The heirs of the Third Reich

Manuscripts do not burn

9 May 1945, the Third Reich ceased to exist on our blue planet. He is gone - as it seemed to the majority of the population of this very planet, forever. But after him, a very rich inheritance remained, including one that few people suspect.

After all, everything created in Germany in the era of Nazism has not sunk into eternity. It went to the new, very different owners. And they were able to properly dispose of their acquisitions.

Take, at least, the Americans. The first thing they could get was three atomic bombs. One banged in the Nevada desert to see how it works. We looked - it looked great. Now it was necessary to figure out how to better use the remaining two.

In general, at the moment they were not really needed. Germany defeated, Japan is a close to complete defeat. In a month or two, the Soviet Union will enter the war, then a small but proud country of the Rising Sun will definitely fade. It makes no sense to use a new super-weapon against her.

At the same time, two bombs are not yet a nuclear arsenal. A real arsenal will not be soon. Scare them Stalin ... Well, Churchill and Truman tried to do it in Potsdam. During the break between the sessions of the conference, they approached the Russian dictator and happily reported that they had conducted tests. weapons giant destructive power. Stalin was not afraid, in connection with which the British prime minister and the American president were very upset. And they decided to scare him in another way.

It was necessary to demonstrate the power of the new Yankee weapons around the world. The object for the demonstration was only one, but perfectly suitable - Japan. Now the question is where to drop the bomb? To military bases? It makes no sense, they are well fortified, and there will be no proper effect. Well, a couple hundred people will die, so what? From the usual bombing loss more. But the big city ... is another matter.

Unlike most of the European and American stone jungles, Japanese cities were literally paper. The main building material is bamboo sticks and mats. Such houses flashed instantly, fire in a few minutes covered entire neighborhoods, with a lot of people dying. During its existence, Japan has lost several times more people in fires than in wars. Therefore, a better target than the Japanese city for the atomic bomb in the world simply did not exist.

And the Americans 6 and 9 August dropping two bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hundreds of thousands of people are dying (the losses are still being ascertained). Like, look, Russians, what will happen if something happens to your Leningrad and Moscow. And ... no one gets scared! The Japanese command remains calm - the army and navy were not injured, and he doesn’t care about the civilian population. Stalin remains calm - he knows through his own channels that the Americans now have no more atomic bombs and will not appear in the near future. In addition, he, too, had some of the atomic legacies of the Third Reich ...

Not all scientists involved in the atomic project have sailed to Antarctica or have fallen to the States. Of course, the key figures were there, but some people came to the Russians. A number of atomic physicists met the end of the war in Berlin, surrounded by Soviet troops, and, accordingly, after the end of the war they set off in a special train to the east. At that time, the Russians themselves were actively developing their own bombs, and any help from the outside was very, very helpful. German scientists were placed in a special laboratory, were given an enhanced diet and were treated in principle very well. Freedom of movement, of course, was limited, but it turned out to be most welcome, because a very unpleasant incident soon happened ...

American intelligence did not intend to give up scientists without a fight, because in the nuclear project of the Yankees, too, every person was counted. She made a daring attempt to steal the Germans. Dr. Dibner, the head of the laboratory, described this in his memoirs.

One day I went out for a walk in the city - in principle, we were allowed to. At this point, I somehow mastered the Russian language and, on occasion, could explain myself. I slowly walked through the streets, enjoying spring bloom after the harsh winter. Suddenly, a man sitting on a park bench got up and approached me. He introduced himself as an employee of one interested company that wants to take us all - or at least me - home. We talked briefly and agreed on a new meeting; I explained to him that I wanted to consult with my colleagues.

On the way to the laboratory, I was overcome by conflicting thoughts. On the one hand, I wanted to go home. On the other hand, this could all be a provocation for the Russians. Although why should they provoke me? However, even if the person with whom I spoke spoke the truth, this did not eliminate the threat of our death. From the moment we become fugitives, we will be outlawed. I strongly doubted that we would have to leave the Russians alive.

