Original subtitles

Previously on "Hunting Hitler"...

So, this is from June 12, 1945.

Look at this line.

"At this time, the decision had been taken

to divide the ministries in two parts

and establish one government in the north

and one in the south."

They're splitting up.

We have to look at both routes.

Counterfeit money?

So, they hid it with the intention of coming back for it. Yes.

This was the dead drop for the escaping Nazis.

Was Narvik the staging point to send heavy water to Argentina

to make a nuclear bomb to create the Fourth Reich?

HUNTING HITLER - SEASON 3 EP - 5 - Dead Drops

Along Hitler's potential northern escape route

in Narvik, Norway,

U.S. Army Special Forces Tim Kennedy

has made a massive discovery that could change

the course of the investigation.

Sunken Nazi vessels in the same area

where eyewitnesses and a declassified U.S. Army file

claim that Nazis were transporting nuclear material

out of the country.

It is a complete massive U-boat. Yeah.

Just laying on the ocean floor.

While we didn't find any barrels of heavy water,

this is an unbelievable discovery.

This is massive infrastructure.

Something very important to the Nazis

was going on right here.

Look at the size of this airplane. It was huge.

And it's sitting right next to a U-boat.

21-year CIA veteran Bob Baer

and former Terrorist Targeting officer Nada Bakos

are using an asset-mapping strategy,

tracking Hitler's known associates to pinpoint

exactly where the fuhrer could have gone

after World War II.

Clearly, for the Nazis, Narvik was a major militarized port.

They are investigating two potential

escape routes for Hitler...

A souther route through the Tyrol border region

and a northern route through Narvik, Norway,

where they discovered the remains

of two large Nazi vessels.

The question is, were these used in conjunction with each other,

or did they just happen to be at the port

ound the same time?

The fact they were found together, it's very strange.

And my experience tells me it was not for local defense.

So, what were they doing with them?

Look at this...

OSS, predecessor of the CIA,

March 15, 1943.

Message from Colonel Von Lossberg.

"I have spoken about refueling seaplanes from U-boats.

A possibility is to station a U-boat in the Atlantic,

and when the weather is favorable, it signals."

What they're talking about here is flying seaplanes out,

rallying with a U-boat in the middle of the Atlantic,

refueling, and sending the seaplanes on.

What these U-boats are are gasoline stations

in the middle of the Atlantic.

Look, you've got about 8,000 miles

from Narvik to Argentina.

And the seaplanes have a range of 3,000 to 4,000 miles,

so you'd only have to refuel it once or twice

before it got to South America.

At the beginning of the investigation,

we looked at the possibility that Hitler got to Spain

and then took a U-boat.

It never quite worked in my mind,

because he was in bad health.

I just couldn't imagine Adolf Hitler,

as ill as he was, getting on a U-boat for 30 days.

But now that we know that they were using seaplanes

being refueled by U-boats in the middle of the ocean,

it makes a lot more sense.

This opens up a whole new set of options

for Hitler to get out of Europe.

For me, this is the logical end of the northern route.

Getting a seaplane to South America from Narvik,

100% certainty you could do it.

If anybody's capable of using a combination

of a seaplane and a U-boat, it's the Germans.

Had they mastered the technique,

they could have gotten multiple seaplanes across the Atlantic.

We have the end of our escape route.

I think it's a huge breakthrough.

We now have to figure out whether the southern route

would've also gotten him to South America.

Having found the end of Hitler's potential northern escape route

to South America,

Bob and Nada turn their attention

to the southern escape route

to uncover whether it could've also provided Hitler

safe passage to South America.

They focus on a castle in Tyrol,

which, according to a declassified U.S. Army file,

was run by high-level

S.S. Commander Friedrich Schwend.

The Tyrol border region between Italy and Austria

was crawling with Nazis.

The team found the castle where Schwend,

who was reporting to Kaltenbrunner and Himmler,

was burying stashes for fleeing Nazis.

Schwend is a key part of the southern network.

