Lost Relics Of The Knights Templar (2021) Season 2 Episode 5: Nazi Relics
Two relic hunters investigate a disturbing collection of Nazi memorabilia.
#adventure
Two relic hunters investigate a disturbing collection of Nazi memorabilia.
#adventure
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TVTranscript
00:00Obsessive antiquities hunter, Hamilton White,
00:04has built a world-class collection of rare and historic objects.
00:11Working with fellow collector and friend, Carl Cookson,
00:14he investigated a group of artifacts that may be linked to the Knights Templar.
00:20Now, they're exploring the history behind some of the most important objects in Hamilton's collection.
00:27Assembled over a lifetime, Hamilton's prized pieces include ancient Celtic gold,
00:33I'm holding something there that's beyond priceless.
00:37a sword and helmet from the Crusades,
00:40and a mysterious white marble chalice from the Knights Templar treasure trove.
00:45It really is the best of the best.
00:49To solve the mysteries behind these artifacts,
00:52they're traveling across Europe and to the Middle East,
00:56seeking answers and making stunning new discoveries.
01:01They were hidden for a purpose.
01:04It's changing history.
01:06The lost relic hunters are back on the trail,
01:09and what they uncover could rewrite history as we know it.
01:13Carl and Hamilton are investigating a treasure trove of Nazi bullion
01:17to try and discover why it was buried and learn where it originally came from.
01:23They are also attempting to decode a collection of Nazi badges
01:27that could help explain the Third Reich's adoption and corruption of ancient symbols.
01:35Those are the Winterhills badges.
01:37They were generated by the Nazis.
01:40Those are the Winterhills badges.
01:42They were just sold by street vendors to raise money for poorer German people,
01:49and it was almost compulsory to buy one,
01:51because if you didn't, you were almost seen as opposing the state.
01:55That one's like a Jerusalem cross, but with swastikas.
01:59Well, when you look at them, so many of them are.
02:01That's the Black Sun, which is another very, very ancient symbol.
02:05It's the one in Pablesburg.
02:06But adapted with a swastika.
02:08That's Norse imagery, but again, corrupted, so you've got a swastika form.
02:13And they've just plunked their stamp on top of them.
02:16See, they lifted the swastika anyway, didn't they?
02:19It wasn't their symbol to belong with.
02:21No, Christ knows.
02:22It was used to sort of rebrand the Germanic people,
02:25and it's brainwashed an entire nation.
02:29Carl and Hamilton want to find out why these symbols were stolen
02:33and their meanings manipulated by the Nazi propaganda machine,
02:36and why Hitler adopted the swastika as the emblem of the Third Reich.
02:47Hamilton's collection of silver bars bearing the Nazi eagle and swastika
02:52may be hiding dark secrets.
02:55I hope he's in the sink.
02:58Do you want me to move this?
02:59Yeah, yeah.
03:01So what have we got?
03:02Those are the budding bars.
03:04How many have you got?
03:06I think I've got about 60 or so.
03:09There were 133 found.
03:11So what were these actually found?
03:13There were three German ammunition tins,
03:16and they were buried pretty much one next to the other,
03:20only 18 inches down.
03:22It's silver.
03:23Yeah, 99%.
03:25It's actually marked on it, yeah?
03:27That's the serial number for this specific ingot, isn't it?
03:31Yeah.
03:33This horde of Nazi loot was dug up near a concentration camp in Poland.
03:38Now Hamilton and Carl want to find out who buried it, when, and why.
03:46In the concentration camps, anything that was silver or gold
03:49was just taken and melted down, and it became state property.
03:53Oh, do you think these are actually victims' silver?
03:56Yeah.
03:57Really? Oh, I didn't realise that.
04:00That puts a totally different slant on it, doesn't it?
04:04The melting down of victims' property was going on all over Europe,
04:08in Russia, everywhere there were camps, it was happening.
04:12When you first look at it as bullying, it's fascinating.