And if you still go, then where? In the ruins and famine? No, it is better not to agree to such a dangerous proposal. Naturally, on my return to the laboratory, I told everything to the Russian state security officer. He thanked me, and since then in every walk we were at a respectful distance accompanied by a guard in civilian clothes.

We grumbled about it for a while, but when Klaus was nearly killed a week later (a bullet shot through the sleeve of his coat, only scratching his arm; it was saved from certain death by the fact that he sharply turned around right at the moment of the shot. After that, I knew that I had made the right choice: they wanted to save us, not to save us.

An investigation by the Russians showed that behind all this history There were American intelligence services. In the future, the Germans were more closely preserved about the protection - however, German physicists did not play the first violin in the Soviet nuclear program. The Russians built a bomb on their own by 1949. Let me remind you that the Americans, who needed only to copy German samples, managed to do this only in the forty-seventh.

And that is unknown - maybe not without outside help?

Union with Antarctica

Evacuation of the Nazis in Antarctica was a complete mystery only for many uninitiated. Few initiates, including those in the United States, if they didn’t know for sure, then at least suspected something bad. Otherwise, they would not send a squadron of 1946 warships under the command of Admiral Byrd, the famous polar explorer, to the shores of Antarctica at the end of 14. I have already described this expedition in detail in my book “Swastika in the Ice”. Now I will only briefly dwell on the most important points for us.

In January, 1947's Byrd ships reached the shores of the land of Mary Baird. Began a thorough study of the coastal areas. The planes took off for reconnaissance and photographing of the area every day - in just six months of work more than fifty thousand photographs were taken, and detailed geographical maps of the region were drawn up.

I must say that the Americans were waiting, and they were not waiting with open arms. Intelligence Germans worked perfectly. They had one very important advantage: Admiral Byrd did not realize what an impressive force he would have to face. A squadron of 14 ships against a hundred and fifty submarines, an aircraft carrier and three hundred combat aircraft is like a shotgun against an elephant. Nevertheless, the then head of the colony, Hess, didn’t want a base to be found. Because he understood perfectly well: the United States does not need to put up a fleet of thirty aircraft carriers against the new Swabia and concentrate five thousand aircraft. And in this case, the collapse of the fourth Reich became inevitable.

Measures to disguise objects were taken. Over the land bases they pulled white sheets or simply laid thick snow. And they began to wait. However, it was not long to wait. Already in mid-January, an American compound was discovered on the approaches to Antarctica. Since then, he was continuously watched, remaining at a respectful distance, by the newest submarines that the Americans could not detect.

Everything was calm until February 15. On this day, an American pilot, flying in the area of ​​the New Germany base, discovered one of the German ground targets. Hess reacted harshly and decisively. The landed troops were destroyed or captured. Even before the Americans realized on the ships that something was going on abnormally, an unknown transmitter wedged in the communication frequencies of the squadron. In clear English, an unfamiliar voice declared that Admiral Byrd was invited to negotiate. At the talks, both sides quickly came to an understanding. Between them an agreement was concluded, the exact text of which I do not know. We can only try to reconstruct it in the main parts.

The main condition that the Nazis put forward - is to leave the base alone. What could they offer in return? Developed technologies, which the US desperately needed due to the beginning of the confrontation with communist Russia. Their support in the development of Antarctica is also quite a valuable factor. In addition, apparently, the Nazis demanded that the United States not interfere with the activities of Skorzeny and his organization ODESSA. This is indirectly confirmed by the fact that it was in 1947 that the Americans abruptly stopped seeking and punishing Nazi criminals; moreover, it was after the expedition of Byrd Borman that he was able to leave his secret refuge and sail to the ice shores.

However, to get consent Byrd - it was the easiest. Hess understood that it would be much harder to force the American authorities to accept this secret treaty. And in this case, they were prepared another trump card. 25 February 1947, the submarine cruiser Westfalen, which emerged from the Antarctic base, reached the latitude of New York and fired the A4 ballistic missile along the American coast. The Westphalen raid revealed that US cities are virtually defenseless against German strikes. Of course, it was possible to cut off the entire ocean with anti-submarine patrols, take all precautions ... But even one pierced submarine cruiser with nuclear missiles on board could at once ruin several hundred thousand precious American lives. And President Truman and his team did not want to take that risk.

