Vast secret Nazi ‘terror weapons’ site uncovered in Austria

BOJAN PANCEVSKI St Georgen an der Gusen
The Times
December 28, 2014 11:00AM

A SECRET underground complex built by the Nazis towards the end of World War II that may have been used for the development of weapons of mass destruction, including a nuclear bomb, has been uncovered in Austria.

The vast facility was discovered last week near the town of St Georgen an der Gusen. It is believed to be connected to the nearby B8 Bergkristall underground factory that produced the Messerschmitt Me 262, the first operational jet-powered fighter, that posed a brief threat to allied air forces in the war’s closing stages.

Although the Bergkristall factory was examined after the war, the Nazis went to much greater lengths to conceal the newly discovered bunkers apparently used for weapons research. Declassified intelligence documents as well as testimony from witnesses helped excavators identify the concealed entrance.

Heavy equipment was deployed to cut away thick layers of soil as well as large granite plates with which the Nazis in 1945 had sealed the entrance shaft once used by large transport trucks.

Ground-penetrating radar confirmed historic accounts that the underground maze covers an area of up to 30ha; researchers found helmets and other Nazi items scattered by the entrance.

“This was a gigantic industrial complex and most likely the biggest secret weapons production facility of the Third Reich,” said Andreas Sulzer, an Austrian documentary film-maker who is in charge of the excavations.

The facility, like the Bergkristall factory, relied on slave labour from the nearby Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp. Up to 320,000 inmates are said to have died because of the brutal conditions in the subterranean labyrinth.

Sulzer, whose work is funded by broadcasters including ZDF, the German state television network, found a reference to the bunkers in the diaries of an Austrian physicist who was called up to work for the Nazis.

The film-maker assembled a team of historians and found further evidence of scientists working on the secret project, which was managed by SS General Hans Kammler.

Kammler was in charge of Hitler’s missile programs, including the V-2 rocket used against London in the latter stages of the war.

He was known as a brilliant but ruthless commander, who had signed off the blueprints for the gas chambers and crematoria at the Auschwitz concentration camp complex in southern Poland. Rumours persist that he was captured by the Americans and given a new identity after the war.

Previous research had found increased levels of radiation around the St Georgen site, apparently giving credibility to longstanding claims that Nazi scientists experimented with nuclear weapons in the area, which was under the exclusive command of the SS.

“The SS leadership ... aspired to create a combination of missiles and weapons of mass destruction. They wanted to equip the A4 (a variant of the V-2) missile, or more advanced rockets, with poison gas, radioactive material or nuclear warheads,” said Rainer Karlsch, a historian who worked with Sulzer.

A key lead obtained by Sulzer was the testimony of John Richardson, whose father Donald was a top operative of the Office of Strategic Services, forerunner of the CIA.

Donald Richardson reported directly to supreme allied commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower and one of his tasks was to ensure that Kammler and other leading Nazi scientists did not fall into the hands of the Russians.

The OSS reported in February 1944 that a huge complex was operated near St Georgen. Aerial footage from RAF planes obtained by Sulzer shows the outline of a concrete structure with large entrances.

Such was the importance of the underground facilities that Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS and one of Hitler’s key aides, visited to oversee them.

Kammler was officially said to have committed suicide after the war. But according to John Richardson, supported by declassified documents from the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC), he was interrogated by Richardson’s father and then taken to the US as part of Operation Paperclip, which gathered Nazi scientists who could contribute to US weapons programs.

Kammler is believed to have lived on the St Georgen site towards the end of the war; his last known headquarters was in an area that the US army took over in May 1945.

The Americans discovered the Bergkristall facility but had to relinquish it to the Russians two months later under an agreement to divide Austria into allied military zones.

The Russian army plundered the factory, removed all the technology and then destroyed and filled in the bunkers. The second part of the site, which Sulzer has discovered, seems to have remained unnoticed by both the Americans and the Russians.

