admitted that Germany had lost the war and simply persisted with Nazi objectives, using different means to destroy the USSR, namely collaboration with the United States and the OSS/CIA. The Nazis may have, in addition, foreseen the devastating results of a Cold War between the US and the USSR. The Cold War provided a financial burden which has destroyed Russia and left the United States as the world’s biggest debtor nation … (19)
With secret control of hundreds of billions of dollars in financial and industrial assets, not to mention access to the intelligence agencies of the postwar superpowers and with hidden colonies throughout the world, this ‘Nazi International’ was in a position to reverse the failure of the Third Reich and finally achieve global domination. According to conspiratologists, the main headquarters of the Nazi International was — and is — in Antarctica.
On 25 April 1945, the German submarine U-977 embarked on one of the most remarkable voyages of the Second World War. Commanded by Captain Hans Schaeffer, the submarine left Kiel Harbour in the Baltic, stopped briefly for fuel at Christiansand South the following day, and arrived at Mar del Plata, Argentina nearly four months later, on 17 August. (20) In his subsequent interrogation by the Allies, Schaeffer stated that he had heard over the radio that the war had ended several days after leaving Christiansand South, and had decided to make for Argentina rather than staying in Europe. He offered his crew the option of being put off the submarine on the Norwegian coast or continuing on with him.
Some of Schaeffer’s crew opted to return to Germany, so the U-977 remained hidden in Norwegian waters until 10 May, when the departing crew members were put ashore near Bergen. Schaeffer and the rest of his crew ‘then embarked upon what surely must have been one of the most remarkable naval feats of the war: a journey through the North Sea and English Channel, past Gibraltar and along the coast of Africa, to finally surface, all of sixty-six days later, in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean’. (21) Over the next month, the U-977 evaded capture by diving, surfacing, and erecting imitation sails and funnel to make it look like a cargo steamer from a distance. (22)
On 17 August 1945, the U-977 put into Mar del Plata, in spite of Schaeffer having heard over the radio that the crew of another fleeing German submarine, the U-530, had been apprehended on the River Plate and handed over to the United States. During his initial interrogation by the Argentine authorities, Schaeffer was asked if he had carried anyone of ‘political importance’ on the voyage, to which he replied that he had not. Harbinson informs us that several weeks later Schaeffer was again interrogated, this time by a special Anglo-American commission composed of high-ranking officers. It seems that this commission wanted to explore the possibility that the U-977 had transported Hitler and Martin Bormann first to Argentina and then on to a secret Nazi base in Antarctica. (23)
The English and Americans apparently considered this to be a realistic possibility, for they subsequently flew both Schaeffer and Otto Wehrmut, the commander of the U-530, to Washington, D.C., where the interrogations continued for several more months. It is not clear what happened to Wehrmut at this point, but Schaeffer was taken to Antwerp, Belgium, where he was interrogated yet again. The U-977 itself was thoroughly searched and then taken to the United States where it was destroyed under orders from the US War Department. Schaeffer was then sent back to Germany, but decided to leave his country and return to Argentina. (24)
The testimony of Captain Schaeffer served as an early inspiration for the idea that high-ranking Nazis had escaped the destruction of the Third Reich and were continuing with their plans for world domination in one or more secret locations. Schaeffer’s voyage suggested to some that the ultimate destination for escaping Nazis was Antarctica, via Argentina. The German Navy Admiral Karl Doenitz is reported to have stated in 1943: ‘The German submarine fleet is proud of having built for the Fuhrer in another part of the world a Shangri-la on land, an impregnable fortress.’ (25)
Where was this ‘impregnable fortress’ — if it existed? It is a matter of historical fact that Nazi Germany maintained an intense interest in the Antarctic continent throughout the war. As we shall now see, that beautiful, mysterious and hostile place also holds a prominent position in the thoughts of those who subscribe to the Nazi- survival theory.
