All language subtitles for Secret.Nazi.Bases.S01E03.Villa.Winter.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H.264-BurCyg_track3_[eng]

- The more you walk
around Villa Winter,

the more questions you
start asking yourself.

- [Narrator] 1937, a mysterious
lone structure appears

on an isolated beach
in the Canary Islands.

- [Patrick] It's hard to
imagine a place more isolated

and cut off from the
rest of the world.

- There's no one and
nothing on the island.

- You wouldn't have
been able to hear

a scream for miles around.

- [Narrator] The owner,
a German engineer

named Gustav Winter.

Though it reports to
be a seaside home,

there's an eerie quality to it.

- You walk down into the bunkers

and that's when your skin
starts to run a little cold.

- [Narrator] Military
grade walls, tunnels,

and a tower overlooking
the Atlantic coastline.

- This was all by design.

- [Rob] What possible reason

would you need a
room like that for?

- [Narrator] Within three years,

these waters would
become a hunting ground

for German U-boats preying
on Allied merchant ships.

Though Spain remained neutral,

rumors swirled that Villa
Winter had become a U-boat base,

a waypoint for Nazis
fleeing Western Europe,

and even a hospital
performing plastic surgery

on some of Germany's
most notorious criminals.

- What is this
structure all about?

- Why would something like this
be in a non-military house?

- [Narrator] What secrets lie
behind these fortified walls?

- There's a mystery here
that needs answering.

[dramatic music]

[door banging]

- [Narrator] 1937, German
engineer Gustav Winter

signs a lease for a rugged strip

of coastline in Fuerteventura.

The site is remote,
20 kilometers from
the closest town,

barely accessible by
all-terrain vehicles.

The beaches are desolate

and a strong current
makes swimming dangerous.

What could Winter have wanted
with this barren stretch

of land so far
from civilization?

- The last thing that
would come to mind

when you first see the
villa, especially from afar,

is that there's anything
sinister about it.

From the outsides, you could
take it as a holiday retreat,

a holiday villa,
but when you put it

in its surroundings as
well, it's so remote.

- Lots of rich people like
to live in isolated locations

away from people but it's not
exactly a nice place to be.

There's nothing around.

- The location is so remote
that it would be difficult

at best to even get there.

There's not a major port,
there's not paved roads,

there's not a major airstrip.

There's no one and
nothing on the island.

- Today the Canary
Islands, you know,

they're a popular
tourist location,

but that wasn't the
case in the '30s

when we believe this
villa was built.

It's hard to imagine
a place more isolated

and cut off from the rest of
the world than that island.

- Everyone wants an
escape from the city

but few people go to an island

that was virtually uninhabited
in the middle of nowhere

and build on a volcanic rock

that resembles a
lunar landscape.

- So why would anyone in
their right mind decide

to place a building of that size

and that weird construction
in that location?

- Around the time of
the Second World War,

the Canary Islands
just seemed so remote,

so out of the picture.

There's no way
you'd associate that

with any kind of Nazi activity.

But then when you
get a little closer

and when you start
to investigate

what might have happened
here a little bit,

ooh, things start to
take a very sudden turn.

- [Narrator] A few years later,

and a much more
lethal threat lurked

in these remote and
dangerous waters.

Nazi U-boats
patrolled the oceans,

targeting Allied merchant ships.

- The Allied naval forces
clearly controlled the seas

with one exception: the U-boats.

- U-boats were able to slice
through the seas undetected

and attack enormous ships

without anyone ever
noticing they're there.

- [Robert] They sunk
over 1,000 merchant ships

during the war which was a
form of economic warfare.

- In terms of U-boat technology,

Germany is definitely a leader

and they are building
their fleet at real speed.

- So the U-boats are
absolutely essential

to Hitler's larger strategy.

- [Narrator] Could Gustav
Winter have merely guessed

that the waters
stretching out before him

at Villa Winter would soon
be teeming with Nazi U-boats

or was this Germany
engineer wise

to Hitler's plans all along?

- So who was Gustav Winter?

- He's a man of means.

We know that he's
a German engineer

but he's not some
eccentric billionaire

who goes around buying islands.

- He studied
electrical engineering.

Then he'd been
arrested as a spy.

He then escapes, makes
his way to Valencia.

It's a slippery past.

- He was not
completely secretive

but yet his home is literally
in the middle of nowhere.

It's just awfully intriguing.

- He goes ahead and
buys some remote land

and starts developing
and building a home

on it which doesn't align

with any reasonable
engineering principles

on how you might build a
home with this purpose.

- [Robert] Could Winter
have been an opportunist

who realized that this place

could be strategically important

and I could position myself
in an advantageous way?

- Or was he some kind
of nefarious agent

for the Third Reich acting
on behalf or with them?