Since then, extensive cooperation between the Antarctic Reich and the United States has begun - and perhaps continues to this day. The USA, thus, became the first and most important heir to the Third Reich.

Japanese trail

Japan was the last, most faithful ally of the Third Reich. Moreover, she lasted a few months longer. Therefore, the hopes and aspirations of many Nazis were closer to the end of the war with the country of the Rising Sun.

In March-April, German technology flowed to Japan in a continuous stream. In general, no one hides this. Another thing is curious - often these deliveries were carried out to the detriment of communications with Antarctica. After all, the Reich had no extra submarines. So, here we are again confronted with a conflict of interest in the Hitler leadership — only with this time? Who lobbied to send the latest technology to a Far Eastern ally?

However, whether only technology? In April, a highly valuable relic, the Sword of Tyra, went to Japan on a U-1945 submarine, UNGX. The history of this sword is very remarkable: in accordance with the legend, it was forged in the 10th century and for many years was a family relic of the samurai family of Taira. In the 12th century, Taira and another aristocratic family, Minamoto, fought for control of Japan. Minamoto won, almost all Tyra were destroyed, and the sword was gone. He reappeared on the surface in the XVI century, when there was a struggle for the unification of Japan. At the same time, rumors began to circulate about the magic properties of the sword. It seems that its owner is endowed with divine power and authority over people.

The sword Taira was passed down from generation to generation in the dynasty of shogun rulers until the middle of the 19th century. But in 1868, the so-called “Meiji revolution” occurs - the overthrow of the shoguns and the return of all power to the emperor. During stormy events, the sword disappears - they say someone from distant relatives of the ousted shogun grabbed him, fleeing to Europe. But neither the power nor the power of the sword, obviously, did not give him, because in 1901, he “pops up” in the private collection of the famous Viennese philanthropist Herbert Linz. Apparently, the sword is real - because a couple of months later, a night attack was launched on the Linz gallery with a clearly Japanese handwriting - the guard was found hacked with a samurai sword. However, the valuable relic was kept in a safe, which turned out to be too tough for the robbers. Nevertheless, Linz hastened to sell his sword in order to avoid further excesses. The name of the new owner was kept in strict confidence.

The Sword Tyra is back on the surface in 1936, when the great art lover Reichsmarshal Goering actively confiscates Jewish property in his favor. One rich businessman, he finds the desired sword. However, owning a relic "fat Herman" has not long: Hitler, who knew about the magic power of weapons, takes it for himself. Himmler, no less eager for such "curiosities," is actively begging for the sword from the Fuhrer, but receives a hard rejection. In the 1940 year, the Japanese Emperor Hirohito personally appeals for the return of the sword, but receives only vague promises in response. They say that this behavior of Hitler played a significant role in the fact that Japan did not join its attack on Russia a year later.

Be that as it may, but in the forty-fifth the Sword of Tyra is again in Japan. And along with it - a bunch of precious German technologies, on the basis of which, for example, the Japanese jet fighter was created - a degraded copy of the famous Messerschmitt-262. Who in the leadership of the Third Reich lobbied Japanese interests? But it was supposed to be a high-ranking official who could manage relics and submarines ...
It turned out to be very difficult to find this person, I had to act by an exception method. Hess and Borman were completely occupied by Antarctica and simply could not be distracted by Japan. Goering thought mostly about himself and did not make any far-reaching plans. Himmler planned to negotiate with the Western allies and become the ruler of Germany. Goebbels was exclusively devoted to his Fuhrer and did not even think about salvation, otherwise he would not have committed suicide in Berlin in April, forty-fifth ...

