May 2, 2016 • 30 mins
It's fairly common knowledge that the Nazis were prolific looters and that there was occult interest among the officers of the organization. How weird did things actually get, and how close are the Indiana Jones movies to what really happened?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to steph you missed in History Class from how
works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Holly Fry and I'm Tracy B. Wilson, and we have
another episode from Solid Comic com Fanics. Once again, our
friend Brian Young was kind enough to guest host since
(00:22):
Tracy had some conflicts that weekend of the show. And
this is the second of two live shows that Brian
and I did at the con. The first one, if
you haven't already listened, focused on film history in Salt
Lake City, but for this one, we went a little
broader and a little more with touchstones on pop culture,
and we talked about some of the mythology of Hitler
and the Nazi obsession with the occult, and a little
(00:42):
bit about how those stories stacked up to the way
they're portrayed in fictional form in the Indiana Jones stories.
So for this first segment, Holly and Brian are going
to talk a little bit about the looting that was
done by the Nazis and an effort to collect art
for Hitler, and they'll also touch on the propaganda efforts
that were cre It's a further the position that the
Nazi rise to power was somehow part of a divine destiny. Hello,
(01:11):
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm
Brian Younges. I'm just waiting for Tracy. I'm sorry. Well,
there's part of me that wants you to say, and
I'm Tracy V. Wilson. I'm already going to do something
that will make her mad at me. I'm sure, so
I'm not going to do that. You can never make
me mad at We can start over if you know
we're good. Uh so, uh, it is fairly common knowledge.
(01:35):
I don't think I'm gonna blow anybody's minds with the
statement that Nazis were pretty prolific leaders during their time.
We know this from actual history, and even Indiana Jones
told us this because the Nazis are constantly racing against
our hero to reach these artifacts of great significance that
are both historically and mystically important. And so to set
the stage so you guys know kind of where we're
(01:57):
going on this little paths, we're gonna talk first about
a couple of Nazi divisions that were set up as
part of this ongoing hunt for treasures, and then we're
gonna talk a little bit about one particular piece of
art that Hitler really coveted and it's beautiful and amazing, uh,
and it's possible significance as a connection to ultimate and
supreme power. And then we're gonna talk a little bit
(02:18):
about Nazi gold, uh, including the modern claims that a
lost cash of gold and other precious items have been found.
And then we're gonna kind of segue into touching on
the ways that Indiana Deeniana Jones film series did and
did not get the whole Nazi story rights. That's the scoop.
Are you ready to go, let's do it. So we're
(02:39):
gonna start with so massive was the quest to accumulate
important art the Nazis, And actually they created an art
theft unit and that this was called the e r R.
And this intensive effort to steal great masterpieces was all
aimed at fulfilling Hitler's uh incredibly narcissistic dream of creating
(03:00):
a super museum, the fuer Museum, uh and I'm not
making that up, which was massive in size, where every
major piece of art would be housed. Yeah, you'll see
it sometimes described as the size of an entire city
in and of itself, which I have to say, as
much as he was clearly a jerk, we know from
history there's part of it. It's like, man, that would
be a cool museum. I mean it's from an art
(03:22):
history standpoint. I'm like, I don't know, could somebody cool
trying to do that instead? Uh? And as pieces were acquired,
they were usually stored because they never actually built this museum,
obviously we wouldn't know about it. Um, they were stored
in the I'm probably going to butcher this. I'm sorry
any German speakers. Altaz salt mine near the Austrian Alps,
and there were an estimated twelve thousand pieces of art
(03:46):
that were actually successfully stolen and stored there. So he
really was well on his way to fulfilling this dream.
So we know that that Hitler was Obviously he was
interested in art because he wanted to fill his fuer museum.
But he was also incredibly interested in the supernatural, which
is a lot of where the Indiana Jones stories come from.
So so he was so much interested in the supernatural.
But on July first, n Heinrich Hindler, the head of
(04:11):
the SS, established a paranormal research group within the Nazi organization. UH, Uh,
Pully's gonna have to help me with the pronunciation here,
since I'm horrible about that. But the the on an Arab,
which translates to Inheritance of the Forefathers, is also called
(04:31):
the Ancestral Heritage Research and Teaching Organization, and its job
was to research the paranormal. And it sounds like something
out of a Mike Manola comic book, doesn't it. I mean,
you see where the influences on a lot of comic
works come from when you look at some of the
really weird tendrils that the Nazi Party had out. Uh.
It's a really rich, rich soil from which to gather. Uh.
(04:54):
And in February of excavation departments to start of the
archaeology team of the s S was actually transferred over
to the on An AIRB, so they were joined together,
and this officially created the Nazi Archaeology Division and the
on An Arab and the work that it did was
so important to Hitler, and he was so into what
they were doing that he expanded it again in addition
(05:15):
to that merger UH later during World War Two. So
a variety of strange and often creepy efforts were made
by this group. They hunted Yetti in Tibet. Uh. The
Ark of the Covenant was something they sought in Ethiopia,
which is where you know, rageously lost ark kind of
got their ideas and they hunted for the Holy Grail
(05:36):
in Uh. I want you to try it, just to
see langua doc. You're close. It's long doc. If you
speak French, you'll see it and it looks like it
says Languedoc and some people say it that way in
the americanized version. Yeah, I'm horrible pronunciation. So I apologize
to everyone listening to this. You're just fine. Um. So.
Astrologist were even consulted to help plan military strategy, which
(05:58):
is absurd on its own. Um. And attempts were made
to reanimate the dead and create super soldiers of the
living using a combination of medical science and mysticism, which
is one of those things you hear and go that
must have been in the movies. But this was really
stuff they were doing. Yeah, there have been discoveries of
Nazi officers that were preserved after their deaths in the
(06:20):
hopes that they could one day bring them back to life.
Uh So, anybody that thinks that whole like mythology of
Walt Disney's head somewhere like that may sound creepy, but
they got nothing on Hitler's plans, Like he really had.
