By Alisa Argunova 

Adolf Hitler put down his own funeral arrangements back in 1938 as he dreamt of the world domination and his worldwide glory. He wished to be laid to rest in the city of Lintz, in a giant burial vault of the National Socialist Party. A golden sepulcher decorated with gems from the Ural Mountains should have been installed in the center of the vault. A badly charred corpse of Hitler was found in a bomb crater in the Imperial Chancellery's garden 60 years ago. His mortal remains were reburied 8 times and eventually destroyed by fire.

The first burial took place on April 30th, 1945. The Fuhrer, his newly-fledged wife Eva Braun, and his two dogs were buried in the garden of the Imperial Chancellery. A Russian soldier Ivan Churakov found two unidentified corpses in a crater on May 4th. The Russians removed the remains but put them back into the ground on the same day because Hitler's body was thought to have been already found. On May 5th the remains were dug out and moved to a clinic in the town of Buch. The medical examination of the remains took place on May 8th. The remains were interred for the 4th time in a town of Finov, to which the department of SMERSH (Russian acronym for “Death to the spies”, a counterintelligence branch of the Soviet military intelligence during WWII) of the 3rd Soviet Army was re-deployed. The remains were inhumed for the 5th time on May 17th following data re-examination conducted by General Meshik who arrived from Moscow. The report on data re-examination and the jaws allegedly belonging to Hitler and Braun were hand-carried by the general to Moscow. And the remains were laid into the ground two more times after the army headquarters changed locations. Finally, the caskets containing the remains were laid in the grave in Magdeburg. The caskets were put into the ground near the house No36 in Westendstrasse. That is where Hitler's remains were eventually annihilated on April 5th, 1970. The remains were destroyed by fire, reduced to aches, mixed with charcoal, and thrown into the river Bideritz...

Britain"s spymasters became convinced that astrology could hold the key to the defeat of Adolf Hitler during the Second World War, it has emerged. Secret files released by the National Archives show how intelligence chiefs were hoodwinked into recruiting a bogus Hungarian nobleman to study the Nazi leader"s horoscope in the hope of penetrating his military plans.Despite warnings from the Security Service, MI5, that Louis de Wohl was a "charlatan", he managed to persuade senior figures in the intelligence world that he could replicate the forecasts of Hitler"s own personal astrologer.De Wohl claimed that as Hitler relied heavily on the predictions of the Swissstargazer Karl Ernest Krafft, they could gain a unique insight into his thinking if they knew the astrological advice he was receiving.The plan appealed to some leading figures, including the Director of Naval Intelligence Admiral John Godfrey, who found Hitler"s erratic strategic moves hard to fathom.

The scheme was, however, fatally flawed as historians now say that Hitler took no notice at all of astrological forecasts.Among the cast list of chancers, daredevils and conmen who passed through the ranks of wartime British intelligence, de Wohl was among the most exotic.A minor author of astrological books, he arrived in Britain from Germany - where he went by the name of Ludwig von Wohl - in the mid-1930s and soon came to the attention of the authorities.Despiterubbishing his claims to be the son of Hungarian nobility, MI5 hoped he could feed them information about his clients among the "great and the good".The Special Operations Executive - the wartime sabotage organisation - had, however, more ambitious plans. It recruited de Wohl for its SO2 propaganda section, giving him the rank of captain and an Army uniform in which he loved to "strut" around London."He is an exceedingly vain man, with all the German"s love of uniform and rank," MI5 noted contemptuously.

View: Full Article | Source: Daily Express

A mysterious golden pot discovered in a Bavarian lake in 2001 has been the focus of interest for archaeologists, art dealers -- and now the German and Swiss police. Its convoluted history involves Nazi cults, treasure hunters and modern-day profiteers.So there it was, the legendary "Holy Grail" -- in a safe not far from the Zurich airport. Investor Svetlana K. from Kazahkstan had been prepared for almost anything on that day last March.But when she saw what had been described as "probably the most important art-historical discovery in the Western Hemisphere" in front of her, all the other superlatives used in the four-pageprospectus faded into the background. "An object of such pre-eminence has probably never been introduced onto the open art market," the document stated, adding that, "Given the proper promotion, experts believe its value could reach a sum of around €1 billion" ($1.4 billion). A veritable dream bargain seemed to be just within reach: The vessel -- made of 11 kilograms (24.3 lbs) of gold, decorated with Celtic ornaments and said to be more than 2,000 years old -- did indeed exercise an irresistible fascination on the beholder. But the woman from Kazakhstan had been warned that there was one hitch: She had to snap up the bargain quickly.

