Original subtitles

[Music]

in 1938 Adolf Hitler seized what Legend

said was history's most powerful weapon

if you hold it you're Invincible it was

said to be the spear which pierced the

side of

[Music]

Christ military leaders became almost

besotten with the idea of possessing

it and with the spear in his grasp

Hitler Unleashed Terror upon the world

but in the chaos of War this most

valuable of Europe's Treasures simply

vanished this was an emblem of War

Twisted by the Nazis to become symbols

of the Third Reich but one man Walter

horn would uncover the mystery of what

had happened to the Spear of

Destiny and one of America's Finest

generals obsessed with the spear would

launch a mission to find

it

1933 Adolf Hitler is elected chancellor

of

Germany Hitler was by no means a normal

person to be leading a country in the

middle of Europe in the middle of the

20th century and especially one the

sides of Germany

he was a very uh embittered lonely

Twisted abnormal individual who had an

enormous amount of drive and this famous

Will To Power um and that's what really

you know spurred him

on he is desperate to be the all

powerful leader of the German

people and create a new Germanic

Empire the trouble is he had won less

than half of the popular

vote his grip on power was nothing like

as strong as many people think I mean

after all most people hadn't voted for

Hitler the country is

divided and to realize his dreams he

will need to unite

it Germany was until just a few years

before in real terms just a collection

of very very small states you've got

people in you know all up near the

Danish border and you've got people all

the way down near Munich and as far east

into what we'd now be part of Poland so

so how do you unify these

people Hitler encourages the Germans to

look to what he says is their

past he wants to portray himself as a

man who will restore Germany to a time

when it ruled

Europe and he wants to extend its

borders to those of the greatest German

Empire in

history the Holy Roman

Empire the Holy Roman Empire was first

cre created by Charlamagne Charles the

great the Germanic King of the Franks in

800

ad its purpose to spread Christianity

through all of Europe for a thousand

years it dominated the

continent at its height stretching from

the North Sea to the

Mediterranean and ruling over what is

now Germany and much of Austria Poland

Italy and France

[Music]

now Hitler wanted to create an even

greater Empire in his own

image the Thousand-Year Nazi Reich with

himself at its

head he wasn't the type of person who

would like to cut deals and engage in

the art of statesmanship or diplomacy

this is a man who just wanted to drive

things forward the way he saw the world

should be in his

eyes but Hitler's difficulty is that

there is nothing Imperial about him

as the son of a workingclass Austrian

civil servant it is not enough to Simply

Proclaim himself the German

furer he needs to look like one he

needed to try and assimilate some of the

trappings of power and the type of

trappings that would be suitable for

someone who is ruling a kingdom in the

middle of Europe and of course what's he

going to do he's going to look back to

history to find these

things he decided that to be an emperor

he would need the possessions of an

emperor the was looking for emblem that

would underpin his claim to be leading

the German people back to a new era what

do we need ah well we need various items

that are associated with other people in

power the Holy Roman emperors had held

crown jewels as symbols of their

Authority an Imperial Crown a cter and

an

orb but of all these symbols of past

German Glory one is more important than

all the

others it looks like a simple Roman

spearhead it is the Spear of Destiny

[Music]

the Spear of Destiny was said to be none

other than the spear that had pierced

the side of Jesus Christ as he hung on

the

cross the myth said that it was wielded

by a Roman Centurion called

Linus as the legend is told Linus was a

Roman Centurion who' served pilate

faithfully and got cataracts he was

going blind and pilate pulled him out of

the ranks because he was no longer of

service as a fighter and gave him

relative easy Duty uh you at Mount

calvalry you know making sure the

crucifixions went off as planned it

didn't require a lot of fighting didn't

require great

eyesight the Bible says that this

Centurion when inspecting the crucified

men was unsure if Jesus had died

so he thrust his spear into Christ's

side

blood allegedly drip down the side of

the spear into Linus's eyes

he was cured of cataracts he was cured

of his blindness he had a vision of the

future he had a vision of Jesus as the

Messiah Linus was converted

instantly as Christianity spreads

throughout the world Linus's spear

touched by the Son of God became a

revered holy Relic

[Music]

the spear was passed down first through

a succession of Roman emperors and then

to

Charlamagne Charlamagne carries it into

battle is Invincible as long as it's in

his hands it becomes known as a Talisman

for conquerors for military force it is

a military image that it has of

vanquishing

[Music]

such was its Mystique that every Holy

Roman Emperor after Charlamagne wanted

to possess

it it became a symbol of their

Authority the spear at a very early

point in history uh is is a reflection

of power of

strength Legend says that whoever held

the spear would be undefeated in battle

so not only do you get a sense of

whoever has this uh is the true World

Monarch because he has it but if you

hold it you're

[Music]

Invincible it was clear why Hitler

wanted it but he didn't have

it in fact it was in Vienna the capital

of neighboring Austria

when the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved

in

1806 its heirs the hapsburgs moved the

spear to Austria where it ended up on

display in the hofberg

palace and it was here in 1908 that

Adolf Hitler then a struggling Austrian

painter had first seen the spear and

begun to covet it

according to one version of the story

Hitler had actually seen the spear in

the museum there and um apparently he

may have had some sort of moment of

epiphany in which he realized that this

was an incredibly important object and

he had been sort of touched by it

whether that's true or not doesn't

really matter the point was it was

regarded as being

important Hitler had long known where it

was and now he was German furer all he

had to do was take it

on March the 12th 1938 German troops

crossed the border into

[Music]

Austria the world watched as the

Austrian government collapsed

[Music]

Hitler was killing two birds with one

stone he was reclaiming lands once held

by the Roman

Empire and was now on the brink of

seizing the Spear of

Destiny got to realize that Austria and

Germany are in Hitler's eyes indivisible

and indeed they should never have been

divided in the first

[Music]

place with Austria in his grasp Hitler

now activated the second part of his

plan to seize the

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description as the story is told as the

panzers were driving you know across the

border into Austria Hitler had an SS

officer in civilian Garb already planted

in the

museum when he was alerted that the

border had been crossed he uh changed

into his uniform pulled out his

gun and stood guard over those crown

jewels nobody was to touch them until

Hitler

[Music]

arrived Hitler arrived in Vienna just 2

days after the invasion

[Music]

[Music]

[Applause]

one of the very first things he does is

to go to the hapsburg museum go to the

display case where the spear and the

crown jewels

[Music]

are and opens it

[Music]

and takes possession of the

[Music]

[Applause]

spear he took hold of the spear on March

the

15th it was not a date picked by

accident he took the Spear of Destiny on

St L ginus

day that's when the Centurion you know

who allegedly carried it at the

crucifixion is honor

Hitler took the spear to the southern

German city of nurburg which had been

its home for centuries during the reign

of the Holy Roman

emperors there was absolutely no

question where Hitler was going to take

the spear once he absconded with it from

Austria he was going to take it back to

nurenberg back to its spiritual home

what was to be the spiritual

headquarters the spiritual capital

capital of Nazism of the Thousand-Year

Reich taking his lead from the Holy

Roman Empire Hitler had decided to place

nurburg at the center of his new Nazi

rank Berlin is the brain nurenberg is

the

[Music]

heart here he had built vast parade

grounds holding hundreds of thousands of

Spectators he staged enormous rallies

showcasing German military

might extravagant displays presented the

German people with an image of the

future based on his vision of the

past we see news reels today of the

parades going through the streets in

nurenberg of soldiers dressed as

medieval knights

with the markups of the chest of the

crown

jewels symbolic of being returned to the

Homeland the Thousand-Year Reich

Begins by displaying the spear and the

crown jewels his message could not have

been any clearer

[Applause]

he was the heir to the Holy Roman

[Music]

emperors it was as if King Arthur had

finally gotten uh Excalibur and was

marching through town with

[Music]

it and uh in a

triumphal uh

parade I've got

it with the Spear of Destiny in his

possession Hitler was convinced he would

be unstoppable in his aim to conquer the

rest of

[Applause]

