The Real Story_2of5_Indiana Jones
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00In a movie universe crowded with action heroes, Indiana Jones stands apart.
00:10The fearless explorer who pursued sacred relics, holding his enemies at bay with the frayed
00:19ends of a whip, has become one of Hollywood's most popular creations.
00:25But is Indiana Jones pure fiction?
00:30Or were there real historical figures behind the legend?
00:36Was he inspired by the daredevil American explorer who uncovered the mysteries of the
00:40East, but had a phobia of snakes?
00:50Or the young German treasure seeker whose lifelong dream to find the Holy Grail brought
00:55him into conflict with the Nazis who wanted the Grail for their own dark purposes?
01:02Will he tell the story of the real men behind Indiana Jones?
01:29When Raiders of the Lost Ark opened in 1981, a legend was born.
01:37The high-octane adventures and narrow escapes of its unconventional archaeologist hero took
01:43the public by storm.
01:44Raiders of the Lost Ark, when it came out, it was a huge critical hit, as well as a kind
01:50of popular hit.
01:51I can remember seeing it and just thinking, OK, that's it.
01:54They made it.
01:55They've made the most exciting movie.
01:58It's like equals MC squared, you know, everybody can go home now.
02:03The creators of Indiana Jones, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, insist that their colorful
02:08hero is pure fiction, inspired by other movie heroes from the 1940s and 50s, like fictional
02:18archaeologist Dr. Elmore, who searches for a rare mineral in a forgotten city in the
02:24Himalayas.
02:29But ever since Indiana Jones first cracked his whip, the search has been on to find real-life
02:34characters that may have inspired him.
02:40The story of Indiana Jones began on a beach in Hawaii in 1977.
02:47Hollywood producer George Lucas had an idea for a fast-paced action thriller and approached
02:54his boyhood friend, Steven Spielberg, to direct.
02:58He'd just been turned down for a Bond movie, so as they're sat there on the beach, he's
03:02saying, well, you know, it kind of sucks, and Lucas goes, I've got a much better idea.
03:07Forget about Bond, archaeologist hero, we're going to make it really fast, we're going
03:12to make it cheap, and I want you to direct it.
03:16The idea tapped straight into Spielberg's boyhood fantasies.
03:20They all just sort of shouted each other down, like, it's going to have Nazis, it's going
03:24to have a monkey giving the Nazi salute, it's going to have a girl slugging a guy in a bar,
03:29it's going to have a boulder coming down after the guy and he gets away.
03:34Hollywood studios were less easy to convince.
03:39When Lucas was trying to explain it to the studio heads, they'd be saying, ah, I don't
03:42know about this model plane, it's going to cost a million dollars, it's got four engines,
03:46and Lucas would just snap off two of the engines and say, what about now?
03:50And that was the sort of spirit with which the movie was made.
03:54It was all about just kind of shaving away all the excess sort of stuff.
03:58They wanted it to be like kind of lean, fast kind of entertainment with no fat on the bone.
04:06Harrison Ford was signed up to play the lead, and the indie phenomenon was born.
04:14Indiana Jones is a man of action who dices with death at every turn.
04:18An eccentric archaeologist, he must save the world by laying his hands on mystical treasure
04:24before it is claimed by his deadly enemies.
04:29But unlike many of Hollywood's action heroes, Indiana Jones is no superhero.
04:35Spielberg said he wanted the audience to be in genuine doubt as to whether Indy was
04:39going to come through or not.
04:40He wanted you to see the kind of fear on his face and the pain, because he gets beaten
04:45up quite a lot in the movie, too.
04:47He wanted the audience to kind of feel the fact that he was in pain and realize this
04:50guy was fallible.
04:53Set initially in the turbulent world of the 1930s, film critics have scrutinized the period
04:58looking for real life figures that may have inspired the character of Indy.
05:06It was an era packed with explorers whose exploits made them the heroes of their day.