What he was hoping was going to be an army
of question mark zombie officers. Uh. So, once again, it's
(06:41):
it's way stranger than anything we could come up with,
I think in our own minds um. And if you
believe in the mythology, the hope here was really that
the on An air was going to find retroactive proof
of divine providence, specifically supporting Nazi dogmas. So among other things,
hit Ler allegedly wanted scientific proof somehow that God wanted
(07:05):
the Nazi Party to rise. So uh. But there was
also sort of on the other side of that, whether
or not they were successful in finding that proof, there
was also a big effort at sort of a mysticism
propaganda where the on An Arab and the great minds
that were there, I mean, these were incredibly intelligent men
were really working to kind of build this mythos that
(07:28):
was going to support the idea of a perfect Areyan
race and the Nazi goals being tied into that. So
it was kind of a dual process at that point,
it was like, we're searching for the proof, but until
we have the proof, we're gonna make stuff up. And
they were They were known for their propaganda efforts. I mean,
you hear about their propaganda efforts everywhere, and that they
would use mythology like this to play into that, it's
(07:50):
just not surprising. So next up, Brian and I are
going to talk a little bit about art history and
how a famous painting may have been part of Hitler's
hopes for ultimate power. And we're also going to talk
a little bit about the monuments Men, both the movie
(08:12):
and the book, and you will get some bonus unhappy
baby noises. So the next thing we're going to talk
about is a really important outside of any of the
Nazi story. It's a really important piece of art historically,
and that is the adoration of the mystic Lamb. And
(08:33):
this is an example of non gold quests that Hitler
directed in search of both art and mystical power connected
to the same painting. So we're going to talk a
little bit about this painting. So the painting is considered
by many to be one of the most influential paintings
of all time. It was first it was commissioned by
(08:53):
Hubert vonike Uh and then his brother after he died,
finished it and took him eight years to finish Uh
and his name is Jan Vonis. And it was the
Adoration of the Mystic Lamb. And it's one of only
four pieces of art mentioned in the Treaty of Versailles
as part of a stipulation that this work must be
returned to Belgium from Germany. And that particular fact fact
(09:15):
always just stuck in Hitler's kraw. Hitler notoriously hated the
Treaty of Versaill and much of what he did in
undoing that, undoing it through World War Two in the
beginnings of that were directly direct results of his his
hatred for it. Um. The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb
was also the first major oil painting when it was
(09:37):
completed in fourteen thirty two, and he's the most stolen
painting of all time, which is kind of a dubious
um note of honor. But what's really interesting is that
the Nazis, and specifically Hitler and Harmon Garring, were obsessed
with this painting and they both wanted it desperately. They
each wanted it for themselves so bad that this became
(09:59):
like a a long train of maneuvering in one upmanship,
where like the shipment would be headed to Garing's house
and Hitler would divert it somehow and then try to
get it to his place, and then the other guy
would step in, and they were kind of playing this.
I'm hoping good natured. I don't know how you can
say good nature tied to either of them, but they
had this rivalry about it that they were both trying
(10:21):
to steal it from each other. At the same time,
they were super obsessed with its mystic power. So the
reason for this obsession they were buried. Obviously, the adoration
of the mystic land falls into the category of major art.
Uh So it fits the bill for the Fear or
museum plan that they wanted to carry out. But it
was also important to Hitler because it was in the
Northern Renaissance style, which Hitler had an affinity for, and
(10:45):
the subject of the painting is both holy and mystic.
Uh So it just sort of like there were a
lot of check boxes of criteria that he wanted to
to collect for his propaganda and for his museum, and
this just hit all of them. And it's important to
note as we start of talk about Hillier in his
obsession with our you guys know, he was a painter
before he was a weasel, right, Like, he started out
(11:07):
as a painter, but he wasn't very good at it. Uh,
so I guess the weasel path was the better option
for him. He seemed to have some proclivities there. But
this painting is really really lovely. It features more than
one hundred different figures. But at the center of the work,
this is really where things get very important. Uh. There's
an altar with a sacrificial lamb on it, and that
(11:28):
is a representation of Christ. And this lamb is bleeding
into a representation of the Holy Grail. And if rumors
are correct, uh, because you don't have a you know,
Hitler never like went on record saying this, but it
is believed that he thought that the painting contained a
code and that that code was going to reveal a
map to the Arm of Christie. The Arm of Chreastie,
(11:50):
known in English, is the instruments of Christ's Passion, uh,
consists of the physical objects related to the story of
Christ's life cycle. These include the crown of thor is
the Holy Grail, the Cross of Crucifixion, Jesus burial shroud,
and the sphere of Destiny. And if you're familiar with
a lot of the pop culture around this, these are
objects that come up a lot. Yeah. I mean, they're
(12:13):
sort of interesting and fascinating historically, and because people have
attached so much mystical power to them, it's natural that
they would really sow the seeds for some pretty interesting fiction. Uh.
And it probably won't surprise anyone to hear that many people,
including Hitler, believe that if a human could possess the
objects of the Arma Christie, that he or she could
take on supernatural powers. And who doesn't want that? Uh?
(12:37):
And Hitler was really really into this idea that he
was going to get these things and use his newfound
supernatural juju to win the war and complete the third
rights rise to power, and so this would cement his
place as this would kind of fall in line with
that idea that God wanted him to have this power,
and it would submit his place as the leader really
(12:57):
of the world eventually was his hope. On April tenth,
ninety four, one of a dozen oak panels from the
Adoration of the Mystic Land was stolen from the St.
Babo Cathedral in Ghent, Belgium. Uh. And if you're wondering
only why why why only one panel was snatched, It's
possibly at least in part because the work, which is
also called the Ghent Altarpiece uh, is mammoth. It's it
(13:19):
weighs approximately two tons and it's the size of a
barn door. Yeah, that's not something you just like stick
under your shirt and run with. Um. Oh that poor child. Uh.
So this missing panel is also known as the Righteous
Judges panel, and this features a group of wise men.
(13:40):
And in nine before the Nazis had the other eleven panels, uh,
the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Gabbot's and s S leader
Heinrich Kimlair were hatching this plan that they were going
to find the missing Righteous Judges Panel because they wanted
to give it as a gift to Hitler. Uh. They
didn't find it. But the fact that that that specific
(14:01):
panel was stolen perhaps to keep it out of Nazi
hands uh, and then was hunted for by key leaders
in the Nazi party has continued to give weight to
the idea that it perhaps did carry this map that
Hitler believed in. Um, it's it's interesting in the whole
gain To Alterpiece. Uh, it doesn't get into Indiana Jones.
But if you've seen the film monuments Men, that's sort
(14:24):
of the the crux of that movie is them finding
the stolen pieces of the gain To Alterpiece that the
Nazis made away with, and that that the movie mallishes
a lot, as movies do, but it's based on a
really great, uh nonfiction book called Curiously the monuments Men
UM by Robert Edgel with Brett Twitter and Uh, it's
(14:47):
just a really fascinating story and the movie is just
fun to watch. And even if the movie is not
as accurate, like the shots in the movie of the
gain To Alterpiece or just gorge just to look at. Yeah,
it's one of those paintings that you've seen. It kind
of box you back. There's just so much to it
and you understand why it's so incredibly important in our history. Uh.
