Original subtitles

Previously on "Hunting Hitler"...

We're going to have to uncover the network

that would have helped Hitler get away.

In network strategy or asset mapping,

we always start by tracking a target's family.

"My coming to Berchtesgaden was very strange."

Somebody organized the exfiltration

of Hitler's two sisters.

Why do they feel safe in Berchtesgaden?

We have a huge steel door,

blocking us from getting access

underneath Hitler's personal home.

Behind that door you would find a vast labyrinth

of underground tunnels,

400 feet of solid rock above you.

If Adolf Hitler walks out of that tunnel,

and he gets on a train, where is the next stop?

So, this is from the U.S. Army.

"At this time, the decision had been taken

to divide the ministries in two parts."

They're splitting up.

Hitler could have gone north or he could have gone south.

We have to look at both routes.

Look at the size of this massive structure.

This is the size of a small town.

What is this? An operating room?

This is definitely a hospital and a perfect cover

to hide some high value target.

Hitler came to visit when she was working there,

and she had to take off Hitler's coat.

He was here more than once.

What house? What structure?

It's placed right on a lake.

Well, let's go have a look at that house.

HUNTING HITLER - SEASON 3 EP - 2 - Clandestine Caches

I have never seen so much redundancy

built into an organization.

I have never seen escape routes like this.

They have planned for every contingency.

Using asset mapping, the same strategy used

to dismantle the leadership of al Qaeda and ISIS,

21-year CIA veteran Bob Baer,

and former terrorist targeting officer Nada Bakos,

have identified two escape routes

that could have gotten Adolf Hitler out of Europe

after World War II.

While one team investigates Hitler's potential southern

escape route through Berchtesgaden

in southern Germany,

Bob and Nada focus in on Hitler's potential

northern escape route through Hohenlychen,

where a declassified U.S. Army file

places Hitler at a possible lakeside safe house,

at the same time that the official record states

that he was in his Berlin bunker,

preparing to commit suicide.

This northern route is absolutely fascinating.

It's Himmler's compound...

Hitler's personal guard, the head of the SS.

It's enormous.

It operated as a hospital that they knew,

according to the Geneva Convention,

it was not going to be bombed.

Let's not forget we have a file that places Hitler

at a lake by Hohenlychen

and then another eyewitness told us

specifically there was a house

by the lake where Hitler came to visit.

What we've seen is a pattern

wherever we've been that high-level Nazis

cared about their personal comfort.

So if you're going to move Hitler through here,

it's going to be some place that's comfortable enough,

protected enough, out of the public eye.

I want to get the team to that house as soon as we can.

Let's see if we can find some evidence

that Hitler used this as a northern escape route.

Built by the lake.

The windows and the balconies and glazed-in areas,

they're obviously bedrooms.

Along Hitler's potential northern escape route,

at the massive Nazi compound in Hohenlychen,

former U.S. Marshals Commander Lenny DePaul,

and investigative journalist Gerrard Williams,

arrive at a secluded villa on the property

to determine if this could have been a location Hitler used

as the launching point for his escape after the war.

The team uses the cover of night to minimize their exposure.

If I'm on the run, and I'm a fugitive,

I would die to have a place like this.

This massive compound was a medical military facility,

but the villa in itself to me is completely different

from anything else I saw in this compound.

It's absolutely gorgeous.

It's well hidden, sitting right on the water.

Certainly a perfect spot to put somebody in for a few days.

Now we need to get into this villa

to see if there's any evidence whatsoever

that Adolf Hitler himself could have possibly stayed here.

Here we go.

Man, look at this place, Gerrard.

Thinking back about 70 years ago

and who was in here and what they were doing.

Whoa, whoa. Incoming bats.

Let's go this way. Let's take a quick look at everything.

Staircase.

It's quite a nice staircase, though.

Yeah. Lacquered hand rails.

It's more like a grand house.

One, two, three, four, five stories up.

It just feels like posh accommodation.

Look at this room.

It's kind of a nice looking floor, right?

Yeah. Wow.

This is where higher echelons reside.

It's pretty obvious that this is something

more ornate and lavish

than the rest of the administrative and hospital

buildings that we've been walking through.

It feels more like a palatial family home.

It's safe, it's secure, we're full of bloody SS.

If you're thinking about an escape route,

this is a great place to come.