05:13There was a romance attached to it that captivated the public.
05:17The public adored adventurers, soldiers of fortune, daredevils.
05:23Among them were archaeologist adventurers.
05:27Men like Hiram Bingham, who discovered the ancient Peruvian city Machu Picchu in 1911.
05:36Or Howard Carter, the upper class Englishman who discovered the tomb of Tutankhamen in
05:411922.
05:44But one man stands out from all the rest for his reckless spirit and bravado.
05:49His name was Roy Chapman Andrews.
05:54Roy Chapman Andrews was a naturalist and zoologist.
05:58Curator of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, he was notorious for
06:02his explorations into unknown territory in pursuit of specimens for the museum.
06:09He battled with whales in the Arctic and bandits in the desert and took on a 20-foot python
06:14in the jungle of Borneo.
06:17He was the man of action par excellence.
06:20He was a consummate adventurer.
06:22He symbolized adventure in the minds of the public.
06:27His name became a household word.
06:32When Raiders of the Lost Ark opened, historians of the period had no doubt about the parallels.
06:40People assumed that Indiana Jones was copied after Roy Chapman Andrews.
06:46With his tremendous adventure, his ego, his glory, his charging off into wildernesses.
06:54So could Roy Chapman Andrews, with his hair-raising adventures in obscure lands, have inspired
07:00the character of Indiana Jones?
07:04Like Indiana Jones, Chapman Andrews' passion for adventure was matched by his charm.
07:09He was very comfortable with people from all walks of life.
07:14He was equally at home with Mongolian camel drivers.
07:17He was equally at home with Wall Street tycoons, with New York socialites.
07:25Chapman Andrews' entanglements with women were also legendary.
07:29He was a great ladies' man.
07:31He adored women and he had many, many women friends.
07:35He had, one must presume, a number of love affairs.
07:41Indiana Jones' love affairs are also part of the mix of every Indiana Jones plot.
07:46And whether they help him or double-cross him, he always wins them in the end.
07:51Like Roy Chapman Andrews.
07:54His first wife, Yvette Borup, was a delightful, charming, beautiful, adventurous woman.
08:01She adored him and he had a marvelous sense of humor.
08:05He truly was the love of her life and they made a great team together and they had piles
08:10of fun, as she said.
08:13In the early 1920s, Chapman Andrews, already well-known as a daredevil, embarked on the
08:18mission that would earn him his place in history.
08:22His plan was extraordinarily ambitious.
08:25He was convinced that the treacherous Gobi Desert might be a rich source of fossils and
08:30that by exploring the area, he might be able to reveal the origin of prehistoric humans.
08:38It was an area not just physically tough, but riddled with Chinese bandits.
08:43And he knew that the trip would be fraught with dangers.
08:48Dismissed by many as an insane undertaking, he used his persuasive charm to get backing
08:54from some of America's wealthiest tycoons, among them millionaire J.P. Morgan.
09:00He went into Morgan's library and met with Morgan and he spread his maps out of Mongolia
09:09and there was very little on the map of Mongolia because nobody knew anything about Mongolia.
09:14And eventually raised $200,000.
09:16Well, that takes a dynamic personality to do that kind of thing and a very persuasive
09:20man.
09:22His team comprised many of America's leading scientists, hand-picked by Andrews.
09:28His most inspired choice, a little-known cinematographer, John Shackelford, whose record of the expedition
09:34would help propel Chapman Andrews to stardom on his return to America.
09:41Shackelford was to Chapman Andrews what Spielberg would become to Indiana Jones.
09:47In April 1922, the expedition set off from Beijing on the Thousand Mile Trek across the
09:53desert.
09:57From the outset, the mission promised to be a colorful affair.
10:01As well as a traditional camel caravan, Chapman Andrews defied the terrain by using the latest
10:07invention, the motor car.