He is a high-ranking Nazi.

He's burying stashes.

Clearly he's a facilitator helping Nazis

escape along the southern route.

The question is... What were in these stashes?

I mean, normally you would have new documentation,

passports, gold, for instance,

but what they really need to know

is once you're here. What's your onward destination?

If we're able to find one of these stashes,

it could be a big breakthrough.

That could open up the entire southern network to us.

We could find out how they escaped

and possibly where they were headed.

Look at this. U.S. Army...

The Hotel Paradiso served

as a hiding place for trustworthy Nazis,

such as Friedrich Schwend.

Schwend used his gold to plan possible escape routes.

This file is telling us

this was part of a clandestine organization.

"A hiding place for trustworthy Nazis."

This is more evidence this is where those stashes were.

Where is Hotel Paradiso?

Right in the same region as the castle.

In the mountains, very isolated.

If you're gonna hide dead drops or stashes,

you do it in these mountains.

So far, we've heard rumors of stashes,

but I want to see some sort of evidence to back that up.

- How far's the border from here? - We're pretty close, aren't we?

We're pretty darn close, I believe.

In the Tyrol region on the border between Austra and Italy,

World War II historian James Holland

and U.S. Army Green Beret Mike Simpson

arrive at the Hotel Paradiso.

Look at this place.

What we need to find out is whether Hotel Paradiso

is a viable place in which to hide a Nazi safety-deposit box.

They could have buried documents, treasure, gold,

who knows what.

You know, the building's bigger than I thought it was gonna be.

Yeah, it's a monster.

It's almost like they had plans for this

to be something pretty major. - Yeah.

Bought at some point in the world by Schwend,

and I'm guessing Schwend bought it

because, you know, he can hide people in here.

This is gonna be an isolated place

where Schwend can do what he likes.

If you wanted a place to have a safe-deposit box

that somebody could pick up

some ready cash to cross the border,

this would certainly be on the list of places

where I would put it.

Hotel Paradiso is very remote.

It's really the ideal location, but if I'm Schwend,

and I'm trying to hide these articles to be found later,

I'm not going to use the building itself.

People coming in and out of the hotel

could stumble upon it accidentally.

If we're gonna locate one of these Nazi dead drops,

these safe-deposit boxes,

it's gonna be buried somewhere in that property.

- This is a pretty big property. - Yeah.

And so we've got to pick our spot, haven't we? Yeah.

We need a little bit of technology on this.

In order to help narrow down

their search of the hotel property,

which covers an area of more than 500,000 square feet,

Mike contacts LiDAR USA's European technician

Travis Widner, who brings in state-of-the-art technology.

-Hey!

Drone-mounted LiDAR utilizes laser pulses

to produce detailed 3-D renderings

capable of revealing anomalies below the surface of the Earth

within millimeter precision.

LiDAR technology has enabled archaeologists

to discover lost Mayan civilizations

in the rainforests of Honduras.

What size cache are we talking here?

Probably something somebody could have dug up,

grabbed, walked away with.

You know, backpacks, suitcase size.

Let's get a 3-D model of the area,

and then we can decide where exactly we can dig.

- Whoa! - I love that.

To properly scan for anomalies in the soil,

the team deploys the LiDAR in a grid-search flight pattern,

covering the entire hotel property

plus an area 60 feet beyond the hotel grounds

to ensure they don't miss any potential targets.

So, is this about how far you guys wanted to go out?

Yeah, right about there looks right. Okay.

So, how long's this gonna take to do?

Oh, probably five minutes, tops. Really?

-To run the whole flight.

Yeah.

- Amazing. - 21st century technology, James.

Yeah, I mean, just imagine if we didn't have this.

We'd be out here for days.

Nicely done.

And we'll get to process this data. All right.

Here's the data.

Boot 'er up here. Here we go.

Oh, wow, look at that! There's the ilding. Ooh!

Look at that.

- All the trees. - That's incredible.

Look at all the texture that gives you.

I mean, it's really 3-Dimensional.