04:15But then when you find out that it's actually the victims' jewellery
04:19that's melted down, people in concentration camps and prisoners of war,
04:26it puts a totally different feeling and light on them.
04:29To unravel the mystery behind this tainted Nazi silver,
04:33and to understand how the Nazi Party manipulated symbols to gain power,
04:38Hamilton and Carl will journey to Catalonia, Spain,
04:41and then head north through the Spanish Pyrenees.
04:48But first, they have invited cultural historian Dr Janina Ramirez
04:52to take a closer look at Hamilton's Nazi artefacts.
04:58Hi, Janina. Hi, Carl. Come in.
05:02Oh, thank you.
05:06This is where some of the concentration camp and Polish stuff
05:09and Nazi stuff is. Oh, my God.
05:11That's all Auschwitz. Oh.
05:13You know, it's not everybody's thing,
05:15but it's all just part of history, isn't it?
05:17Well, yeah, it's part of history.
05:20It's hard because it feels like a personal part of my history,
05:23being Polish, seeing these things.
05:25Well, a lot of it is Polish, you know, like you have the Jewish stars,
05:28then you've got the Polish stars from the Polish concentration camps.
05:31That's what my gran would have worn.
05:33It's strange, I think, as a historian,
05:35I've sort of veered away from the more recent stuff,
05:38because it still, for me, feels very raw.
05:40Janina's grandmother, Anna Rozicka, was a prisoner in a labour camp.
05:45If you know Lublin Camp... Oh, my God!
05:48..Kaelsdorf and Lublin, those are prisoners' homes on Lublin.
05:54This is so close to home for me.
05:56Lublin's not well-known, and that's where my gran's from.
05:59No, it's a very small area, relatively, Lublin.
06:02Yeah, it's just... I find it all so weird.
06:06Between 1933 and 1945,
06:09the Nazis established thousands of camps,
06:13ranging from ghettos to work camps to extermination centres
06:17in Germany and occupied territories.
06:20I've handled so many artefacts from so many different periods of history,
06:24I have never handled anything connected with the Nazis.
06:28No.
06:32That was a bullion.
06:34Wow. OK.
06:38It's very clear this is associated with the Nazis.
06:42Yeah, you've got the eagle, you've got the swastika.
06:45But what are they?
06:47Whatever was confiscated from the camps that was meltable down into silver.
06:51During the war, a country won't take the Reichsmark
06:55because it's worthless anywhere, so where Germany could trade was very limited.
07:00So it has to be paid in bullion, in gold or silver. Right.
07:03So, yeah, it's keeping the machine of power going, isn't it?
07:08That bullion bar, what it really is, is a pile of people's silver,
07:13whether it's a piece of jewellery, a ring, a brooch.
07:17So when I hold it, in a way I'm seeing those piles of people,
07:21I'm seeing their legacy.
07:24Silver and gold bullion, blood money stolen by the Nazis,
07:28was used for international trade with neutral countries
07:32like Switzerland and Spain.
07:34To unravel the mystery of the buried silver bars,
07:37Hamilton is meeting with former police detective
07:40and forensic archaeologist Roger Box.
07:43After analysing the bars, Roger makes an extraordinary discovery.
07:48Even having it in your possession could be a route to the gallows.
07:53Hamilton is in the Cotswolds, in south-west England,
07:56where he is seeking a piece of gold.
07:59This is an area he has found in a large area of the Golden City.
08:04But it's not his first discovery.
08:07This is his second discovery.
08:10And then he makes his third discovery.
08:13He's not going to be able to get it back.
08:16So, he's keeping a special treasure,
08:19Hamilton is in the Cotswolds in southwest England to show his collection of Nazi silver
08:24bars to coin collector and forensic archaeologist Roger Box.
08:29Hamilton hopes Roger's experience as a police detective may help unlock some of the mysteries
08:35surrounding the bullion bars.
08:44When these were found, there were three separate ammunition tins.
08:49One of them hadn't actually had any water get into it, it was still sealed up, and all
08:53of the bars were left.