All the "vacancies" were busy. We had to try to go from the other end - to find out who gave the orders to send the submarines. And here a very curious thing opened up - it turns out that the former commander of the German naval forces was in charge of contacts with Japan, Grand-Admiral Raeder! It was he who equipped and sent submarines, it was he who tore pieces from the Antarctic convoys and threw them into the Far East.

Rummaging in the biography of the admiral, I realized that I was right. Raeder was very actively interested in Japan, was twice in this country - before the First World War and in the 1920s, he was personally acquainted with many Japanese officers fleet. He liked Japanese culture, Japanese traditions, and at one time after the global economic crisis, he thought about emigrating to Japan altogether. After all, there is a powerful, actively developing fleet, here is a miserable stump ... But Hitler came to power, and Raeder's talents were again needed in Germany. However, the admiral did not lose his sympathy for Japan and contributed a lot to the conclusion of the German-Japanese alliance in 1936-1937. In one of the memos near the end of the war, Raeder wrote:

We should strengthen our ties with Japan, which is the most important Asian state. After all, her fate had a lot in common with the fate of Germany, and it was not for nothing that many called her “Prussia of the East”. Only the union of two great states will be able to achieve domination over the world. The fate of Germany - to rule in Europe and the Atlantic, Japan - in East Asia and the Pacific.

But alone, Raeder would not be able to extract technology and relics. It means that he must have an assistant among high-ranking SS officials. And I managed to quickly find such an official. It was none other than the Gestapo chief Heinrich Muller.

Muller, as well as Bormann, could not be found after the defeat of the Third Reich. With Borman, however, everything is clear - he sailed to Antarctica. Müller did not have such an opportunity - he had a disgusting relationship with the leaders of Nova Swabia. Unlike Himmler, he did not count on the indulgence of the allies - too many crimes were on his conscience. After the war, it was often speculated that Muller was hiding in German settlements in Latin America. But I, who grew up in one of these settlements, can declare with full responsibility: he was not there.

Where was Muller to run to? Of course, in Japan - to the last belligerent ally of the Third Reich. The power and authority of the SS chief in the last years of Nazi Germany was so great that he could freely take many advanced technologies without asking for special permission. Moreover, to all appearances, Muller had his own people at Anenerbe, but to be honest, I don’t know who they are. Perhaps among them was Schaeffer, who, after completing the mysterious “Lapland” project in 1944, returned to the Reich and headed the Tibetan department of the “Anenerbe” institute. At the same time, the “Tibetans”, supported by Himmler himself, openly disliked their rivals from among the Antarctic researchers. Therefore, it is not surprising that after the defeat of Germany, this group did not follow the majority to the ice continent, but chose to retire to Tibet. Of course, it was beneficial for them to support those who relied on Japan - in the end, the backup option has never disturbed anyone. Schaeffer's last expedition was small — only about 30 people. Perhaps that is why she managed to penetrate the bustling Asia and get to Lhasa - the capital of Tibet. What happened to a group of SS further, nobody knows. Perhaps they all died under a mountain avalanche; or maybe they got to the cherished Shambhala. Who knows?
In any case, the German technology served the Japanese good service. After all, economists are still arguing about the causes of the “Japanese miracle” - the unprecedented rise of the Japanese economy in the 50-60-s. Then Japan made a real industrial breakthrough, flooding the whole world with its goods and making a serious competition to the United States. How did she do it? After all, Japanese scientists at that time were not particularly strong and did not develop their own technologies.

By the way, paradoxically it sounds, but it is this fact that many explain the "Japanese miracle." Like, the Japanese did not spend money on expensive research, but purchased ready-made know-how and launched it into production. Sorry, but this is frank nonsense - if it were profitable to do so, no one in the world would be engaged in development at all. In fact, no one will sell their know-how cheaply - most companies keep new technologies behind seven seals, because this is the key to their success. And if they sell their invention, then for money, many times exceeding the cost of development. No, you cannot make a lot of money on a simple buying up of someone else's technology. Moreover, the decisions applied by the Japanese often outstripped everything that was available in Western Europe and the USA.

