All language subtitles for Secret.Nazi.Expeditions.S01E06.Runes.720p.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H.264-squalor

[dramatic music]

- [Narrator] In the early
part of the 20th century,

the Nazis rose to power
on a dark platform.

Till this day, their racist
ideology is overshadowed

only by their
ambition for power.

But behind the battles lie
more secrets than we know.

Their most elite and
evil force, the SS,

plotted far beyond conquest.

They mounted global expeditions,

hunting for ancient
relics of power

and long forgotten remnants
of ancient civilization,

hell bent on proving
a mythical heritage.

Now secrets are revealed.

A new light is shed
on dark schemes

and desperate adventures.

[dramatic music]

Desperate to cement their
Thousand Year Reich,

the Nazis mounted
global expeditions

to hunt for ancient artifacts,

lost customs and symbols

that would imbue them
with mystical powers

and prove that the
so-called Aryans

were the master race.

The Nazis set their sights
on ancient runic symbols,

which were part of an early
Germanic writing system

and were thought to possess
otherworldly properties.

In this quest,

the Nazis traveled to
far-flung corners of the globe

to hunt for these
mystical runes,

which could possess
the very powers

needed to secure victory
in the Second World War.

- They're looking for
objects or symbols of power.

- We do have evidence
the runic characters

could be used for purposes
we don't quite understand.

They might've been
magical purposes,

either as amulets
to ward off bad luck

or perhaps to perform some
kind of curse or spell.

- The idea of taking
a writing system

and turning it into a source
of magic and divination.

The idea has its roots in what
the Roman historian Tacitus

documents about the
ancient Germans,

that they did use runes for
divination, fortune-telling,

or for guiding them.

And there was this
belief that the runes had

some kind of spiritual power.

- [Narrator] For the Nazis,

the existence of runes
and distant lands

are seen as evidence

of a glorious mythological
Germanic past.

- Knowledge of the runic
writing system disappeared

fairly early in
the medieval period

because the Latin alphabet
was rather easier to write in

and had a better correspondence

between sound and
letter, I think.

- Runes or runic symbols
were experiencing

a kind of Renaissance
of interest

in the late 19th century
when Romantic era thinkers

who wanted to
recover pre-Christian
Germanic civilization

thought that looking
at Gothic runes

and Celtic and
otherwise around Europe

would help them do that if
they could decipher them.

- In Germany, in Nazi Germany,
and Austria at the time,

they come with this
kind of racial twist.

In that the runic alphabet

is supposed to be
a German alphabet

before the era of Christendom.

It's supposed to
be uniquely German.

And so it gets co-opted by
these various groups and people

to not only profess some
sort of belief in magic,

but also solidify this
idea of racial supremacy

and racial heritage.

- [Narrator] The Nazis
sent teams of archeologists

across Europe and the Middle
East to find ancient runes

with a goal to awaken Germany

and restore it to
greatness again.

- Germany is unified in 1871,

but before that unification,

what you have is,
in the Middle Ages,

hundreds of different
principalities.

And even up until
the time of Napoleon

who's often credited
with unifying

some of these German regions,

you still have multiple
regions with their own culture.

A Bavarian was
somebody different

than somebody who is in Berlin.

And when they unify in 1871,

there is kind of this attempt

to find something that can
unite all regions of Germany

into the shared past.

The power of the runes is not
just their magical properties,

but also the power to
potentially unite Germans

under this shared history.

- [Narrator] But this Nazi
dream of a glorious German past

would become a haunting
nightmare for millions.

- The runes were
gonna be central

to construct a post-Christian,

post-Jewish Germanic religion.

It will be the alphabet

as it were, of the
new Nazi religion.

- [Narrator] Prominent
German thinkers

began looking at runes,

along with Norse sagas
and old German fairytales

as the roots to unite the
German people, known as Volk.

- The Völkisch movement
is to return to the idea

of the way things were
done in German history.

That there is a unity
running through this nation,

and all of that has been lost

under the pressures
of modernity,

under the pressures
of Christianity,

under the pressures of,
according to the Nazis,

Jewish influence.

And so the Volk
have to be revived.

- [Narrator] The search for
a universal German culture

took a strange turn.
[suspenseful music]

In the 19th century,

there was an
eruption of interest

in the occult and mysticism.

One of the most
influential players

in the German-speaking
world was Guido von List.

- Guido von List is an Austrian.

He's born to a fairly
wealthy middle-class family.

He becomes a journalist

and he's raised in that
post-German Austria.

And he falls into favors of
the various nationalist groups

who definitely want to see
Austria as a part of Germany.

- [Narrator] In 1906, List
created a series of 18 runes,

called the Armanen runes.