08:54The text is still there?
08:55Yeah.
08:56If we aren't talking newspapers and we get a date on this, the paper's potential evidence,
09:00for goodness sake.
09:02We have serial numbers.
09:03What is interesting is all the numbers, there's nothing consecutive here.
09:07So this must have come from a massive store.
09:09But with a six-digit number, that's approaching a million.
09:14This clue unlocks a vital piece of the puzzle, allowing Roger to put together a theory of
09:19how, when, and why these bars may have been stolen.
09:24So presumably this stuff was taken from stores during or towards the end of the war and hidden.
09:32But who would do that?
09:33Well, if you're on the, say, losing side, you can envisage people beginning to squirrel
09:38this stuff away.
09:42Not near a concentration camp in Eastern Europe.
09:47They suspect that the bars were taken by a camp guard and buried piecemeal in the woods
09:52to be collected at a later date.
10:00The number of places this stuff would have been smelted or minted, it's only going to
10:04be in an area of war crimes.
10:06Quite, quite.
10:07A camp, a labor camp, a force camp.
10:09And I guess it started off its life of obviously being stolen from people.
10:12And by doing this, i.e. melting it down, you're laundering it.
10:16But even having it in your possession could be a route to the gallows because you're a
10:19potential war criminal by having it.
10:21So you can imagine those who have been in a position to take this stuff, senior officers
10:27or whatever.
10:28The risk was enormous.
10:29It was absolutely enormous.
10:30Because you can ditch your uniform, you can ditch your ID card, but if you're carrying
10:34silver bars around the countryside, you're going to get picked up.
10:38You need to hide it until it's safe to come back.
10:41And of course, everybody understands when anybody buries something, you're only one
10:45heartbeat away from not getting it back.
10:51The plan to retrieve the loot may have been interrupted in 1945 by the Russian army pushing
10:56west against the German line and forcing the Nazis to retreat.
11:06Now that they have a theory establishing why the Nazi loot was buried, Hamilton and
11:10Karl are on a mission to discover where the Nazis unloaded their dirty money.
11:15They are also exploring the twisted meaning behind the symbols on Hamilton's collection
11:20of Nazi badges.
11:24To learn more, the pair are heading to one of the countries that was willing to do business
11:28with the Reich, Spain.
11:39Heinrich Himmler, Nazi ideologue and head of the SS, was obsessed with the occult and
11:45the power of ancient symbolism, which he believed held the key to securing Aryan supremacy.
11:52Himmler created the SS, or Schutzstaffel, as an order inspired by the Teutonic Knights.
11:59Its logo was adapted from a Norse rune for the sun, and Himmler made esoteric symbolism
12:05and rituals central to the SS.
12:10He even created a special division tasked with finding religious artifacts to prove
12:15that the Germans descended from an ancient Aryan master race.
12:25For Himmler, the ultimate goal was to obtain the most powerful relic of them all, the supposed
12:30key to immortality, the Holy Grail.
12:39In late 1940, Himmler thought he had located the Grail's hiding place in southern Spain.
12:45Now, 80 years later, Karl and Hamilton are in Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia on
12:52Spain's Mediterranean coast, to try and discover what he found.
12:58So this is it, isn't it?
13:02This is the hotel where Himmler came.
13:03I think it's the old palace now.
13:05In those days, it was branded as the Ritz.
13:08I mean, this is where the Himmler party stayed in 1940.
13:14The luxurious Barcelona Ritz was popular with Nazi high command, checking in with Gestapo
13:20agents in Spain.
13:30After fighting a bloody civil war in 1939, Spain was in a deep financial crisis and considering
13:36a trade deal with Germany.
13:41On October 23, 1940, Spain's dictator Francisco Franco met with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler to
13:49discuss Spain's entry into the war.
13:52While the two countries were able to reach a trade agreement, Franco refused to join
13:56the war on the side of the Axis forces, and Hitler left disappointed.
14:03Himmler stayed at the Barcelona Ritz to provide security before the meeting.