- [Narrator] Winter
made his fortune

as a power plant builder
in Argentina and England

before moving to
the Canary Islands.

When Winter arrived on
Fuerteventura in 1933,

he set to work building.

Records show he planned
to build a cement plant,

a fish cannery, and a power
plant, but his ideas are upset

by the outbreak of
the Second World War.

Were Winter's plans
of his own making

or part of a larger Nazi scheme?

One man has been
single-handedly investigating

this mystery for years.

Pedro Fumero's relatives
built and lived in the villa

from the very first
days it was constructed

for Winter until now.

- [Translator] My
name is Pedro Fumero

and the connection I
have with this house

is it's my grandparents' house

and they were neighbors
of Gustav Winter.

We were kids and my
grandfather would tell us

a lot of stories about
the Winters' house,

stories like they had a
landing strip for aircraft,

that Cofete Beach
had an airstrip

where military men arrived.

So that made me
question what they said

about the house being a farm,

knowing that the
house had a bunker,

prison cells, autopsy
tables, and crematory ovens,

and it just didn't make sense
to me that this was a farm.

- Pedro is the closest thing
we have to a primary source,

someone who was actually
there and saw this.

- Tapping into that
information has been useful

but it also contradicts the
story that the paperwork shows.

How do you decipher
what is truth?

- [Narrator] Officially,
Gustav built the house in 1946

and settled to raise
cattle and farm.

By the time Winter
leased the land,

Spain was one year
into a civil war,

one in which Hitler and
Germany played a huge role.

- Hitler had sent troops,
planes, to aid General Franco,

the leader of Spain, in his
civil war with the republicans.

- Franco does win that
war and he owes part

of the victory to
Hitler and the Germans.

- [Narrator] But Germany's
help comes at a price.

When World War II breaks
out, Hitler comes calling

and pressures Spain
to join with the Axis.

- As far as Hitler's concerned,

Franco and Spain owe him one.

- So one can understand
why the Spanish government

doesn't really wanna discuss
any potential collaboration

between Franco and Hitler.

- [Narrator] After
three years of fighting,

Spain is on the
brink of collapse,

so Franco declares
Spain a neutral party

but not without first conceding

to allow German merchant
ships into Spanish ports.

- These may well
be technologically
advanced machines

but they still need to
be repaired, refueled.

The crew need food.

- The problem for the Nazis
is a lot of the territory

that they occupy,
it's landlocked.

They need ports.

- For the German U-boats to
carry out Hitler's plans,

a safe base for them
to come and resupply

in the Canary Islands would
have served them rather well.

- [Narrator] One of
the the ports open

to German merchant ships
in the Canary Islands

was at Las Palmas.

- It's kind of the
perfect position

to have a secretive
U-boat storage place.

- [Robert] Access to Africa,

access to the Mediterranean
from the south.

- And controlled by a country

that's neutral in
the Second World War

but on pretty friendly
terms with Nazi Germany.

- [Narrator] On a remote
beach only 80 miles away,

Winter was settling in.

A huge villa claiming
to be a residence

and agricultural site
faces out across the water

directly toward Las
Palmas, and years later,

a piece of evidence
emerges that hints

at the location's true purpose.

- There's a letter that exists

that was sent within
the German high command

that talks about German
U-boats being supplied

by a guy called Winter
in the Canary Islands.

- And that's drawing
attention to any U-boats

that could be
operating in and around

or hiding in and around
the Canary Islands.

The letter seems to have
gone to Hermann Goering.

In some ways, that
doesn't make sense

because he was the
head of the Luftwaffe

but he was also
Hitler's number two

and was also a very powerful
force within the Third Reich.

- And if there's one thing

that the Nazis were
very, very good at,

it was about documenting
their activities

and their operations, but
there's no Nazi documentation

about U-boats refueling
from Fuerteventura.

- Maybe something was going
on and it was so secret

that the general and officials
who received the letter

or wrote the letter
didn't even know about it.

- There's a mystery here
that needs answering.

- [Narrator] Was Gustav
Winter a bystander

to the Battle of the Atlantic

or was he operating a
covert U-boat supply base

right here on the
beaches of Cofete?

And if Villa Winter
was a farming home,

what's to be made of Winter's
unusual towering fortress

surveying the beach?

As World War II spiraled
into a total war,

a suspicious house
on a remote shore

in the Canary Islands was built

by a reclusive German engineer,

its exact details
and purpose unknown,

yet its location
and structure belie

its stated agricultural purpose.

As the Allies joined the War

and the battle of
the seas escalated,

Nazi U-boats were in desperate
need of safe ports of call.

- There's a huge
discrepancy in the timeframe

around when Villa
Winter was built.