10:12He organized the expedition along the idea of taking motor cars from Beijing, in this
10:17case Dodge, old Dodge touring cars and Fulton trucks, and taking them into the desert.
10:26Chapman Andrews' fleet of Dodge cars had to travel across hundreds of miles of dunes and
10:30jagged rocks.
10:33In spite of their meticulous planning, nothing had prepared them for the hostile conditions
10:38of the desert.
10:39We had extremes of temperature.
10:41It would go to 110, 115, 120 degrees in the day, and sometimes it would drop to freezing
10:47or below freezing at night.
10:49Another real menace were the sandstorms.
10:54Some of these sandstorms drove them quite mad.
10:57I mean, they really shredded the tents, ruined the cars, ruined all the equipment.
11:03Their clothing and everything was scattered everywhere and to be lost forever.
11:08And yet somehow, Roy kept the expedition moving smoothly.
11:16But Chapman Andrews' conviction was rewarded.
11:21The Gobi Desert proved to be a naturalist's paradise.
11:27By midsummer, the team had documented a wide variety of species.
11:35Details of the expedition were all meticulously recorded by Shackleford on film and by Chapman
11:41Andrews in a journal.
11:45One of the things that I loved in the journals was his ability to write about how things
11:51smelled and tasted and the icy cold mornings and the smell of the campfires and what they
11:56ate.
11:58And he also touched on a number of marvelous moments among the men.
12:06It was incidents recorded in this diary that led historians to suggest that Chapman Andrews
12:11must have inspired the character of Indy.
12:16Indiana Jones has a fear of snakes and there are many scenes in the movie where he is overrun
12:22with them.
12:27Chapman Andrews was notorious for his fear of snakes.
12:31One September evening, according to his diary, he found himself in a scene that could have
12:35been scripted for Indiana Jones.
12:41They have a horrible little creature in the Gobi Desert, a viper.
12:47One night, there was a sudden drop in temperature and it caused these vipers to come out of
12:54nowhere seeking warmth.
13:02They wrapped themselves around cot legs and they tried to get into anything they could
13:07into clothing.
13:26The expedition members used every imaginable weapon, they used knives and axes and whatever
13:33they could find to slice these creatures and get rid of them.
13:45The next night, however, the venomous vipers returned.
13:52In spite of the rich fossil treasures to be found in the area, Chapman Andrews conceded
13:57defeat to the snakes and moved on.
14:02On September 12th, we left what we called Viper Camp to the snakes and vultures.
14:12More serious than the snakes, although perhaps less frightening for Chapman Andrews, were
14:17the marauding bandits who roamed the desert instilling fear in the local population.
14:24Chapman Andrews dealt with this menace in a way that might well have inspired the fictional
14:28action hero of a later era.
14:33In the Indiana Jones movies, Indy has a no-nonsense style to resolving disputes.
14:39He is quick to pick up a whip or revolver, sometimes with comical results.
14:45The joke everybody remembers is him shooting the scimitar-waving arrow, which puts on this
14:49sort of magnificent display of waving the scimitar and then Indiana Jones just kind of
14:53goes like this and sort of shoots him dead.
14:57Like Indiana Jones, Chapman Andrews was a superb marksman and always carried a revolver.
15:05Scouting ahead of his party one day, he caught sight of a rider moving towards a ridge about
15:10200 yards ahead of him.
15:13Experience told him that the encounter was unlikely to be friendly.
15:24They appeared over a hilltop, I don't think he knew actually how many, at least two, maybe
15:29three or four.
15:32It would have been difficult to turn the car and run without exposing myself to close-range
15:36shots.
15:37I instantly decided to attack.
15:44He drew his pistol and he began firing at them and of course they took off in absolute
15:53terror and disappeared over a hill, never to be seen again.
16:01As summer turned to fall, the temperature began to drop and disheartened, Chapman Andrews
16:06prepared to turn back home.
16:11Although they had made many spectacular finds, including the huge bones of a rhinoceros skeleton,
16:17the group had still not achieved their primary goal, to find fossils of early humans.