But now we're going to shift off of arts, as
(15:07):
much as I would like to talk about it forever,
We're gonna talk about Nazi gold. Uh So, when it
came to gold looting under the Nazis, if you don't
know about any of this, you might brace it's a
little gruesome. Um, they left no stone unturned, and there
is even evidence that they took gold out of the
fillings of teeth of people in concentration camps and then
(15:31):
melted that down and reused it to make gold fillings
for Nazi officers. It's so gross, including Hitler himself. So
a document discovered in two thousand nine indicated that Hitler's
dentists had on hand eleven pounds of dental gold collected
at concentration camps and kept on hand for the treatment
of those senior Nazi officers. And while eleven pounds doesn't
(15:54):
seem like a lot in terms of gold, it is.
And when you consider that it was extracted from existing fillings,
it's that that represents a lot of fillings and a
lot of gold. Yeah. I mean, if you have a filling,
you know it's a dinky amount in your tooth. So
that's a lot of people's gold teeth that were gold
fillings that were used. But of course they also took
(16:15):
gold jewelry from prisoners. Uh. And there's really no telling
how many gold objects were stolen throughout Europe during the
Nazi looting enterprise and then melted down and recast into
ingots with the Nazi stamp on them. And because of
the recasting process, it's really impossible to identify the sources
that those gold ingots were made from. For many years
(16:36):
there was a legend of a lost train loaded with
gold and other treasures that the Nazis tried to get
out of eastern Germany as the Soviets approached at the
end of World War Two. And you'll see a little
bit of that in Monuments to not just Gold but
Trains full of art. It's just a good movie and
it pushes all my history and art nerd buttons in
all the right ways. Um. But according to the story,
(16:58):
the train entered a tunnel complex and Poland and vanished.
It was never seen again. But this story about this
train going into this tunnel and then vanishing, while it
sounds like a really good sort of ghostie story, it
is basically this account is based on a situation of
relayed information, like a wacky game of telephone, where it's
sort of like I heard it from my friend who
(17:20):
as a cousin who works with a guy who says
he talked to somebody that saw that train go into
that tunnel. So there's really not solid evidence. It's all
circumstantial and kind of word of mouth. Uh. There was
a secret Nazi base that was under construction beneath the
Polish Owl Mountain range where the train is alleged to
have been hidden, but that base was never completed. So
(17:40):
you guys talked about this about this gold train in
the Amber room in your Unearthed episode at the end
it's twenty fifteen, actually, and there's we're going to give
a bit of a recap with some additional information. Yeah,
last year many experts refuted the idea that any such
train ever existed. Uh, they did work based on magnetic, gravimetric,
(18:02):
and geo radar studies, and the issue had been brought
back into public focus by claims that the train had
been located and that a dig should immediately ensue. And
the two men who believed that they had found the train,
fus R Cooper and Andrea's Richter, Uh still believe in
the existence of the train, and based on the fact
that they have found what was once a tunnel entrance
that has been closed over. They really continued their assertion
(18:25):
that there has to be a train somewhere in those tunnels.
So according to Cobra and Richter, they were given information
by a witness to the cunning and stealthy stashing of
the train. Their alleged witness told that the Nazis, Uh
told told them the Nazis dug out an embankment to
lay out the diversion track, which they routed the train down,
and then once the train was secure, they removed all
(18:46):
the rails and reburied the embankment, which would make it
invisible to anyone and make it easy to lose. And
it sounds like one of those amazing high stories, like
how could they pull it off? But the Nazis were organized,
they had some skills, and they were able to really
like put plans into action, so it's not completely outside
the realm of possibility that they could have done something
like that. But again, there's no real scientific proof that
(19:10):
this train is sitting there. But there are a number
of reasons that this story gained so much traction and
is really held on, and there really are camps of
sort of like believers, despite evidence to the contrary. Uh
and Krakow's Mining Academy completed all these surveys and they
found absolutely nothing. But part of the appeal is that,
I mean, people love a juicy lost treasure story. I do,
(19:33):
sure many of you do. Uh. And the idea of
claiming gold that was stolen by the Nazis has its
own appeal. It doesn't really need an explanation. Of course,
we want to write the wrongs that were committed by
those people. So another reason, it's a very exciting story.
And it's a beneficial story to Poland um and specifically
to one city. So the district governor of Walbrick, is
(19:53):
that right, I think so where the gold Train was
alleged to be buried, told the Guardian last year quote,
I'm no in Indiana Jones, but my colleagues and the
rest of Poland now call me the gold Governor. We're
in a special economic zone. Life is tough, but the
gold Train has brought a tourism boom. So you can
see where people would want to propagate the story. I mean,
it was really beneficial to some areas of Poland that
(20:15):
we're struggling financially, and so I mean, I can't blame
them for wanting to kind of make a positive out
of this situation. But that brings us because the Governor
kindly mentioned Indiana Jones to Indiana Jones. But first we'll
have a word from us pot. So now to finish
(20:36):
off the chat with Brian Young about Nazis and Art,
Holly and Brian are going to talk a little bit
about how the stories of the Nazis obsessions with the
paranormal and the and the precious shaped some of the
story elements from the Indiana Jones films, and then how
we are ready for this last chunk of our actual
(20:59):
history US and which is where we start talking about
the Indiana Jones versions of these stories and in terms
of tone, the Indiana Jones movies really got a lot right.
Of course, many of those plot elements we've mentioned several
times were inspired by Hitler's well documented paranormal and occult obsessions.
So in Raiders Have Lost Arc, which is the first
film in the Indiana Jones saga, even early on it's
(21:23):
remarked that one can understand Hitler's interest in the arc
it shoots lightning, I don't know, power of God or something.
Marcus has that fantastically delivered line early on in the
film the Army which carries the Ark before It is
invincible and certainly in line with Hitler's belief that holy
relics would grant him supernatural power. And I feel compelled
to note that while that is the first film released
(21:45):
in the series, if you go chronologically time wise, Temple
of Doom is first. And I'm gonna go on record
and probably get booed. Tebla Doo is my favorite Indiana
Jones movie. I love Willie Scott. Oh, I love Wily Scott.
It's my second favorite actually, after Raiders Are the Lost Art.
I love that movie. And what I really love is
that if you watch the movies chronologically now, the Indian
(22:08):
and Joanes series starts with a big song and dance number.