Europe but of course it didn't turn out

that way

[Music]

by the beginning of

1945 5 years of war has devastated

Europe the spear has failed to bring

Hitler the victory he had dreamed

of his Ambitions lie intact

matters his Empire on the brink of

collapse and in the chaos the Spear of

Destiny one of the great Treasures of

Europe has

disappeared but on an American army base

in Belgium pure luck will allow one man

to track it down

Walter

horn is a lieutenant in the US third

Army his mission to interrogate German

prisoners of

war horn is no ordinary American

GI for one thing he's

German and 10 years earlier he had

narrowly escaped the clutches of the SS

in the 1930s horn was at University in

heidleberg Southwest Germany his passion

art

history his specialty was the relics of

the Holy Roman Empire he was an art

history major who just had the

misfortune to get uh his doctoral degree

in

1933 just as Adolf Hitler had come to

power

[Applause]

as a historian horn found himself being

sucked into Hitler's obsession with

proving the superiority of the German

[Applause]

race he was invited to join a special

unit of the SS created specifically for

this purpose the

anaura promising academics were press

ganged into the anaura the job

to prove at any cost that German culture

was Superior to every culture in the

world and who better for the anura to

recruit than the impressive young

academic and PhD Walter

horn Walter was perfect Nazi material uh

he he had been a javelin Contender for

the Olympics he came from fifth

generation Germanic Aryan stock you know

he was young he was good-looking he was

well traveled this was the kind of man

the Nazis were looking

for but hn could see exactly where Nazi

control of German academic life was

leading the H and urba can't just be

seen as a kind of harmless bunch of

corrupted academics who were just

sucking up to the Nazis because what

they were proving was helping to create

a worldview that was in essence evil and

some of these theories are directly

related to the idea of race and we all

know what happens when you apply these

theories to a regime that is as

murderous as the Nazis

are it leads directly to the gates of

aitz horn wanted no part of

it so in 1934 he decided to flee

Germany he didn't want to give up his

homeland but he saw no option around it

one thing he knew is he had to get out

of

Germany you know the storm is coming

down this is no place to

be but as he began his flight to Freedom

horn learned that the SS were after him

he was very concerned he hated the Nazis

he didn't know if if it was because of

remarks that he had made uh about the

Nazis to his horror one SS officer had

managed to track him down

[Music]

the SS officer had his pistol and uh I'm

sure Walter was thinking that the end

had

come but horn was in for yet another

surprise the SS officer essentially you

know told him yes we're looking for

people like you uh uh but good luck just

don't come

back Walter horn eventually managed to

escape via Italy and then Cuba to

America where he became a naturalized

American

[Music]

citizen and that is how as a fluent

German speaker he ended up in Belgium

interrogating pows at the tail end of

the

war as the Allied armies work their way

into Germany behind the front lines

you've got units doing various sort of

ancillary roles that are nevertheless

vitally important one of these of course

is to hunt for criminals I'm in straight

man hunts and what these people are

doing these war crimes units is to hunt

for evidence you know which hasn't been

burnt by the

gar for months horn had been uncovering

very little but one afternoon a harmless

looking P changed all

that quite late in the day Rel Rel ative

old man he is taken out of the prisoner

pen to be

interrogated private Fritz

Huber Fritz Huber has nothing really to

contribute or so it

seems private Huber said I'm sorry I

can't tell you any information cuz I I

really I don't know any information all

all I've been doing is you know slogging

gun cases around Walter felt sorry for

him offered him a cigarette offered him

a cup of coffee and they just sat and

chatted then Huber revealed something

that would blow Walter Horn's

mind Huber said I do know of a special

treasure a hidden

treasure are you at all interested in

art history

little could Huber have known the man he

was talking to had a had a doctorate in

art history there wasn't anything in the

world Walter wanted to hear more about

you know than than art and

antiques huba began to tell horn about a

Nazi Treasure Trove hidden beneath

nurburg castle one which supposedly

contained any number of Priceless pieces

of

art horn listened intently as as Huber

listed the sort of items that any

imaginary pirate horde might

contain Huber was describing various

Treasures which could have been any kind

of depositories because we know the

Nazis looted you know major

museums but this this collection was

different he described a sector he

described a crown he described a golden

orb what they call uh the world orb of

Christianity and then he said it's a

spear it's a spearhead R

spirit and of course Walter knew

instantly The

Collection there was no question what it

was he was describing you know the crown

jewels of the Holy Roman

Empire and the Spear of Destiny

horn pushed huba for every detail and

was amazed to find out the lengths that

the Nazis had gone to to protect the

Spear of

Destiny Huber said his father had been

hired by the head of the Nazi SS Hinrich

himler to install a ventilation system

in a hidden vault beneath nurenberg

castle and oh by the way my mother goes

in once a week to check on uh the

treasures that that are kept in in this

Vault uh she has to check the humidity

you know check against insects my

mother's got to wear white

gloves and as Huber is telling the story

Walter is getting more and more

interested Huber described a network of

tunnels beneath the castle which led out

to a secret entrance on the streets

below it looked like an active

ongoing antique shop and had had two uh

two doors for for bringing items in and

out but of course it was Nazis who were

going the in

andout aware that he had possibly just

uncovered the location of one of the

world's great Treasures horn immediately

began to write up a report for his

superiors

but fearing the American High command

wouldn't understand the importance of

the spear horn made sure to write in

detail even drawing a map of the city to

show where the Vault could be

found Walter horn sat at a borrowed

typewriter and he typed up his an

intelligence report and of course being

an art historian I'm sure it it well it

it reads more like a art history paper

than a military intelligence report horn

worked

quickly he knew the advancing Allied

Forces were planning a huge offensive on

urberg and he feared that in the battle

the spear could be

destroyed he mailed it off fully

thinking that this would be dismissed as

um as

tangential to the fighting going on that

that that what military commander would

possibly uh conceive the Holy Roman

Empire crown jewels and the Spear of

Destiny to be a military

objective but in another amazing Stroke

of Luck Horn's report eventually landed

on the desk of the one man who had both

the power and the will to save the spear

General George S Patton also known as

Old Blood and

Guts was in command of the US third Army

in

Europe and was one of the generals

overseeing the invasion of

Germany a flamboyant man often pictured

with two silver revolvers he was a

brilliant tank commander and

tactician a Catholic convert Patton saw

himself as a Christian

[Music]

Warrior but more than that he too was

obsessed with the legend of the Spear of

Destiny he had even written a poem about

what it must have felt like to plunge

the spear into the sight of

[Music]

Christ I cannot name my battles for the

Visions are not

clear yet I see the Twisted faces and I

feel the rening

spear perhaps I stabbed our savior in

his sacred helpless

side yet I have called his name in

blessing when after

times I

died as US troops battled their way

across Europe Patton had been attempting

to track the Spears

movements his fear was that the spear if

not found might be used as a Talisman to

inspire a na

Resurgence but so far he had no idea

where the spear

was until Walter Horn's report landed on

his

desk lo and behold that's exactly what

Patton was looking for and he found it

in the in that intelligence report you

know uh light bulb went off you know

this was a military objective for

Patton on the eve of the assault on

urberg Patton took an amazing

decision he ensured that a cracked team

of soldiers was sent to locate the

secret

vault but it would be no easy task

nurburg had suffered a series of massive

bombing

raids thousands have died hundreds of

thousands

displaced they talk about the

devastation in Dresden but the

devastation in dresen essentially came

from a fire that started that spread in

nurg it was literally from the tons and

tons of

bombs and now the Allies intended to

send Hitler a

message they plan to capture Newburg on

April the 20th the furus

birthday Hitler was adamant that his

spiritual Capital would not

fall his instructions are that the

Defenders of Newberg will fight to the

last bullet and for the last man and and

even the last Young young

[Music]

child on April the 16th the US Army

began a fight to the death for the

city P special unit sent to locate the

spear was soon caught in the thick of

the fighting

it was narrow medieval streets big

battlements um it was almost essentially

hand toand combat almost like taking one

street after another and it was very

dangerous kind of

fighting children were actually being

used as

Scouts the Germans fought right down

virtually you know to The Last Man

Standing

[Applause]

in the chaos of the battle Patton's unit

armed with Horn's man embarked on their

Dangerous Mission to locate the secret

vault that unit a lost many

men to work their way where the Vault

was when they got there they couldn't

even find it there had been such

Devastation so many bombing and they

wasn't even sure that they had gotten to

the

[Music]

location but then they made a

discovery one of them found a uh crevice

a sort of tunnel like thing and they

dropped

in at the end of a long dark underground

tunnel they found something staggering

[Music]

set into thick

concrete the Steel Vault door 8 ft high

and 12 in

thick but there was a

problem the giant Vault doors were

locked shut

[Music]

door itself was impenetrable at that

point one one of the Munitions men was

literally about to uh you know plug

dynamite in in uh in the sides of this

giant vault

door but just moments before the charges

were detonated a German civilian came

forward and stopped the Munitions man

luckily he was stopped at the last

minute because you know God knows what

might have happened uh to the contents

inside a German who a representative the

mayor of nurburg gave the Allies the

combination of this Vault he said please

please don't don't don't blow this

up very special things here and and they

they open they open the

vault behind the giant door War the gis

discovered a vast and Incredibly

sophisticated underground

complex this had to be the Vault that

the prisoner Huber had described but it

was on a scale beyond anything they had

imagined commissioned by Hinrich himler

it was an enormous expansion of old beer

sellers beneath the nurenberg

castle himler

secretly sent in teams of architect

teams of builders to

reconfigure This Beer Celler into a

high-tech Vault and and I don't use that

term Hightech Loosely foot thick

reinforced steel special locking

mechanisms the walls were lined with

various materials uh to keep the

moisture out air purification system its

own generator system it had water it had

showers it had baths it had a kitchen it

had its own little escape hatch you

could have a team of people living in

there for months at a

time the gis could hardly believe what

they had

found but unsure of exactly what they

had discovered the message was sent for

horn to come to nurburg to identify the

contents of the

Vault when horn arrived he was shocked

by the state of this once beautiful

medieval

[Music]