If any high-ranking Nazi officers or Hitler himself

were going to stay somewhere on the compound,

this would be the place.

Ooh, hello.

There's an en suite bathroom.

Yeah, and look. Look at the walls.

This is the first time we've seen decorative tile work. Yeah.

Look at this hole.

This is probably where the shower emptied.

Oh, wow, look at this.

What is this thing?

Look at this, Gerrard.

There's a crest, maybe even a date.

It could be a medicine bottle.

God knows what it is, but it's certainly something.

Seeing ornate features, opulent areas in this villa,

it certainly isn't a place

that a low-level Nazi officer is going to stay.

This was definitely set up for somebody with expensive taste.

Knowing what type of medicine that could have possibly been

in this bottle is a huge clue

and will certainly tell me what kind of person

would have stayed in this place.

We'll ship this stuff back and...

See what they say. ...see what happens.

What we have is a place you could put Hitler.

Bob and Nada review the findings

from Hitler's potential northern escape route

in Hohenlychen, Germany.

If the decision is made for him to flee north,

it's absolutely logical to me that he would go here.

Also finding this medicine bottle,

I think he may have been somewhat of a hypochondriac,

setting up medicine in case

he ended up in any one of these facilities. Yeah.

If it is the some sort of medicine we found at Misiones,

it's a red flag.

Previously in the investigation, the team uncovered medicine

in a Nazi compound in Misiones, Argentina.

It was consistent with the type of medication

that Adolf Hitler was known to be taking.

I want to know what's in the bottle.

For anybody who's doing classic manhunting,

there's nothing like forensics.

It's something you can't mess with.

That kind of specific detail about a medicine could tell us

if Hitler planned to be there.

While the team waits for test results

from forensics laboratory croTrace,

Bob and Nada shift their focus

to Hitler's potential southern escape route

at Berchtesgaden, Germany,

where a declassified U.S. Army report revealed

that General Eisenhower directed his troops

during the final days of the war.

This is the end of the war.

We know a lot of high-level Nazis left Berlin

and headed to Berchtesgaden.

You had a strategically important position in the Alps.

You have extensive bunkers.

We also have this fully-functioning

government headquarters,

and there's train tracks leading right up to the exits.

He just could have walked out the door and been gone.

This is an easy escape route.

The question is, what happened?

We never learn from history a battle for Berchtesgaden.

If Hitler escaped with the southern route,

what happens when the Allies arrived

and what did they find?

In all my years of gathering and analyzing intelligence,

I can tell you there's nothing more important

than getting it from the source.

U.S. Army Green Beret Mike Simpson

lands in Bay City, Michigan,

to meet with two veterans of the 3rd Infantry Division,

the first Allied troops to enter Berchtesgaden,

which could be a key location

for Hitler's southern escape route.

The investigation has led us

to multiple points around the globe.

But for the first time, it's leading us to a place right here

in the continental United States.

There are many things that archival records

and photographs will not tell you.

That's why it's important to hear exactly what was going on,

from the point of view of the individual soldier,

during the liberation of Berchtesgaden.

Private John Miller and Sergeant Ross Brown

were in their early 20s

when they marched into to Berchtesgaden on May 4, 1945.

Gentlemen, I understand that you were among

the first soldiers there.

What can you tell me about that?

That day, before we went to Berchtesgaden,

we were pushing it hard.

When we got to the river, Germans blew the bridge.

Then I heard it, kaboom, you know.

Well, there goes the bridge. Yeah.

So we were held up for about two hours.

So the Germans blowing that bridge

was a significant delay tactic for someone or something.

Yeah.

And then we got down to Berchtesgaden

and there was no fight.

Hmm.

Were there any even harassing ambushes,

or sniper fire, or landmines?

No, we didn't have any trouble going up.

Not at Berchtesgaden, no.

So, do you think not even a shot fired? No.

There were some Jeeps, our scouts ahead of us,

said there was no Germans.

And what happened to them, I don't know.

I have no idea. Interesting.

There was a German delay

and then Berchtesgaden was a virtual ghost town

by the time the 3rd Infantry arrived.

Someone was buying time.

Logically, that delay could have been used

to get a high value target such as Hitler

out of Berchtesgaden.

3rd Infantry Division arrives in Berchtesgaden,

hits a total ghost town.