Okay. So, how do we...

spot these potential holes in the ground?

Well, we're gonna look for

raised areas or depressed areas. Got you.

Anything that doesn't look natural. That's right.

We might have to get rid of some of these trees

to see the surface.

- Wow. - Look at that.

-That's a nice little pit.

-Yeah. I see that.

That's uphill from where the runoff is.

That's not a natural place

that you're gonna get an indentation like that.

That's a great observation.

It's in a completely unnatural spot.

It's plain as day right there.

I'll just mark it really quick.

What's this? You got a high area and then... boop!

- Like, right there. - Ooh.

There's a dip right there.

I'm gonna mark this dip.

There's two sites in particular that could be

where Nazi safety-deposit boxes were buried 70 years ago.

And if we can find just one, it would give us

one of the best preserved blueprints

for some kind of escape plan for the Nazis

at the end of the war.

Great points to start with.

We need to start digging.

If the Nazis buried anything here,

this is the way we're gonna find it.

At a former Nazi hotel along Hitler's potential

southern escape route in the Tyrol Border Region,

James and Mike are searching for the hidden location

of an underground stash

which, according to declassified reports

could have been used to facilitate

the escape of high-ranking Nazis at the end of the war.

So, we've got two spots.

I'll walk you right over to it.

We're looking for a meter by a meter, okay?

And probably not quite a meter deep.

Okay? All right.

We'll take you over to the first spot.

In this area, the soil is thickly packed.

It's gonna be difficult for just James and I

and one shovel to dig here.

Sometimes you got to bring in your big guns.

The team has called in an excavator

to expedite their search.

The team directs the excavator operator

to begin digging on the first of two anomalies

they found using LiDAR technology.

Right there.

At this moment, we actually could be finding

one of these Nazi safe-deposit boxes.

We're talking about caches for Nazis on the run with money,

maps, contacts... Whatever they needed.

It's pretty thick. We wouldn't have been able

to make it through this on our own.

That size is perfect.

Just go deep.

Whoa!

Lots of rock here.

Look at this. Hold up! - Whoa!

Yeah, that's rebar. - Yeah, well...

And this is pipe. Oh, that's... Whew!

I mean, that's just rubble from the resort, isn't it? Right.

There's rebar there, there's bits of sewage piping,

there's brick. I mean, no one's gonna be burying anything in that. Yeah, you smell that.

That's an old-fashioned ceramic pipe,

so that's probably the original pipe

where the sewage came out of this building. Mm.

So, now we know why there's a depression here.

Basically, this is the septic system,

and that's why it sank in right here.

Yeah.

All right, let's walk him over to position two.

The excavator moves 150 feet to the other anomaly

the team identified with LiDAR.

Wait. Go ahead.

Wow, look at that.

- Not as rocky. - Yeah, it's perfect.

The second location initially looks very promising.

This area is not rocky.

The soil is coming up very easily.

This would have been an ideal spot to bury something.

Go ahead and hold up right there, okay?

I don't want him to dig with this any farther.

If they're hiding something, this is the depth

that we need to start looking for it.

If we keep going with these big teeth,

we risk damaging whatever it might be. Yeah, I agree.

What's that?

That...

looks like a shovel to me.

How about that?

This is old.

- It's rusted. - Mm-hmm.

Based on the rust and appearance of this shovel head,

I think it dates back before 1950.

I really think that this broke off while somebody was digging.

It's bent, the handle's missing.

Well, I can tell you, it's hard work digging into that.

- Yeah. - But not impossible.

This clearly means someone else was digging

in this exact same spot.

The question is... Was this shovel here

while someone was either putting in

or removing one of these safe

Or was it a treasure hunter

just looking in the same area that we were?

No, I think it's pretty clear there's nothing else

in there, is there? I think it's reasonable to assume that something

could have been hidden here. - Yeah.

But at this point, we have to assume

that whatever it is is long gone.

I mean, look at how much territory there is,

but one of the two places we marked on the LiDAR.