Locals claim that
they saw the villa

being constructed around 1937.

The Spanish
authorities will claim

that it was built in 1946.

- Gustav Winter is on record

as saying it was built in 1958.

- So hang on, there's a
21-year discrepancy here

between when this villa might

or might not have
been constructed.

- We have three different
dates that span decades.

It just deepens the uncertainty

around when was this
structure built?

What was it built for and why?

- Could it be that
because Spain was neutral

during the war that
they just did not want

to have any potential
ties to Hitler?

And so they delayed the
actual building date

in order to separate themselves
from that piece of history.

- If we were talking
discrepancies of a year or two,

that's understandable
maybe, but decades?

It doesn't make sense.

- What is going on here?

- [Narrator] The building's
origins are clouded in mystery.

Some eye witnesses
say construction

on Villa Winter was
heavily guarded,

with workers barred
from coming and going.

Others suggest the
villa was actually built

using forced labor from
a nearby prison camp.

- Using forced labor is
a bit of a Nazi signature

for the structures
that they needed built

for their war effort, that
they needed built quickly,

that they needed built
in secrecy as well.

- Knowing how that
was such a hallmark

of the way that Nazi Germany
would construct properties,

you do start to ask
yourself the question,

is there something
more going on here?

- [Narrator] But if the
house itself seems strange,

what lies beneath is shocking.

Pedro Fumero, current
occupant of the villa

and relative of
workers at the site,

is convinced this
was a Nazi base.

He spent years and all his
efforts to uncover the truth,

starting with the
actual structure.

- [Translator] Well,
according to our grandfather,

he used to tell us
the bunker was built

by the Spanish military.

- If you look at two facts
surrounding the villa,

some pieces of this puzzle
start to come together.

Organisation Todt, we know,

had almost an MO to
used forced labor,

and then when you see some
of the walls of its cellar

or basement, they look very
much like German bunkers,

bunkers that Organisation
Todt had built elsewhere.

- [Narrator] In the
course of his research,

Pedro has uncovered many
oddities about this house.

- You walk down into the bunkers

and that's when your skin
starts to run a little cold

and shivers come up your
neck because, I mean,

what is this
structure all about?

- [Translator] To me, it is
a very well reinforced bunker

that was made in case of a
bombing attack on the house.

They kept that in mind because
they thought it could happen.

- So the basement is built
like a typical German bunker.

Walls and rooms constructed

exactly like everything
else we've seen

in other areas that were
occupied by Nazi Germany.

- [Translator] It is not normal
in an agricultural house.

There are walls that
are 1.4 meters thick.

Also, they are arch-shaped.

It is built this way in case
there was a shockwave impact.

The arch is strong enough

to hold the impact
and avoid collapse.

- Why would you build
incredibly thick walls

when they only need
to be 10 inches thick?

It doesn't make a lot of sense

from a residential
point of view.

- I have never been in a house

that has a private
bunker basement,

especially one in such
a remote location.

- Today we build foundation
walls out of concrete

or masonry block and all
wood framing above it,

because wood is sustainable,
it's light, it's easy to use.

You don't need a concrete
floor in a house.

- I've been inside
bunkers from various wars

throughout history
and this has the look,

the feel, of a bunker.

Hollowed out areas
below, reinforced
spaces in the basement,

and yet everything else is
bunker-like and reinforced.

That raises a lot of questions.

- [Narrator] Pedro is convinced

there are even more secret rooms

hidden under the bunker floors.

[stick banging]

- [Translator] The floor
sounds like this one here.

[stick clanging]

The sound, it is a
loud sound, very loud.

There is a strong
concrete basement,

but this one over here,

[stick thudding]

the sound is
completely different.

[stick thudding]

- [Narrator] Pedro
has uncovered clues

to a secret excavated
area beneath the house,

but for what purpose?

- [Translator] It sounds
hollow, and right here,

scans I've done show
that there is a ramp.

The ramp goes two meters down

and where it ends,
there is a door.

- Why would you excavate
something if you don't need to?

That's a lot of work
and effort to do that.

- [Translator] The
research we've done

goes up to three meters down.

We believe there might
be two more floors.

- [Narrator] As a
child, Pedro played

in these underground rooms

and recalls strange metal
objects on the walls.

- [Translator]
When we were kids,

we used to take the
keys from our grandpa

and come down here to play.

This was our fort.

We used to play here.

That's why I can assure you
that there were shackles here

because I saw them.

This is how they used to be.

This way, they were handcuffed.

And here we have the
ventilation system and exit.

These are torture prisons.

The only ventilation the
prisoners had was this one.

- I can't fathom a
purpose to that room

if this was my house.

If I had a house, there
is no need for that room.