city picture uh a moonscape picture uh

you know churches missing their rules um

uh bodies strewn

[Music]

about horn was led to the vault

[Music]

even though the contents had been

described to him by Huber horn was

stunned by what the vaults

[Music]

contained there is just this fantastic

room full of Europe's treasure which can

rival anything you'll see in the Lou or

or or the British Museum and it really

is a real treasure Trove and the guys

who went in there realized my God I mean

how much had the Nazis taken you know

every box was just full of something

more and more more

[Music]

incredible horn was shown a small wooden

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

crate in it unmistakable to Horn's

Expert Eyes was the Spear of Destiny

horn became a hero when uh he recovered

the Spear of

Destiny now the question

was what were they to do with

him May

1945 the Allies declare victory over

Hitler's Nazi regime

six years of war draws to a

close Hitler had committed suicide in

his Berlin

bunker the Allies uncovered millions of

dollars worth of Europe's finest

Treasures stolen by the

Nazis we know the Nazis looted you know

major museums major collections were

brought Wholesale in by

train now began the task of returning

these Treasures to their rightful

owners Walter horn had assumed the spear

would be returned to

Austria the Spear of Destiny come from

the hoffberg in a museum in Vienna this

is where he expected he fully thought

they would be returned to Patton had

other

[Applause]

ideas it seemed that Patton too had

become Bewitched by the power of the

Spear of

Destiny Patton said and and openly

declared that that these relics this

Spear of Destiny are not artwork these

are emblems of War Twisted by the Nazis

to become symbols of the Third

Reich Patton was the type of man who

very much would have liked the idea of

the Spear of Destiny you know in his

back pocket and wanted to take it back

to the United States

perhaps he believed as as did Hitler

that you know whoever possessed the

spear would be

invincible so adamant was Paton on

having the spear that Dwight Eisenhower

the supreme commander of all Allied

troops in Europe had to

intervene a huge argument broke out

between these two two iconic figures but

before it could be resolved tragedy

[Music]

struck his car is hit by a lorry uh he's

virtually paralyzed he's in hospital for

a short period and then he

dies with Patton died the last obstacle

to the spear returning home to Vienna

special plane was dispatched under a

very heavy armed guard because you know

these are uh you know considered the

most valuable Treasures that the Nazis

had had ever looted and there was a

special return ceremony in Austria and

today they're back in the museum

essentially uh in the same room in the

same part of the museum

uh where they were when Hitler took

them but there remains one outstanding

question what was this item that Walter

horn had recovered and that so many

people had fought and died for could it

really be the spear that Charlamagne

held the very spear that pierced

Christ's

side Robert feather a trained Metalist

was the first person in 40 years to be

allowed to examine the spear

scientifically I was called in to

examine the sphere U because I'd had

previous experience um of um

metallurgical work on ancient artifacts

I trained as a metallist uh and I've

sort of done a lot of work in ancient

metals and

materials one of the first tests he did

was to see if there were traces of Blood

on the spear

if it were Christ's blood it would be

the most staggering discovery of all

time I took swabs of the the spear just

in case there was any biological

material I mean if if it's a spear it

could have had some blood on it

somewhere and the remotest chance that

some of it might be Jesus's blood just

occurred so I thought better do it just

in case it's someone going to say why

didn't you but no traces of blood could

be

found now next he did a series of

non-destructive tests to uncover the age

of the spear we did xrf which is x-ray

florescent tests we did um microscopic

analysis we did um full High powerered

x-ray analysis these tests finally gave

an approximate date to the spear

itself the seventh or eighth Century

a to say that it was the spear that went

into the side of Jesus I think is um

rather difficult if not virtually

impossible it's impossible really to

have had much contact with someone who

was supposedly died eight centuries

before it was

made science had proven that the Vienna

Lance was not the spear that had pierced

the side of

Christ so does this mean it is worthless

had thousands of lives been risked in

pursuit of nothing more than a medieval

forgery

after all one uncomfortable fact even

for Hitler was that it wasn't the only

spear claiming to be the Spear of

Destiny problem with the spear is that

there quite a few of them I mean I think

there are at least four there are

competitor Spears in different places to

the Vienna spear there's one inmad in

Armenia it doesn't look very much like a

spear and it's more more rather like a

Roman bannerad but nevertheless they

rever it uh and there's another one in

in in Poland which is almost certainly a

replic a later middle-aged reproduction

there's another one in St Peters in the

Basilica of St

Peters which is said to be part of the

spear

that pierce the side of

Jesus but it seems that the spear Hitler

coveted had a value that none of the

others had

we know more about the early history of

the Vienna spere than any of the others

and we can trace it certainly in written

record back to the 8th

Century that date is extremely

significant it was when Charlamagne the

First Holy Roman Emperor was rising to

[Music]

power this spear may not have been the

spear which pierced Christ's side but it

was was the spear held by the Holy Roman

emperors there is no question that that

spear was the one carried by the Holy

Roman emperors and that this was the one

passed on you know throughout history

through tradition and was the one that

that Hitler Hitler

took and Hitler had understood something

else it doesn't matter what something is

what matters is what people believe it

to

[Applause]

be for centuries the spear had been

revered by the most powerful rulers of

Europe and that for Hitler was enough to

make it something worth having doesn't

really matter whether this was the spear

that was shoved into the side of Jesus

it it doesn't matter it's what people

think is what matters it's what people

choose to believe the fact that it

doesn't go date back to the crucifixion

doesn't make it to my mind any less

valuable because what it represents in

the larger sense is is what's important

even though it's very easy today to look

at it as all being part of it's all

mumbo jumbo it's kind of you know junk

history it's kind of Mythology it

Superstition it's important

[Applause]

[Music]

[Music]

your Master's gold is one of the

greatest treasure hordes ever known in

today's currency it represents over

hundred billion do in

value according to the myth this

incredible Fortune was the proceeds of

Ruthless Japanese looting throughout

Asia during World War

II for one amateur treasure hunter

finding the gold became a lifelong

Obsession if he had to get down on his

hands and knees and dig with his fingers

until they bled I see him being that

kind of man but little did he know he

had a mighty rival one of the most

brutal dictators of the 20th century

Marcos was unquestionably a thug he was

a

gangster just when this penous Filipino

had riches Beyond his Wildest Dreams

within his

grasp his quest turned into a nightmare

he's put a Target on his

back this is the extraordinary story of

Roger roas he was willing to be David

against Goliath Roger was a hero and the

legend of your Master's

[Music]

Gold in May 19 70 amateur treasure

hunter Roger roas was combing the

jungles around his hometown of bagio in

the northern

Philippines for over a decade he'd spent

every spare moment searching for a long

lost horde of

treasure he' put all his money into his

quest unless he found it he faced

[Music]

ruin then after weeks of backbreaking

work at last Roger spotted

something had he finally found what he'd

been looking for his entire

[Music]

life had he found yash's gold

[Music]