14:10The actual meeting didn't really go as Hitler had hoped, because the sole object of it was
14:15to try and bring Spain actually into the war and break their neutrality.
14:21Franco had no interest at all in actually participating in the war, and Hitler and Franco
14:26actually loathed each other.
14:30After Hitler departed, Himmler took the opportunity to travel north to nearby Montserrat to pursue
14:35his hunt for ancient relics.
14:44This stunning monastery, perched on a mountain more than 2,300 feet above sea level, has
14:49been a place of worship since before the dawn of Christianity.
14:56Karl and Hamilton are here to see if the abbey can help them decode Hamilton's collection
15:01of Nazi badges.
15:03So we finally got here to Montserrat.
15:07It's a spectacular place.
15:08Yeah, it's incredible.
15:09And it's steeped in legend, isn't it?
15:12You know, access to the center of the world.
15:16The monastery is home to a black Madonna, popular with religious pilgrims.
15:23But the abbey rose to fame in Germany when Richard Wagner published his opera Parsifal.
15:28The opera, steeped in mysticism, suggests that the Holy Grail could be hidden here.
15:35This legend is thought to have inspired Himmler's search.
15:52Karl and Hamilton are investigating the grounds of Montserrat Abbey in Spain, where Heinrich
15:57Himmler, head of the dreaded Nazi SS, came in search of the Holy Grail.
16:03The actual place itself is over a thousand years old.
16:05It's been rebuilt and rebuilt.
16:07And this is exactly where Himmler would have came.
16:10He brought the Spanish archaeologist Olala with him.
16:14He was the official guide.
16:16Julio MartÃnez Santa Olala was a Spanish archaeologist assigned to Himmler's entourage,
16:22who shared the same racist ideology.
16:25And what happened when he got here?
16:29Well, he didn't get off to a good start, because the actual abbot wouldn't actually meet him,
16:35because he was aware of how the Nazi party were treating Christians in Germany, and was
16:40appointed a fairly junior monk, who was the only person on the site that could speak German,
16:46and the only person that could actually talk directly to Himmler.
16:51Why did he come here?
16:52It was 1940.
16:54He'd been involved in this search for the mythical grail since the early 1930s.
16:59And for 10 years, a total blank, wherever they'd gone, nothing.
17:04He saw it as an opportunity to pursue his own personal path to searching for the Holy Grail.
17:12For whatever reason, he believed it was here.
17:14He was wrong, but he was convinced it was here.
17:17At the height of his obsession, Himmler even hired a special grail hunter, archaeologist
17:22and writer Otto Rahn, whose story became an inspiration for the Indiana Jones movies.
17:30Rahn died in March 1939 under mysterious circumstances.
17:35Cultural historian Dr. Janina Ramirez has uncovered top-secret documents that hold clues
17:41as to why.
17:46Otto Rahn really is of great interest to me.
17:49He was a medievalist like myself.
17:51He was fascinated by those wonderful texts of the medieval period, texts like Parsifal,
17:56where knights go on quests to find the Holy Grail.
18:01He wanted the money, the sponsorship, the support needed to do really intense research
18:07into his passion project, the grail.
18:10He needed to get money where he could find it, and so whether he had any Nazi sympathies
18:16or not, it's very questionable whether he did, he took the cash, he took the support,
18:23and that's actually ultimately his undoing long-term.
18:28Secret Nazi documents captured by the Allies at the end of World War II include a series
18:33of letters between Rahn and his superiors, revealing his falling out with the SS.
18:41There's a really interesting handwritten note by Rahn, dated to the 28th of August, 1937.
18:49And in it, he says that he solemnly declares he will abstain from alcohol for the next
18:55two years.
18:57Why?
18:58Well, there's a court case just the day before on the 27th of August, where Rahn is involved
19:05in a case against a Karl Mahler, in which this individual is accused of defamatory behaviour.
19:12This is another way of saying homosexuality.