- [Narrator] Were these
secret rooms and hallways

the unconventional
work of an odd engineer

with an abundance of resources

or is this all pretense to
covertly build a structure

for a military use?

- If indeed Villa Winter
is a holiday luxury mansion

that was built for
an eccentric German,

you have to ask
yourself the question,

why is there military-grade
thickness walls in the bunkers?

Why are there these
shut-off rooms

and long corridors everywhere?

- Winter's an engineer,
Winter knew what he was doing.

This was all by design.

- [Rob] It makes me feel
like this is a place

that had defensive capabilities
designed and built into it.

- You don't need a
bunker if you're farming.

You don't need a bunker
for a vacation villa.

You don't need a bunker
if there's no neighbors

and no town and no people.

You need a bunker for
defensive purposes.

- [Narrator] Did Winter
choose this remote location

because it's the
perfect get-away spot

or because it made the
site difficult to locate

and easy to defend?

- There's no road
into this place

and you've got these
imposing mountains behind

and it makes the villa
look very isolated.

Why would he build
something that's so remote,

so difficult to access?

That has a feel that very far
away from anything residential

with its bunkers and
its thick concrete.

- Why would you have
a completely isolated
sealed structure

under a house?

There's an alternative
usage there

that has no link to
residential usage.

- You could build something
of this size in that location

and probably no one on
the neighboring islands

would have any idea
what's happening.

There would be people on
that particular island

that wouldn't even
know you were doing it.

That's how remote it is.

- Without knowing much about
Mr. Winter and his intentions,

it tells me that he
had something to hide.

- [Narrator] The
deeper Pedro digs,

the more questions need answers.

[metal creaking]

Villa Winter reports
to be nothing

but a seaside retreat
for a German engineer,

yet its remote
inaccessible location,

windowless rooms, and
bunker-grade walls fuel whispers

of the villa's darker purposes.

As the Battle of the
Atlantic was fought

on the doorstep of
the Canary Islands,

rumors of a secret
Nazi U-boat base

at Villa Winter circulated
among the islanders.

- Is this the project
of an extreme recluse

who went to great efforts
to isolate himself

from the rest of the world

or is there something

maybe a bit more
sinister going on here?

- Was there a connection between
Mr. Winter and the Germans

or was this simply
all a coincidence?

- When it comes to the Nazis,

there are so many
conspiracy theories.

It's hard sometimes to
separate fact from fiction

but one of the things
historians to detectives

to anybody does in trying
to track down a story

is to look for people
that were actually there.

- Local villagers have told
Pedro that they saw many things

that collaborate the Nazi
story here at Villa Winter.

There are eyewitnesses reporting

that they saw German
soldiers at the villa

and reporting that they saw
U-boats in the vicinity of it.

- [Translator] My
grandfather told us

that submarines would surface

and he would see them
while he was fishing.

They would be fishing next
to the Roque del Moro.

Submarines would surface.

He called them
upside-down boats.

- [Robert] It would be hard
to imagine Nazi soldiers,

planes, ships, submarines,
without locals seeing it.

- It's difficult to
discount living testimonies

from local residents
who spent time there

and saw things progress
throughout the war.

- [Narrator] There
were also older people

like my grandfather
that remembered

how planes landed
on Cofete Beach.

There were also many fishermen
who saw the submarines.

They said they wore
uniforms of the German army.

- If you're living in the Canary
Islands in the '30s or '40s

and a Nazi soldier
walks by in uniform,

that's not something
you see every day.

- [Narrator] If local
eyewitnesses were correct

and there were German soldiers
secretly on the island,

what happened to them?

- Just down the road,
there's a very small cemetery

just for the local fishing
village, but according to Pedro,

there are crosses there
with German names on them.

But the cemeteries moved,

suddenly the German
crosses disappear.

- [Translator] And the
astonishing part is

that in the cemetery of Cofete,

which used to be the
graveyard for locals

and maybe a few people
that drowned here,

but it was actually a
graveyard for the locals.

People from all over the
island were buried there.

But suspiciously
enough, it had graves

with German names
here in Cofete.

Who were those people
who were buried there?

Who were those Germans?

There are a lot of
people interested

in removing every German name
to cover what happened here

and a lot might
have happened here.

- Why would those
local villagers lie?

What possible incentive could
they have to make up a story?

- If we can't find
supporting evidence,

the eyewitness
accounts of the people

that were there are things that
simply cannot be discounted.

- [Narrator] Villa
Winter looks out

over the rough Atlantic
Ocean toward Las Palmas,

the Canary Island port offered

by General Franco for Nazi use.

U-boats trawled the
waters here in packs,

watching and targeting
Allied merchant ships.

- When U-boats come in to dock

or when they want to meet a
ship, they don't use radio.