Bob Baer and Nada Bakos

review the intel from their investigation

of Hitler's potential southern escape route

in Berchtesgaden, Germany.

The question is, where did the Nazis end up

going to after Berchtesgaden?

Let's look at the map.

Down here is Berchtesgaden.

We've got Austria on all three sides.

So as Allied troops start to move in,

Hitler really doesn't have a choice

except to move into Austria.

Hitler would have known it's a friendly country.

That's his turf right there. That's where he got his start.

In 1938,

one year before the beginning of World War II,

Nazi Germany peacefully annexed Austria

in an event known as the Anschluss.

The union of the two countries

was an important objective for Adolf Hitler,

who was born and raised in Austria,

in a town just 40 miles from Berchtesgaden.

People on the run, when they run out of options, go home.

Saddam Hussein fled Baghdad and went back to his village.

And I confronted those people, ask the most basic questions,

and they refused to answer them.

And that gives you a certain security.

Look at this.

A summary of field agents, Austria.

"Our informants helped us pinpoint

the mountain town of Altaussee.

We located many Nazis who had fled to Altaussee."

Altaussee could be the center of the escape route in Austria.

And look at this.

It's only about 36 miles from Berchtesgaden.

That's an easy commute.

So, the question is, is there an infrastructure in place

that Hitler could use to move through there

safely and securely? Exactly.

If Hitler was going to flee through Altaussee,

he would need someone locally to hide him and protect him.

Because at this point, he knows he's being hunted

and now he has to go clandestine. Right.

We need to get a team out there right away to see

if Hitler had the support to escape through Altaussee.

Look at all this natural protection you have around you.

All these mountains are ideal.

Tracking Hitler's potential southern escape route,

U.S. Army Green Beret Mike Simpson,

World War II historian James Holland,

and their local contact Katja Seebohm

land at a lookout point

2,000 feet above Altaussee, Austria.

So, this is Altaussee.

Well, they've got the village of Altaussee right there.

You've got the lake spread out in front of you,

the dead mountains all around us.

I look at this from a strategic view

and I think of how difficult it would be

for an advancing force to get up in here.

You're going to have to take the path of least resistance,

which is how we drove up here.

So essentially there's one way up. Yep.

But once you get here, there's not just one way out.

If you're the Nazis fleeing,

there's plenty of ways to sneak off into the hills.

Strategically, this is really ideal.

Absolutely.

Everyone fled here.

Just in the salt mine over there was where they stored

the 6,500 paintings and sculptures

looted from all over Europe, brought here to safety.

Incredible.

Hitler had been preparing to create a huge art gallery.

So he basically stole

large numbers of priceless works of art,

as the Nazis conquered various territories

at the start of the war.

So, this was like a gigantic Alpine safety deposit box

is what it sounds like.

A cache of art in the mines tells me

that Altaussee was of very high importance to the Nazis.

But what we don't know is if this would have been

a viable stopping point for the escape of Adolf Hitler.

I need more information at this point.

I need to talk to some people.

So, a lot of what we're seeing in the main town

is exactly as it would have appeared in 1945.

The team makes their way into the town of Altaussee

where their contact has secured a meeting with a local woman,

Christine Weissenbacher,

who may have information on Nazi activity in the area

after the war.

I understand you've lived here all your life, is that right?

She was born here and has lived here ever since.

So, can you remove this extraordinary period

at the very end of the war?

Sort of April, May 1945?

When the Nazis came, her father was one of the men

who took a team of oxen to the train station

and brought all the stolen artwork into the salt mines.

What was the extent of the Nazi presence here in Altaussee

after the war?

The village was full of Nazi officers,

but she as a child really only noticed

the ones right next door.

They lived in the Villa Kerry just right up there.

It was very, very secret

who was at the villa and what they were doing

because she says they were governing from there.

So, the Villa Kerry up on the hill

was the Nazi headquarters here in Altaussee.

Is that true?

How amazing.

Was there any one of them that just stuck out in your mind?

I heard the name Kaltenbrunner. Yes.

That's major.

We're talking about Ernst Kaltenbrunner.

He's the top man in the entire Nazi police

and intelligence network.

One of the inner circle of Hitler.

Number two in the SS.

It's not just that Kaltenbrunner was here,

he actually had an operational headquarters here.

What this tells me is that if Adolf Hitler had wanted

to escape through here,

his security would have been guaranteed.

