ruin the
accuracy of their bombing runs. To this end Germany set up a secret weather
research station one thousand miles south of the North Pole, on an island known as Alexandra
Land. Weather stations were not anything new, but
they were still very high priority targets that were often destroyed by ships or by aircraft. Denying the enemy the ability to forecast
the weather was as critical as scoring direct military victories, and so any enemy weather
stations were high on the list of targets for both sides during the war. This station in Alexandra Land however would
prove to be even more dangerous than normal for the Germans to operate, as it would be
based only a few hundred miles from Soviet Territory and well out of range of the German
navy or air forces. The men would be completely on their own,
and relied on extreme secrecy to ensure their survival. To that end the construction crews and the
men who would operate the station were all delivered via U-boat, slinking past Allied
ships by diving underneath them. The plan worked perfectly and it wouldn't
be until two years after the war that anyone would discover the secret base. From their base in Alexandra Land the Germans
were able to monitor arctic weather patterns and conduct atmospheric research which would
be vital in understanding how weather actually worked. The remains of the base included pieces of
weather balloons, thermometers, astronomic tables, and journals full of meteorological
data. Over seven hundred weather reports were sent
via radio back to Germany from the base, and it was never once discovered. Meanwhile the vital data allowed the Nazi
war machine to avoid bad weather, or exploit imminent breaks in ongoing storms. Ultimately though the station would have to
be abandoned in 1944 after the inhabitants ate tainted polar bear meat. The bear had been contaminated with roundworm,
likely getting the infection itself from a seal, and it made the men ill enough to force
an evacuation via U-boat. With the war going so poorly for Germany,
the station was never re-manned again. Yet rumors of other secret Nazi bases have
persisted to this day, most famously the claim that they built and operated a base in Antarctica-
some sources claim that Nazis remain in their secret Antarctic base to this day, plotting
their icy-cold revenge upon the world that forgot them. Probably with giant robots or something. These rumors however are exactly that, just
rumors, but born from a very real expedition that had actual plans to build a base in Antarctica-
and for reasons you will never guess. At first thought you might think that the
Germans would build a base in Antarctica to allow them to research and develop super secret
ultimate weapons, deadly biological plagues, or perhaps to make direct contact with C'thulu
and his Elder Things which remain to this day asleep deep beneath the Antarctic ice. The reality however is far weirder, because
Hitler wanted a base in Antarctica for one reason and one reason only: margarine. Widely known as the crappier substitute to
butter, margarine was incredibly important for Germany as the German people absolutely
loved the stuff. Yet one of the main ingredients for margarine
and many other oil and fat-based products was whale oil, which Germany had to purchase
from Norway. In the case of war, Hitler knew that Norway
would probably be pretty reluctant about conducting trade with Germany, and even if it still did
want to trade, the Allies would very easily blockade his ports and block the import of
all-important whale oil. Hitler needed a substitute source of whale
oil, and he needed it before he went to war. By the 1930s though commercial whaling in
the north atlantic and north pacific had decimated whale populations, so Hitler ordered the construction
of factory whaling ships that would hunt in the distant southern waters. Operating so far from home, the German whalers
needed a base of operations to conduct repairs and to rest their crews, so Hitler decided
that he would claim part of Antarctica for himself. In August of 1936 the German Foreign Office
found some unclaimed territory in Antarctica between Norwegian and British Zones and organized
an expedition to explore the region and claim it. By the summer of 1938, Captain Alfred Ritscher,
a decorated World War I commander was selected to lead the expedition- though only grudgingly
as he had married a well known Jewish artist and was not a member of the Nazi party. Still, the Captain was one of the most experienced
polar navigators in Germany, and in the end was granted command. For three months the Captain's ship, the Schwabenland,
underwent extensive retrofits to turn it into an icebreaker, and Ritscher at last sailed
from Hamburg on December 17th, 1938, with a crew of 82 scientists, officers, and enlisted
men. The ship was also equipped with a catapult
for two Dornier flying boats and a crane to recover them from the sea upon return. A month later the ship reached the Antarctic
coast line, and the flying boats were sent to conduct aerial reconnaissance. This very mountainous region had never before
been explored, and the German scientists named it New-Schwabenland after their ship. However the expedition wasn't free of troubles,
and during one flight the crew ran low on fuel and were forced to toss out every pound
of equipment they could in order to lighten the aircraft. This included boxes of tiny metal swastikas
which they were supposed to have dropped across the claimed land in order to cement the German
claim to it. To this day the tiny swastikas remain strewn
across the Antarctic landscape, where they have likely murdered a very unsuspecting and
utterly surprised penguin or two. More proof that the Nazis really were monsters. The expedition ended up surveying an area
larger than Germany, and on February 5th, 1939 the expedition sailed home confident
that Germany could claim the land and build a whaling station there. On the way home the ship even conducted scans
of the ocean floor and discovered seismic activity that ran from north to south along
the middle of the Atlantic- these would later be found to be lines of volcanoes known as
the Mid-Atlantic Ridge which make up a region where two of the Earth's tectonic plates meet. This early discovery wouldn't cement our modern
understanding of plate tectonics until the 1950s, which goes to show that if the Nazis
had been less warmongering and mass-murdering super villains, they might have led the way
in scientific discovery. Ultimately the whaling station was never meant
to be, as Germany decided to start World War II and destroy itself in the process. That doesn't stop the rumor mill from generating
ever-evolving stories about secret bases in Antarctica though, and while entertaining,
about all the evil the Nazis did in this most remote of continents is murder an unsuspecting
penguin or two with free-falling boxes of swastikas. Or perhaps that's just what we would say if
the Nazis did establish a secret base thousands of miles from the nearest civilization, and
struck up an alliance with C'thulu and the Elder Things after freeing them from their
icy prisons, and now plot their revenge on an unsuspecting world. What secret Nazi bases have you heard about? Are the poets turning mad as they herald C'thulu's
million year reign of darkness and madness? Also, check out our other video: What If Hitler
Had Won?! And as always if you enjoyed this video don't
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