So where did the Japanese get their technology from? The answer is obvious - from the legacy of the Third Reich. In fact, the entire Japanese "economic miracle" is based on the German developments of the prewar and war years. Thus, Japan also benefited greatly from an alliance with the Germans.

Russians and Shuttle

After the death of the Third Reich, the Russians didn’t get that much, although not so little. Large scientists mostly fled to the West or to Antarctica, mainly a rather small fry fell into the hands of the Soviet troops. On the other hand, after the war, many secret objects and manufactures that were built in the eastern regions of Germany, to protect them from American bombs, turned out to be in the Soviet zone of influence. Russian, thus, got a lot of German technology.

However, it was not so bad with the frames either. A number of prominent German scientists worked in Russians after the war. We are talking, in particular, about Dr. Wolfgang Zenger, an Austrian engineer, the creator of the most unusual aircraft of the first half of the twentieth century - the so-called antipode bomber, the idea of ​​which he outlined in 1933 year in his work "Rocket Flight Technique". In one of the few books where there is a mention of this unique project, it says literally the following:

The essence of the idea was that if the aircraft was rapidly descending from a very high altitude (on the order of 250 kilometers) into the dense atmosphere, it should ricochet from the upper atmosphere, once again rising into airless space; repeating this movement many times, the plane should describe a wave-like trajectory similar to the trajectory of a flat stone, ricocheting many times from the surface of the water. Each dive of the plane into the dense layers of the atmosphere will be accompanied by some loss of kinetic energy, as a result of which the subsequent jumps of the plane will gradually decrease, and in the end, it will switch to a planned flight.

The design of the aircraft embodies a number of unique features. Although it retains the shape of an ordinary aircraft, its special aerodynamic properties, caused by extremely high speed and special flight technique, make it necessary to give the aircraft’s fuselage an acutely lively shape in the nose. The fuselage is cut horizontally, as it were, along its entire length, so that its lower part is a flat surface. The width of the fuselage is greater than its height and allows you to place two rows of cylindrical tanks for fuel. Relatively small trapezoidal wings are mainly designed to stabilize the aircraft in flight and for use during landing. The wing has a regular profile with a maximum thickness equal to the 1 / 20 chord. The installation angle of attack of the wing of such an aircraft is not needed; with a low wing arrangement, the bearing surfaces of the fuselage and the wing form a single plane. Vertical tail is placed at the ends of the horizontal stabilizer of the aircraft. On the plane was supposed to install a rocket engine operating on liquid oxygen and oil, with the 100 000 kilogram.

The take-off weight of the aircraft was designed 100 tons, the weight of the aircraft without fuel 10 tons and payload 3 tons. The takeoff of the aircraft was to be carried out from a horizontal rail track with a length of 2,9 kilometers using powerful launch accelerators capable of informing the aircraft at take-off speed of the order of 500 meters per second; the climb angle was to be 30 degrees. It was assumed that when the fuel was completely burned out, the aircraft would develop 5900 speed meters per second and reach an altitude of 250 kilometers, from where it would swoop down to an altitude of about 40 kilometers, and then, pushing off from the dense atmosphere, would go up again.
A great influence on the design of the aircraft had a desire to reduce drag and minimize the effect of friction of the surface of the aircraft on the air in flight with large Mach numbers. The maximum range of the aircraft was designed to 23 400 kilometers.

It was believed that a compound of one hundred missile bombers could, within a few days, expose to complete destruction of the area, reaching the size of world metropolises with suburbs, located anywhere on the surface of the globe.

By the time of writing his book, Wolfgang Zenger himself was already a quite respectable man, well known in scientific circles. He was born in 1889 in Vienna in the family of an official. His father dreamed that his son would follow in his footsteps, but in young Wolfgang, a passion for technology was awakened early. They say that as a child he loved to make toys himself most of all, and the knowledge obtained in the gymnasium in the area of ​​exact sciences sought to immediately put into practice.