Somebody else was digging, as well,

which I find to be a strangcoincidence.

You can hide stuff in this hotel, no doubt about it.

Bob and Nada review the findings

from Hitler's potential southern escape route in Tyrol

where a declassified U.S. Army report claims

the S.S. were burying money and escape plans

for fleeing Nazis on the property of an Alpine hotel.

The team searched the area with a LiDAR,

and they found a couple disturbances in the soil,

and one of the things they uncovered

was this shovel that was broken.

This is 70 years later.

This site probably very quickly got looted.

You know, we should have been looking in 1945.

In my experience, whenever I hit a dead end like this,

I'd always go back and look at the network

we've already established.

We know the network was active in this place,

so in the absence of any physical evidence,

let's see if we can pick up the trail

on anyone who would have used this route

or picked up one of these stashes.

Case, cash, networks.

Here we go.

This is from CIA. Eichmann's flight.

So, here's Eichmann showing up again on the southern route.

"Fully inconspicuous, I took my suitcase

from this excellent priest from Vipiteno,

beyond the Italian border over the Brenner Pass."

So, we have dead drops in this area.

Eichmann is picking up one of them.

Look, what's incredible about this...

There's a priest, according to Eichmann,

providing assistance to a mass murderer

after World War II.

So, here's Vipiteno.

It's on the border between Austria and Italy,

and it's only 45 miles to the Hotel Paradiso.

We need to figure out what this priest was doing.

What part does this priest play in the southern escape route?

Yeah, is it one guy? Is it one priest?

Or is it a lot of people?

We got to get the team to find out.

We've confirmed that Eichmann was here.

And that's not even in question.

So, now we just need to get the details.

Along Hitler's potential southern escape route,

Mike, James, and their translator Katya

land in Vipiteno,

a town in the Tyrol border region.

James Holland Nice to meet you.

The team makes contact with historian, Dr. Dietrich Talor

at the Lady of the Moss Church,

which according to declassified documents

was connected to a priest assisting

in the escape of high-ranking Nazis

including Adolf Eichmann after the war.

We've learned that the priest here just after the war

was helping a number of Nazis that were on the run.

We were wondering whether you could help us in any way.

He's says "Very little official research exists on the subject,

but there are still a lot of stories within the community."

Do you actually know who the priest was that at that time?

The priest at the time was called Corradini.

Corradini was here for 20 years,

and he would give aid to Nazis fleeing through the area.

Thousands were coming through here.

So, what we've got here is Corradini housing them,

giving them help.

I mean, what else is he doing?

There is documentation that they were re-baptized.

Baptized? Why?

He doesn't know.

This is bizarre to me, James.

A baptism?

I am completely revolted by this information.

Being baptized as a Catholic means you are cleansed

of all sins you have previously committed.

I don't buy that high-ranking Nazis

known to have committed mass murder

really repented of their sins.

You see this baptismal record.

This is pretty standard.

Would there have been a baptismal record of that time?

There are registries dating back over centuries.

He's going to check and see if it's possible

that we take a look at them.

Dr. Talor secures access

to the church's sealed-records archive,

a collection of documents dating back hundreds of years.

So, this is from 1943-onward.

A lot to go through here.

I mean, there's so many German names here.

Oh, my God!

There's no record Eichmann was baptized here,

but look at that.

What's that?

"Priebke Erich."

He's a known Nazi war criminal,

and he escaped to Argentina.

And he lived there a free man

for more than 50 years in Bariloche.

This links the ratline

going through this church to Bariloche.

That's a hard-data point. That's major.

Erich Priebke was an S. S. commander

who was responsible for the deaths

of hundreds of Italian civilians

in an action called the Ardeatine Massacre.

After the war,

he successfully went underground and escaped Europe,

surfacing in 1949 in Bariloche, Argentina,

the same town where the team had previously uncovered

a safe house linked to Adolf Hitler.

Ah, this is also really interesting.

He gets another identity.

He wasn't called Erich Priebke anymore.