16:24Reluctantly, they set out on the 600-mile journey over the parched desert landscape
16:30back to Beijing.
16:35But like a true Hollywood hero, his fortunes were about to be transformed by a twist of
16:41fate.
16:44As often happens in the Indiana Jones movies, when the characters are at rock bottom, victory
16:49lies just around the corner.
16:53The camel caravan and the rest of the party was lagging behind and Andrews was trying
16:58to find a new trail to follow through the Gobi and they were basically lost.
17:03He and Shackelford were traveling together in one of the cars.
17:12Disorientated, Chapman Andrews sent Shackelford scouting up a cliff to look for a route out
17:18of the desert.
17:38And there before him, spread out from a huge distance, was a vast basin of pink and red
17:45spires and buttes and mesas.
17:49What Shackelford was looking at was the Flaming Cliffs, one of the greatest paleontological
17:54finds of the 20th century.
17:58Shackelford saw white bones eroding out of this red earth.
18:05Resting on the clifftop lay the massive bones of a little-known species of dinosaur, the
18:10Protoceratops.
18:11Nearby, a nest of fossilized eggs, each eight inches in length.
18:19The first ever unambiguous discovery of dinosaur eggs.
18:24Chapman Andrews' crazy thirst for adventure had paid off.
18:28His remarkable find transformed the emerging science of paleontology.
18:33Today the Flaming Cliffs are still one of the richest troves of dinosaur fossils on
18:38the planet.
18:46Chapman Andrews returned to New York a hero.
18:50He was given the Hubbard Medal of the National Geographic Society, only the seventh man to
18:54receive it.
18:56He was decorated by a number of foreign governments.
18:59He was known the world over and enjoyed unimaginable fame by today's standards.
19:09In the decades that followed, Chapman Andrews' exploits became so well known that they became
19:13part of popular folklore.
19:19As well as a boy's comic book fiction, he inspired the action movie heroes beloved by
19:24Lucas and Spielberg.
19:27Edgar Rice Burroughs, the creator of the 1940s hero Tarzan, acknowledges his debt to
19:33Roy Chapman Andrews in the preface of one of his books.
19:40Although highly fictionalized, elements of Roy Chapman Andrews' adventures, his bravado
19:45and charisma, occur throughout the movie serials that captivated Lucas and Spielberg in their
19:51youth.
19:52The thing that Lucas and Spielberg took away from the Saturday morning serials was a hero
19:58who gets into these terrific scrapes and gets away week after week while on some quest.
20:06It was this adrenaline-packed fun that Lucas and Spielberg were determined to reproduce
20:12in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
20:15Lucas was like, it's the serials, go with the movie serials.
20:18They tried to kind of revitalize that first pleasure they'd had when they'd sat down and
20:23watched to see the hero of these things get out of these extraordinary situations.
20:28You know, Vietnam, you know, was still in the air, Watergate was still in the air.
20:38People sort of felt bad, you know, about the American dream and, you know, what they wanted
20:44to do with Raiders was go back to like the 1930s and 40s, leapfrog over all of that and
20:50go back to the period when, you know, good guys were good guys and bad guys were bad
20:54guys and it was just so much simpler.
21:00There are clearly many similarities between the fictional Indiana Jones and the real life
21:05Roy Chapman Andrews.
21:08He was a charismatic explorer, part cowboy, part academic, a ladies' man, and a crack
21:14shot who takes on his enemies with style.
21:19They even share a terror of snakes.
21:22But there was still one piece missing.
21:26The supernatural held no interest for Chapman Andrews, whose missions were always entirely
21:31scientific.
21:34In Spielberg's movies, Indiana Jones is hell bent on finding hidden religious relics and
21:40preventing them from falling into the wrong hands.
21:44The pursuit of a mystery object is a plot device known to script writers as a MacGuffin.