- List becomes famous
for the publication

of the Armanen runes,
which are 18 runic symbols,

which he claimed
were passed down

by a group of priest
kings who worshiped Wotan,

the god of sun,

and who fell out of
favor from Christendom

and who were suppressed

and ultimately disappeared
in the face of Christianity.

- You know, Von List with
this idea of Wotanism,

was trying to recreate this
idea of a Germanic civilization

that existed long ago
with the idea, of course,

that it should exist again.

[suspenseful music]

- [Narrator] List's work would
become extremely influential

on another Austrian occultist,
Lanz von Liebenfels.

- What people like
von Liebenfels do

is they kinda
nationalized these ideas

claiming that the Germans
were the ancestors

of this great Aryan-Nordic race.

And that, through
selective breeding

and through association
with various symbols

and their magical properties,

they could recreate
another super race.

- Lanz von Liebenfels was,
from the outset, a racist.

- [Narrator] Liebenfels shared
his ideas with the masses,

producing the infamous
magazine known as "Ostara."

- "Ostara" is an
Austrian publication.

It's for a
German-speaking audience.

Significant because we know
that later prominent Nazis

in particular,
the Fuhrer himself

were exposed to these
ideas in "Ostara."

[suspenseful music]

- [Narrator] In the 1920s,

the ideas in the pages
of Liebenfels's "Ostara"

found a home in a new
extremist political party,

the National Socialist
Workers' Party of Germany,

better known as the Nazis.

In "Ostara" and
other occultic works,

the Nazis found the
spiritual justification

for their murderous doctrines.

One of the strongest proponents
of these occultic ideas

was a rising star in the
Nazi party, Heinrich Himmler.

- Himmler's attraction to
runes is set in the idea

that he can garner power
by using these runes.

These runes somehow can
bring forward abilities

that perhaps they invoke.

So one of the runes, Tyr,

the God of War, was
used quite frequently

within the SS party because
Himmler believed that

this rune would give them the
ultimate power as warriors.

- The Nazis choose the
swastika as their logo,

but there's many groups
that are using the swastika.

Various theosophists
believe that the swastika

was a runic symbol or that
it had magical properties.

- [Narrator] By 1936, the Nazis
had almost complete control

of German society.
[suspenseful music]

With the SS as the
party's vicious enforcers,

now Himmler would use his
office as a leader of the SS

to try and find truth
to prove his theories.

- Himmler founds the Ahnenerbe,

which means ancestral heritage,

as the research arm of the SS
to prove some of these ideas

that are floating around

in various occult
and mystical circles.

- [Narrator] The Ahnenerbe
was a pseudo-academic

SS think tank devoted

to promoting Nazi
party racial doctrines.

Through the use of archeology
and other disciplines,

they wanted to prove that
modern Germans descended

from an ancient Aryan race

seen as biologically superior
to other racial groups.

- He wants it to
have real founding

within the universities and
the scholarly community.

He's looking for a uniquely
German scholarship,

uniquely German science,

one that's going to prove
his ideological beliefs.

The initial leader is a
man named Herman Wirth,

and he is a pseudo-ethnologist
and a pseudo-archeologist.

- [Narrator] The first
on Ahnenerbe expedition

was to Bohuslan, Sweden.

There, they found a discovery

that would set fire to
Himmler's imagination.

- So the idea of their
expeditions to Bohuslan

to look at these
early pictographs

was to find the cradle
of the Aryan race.

- [Narrator] The
Ahnenerbe expedition

found a wealth of
ancient stone carvings.

The team believed these glyphs

were an ancient
Germanic language,

the key to unlocking the
glorious ancient past

of the Aryan race.
[suspenseful music]

- And they believed
that these pictographs

projected the story of the
beginnings of the Aryan people

in this area within Sweden.

And this fed into the
propaganda of the beginnings

of these perfect people.

- It's designed to, again,

prove the existence
of a master race

that existed in the Baltic
region and in Scandinavia.

And there are runes there.

It doesn't necessarily mean

that they were
written by Germans

or that it means a
particular thing.

These are widely
disputed by experts

in the field outside of Germany.

It's designed for consumption
of a German people

that's unaware of truth and
not really interested in facts.

- [Narrator] While the Nazis
believed the markings found

in Bohuslan are evidence of
an ancient runic language,

the truth is much different.

- But if you thought with
the idea that the runes,

which are probably
the most recent

of all the alphabets
that we find in Europe,

were actually the oldest

then you can trace resemblances
through the other alphabets.

And if you're going to argue

that the runes were
the original alphabet

and everything is simply
an imitation of that,

it's getting history
completely the wrong way round.

- It's not the precision.

Nobody cares about the facts.

It's this assumption that there
was a great Germany before

and here are people
prepared to defend it.