the legend of yash's gold is one of the

greatest stories of War loot in

history by 1942 the Japanese Imperial

Army had successfully invaded all of

Southeast

Asia as they Advanced they mercilessly

ransacked country after country

they stole on a massive scale reportedly

unrivaled in military

history yam's gold is Wealth Beyond

Belief people wouldn't believe how much

it is1 trillion us worth so it's a

mind-blowing

amount The Mastermind heading this

covert operation codenamed the Golden

Lily was said to be Prince chichibu the

emperor's brother

this guy is brilliant Prince chichibu

was a perfect choice to head up the

Golden Lily because he wasn't just a

military man he was an Oxford scholar

and he brought an incredible amount of

creativity and lateral thinking to how

will go about this complex process of

looting the golden Milly operatives just

completely took everything from all the

countries they left them with nothing

they invaded they took all their wealth

and just left them

penniless it wasn't just Banks and

financial institutions but it also had

museums temples art galleries rare books

anything that was worth money they knew

about it knew where it was how much it

was worth and they took

it the golden L's looting was so

comprehensive they even targeted the

Underworld the gangster world the black

markets and they absolutely drained them

of anything that was of

value having amassed Treasures of all

shapes and sizes the golden Lily's

mission was far from

over they needed to get it back home to

Japan first they melted the gold into

easy to move ingots but this smelting

also served a shadier purpose

when gold is made is stamped and you can

tell where it came from but when it's

been remelted you you don't know where

it came from they wanted to stamp the

little sign on the gold bars that the

gold was actually made in Japan then it

would look like the gold was Japanese

gold of Japanese

origin this stolen gold was then brought

to the Philippines there it was invented

and then sent on to Japan by ship the

Philippines was chosen as the golden

Lily's Transportation Hub because it was

pretty much in the center of the vast

Japanese

empire for the first year of operations

the golden L Transportation network ran

like

clockwork but then the tide of the war

turned in

1942 Japanese and US forces met near the

tiny Pacific island of

Midway over just 4 days the US forces

sank five Japanese

ships they destroyed 270

aircraft and killed

3,500

men the Japanese had lost control of the

sea

now it was too risky for them to ship

the gold

home they needed a new

plan they turned to their finest

fighting General tomay Yuki

yamashta he has an incredible track

record nobody has the reputation he does

and if anyone can pull one out of the

Hat would be

him yamashta made his name when he

caused the greatest humiliation of the

British Army in its

history in December 1941 he invaded

Malaya sweeping down the peninsula in

only a matter of

weeks the master then captured the

British military stronghold of Singapore

hither to both Malaya and pinga had been

thought to be completely

unassailable that the British were

totally in charge military and he proved

them

wrong he made the British capitulate and

it was the biggest capitulation of the

British Army in British military

history virtually overnight night

yamashta took nearly 100,000 Allied

soldiers

prisoner his victory sent shock waves

across the world and earned yamasa his

fearsome nickname The Tiger of

[Music]

Malaya with the gold now stuck in the

Philippines yamashta was being asked to

come up with a another

miracle The Story Goes he was told to

hide the gold until it was safe to move

it he identified

175 suitable burial sites across the

Philippines they would hold the gold

until the Japanese were once again

[Music]

Victorious and the Philippines proved

the ideal place to hide this treasure

they put it in very isolated Parts

throughout the Philippines mostly

covered by very mountainous terrain and

a thick thick

jungle once you got these tunnels built

it would become virtually impossible to

see that there had been anything ever

buried there because the of the growth

rate of in the

jungle it said yamasa ordered detailed

maps to be made of the exact location of

each treasure

Vault and each map was carefully

encoded these Maps were done in a old

Japanese dialect called

kji a language which is between 1500 and

2,000 years old and there were no

topographical references on them they

used the old characters to represent

certain

landmarks unless you knew the complex

code these Maps were

meaningless and there were even further

layers of

security

bombs grenades decoy walls that would

lead you into another trap the Golden

Lily left nothing to chance and they had

a vast system of booby traps that

consisted of poisonous gas

explosives complex use of the water

table so if you don't know what you're

doing you're going to drown in your

pursuit of reaching the

treasures but the maps that were drawn

highlighted where all those traps were

if you didn't have a map and you went

into one of these treasure vaults it's

very likely that you wouldn't come out

[Music]

alive and to ensure all the treasure

Vault locations remain top secret the

number of people in the know was

ruthlessly kept to a

minimum they use prisoner of war or

local slave labor to build the actual

treasure vaults and the people who are

building it don't know why but that's

irrelevant they're going to die

anyway so they're usually killed shot on

the spot

[Applause]

but for all your Master's efforts the

gold still wasn't

safe in October 1944 the Americans

landed in the

Philippines the fighting that followed

was the bloodiest of the Pacific

War the fighting in the Philippines at

the end of the war was extremely

brutal Yamashita would fight to the very

last man for the

emperor but even a master tactician like

yamashta couldn't stop the Americans

Advance the Philippines has 7,000 plus

islands and is very very difficult to

defend against an invading

Force Yamashita as a great General would

have known

that yamashta faced a crisis

[Music]

he knew he couldn't hold the Philippines

all he could do was drag out the fight

for as long as

possible and it seemed there was one

particular reason yamasa needed to buy

himself

time he still hadn't finished burying

the

gold gold and Lily are running out of

time and desperate so they've got the

ships in the harbor with gold that they

need to get into the tunnels they have

no time what do they do they Scuttle

them and sink

them April

1945 yamasa had been forced to retreat

back to the mountains around the

northern city of

bagio there's systematic hiding of their

National Treasure becomes less

systematic and more panicked they need

to do it immediately because they're

about to suffer

defeat 174 treasure vaults done and

dusted only one is

left with time running out yamasa

ordered the chief Engineers to seal the

final treasure

Vault these Engineers knew everything

they knew how the Maps were made they

knew where the burial sites were they

knew how they were booby

trapped what they didn't know was yamasa

had one last move to protect the

gold The Story Goes that while the

engineers were carrying out his orders

yamasa sealed the Vault himself

the engineers were still

inside now there would be its Guardians

for

[Music]

eternity 3 months later World War II was

over General yamasa was put on trial for

war crimes did you at any any time issue

any orders directing the killing of

non-competent

citizens absolutely not anything the

trial lasted just over five

weeks the commission finds you guilty is

charged and sentences you to death by

hanging yamasa took the secrets of the

gold to his

grave there was only one other person

who allegedly knew of the Gold's

whereabouts Prince

chichibu and in

1953 he died of

TB anybody who knew anything about this

treasure is now

dead it seemed y's gold was lost forever

[Music]

but in the Philippines after the horrors

of war the legend of Y Master's gold

lived

on there were lots and lots of rumors

that the Japanese had buried treasure

all over the

Philippines it's almost a national

Obsession everybody across the country

is aware of it and everyone's looking

for

it among those who'd grown up with

stories about the gold was a young

Filipino

locksmith ralio roas better known as

Roger was born in

1943 just as your Master's gold was

being buried Roger's childhood was

really difficult the Philippines are

extremely impoverished his family is

impoverished Roger was one of millions

of Filipinos growing up in the shadow of

World War

II the war had Dev state of the

Philippines Manila was absolutely on its

knees in a way that no other city in the

whole of the second world war other than

warsa it was

Dreadful hundreds of thousands killed

families broken

up desperate poverty no real economy

going um it was in a really bad

state so it was no surprise that the

legend of yamashta gold just took Roger

by by heart at a very young Agee someone

that poor with a possibility of

obtaining Wealth Beyond Your Wildest

Dreams of course you're going to go for

it Roger the locksmith lived in bagio

the northern city near to where yamasa

made his last

stand Roger surmises that they must have

hid some of the treasure around his town

so he looks around his town right from

the start cuz he knows logically that's

probably one of the best places to

start Roger was a very diligent man

every spare moment he was out there

working seeing what he could find

eliminating areas and continuing to move

forward in a very logical Progressive

manner to help him in his quest Roger

scripton saved and bought himself a

metal

detector yet all Roger had ever managed

to find were a few old coins and some

Japanese

ammunition but that didn't shake his

faith one day he was sure he would come

across the treasure he'd been dreaming

of since he was a boy no matter how many

disappointments a treasure hunter has

they will always keep going

[Music]