21:50MacGuffin of the plot is a term that Hitchcock used, which is basically the thing that drives
21:53the plot.
21:54It's the thing everybody's chasing after, like a bit of data on a tape, a nuclear secret.
22:02Hitchcock's point was, it doesn't matter what it is, as long as somebody's chasing
22:05for it.
22:07In the Indiana Jones movies, the MacGuffin is always a treasure with supernatural powers.
22:13And there was one real historical figure who, like the fictional Indiana Jones, was obsessed
22:19with finding clues that would lead him to the most famous of all treasures, the Holy
22:24Grail.
22:25His name was Otto Rahn.
22:31The myth of the Holy Grail has many versions, the most enduring of which held that it was
22:35the cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper.
22:40According to 12th century legends, the cup was now hidden in a secret location and possessed
22:46miraculous powers.
22:53Academically brilliant, Otto Rahn was the only scholar of that era to devote his life
22:58to the pursuit of the Grail.
23:03His search would lead him, like the fictional Indy, into a deadly confrontation with the
23:07century's greatest menace, the Nazis, who wanted the Grail for their own dark purposes.
23:23According to myth, the Grail cup contained the blood of Christ, which some Nazis believed
23:29might reveal a genetic link between the Aryan people and the Son of God.
23:34The Holy Grail was tinged with an air of mystery, because it had always been, to some extent,
23:41hovering outside the Christian Orthodox tradition.
23:46It could symbolize blood.
23:47It could symbolize purity of the blood.
23:50It could be an Aryan symbol.
23:59Could the obscure scholar who clashed with the Nazis have inspired the character of Indiana
24:04Jones?
24:09In the winter of 1932, Otto Rahn set off for a castle in the foothills of the French Pyrenees.
24:18Years of study had convinced him that this was where he would find the Grail.
24:25He was about to embark on his greatest adventure, one of which Indiana Jones would have been
24:31proud.
24:34Montségur Castle had been the last refuge of the Cathars, a heretical 13th century Christian
24:40sect.
24:41They were believed to hold many religious treasures, including the Grail.
24:46In fact, they were Christians, but they believed that there was not one god, but two gods,
24:52one good, one evil.
24:54The good is the spiritual, the evil is the material.
25:01The god they worshipped was the spiritual, and they rejected the Catholic Church as being
25:06morally and spiritually bankrupt.
25:09As a result, they were persecuted by Rome, and all but a few hundred Cathars had been
25:14slaughtered in a brutal crusade.
25:17The survivors retreated to the castle, built on the summit of Montségur, and sealed themselves
25:23inside, hoping to withstand the inevitable siege.
25:27Montségur needed to be destroyed because it had become the symbol of Cathar resistance
25:34and the Cathar religion.
25:38The siege lasted almost a year.
25:46Ron believed that the Cathars harbored a secret that would have astonished their Catholic
25:51enemies.
25:54His study of medieval texts convinced him that they were the guardians of the Holy Grail,
25:59and that Montségur Castle was its hiding place.
26:08What we know of Otoran is that he arrives here in the 1930s.
26:27We know he comes to Montségur.
26:29We know there are some people, old people, in the village of Montségur who remember
26:32him coming here.
26:34He slept in Montségur, and he came here to this very courtyard.
26:49At the end of the 11-month siege, Montségur fell to the Catholic crusaders.
26:55Everyone inside was to be hurled alive into a burning furnace.
27:00But before they met this horrible fate, the Cathars begged for a 15-day stay of execution,
27:06which was granted.
27:09Otoran believed they were buying themselves time.
27:17We know a few things that went on at this time.
27:21Two men accept a mission from the Cathar clergy.
27:24First, we know that these Cathars escape from Montségur Castle at night.
27:30We know that they climb down a cliff.
27:36Second, they hide for several days under the castle.
27:43And third, these escapees take with them a bag carried on the shoulder of a man, according
27:50to the documents.