You should take a look at this.

We got this in from MicroTrace,

the lab that analyzed what was in that bottle

we found in Hohenlychen.

Bob and Nada review the findings

from Hitler's potential northern escape route

through Hohenlychen, Germany

where a declassified document

places Hitler at a Nazi compound

six days before he was believed dead in Berlin.

Look at this, Gerrard.

At the compound,

the team uncovered a medicine bottle

in Hitler's possible safe house.

"The jar contains a mixture of two compounds

in a small amount of oil.

Together, the compounds were used as laxatives or antiseptics

to treat the stomach."

Stomach medicine. This is what we found in Misiones.

A coincidence, maybe.

But the fact is Hitler, we know,

was suffering from stomach ailments.

Did he have anything to do with this bottle? We don't know.

But you look at the totality of evidence we have

and you really have to wonder.

That certainly adds to the picture

that Hitler had planned on going to Hohenlychen.

Everything we're seeing from Hohenlychen

to Argentina, Misiones, we see preparations

to move somebody very important to the Nazis,

somebody who needed protection and had medical cares.

And I don't know of anybody that fits that description

except Adolf Hitler.

There are too many coincidences to ignore here.

I think that every piece of evidence we have suggests

that Hohenlychen was a funnel for Nazis getting out.

In addition to finding this medicine bottle,

we know we have an eyewitness file

that places Hitler in Hohenlychen

on the 24th of April.

But if he was there, what was next?

You know the end of April, the Russians are converging

on northern Germany and they know it.

I mean you can't stick around. He's got to get out.

The easiest, safest way to get out is by airplane.

Let's see what we've got.

Here we go.

MI6... "In the vicinity of Hohenlychen,

there was an airfield.

On 28 April 1945,

they had taken Hitler away from the airfield."

This is a lead we have to follow up.

We have Hitler spotted on the 24th of April in Hohenlychen.

Four days later, we have a separate independent witness

identify him leaving by airplane on the 28th of April.

The dates corresponds with the other sightings,

so the timeline would work.

We need to figure out if there is an airfield in the area. Yeah.

Here we go.

Here are the major Luftwaffe airfields

that could have been used for getting Hitler out.

Look at this... Rechlin right next to Hohenlychen.

I want to find out if Rechlin

was still serviceable at the end of April.

I agree.

We need to investigate whether or not

Hitler could've used this airfield

to escape Northern Germany.

Rechlin Airbase.

In search of evidence

that Hitler could have boarded a plane

out of Germany at this location,

as part of the Nazi's northern escape route,

Lenny, Gerrard, and their translator Teresa

make contact with Ervin Schulshenk,

the historian for Rechlin Airbase.

So, please, thank him again for us.

We appreciate his time, and if he could just give us

an overview of what went on here.

Everything was tested here, including experimental aircraft,

and at the end of the war, the Luftwaffe used it as a base.

As an operational base. Yes.

Rechlin is a fascinating place.

It's the test bed for every single experimental aircraft

that the Nazis are producing,

and the Nazis are producing lots of experimental aircraft

well ahead of their time,

ahead of anything the Americans have got.

Throughout World War II,

the Nazi Air Force known as the Luftwaffe

employed 3.4 million engineers and pilots

to aggressively develop everything from stealth fighters

and the world's first operational helicopters,

to a prototype for a rocket-propelled bomber

that would enter outer space before delivering its payload.

If you're fleeing from Germany at the end of the war,

these are the sorts of aircraft you really want to get on.

So, there were planes here loaded up with fuel

and ready to take off at the end of April in 1945. Yeah.

The Nazis did make it here, or Hitler himself.

When was the last time the experimental aircraft

that were here and operational took off from here?

The last flight left here April 28, 1945.

That was the last one.

The last flight out of Rechlin is on the 28th of April.

That's the same day that Hitler was spotted here.

This coincidence is too significant to ignore.

How were they escaping? What aircraft?

There are no records here.

Ere was an official instruction given

that they were to destroy every plane

or to render it unusable in some way or another.

So they blew up their own planes. Yes.

There is an aboveground Luftwaffe bunker

here on the premises

that was destroyed at the end of the war.

At the end of the war, the Nazis wanted

to get rid of any evidence they may have left behind.

But whatever plane Hitler would have got out of here

on April 28th on,

they would have had a fleet of them.