He went as "Otto Pape."

Erich Priebke had been cleansed.

He came here as a fleeing Nazi war criminal

with the blood of hundreds on his hands.

Got complete absolution for that

and left here a new man

with a fresh start and a new name.

What's amazing is you've got

two really well-known war criminals here.

One, Adolf Eichmann. We know he was here.

Then we've got Erich Priebke, too,

another really infamous war criminal,

and he's not just being helped by Corradini,

he's being baptized,

and we know that both men ended up in South America

with completely different names.

If Austria is where the Nazis shed their skin,

then South Tyrol

is where they were born again

and assumed a new identity.

Thus far, we've been able to establish

that Nazis shed their identities in Austria.

Everyone threw everything away

because then no one was a Nazi.

These Nazis then moved to the Tyrol region,

retrieved caches of loot, were able to be baptized,

were able to be baptized, assume new identities,

and then move on.

This unassuming Catholic church

is possibly the most important point on the ratline.

Any high-level Nazis who entered this church

could've left this church with a new identity

and a new life ahead of them.

I think this is big. You've got Erich Priebke

who comes to this church, is re-baptized.

It looks like it's organized to me.

Bob Baer and Nada Bakos

review the findings from Hitler's

potential southern escape route through Tyrol

where a declassified CIA document reports

that a local priest was aiding in the escape of fleeing Nazis.

The fact that there was a priest willing to help a Nazi

gain a new identity really expands their ability

to be able to move out of Germany, out of Austria,

and down into Italy for passage out of Europe.

I think that's huge.

Priebke is given new documentation here,

and he was known to have been involved in massacres.

What this is doing is just giving them a new name

so they can start a new life,

and they no longer have to answer

for the crimes that they committed.

In 1945, people didn't have the Internet,

they didn't have facial recognition.

These Nazi war criminals changed their names

and just disappeared, and people didn't know who they were.

You simply assume a different nationality,

get new paperwork for it,

and then you completely wash yourself clean.

We've got records of these guys being baptized.

We've got Eichmann saying that a priest helped him.

What I'm seeing is a pattern of activity

of protecting high-ranking Nazis,

and I've seen this before.

Previously in the investigation,

the team uncovered evidence that Catholic priests

were aiding in the escape of Nazis

at two separate monasteries in Spain.

One in Galicia...

Germans come here in the monastery,

and they used to do forged documents

to give them new identity.

...and another outside of Barcelona.

A Nazi war criminal would want somewhere discreet.

Frankly, he couldn't ask for a better place.

What I don't know is if it was part of a bigger organization.

I mean, how extensive was this?

The Catholic Church is one of the biggest

human networks in the world.

If the Nazis could tap into that network,

that would provide them with supply lines

to be able to funnel people and goods

and safe havens all over the world.

Is it the entire church?

Is it an organization within the church?

Is it individual priests?

Yeah, we need to find that out.

Bob and Nada make contact with Professor Jonathan Steinberg...

Hi. Hello.

...the former Chair of the History Department

at the University of Pennsylvania

and one of the world's foremost experts

on the history of the Catholic Church

during and after World War II.

We have found records of a priest

in the South Tyrol baptizing Nazis.

Is it your opinion he was acting on his own

or he was acting with somebody else?

So, he just wasn't a Nazi sympathizer,

this is approved, and somebody blesses this?

Was the Catholic Church involved in getting Nazis

out of Germany to Argentina?

What incentive would these priests and cardinals

have to help some of these Nazi officers escape?

If Hitler were to show up,

what are the chances of the faction of the church

that helped the Nazis picking him up

and sending him to Argentina?

The Catholic Church operates as a government.

It's sovereign. It's off-limits to the American government.

Had it wanted to, the Catholic Church

could've smuggled Hitler out.

He just completely ruled out the possibility

that the priest helping with Priebke was acting on his own.

He wasn't a Nazi sympathizer saying,

"I'll do a favor for these guys."

It was part of the church.