27:52What was these men's mission?
27:54Why four men and no others?
27:57And most important, what did the Cathars carry in that famous bag?
28:07Otoran was convinced that it was the Holy Grail in that bag.
28:13He set out to follow a trail that would lead, he hoped, to its final resting place.
28:19Otoran's own account of this journey described how he was accompanied by a loyal manservant,
28:25a Senegalese called Habdu.
28:28Following the accounts of local people, Ran and Habdu climbed to Lambrive, a remote mountainous
28:34cave system about 20 miles from Montségur.
28:41Ran believed that after the fall of Montségur, the Grail was then transported along secret
28:46paths to a cave at Lambrive, and then buried there.
28:51He believed that in order to make it easier for future generations to find the treasure,
28:55the Cathars must have left some kind of clue, drawings on the walls, maybe, or something
29:00of that kind.
29:05But Ran found no clues to the Grail's hiding place.
29:09Instead, the journey into the caves would come close to costing him his life.
29:16He described an incident that is a striking forerunner of the kind of escape from the
29:20clutches of doom found in the Indiana Jones movies.
29:30Whatever secret was hidden in there was not about to be given up lightly.
29:44After venturing deep inside, Otoran and Habdu began hearing a distant roar.
29:52It was the sound of an underground flood racing toward them.
30:05They were forced to run for their lives, and only narrowly escaped as the flood roared
30:10through the cave.
30:16Otoran's journey to the Pyrenees was ultimately fruitless, but his determination to find the
30:22Grail would soon bring him face to face with an even more dangerous force, the Nazis.
30:37In Indiana Jones, the Nazis are portrayed as comically evil, and they always get their
30:43comeuppance.
30:45They make great bad guys. You can kind of kill them with impunity. Nobody's going to
30:50be sticking up for Nazi rights. They're easy to identify. You know, the iconography is
30:55just incredibly striking. You just flash up a swastika and you know who you're dealing
30:59with.
31:00Spielberg did a very good job in portraying the Nazis as the baddies who were trying to
31:04get these, if you like, traditional instruments of power, holy relics of one sort or another,
31:12in order to achieve world domination.
31:16The Nazis' quest for objects of mystical power in the Indiana Jones movies echoes Otoran's
31:21real-life confrontation with the Nazis. But for Otoran, there would be no happy ending.
31:33With Hitler's ascent to power in 1933, the Nazis were laying the foundations for what
31:38they were convinced would be a thousand-year-long empire. While they developed their military
31:45strength, like the Nazis in Indiana Jones, they also searched for a mysticism that could
31:50underpin their cause. The spearhead of this movement was not Hitler, but his second-in-command.
31:59I don't think Hitler was really interested in relics. In many respects, he was a modernist,
32:05and he wanted to create a new Germania that was a new Rome. But on the other hand, Himmler,
32:12his great, if you like, adjutant in all matters, was deeply influenced by matters folkloric,
32:19neo-pagan, magical.
32:22Heinrich Himmler was the leader of the infamous SS, the Nazi elite officer corps.
32:30A Catholic by birth, he had adopted a mix of neo-pagan beliefs which underpinned his
32:37racist ideology.
32:40Himmler was an extraordinary personality. He combined bureaucratic ruthlessness, the dead
32:45pedantry of a minor schoolmaster, and at the same time, he was somebody who was enormously
32:50ruthless. So we have a remarkable character who was somehow both efficient, pedantic,
32:56a great administrator, a great accumulator of power.
33:01Himmler was determined to prove the superiority of the German Aryan race through history and
33:06archaeology.
33:08In 1935, Himmler established a department of the SS called the SS Ahnenerbe, which translates
33:16as ancestral heritage. It was an SS academy charged with creating legitimacy for national
33:24socialist research into archaeology and ancient history. As an instrument of Nazi cultural
33:31policy, it was intended to confer some kind of respectability on Nazi science and scholarship.