It's kind of like the most bizarre and wonderful thing,
uh and completely out of tone for the rest of
the series. But I'm just delight in it. So we
mentioned earlier that the Nazi division the on An Arab
looked for the Ark of the Covenant in Ethiopia, and
that is a counter to where it lands in Raiders.
(22:30):
In that version, the digging happened in Tannis, Egypt, and
perhaps at the time, Egypt seemed more romantic than Ethiopia.
Although there have been real world theories that the Arc
ended up in Tannis, so it's possibly a case where
it just seemed a little bit more plausible in terms
of screenwriting than the area where the Nazis lived. Although
film has always been really sort of obsessed with Egypt, Yeah,
(22:51):
especially when you're talking about like archaeology, like Egypt is
sort of that mystical land. Yes, so um. Moving forward
to indianay Owns. In the Last Crusade, once again it's
Marcus Brody who utters the words which we we link
back to the beliefs of Hitler, though from the beloved
friend of India it sounds charming rather than insidious, and
he says the search for the Cup of Christ is
(23:13):
the search for the divine and all of us. I
love Marcus Brodie. I do too, which is why Last
Crusade is sort of mind least favorite, because they turned
him into kind of a joke. It's hard. Although I
like a lot of back guys to a big Bellock
fan who even they call them blosh, well they do
there in Tennis. But yeah, I'm just saying I like that.
(23:34):
I like that LIZARDI French dude. Um, I have this
I don't want them to ever remake it, don't get
me wrong, but I have this thing in my head
where if they ever remake it, clearly Vincent Cassel shall
play that part, because he's in that same genre of
lizardy Frenchmen that are oddly appealing. Um. But just as
as was the case of readers at the Lost Arc
in the Last Crusade, we find out that what they
(23:56):
really did was they got the tone and the idea
of this session and hunt correct. Uh. But the Nazis
interest in an item had kind of shifted in the
reality in terms of location. So in reality that on
an airb hunted for the Holy Grail in the former
French province of Languedoc, but in the film the Grail
chase leads to the Canyon of the Crescent Moon, once
(24:17):
again a very romantic looking desert scenario, which in reality
is in Jordan's certainly not France. Uh. And then in
terms of the last sort of not quite real obviously,
the Indiana Jones series has a bunch of wacky hi
jinks that are not grounded in reality, even though the
searches for these things are real. And I don't know,
(24:40):
do you think the Nazis ever specifically targeted a father
son archaeology teams. Wouldn't it be great if? Um no?
I I think no, But it wouldn't be great, Like,
wouldn't that be a wondrous discovery that's somewhere out there
there had been two men hunting for the same thing
and hunted by Nazis. It makes a really great story,
(25:02):
it does. I love the Indie movies and I love
talking about Nazi history because it's fascinating. I almost feel
like that rubber Necker at a at an accident, where
it's like it's so terrible, but I'm so fascinated by it,
And just the concept of so much intense and insane ideology,
so focused and so far reaching. I mean, I just
(25:28):
don't even know how you could pull off something like
that today. Well, that that level of fanaticism is something
that that you know, maybe we feel as unique to
the Nazis, but maybe maybe it could. I don't maybe
it could happen. We hope not. Alright. So that was
(25:50):
my conversation with Brian about this topic. But we actually
have a little more because of recent developments, because the
Nazi gold Train is a developing story. Of course, a
new set of reports came out right after this live
episode was recorded. It's not really a huge update or anything,
but it ties to this episode and our Unearthed episodes
from the end of So at the end of March
(26:13):
of this year, this is there were actually protests in
Poland at the site where the Nazi gold train is
believed by some to be even though there has been
very thorough surveying of the area which found no suggestion
of the train, there are residents that live around there. Again,
we talked about how this is kind of an economically
depressed area right now, uh, and these residents really want
(26:34):
the dig to move forward, and it appears that excavation
may finally soon get under way, so perhaps we will
have some new news, some real news soon. But I
really feel compelled also to point out that this news
has only really been filtered out and reported in kind
of tabloid style papers, so it's either not well substantiated,
although they do have quotes from the two men that
(26:55):
are behind this effort, or most press kind of feels
like this case really was closed after the surveys in
late found nothing really of merit. Yeah, even when we
were doing our Unearthed episodes. It was this back and forth,
yes it is no, it isn't, Yes it is no,
it isn't, and then finally ending with ah, yeah. So
they did all those geologic surveys, uh that we've talked
(27:18):
about in the live show, and they really feel like
there's nothing there. Most of the scientists that have studied
the area feel like there's nothing there. But there are
enough people that still think, no, we really think you
maybe didn't catch it, and there is still something here
that they're still fighting, you know, to to get it
unearthed and excavated and see if there's maybe some exciting
treasure down there. Uh. So if you want to hear
(27:38):
more from Brian Young, my fabulous co host on this one,
you can find him just about everywhere. The book that
we featured in our live show last October is a
children's illustrated history of presidential assassination. I know lots of
our listeners have bought it since they heard that episode,
and we have only heard rave reviews of it. Uh.
And his newest book, which is titled The Aeronaut, is
an alternate history fiction spy thriller. It is set in
(27:58):
World War One, and you can find those books and
him at Brian Young fiction dot com, or you can
connect with him on Twitter at swank Motron. And I
want to once again thanks Salt Like Comic Con for
having me out to the show. I was there for
five days and it was absolutely a blast every single day.
I had so much fun and such a delightful time.
And it's a great show that's very fan oriented. It's
not so much like a big marketing presence type con.
(28:22):
So if you like more fan style cons, this might
be a great one to check out. Again that it
is Salt Like Comic Con fan x and they're amazing,
So thank you again for having me. Do you also
have someone her, ma'am? I do? Uh? And this is
one that I again it's something somebody made for us,
because we've been getting a lot of really amazing handmade things. Uh.
And this is from our listener Jillian, who has some
(28:44):
of the most beautiful handwriting. It is so neat on
Earth and she says hello from beautiful banf Tracy and Holly,
thank you so much for the many hours of knowledge
and entertainment. I often cross stitch while listening, but quickly
realized that family and friends can only own so many
cross stitch pieces to be able to keep my hands busy,
I had to think of people outside of my circle. Holly,
I saw this pattern and immediately thought of you. I
(29:05):
hope it fits in well with your Haunted Mansion collection.
Cheers Jillian. Oh my gosh, she cross stitched me this
beautiful portrait of the hitchhiking ghost from the Haunted Mansion
with the Hanted Mansion in the background. It is so
cute and I'm absolutely hanging it in my living room
with all of my other Hanted Mansion pieces. I love it,
love it, love it so much. Thank you so much, Jillian.