then in

1961 after years of hunting the gold

with just youthful optimism Roger had

what seemed to be a breakthrough he got

the kind of clue he'd been longing for a

map of a tunnel

complex there were lots of maps and

sketches like this in treasure hunting

circles at the time Roger had seen

plenty of them before but all had been

fakes this one was

different this map had come from a

Japanese

soldier he's convinced that this is the

real

deal trouble was the map was in the

golden Lily's

fishlyn and a Hast stack and you don't

even know where the Hast stack is cuz

the map has no topographical

features but also knew that this

Japanese soldier had been in bagio with

a group of Engineers as they buried gold

during the final days of y's Retreat the

map allegedly related to one of those

treasure vaults he was getting closer he

could feel

it Roger never gives up and the reason

is he knows the treasure is there and he

knows that year after year if nothing

else he's eliminating where it isn't yet

for all his High Hopes Roger just

couldn't crack the map's code and so

even after looking for several more

years he was still no closer to finding

yam's

gold but at least the map confirmed to

Roger his first instincts were right

there had to be treasure somewhere

around

bagio he knows it's there this is not a

myth this is historical

fact then Roger met a man who seemed to

offer him his next breakthrough usabo

okubo okubo told Roger he had served

under the Japanese As an interpreter

during their occupation of the

Philippines there were a lot of

Filipinos who claimed to know where

Japanese buried treasure was uh mainly

because an awful lot of Filipinos had

perforce worked with with the Japanese

not necessarily what we would call

collaborators but simply because the

Japanese needed Cooks drivers

interpreters all that sort of

thing when Roger met akubo he would have

had mixed feelings here's somebody who

colluded With the

Enemy akubo confessed he had served none

other than General

yamashta while working for him akubo had

witnessed yamasa taking a large quantity

of gold to bagio towards the very end of

the war and then akubo revealed The

crucial piece of information Roger was

after this gold was in wooden boxes

stashed in a tunnel not far from bagio

General

Hospital so this was the final

link this allowed him to tie the bow

together and have the perfect package

now he knows where to go he knows where

to dig he was elated because it now

pinpointed the area for him to look

at but little did Roger know he had a

rival the most powerful man in the

Philippines president Ferdinand

Marcos in 1965 Marcos had been

democratically

elected but he rapidly became a

pathologically greedy

dictator money was extremely important

to Ferdinand Marcos he loved it like

nothing

else and there was only one person who

could match marcos's

greed his shopaholic

wife

Elda Marcos woudy melder it is said by

taking her down to the Vault beneath his

bank and just showing her enormous great

stacks of $100 bills whether or not this

is true or not I don't know but it's

extremely likely um and I should think

almost certainly would have convinced

her that she was onto a good

thing but elda's lavish lifestyle wasn't

the only reason Marcos needed

money the Richer you were the more

powerful you were it's that simple it's

a very simply

equation and nothing could make Marcos

more powerful than finding your Master's

gold it's not at all surprising that

Marcos was interested in yash's Gold

because he was a thug basically and the

mere thought of the promise of gold and

he would have been onto it like a

shot compared to Roger Marcos had a

serious advantage in the hunt for y

gold

power it was incredibly easy for Marcos

to use his power to find the gold he has

entire armies at his disposal armies

ships experts on maps and deciphering

all sorts of

Clues despite all these resources Marcos

hadn't found anything and so he devised

a shrewd

strategy he was a brilliant part

politician but he was also brilliantly

corrupt on the surface he seemed to be a

rational person going by the law by the

books but in person he was quite

ruthless Marcos passed a law demanding

treasure Hunters apply for a permit

detailing where they were going to start

digging he comes up with the permit

system because this way he has all the

enthusiastic treasure Hunters all across

the country country working for him cuz

they've now told him where they think

the treasure is he's just waiting to see

if anyone finds it then he can move in

cuz he has the resources to do that and

you know that's very

[Music]

smart meanwhile back in bagio in 1970

Roger

married with a new wife and child on the

way he needed yam's gold now more than

ever and so Roger dutifully applied for

one of marcos's

permits Roger did everything the right

way he thought that if he followed the

rules that had been put in place by the

government he would be able to search he

would be able to find and excavate and

recover and it would all be done with

the blessings of the

government in Roger town the person who

manages the application is none other

the marcos's

uncle in May 1970 armed with his permit

his map and ao's information Roger

decided to risk everything to find

yash's

gold he spent all his life savings

hiring a team of

laborers together they started hacking

their way through the thick jungle

vegetation near bagio General

Hospital so it was really difficult for

Roger to find the tunnel near the

hospital because it was 25 years before

that that it was blasted shut and every

single year in the rainy season these

jungles you know they changed their look

and feel

dramatically then after two weeks of

almost non-stop searching Roger spotted

the mouth of a cave

could this be the entrance to the

treasure Vault akubo told him

[Music]

about 100 m into the tunnel a collapse

meant Roger couldn't go any

further but for Roger this was a good

sign he knew the Japanese had used

Dynamite to blast their treasure vaults

shut and so Roger and his crew began the

arduous task of clearing the

way the conditions for Roger and the

team digging in the tunnel would have

been horrific it was hot there were

insects there were snakes it was very

very hard

work digging the tunnel was very very

dangerous and Roger knew knew that if

this really was a tunnel that the

Japanese had built there may be booby

traps but Roger was willing to risk his

life to get to your Master's gold once

you get that Gold Fever it is

insatiable you just cannot quench that

appetite he was becoming obsessed one

more Spade one more rock I'm going to

get it this this is going to be the

Treasure of a lifetime and everybody's

going to say yes you found

it finally after four long months of

digging they broke

through it was then he made a grim

Discovery skeletons dressed in rags

but these weren't just any Rags they

were Japanese military

[Music]

uniforms surely these were the remains

of the engineers who had hidden yam's

gold only to be buried alive by yamasa

himself he thinks he's there and he

knows now that he has all the pieces to

the puzzle he is literally at the

threshold of of the gold recovery that

he has sought now for 10

years it's there it's within his

fingertips

[Music]

grasp stretching beyond the skeletons

was a vast network of

[Music]

tunnels Roger and his team spent weeks

exploring

them day after today they found

nothing the next day he was out there

ready to go again he knew it was there

he believed in his heart of hearts that

that gold was there he was going to go

after it no matter

[Applause]

what but a full 6 months on from finding

the entrance to the tunnel Roger still

hadn't found any treasure

Roger had spent all the money that he

had raised to start the dig to begin

with and no one was going to give him

any more

money no money meant no

crew it seemed the hunt was

over Roger had squandered his life

savings on a huge mistake

[Music]

just before Roger decided to give up

once and for all he had one last go with

his metal detector

[Music]

then he heard its Telltale

Buzz this Buzz that Roger got from his

metal detector must have been the best

sound he'd ever heard in his life

[Music]

[Music]

Roger was stunned hiding behind the wall

was a gold statue of

Buddha this was that moment in life that

you would look back on and you say yes I

have achieved my goal for my entire life

this is it this find is the most

significant find of anything that

anybody had discovered in the

[Music]

Philippines the Buddha was in the

Burmese

style according to the legend the

Japanese had looted religious artifacts

from temples right across

Burma he really must have found what one

of your Master's

175 treasure

vaults and that wasn't

all the area around the Buddha was

stacked full of wooden

boxes finally it was

Payday the goal that Roger has just

discovered is worth a fortune each of

those bars is worth $11,000 and he

estimated there were over 1,000 boxes of

the gold bars so you're talking an

incredible amount of money more treasure

than even he ever dreamed he would find

I mean this has surpassed his wildest

expectations Roger returned home with

the Buddha planning to go back for the

gold with trucks and Men

but the more he looked at the Statue the

more Curious Roger became there was

something about it that wasn't quite

right the Buddha was full of diamonds

[Music]

the value had just gone off the

chart Roger I mean he's getting richer

and richer by the minute he has a

thousand boxes of gold bars he has a

gold Buddha and now he has handfuls of

[Music]

diamonds that night Roger documented his

lifechanging

[Music]

find news of Rogers miraculous Discovery

soon spread to the presidential

Palace I can just imagine him going

crazy when the word had gotten to him

Marcus was going to do anything to get

that Buddha away from roas and it was

going to eventually sit in Marco Palace

unfortunately for Roger Marcus's primary

tactic was brute

force on the fifth of of April 1971 it

said a group of mysterious men turned up

at Roger's house roas didn't answer the

door you have to ask yourself how would

you feel if all of a sudden at 2:30 in

the morning there's loud banging and

knocking on the door I think he'd be

panic-stricken and I'm sure he

was they said you have 3 minutes to open

the door or we're going to shoot you

right here

[Music]

they took everything away from

him can you imagine the feeling of

violation his entire life he's looked

for this he's found it and now it's been

taken but if Marcos thought he could

intimidate Roger and his family he was

wrong Roger had risked everything to

find his gold and he wasn't going to let

it go so

easily Roger reported the theft to the

police by that time president Marcos had

a considerable strangle hold on the

police and the Army

particularly but Marcos did not yet

control the media

[Music]

within days the Press picked up Roger's

story it was a huge Scandal you know

there's stolen loot it's World War II is

the Japanese it's Marcus being

implicated the newspaper was full of

articles that were nothing short of

calling Marcos a common

thief the Hostile press coverage came at

a critical time for

Marcos he was widely known to have fixed

his second term of office the elections

which were ludicrously corrupt I mean he

he allegedly won by two million votes it

was just impossible he was widely

lampooned on all sides for

corruption and um he was beginning to

feel himself quite

[Music]

insecure Marcos needed to silence this

treasure hunter

fast there was one obvious

solution the marus regime was Notorious

for extrajudicial

executions you'd have that squads

basically killing people who were seen

as being very critical of the

regime but this time Marcos needed a

different

approach I think by that time he must

have thought that the story had enough

public exposure for him not to be able

to risk just making Roger vanish like a

lot of his opponents

3 weeks later Roger at last received

some good news he was told his Buddha

was waiting to be collected at the

courthouse in

bagio when he got there he was in for a

shock when Roger saw the Buddha he knew

immediately this wasn't the Buddha that

he had found it was a different color

different shape facial expression the

head didn't come off

Marcos is expecting Roger to say yes

that's the Buddha thank you but he

didn't know Roos Roos was determined he

wasn't going to let that boot up and

this was a huge mistake for Marcos

because he had misread Roos

personality Roger declared the Buddha

was a

fake I think that was completely

Reckless of him because by that time he

would have known that he was a Marked

Man and to cause that kind of fuss

effectively tackling Marcos himself at a

personal level would have been

absolutely ridiculous and very stupid in

my view however he did it he clearly was

a very stubborn

man now he's publicly given him two

fingers really this marks the beginning

of the end for Roger

just over two weeks later more

mysterious men came for

Roger and it seems it wasn't long before

interrogation turned to

[Music]