People with credentials
and reputations.

That becomes what
the Nazis want.

- [Narrator] To the Ahnenerbe,

these were proto runes,

hiding deep in magical,
secret places from the past.

In reality, they were
beautiful petroglyphs

from a Bronze Age culture

that lived in the region
thousands of years ago.

Despite these facts,

the Nazis believed that
the Bohuslan findings

would unlock ancient
mystical powers

that had been lost to time.

But not everyone was thrilled
by the expedition's findings.

The Ahnenerbes'
fantastical ideas

about the glorious ancient
history of the Germanic people

were met with some scorn

from the very top of the
Nazi party, Adolf Hitler.

At the 1937 Nuremberg rally,

Hitler criticized
the Ahnenerbes' lack

of scholarly seriousness.

- Not even all the
SS liked this stuff.

Many Nazis did not embrace it.

Now, they were careful for two
reasons about dismissing it.

One, they didn't
wanna anger, Himmler.

And two, they recognized
that it worked

among a certain
lower middle-class

white male Protestant
demographic

that was their bread and butter.

- [Narrator] For a man that
presented an unwavering belief

in the German people
to the public,

Hitler was embarrassed
about their ancient past.

In private, he
would often lament

that while the Greeks were
building the Acropolis,

the ancient Germans were making
goods out of stone and clay.

Hitler also had another
concern, a political one.

He was concerned about
these ideas destabilizing

the delicate political balance

between his rising Nazi state
and the Christian churches.

- Hitler was much
more of a politician.

He understood that he needed
to work with the church

if he was to control Europe.

Himmler's pretensions and grand
projects were not realistic

because this would have
created a direct rift,

because now what would
Himmler be saying?

He'd saying we have no
more use for Christianity.

And a significant percentage

of the German population
was Christian.

- [Narrator] While
Hitler eventually

wanted to do away
with Christianity,

he felt it was too soon

and the churches were still
too powerful in German society.

While the rebuke
from his idol stung,

Himmler was determined
to be proven right.

- Himmler would need
to be very cautious

because you don't want
to overstep your bounds.

And he, under no circumstances,

wanted to challenge his leader.

So he would keep it under wraps,

in the sense he
could not discuss it

as openly as perhaps he
would have wanted to.

- [Narrator] Himmler was
determined to prove his point

that the Germanic peoples
did have a glorious

and lost history.

To accomplish this, he needed
to ramp up the Ahnenerbe.

Himmler shook up the leadership

and brought in Dr. Walther
Wust to lead the organization.

- Himmler was aware
that now he had to get

people who were not
objects of ridicule

in the academic community.

And Wust was an Indologist.

He specialized in ancient
Sanskrit literature.

Respectable scholars
brought more credibility

to the so-called academic
or intellectual projects

of the Ahnenerbe.

We know that the
assumption there

was that all these racist
beliefs and xenophobic beliefs

and antisemitism is true.

That was the basic assumption
that these guys were making,

but they still could participate
in academic exchanges

with scholars around
the world and so forth,

which someone of Herman
Wirth's temperament could not.

- [Narrator] Wust is a keen
administrator and organizer

and took to his new
office with zeal.

The Ahnenerbe needed more
serious scholars like Wust,

academics like Franz Altheim.

Altheim was a celebrated
European intellectual

and archeologist who had hit
a roadblock in his career.

He had never taken out a
membership in the Nazi party,

but that was going to change.
[suspenseful music]

- Membership with the
Nazis or having Nazi ties

could often be a
marriage of convenience.

Especially after the
Nazi seizure of power,

membership within the Nazi party

or close affiliation with the
Nazi party meant opportunity.

The Ahnenerbe is,
throughout its career,

plagued by this tension
between those who are serious

and those who wanna
do real scholarship

and those who are looking

to kinda prove certain
fantastical nonsense.

- [Narrator] In
a mountain valley

at the base of the Italian
Alps sits Val Camonica,

a site where archeologists
found ancient markings.

Franz Altheim was sent to the
site to study these markings.

At Val Camonica, Franz
Altheim journeys into the cave

where these markings
had been found.

After analyzing these symbols,

he comes to the conclusion
that these are, in fact, runes

and must be evidence

of an ancient Germanic-Nordic
settlement in Italy.

The Val Camonica cave drawings

were made during the
Neolithic period,

dating back between
5500 and 3300 BC.

It would have been older
than the cave drawings

found in Bohuslan, Sweden,

which were made
during the Bronze Age

between 1800 to 500 BC.

However, Altheim incorrectly
dates the Val Camonica glyphs

to be newer than the
markings found in Sweden.

This mistake allows him
to entertain the idea

that Bronze Age
Germans and Nordics

migrated from the
north to the south.