They use lights, so this tower
in this particular position

would've been the exact
right building to create

in order to signal to U-boats

that they were close to
their intended destination.

- [Translator] With the
tower, you can notice

that the windows are
made for defense,

and upstairs, you have
a surveillance post

with a 360-degree view.

- And nobody would know that
this tower was functioning

as a lighthouse for U-boats,

because of course
there's no one for miles

living around other
than fishermen.

- From the outside
when you see the tower,

if this is a villa,
you might think, oh,

that'd be a lovely place to go

and watch the sunset
from up there.

And when you
actually get up there

and you see just how
small the windows are,

you see a little bit how
clinical the whole place looks.

- The layout of the
house is strange.

You can't access the
tower from the main floor.

You have to go up
to the second floor.

- It's the perfect
position to look out

onto the bay in front of you,

but the windows are
constructed in such a way

that it's very difficult
to see who's inside.

This isn't for letting in the
wonderful views from outside.

It makes you think
this is much more

about selective viewing
in a covert way.

We're talking about observation.

It's almost medieval the way

they're cut into the
structure itself.

- [Narrator] Disguising
structures to go unnoticed

by an enemy is not
an unusual tactic

and it was quite
common during the war.

- If you were driving past,

you probably wouldn't
give it a second glance.

- You definitely wouldn't
think German base

when you see the Villa Winter.

- [Narrator] But things get
even stranger from the air.

At a specific angle
only, looking down,

you can make out the faint
traces of an old airstrip,

identical to the
official one Winter built

further south on the island.

- Now ask yourself the question,

why would you need an airstrip
in front of a domestic house

or a mansion or a granary?

- [Narrator] By sea and
air, German military vessels

tracked enemy and
merchant ships,

transmitting their coordinates
to the U-boats for attack.

Could Villa Winter's
fortified tower

have been another location

from which the Nazis
monitored the horizon?

- One of the extraordinary
things about U-boats

is how they're
able to communicate

over incredibly long
distances with German bases.

- [Rob] When they're
underwater, they can send

and receive
low-frequency radio waves

and when they're above water,

they can send and receive
high-frequency radio waves.

- [Narrator] A strange component
in this mysterious tower

is the large fuse
box at its top.

- It's very hard not to
notice this giant fuse box

up on the wall there.

Now, this is not the kind of
thing you'd expect to find

in a luxury residential
villa on the beach

within its lovely surroundings.

- I'm no electrical engineer,

but houses of this scale
do not have fuse boxes

that are as tall as me.

If you've got a big
fuse box like that,

you're using it for something.

- Come to think of it,
high-power radio communications,

the likes that U-boats might
have been using to communicate,

needs this kind of power.

- [Narrator] Was Villa
Winter using up power

with sophisticated
communication equipment

or was Gustav Winter
merely ensuring

his remote home had ample
voltage for personal use?

- You have Villa Winter
with this incredible amount

of power generation potential

and then you have U-boats
that need to communicate

using long-distance
high-power radio technology.

You put the two together, it
certainly raises questions.

- So is this evidence
that links Winter

to U-boat operations?

- When you really consider
that and then all the efforts

that appear to be
happening to cover this up,

what's the motive,
why, why cover it up?

- [Narrator] Beyond the
mysterious power box,

what's to be said of the
Villa's many windowless rooms?

Were they built to keep the
world out or Nazi secrets in?

A mysterious fortress stands
sentinel on a remote beach

in the Canary Islands
as Allied merchant ships

and their convoys fall prey
to Hitler's hunting U-boats.

Though Spain has
declared itself neutral,

Franco allows German ships
to resupply in the Canaries,

but rumors swirl around
this strange place.

Talk of a secret
Nazi base persists.

- There's a letter that
exists that gives us evidence

that the German military knew

that Winter was supplying
fuel to German U-boats.

But we also know that the
waters around Villa Winter

were too dangerous for
U-boats to approach.

- Many experts have claimed
that it wouldn't be possible

for U-boats to operate in
the vicinity of this villa

because the shoals
in the water there

are just too treacherous.

- It's craggy, it's
messy, there's shoals,

there's violent waves.

It seems very difficult to think

that a U-boat could
navigate anywhere close

to land to be able to resupply.

- So that raises a question,

how would U-boats
operate in that vicinity?

- [Narrator] Pedro is
convinced there is a way

and that the answers lie
beneath the mansion bunker.

- [Translator] They could've
built it closer to the beach

or the town but they
chose this place

because beneath the house,
there is a natural cave.

It has been proven that
there was a volcanic cavern

filled with water.

What the Germans did
was take advantage

of the volcanic cavern in order
to build a submarine base.

- Now there are volcanic tunnel
ways underneath the island.