After all, an investment opportunity like this doesn't come along every day, she was told. That made sense to Svetlana K. and her business partner Vladimir T., and a shorttime later they transfered the equivalent of €1.1 million ($1.5 million) to Switzerland via a Moscow bank, in exchange for a share of the potential earnings from the marketing of the golden pot. The Swiss million-dollar deal represents the most recent climax in an adventure story that began with the discovery of the cauldron in the Chiemsee, a lake in Bavaria, in 2001. From the very beginning the artifact has been accompanied by an aura of mystery. Whether it involved occult Nazi groups, gloomy Celtic rituals or even black magic intrigues -- the golden pot could always be made to somehow fit into the story. There were even rumors that the Bavarian state government was holding back secret analyses of the heathen pot -- "presumably in response to pressure from the Catholic Church." Others claimed that coded messages lay concealed inside the vessel's goldenr......

Adolf Hitler and other Nazi bonzes heeded predictions of pagan priests and astrologists. But little is known about the interest of the Third Reich in aliens.Ufologists in the West think that the issue was purposefully kept secret because a great share of the classified army and technology heritage of Nazis had been seized by countries of the anti-Hitler coalition.Much of what is said by western historians and ufologists may sound too fantastic and even absurd. Nazi researchers succeeded in development of nuclear bombs, other up-to-date armament and achieved a very high technological level in general. It is supposed that thesuccess was thanks to contacts with aliens that were quite regular. Before Hitler came to power national socialists had been developing projects meant to find the origins of the legendary Aryans and the location of legendary Shambala.

They expected to obtain some secret super knowledge to seize the domination over the world. Secret expeditions were sent to Tibet and the Himalayas. The number of such expeditions considerably increased when Nazis came to power in 1933. The secret projects were especially active within 1935-1939, and probably expeditions were even sent after the war campaign in Europe started. But all the documents pertaining to the projects were destroyed before Nazi Germany capitulated or probably are still being kept in undisclosed hiding-places. Ufologists several times supposed that some Naziexpedition probably came across a wrecked UFO and contacted its crew. That highly likely occurred in the Himalayas. Or maybe the Germans took an extraterrestrial crew prisoners or came across an alien base. However, majority of researchers think that contacts between Germans and crews of crashed UFOs were mutually beneficial. Aliens got materials to repair their space vehicles, and Nazis gained new and knowledge and technologies from aliens. So, much of Germany’s scientific researches are considered to be achieved thanks to the information obtained from extraterrestrial civilizations. Indeed, outstanding scholars and researchers left Germany, and national scientific schools stopped functioning during WWII. And it is unlikely that scientific and technical achievements that Germany fixed could be done taking into account the situation in thenat......

The Bismarck, probably Germany’s most famous battleship in World War Two, was sunk on May 27th 1941. The Bismarck had already sunk HMS Hood before being sunk herself. For many, the end of the Hood and Bismarck symbolised the end of the time when battleships were the dominant force in naval warfare, to be replaced by submarines and aircraft carriers and the advantages these ships gave to naval commanders. The Bismarck displaced over 50,000 tons and 40% of this displacement was armour. Such armour gave the Bismarck many advantages in protection but it did not inhibit her speed – she was capable of 29 knots. Launched in 1939, the Bismarck carried a formidable array of weaponry – 8 x 15 inch guns, 12 x 5.9 inch guns, 16 x 4.1 inch AA guns, 16 x 20mm AA guns and 2 x Arado 96 aircraft. The Bismarck had a crew of 2,200.

In comparison, HMS Hood (built 20 years before Bismarck) was 44,600 tons, had a crew of 1,419 and was faster than the Bismarck with a maximum speed of 32 knots. The Hood had been launched in 1918 and was armed with 8 x 15 inch guns, 12 x 5.5 inch guns, 8 x 4 inch AA guns, 24 x 2 pounder guns and 4 x 21 inch torpedoes. However, the Hood suffered from one major flaw – she did not have the same amount of armour as the Bismarck. The fact that the Hood was faster than the Bismarck by 3 knots was as a result of her lack of sufficient armour. Within two minutes of being hit by the Bismarck, the Hood had broken her back and sunk. On May 18th, 1941, the Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen slipped out of the Baltic port of Gdynia to attack Allied convoys in the Atlantic. Grand Admiral Raeder had already had experience of large warships attacking convoys at sea. Ships such as the Graf Spee, Admiral Scheer (both pocket battleships), Hipper (a cruiser) and Scharnhorst (a battle cruiser) had already been at sea but had found that their power was limited by the fact that they were so far from a dock/port that could carry out repairs if they were needed. Such a difficulty meant that mighty ships such as the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were loathed to take on a convoy if that convoy was protected by any naval ship...