In 1914, Zenger, who graduated from the Technical University in Vienna by that moment, volunteered for the front. Three times wounded, he endured both the shame of defeat, and the bitterness of the revolution, and the disappointment of the unsuccessful attempt to annex Austria to Germany in the 1918 year. It was in those years that the political views of Zenger, a German nationalist, were formed, which later became the cause of his sympathy for the Nazis. In 20-s, Zenger works in various scientific centers, studies physics and mechanics, closely deals with the theory of aircraft. It’s boring for a young scientist to be in the ordinary and create primitive biplanes; the flight of his fantasy is as high as any other of his contemporaries. At the end of 20, Zenger seriously thinks about flights in the upper atmosphere and, by the beginning of 30's, creates his acclaimed theory.

Despite the authority that Zenger enjoyed among his colleagues, no one takes his ideas seriously. Moreover, they start laughing at him. This, and the fact that Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, prompts the Austrian engineer to cross the border. In Germany, he is trying to get a job at some research institute, which will provide him with all the necessary conditions for work, and instantly comes to the attention of the famous "".

The SS are seriously interested in a bold project that promises them air superiority - complete and unconditional. After all, the Zenger bomber was practically invulnerable, and with its help it was possible to terrify the most remote corners of the planet. Alas, at this stage it was not taken into account that such a bomber, due to the low payload, could only be terrifying. And the work began to boil.

First, work on the creation of this unique aircraft was carried out by Dr. Zenger at a specially created Research Institute of Rocket Flight Technique in the German city of Grauen.

As a result of three years of hard work, the construction of laboratories, workshops, test benches and an office building was completed by 1939. Zenger, meanwhile, continued his theoretical calculations. In the 1939 year, he, along with Zenger, with a small but experienced staff, embarked on a challenging ten-year research and experimentation program, the main goal of which was to create an aircraft rocket engine with a 100 ton load. The program also included the creation of pumps and other equipment for the rocket engine, the study of the aerodynamics of the aircraft at flight speeds ranging from 3 to 30 thousands of kilometers per hour, the development of a supersonic launching catapult and much more. The work required huge expenditures, and probably, therefore, with the start of the war, everything began to look at everything with great displeasure. Even the patrons of Zenger from among the leaders of Anenerbe began to show noticeable impatience. When the doctor explained to them that until the successful completion of the work it would take many more years, the SS men lost all interest in the project. They began to frankly bypass financing, and by the 1942 year they closed it completely in favor of the rocket project.

Saunger was saved only by the fact that the head of the rocket project von Braun stood up for his recent competitor and included his team in the staff of his research center. Why? An indirect answer to this question gave information about the post-war fate of an unusual project. In one Russian source, lost in the Internet, I read the following about it:

The Soviet military came to the conclusion that "with the success of the project, there can be no doubt that our country will receive terrible and irresistible weapons." Therefore, in the fall of 1946, Marshal K. A. Vershinin turned to the Ministry aviation USSR industry with a proposal to create a design bureau to create a Zenger bomber: “In my opinion, the implementation of the Zenger project coincides with the further development of aircraft and rocket technology, and therefore the organization of work on the Zenger project or other similar to it is already quite modern, otherwise we will inevitably leave behind in this matter. ” The words of the marshal turned out to be prophetic: for a number of reasons, the design bureau was not created, and the Americans launched the analogue of the Zenger bomber in the form of the Space Shuttle space shuttle.

Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to say that the Russians had missed the chance to create their own Shuttle. Such a reusable ship was created independently of the Americans and at about the same time. And, again, it is based on the Zenger project. The Russian ship was called “Buran” and was used several times before the “perestroika” buried it along with other ambitious and promising projects.

Treasures of the "Alpine Fortress"

But, besides Japan and Antarctica, there was another place where the Third Reich sent its secrets. We are talking about the so-called "Alpine fortress", in which the Nazis expected to provide opponents with the last desperate resistance.

