When I was a kid, there were all manner of stories about Nazi war criminals. In some tales, they evaded capture by living in obscurity in a South American country or incognito in some out-of-the-way place, plotting to rejuvenate the Nazi dream or just rotten people leading lives of ill repute.
For example, in Marathon Man, Sir Laurence Olivier plays a former Nazi SS (Schutzstaffel) dentist who tortures Dustin Hoffman’s character by yanking his teeth and tickling the exposed nerves. The Boys from Brazil tells a fictionalized account of Dr. Josef Mengele’s attempts to resurrect Adolf Hitler and establish a Fourth Reich.
In doing some research for a short story, I came across a bit of conspiracy theory from World War II regarding Nazi Germany and Antarctica. There was a belief that the Nazis had established a secret base in Antarctica and they were conducting research to develop advanced propulsions, well after WWII ended.
Scribd reports that at the end of WWII, the last two Nazi u-boats to surrender didn’t arrive in Argentina until August, 1945—the Germans had surrendered in May, 1945. Conspiracy theorists contended the u-boats had made a stop at the secret Antarctica base to offload treasure. The belief that a base existed was further bolstered when “in the southern summer of 1946-1947, the US Navy appeared to ‘invade’ Antarctica using a large force.”
I’m a fan of conspiracy theories. It’s fun to look at things from a “what if” perspective and my curiosity has been peaked regarding an Antarctic Nazi presence. I’m going to investigate these rumors some more and report back in a future blog.
What do you think? Is there a Nazi treasure lying beneath the Antarctic surface?
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