I can never really tell you how much I appreciate
(29:27):
all of these things that people make for us, because
they're beautiful and they're so pretty. Everybody knows I'm like
a big art doork and I love art and creativity,
so it really always just blows me away and delights
me to to have that be something that people want
to share with us. I love it, love it, love it.
If you would like to write to us about your
love of art and creativity or anything else, you can
do so at History Podcast at how Stuff Works dot com.
(29:48):
You can also connect to us at Facebook dot com
slash mist in history, or on Twitter at miss in History.
You can find us at pinterest at pinterest dot com,
slash mist in history at miss in history dot tumbler
dot com, and on Instagram at missed Industry. If you
would like to learn a little bit more about what
Brian and I talked about, you can go to our
parents site, how stuff Works. Type in the word Nazis
(30:09):
in the search bar and you will get an article
called what did the Nazis have to do with Archaeology
among a variety of other topics on the subject. Uh.
If you would like to visit us, you can do
that at missed in history dot com, where you can
sign show notes for every episode Tracy and I have
worked on together, as well as an archive of every
episode ever of the show of All Time from way
back when it was just a few minutes long in
(30:30):
the very beginning, and we encourage you come and visit
us at missed in history dot com and how stuff
Works dot com for more on this and thousands of
other topics. Because it has to works dot Com
Welcome to steph you missed in History Class from how
works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Holly Fry and I'm Tracy B. Wilson, and we have
another episode from Solid Comic com Fanics. Once again, our
friend Brian Young was kind enough to guest host since
(00:22):
Tracy had some conflicts that weekend of the show. And
this is the second of two live shows that Brian
and I did at the con. The first one, if
you haven't already listened, focused on film history in Salt
Lake City, but for this one, we went a little
broader and a little more with touchstones on pop culture,
and we talked about some of the mythology of Hitler
and the Nazi obsession with the occult, and a little
(00:42):
bit about how those stories stacked up to the way
they're portrayed in fictional form in the Indiana Jones stories.
So for this first segment, Holly and Brian are going
to talk a little bit about the looting that was
done by the Nazis and an effort to collect art
for Hitler, and they'll also touch on the propaganda efforts
that were cre It's a further the position that the
Nazi rise to power was somehow part of a divine destiny. Hello,
(01:11):
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm
Brian Younges. I'm just waiting for Tracy. I'm sorry. Well,
there's part of me that wants you to say, and
I'm Tracy V. Wilson. I'm already going to do something
that will make her mad at me. I'm sure, so
I'm not going to do that. You can never make
me mad at We can start over if you know
we're good. Uh so, uh, it is fairly common knowledge.
(01:35):
I don't think I'm gonna blow anybody's minds with the
statement that Nazis were pretty prolific leaders during their time.
We know this from actual history, and even Indiana Jones
told us this because the Nazis are constantly racing against
our hero to reach these artifacts of great significance that
are both historically and mystically important. And so to set
the stage so you guys know kind of where we're
(01:57):
going on this little paths, we're gonna talk first about
a couple of Nazi divisions that were set up as
part of this ongoing hunt for treasures, and then we're
gonna talk a little bit about one particular piece of
art that Hitler really coveted and it's beautiful and amazing, uh,
and it's possible significance as a connection to ultimate and
supreme power. And then we're gonna talk a little bit
(02:18):
about Nazi gold, uh, including the modern claims that a
lost cash of gold and other precious items have been found.
And then we're gonna kind of segue into touching on
the ways that Indiana Deeniana Jones film series did and
did not get the whole Nazi story rights. That's the scoop.
Are you ready to go, let's do it. So we're
(02:39):
gonna start with so massive was the quest to accumulate
important art the Nazis, And actually they created an art
theft unit and that this was called the e r R.
And this intensive effort to steal great masterpieces was all
aimed at fulfilling Hitler's uh incredibly narcissistic dream of creating
(03:00):
a super museum, the fuer Museum, uh and I'm not
making that up, which was massive in size, where every
major piece of art would be housed. Yeah, you'll see
it sometimes described as the size of an entire city
in and of itself, which I have to say, as
much as he was clearly a jerk, we know from
history there's part of it. It's like, man, that would
be a cool museum. I mean it's from an art
(03:22):
history standpoint. I'm like, I don't know, could somebody cool
trying to do that instead? Uh? And as pieces were acquired,
they were usually stored because they never actually built this museum,
obviously we wouldn't know about it. Um, they were stored
in the I'm probably going to butcher this. I'm sorry
any German speakers. Altaz salt mine near the Austrian Alps,
and there were an estimated twelve thousand pieces of art
(03:46):
that were actually successfully stolen and stored there. So he
really was well on his way to fulfilling this dream.
So we know that that Hitler was Obviously he was
interested in art because he wanted to fill his fuer museum.
But he was also incredibly interested in the supernatural, which
is a lot of where the Indiana Jones stories come from.
So so he was so much interested in the supernatural.
But on July first, n Heinrich Hindler, the head of
(04:11):
the SS, established a paranormal research group within the Nazi organization. UH, Uh,
Pully's gonna have to help me with the pronunciation here,
since I'm horrible about that. But the the on an Arab,
which translates to Inheritance of the Forefathers, is also called
(04:31):
the Ancestral Heritage Research and Teaching Organization, and its job
was to research the paranormal. And it sounds like something
out of a Mike Manola comic book, doesn't it. I mean,
you see where the influences on a lot of comic
works come from when you look at some of the
really weird tendrils that the Nazi Party had out. Uh.
It's a really rich, rich soil from which to gather. Uh.
(04:54):
And in February of excavation departments to start of the
archaeology team of the s S was actually transferred over
to the on An AIRB, so they were joined together,
and this officially created the Nazi Archaeology Division and the
on An Arab and the work that it did was
so important to Hitler, and he was so into what
they were doing that he expanded it again in addition
(05:15):
to that merger UH later during World War Two. So
a variety of strange and often creepy efforts were made
by this group. They hunted Yetti in Tibet. Uh. The
Ark of the Covenant was something they sought in Ethiopia,
which is where you know, rageously lost ark kind of
got their ideas and they hunted for the Holy Grail
(05:36):
in Uh. I want you to try it, just to
see langua doc. You're close. It's long doc. If you
speak French, you'll see it and it looks like it
says Languedoc and some people say it that way in
the americanized version. Yeah, I'm horrible pronunciation. So I apologize
to everyone listening to this. You're just fine. Um. So.