33:40When in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Nazis show up in Nepal searching for ancient relics,
33:45the story has a basis in historical fact. Himmler did indeed send parties to the region
33:52to look for the evidence of an ancient Aryan race.
33:57Himmler was also fascinated by the supernatural and believed that if the Nazis could lay their
34:02hands on legendary sacred symbols such as the Holy Grail, that they would inherit divine
34:08power. Then word reached him of a young man who might be able to deliver him the Grail.
34:16It was one day in 1933, Himmler had wind of Otto Rahn, who was writing further books about
34:24Grail and mysteries of the Cathars. Again, this was absolutely wonderful news to Himmler.
34:32Himmler approached Otto Rahn and offered him a position in the SS. It was not a job he
34:38was allowed to refuse. Over the months that followed, Otto Rahn continued his research,
34:44now under the watchful eye of the SS. These Grail researches involved locations
34:51in Germany where it was thought the Grail had been taken after it had been removed from
34:57Montsagueur at the fall of the fortress. While Otto Rahn continued his quest, Himmler's
35:05obsession with the Grail deepened. He was fascinated by the legend of King Arthur and
35:10his mystical Castle of Camelot. According to one version of the myth, the round table
35:16knights must search for the Grail in order to obtain spiritual power in battle. In 1934,
35:24Himmler acquired Wegelsberg Castle in western Germany to create his own Camelot. A similar
35:31castle features in The Last Crusade, where Indiana Jones finds himself held captive.
35:41The Nazi plan was for Wegelsberg to become the center of the world after the final battle.
35:49Unusually built as a triangle with three corner towers, Himmler conceived of the idea that
35:57this would make a very fine headquarters or staff college for the SS for special ideological
36:02training. He embarked on a project to rebuild the castle as a ritual headquarters for the
36:09SS, based around the mystical practices of the Arthurian knights.
36:16When Himmler set about reconstructing the Wegelsberg, he very much had the idea that
36:21it would become a kind of second Marienburg, that's the capital of a Teutonic order of
36:25knights in Prussia, that this would become the new order castle of the Teutonic knights
36:30of the SS.
36:35The fantasy of Wegelsberg was only partially completed, but architectural models from the
36:40time show the castle at the center of a gigantic arc, reflecting Himmler's belief that the
36:45Nazi elite, the SS, would dominate the world.
36:53In a painting owned by Himmler, the Arthurian knight Percival is depicted on horseback within
36:58sight of a shining circular tower. According to the myth, this is the golden castle that
37:04holds the Holy Grail. The north tower of Wegelsberg castle was rebuilt to resemble the golden
37:11castle from the legend. Its main hall bears all the insignia of Nazi power.
37:19On the floor, a remarkable intarsia showing 12 radial SS runes arranged in the form of
37:27a symbol, which has become well known amongst neo-Nazis as the so-called Black Sun symbol.
37:33The castle also had a dedicated grail room.
37:38It's said that the grail room contained a crystal that was illuminated. The grail as
37:44a stone is a symbol linking the immanent world we know and a transcendent world above.
37:51The grail is the only object in this world that comes from another world.
37:58The grail stone, like the holy relics in the Indiana Jones movies, was an object which
38:02the Nazis believed could empower them with divine strength. In the basement of the tower,
38:08Himmler ordered the construction of a hallowed chamber at the center of which would burn
38:12an eternal flame. Ceremonies were held here that were designed to give SS officers the
38:19aura of supernatural power.
38:24If you imagine a flame burning in there, the sound of the hiss of this gas flame would
38:31be hugely amplified. And the only thing that took place in there was sitting on the pedestals
38:39the twelve most powerful men in the SS meditated on the hiss, the sound of the blood pumping
38:47in their veins.
38:52What to the outside world was an efficient and ruthless killing machine was to Himmler
38:57a military religious order.