It's a network that anybody could fall back on at this point. Yeah.

Now that we have brought the Catholic Church in,

this convinces me that if you could find

the right set of people in the church,

you could move Adolf Hitler.

It's clear to me that the people in the church were helping,

but how were they doing it?

Let's see what we can find in the database.

Here we go.

"U.S. Army Summary of Nazi Activity in Rome.

"Many prominent war criminals are living in Rome

illegally under false names.

All this activity seems to stem from the Vatican

through the Monastery of San Girolamo."

This is huge.

We've got the Army recognizing this in a classified document

that it's the Vatican that is processing these Nazis.

Serving as the central governing body of the Catholic Church,

the Vatican is a sovereign city-state ruled by the Pope.

Located on 110 acres within the city limits of Rome, Italy,

the Vatican operates with complete independence,

minting its own currency, issuing passports,

and maintaining a state military force

known as the Pontifical Swiss Guard.

Look, here's the Vatican.

And here we have San Girolamo.

It's just over a mile away from the Vatican.

We are in the Vatican's front yard,

and you're having a monastery processing

Nazi war criminals in 1945.

If we can find evidence

of how exactly this monastery was helping Nazis,

we could unlock the final piece of the puzzle

of the southern escape route.

We have to get people out there and see what this place was.

It's important that we put eyes and ears in this place.

Along Hitler's potential southern escape route

in Rome, Italy,

former U.S. Marshalls Commander Lenny DePaul,

investigative journalist Gerrard Williams,

and their local contact, Marcel,

head to the San Girolamo Monastery

where a declassified U.S. Army document claims

the Catholic Church was assisting high-ranking Nazis

to escape from Europe at the end of the war.

We've been told that a network of priests

in the Catholic Church were involved

in the escape of Nazis after World War II.

But it's still something that doesn't really fit with me.

Marcel, lead the way.

How you can be a man of the cloth and at the same time,

support people who committed such huge crimes.

It's mind-boggling.

Here's the church.

Girolamo.

It's a big door, Lenny.

Documents we've had access to show us that San Girolamo is key

to the Nazi escape route through Italy.

What we need to find out is how did the Catholic Church

run such a massive operation.

We need to get in and see what we can see.

I'm gonna take a look around the corner.

I want to get in. I want to get in.

One way or another, I want to get in.

-Nothing.

Why do you have this huge church,

and you can't get in the front door?

St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City...

Open all the time. Yeah, yeah. Every door's open.

I don't think we're gonna find anything.

It's hidden away.

What we need to do is find somebody who knows

what's hidden behind the walls of this church.

So, do you think this is our contact? It is.

Matteo.

-Nice to meet you.

The team makes contact with Professor Matteo Napolitano

who serves on the Vatican's Historical Committee

and has extensively researched the activities

of the Catholic Church during and after the second World War.

Matteo, we have a document which puts this church

right at the heart of the escape lines through Rome.

So, this church, San Girolamo,

was in fact the safe house

for the escapes to get out of Italy.

In my world, that's called "harboring and aiding

and abetting a fugitive."

Was there anything else that San Girolamo was doing

aside from being a safe house for the Nazis?

They were organizing documents in order for them to leave.

They needed those documents in order to get to South America.

So, Matteo, are they printing documents here?

Are they forging documents here?

No.

The Red Cross, Len.

Founded in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1863,

the International Red Cross

is the oldest humanitarian-aid organization in the world.

After World War II,

millions of displaced European refugees

relied on the Red Cross.

They provided documentation and papers

issuing over 120,000 temporary passports

by the end of 1951.

If the church provided approval,

Nazi war criminals using false identities

could gain legitimate paperwork

and passports through this system.

The Red Cross was actually producing legitimate documents

with false identities.

Unbelievable.

The documents were secure, so if they had those documents,

they could easily get out of Rome. Go anywhere.

And they could hide in plain sight.

We've seen escaping Nazis being baptized

into the church under new names.

Their next step is Rome, where under that new name,

they will get a real passport.