Sulzer’s excavation was stopped last Wednesday by local authorities, who demanded a permit for research on historic sites. But he is confident that digging can resume next month. “Prisoners from concentration camps across Europe were handpicked for their special skills — physicists, chemists or other experts — to work on this monstrous project and we owe it to the victims to finally open the site and reveal the truth,” said Sulzer.

The Sunday Times


Let the conjecture begin...

They will find Hitler's brain in a large pickle jar.

Sofa king in

First images from the "discovery"

















for the slow...

Damn, love to see what else they find.

I thought this was gonna be about Nazis in Australia, I am disappointed.

lol

The mother of all safe threads

Nazi safe thread.

And you motherfuckers called me crazy when I suggested Kammler might not have committed suicide...

Vacation home in Argentina.

DAY ONE

Very interdasting.

Didn't they make a movie about this and some zombie Nazi dudes showed up?

Watch how this is shut down, or delayed just long enough to remove "something".

Intact bunkers could be full of cool stuff.

Yup.

ok

I hate to get out the tin foil, but I seriously wouldn't doubt it.

Not saying a nuke or a flying saucer or anything... Just stuff. Gold. Valuable materials... Condemning evidence... Bodies...

I love this shit.


I lived in Southern Germany, in Bad Tolz in the late 80's and crap like this was still popping up. The Kaserne where I worked was the SS Officer training school and had a labyrinth of tunnels beneath it that were flooded and rumored to be filled with munitions. It was also rumored to be bobby trapped and supposedly a diver was killed when trying to search them.

Up the road, towards Munich, there was a small town called Geradstriet which supposedly had an underground factory complex underneath it to assemble Messerschmidts. When I was in Stuttgart a few later, in a suburb known a Boblingen, they were excavating a building foundation and broke through to a hidden railway station that was deep underground and had been walled off. Inside were still a few railway cars.

I could go on and though I am a bit unsure as to the veracity of some these stories I do get a kick out of them.

I think we got him.

The last days of his known life just scream "the Americans captured me".

He might have known some useful things... The guy was in position to know all sorts of stuff...


Might have kept him as an asset, then retired him as a reward.

Or kicked him out of a C-47 over the Atlantic.

Hard to say.

Die Glocke

You think everyone just forgot about it at the end of the war? Everyone was going absolutely nuts searching for every scrap of technology, any item of value, etc.



 

meh, all their good stuff was taken to their moon base.

So this is where they kept the UFO's.







 

I'll hang around here to see what they find. Amber room and the rest of the missing jewelry and art maybe?

They'll keep it "closed" until it's been scoured for any weapons or treasure.

SS Doomtrooper......but he was blown up at the end of that movie.
Let's just hope they don't fool around and dig up an SS DoomHitler.........we'd all be f'd.

IN

Allied strategic bombing mitigation efforts.

This isn't ancient history. How do people just forget that this massive facility was there? Some of these old Nazis need to start talking, so that this shit isn't lost forever.
It belongs in a museum!

there's a documentary about the nazi moon base on HBO I think....  real informative.

Sounds like the Nazis spent too much time and effort digging.

Huntsville, AL.

Where is Indiana Jones now that we need him?

Newly released photo of interior of one of the recently unearthed bunkers:

Heil Hydra?

I hope Captain America gets unfrozen in time.

Dibs on Hitler's pencil box.

A copy of Obongos` transcripts.

You want to put a massive underground facility in a museum?

  Cool. :D

This stuff is amazing to me. I just watched a show on Netflix called Nazi Mega Weapons and one of them was all about Fortress Berlin and the giant facility that was used to build things like the Maus. Its incredible that these places still stand and are basically deserted The place were they built the maus is basically untouched from when the war ended and its just sitting there.

It takes a road crew 2 years to build a few miles of road and the Germans built entire underground cities in a few months.

Nice

Mein Gott!

Uhhhhhh.... They had 320,000 slaves that work when they say. No unions no EPA.  Makes a bunch of difference.

Do you even slave labor bro?

Reminds me of a movie with Sophia Lauren.

Standing by for reports of zombie Nazi's released on an unsuspecting community

Lol, those Nazis, they could really get stuff done! Wish our government worked that well.