- The efforts of Altheim
to draw connections

between completely
unrelated petroglyphs

in Northern Europe
and Southern Europe

had to be, on their part,

an effort to curry
favor with Himmler.

It's unlikely they
themselves actually believed

that those were part of the same

pre-historic Indo-Aryan
civilization.

And it's just perfect
example of the way

that ideology trumped science.

- The Ahnenerbe is not a place

where you're free to
think what you want

or free to say that I did
not make any discoveries.

They wanted results.

So if Bronze Age art could
be made to look like runes,

or it could be presented
as runes, why not?

- [Narrator] With the
help of his assistant

and lover, Erika Trautmann,

Altheim documents
these new findings.

Erika Trautmann was not your
typical academic assistant.

The photographer and artist

came from an upper-crust
Bavarian family

and had deep ties
to the Nazi party

and Hermann Goring himself.

Goring had been a crucial
member of the Nazi party,

helping create the Gestapos,

as well as being
Commander in Chief

of Germany's air
force, the Luftwaffe.

- Trautmann's influence does
begin to skew the viewpoints

on what these glyphs represent.

- [Narrator] Trautmann
understood the importance

of the glyphs at Val Camonica

and how important this
was for the Ahnenerbe.

If played right,

these markings could change
her and Altheim's careers

in a big way.

With Trautmann's assistance,

Altheim writes about the
findings at Val Camonica

to the Ahnenerbe office.

His report states
that the Val Camonica

and the Bohuslan glyphs

are of the same ancient
proto-runic language.

- What they found was
interpreted in a particular way

which served their cause.

So it's not that these
people were not competent,

most of them were
compromised from the get-go.

[suspenseful music]

- [Narrator] To Wust
and the Ahnenerbe,

this is a bombshell discovery,

evidence that Germans
were in Italy much earlier

than previously thought.

For the Ahnenerbe, this means
that ancient Germanic people

had migrated from
Sweden to Italy

and become part of
the Roman Empire.

Thus, the ancient Romans were,
in fact, a Germanic people.

The Val Camonica glyphs
were used by the Nazis

to promote the idea
that the Aryans created

the glorious ancient
civilizations of the past.

The real facts don't matter.

The Ahnenerbe believed
they have the evidence

to fit their narrative.

Altheim and Trautmann
planned an expedition

across Eastern Europe
and the Middle East

on a mission to prove that
Germans, Nordics, and Romans

were locked in a struggle
against the Semitic East.

- The struggle with the Semites

or the struggle with the Jews,

the Semitic people, this
is an ongoing struggle.

This is a historical
enemy of Germany.

This is the idea
which is being pushed

so that people take
their antisemitism

a little bit more seriously.

You cannot be a casual
antisemite in Nazi Germany.

You have to be a committed one.

- [Narrator] Altheim believed

that the ancient
Roman wars of conquest

were actually wars between
Aryan-Germanic peoples

against Eastern Semitic peoples.

For the scholarly community,

reframing the ancient
past to line up

with the current German
political situation

was poor scholarly research.

But it was good for
Altheim's career.

- They saw this as a way
to get money and travel

and test their theories.

And they were perfectly
willing to do it

on behalf of the Ahnenerbe.

- [Narrator] Altheim
and Trautmann

must now address a common
problem for scholars,

finding funding.
[suspenseful music]

- If you are looking at
for funding at that time,

Himmler's the place to go.

Especially if you can
package your research project

as somehow contributing
to Himmler's quest

for a new religion.

It's gold.

- [Narrator] Altheim,
the eccentric professor

is an apolitical Bohemian.

On the other hand,

Trautmann has connections to
the top of the Nazi party,

her old friend, Hermann Goring.

Using Trautmann's
connections to Goring,

they're able to secure
part of the funding

for their expedition to Eastern
Europe and the Middle East

on the hunt for more
runes and glyphs

and evidence of the Aryan
character of the Roman Empire.

But Goring isn't the
only high ranking Nazi

that makes contact with
Altheim and Trautmann.

Reinhard Heydrich,

who is chief of the Reich
Security Main Office,

saw the benefit of Altheim
and Trautmann's travel

for one of his organizations,

the Security Service, also
referred to as the SD.

Heydrich and the SD
have an ulterior motive

for scholars like
Altheim and Trautmann

espionage.
[suspenseful music]

- I think one reason that
Hitler and the Foreign Office,

which was much more sober

in terms of its awareness of
reality than maybe Himmler was,

would help sponsor or
facilitate these missions

is that Himmler would
usually be willing to include

a geopolitical or
practical economic benefit.

- Using these expeditions
to plant spies

is actually kind
of an ingenious way

to get people into
foreign countries.