The idea of ​​the “Alpine Fortress” originated in the autumn of 1944. Its author was none other than Reichsmarshal Goering. Realizing that the Russians and Americans are about to take Germany in an iron grip, he attended to the salvation of their collections. But the question is - where to hide them? There was no better place than the snowy Alps. In October, Goering sends his special officers to the mountains to look for safe caves. But the Reichsmarschall at that time had a lot of ill-wishers, so his defeatist actions were immediately reported to Hitler. And after a couple of weeks, the angry Fuhrer called the "faithful Hermann" on the carpet.
Goering was not a fool and instantly thought out a line of defense.

My Fuhrer, I save my property ?! Not in life! I am preparing a new indestructible fortified area, which will be the last bastion in the way of hordes of invaders!

The mood of Hitler instantly changed, and he appointed Goering responsible for the construction of the "Alpine Fortress". There is nothing to do - the Reichsmarshal had to get to work.

The fortified area was to cover the south of Germany and the western part of Austria - an impassable mountainous area where it was completely impossible to act tanks and very difficult for airplanes. The conditions for defense in the mountains are ideal, small groups of defenders are able to delay an enemy offensive for a long time. There is only one “but” - in the mountains it is extremely difficult to create infrastructure and production, and besides, there is nowhere to take resources from. Therefore, Goering first attended to the transfer to the Alps of all kinds of technologies and industrial capacities, literally tearing them out of the clutches of competitors, and only then began to create defensive lines. The situation was worse with the troops — there was absolutely no one to defend the Alpine Fortress. The only thing Goering could do was to transfer about 30 thousand infantrymen recruited from auxiliary units of the Air Force to the Alps.

With fortifications, too, was trouble. There was practically no one to build serious defensive lines - one had to get off with improvisation, use the terrain and mountain caves. In the same caves - and there are quite a lot of them in the Alps, and, according to some data, they form an extensive network - there were command centers, warehouses, even entire small factories ... The work was carried out hastily, but did not have time to complete it. By May 9 - the time of the surrender of Germany - the “Alpine Fortress” was more of an abstraction than some real fortified area.

The Allies occupied the Alps in the twenties of May. They sincerely hoped to capture a lot of interesting things, but ... the “fortress” turned out to be empty, like a drunk bottle of champagne. Only thin chains of prisoners and a handful of weapons became the winners. The last to be surrendered were the officers of the personal security of Goering, whom he also sent to the area.

The situation was very strange. Documents that testified to the transfer to the Alps of a large number of different goods were in abundance - and at the same time nothing was found at all! The interrogation of the prisoners did not give anything. Most of the soldiers knew only that some cargo was arriving, but where they went later - no one could say anything about that. Few initiates successfully hid in the ranks of the uninitiated. After two years of searching, only one carefully camouflaged cave was found, where they found a real warehouse of works of art. Further attempts to find something valuable ended in nothing.

Apparently, the Nazi treasures in the Alps are not open until now. In principle, quite a lot is known about their whereabouts. So, according to rumors, the Nazis drowned part of valuable cargo in Lake Constance. Here, in the eastern part of this large reservoir, there are rather great depths and keys abounding in abundance from the bottom. It was in this area in mid-May that several large river ships inexplicably disappeared without a trace. There are several people who have seen large iron boxes loaded onto the ships in the form of air forces. Then the ships seemed to be flooded. It is impossible to find their exact location - the complex bottom relief does not allow the echo sounder to work well, and muddy water near the bottom makes any descent vehicles useless. Over the years, several scuba divers tried to get to the flooded ships, but they all died under mysterious circumstances. Lake Constance faithfully keeps the secrets entrusted by the Nazis.

Much, apparently, still lies in the alpine caves. After all, their network is still unknown, and the entrances are often tightly sealed with avalanches and landslides. In the 1976 year, one mountaineer, storming the slope almost uncollected by his colleagues, found metal boxes sticking out from under the snow with imprints of imperial eagles. Naturally, he could not take them with him, and when two months later he led a special expedition to this place, he could not find anything. It seems that not only nature helps to keep the secrets of the Third Reich ...