Once they've got that, they're home free.

You leave with the blessing of the Catholic Church

and the International Committee for the Red Cross.

You could not be safer.

That's too easy. That's the way it worked.

Wow. Wow.

This is the last piece of the puzzle, right?

But who did the church in Rome help to get out of Europe?

Very difficult to understand

because once they got these legal documents,

it was very difficult to figure out. They're gone. They're gone.

We know that thousands of Nazis are flooding down the ratlines

to Italy, to Rome. The question now is...

Who could have got out of Europe

using the southern escape route

through Rome and out to South America?

It's something we need to know.

-Yep, looks like it.

With the help of their local contact,

Lenny and Gerrard have secured an exclusive meeting

with a woman who is believed to have groundbreaking information

about the Nazis' southern escape route.

Hi, I'm Gerrard.

Gisela Heidenreich, the daughter of a senior S.S. officer

has agreed to share her firsthand knowledge

with the team.

We know that a group within the organization

of the Catholic Church were involved in the escape

of Nazis after World War II using the southern escape route.

Now we need to find out who they helped

and aided to get out of Europe.

We understand from our contact

that you may have specific information

about who actually may have used these ratlines and escaped.

Horst Wagner.

A high-ranking diplomat and officer in the S.S.,

Horst Wagner earned a place within

Hitler's elite inner circle,

serving at the Foreign Ministry in Berlin

for the duration of the war.

Wagner was accused of war crimes for his role

in the murder of 350,000 Jews,

but managed to escape and never faced the charges.

How do you know this, specifically?

Where's that coming from?

So, you have the conversation between the two lovers? Yeah.

You have both sides of the conversation. That's unheard of. Yeah. Yeah.

How many letters did you find?

Wow.

Can we see those letters?

Gisela grants the team an unprecedented look

at her collection of hundreds of original letters

detailing every step of the Nazis's southern escape route.

It's amazing, and this is potentially key

to the investigation.

Horst Wagner and Gisela's mother,

they thought that these letters were in secret.

That's why I think this is actually the whole truth.

This is real. It's massive!

How does he get out of Germany? How does he escape?

Is this written in these letters?

Original documents in a different name.

Then what?

Kaltenbrunner fled from here to the hunting lodge

that was up in the Dead Mountains here.

We're talking about Ernst Kaltenbrunner,

number two in the S.S. - Yes.

If you want a system that can help Nazis post-war,

this is about as good as it gets.

These are the places that we've gone and looked at,

walked the ground, and investigated.

He's pretty much just dropping bread crumbs

on this ratline and the route that he took.

So, Gisela, when he finally decided to leave Rome,

where did he go to?

He finally made it to South America.

Wagner's a very, very senior Nazi,

a close member of Hitler's circle.

What we have now is a connection between Adolf Hitler,

the network, and the southern escape route.

This route is used by the most senior, governmental,

and S.S. officer class that you can think of.

The ea that Adolf Hitler may have been one of them,

it's a possibility.

So, Gisela, you've helped us flesh out the southern ratline

coming out of Germany through Bavaria,

down through Austria, into the Tyrol,

to Rome, and then from there, all roads lead to Argentina.

That's not just connected all the dots for us.

That's drawn a big black marker line

through the whole of Europe.

This is amazing.

It looks like that's it for Europe.

We have found the very end of the southern escape route.

Next stop, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Next time on "Hunting Hitler"...

He remembers there was a crash and a splash.

He saw it from here.

Have you ever heard that there were Nazis on this airplane?

He's scared.

Hey, hey, hey! Right here, right here!

Holy.

If you want corroborating evidence,

this is it right here.

This is massively significant.

This was part of a Nazi shuttle service

all throughout South America.

Die Spinne was operating in Argentina?

This is them counting every single dollar of them

moving people from Europe to Argentina and South America.

Recognize any of these people?

It's Josef Mengele.

Auschwitz's Angel of Death.

Subtitles Diego Moraes www.oakisland.tk