If you say it's for academic
or scholarly purposes,

but really it's for political
or espionage purposes,

it actually makes sense.

- One of the most important
things about Nazi Germany

and its military
strategies in particular

is that it's critically
dependent upon
foreign oil reserves.

- [Narrator] Oil is the
lifeblood of any modern military

and the couples
travels will take them

to many oil-rich nations,

the first being Romania.
[suspenseful music]

- If they can get control
of the oil-rich countries,

they can cut off the
rest of the world

in so many ways.

- [Narrator] The once
apolitical Altheim

becomes a member of the SS
and a spy for the Reich.

- And when Heydrich asked
you to do something,

you didn't ignore it

because he was as much
of a person to be feared

as Himmler was.

- [Narrator] In
the spring of 1938,

Altheim and Trautmann
traveled to Romania

on the hunt for clues
around the Germanic nature

of the ancient Dacian people.

The Dacians were an
ancient Thracian people

that lived in what is
today Romania, Moldova,

and parts of the Ukraine.

The Dacians were
conquered by the Romans

in the 1st century AD.

Altheim believed the Dacians
were a Germanic people

and wished to find
evidence of this fact

at archeological dig sites.

As the couple begin their
research at the ruins

of an ancient Dacian hill fort,

they're confronted by locals.

The couple are warned
about the political chaos

and troubles that have
recently erupted in the area

and to be on the
lookout for both rebels

and the ultra-fascist
Iron Guard,

led by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu.

- Romania has actually
one of the most virulent,

racist fascist
movements of the era

known as the Iron Guard.

And the Iron Guard are led by
a young charismatic figure,

much like Hitler,

but they're also unique in
that they are Christian.

But Romania is besmirched
by these fascist uprisings

and these fascist activities

leading up to the
Second World War.

And Hitler, although they have

the kind of ideological
companionship,

Hitler actually ends up backing

authoritarian military
regime over these fascists,

because they really
do upset the landscape

in Romania at the time.

So this is a dangerous time
to be heading out in Romania

to do research.

- [Narrator] As the
political situation worsens,

Altheim and Trautmann
leave Romania

and make their way to Beirut
via a steam ship from Athens.

Altheim and Trautmann
arrive in Beirut.

The couple then plot
their next move.

They wish to travel to
French-controlled Syria

to study ancient runes in
their quest to find proof

of a Germanic-Roman empire.

- The runes were
very good evidence

of the presence of
Germanic people.

If they were genuine
runes and not art,

or some other glyphs
being turned into runes,

or being presented as runes.

So it would have made
a world of difference

if they had found Germanic
runes in that part of the world.

And this is what teaches us

that we should believe
historians and archeologists

more than crackpot theorists

is because no such
runes were found.

- [Narrator] Nazi sympathizers

helped to get Trautmann
and Altheim to Damascus,

the ancient capital of Syria.

- So the regions around
Syria and Damascus

are believed to be the
cradle of civilization.

So if you are looking for proof

that your ancestral
heritage goes back

all the way to the
beginning of civilization,

then this is a good
place to start.

- [Narrator] Damascus
is one of the oldest

continuously inhabited
cities in the world.

Founded about 4,000 years ago,

it has seen the rise and fall

of some of history's
greatest civilizations,

including the Babylonians,
Assyrians, Persians,

Greeks, and Romans.

- They believe that
when they hit Damascus,

they're really gonna
be able to peel back

those layers of time and
find the origins of runes.

- [Narrator] As they
arrive in Damascus,

French authorities begin to
tail Altheim and Trautmann.

The French had good
reason to be wary

of the German scholars.

French and German relations
were getting heated by 1938,.

Only two years prior,

the German Army had
moved into the Rhineland.

After the First World War,

the Rhineland had been
a demilitarized parcel

of German land
bordering on France.

Hitler moving troops
into this area

was in direct violation of
the Treaty of Versailles

and put France on high alert
for further acts of aggression.

- So 1938 is probably one of
the most tense years in Europe.

It comes after the
Abyssinian Crisis,

when the Italians
had already sparked

a potential global conflict.

There is fears of another war.

If you're making plans,

especially international plans,

a lot of that gets canceled
and disrupted at this time

because there are so
many moving pieces

and they're moving quickly.

- [Narrator] Two German
archeologists poking around

was exactly the kind of
thing the French authorities

would be on high alert for.

Altheim and Trautmann decide

to leave French-controlled Syria

and head for the
independent state of Iraq.

The couple are passed
over by the officials

and the train leaves
Damascus en route to Baghdad.

On the train, they make a list

of the ancient sites
they wish to visit,

Ctesiphon, Babylon,
Assur, Hatra and Palmyra.