If we can find out what's in his bunker,

we certainly could find out what type of plane

Hitler could have used to get out of this area.

Ask him if there's anything left of this bunker

that we can take a look at.

Yeah, we can go. Let's go.

Look at this thing.

It's more like a Cold War aircraft hangar.

The team arrives at the site of a hangar

that once stored Nazi experimental aircraft

to try and uncover evidence of the type of airplane

that could have flown Hitler out of Germany.

Wow.

This is it here, right?

Yep.

This is huge.

Look at the thickness of that concrete, Gerrard.

Typical Nazi fingerprints.

My God.

This is unbelievable.

So this is the roof, right?

Yeah, we're walking on the roof right now.

This massive 15,000 square foot concrete bunker

was large enough to fit approximately

15 aircraft inside.

When it was demolished at the end of the war,

the roof fell to the ground,

creating cave-like pockets of rubble beneath it.

So this is basically a grave site for an airplane.

This was a thought through destruction.

They destroyed their own planes.

But why? What are you trying to hide?

I want to get in this bunker.

They were covering something up.

What was in there that they had to hide?

With the investigation into Hitler's potential

northern escape route underway at Rechlin Airbase,

Bob and Nada focus on the team

along the southern escape route in Altaussee, Austria,

where a declassified document

points to an epicenter of high-ranking Nazis on the run.

This is 36 miles from Berchtesgaden.

We're still in the Alps. Right.

And the team found out that there was a ton

of Nazi activity here after the war.

Was there any one of them that stuck out in your mind?

That's major.

The fact that Kaltenbrunner had a command center here

means that he had control obviously over the area.

So this would be another safe place

for Nazi officers to retreat to,

Hitler possibly using this as a transit point.

Ernst Kaltenbrunner, childhood friend of Hitler.

Close associate. There we go.

And one of his closest advisors at the end of the war.

He's head of the Gestapo, the secret police.

If there were one person I would trust

to get me out of Berlin in an escape route,

it would be Kaltenbrunner.

When you're breaking down a network,

you're trying to figure out who's important,

who's actually the person that could be closest

to the high-value target that could help keep them alive,

and Kaltenbrunner fits that bill.

He seems like a prime target to investigate.

Kaltenbrunner, Altaussee... let's see what we've got.

All right, there we go.

U.S. Secret Service, 1963.

"A 2,500 pound cache of Kaltenbrunner papers

which are hidden in or near Lake Toplitz, Austria."

This file tells us that Kaltenbrunner

crosses the border into Austria

with more than a ton of paper and dumps it.

I think this is huge.

How big would 2,500 pounds be?

That's like a truck full of paper.

We've got Kaltenbrunner and his guys

throwing stuff in the lake.

They have something for future plans that they don't want

the Allies or the Russians to know about.

In the case of terrorist organizations,

they work very hard to make sure

that their information that they have

is destroyed before they leave.

In this instance, I think it is probably very similar.

What were they hiding?

I mean, it could be information of activities

and operations that they were conducting,

or names and identities.

It's hard to know.

My imagination can run... It had something to do

with getting Hitler or other Nazis out

and where they were going next.

That's the kind of document you would want to destroy.

A document that says "here's what we're going to do

with Hitler when he's ready to go."

And if we can find that one document, we can change history.

Here's Altaussee, the town.

Here's the lake.

These documents, if we can get a hold of any of them,

they're like the Holy Grail of what the plans of the Nazis were

at the end of the war.

Okay, you want to turn left up front here.

Along Hitler's potential southern escape route,

Mike, James, and their translator Katja

prepare to make contact with Hans Fuchs,

an expert on the history of the region,

to determine where a secret cache of Nazi documents

could have been stashed in the area.

Kaltenbrunner supposedly ditching this cache of papers

is a sign that he is trying to get rid of evidence.

By its very nature, if he's got rid of it,

that means it's important.

Whatever it is, he did not want

the Allies getting their hands on it.

So, Hans, the reason we've come here

is because we've got this document

that says that Kaltenbrunner at the end of the war

hid a cache of important top secret papers.

My question to you is, what do you think the chances are of us

being able to find them?

He is saying he is absolutely positive

Kaltenbrunner would have hid something in the lake.

About 10, 15 years ago people found his signet ring

and his official stamp on the shore of the lake.