19:16But this note, in Rahn's own handwriting, is telling, because he's not just saying he's
19:22going to abstain from alcohol for two years, he's also saying that on the morning of the
19:271st of September, he will report at the concentration camp of Dachau, where he will stop wearing
19:34the insignia of an SS soldier and will act as a guard.
19:40That is all really punishment for this dishonourable behaviour.
19:44The SS, built around a racist vision of Aryan supremacy, was selective about recruits.
19:50Anyone joining its ranks had to produce a family tree going back 200 years to prove
19:56racial purity.
19:57Rahn, who likely had Jewish ancestry and may have been gay, delayed this process for two
20:03years until he could not stall any longer.
20:08I find this a particularly moving note.
20:11Again, it's in Rahn's own handwriting, and it's dated to the 28th of February 1939.
20:18He's asking for immediate release from the SS for reasons that are so deep and so serious
20:29that I can only explain them orally.
20:32It seems like a crisis point for him.
20:34He just can't continue to work for the SS.
20:38Eventually, Rahn was offered two choices.
20:42Either face trial and execution, or take the honourable way out.
20:48He, on the 12th of March, set off across the Austrian border, and he was never seen alive again.
20:56He'd frozen to death in the Austrian Alps.
21:00But Rahn's death in 1939 didn't end Himmler's obsessive search for the Grail, and he travelled
21:06to Montserrat only a year later.
21:18Karl and Hamilton want to find out what, if anything, Himmler discovered there, and whether
21:23parts of the Abbey itself played into his twisted ideology.
21:29Marked on the walls of the atrium, Karl spots a clue, hidden in plain sight.
21:38If you look behind the cloistered arches, that one over there depicts the Jerusalem
21:43cross, which is what I've got.
21:46You know, we look at that as the cross of Jerusalem, but that's a classic example of
21:52the corruption of Christian symbolism within the Nazi world, because, you know, one of
21:58the badges...
21:59They've used it.
22:00Yeah, they've used it, and they've substituted the four little crosses for swastikas, which
22:03is exactly the same as some of those badges that we've got.
22:08Symbols like the Jerusalem cross, found on some of the holiest shrines and churches in
22:13the world, were stolen and altered by the Nazis.
22:16By taking the power of these ancient symbols and twisting them to their own ends, the Reich
22:22hoped to justify their racist policies.
22:25You can look at it, how things link together, because you've got the Knightly Order of Jerusalem,
22:30which would be familiar to the Templars, to the Teutonics.
22:33You've got the Compostela.
22:34Yeah, the Knightly Order of St James.
22:37You know, none of those are directly connected, but here we are on the site.
22:42It's all different stories that all blend together.
22:46If you ask the question, could this or could it have been the home of the Grail?
22:50I don't know.
22:52Is it a place of sacred knowledge, of antiquity?
22:55I don't know.
22:56It could very well be.
22:57Himmler's quest for the Grail in October 1940 was unsuccessful.
23:02But he didn't leave empty-handed.
23:06In an effort to prove that Spaniards were descended from the same so-called Aryan master
23:10race as the Teutonic Knights, Spanish archaeologist Santa Olala gave Himmler ancient Iberian artifacts.
23:25Himmler and Hamilton are traveling to a site they hope will shed light on what Olala was
23:30attempting to prove with his gifts.
23:33Anybody you show that to, that's a nasty swastika, but those are 4,000 years old.
23:39They're digging into the past to steal the provenance.
23:55To unpack the origin of Himmler's twisted Nazi belief in an Aryan master race, Carl
24:03and Hamilton are visiting the Oliadola Hilltop near Montserrat in Spain.
24:10This area has been inhabited since Neolithic times, and the ruins here can be traced to
24:15the prehistoric Iberian era and later Roman occupation.
24:20Some experts believe that this may be the original home of the Celtic tribes, who spread
24:25throughout Europe around 1000 BCE.
24:29So what is the link then between Celts, this site, this symbology, Heinrich Himmler's fascination
24:36for ancient artifacts?