On the surface, if you make
your way around the coastline,

you can see volcanic
tunnels and vents exist

and passageways there
that, in theory,

would be big enough for a
U-boat to navigate through.

- That would provide
ideal hiding places

for a U-boat or any
other type of secret.

- [Rob] German
engineering companies

and the German war machine,
they dug tunnels all the time.

It was the bread and butter
of military construction.

- Relatedly, we know that
the Nazis excavated some

of the most unimaginable,
remarkable tunnels

through hard stone
across Europe.

- Is it too
far-fetched to believe

that German U-boats
were actually navigating

in volcanic tunnels
that actually lead

into the island itself?

I mean, the Nazis
have pulled off bigger

and more ambitious projects,

but there's something that
doesn't feel right about that.

- Submarines don't back up well.

Submarines don't
turn around well.

The risk of damaging a sub by
bumping up against something

in a volcanic cave.

- These things don't
necessarily turn on a dime.

They need room to
maneuver and move.

- Pedro has an
interesting theory.

It seems rather unusual and wild

but we have certainly
heard more unusual

and far more wild facts that
came out of Nazi Germany.

- [Brooke] It seems out of
a movie, but it's possible.

- [Narrator] If Gustav
Winter did build his fortress

over top of a volcanic vent,

could U-boats navigate
right under the villa

only to surface in
tunnels underneath?

Are these walled-in
areas what remains

of secret Nazi tunnels?

- [Narrator] My research shows
that submarines might be able

to navigate the caves and
could even stay below the house

in the natural cave.

The pool that the house had

in the garden wasn't
really a pool.

It was meant to hide the
entrance beneath the house

that connects to a path leading
down to a volcanic cavern.

- [Narrator] Over the
years, Pedro has attempted

to excavate and
investigate further,

but he claims he's been stopped

by local authorities and
other shady characters.

- [Translator] Some
politicians have told me

that I shouldn't excavate
what's below the bunker

because I would get a fine for
destroying historic property

and I wouldn't be able
to pay it in a lifetime.

I felt threatened and I know
that my life is in danger.

That is why I decided
to insure my life.

- There are
eyewitnesses reporting

that they saw German
soldiers at the villa

and reporting that they saw
U-boats in the vicinity of it.

- And the question that
really pops to my mind again

is why would locals lie
about something like this?

What would their incentive be?

- [Robert] The
Spanish government
and the Spanish people

are in a very
precarious situation.

- There must have been
some potential tie

that Spain or someone
else thought could be made

between this building
and its inhabitants

and Hitler and the Germans
that would cause them

to want them to separate
themselves completely from it.

- [Translator] And of
course that would mean

to recognize that
Spain wasn't neutral.

- [Narrator] Allied
reconnaissance planes watched

as German ships refueled
in Spanish ports.

If Winter was
running a Nazi base,

why go to the trouble
of building a fortress

over a volcanic
vent to do something

that was done in broad
daylight close by?

That is, unless there was
something else going on,

something darker.

A mysterious house on
a remote Spanish island

hides many secrets in its
walls and even underground.

Whispers of a secret Nazi
base refuse to dissipate.

As the tides of the war
turned against Germany,

the need for a plan
B became a reality.

- Towards the end of the war

when things are not looking
great for the Nazi regime,

senior generals, I'm sure,

were starting to
get quite nervous,

looking for a way to
escape war tribunals.

- Hitler's vision
for a Thousand-Year
Reich is collapsing

and soldiers from
the lowliest private

to the highest
general are starting

to ask themselves the question,
how long can this go on for?

- [Narrator] Although the
fight was nowhere near over,

the German High
Command began to worry.

What might a defeat mean for
Germany, Hitler, and them?

- The Nazi regime has
committed horrendous atrocities

throughout the course of Europe

and the senior officers in
charge of that must have known

that if they survived the war,
they would be responsible.

- Even loyal Nazis in
Germany toward the end knew

that they needed to
abandon a sinking ship.

- And we know for a fact
that a lot of them did escape

to Spanish territories
and out to South America.

Germany's running
out of safe harbors.

Having remote hideaways to be
able to escape to, regroup,

and then move on would have
been absolutely essential

to these fugitives
from international law.

- Somewhere to hide away
on the Canary Islands

would be a perfect place.

- [Narrator] Could Villa
Winter have been planned

as a safe house or a ratline
to somewhere like Argentina

where hundreds of
Nazis fled post-war?

Did Gustav Winter use his
connections in Argentina

to plan an escape route
for Nazi criminals?

- When the war was over,
there was the famous ratline,

the famous escape routes

that many German
high-ranking generals

and officials were to
use to leave Germany.

- It's not impossible to imagine

that Villa Winter is the
ideal stop on this ratline

to South America for these
escaping war criminals.