At these sites, they
hoped to find runes

that will prove once
and for all their theory

that Rome had
Germanic-Aryan roots

and was in struggle against
the peoples of the East.

There is another sinister
purpose for this expedition.

For Nazi Germany,

any sign of ancient Germanic
culture in another land

would be grounds for
seizure of the territory.

This ideology dates
back to Gustaf Kossinna,

who was an extremely
influential German archeologist.

Previously a professor at
the University of Berlin,

he developed a theory
that the material found

at an archeology site
was tied to the ethnicity

of the people who lived there.

Kossinna's ideas were
championed by German scholars

like archeologist Hans Reinerth,

whose ideas became
Kossinna's law.

- The idea of Kossinna's law,

that archeological evidence

where people could
justify seizure of land,

there's definitely
imperialist elements there.

But it's also
useful for the Nazis

because the Nazis
emphasize the collective,

not the individual.

It was what was
good for the Volk.

And so it wasn't about
individual property.

It was about property
that belonged to the race.

This is the ideology that's
inherently driving Hitler.

It legitimizes the
expansion of the Nazi Reich

into Eastern Europe.

And it can also therefore
be kind of twisted

into the archeological or
occult aspects of Nazism,

which are therefore
kind of propping claim

into various lands through
archeological discoveries.

- [Narrator] The Nazis
would use Kossinna's law

as an excuse for the
annexation of Czechoslovakia.

If Altheim and Trautmann
could find the markings

like the so-called
proto-runes of Val Camonica

in the Middle East,
[suspenseful music]

this would mean the entire
region was German land,

ripe for future conquest.

- But they're
really far reaching

in how they're trying to
pull everything together.

They're looking at
cultures that have writing,

the ability to write.

And therefore, if you
have the ability to write,

you must have a connection
to the Aryan race of people.

- [Narrator] As Altheim
and Trautmann arrive

in the ancient city of Baghdad,

they find support
for their expedition.

They make contact with powerful
Nazi sympathizers in Iraq

and meet with the
German envoy to Baghdad,

Dr. Fritz Grobba.

- He is not just a
Nazi sympathizer,

he's an actual Nazi.

And he has transplanted
himself into the Middle East.

It seems like a very odd place.

However, if we look at
the bigger picture here,

we know that the Nazis are
looking at oil-rich countries,

and this is a perfect
place to set up shop.

[suspenseful music]

- [Narrator] With
help from Grobba,

Altheim and Trautmann are
now on the road to Assur

to see if they can find any
information on oil pipelines.

During their travels,

the couple meets
Sheik Adjil el Yawar,

a powerful Bedouin war chief.

- The Bedouin are the
nomadic people in the area.

And they are a
culture that goes back

thousands and
thousands of years.

Original people who
live off the land.

They know all the secrets.

- [Narrator] The Sheik is
a powerful Bedouin leader

looking for German
support for a revolt

against the colonial powers.

They also learned that
all the Bedouin locals

know exactly where
the oil pipelines lay,

the exact information Heydrich
and the SD are looking for.

After spending some
time with Sheik Adjil,

Altheim and Trautmann make
their way back to Germany

with their wealth of
research and secret reports.

The SD was very happy with
Altheim and Trautmann's work.

They were very excited
about potential alliances

with the Bedouins and the
information about oil pipelines.

- Any alliance which
would allow them access

to this very valuable resource

to move their heavily
oil-dependent army

into the steppes of Russia

is something which would have
been very valuable to them.

- [Narrator] The archeological
side of their expedition

does not find the evidence
of runes and glyphs,

but the Ahnenerbe
is very excited

about possible future
expeditions to the East.

But these plans are put on hold.

On September 1st, 1939,
Nazi Germany invaded Poland,

triggering the Second World War.

When the Germans
invaded Poland in 1939,

part of the justification
was the fact

that there were Germans
living in Poland

and that German culture
was present in the country.

This is Kossinna's
law in practice.

It would have devastating
effects on the entire world.

Despite the dangers
of the front,

the Ahnenerbe had a
mission to find evidence

of Germanic civilization in
their newly conquered lands,

such as runes and
other artifacts.

- It is, to some degree,
a kind of free for all

to grab what kind of
cultural artifacts you can

from places of interest
and then try to abuse them,

try to create a narrative
that's totally without fact,

or without any
reasonable evidence

to support the ideas
of a Germanic peoples

that go back into antiquity
and or the supremacy

of the Aryan race.

It depends on your
particular point of view.

- [Narrator] To
execute that mission,

they chose a rising
star in German academia,

archeologist Herbert Jankuhn.

- Jankuhn was one of
the chief archeologists

that worked with the Ahnenerbe.