24:39Because Spain was a neutral country, there was an enormous amount of appeasement going
24:44on between Spain and Nazi Germany.
24:47Himmler was the front man for all of it.
24:50To keep him happy, he was fed countless artifacts that had been excavated in Spain over the years.
24:56His kind of sites in particular.
24:58The main things he was given tended to be the migration period, the Visigothics, or
25:03he was given Celtic stuff.
25:06But it was all the sort of things he could take back to Germany and present to the German
25:10people as evidence of the Germanic tribes spreading out across Europe.
25:14Aryanism across Europe.
25:17Swiss-Spanish archaeologist Julio Santa Olala gave Himmler artifacts from the Visigoths,
25:24a group of Germanic tribes who dominated the Iberian Peninsula between the 4th and 8th
25:30centuries, until they were ousted by the Moors.
25:33Olala hoped to prove that modern Spaniards shared Aryan ancestry and provided ancient
25:39symbols as evidence to authenticate this story.
25:43And no symbol is more closely associated with the horrors carried out in the name of
25:48Aryan superiority than the hooked cross of the swastika.
25:58When everybody thinks now the iconic symbolism of Nazi Germany is the swastika, and I mean
26:03it is, but it goes back many thousands of years.
26:06I mean, these here are only little ring fragments.
26:09I mean, if you look at that, anybody you show that to, that's a Nazi swastika.
26:14But those are 4,000 years old.
26:16I mean, they're Iberian Celtic.
26:18These rings bear the dreaded swastika, just like Hamilton's badges.
26:23But they were worn by people thousands of years before Nazis came to power.
26:28I mean, it was the desire to prove that there was an Aryan super race.
26:34The dig into the past is still a provenance.
26:38The swastika shape has been found in archaeological sites all over the world.
26:42The earliest dates back 15,000 years.
26:48Hitler was more interested in power than he was in the occult.
26:52In the 1920s, he combined this hooked cross rotated 45 degrees with the colors of the
26:58old German imperial flag to inspire nationalism.
27:02For Hitler, the swastika was a tool to exercise control over the German populace.
27:10Winter Hilf badges like Hamilton's were given to large donors to the Winter Hilfswerk, an
27:15annual winter relief drive by the Nazis to raise funds for Germany's welfare state.
27:22These badges emblazoned with swastikas and other Nazi symbols branded the wearer as a
27:27loyal supporter of the party.
27:30Those that refused to donate were shamed and could lose their jobs.
27:35These donations freed up money needed to arm the Nazi war machine as German troops pushed
27:41eastwards into Soviet Russia.
28:00Carl and Hamilton are in Spain investigating Hamilton's collection of stolen Nazi silver
28:05bars.
28:07Although Nazi sympathizers like Julio Santaolalla were desperate to prove a shared Aryan ancestry
28:13with Germany, Spain's neutrality made it a safe haven for Jews fleeing Nazi persecution.
28:22To find out more, Hamilton and Carl are heading north to the Val d'Aran on the Spanish side
28:27of the Pyrenees.
28:29These dense forests hide secret escape routes used by Jews fleeing to Spain from Nazi-occupied
28:35France.
28:39Local guide and trail expert Miguel Canal is bringing them to a site where they can
28:43see three mountain passes traveled by Jewish refugees.
28:49We have one of the most difficult that it's Port de Clavera, okay, and it's the highest.
28:56Then the Aula that is behind us and Salao.
29:01Do we know how many people escaped via these routes and how many were caught?
29:06There were around 80,000 people, unfortunately, nearly 55,000, they were cut.
29:1255,000?
29:13If you were caught, everything was lost.
29:17Tragic.
29:18Anti-Jewish measures taken in Vichy France in 1940 brought a new level of urgency for
29:24Jews fleeing persecution.
29:27Some locals helped Jews cross the perilous border into Spain in spite of the risks.
29:34One example is Jeanne Rigolle, a French woman in her 20s who, with her father, helped groups
29:40cross in the dead of night.