Between 1946 and 1947, Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd contributed to the US Navy Antarctic Developments Project, also known as Operation Highjump (see page 179). This operation was ostensibly an exercise in polar combat, survival and exploration; however, conspiracy theorists have suggested another, far more sinister purpose. Operation Highjump began approximately one year after the arrival of the U-977 at Mar del Plata, Argentina. The vast resources placed at Byrd’s disposal have suggested to many that the operation was intended as an actual assault force — but an assault against what, or whom?
The British author W. A. Harbinson has perhaps done more than any other writer to popularise the idea that the Nazis had developed extremely advanced aircraft designs by the end of the Second World War. In his novel sequence Projekt Saucer and his non-fiction study Project UFO, he also offers evidence of a secret flying-disc base in Antarctica. In his novel Genesis (1980) Harbinson includes a lengthy afterword, which was later reprinted as the introduction to Man-Mode UFOs 1944-1994- 50 Years of Suppression (1994) by Renato Vesco and David Hatcher Childress and which describes how, in May 1978, a single-issue tabloid paper called Brisant was being given away at Stand 111, in a scientific exhibition in the Hannover Messe Hall. This paper contained two articles: one on the scientific future of Antarctica, and the other on flying-disc technology at the end of the war (see Chapter Eight).
In its article on Antarctica, Brisant asked why the Operation Highjump assault force docked near the German-claimed region of Neu Schwabenland on 27 January 1947, why it then divided into three separate task forces and, most importantly, why there had been so many foreign press reports that the operation had been a disaster. Harbinson writes:
That expedition became something of a mystery. Subsequent official reports stated that it had been an enormous success, revealing more about the Antarctic than had ever been known before. However, other, mainly foreign reports suggested that such in fact had not been the case: that many of Byrd’s men were lost during the first day, that at least four of his airplanes inexplicably disappeared, and that while the expedition had gone provisioned for six to eight months, the men actually returned to America in February 1947, after only a few weeks. According to Brisant, Admiral Byrd later told a reporter (I could find no verification on this) that it was ‘necessary for the USA to take defensive actions against enemy air fighters which come from the polar regions’ and that in the case of a new war the USA would be ‘attacked by fighters that are able to fly from one pole to the other with incredible speed.’ Also, according to Brisant, shortly after his return from the Antarctic, Admiral Byrd was ordered to undergo a secret cross-examination — and the United States withdrew from the Antarctic for almost a decade. (26)
The article carried a serious and startling implication: that Operation Highjump had been a military invasion force disguised as a training and exploratory group, that it had intended to deal with a secret colony of Nazi survivors in an elaborate underground facility that had been constructed during the Second World War, and that this invasion force had met its match in the form of a squadron of Nazi-built flying discs based at the colony. The reason for the United States’ temporary withdrawal from Antarctica was, allegedly, to allow itself time to develop its own flying discs, based upon designs captured at the end of the war. (27)
Most reasonable people would dismiss as fantastic nonsense the idea that many Nazis fled the ruins of the Third Reich and took up residence in a secret Antarctic colony, armed with a squadron of flying discs with which to protect themselves. However, the paranoid conspiracy theories that have proliferated in the second half of the twentieth century are based not so much on reason but rather on elaborate extrapolations of puzzling but inconclusive evidence. In the present case, this evidence centres on the undeniable interest the Third Reich maintained in Antarctica throughout the war: German ships and U-boats constantly patrolled the South Atlantic between South Africa and the region of Antarctica containing Neu Schwabenland, and it is certainly possible that many of these voyages could have included shipments of personnel and supplies for the construction of heavily fortified facilities. When we add to this the testimony of the captain of the U-977, Hans Schaeffer (which admittedly may well be false), the claims of the neo-Nazi publication Brisant that such trips included the transfer of flying-disc research teams and disc components, and the rumours regarding the disastrous failure of Byrd’s Operation Highjump, we have the ingredients of a powerful and enduring modern myth, in which the evils of Nazism did not meet destruction at the hands of the victorious Allies in 1945 but continue to exert a terrible influence over human