- The villa itself is so remote,
it's a great place to hide.

The bunker hidden away
completely out of sight

in that villa, it's perfect.

- [Narrator] There are
many strange things

about these rooms.

They're windowless so no
one outside would be able

to see if someone
was staying here.

They're bare bones
with smooth floors,

easy to clean, easy to turn
over for a new occupant,

and they each have
their own bathroom,

almost like a hotel
or hospital room.

- [Translator] My
grandfather told me

that they finished the bunker
around 1938, early 1939,

and I have proof that it
worked perfectly during 1941.

- The more you walk
around Villa Winter,

the more questions you
start asking yourself

and the most chillier you feel.

- [Translator] Here
we have a strong wall.

[stick bangs]

But if we knock this one,

[stick bangs and echos]

the sound is different.

And look here, we have
a door that was covered.

Also, if you take a look,
the windows are designed

to receive light
from the outside

but the inside of
the room not be seen.

- It's so remote, no
one's ever gonna see

that you were there and
you have a great vista

and place of observation
to see anyone

who might be approaching.

- Now, none of this makes sense

if this is an agricultural site

and it makes even less sense
when you look at the fact

that it's so isolated
unless you have other plans.

- Also down in the basement,

there's a room
that you walk into

that has a very
sterile feel to it,

something medical, maybe.

It's a creepy room.

- [Translator]
When we were kids,

my grandfather would
always tell us things.

He would talk to us
about the bunker,

but my grandfather never
spoke to us about a kitchen.

He only spoke
about a laboratory.

- A glaringly odd
feature is the entrance

to an oven built
into the wall there.

- [Translator] The
ovens that were used

in kitchens back then
weren't this way.

They were more round on the
top and they were smaller.

To me, this is not a
normal oven for a house

even though it might
look like that.

It is not normal.

We have opened and
used them with fire

and the heat is,
like, 700 degrees.

As you can see, in a kitchen,

200 degrees is more than enough.

At most, 300 degrees.

But this one goes
up to 700 degrees.

- What on earth would you
need those temperatures for?

- Now you can burn and dispose
of all sorts of things.

You could superheat any
kind of metal you want.

There's lots of things
you can do with them

but none of them are in sync

with what this villa
is supposed to be.

- Why would something like this
be in a non-military house?

It just doesn't
appear to make sense.

- [Narrator] But the disturbing
oven isn't the only thing

in this sterile room
that raises questions.

- [Translator] Back then, a
kitchen would have a hole here

for firewood, and here
would be the iron stove.

That's how a kitchen
would be back then.

If we take a look to this table,

to me, looks like
an autopsy table.

A close friend of mine,
Jose Carlos, came here.

He's a doctor and when
he saw the table, said,

"Pedro, it clearly
is an autopsy table."

When you carry out autopsies,

there is a lot of
blood everywhere

and this thing over here
is a drain for the blood.

This type of drain would
only be found in labs,

surgery rooms, and
animal slaughterhouses.

It wasn't in our grandmothers'
and mothers' customs

to have white tiles
in the kitchen.

The kitchens were decorated
with colorful tiles,

many flowers and colors.

White tiles are for
labs and surgery rooms.

- What possible reason would
you need a room like that for?

- This does not look like a
kitchen I've seen in a house.

It is stark, it is cold, it
is not a place for gathering

or joy or food preparations.

It feels terribly clinical.

- It could be possible
that this basement

with this surgical table
and the oven and the sinks

and the drains in the floor
could have conceivably been used

as an area to do plastic surgery

where their faces
could have been altered

in order to facilitate
them moving on

to a new life in South America.

- I question these words even
as they come out of my mouth

because it seems
too far-fetched.

This seems like too
big a conspiracy,

but all the evidence
and everything

that you see in this weird room,

could that have been used
for maybe plastic surgery

to disguise some of the higher
ranks within the Nazi regime

so that they could
much more easily escape

and go undetected for
the rest of their lives?

- [Narrator] After the
war, many Nazis escaped

to Spain and South America,

desperately hiding their
tracks and identities.

- Is it crazy that they could've
used this kind of facility,

which looks so
medical, to do that?

- [Narrator] But Pedro
has another darker theory.

- [Translator] What draws my
attention are the rooms located

to the right of the tower.

They are rooms with
small entrances.

We used to think they
could be the upper side

of an older barn, but
it was really odd to us

that a barn had
an electric system

with switches and light bulbs.

- To get up there, you had
to kinda crawl up this slope

through these child-shaped holes

that really served
no purpose whatsoever

and definitely don't look
like the kind of things

used for grain storage.

- You build a door to suit

who is going to be
using that door.

When you look at a door
that size, it's kid-sized.

It's a child-sized door.