Right here? Right here on the lake, two minutes away.

Two items that are easily linked with him

and were definitely found in this lake.

That's major. So, in your opinion,

do you think there is still stuff out there in the lake?

I mean, do you think this cache that we're after,

do you think it could still be there?

So, he knows things were sunk here,

but these are not treasures. This is not gold.

This is not anything with a commercial value.

He's talking about documents, he's talking about maps.

This is exactly what we need to find.

This is gold. Right.

This is better than gold,

and no one has disturbed it so the potential is unlimited.

It seems very likely that this cache of documents

would be right here in Lake Altaussee.

If so, that opens up a whole new chapter in this investigation.

Whatever is down there could lead us on

that next point in the escape route.

Well, somebody felt it necessary

to blow this place up for a good reason.

Following Hitler's potential northern escape route,

Lenny and Gerrard are on the ground at Rechlin Airbase,

where a declassified document places Hitler

escaping from Germany two days before he was believed dead.

Even the big bunker busters

the British were dropping at the end of World War II

would have had a real problem getting through this.

- It's like a mountain. - Yeah.

The team investigates a demolished bunker

where the Nazis housed their experimental aircraft

at the end of the war.

I want to try to get down below if I can.

There are still remains of this bunker

even though the entire roof caved in.

So if we can identify

the types of aircraft that could have been here,

we could dig up some pretty significant evidence

to figure out what kind of plane

Hitler could've used to fly out of Rechlin Airbase.

Look at this thing. It looks like it goes right to the floor.

I'm gonna see if I can get in there. Hold on.

Are you sure?

Yeah, we got to see what's going on down there.

You got your radio?

Yeah, I have. I'll be on channel 3.

Roger that.

Holy... Wow.

What can you see, man?

There's a whole lot of rubble down here.

Mainly rocks, but it goes on for quite a while.

Oh, look at this.

This is where this thing came tumbling down

and split right here.

Oh, my God.

It's got to be 15 feet of solid concrete.

Hey, Gerrard.

Yeah, man.

There's so many holes in this place.

I mean I can see down further but I surely can't fit.

I stumbled onto this one area

that was tucked away in a corner,

it was a pretty significant size hole

but I couldn't fit in there.

There were certainly spots where this concrete did not fall on,

so some things possibly could have survived.

I could definitely use a robot to get into these small areas

where this rubble is.

Understood. Over.

If anything did remain from this blast,

it's going to be areas like this.

So it's extremely important to get eyes on this spot.

What the hell was in here that these guys needed to destroy?

That's the $1 million question.

Russel Fraizer, my friend! Hi, Lenny.

The next day, Lenny and Gerrard return to the airbase,

joined by Lenny's contact Russel Fraizer,

who has access to state-of-the-art

robotic equipment.

So, how far can I go with this thing?

You could go up to 90 meters.

Oh, that's plenty. Okay.

The Delta Extreme Crawler is a remote-controlled

robotic exploration vehicle

equipped with an onboard high-definition camera

and all-terrain treads.

It's unique suspension allows it to navigate

over almost any obstacle,

giving its operator a visual picture of any location

that is too dangerous to access on foot.

Let's go do our thing.

That's going to fit perfect, Russel.

Here you go. Yep, got it.

All right, here we go.

After this thing blew up, nobody was coming in here

to have a robotic pair of eyes like this

to be able to sink it another 15 feet where I can't get in.

Such a location, no one has ever seen.

Unbelievable.

You got visuals? Do you see it?

Yes, good.

All right, what have you got?

What was that? Back up.

Can you go a little further?

Seems like rebar, and what's left of the ceiling.

Yeah.

It's still going down, huh.

It goes down pretty deep.

What's that there?

I don't know.

What is this thing?

Tilt up a bit.

Can you see this?

It looked like some piece of an airplane

or some sort of equipment.

Look at here.

What's that?

He says it looks like an airplane starter.

For the ME-262.

That's a starter motor from an ME-262.

Wow. Okay.

The 262 is the most advanced jet fighter in the world.

It is faster than anything the Allies had.

The Messerschmidt 262

was one of the world's first jet fighter aircraft,

introduced into the German Air Force in late 1944.

It could accommodate two people

at a top speed of 550 miles per hour,

making it over 100 miles an hour faster

than any other plane in the war.