These archeologists would
be sent out to find evidence

in paleolithic sites of
Germanic civilization.

And so Jankuhn was
very keen on that.

They also looked for
things like spearheads

and other kinds of
weapons and armor.

But among the evidence
they were seeking

were runic alphabets.

- [Narrator] Herbert
Jankuhn was one

of the most respected
archeologists in Germany.

At 26, Jankuhn
became the director

of one of the most important
excavations in Germany,

Hedeby, a Viking trading post

located just south
of the Danish border.

The Hedeby stones are
four large runic stones

found at Hedeby in
the 19th century.

Stones like these triggered
the Nazi imagination.

Jankuhn wanted to find
more relics from the past,

like the stones, to
prove the existence

of a vast Nordic empire
of ancient history.

The Nazis wanted
to connect Germans

to their newly-conquered lands.

Kossinna's law,

which allows for
the seizure of lands

where signs of ancient Germanic
peoples have been found,

would be applied to
all of Eastern Europe

and the Soviet Union.

But the Ahnenerbe
needed to find evidence

to help the Nazi case.

German scholars believe the
ancient Goths were the link

they were searching for.

- Goths hold a place
in German mythology

and German popular
culture at the time,

precisely because they were
the ones who sacked Rome

and defeated the Roman Empire.

And so if you believe

in kind of these cyclical
theories of history,

the Goths were the
ones that took down

the Roman civilization once
it had become corrupted

and heralded this great
new era of history.

- [Narrator] In
1942, the German Army

was pushing deeper and deeper
into the USSR's Crimea region.

Many German scholars
at the time believed

this region was the homeland
of an ancient German empire.

- The East is at the very
center of Hitler's ideology,

Eastern Europe.

He believes that Germany,

if it is going to survive and
it is going to reign supreme,

that it has to expand
into the eastern lands.

Into Poland, into
the Soviet Union.

So this is always at
the back of his mind,

even when he's invading France,

even when he's
attacking Britain,

he believes that Germany's
destiny is in Eastern Europe

and that those are
currently in possession

of the racially
inferior Slavic people.

And so anything that
somewhere like Crimea

is actually a place
of German heritage,

maybe even one of the homelands

of this great German
Aryan civilization,

then that fits well with not
only the Fuhrer's ideology,

but also what comes later,

which is, of course,
the war of extermination

that takes place in Russia.
[suspenseful music]

- We need to always
come back to this idea

of what the Nazis were,

which is an ideologically
driven collection of madmen.

- [Narrator] To Himmler,
the facts did not matter.

He saw Crimea as the perfect
soil for his deranged plans

to spring forth.

With its mild and sunny climate,

Himmler believed Crimea
would be the perfect place

for a German settlement.

Hitler himself thought
warmer climates

were more agreeable to Aryans.

Of ancient Rome and Greece,

Hitler said the Germanic spirit

found the first terrain
favorable to its blossoming.

Himmler wanted to turn
as much of Eastern Europe

into an SS feudal state.

And because he believed
Crimea was once Germanic land,

this region would be perfect
for German resettlement.

But first he wanted evidence
to strengthen his claims

In the summer of 1942,
Himmler dispatched Jankuhn

and two colleagues to
the Black Sea region

to search for the
treasures of the Goths.

- These are not scholarly
arguments to be made.

These are not academic ventures.

These are all about
the aggrandizement
of the German state.

- [Narrator] Himmler
considered this work

to be of prime
importance and asked

that Jankuhn's reports be
forwarded directly to him.

Around the same time,

Jankuhn is ordered
to the Eastern Front

to find runic evidence
and Gothic treasure.

- This entire
effort was circular.

They already knew what
they were supposed to find

and whatever they found
would be interpreted

along those lines and
presented accordingly.

- [Narrator] Jankuhn tells
his team to pack light

and bring a steel helmet.

They are going to
the Eastern Front.

Their mission: to find relics

and evidence of the ancient
Crimean Gothic empire.

For protection, this
small archeology team

is paired with the 5th
SS Panzer Division.

Plunged into the
heart of the war,

Herbert Jankuhn and his team

are searching for evidence
of an ancient Gothic empire

that was based out of Crimea.

Much of the speculation
about this Gothic empire

was sparked by the findings

of the so-called Gothic
crown of the Crimea.

This jewel encrusted
crown was found

in an ancient burial
site near Kerch

and was put on display
in a Berlin museum.

Jankuhn's team was nearing Kerch

where he hoped to find the
fabled Gothic treasure.

He learns from SS
officers that they suspect

that the nearby Maikop Museum

could be the home
of Gothic artifacts.

The group trudged
through the war zone

to get to important Gothic sites

before Russia's Red Army

can remove the artifacts

or before they are
destroyed by war.