torture over several Days Roger said he

was repeatedly burned with cigarettes

he was

[Music]

beaten and

[Music]

electrocuted eventually Roger claimed he

signed an affidavit stating Marcos had

nothing to do with the theft of his

Buddha and revealed the location of the

thousands of gold

ingots Roger was a very broken man when

he signed that affid David I mean there

he was fighting publicly but now

admitting that no there was no

wrongdoing he must have been completely

demoralized Marcos had Roger imprisoned

and wasted no time helping himself to

the rest of rogers's

find but eventually marcos's Megamania

would prove his

undoing in 1986 a popular revolution

forced Marcos and Elda to flee the

country the Filipino people stormed

marcos's presidential Palace

and what they found inside was

unbelievable they were amazed at what

they found they found Treasures of

statues and art and thousands of pairs

of shoes this is just what they left

behind Marcos was by far and away the

wealthiest man

alive they were so wealthy they didn't

really know what to do with their

money one of the question questions for

the Filipino people was where had the

marcos's enormous wealth come

from for most there was an obvious

answer marcos's wealth primarily came

from theft embezzlement and Corruption

and you can look back I think on their

joint reign as simply being a plot of

self-enrichment and the administration

of the Philippines was merely a

secondary

item there were basically using the

public treachery as their piggy

bank years later while on trial for

fraud and embezzlement emela marcus'

defense declared their Fortune was not

looted from the Philippine treasury but

actually came from finding yash's gold I

think Elda claimed that um their joint

wealth came primar from finding yashus

go because it was a very good blind

nobody could prove otherwise

the's goal was just a wonderful

Alibi but for Roger roas none of this

mattered his life was in

Ruins Roger never fully recovered from

his torture and the damage is so great

that you he can't see out of his right

eye for the rest of his life after

this he's lost his money he's lost his

self-respect he's lost his wife Roger

has lost

everything despite all this Roger still

had a bit of the spirit that had helped

him find the gold it's a treasure

Hunter's mentality they must get to the

end of the story they must get the

treasure anyway Roger had lost so much

he had nothing to

lose with Marcos in Exile in Hawaii

Roger filed a lawsuit against him

even when Marcos died one year later in

September

1989 the case

continued you could say that the Marcos

is actually got away with it he went out

lived his Exile in Hawaii and died of

natural causes you could well say that

they did rather well out of

it it would take a further s years

before Roger was at last

Vindicated in 1996 the jury concluded

Marcos had stolen Roger's

find $43 billion in Damages were awarded

when the court findes in Roger's favor

it's a significant moment in legal

history 43 million is awarded to Roger

which is the biggest civil law suit

award in history

[Music]

sadly Roger never saw Justice

done on the eve of his day in court he

died he was just 49 years

old then in 1998 the huge compensation

award was

overturned while no court has challenged

the verdict that Marcos stole Roger's

treasure how to determin and its value

is still being fought out by the

lawyers it's hard not to look back at

Roger and feel empathy for this man his

determination was boundless and I think

if nothing else Roger was a

hero and I think that's how he's going

to be

remembered he was willing to be David

against Goliath

he was willing to put his life on the

line and therefore my hat off to

him Roger's tragic story begs the

question was what he found a oneoff or

as the legend states are there another

174 treasure vaults still waiting to be

discovered since the War treasure

hunters from AC across the world have

scoured the Philippines in search of

your Master's

gold yet none of them have found

[Music]

anything nonetheless people are still

willing to risk their lives

looking searching for yash's gold is a

very dangerous

activity even to this day I think it was

in 2000 two men were buried alive

looking for treas treasure what drives

them is their certainty that yam's gold

is still out

there the legend of yamasa gold in the

Philippines is huge and it hasn't

died it endures because it's real

because there really are burial sites

there really is gold bars gold dishes

gold Treasures that are still to be

found in the islands of the Philippines

[Music]

the Sals kamut Lake District in Austria

is known as the devil's

Dustbin at the end of World War II

rumors spread that the Nazis came here

to hide Europe's plundered

gold gold oiled Hitler's War Machine

gold was essential to

Hitler as the Allies closed in the Nazis

started hiding their loot wherever they

could I saw them throwing the boxes in

into the

lake and there's one lake so deep and so

remote that it's said to have been the

Na's favorite dumping

site Lake

toppets the stories of what's been

dubbed the Nazis Eldorado have obsessed

treasure hunters for the last 70

years man stops thinking logically when

it comes to Gold out

when a team of divers explored Lake

toppets for the first

time on the monitor I could see there's

something

there they didn't discover

gold but something every bit as

extraordinary the dying days of World

War II

Hitler was in his bunker unable to

accept defeat but most Nazis knew the

game was

up it was time to start hiding evidence

of their

crimes a unit of ss officers were

instructed to transport boxes to the

South cago Lake District in the Austrian

Alps but there Mission ground to a

halt the road didn't go as far as the

lake they'd been instructed to

reach they needed alternative transport

to get their secret cargo to its

destination Lake

toplees AA bisen Bacher was 21 years old

when the SS woke her grandfather

demanding

assistance f for at 5:00 a.m. they

called and straight away they were at

the door the two SS

men they needed a hor and cart to get to

Lake toppets and then my grandfather

said that's not possible the horses

haven't been fed

yet no they needed the horse and cart it

was really important you've got to Har

the

[Music]

horses Eda eisenbacher was terrified Ed

for her life and quickly followed

instructions they said it has to be done

quickly the boxes have to go to Lake

[Music]

toet but AA noticed something that

puzzled

her the boxes weren't all the same

[Music]

there were heavy ones and light ones

they were different big and

small the small ones were heavy really

heavy AA asked what was in the heavy

boxes but was met with a Stony silence

[Music]

the SS man who came with

me didn't give anything away I asked

where are you

from he wouldn't tell me anything it was

all very

[Music]

strict everything had to disappear in

great

secrecy Ed the journey three times and

when they got to the lake the second

time she witnessed something

bizarre when I got back with a second

load I saw them throwing the boxes into

the

lake she didn't realize it at the time

but what Eda vimara witnessed may have

been one of the final acts of the

biggest bank heists in history

[Music]

the she scale of the Nazis theft of

Europe's Treasures was

[Music]

astonishing the plunder of Europe was

from the beginning a part of the Nazi

war plan it was their idea to collect

everything which was valuable

across

Europe the Nazis plundered the museums

and private collections of the newly

occupied countries for priceless works

of

art Hitler was an art fan and he was

fascinated by Art

Treasures he collected things he tried

to get hold of ancient

paintings ancient Statues by famous

painters by famous

artists Hitler's Deputy head of the Luft

vafer Herman guring personally amassed a

vast collection of looted art and gold

sent to him from across occupied Europe

estimated to have been worth $200

million but from the beginning what the

Nazis wanted most of all was

gold gold bars that could be stored in

Bank vaults and exchanged for foreign

currency whenever it was

needed it started in 1938 with the

occupation of

Austria they took the national reserves

of Austria the moment they entered

Vienna they continued in Czechoslovakia

and went on and on because what the

Nazis of course needed was

[Music]

gold the Nazis stole $2.5 Million worth

of gold from

Czechoslovakia $200 million worth of

gold from France and Belgium and later

in the war $30 million from Hungary and

$100 million from

Italy the Nazis stole the gold from the

gold reserves of the countries that they

uh that they conquered gold was

essential to Hitler everybody has the

mythical idea that Hitler was just and

Germany was rolling in money as it is

now but in fact Germany didn't have

enough food to feed its

people in total B Berlin accumulated

$500 million worth of foreign

gold the equivalent of over $36 billion

in today's

money gold fed the Nazi war

machine they smelted down the gold they

stamped it with fake stamps as if it

came from the Prussian mint

and they sent it to Zurich and the Swiss

gave them foreign currency for

[Music]

it Swiss banks became complicit in the

Nazis theft of Europe's

gold an American investigating group

determined that of the 400 million

dollar which is a lot of money then uh

50 years ago of the $400 million that

was sent through to Switzerland from

Germany 300 million of it was was

stolen there is a reason why the Nazis

never attacked Switzerland because it

was their banking place it was their way

to shore up their Treasures but it was

also their place to do the trade with

all sorts of foreign

countries the Americans and the Allies

begged the Swiss to stop taking the gold

and they they refused they continued to

take gold until until 1945 when the when

the Germans had more or less lost the

[Music]

war but there was only so much gold in

Europe's Banks Hitler and his armies

could steal the SS were instructed to

find alternative sources they began to

run out of gold so what did they do they

did uh as we know this terrible War

crime before the Jews were killed in

aitz they pulled the gold out of their

mouths and they melted it down into

[Music]