29:44Miguel has found an entry from Jeanne's diary on the day of one of the crossings.
29:52The day that they choose was 5th of December, three in the morning.
29:58You can imagine, so cold, all the group as much together as possible, one each other
30:05following the step from the other one.
30:08Not possible to make any kind of noise, even babies going very, very slowly.
30:15They hear a dog barking, imagine, feel that fear that the Germans are here.
30:23You realise how hard it was to cross this, that it was the only way to get to freedom.
30:31Frightening, isn't it, when you think that their life was on the line?
30:38Miguel brings Carl and Hamilton higher into the Catalonian Pyrenees, to the isolated church
30:43and sanctuary of Montgari on the French border.
30:47Were there any assistance by the church for the Jewish people when they came across?
30:56Yes, people arriving here without eating, without little clothes, even like this, to
31:02give them a shelter.
31:05Montgari, a real sanctuary, OK?
31:10A place that doesn't matter about cultures, religions and politics, just a place to help
31:18each other, the fraternity between two cultures in difficult times.
31:23The brotherhood of man.
31:29Miguel takes Carl and Hamilton inside the sanctuary.
31:34It was here that Jewish refugees were hidden by Christian priests after escaping across
31:39the border from France.
31:41The Spanish Guardia Civil were deeply pious and would not cross the threshold without
31:46the priest's authority.
31:50Thousands of Jewish refugees escaped using this route, but millions of Jews in other
31:54parts of Europe were not so lucky.
32:00Many were captured and transported to concentration camps.
32:05The largest of these was Auschwitz in Poland.
32:09In 1940, the same year that Hitler and Himmler visited Franco in Spain, thousands of Jewish
32:14prisoners were sent to Auschwitz to help construct the notorious camp.
32:24Janina has found a first-hand account from one of the survivors.
32:31This is a witness account, first-hand testimony, from an individual called Sam Backhalter.
32:38Sam was taken at the age of just 14 from the streets of Lodz in Poland, and he was transported
32:47by train to Auschwitz.
32:50In 1940, the arrival in Auschwitz was no different than for the people who came later.
32:56You came in, you have to undress.
32:58The doctors used to look you over.
33:00They shave your hair, they gave you the striped pants, and of course, you got the number.
33:06The system was the same.
33:08Any person, no matter how old or young you are, whoever was carrying a child or holding
33:15a little child by the hand, automatically went to the gas chamber.
33:21His story is so tragic because four years later, he then sees the rest of his family
33:27turn up in the same camp in Auschwitz.
33:31That's the last time he sees his family.
33:34He survives because he's healthy enough to do labor, to help build the very camp that's
33:39going to kill his whole family.
33:42The exact number of people killed at Auschwitz and Nazi death camps all over Europe is unknown.
33:48Many died without any record, but it is thought to be at least six million people.
33:57After they were murdered by the Nazi regime, their possessions were taken from them and
34:01valuables like gold and silver were melted down to form bullion, like the bars in Hamilton's
34:07collection.
34:09Carl and Hamilton's next step is to investigate what the Nazis were using their massive stockpile
34:14of bullion for, and to determine where Hamilton's stolen cash of silver was originally supposed
34:21to go.
34:23You don't just build them anywhere, there's a strategic point in place.
34:27Hamilton and Carl are on a journey to reveal more about the history of Hamilton's collection
34:53of Nazi silver bars.
34:57They suspect that it was stolen and buried by a prison guard just outside a concentration
35:01camp in Poland, and that this Nazi blood money was most likely made by melting down prisoners'
35:07belongings.
35:11Now they want to discover how bullion was being used by Nazi Germany to fund the war
35:16effort and try and secure an alliance with Spain's fascist regime.
35:29Carl and Hamilton are traveling to the Aragon Valley in northeastern Spain, right on the
35:34border between Spain and what would have been Nazi-occupied France.
35:40Hidden in the woods, they find a series of overgrown bunkers.