Schools are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils, a Governmentbacked study has revealed. It found some teachers are reluctant to cover the atrocity for fear of upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial. There is also resistance to tackling the 11th century Crusades - where Christians fought Muslim armies for control of Jerusalem - because lessons often contradict what is taught in local mosques. Thefindings have prompted claims that some schools are using history 'as a vehicle for promoting political correctness'.

The study, funded by the Department for Education and Skills, looked into 'emotive and controversial' history teaching in primary and secondary schools. It found some teachers are dropping courses covering the Holocaust at the earliest opportunity over fears Muslim pupils might express anti-Semitic and anti-Israel reactions in class. The researchers gave the example of a secondary school in an unnamed northern city, which dropped theHolocaust as a subject for GCSE coursework. The report said teachers feared confronting 'anti-Semitic sentiment and Holocaust denial among some Muslim pupils'. It added: "In another department, the Holocaust was taught despite anti-Semitic sentiment among some pupils.

View: Full Article | Source: Daily Mail

The Nazis, some believe, established a secret base in Antarctica to which they spirited Hitler at the war's end, fought off British special forces and an American military taskforce, partly by shooting down US planes using flying saucers. The Americans eventually destroyed the base with nuclear weapons in the 1950s. Since then, various governments have striven to conceal this.In this light, it's no effort to re-imagine Antarctic explorations proposed under the aegis of IPY. A quick tour of the website reveals a project entitled 'Exploring Antarctic Dry Valleys inPreparation for Mars Landings'.

It seems scarcely less unlikely that this could really be a mission to recover Nazi treasure or technologies. Like all good conspiracy theories, this one is built on a skeleton of facts. There was a German expedition to Antarctica in 1938-39. There was classified British military activity in Antarctica during the war. In July 1945, two months after VE Day, the German submarine U-530 appeared at the Argentine naval base of Mar del Plata. The next month, U-977 did the same.In 1946-47 the US military mounted Operation Highjump, the largest ever Antarctic expedition, consisting of 4,700 men and 13 ships. And in 1958, they carried out three nuclearexplosions in the southern hemisphere that were meant to stay secret, but didn't.However, when you see a paper titled "Hitler's Antarctic base: the myth and the reality," you know that reality is going to disappoint. Using documentary evidence and first-hand experience of Antarctica, Colin Summerhayes of the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge, UK, and Toronto-based Peter Beeching puncture every last bit of the story.

View: Full Article | Source: Nature.com

Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Nazi SS, made a secret wartime mission to an abbey in Spain in search of what he believed was the Aryan Holy Grail, a new book claims. Himmler visited the famous Montserrat Abbey near Barcelona where he thought he would find the Grail which Jesus Christ was said to have used to consecrate the Last Supper.According to The Desecrated Abbey, by Montserrat Rico Góngora, the Reichsführer-SS thought if he could lay claim to the Holy Grail it would help Germany win the war and give him supernatural powers.The book claims that, far from being the King of the Jews, Himmler shared the outlandish belief with other leading Nazis that Jesus Christ was actually descended from Aryan stock.Góngora writes that Himmler, Hitler's right-hand man, believed Jacob was ofAryan blood and his descendants, including Jesus Christ, were Aryan too.Góngora has interviewed a former monk who was ordered by his superiors to greet Himmler during the visit in 1940.Now a pensioner living in an old people's home near Barcelona, Andreu Ripol Noble was at the time the only German-speaker in the abbey and was asked to help Himmler with his odd quest.Antoni Maria Marcet, the abbot, knew Himmler had launched public attacks on the Catholic Church in Germany and had no time for him, the book claims.

But Ripol related how Himmler came to Montserrat inspired by Richard Wagner's opera Parsifal, which mentions the Holy Grail could be in kept in "the marvellous castle of Montsalvat in the Pyrenees".It was widely believed in Nazi circles that this castle was Montserrat, a belief strengthened by the fact the first performance of the opera was held at the Liceu Opera House inBarcelona in 1913. Others have said it was Montségur in France.Wagner is thought to have been inspired by the writings of the 13th troubadour Wolfram von Eschenbach and scores of other writers who claimed to know where the sacred chalice used by Christ at the Last Supper lay.According to Góngora, Himmler was also inspired by a folk song from Catalonia, the north-eastern region in which Montserrat lies, which has a cryptic reference to a "mystical font of life" situated in the area.Himmler, a former chicken farmer who rose through the Nazi ranks to become Hitler's most trusted lieutenant, is known to have an interest in racial mysticism.

View: Full Article | Source: Independent