bars the SS stripped concentration camp

victims of an estimated $70 million

worth of gold teeth and

jewelry but by

1945 as the Allies swept into Germany

some Nazis began to consider the

unthinkable what if they lost where

would they go and what would they do

with their stolen

gold the Germans kept these gold bars

and other robbed treasures and

particularly art uh out of the way of

anybody who might have grabbed

it the Nazi gold was under

threat Hitler instructed the SS to make

Berlin's reserves

disappear they started to move things to

move Treasures to move gold underground

in Mountain

[Music]

deposits but the Americans got wind of

Hitler's

orders on the 4th of April

1945 they entered the German Town of

meras and discovered a vast horde in an

abandoned salt

mine over 8,000 gold

bars worth $240

million the 100 tons of gold bullion

represents most of Germany's

Reserve they couldn't believe their eyes

they were just blinded by the incredible

amount of gold old just pack the way

[Music]

there it wasn't just gold but over a

billion German marks millions in foreign

currency and 400 tons worth of Priceless

works of

art but it was only part of the stolen

horde the the Allies knew the Nazis were

on the run and looking to

hide one of the best places to do that

was Austria and specifically the

mountains of Austria and the saltz

magut secretly the Nazis sent freight

trains South in the hope of evading the

Americans approaching from the West

and the Russians from the

East when those trains rolled into the

salts K good they were just packed up to

the top with all sorts of treasures gold

valuables paintings all the Nazis

finally could get hold of before they

had to leave

[Music]

some of Hitler's most senior generals

fled with their

loot including second in command in the

SS Ernst Calton

Bruner Calton Bruner this high ranking

SS criminal took the stuff he had

collected during the years of his career

and brought it back here to the salsk

mag good

Calon Bruner took refuge in this house

by Lake Alto 16 mi from Lake

toppets C Bruner tried to contact the

Americans because he had these plans to

make a separate piece with the

Americans but when his overtures of

negotiation were rejected Calton Bruner

fled but not before burying his

loot when Calon Brer finally left the

Sals kago and tried to flee what he left

behind and what was found is was gold in

his

garden he just simply took cases full of

gold and hid them in his garden and

those were dug up in the first weeks

after the

war but it wasn't just Calton Bruner

burying gold

in the south of Austria American GIS

uncovered over 700 Nazi gold bars buried

in a shallow hole in the

ground and the stories of hidden Nazi

gold started to percate throughout the

salz

kamut there is eyewitnesses telling you

about famous Nazis just like Heinrich

Müller the head of the gasto

coming here in the final days of the war

riding into the Sals kago together with

about 15 officers on motor cars with

side cars and that they were full of

cases with valuables and gold and they

went up to the mountains and didn't come

back but the majority of the rumors

centered on one Lake the same Lake that

Eda venar

had witnessed boxes being thrown

into Lake

topits topits is an absolutely

fascinating geological phenomenon it's a

long uh Lake uh it's a ravine that's

filled in as deep as the as Big Ben

several hundred

fet the Nazis knew all about Lake

topetes Joseph gal's holiday Villa was

close by

because of its 103 M depth and remote

location from

1943 it had been used as a naval testing

[Music]

station in its dark Waters the Nazis

experimented with underwater explosives

and submarines testing them at different

depths they fired Torpedoes from

underwater into the Lakeside Mountain

Mountain gouging out large cavities in

its Canyon

walls the Germans used it to test new

submarine missiles they tested a

submarine missile that eventually became

the Polaris missile so there's a lot of

junk at the bottom of that Lake used

ammunition uh God knows

what lake top

was seen by SS command as an ideal place

to sink the Nazi horde and stop the

Allies getting their hands on it and one

day when things improved they would

return and retrieve

[Music]

[Music]

it eyewitness Ed of eisenbacher still

lives just a couple of miles from Lake

topits and remembers the day the SS

arrived it's the same house she lived in

as a young girl when she was ordered to

help them transport heavy boxes to the

[Music]

lake I said are you crazy where would

you throw them in the

lake no they had to go in there was

something that didn't belong here

anymore no

but precisely what was in the heavy

boxes she did not

know could they have contained the

missing Nazi

gold a week after the SS dumped their

load into Lake tolitz on the 8th of May

1945 the Nazis surrendered

the Allied Nations celebrated

Victory but where was all the missing

Nazi

[Music]

gold after the war as the years went by

the stories of what was thrown into Lake

toppets grew and

grew because of what Eda had seen and

the reports of buried gold being dug up

everyone seemed to be convinced that

there must be gold lying at the bottom

of the

lake in the 1950s local boy Gard XA grew

up on the stories of buried treasure in

topits

as children we discovered a lot of

things that were thrown into the lake

after the

war I went to these places hundreds of

times and with your fingers you go

through the

S over here one Nazi big VI lived and

over there another and in The Lakes they

live next to you could find things

in the post-war years amateur divers

attempted to reach the bed of Lake

toppets to recover its Nazi

treasure pooplets is a highly unusual

Lake no oxygen exists below 20 M so

nothing

perishes with its steep wooded Banks

trees fall in and form a false bottom of

floating logs under which if you get

trapped

there's often no way back to the

surface two German scientists who had

worked in the Nazis Naval Station during

the war drowned when they attempted to

get to the bottom of

toppets their deaths only heightened the

rumors of what was hidden in the

lake only now people said the lake was

cursed

in the late

1950s the stories of gold dumped into

Lake

toppets proved irresistible to one

journalist working at Germany's biggest

selling magazine

D investigative reporter vulgan lurer

had reached the top of his profession

in those days you always had to be there

first and come back with a picture and a

story for the

magazine and it was tough having to be

the first all the time where you

out I even had a plane at my

[Music]

disposal Lura painstakingly pieced

together the story of what happened at

toplet colleting information gleaned

from Nazi documents local rumors and

even the confessions of former Nazi

Generals in South

America at first I didn't know anything

about the

gold I only stumbled upon it when I did

some research afterwards into how things

had happened

Miss B based on what he discovered lder

persuaded his editors to finance the

first large-scale exploration of

toppets on the grounds that he might

just get the scoop of the

decade and it helped that Wulf gang

lorder wasn't just a

journalist I was in the Navy I was a

naval officer during the

war so I know how to operate underwater

[Music]

toppets is fed from a smaller Lake above

and feeds into a larger Lake below which

gives it a sequence of unique but

dangerous

currents lorda had to establish exactly

how he could navigate the precarious

movements of the lake all the way to the

bottom 103 M down

I had to calculate with what speed and

at what level the lake would

move I did that in the winter of 58 for

the first time the lake was still frozen

and was just starting to

melt in this way you can see exactly how

the streams from topet

develop and even if he managed to work

out the currents getting whatever was

down there to the surface presented a

whole other set of

problems lder adapted technology he had

used in the

Marines I did the calculations and then

we built ourselves a claw

gripper we had built the gripper in such

a way that it opens when it goes down

and then a rope had to be pulled so it

closes when it is down

and when it was closed we would pull the

Box

up we learn a lot in the

Navy destan commissioned a fleet to VW D

mobiles to transport lder and his team

of divers photographers and writers to

Austria but it was very much lder

story he would lead the exploration and

write daily reports as he

[Music]

went lder attached to the claw gripper

lights and a camera which would relay

pictures to the crew on the

surface with the information he had

acquired from locals and former Nazis

Lura had a good idea where the suspected

gold had been

sunk using my calculations we EAS down

the cler down to the 100 m depth of the

lake they scanned the entire Lake for 2

weeks and found

nothing but Lura was determined and just

when they were ready to give up told his

team they had to continue into the

darkness

we searched some more at

night we the camera on the bed of the

lake in the beginning we didn't find

anything but then through the cable on

the monitor I could see there is

something there

[Music]

at about 11: at night he saw a

box lda's team could barely contain

their

excitement had they found the missing

Nazi

gold the camera the camera lit up the

box then the CL

rer came and it picked it

up kiss when it was 2 3 m from the

surface I stopped otherwise the box

would have burst

open if they dropped the Box L's story

would sink with it he wasn't going to

take that

risk I dived in tied some rope under

water and wrapped it around the

box then I resurfaced and gave them the

Rope

[Music]

but when they brought the box to the

surface no one was sure what was

inside the next morning the world's

media waited with baited

breath amongst the crowd was local boy

Gard Zer who still remembers the day

that changed his life

for us it was Sensational we all went to

Lake toets with our parents to witness

the salvation of this

treasure this was a big motivation for

me I had to get down

there but it wasn't just XA and his

family who were on tenter hooks to see

what was in L's recovered

box the police came and the public

80 or 90 people it was a scrum then he

pulled the box up the box first

open but there wasn't any gold in there

[Music]