Typically, you wouldn't
have rooms on an upper floor

that are on the exterior of
a building without a window.

- A lot of homes
would have an attic

where you store things and
there's not enough room

to live up there, stand
up and walk around.

Why build storage in an attic

when you have a massive
underground bunker,

you have cavernous tunnels,
you have a huge basement.

- [Translator] We
used to play inside.

We would play inside
the rooms, and to me,

those were bedrooms for kids

because we were the only ones
capable of fitting in there.

What I found extremely odd is
that it also had a bathroom.

A bathroom for a barn?

- Attics are always creepy.

Even the attic at Villa Winter
leaves us with questions.

- And given what we've
found in the basement,

it begs a question as to
was there a connection

between these very small rooms

and what looks like an
operating table in the basement.

- We do know that
the Germans conducted

horrific experiments
on children.

Now, if you look at Villa
Winter, if you wanted to, say,

conduct secret experiments on
children, say plastic surgery,

anything you want,
you can do that there

because there's nobody watching.

If the Nazis did want to conduct
human experiments in secret

then Villa Winter would've
been the perfect place.

You wouldn't have been able

to hear a scream
for miles around.

- [Narrator] Was
Fuerteventura a stepping stone

to Argentina?

Were Nazis going under the knife

in Villa Winter to
disguise their identities?

If so, one can only
wonder who has stayed

in the windowless rooms
of this strange house.

As the tides of the war turned

and it became clear that
Germany would be defeated,

Nazis planned their escape
from the Allied liberators.

Though Spain has remained
neutral throughout the war

and eventually barred
Germany from its ports,

Spain became a waypoint
for Germans escaping

to friendly South
American countries.

By 1946, there were 7,000
Germans living in Spain.

Were the Canary
Islands also a waypoint

for Nazi elite
escaping the country?

- When you explore the
outside of this house,

you find accesses to
tunnels running parallel

to the existing bunker
structure in the basement.

- And you look inside
and there's this tunnel

or bunker and it's running
parallel with the other tunnel

but it's not going
anywhere, why?

- [Translator] This tunnel
we have found here is the one

that connects to the room
with the hidden door.

[stick thuds and echos]

It's ahead in this tunnel and
then you go five more meters

and after 15 meters from here,

you will find a concrete wall.

- Why would you have bunkers
and tunnels hidden in a home?

- [Translator] We believe
this was an exit tunnel

and it was blocked.

If you look closely, there
is a kind of an arch.

I believe that this is a bad
design and it is not normal

because if Gustav
Winter was an engineer,

then all of this
that we can see here

under the bedroom of the
house is all a cover.

We believe that there could
have been another bunker.

There could be another
floor under all of this.

This still has to be analyzed.

- [Narrator] For Villa Winter
to have been a safe house,

it would've needed
an escape route,

a way to get Nazi
brass out of Spain

and down to South America
or other destinations.

- We know that Winter
officially built an airstrip

further south along the
island from the villa.

- But if you look at an
aerial shot of the property,

you can see what looks
like a rudimentary airstrip

just literally down
by the villa itself.

- And islanders have
claimed that they've seen

for themselves at least one
plane that's come and gone

from the beach
close to the villa.

- Why would you need an airstrip

in front of a domestic house
or a mansion or a granary?

- [Narrator] Winter later
claimed he built the airstrip

to make the villa
more accessible.

He said his wife had
a difficult pregnancy

and they needed to be
able to reach a hospital.

- It seems a little extreme

that a villa like this
would have its own airstrip.

- [Narrator] There
were few traces left

of the villa's
wartime occupants,

just a fortress-like structure,

strange empty rooms, a
road, and a desolate beach.

After Hitler was defeated,

the Atlantic waters
returned to relative calm.

Gustav Winter lived out his
days on the Canary Islands,

dying in Las Palmas
at the age of 86.

- So who was Gustav Winter?

We may never get to the
bottom of that question.

- The stories surrounding
this are so wrapped up

in the mists of time now.

It seems too
straightforward for me

that Winter was a
successful engineer

who wanted to build a villa
for his own personal purposes.

- We know that Franco shut
down post-war investigations.

We know that Franco
shut down efforts

to get to the bottom of things
because of his complicity

during World War
II with the Nazis.

- But in 1947, a U.S.
government document was issued

stating that Winter was a
German agent responsible

for communicating with
U-boats using the technology

in that villa and
resupplying them as well.

So the mystery deepens.

- This is a mystery that
we would hope to solve

and I'm sure Pedro and his
family would like to solve.

- [Translator] I owe this
investigation to my grandfather.

A lot of people
disappeared in this area

and I owe this story to them.

I won't stop until I solve it.

- I'm not sure we'll
ever get to the bottom

of exactly what went down here.

[dramatic music]