35:45There's quite a few pillboxes around this area, next to the railway line, so these were
35:53built by the Spanish, weren't they?
35:55Why were they built?
35:57From the Spanish point of view, it's the first line of defense on your borders.
36:02Franco never joined the war on the side of the Axis forces, and was paranoid about the
36:06possibility of a German invasion from the north through France.
36:13But what was so valuable in this remote area that they needed to build military bunkers
36:18to protect it?
36:21I mean, you don't just build them anywhere.
36:23There's a strategic point in place and quite a few in this area.
36:27It's overlooking the end of the railway line.
36:30I mean, if you look at the line of fire from the inside here, what it's doing is covering
36:35the exit from the tunnel.
36:38Following the tracks, Carl and Hamilton arrive at the magnificent Canfranc station in the
36:43heart of the Spanish Pyrenees.
36:48When it was built in 1928, this imposing station was the second largest in Europe, and quickly
36:54became a hub of international travel, connecting France and Spain.
37:00This Canfranc station, it's massive, isn't it?
37:05It's grossly disproportionate to the size of the little village it's in, isn't it?
37:09It's ridiculous.
37:10The size of it, you'd think it was in Paris or a major city.
37:15Obviously, this place was very important in World War II.
37:18The border of France is what, about four, five kilometres away?
37:22It does seem to be the most important distribution point for moving commodities in and out of
37:29Spain.
37:30They were trading tungsten, weren't they?
37:34It was wolframite ore, which then converted to tungsten.
37:37The biggest mines in Europe were Portugal and Spain.
37:41During World War II, tungsten became an incredibly valuable military commodity, used in munitions
37:47and tools on factory lines.
37:50Neutral Spain was able to trade tungsten with both the Axis and Allied powers.
37:55The Spanish export of tungsten increased from around $100,000 in 1940 to more than $21 million
38:02by 1943.
38:06The right mark was not acceptable anywhere except Germany, so the only possible way to
38:10buy anything from a neutral country was paying what was hard currency, which had to be bullion.
38:16It wasn't only taken from people, its central banks were plundered, any form of reserves
38:22that countries had became Nazi Party property.
38:26So the silver bullion that you have, there would have been consignments of the very same
38:32bullion coming through here.
38:35In the year 2000, a Frenchman stumbled across a sheaf of papers buried in a ruined section
38:41of the station.
38:43They documented the delivery of 86 tons of Nazi silver and gold bullion destined for Portugal.
38:52There has been much controversy and debate about Franco's attitude towards Nazi atrocities.
38:59While he was not willing to join Nazi Germany, there is evidence that Franco did backroom
39:04deals with Himmler to keep him informed of the movements of Spain's Jewish community.
39:10And it also appears that Franco was willing to accept Nazi silver bullion stolen from
39:17camp victims in return for military-grade tungsten.
39:26Carl and Hamilton re-examine one of Hamilton's silver bullion bars after learning more about
39:31what it represents.
39:33Looking at this, the most significant thing, it's made from people's possessions, people
39:40who were in very dire and desperate situations.
39:44I suppose it's why I do what I do, finding and looking after this stuff, and it's great
39:48they've survived.
39:49If they didn't survive, we wouldn't know that story.
39:55Carl and Hamilton are convinced that the 133 bars of silver Nazi bullion were stolen
40:01and buried by a camp guard to be retrieved later.
40:07But the guard never returned to collect the bars.
40:11Digging into the story of this stolen silver reveals part of the terrible history of the
40:15Nazi war machine and its twisted, racist ideology that caused the suffering and deaths of millions.
40:25These silver bars truly are tainted, a product of tragedy and Nazi atrocity.
40:42The Nazis wanted to wield the power of these symbols.
40:46They would take the imagery, corrupt its meaning, and use it for their own evil ends.
40:54Today, these Nazi artifacts serve as a reminder of the darkest time in modern European history.
41:01The Third Reich ultimately ended in failure, but not before taking millions of innocent
41:06lives.