Astrologist were even consulted to help plan military strategy, which
(05:58):
is absurd on its own. Um. And attempts were made
to reanimate the dead and create super soldiers of the
living using a combination of medical science and mysticism, which
is one of those things you hear and go that
must have been in the movies. But this was really
stuff they were doing. Yeah, there have been discoveries of
Nazi officers that were preserved after their deaths in the
(06:20):
hopes that they could one day bring them back to life.
Uh So, anybody that thinks that whole like mythology of
Walt Disney's head somewhere like that may sound creepy, but
they got nothing on Hitler's plans, Like he really had.
What he was hoping was going to be an army
of question mark zombie officers. Uh. So, once again, it's
(06:41):
it's way stranger than anything we could come up with,
I think in our own minds um. And if you
believe in the mythology, the hope here was really that
the on An air was going to find retroactive proof
of divine providence, specifically supporting Nazi dogmas. So among other things,
hit Ler allegedly wanted scientific proof somehow that God wanted
(07:05):
the Nazi Party to rise. So uh. But there was
also sort of on the other side of that, whether
or not they were successful in finding that proof, there
was also a big effort at sort of a mysticism
propaganda where the on An Arab and the great minds
that were there, I mean, these were incredibly intelligent men
were really working to kind of build this mythos that
(07:28):
was going to support the idea of a perfect Areyan
race and the Nazi goals being tied into that. So
it was kind of a dual process at that point,
it was like, we're searching for the proof, but until
we have the proof, we're gonna make stuff up. And
they were They were known for their propaganda efforts. I mean,
you hear about their propaganda efforts everywhere, and that they
would use mythology like this to play into that, it's
(07:50):
just not surprising. So next up, Brian and I are
going to talk a little bit about art history and
how a famous painting may have been part of Hitler's
hopes for ultimate power. And we're also going to talk
a little bit about the monuments Men, both the movie
(08:12):
and the book, and you will get some bonus unhappy
baby noises. So the next thing we're going to talk
about is a really important outside of any of the
Nazi story. It's a really important piece of art historically,
and that is the adoration of the mystic Lamb. And
(08:33):
this is an example of non gold quests that Hitler
directed in search of both art and mystical power connected
to the same painting. So we're going to talk a
little bit about this painting. So the painting is considered
by many to be one of the most influential paintings
of all time. It was first it was commissioned by
(08:53):
Hubert vonike Uh and then his brother after he died,
finished it and took him eight years to finish Uh
and his name is Jan Vonis. And it was the
Adoration of the Mystic Lamb. And it's one of only
four pieces of art mentioned in the Treaty of Versailles
as part of a stipulation that this work must be
returned to Belgium from Germany. And that particular fact fact
(09:15):
always just stuck in Hitler's kraw. Hitler notoriously hated the
Treaty of Versaill and much of what he did in
undoing that, undoing it through World War Two in the
beginnings of that were directly direct results of his his
hatred for it. Um. The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb
was also the first major oil painting when it was
(09:37):
completed in fourteen thirty two, and he's the most stolen
painting of all time, which is kind of a dubious
um note of honor. But what's really interesting is that
the Nazis, and specifically Hitler and Harmon Garring, were obsessed
with this painting and they both wanted it desperately. They
each wanted it for themselves so bad that this became
(09:59):
like a a long train of maneuvering in one upmanship,
where like the shipment would be headed to Garing's house
and Hitler would divert it somehow and then try to
get it to his place, and then the other guy
would step in, and they were kind of playing this.
I'm hoping good natured. I don't know how you can
say good nature tied to either of them, but they
had this rivalry about it that they were both trying
(10:21):
to steal it from each other. At the same time,
they were super obsessed with its mystic power. So the
reason for this obsession they were buried. Obviously, the adoration
of the mystic land falls into the category of major art.
Uh So it fits the bill for the Fear or
museum plan that they wanted to carry out. But it
was also important to Hitler because it was in the
Northern Renaissance style, which Hitler had an affinity for, and
(10:45):
the subject of the painting is both holy and mystic.
Uh So it just sort of like there were a
lot of check boxes of criteria that he wanted to
to collect for his propaganda and for his museum, and
this just hit all of them. And it's important to
note as we start of talk about Hillier in his
obsession with our you guys know, he was a painter
before he was a weasel, right, Like, he started out
(11:07):
as a painter, but he wasn't very good at it. Uh,
so I guess the weasel path was the better option
for him. He seemed to have some proclivities there. But
this painting is really really lovely. It features more than
one hundred different figures. But at the center of the work,
this is really where things get very important. Uh. There's
an altar with a sacrificial lamb on it, and that
(11:28):
is a representation of Christ. And this lamb is bleeding
into a representation of the Holy Grail. And if rumors
are correct, uh, because you don't have a you know,
Hitler never like went on record saying this, but it
is believed that he thought that the painting contained a
code and that that code was going to reveal a
map to the Arm of Christie. The Arm of Chreastie,
(11:50):
known in English, is the instruments of Christ's Passion, uh,
consists of the physical objects related to the story of
Christ's life cycle. These include the crown of thor is
the Holy Grail, the Cross of Crucifixion, Jesus burial shroud,
and the sphere of Destiny. And if you're familiar with
a lot of the pop culture around this, these are
objects that come up a lot. Yeah. I mean, they're
(12:13):
sort of interesting and fascinating historically, and because people have
attached so much mystical power to them, it's natural that
they would really sow the seeds for some pretty interesting fiction. Uh.
And it probably won't surprise anyone to hear that many people,
including Hitler, believe that if a human could possess the
objects of the Arma Christie, that he or she could
take on supernatural powers. And who doesn't want that? Uh?
(12:37):
And Hitler was really really into this idea that he
was going to get these things and use his newfound
supernatural juju to win the war and complete the third
rights rise to power, and so this would cement his
place as this would kind of fall in line with
that idea that God wanted him to have this power,
and it would submit his place as the leader really
(12:57):
of the world eventually was his hope. On April tenth,
ninety four, one of a dozen oak panels from the
Adoration of the Mystic Land was stolen from the St.
Babo Cathedral in Ghent, Belgium. Uh. And if you're wondering
only why why why only one panel was snatched, It's
possibly at least in part because the work, which is
also called the Ghent Altarpiece uh, is mammoth. It's it
(13:19):
weighs approximately two tons and it's the size of a
barn door. Yeah, that's not something you just like stick
under your shirt and run with. Um. Oh that poor child. Uh.
So this missing panel is also known as the Righteous
Judges panel, and this features a group of wise men.