To actually find tangible evidence

that these things are here,

means it's possible for a squadron of ME-262s

is flying out of Rechlin.

They have training versions with two seats in them,

but they've got rubbish range, 650 miles if they're lucky.

That's fine. Who cares.

Get out of here, and you're out of here, 200, 300 miles,

with hopefully our target on board.

To have that type of an aircraft here at Rechlin Airbase,

what a perfect escape vehicle

for a guy like Adolf Hitler to be in.

This was an airplane that not only could defend itself

but could outrun anything.

If Hitler himself was here and boarded one of these things,

he was out of here in a hurry.

It's so hard to imagine this as being a hotbed of Nazis

at the end of the war. It really is.

Along Hitler's potential southern escape route,

Mike and James are following eyewitness testimony

and a declassified CIA file,

claiming that high-ranking Nazis

were stashing top secret documents

in a lake after the war.

If this documents cache is here,

this could potentially unlock the blueprint of an escape plan

for every escaped Nazi of that time period.

This cache of documents could bring us closer and closer

to unlocking this investigation.

Their local contact, Hans Fuchs, has assembled a survey team

and secured unprecedented access to search the lake.

If you try putting yourself in the mind of Kaltenbrunner,

you just want to get rid of this stuff, don't you?

So you are going to do it where you can do it easily.

And that suggests that it's got to be closer to the shore.

I can clearly see along the shoreline

there are multiple areas where a footpath comes down

pretty close to the water. That's our search area.

Access to this lake has been very restricted up until now.

This makes it much more likely

that something might still be here

and that we have the best chance of finding it.

The lake covers nearly a square mile.

So to uncover potential targets,

they are armed with a Yellowfin high-resolution side-scan sonar.

Used by the U.S. Navy for minesweeping,

this state-of-the-art technology creates an acoustic pulse,

capable of detecting objects up to 300 feet below

the surface of the water.

Let's do it.

So, we're going to move up to the point

where we start our search grid here.

We're going to start 70 meters off the shore

and map our way in.

There's no possible way that we're going to miss anything

as we're moving towards shore.

We need to confine our search close to shore.

We know that when Kaltenbrunner went on the run,

he went on the run very quickly.

There wasn't going to be time to get a boat,

go out to the middle of the lake,

drop this cache of documents,

then return to the shoreline and go on his way.

The team will execute a grid pattern search,

working their way up the coast

and outwards as far as 90 feet from the shore.

One boat will survey with sonar,

while the other drops buoys to mark any points of interest.

What we're looking for here is a case of some kind.

One massive, big metal box,

something in which you would put a bundle of papers

and which you know is going to sink.

Mike, so, we've started scanning.

Roger that, James.

Have you picked anything up?

Not at the moment, Mike.

Just have to keep at it.

What they're going to see on the screen

is they're going to get the bounce back from the sonar.

Right angles are always going to reflect

better than anything else.

So man-made objects lend themselves to being found

a lot better than natural objects.

So if something is there and it is detectable,

we will find it.

We are seeing absolutely nothing here at all.

Hold up, what's this?

This is quite interesting, isn't it?

It looks very interesting.

Okay, Mike, there's something quite interesting

we're just picking up here.

What have you got?

It's quite a large, sort of rectangular object.

I have no idea what it is,

but it didn't look like rocks and it didn't look like trees.

It just really, really stood out.

And it could be nothing other than man-made.

Let's take a look.

Oh, yeah. It's a sizeable object.

Those are certainly straight right angles on one side.

Worth diving on that? Absolutely.

Look at the distance from the shore, where the slope is,

that's what we're looking.

Let's get to shore. We need get this dive started.

This is huge.

Finding out what's here in Lake Altaussee

could potentially unlock all of the secrets.

This could be exactly what we need

to find out definitively what happened to Adolf Hitler.

Next time on "Hunting Hitler"...

Can you see anything, mate?

This is incredible.

Oh, wow.

I'm pretty sure that it's an Iron Cross.

The Nazis were able to shed their identities

and freely travel

just about anywhere in the world.

What is so important that you still need 15

I don't want to say it, but he thinks

it's about special weapons,

Nuclear weapons.

That's massive.

This is a space, this is a hole right here.

I see a room back there.

This was their chance of making the Fourth Reich

a reality.

Subtitles Diego Moraes www.oakisland.tk