[Music]

to the crowd's

astonishment the stern team hadn't found

gold but millions and millions of

pristine British Bank

notes we brought them up and after 16 or

17 boxes we thought this is

nonsense we leave them all down there

and tear the lids open under water and

then we can see if it is gold or but

they were just

notes it was the beginning of a whole

new

mystery what were these pounds and why

had they been sunk in Lake

toppets the mystery deepened when it was

revealed the power sounds weren't quite

what they

[Music]

seemed Lake tolet in Austria and the end

of a long search which for years puzzled

Scotland Yard and the international

police down there at the bottom of the

lake are boxes of printing plates and

notes the clue to what must be the

biggest forgery of all time

[Music]

what lder and his dustan team had

discovered wasn't gold but 73 million

worth of perfectly forged Bank

notes the equivalent of almost £3

billion in today's

money just why they were there nobody

knew but unraveling The Mystery of the

counter pounds would make vulf gang

lda's

name Lura was uh consumed by this the

way almost anybody who gets involved

with it

does it was a tremendous uh

sensation he got a lot of publicity and

a lot of very good

stories over 15 additions dustan slowly

unpicked the truth behind the mystery of

Lake

toppets what lder had found was evidence

of the biggest counterfeiting operation

in

history the idea of counterfeiting

British pounds was actually uh conceived

in the first week of the

war the Nazis plan was to destabilize

the pound as the world Reserve currency

and bring the British Empire to its

knees Great Britain would be subsumed

into the Thousand-Year

Reich the bank of England was convinced

its banknotes were

unforgeable but the German SS had other

ideas its head Hinrich himla was in

charge of the plan

and he had just the person to put it

into

practice an SS officer with a background

in engineering and a specialty in

forging passports had come to him's

attention his name was burnhard

Krueger himler told Krueger he would

even name the operation after him

operation

burnhard it was an offer Krueger

couldn't

refuse Krueger was instructed by himler

to use Jewish counterfeits and artists

to make his

pounds many of them were already at the

naz's

disposal Krueger went to aitz say please

have everybody any one of your Jewish

prisoners who speaks German and is

connected with the graphic arts just

pull their names out and get them ready

and he assembled over a period of about

a year or two 140 Jewish prisoners in

the Zen Housen concentration camp just

north of Berlin which was actually the

headquarters of all the concentration

camps Krueger then had to decide which

pound note was the easiest

for his saxonous team to

forge they decided to print 5B notes big

impressive 5B notes uh black and white

notes easy to

print this man was a very meticulous

engineer by training and he got plates

that were sent by the rice Banks

engravers and they adjusted these plates

with all of the special secret markings

that the that the BR British put on the

pounds they wanted to make really

perfect pound notes those pound notes of

course were part of their plans that

were supposed to be used for

international

finance Wulf gang L's D articles

revealed that in September

1942 the first

produced forged

pounds had made their way into

circulation over the

channel they were technically brilliant

almost

undetectable the bank of England

declared them the most dangerous

forgeries they'd ever

[Music]

seen soon a flood of forged pounds were

appearing used by the Nazis to buy

weapons and yet more

[Music]

gold the Nazi plan was working Sterling

began to lose

value but himler and the SS had bigger

ideas they came up with this crazy idea

that if they print millions of fake

pounds and drop them over England that

the English that the British economy

would just blow up and

collapse him kimer wanted ging's Luft

vafer to airdrop the forgeries over

Britain rendering the pound

worthless they certainly had enough

forgeries between 1942 and 1945 the

Saxon Housen counterfeits produced 134

million fake

pounds that represents roughly

133% of the billion pounds in

circulation throughout the world

the pound was becoming a suspect

currency nobody knew which were real and

which were the fur's

forgeries this was the greatest

counterfeit in history Captain Krueger

who was in charge of this boasted quite

correctly after the war I am the

greatest counterfeit in history which he

was there's nothing even near it

[Music]

but hima's idea of a huge air drop was

never

realized the Germans were losing the war

the Luft vafer simply didn't have enough

planes to put the idea into

practice as the Allies approached in

1945 Krueger knew his life and that that

of his counterfeits had little meaning

to his boss Heinrich himler who was

desperately trying to hide evidence of

his appalling

crimes Krueger realized that not only

when the thing was shut down that the

Jews would get killed but he as the

bearer of a state secret probably would

get killed too so it was the interests

of both the SS major and the Jews began

to converge

Krueger ordered his men to escape and

burn all the evidence of his

extraordinary counterfeiting

[Music]

operation the trouble was burning

millions of pounds was more difficult

than Krueger

realized why didn't they just destroy

them the point is they did try to

destroy a number of

them they've had orders to burn them and

leave not a trace of any pound in the

ashes and they Buri the

[Music]

ashes but there were just too many

pounds to

destroy so krugger sent a unit with

forgeries boxed in weighted waterproof

crates each weighing 200 lb to the sou

kamut their destination was L toppets As

proved by wul gang lder who pulled them

to the surface in

1959 the intelligence service of the SS

In Cahoots with high level experts

brought the boxes to the toets in

Austria I knew that the boxes were

thrown into toets and I knew who threw

them in

[Music]

lder revealed that the SS units were

told very specifically to attempt to

find a way of retrieving the boxes after

the

war they take the coffins full of counit

pounds and they sink them in the lake

but not completely because because each

one of those coffins is attached to a

rope these boxes were tied up to wooden

floats with a rope and thrown into the

water and in one of the pictures a

little boy my son is pulling the float

with a rope attach

to the ropes from the boxes were

attached to logs that would float and

indicate where they had been

sunk that way the SS believed they would

one day return and reclaim their sunken

loot once lder had discovered the truth

the Austrian government on instructions

from the bank of England

destroyed Krueger's

pounds but such was the scale of the

counterfeiting operation today there are

almost three times more counterfeits

than Originals left in

existence to me the profound irony of

the pounds is that the real fakes and

there are some fake fakes actually that

is people trying to cash in on it the

real fakes which fetch oh tens 20s 30s

50 pounds far more valuable than their

face value sometimes 100 pound if their

good ones in good

[Music]

condition but had vul gang lder

unraveled the mystery of Lake toppets

once and for

all were the stories of sunken gold just

stories after

[Music]

all questions remain

if toppets only contained forged

pounds what was in the heavier boxes as

seen by Ida venaka that day the SS

arrived at her door could they have

contained

gold shamed absolutely absolutely all

these boxes haven't been taken

out I'm

convinced there were these small all

heavy

boxes with the

handles I don't know but maybe there was

gold in

[Music]

there the gold must be really deep

down it's not such a far-fetched

idea even the man who found the forged

pounds in Lake toets is convinced

another unit of ss officers were

responsible for the disposal of Nazi

gold there was a different group that

transported boxes with gold to

Austria there are probably gold boxes

down there they're still

there the place can still be found

today I can even show you on a photo

lda's convinced this photograph taken by

a naval officer at the time shows pounds

being thrown into the lake in the

foreground but gold being sunk in the

[Music]

back the rumors of sunken gold remain so

strong that in 1963

4 years after D's Revelations a young

diver from Munich drowned looking for

it whilst searching for the body the

Austrian government mounted the first

official exploration of the

lake they pulled to the surface

equipment from saxonous and yet more

counterfeit pounds but no

gold after that the authorities

introduced a ban on all underwater

explorations of toppets which still

exists

[Music]

today but that didn't stop one man ghard

XA Who as a boy had witnessed vulf gang

lder raising the forged pounds from the

depths all those years

[Music]

ago this is my world it is my favorite

Lake because historically it's the

hottest Z has dived for gold and other

Treasures more times than anyone else in

the sou

kamak he's pulled so much Nazi

memorabilia from the bottom of the

Austrian Lakes he's even opened his own

museum as if we we've had B

hypodermic

needles three big round

mines one of them is in the restaurant

at

toet but XA never discovered

gold until 1987

on the 1st of April XA pulled from the

depths 14 perfectly preserved gold

bars Gard XA the local dive Enthusiast

had raised the Nazi

gold finally someone had found

it but all was not as it seemed we had a

very unpleasant policeman who examined

my car's

tires they were worn out he made me pay

the maximum

fine he was actually

right and we thought we were going to do

a prank on

him so we had gold bars made and we sank

them I'm

for it was all just an April Fool's joke

by XA to get back at his local

policemen we said it wasn't gold but the

police said it was as it was

Heavy they took it away and after three

days they found out it wasn't gold after

all no one knows the policeman's real

name now everyone just calls him

gold

finger even today X's hoax hasn't

stopped the stories of Nazi gold in Lake

toppets from

persisting there are so many funny

stories the aans tell about it because

they say there's all these nutty

Americans and British coming to Lake

toppets and we just making jokes with

them any story that says look there's

gold in them th Hills or them th Lakes

uh it's going to attract people who say

let me go after it and look for it cuz

after all if you find it you've hit the

jackpot the mystery of what really lies

at the bottom of the devil's

Dustbin may never be

solved today toets is a bit of a secret

it doesn't want to show all its God does

[Music]

it one thing is for sure there's large

amounts of gold and other valuables in

the salts K good that have not been

found

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]