(13:40):
And in nine before the Nazis had the other eleven panels, uh,
the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Gabbot's and s S leader
Heinrich Kimlair were hatching this plan that they were going
to find the missing Righteous Judges Panel because they wanted
to give it as a gift to Hitler. Uh. They
didn't find it. But the fact that that that specific
(14:01):
panel was stolen perhaps to keep it out of Nazi
hands uh, and then was hunted for by key leaders
in the Nazi party has continued to give weight to
the idea that it perhaps did carry this map that
Hitler believed in. Um, it's it's interesting in the whole
gain To Alterpiece. Uh, it doesn't get into Indiana Jones.
But if you've seen the film monuments Men, that's sort
(14:24):
of the the crux of that movie is them finding
the stolen pieces of the gain To Alterpiece that the
Nazis made away with, and that that the movie mallishes
a lot, as movies do, but it's based on a
really great, uh nonfiction book called Curiously the monuments Men
UM by Robert Edgel with Brett Twitter and Uh, it's
(14:47):
just a really fascinating story and the movie is just
fun to watch. And even if the movie is not
as accurate, like the shots in the movie of the
gain To Alterpiece or just gorge just to look at. Yeah,
it's one of those paintings that you've seen. It kind
of box you back. There's just so much to it
and you understand why it's so incredibly important in our history. Uh.
But now we're going to shift off of arts, as
(15:07):
much as I would like to talk about it forever,
We're gonna talk about Nazi gold. Uh So, when it
came to gold looting under the Nazis, if you don't
know about any of this, you might brace it's a
little gruesome. Um, they left no stone unturned, and there
is even evidence that they took gold out of the
fillings of teeth of people in concentration camps and then
(15:31):
melted that down and reused it to make gold fillings
for Nazi officers. It's so gross, including Hitler himself. So
a document discovered in two thousand nine indicated that Hitler's
dentists had on hand eleven pounds of dental gold collected
at concentration camps and kept on hand for the treatment
of those senior Nazi officers. And while eleven pounds doesn't
(15:54):
seem like a lot in terms of gold, it is.
And when you consider that it was extracted from existing fillings,
it's that that represents a lot of fillings and a
lot of gold. Yeah. I mean, if you have a filling,
you know it's a dinky amount in your tooth. So
that's a lot of people's gold teeth that were gold
fillings that were used. But of course they also took
(16:15):
gold jewelry from prisoners. Uh. And there's really no telling
how many gold objects were stolen throughout Europe during the
Nazi looting enterprise and then melted down and recast into
ingots with the Nazi stamp on them. And because of
the recasting process, it's really impossible to identify the sources
that those gold ingots were made from. For many years
(16:36):
there was a legend of a lost train loaded with
gold and other treasures that the Nazis tried to get
out of eastern Germany as the Soviets approached at the
end of World War Two. And you'll see a little
bit of that in Monuments to not just Gold but
Trains full of art. It's just a good movie and
it pushes all my history and art nerd buttons in
all the right ways. Um. But according to the story,
(16:58):
the train entered a tunnel complex and Poland and vanished.
It was never seen again. But this story about this
train going into this tunnel and then vanishing, while it
sounds like a really good sort of ghostie story, it
is basically this account is based on a situation of
relayed information, like a wacky game of telephone, where it's
sort of like I heard it from my friend who
(17:20):
as a cousin who works with a guy who says
he talked to somebody that saw that train go into
that tunnel. So there's really not solid evidence. It's all
circumstantial and kind of word of mouth. Uh. There was
a secret Nazi base that was under construction beneath the
Polish Owl Mountain range where the train is alleged to
have been hidden, but that base was never completed. So
(17:40):
you guys talked about this about this gold train in
the Amber room in your Unearthed episode at the end
it's twenty fifteen, actually, and there's we're going to give
a bit of a recap with some additional information. Yeah,
last year many experts refuted the idea that any such
train ever existed. Uh, they did work based on magnetic, gravimetric,
(18:02):
and geo radar studies, and the issue had been brought
back into public focus by claims that the train had
been located and that a dig should immediately ensue. And
the two men who believed that they had found the train,
fus R Cooper and Andrea's Richter, Uh still believe in
the existence of the train, and based on the fact
that they have found what was once a tunnel entrance
that has been closed over. They really continued their assertion
(18:25):
that there has to be a train somewhere in those tunnels.
So according to Cobra and Richter, they were given information
by a witness to the cunning and stealthy stashing of
the train. Their alleged witness told that the Nazis, Uh
told told them the Nazis dug out an embankment to
lay out the diversion track, which they routed the train down,
and then once the train was secure, they removed all
(18:46):
the rails and reburied the embankment, which would make it
invisible to anyone and make it easy to lose. And
it sounds like one of those amazing high stories, like
how could they pull it off? But the Nazis were organized,
they had some skills, and they were able to really
like put plans into action, so it's not completely outside
the realm of possibility that they could have done something
like that. But again, there's no real scientific proof that
(19:10):
this train is sitting there. But there are a number
of reasons that this story gained so much traction and
is really held on, and there really are camps of
sort of like believers, despite evidence to the contrary. Uh
and Krakow's Mining Academy completed all these surveys and they
found absolutely nothing. But part of the appeal is that,
I mean, people love a juicy lost treasure story. I do,
(19:33):
sure many of you do. Uh. And the idea of
claiming gold that was stolen by the Nazis has its
own appeal. It doesn't really need an explanation. Of course,
we want to write the wrongs that were committed by
those people. So another reason, it's a very exciting story.
And it's a beneficial story to Poland um and specifically
to one city. So the district governor of Walbrick, is
(19:53):
that right, I think so where the gold Train was
alleged to be buried, told the Guardian last year quote,
I'm no in Indiana Jones, but my colleagues and the
rest of Poland now call me the gold Governor. We're
in a special economic zone. Life is tough, but the
gold Train has brought a tourism boom. So you can
see where people would want to propagate the story. I mean,
it was really beneficial to some areas of Poland that
(20:15):
we're struggling financially, and so I mean, I can't blame
them for wanting to kind of make a positive out
of this situation. But that brings us because the Governor
kindly mentioned Indiana Jones to Indiana Jones. But first we'll
have a word from us pot. So now to finish
(20:36):
off the chat with Brian Young about Nazis and Art,
Holly and Brian are going to talk a little bit
about how the stories of the Nazis obsessions with the
paranormal and the and the precious shaped some of the
story elements from the Indiana Jones films, and then how
we are ready for this last chunk of our actual
(20:59):
history US and which is where we start talking about
the Indiana Jones versions of these stories and in terms
of tone, the Indiana Jones movies really got a lot right.