- The Nazis detest the Red Army.

In between these searches
for Nazi treasure

and the war itself,

it becomes a war over history

embroiled in the
literal theater of war.

- [Narrator] But because of
heavy fighting on the front,

they are unable to proceed
with their mission.

Jankuhn butted heads with
the Wiking division leader,

SS Gruppenfuhrer Felix Steiner.

Steiner was in the
middle of a war.

To him, Jankuhn
was a distraction.

But Jankuhn had a trump
card up his sleeve

and was sent on this
mission by Himmler himself.

Steiner gave in eventually,

but warned Jankuhn of
the dangers of the front.

Warnings he ignored.

And so Jankuhn and
his team followed

a detachment of the
5th Panzer Division

as they headed towards Maikop.

Through the battle-raged
streets of Maikop,

Jankuhn and his team
find the museum.

Inside, they are
thankful to find

that the artifacts are
still there and intact.

- And when he gets
into the museums,

he starts to see a lot of things

that don't really
connect with this.

He starts to see
Greek artifacts.

Phoenician.

And all of these different
Mediterranean cultures

that are on display
in this museum.

Now, of course in
Crimea, that makes sense.

That's something that people

in that district may
have an interest in.

It's different from
their own artifacts.

And, of course,

even though they haven't found
what they're looking for,

they're going to confiscate
these artifacts anyways

and bring them back.

- [Narrator] Jankuhn
believes he's close

to making the discovery
of Gothic artifacts

and wants to press on.

His team learn that
there's the possibility

that the Gothic
treasure they seek

is being held at a
medical warehouse nearby.

They race towards the
warehouse on a hunt

to find the treasure.
[suspenseful music]

Given a military
truck for his team,

they ride through the
bombed-out Crimean countryside

on their way to the railroad
junction town of Armavir,

where they hope to find the
Gothic treasure as they seek.

- We would have to
think to ourselves,

why would it be there?

This does not seem like a place

that we should be
keeping Gothic treasure.

But we have to remember
that, at this time,

museums were packing up
very precious artifacts

and putting them in locations
that they felt were safe.

So inside this medical warehouse
might've been a location

that perhaps they did not
think the Nazis would raid.

- [Narrator] As Jankuhn
and his team reach

the medical warehouse,

they are horrified to find

that it has been
reduced to rubble

thanks to the recent
fighting in the area.

Despite this setback,

Jankuhn is now obsessed
with finding proof

of the Gothic treasure
and continues his search

on the extremely
dangerous Eastern Front.

His plans for further
archeological work are cut short

when there is an increase
in Russian partisan attacks

in the area.
[suspenseful music]

The situation becomes too
dangerous to continue his work

and Jankuhn spends
the rest of the war

attached to the 5th Panzer SS
as an intelligence officer.

And as the Nazi war
effort begins to crumble,

Jankuhn and the 5th
Panzer SS retreat

further and further west.

April 30th, 1945.

As the Red Army storms Berlin,

Adolf Hitler commits suicide.

Less than a month later,

the captured chief of the
criminal SS, Heinrich Himmler,

also takes his own life.

Himmler's archeologist, Jankuhn,

and the rest of the 5th
Panzer Wiking Division

surrendered to American
forces in Bavaria in 1945.

- I think they were
serious archeologists

who made a deal with the devil.

And when you make a
deal with the devil,

you play on his terms.

- [Narrator] Jankuhn was placed

in an internment camp in Germany

for three years before
he was released.

While the Red Army stormed
across Eastern Germany,

they captured Dr. Franz Altheim
at the University of Halle.

Altheim is able to
charm his way out

of taking a Red Army bullet

by lying about his
time with the SS.

He makes his way back
to Western Germany,

where he slowly integrates back

into German academic society.

After the war, Altheim
became a respected academic

in West Germany, teaching at
the famous Berlin Free School.

Altheim leaves Trautmann.

They never speak of their
work for the SS again.

After release from
the internment camp,

Jankuhn was shunned
by German academia.

He toiled away at
Viking historical sites

until he was finally
allowed to lecture again

at the University of Gothenburg.

As for the runes,

no runes were found

outside of previously
known Nordic countries.

In the end, Altheim, Trautmann
and Jankuhn's efforts

in the field of intelligence
were much more fruitful

to the Nazis than their
work as archeologists.

- This ridiculous idea

that the Germanic
people invented writing

when history documents
that's certainly not true.

How can we say that these
people were interested

in the scientific goals alone?

Or even committed to
the discovery of truth?

They were committed
to confirming

what they already believed.

It is the legacy of runology
in 20th-century Germany

which has corrupted the
mystical component of the runes.

[suspenseful music]

[suspenseful music]