39:05In his own search for the grail, Otto Rahn came to view himself as a modern day Percival,
39:11as a knight on an epic quest. According to the folklore, Percival discovers and then
39:17loses the grail. Otto Rahn was never to get so close.
39:24Whenever Indiana Jones falls into the clutches of the enemy, escape is always just around
39:29the corner. But Otto Rahn had become entangled in Himmler's fantasy of the grail. For him,
39:39there would be no escape.
39:47After three years of searching, the sacred relic remained as elusive as ever and Otto
39:52Rahn fell into disgrace with the SS hierarchy.
40:00In 1937, he was assigned, for disciplinary reasons, a tour of duty at Dachau concentration
40:11camp as a guard.
40:15The period during which Rahn was ordered to spend time performing penal duties at Dachau
40:20corresponded with the time of the public attack against the Jews in Germany, which was masterminded
40:26by Goebbels, the Crystal Knight. Synagogues were set alight and the windows of Jewish
40:32owned shops were smashed in and there were also large scale arrests. Brutality and inhumanity
40:39reigned. Rahn witnessed this and I think he was horrified, having come into contact with
40:44this dark side of Nazism for the first time.
40:52At the best of times, Rahn's alliance with the Nazi party had been uneasy. Now it had
40:59become intolerable. He wrote to a friend,
41:03It is impossible for a tolerant liberal man like me to live in the nation that my native
41:08country has become.
41:13The SS commandant at Dachau handed in a damning report on Otto Rahn, declaring him unfit to
41:19be a soldier. Rumors were circulating about his homosexuality. Otto Rahn's position in
41:25the SS was finally untenable.
41:30He sent this handwritten letter to the chief personal staff of the SS, asking to be dismissed
41:37from the SS. An application for permission to leave the SS was something completely new
41:45and here, the letter bears the signature of Heinrich Himmler, who read it and simply
41:52added the word, yes. The letter omits to mention the SS's procedure for such cases.
42:05During a private conversation, it was suggested to the person in question that he commit suicide.
42:12Consider your honor to the SS by taking your life. It will be better for both you and us.
42:27On a bitterly cold day in the winter of 1939, Otto Rahn was observed by villagers walking
42:33up into the Tyrolean mountains. It was the last time he was seen alive.
42:42Otto Rahn never found the grail.
42:49He took his own life on a lonely hillside in Germany.
43:19Lucas and Spielberg have always said that the character of Indiana Jones is pure fantasy.
43:39But the objects at the center of the films, the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail,
43:44have fascinated historians for decades. And the details surrounding the Nazis and their
43:51obsession with the supernatural, their expeditions to the east and their mythological grail castle
43:58are all firmly grounded in history. The plot of the latest movie, Indiana Jones
44:06and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, is also based on historical legend. The Mayan people
44:14believed that 13 crystal skulls with mystical powers were lost centuries ago in the jungles
44:21and oceans of Central America, and that these skulls must be reunited to save the world.
44:31One of the enduring characteristics of Indiana Jones is that he has a split personality.
44:38At the start of every adventure, he is an academic, clean cut and bashful. He then undergoes
44:46a magical transformation. His alter ego is the intrepid explorer, battling against evil
44:53to seek a mystical treasure. This split personality is echoed in two historical figures.
45:08Otto Rahn, the earnest scholar and grail hunter who clashed with the Nazis.
45:17And Roy Chapman Andrews, the reckless explorer and womanizer.
45:22The brilliant marksman with a phobia of snakes, whose adventures inspired the movie serials
45:29which Lucas and Spielberg grew up on. Although they dreamed up Indiana Jones on a beach,
45:36Spielberg and Lucas might well have subconsciously absorbed the real life adventures of Otto
45:41Rahn and Roy Chapman Andrews. And unquestionably, the character of Indiana
45:48Jones has made archeology and the thrill of exploration exciting again. A fitting homage
45:54to two men who dedicated their lives to the pursuit of knowledge and adventure.