The Nazis founded underground fortresses in the ice of the southern continent to receive the Fuhrer who had fled from Germany. After the war, mysterious aircraft were tested there, and rocket launchers were on alert. Historians explain what facts this version is based on. Some neo-Nazis claim that Hitler did not commit suicide, but moved to Antarctica, others say that his ashes were brought there. An impressive theory.
Since 1938, German warships have been regularly cruising to Antarctica.
According to the scientific theory, in which the Nazi leadership believed, the Earth is hollow inside, and in the Antarctic region there are entrances to giant underground cavities.
Since 1940, on the personal instructions of the Fuehrer, they begin construction of two shelters east of the Weddell Sea in Queen Maud Land, a vast area on the Atlantic coast of Antarctica, lying between 20 ° W and 44 ° 38 'E longitude. So, at least, conspiracy theorists say.
Before the end of the war, a secret team in spacious caves allegedly built strong points "New Swabia" and "New Berchtesgaden" with food supplies and an independent life support system, the newest types of submarines were stationed in the roadstead, jet aircraft were based at underground airfields, and they were on alert missile launchers with nuclear warheads. After the war, the surviving Nazis, close associates of Martin Bormann, Eva Braun and Hitler, or at least urns with their ashes, had to find refuge there.
All of the above belongs to the fantasies of those who like to catch rotten fish in the murky waters of history. This legend was widely reported in the tabloid press, the Internet, and cheap popular science literature. Recently, a polar explorer thoroughly studied the book "Hitler's Base in Antarctica". He presented the results of his research work on the 21st page of the January issue of the authoritative specialized magazine "Polar Record".
“Were the German U-530 and U-977 submarines in Antarctica?” “Did atomic bombs explode there?” “Were five FAU ballistic missiles at the South Pole? in 1958 with 3 American atomic bombs? - American Colin Summerhayes and his Canadian co-author Peter Beeching competently answer these and other questions that have been exaggerated for decades by laymen.
“It would be a great pleasure to work on this topic,” polar explorer Summerheis said in an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, “if all these theories were driven only by“an extremely frivolous view of Antarctica”.
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“We thought: what if we write how the situation looked in reality - and why it could not have happened differently,” - this is how the scientist explained why he got involved in an argument with amateurs.
“Search Google for the words Nazis and Antarctica,” Summerheiss continues, pointing out that more than 800,000 early topics will tell these legends.
Historian Holger Meding of the University of Cologne, who specializes primarily in Anglo-Saxon history, is often confronted with these legends. He is an expert on the history of Latin America, writes about German immigration to South America, including the old Nazis as well. “In recent months, 5 or 6 books have been sent to me from Spanish-speaking countries in which these myths are inflated,” the historian shared his observations.
“The reports on the bases in Antarctica come from representatives of the entire political spectrum. The first publications were more common in the leftist press, and were directed against the Nazis,”says Meding.
In post-war Argentina, these tales served as a criticism of the right-wing government of Perón, which was credited with supporting some dubious Nazis.
The legendary creators of this myth include the notorious Canadian neo-Nazi Ernst Zundel, who wrote a couple of books under the pseudonym Christof Friedrich in the 1970s. “Zündel then made a heroic story out of this:“We are still here,”Meding continues.
For the first time a "historically unfounded" legend about a fortress in Antarctica was expressed in the book "Hitler esta vivo" ("Hitler is alive") published in Buenos Aires in 1947 by the Hungarian émigré Ladiszlav Szab o. He wrote there about "Hitler's new Berchtesgaden in Antarctica." “However, there were several reasons for writing such a book,” says Meding, “that cannot be called complete nonsense.”
December 17, 1938 the ship "Schwabenland" left the harbor of Hamburg and about a month later - 19.01. 1938 - reached the shores of Antarctica at 4 degrees 15 'west longitude and 69 degrees 10' south latitude. The expedition was led by Captain Alfred Ritscher, whose team included a significant number of engineers, geophysicists, oceanographers and zoologists who studied whales. The main task is to study the continent by flying over its territory and emitting steel pennants with a swastika.
Two seaplanes of the Dornier Whal type, named "Boreas" (in honor of Boreus - the god of the north wind - ed.) And "Passat", with several 38 mm cameras on board, were in the air for several hours every day. They took 11 thousand images of 600,000 square meters. km of territory. The archives contain photos of mountain peaks, 4000 m high, and endless icy deserts. One area is named after the leader of the expedition, Ritscherland.
However, as Summerheiss and Beeching argue, "There is only a small grain of truth in all of these stories."
1). In fact, two German submarines U-530 and U-977 appeared in the Argentine harbor of Mar de la Plata in July and August 1945. The crew members of both boats tried in vain to escape captivity by hiding in South America. Not only because of a lack of fuel supplies, submarines could not deliver cargo or passengers to Queen Maud Land, as the creators of the version about the Fuhrer's flight to the South Pole claim. “These people just forget that in the summer there is an eerie cold and absolute darkness,” emphasizes Summerheiss. A meter thick ice would prevent submarines from surfacing in the right place.
2). The imaginary operation of the British command, codenamed "Tabarin", in which the soldiers of the elite SAS unit allegedly took part, is also pure fiction. The sources referring to this operation are highly unreliable. On the contrary, in the British archives Summerheis and Beeching found only information that the British Royal Navy did not set before its subordinates the task of organizing the Tabarin Antarctic Expedition, since in July it transferred its implementation to the civilian authorities. Finally, the SAS special unit was liquidated in October 1945 and re-created only in 1948.
3). A key element of the legend tells of the fictional defeat of the British by the German defenders of the "ice fortresses". Further, the fantasy did not know the limits at all. The American military operation "Highjump" ("High jump"), which took place in the winter of 1946/1947, was supposedly intended to destroy the surviving Nazis in the fortresses. The fictional operation involved approximately 4,700 soldiers, 33 aircraft and 13 ships, making it the largest military operation on the southern continent. "But the Americans showed no interest in Queen Maud Land," Summerheis and Beeching emphasize.
4). From one statement by the commander of Operation Highjump, Richard Byrd, storytellers from history have composed the legend that the Nazis created flying saucers in Antarctica. In fact, the quote attributed to Byrd from the Chilean newspaper El Mercurio is incorrectly translated into English. The authors of the study state that Bird was not talking about Nazi UFOs, but about the possible "invasion of enemy aircraft from the polar region" - by which he, of course, meant the Soviet aviation.
five). However, the crudest, albeit most sensational, fake is the allegation of a nuclear strike allegedly inflicted on Neuberchtesgaden by the United States. Three atomic bombs were actually detonated by the Americans in 1958 south of Cape Town in the atmospheric layers at an altitude of 160 to 750 km, between 2200 and 3500 km north of Queen Maud Land. These data are available in the army archives, which have been classified for a long time. The victorious countries of the Second World War, each in its own way, also contributed to the strengthening of the legend: "The atmosphere of secrecy is always the basis for the generation of myths," says Meding.