Of course, many of those plot elements we've mentioned several
times were inspired by Hitler's well documented paranormal and occult obsessions.
So in Raiders Have Lost Arc, which is the first
film in the Indiana Jones saga, even early on it's
(21:23):
remarked that one can understand Hitler's interest in the arc
it shoots lightning, I don't know, power of God or something.
Marcus has that fantastically delivered line early on in the
film the Army which carries the Ark before It is
invincible and certainly in line with Hitler's belief that holy
relics would grant him supernatural power. And I feel compelled
to note that while that is the first film released
(21:45):
in the series, if you go chronologically time wise, Temple
of Doom is first. And I'm gonna go on record
and probably get booed. Tebla Doo is my favorite Indiana
Jones movie. I love Willie Scott. Oh, I love Wily Scott.
It's my second favorite actually, after Raiders Are the Lost Art.
I love that movie. And what I really love is
that if you watch the movies chronologically now, the Indian
(22:08):
and Joanes series starts with a big song and dance number.
It's kind of like the most bizarre and wonderful thing,
uh and completely out of tone for the rest of
the series. But I'm just delight in it. So we
mentioned earlier that the Nazi division the on An Arab
looked for the Ark of the Covenant in Ethiopia, and
that is a counter to where it lands in Raiders.
(22:30):
In that version, the digging happened in Tannis, Egypt, and
perhaps at the time, Egypt seemed more romantic than Ethiopia.
Although there have been real world theories that the Arc
ended up in Tannis, so it's possibly a case where
it just seemed a little bit more plausible in terms
of screenwriting than the area where the Nazis lived. Although
film has always been really sort of obsessed with Egypt, Yeah,
(22:51):
especially when you're talking about like archaeology, like Egypt is
sort of that mystical land. Yes, so um. Moving forward
to indianay Owns. In the Last Crusade, once again it's
Marcus Brody who utters the words which we we link
back to the beliefs of Hitler, though from the beloved
friend of India it sounds charming rather than insidious, and
he says the search for the Cup of Christ is
(23:13):
the search for the divine and all of us. I
love Marcus Brodie. I do too, which is why Last
Crusade is sort of mind least favorite, because they turned
him into kind of a joke. It's hard. Although I
like a lot of back guys to a big Bellock
fan who even they call them blosh, well they do
there in Tennis. But yeah, I'm just saying I like that.
(23:34):
I like that LIZARDI French dude. Um, I have this
I don't want them to ever remake it, don't get
me wrong, but I have this thing in my head
where if they ever remake it, clearly Vincent Cassel shall
play that part, because he's in that same genre of
lizardy Frenchmen that are oddly appealing. Um. But just as
as was the case of readers at the Lost Arc
in the Last Crusade, we find out that what they
(23:56):
really did was they got the tone and the idea
of this session and hunt correct. Uh. But the Nazis
interest in an item had kind of shifted in the
reality in terms of location. So in reality that on
an airb hunted for the Holy Grail in the former
French province of Languedoc, but in the film the Grail
chase leads to the Canyon of the Crescent Moon, once
(24:17):
again a very romantic looking desert scenario, which in reality
is in Jordan's certainly not France. Uh. And then in
terms of the last sort of not quite real obviously,
the Indiana Jones series has a bunch of wacky hi
jinks that are not grounded in reality, even though the
searches for these things are real. And I don't know,
(24:40):
do you think the Nazis ever specifically targeted a father
son archaeology teams. Wouldn't it be great if? Um no?
I I think no, But it wouldn't be great, Like,
wouldn't that be a wondrous discovery that's somewhere out there
there had been two men hunting for the same thing
and hunted by Nazis. It makes a really great story,
(25:02):
it does. I love the Indie movies and I love
talking about Nazi history because it's fascinating. I almost feel
like that rubber Necker at a at an accident, where
it's like it's so terrible, but I'm so fascinated by it,
And just the concept of so much intense and insane ideology,
so focused and so far reaching. I mean, I just
(25:28):
don't even know how you could pull off something like
that today. Well, that that level of fanaticism is something
that that you know, maybe we feel as unique to
the Nazis, but maybe maybe it could. I don't maybe
it could happen. We hope not. Alright. So that was
(25:50):
my conversation with Brian about this topic. But we actually
have a little more because of recent developments, because the
Nazi gold Train is a developing story. Of course, a
new set of reports came out right after this live
episode was recorded. It's not really a huge update or anything,
but it ties to this episode and our Unearthed episodes
from the end of So at the end of March
(26:13):
of this year, this is there were actually protests in
Poland at the site where the Nazi gold train is
believed by some to be even though there has been
very thorough surveying of the area which found no suggestion
of the train, there are residents that live around there. Again,
we talked about how this is kind of an economically
depressed area right now, uh, and these residents really want
(26:34):
the dig to move forward, and it appears that excavation
may finally soon get under way, so perhaps we will
have some new news, some real news soon. But I
really feel compelled also to point out that this news
has only really been filtered out and reported in kind
of tabloid style papers, so it's either not well substantiated,
although they do have quotes from the two men that
(26:55):
are behind this effort, or most press kind of feels
like this case really was closed after the surveys in
late found nothing really of merit. Yeah, even when we
were doing our Unearthed episodes. It was this back and forth,
yes it is no, it isn't, Yes it is no,
it isn't, and then finally ending with ah, yeah. So
they did all those geologic surveys, uh that we've talked
(27:18):
about in the live show, and they really feel like
there's nothing there. Most of the scientists that have studied
the area feel like there's nothing there. But there are
enough people that still think, no, we really think you
maybe didn't catch it, and there is still something here
that they're still fighting, you know, to to get it
unearthed and excavated and see if there's maybe some exciting
treasure down there. Uh. So if you want to hear
(27:38):
more from Brian Young, my fabulous co host on this one,
you can find him just about everywhere. The book that
we featured in our live show last October is a
children's illustrated history of presidential assassination. I know lots of
our listeners have bought it since they heard that episode,
and we have only heard rave reviews of it. Uh.
And his newest book, which is titled The Aeronaut, is
an alternate history fiction spy thriller. It is set in
(27:58):
World War One, and you can find those books and
him at Brian Young fiction dot com, or you can
connect with him on Twitter at swank Motron. And I
want to once again thanks Salt Like Comic Con for
having me out to the show. I was there for
five days and it was absolutely a blast every single day.
I had so much fun and such a delightful time.
And it's a great show that's very fan oriented. It's
not so much like a big marketing presence type con.
(28:22):
So if you like more fan style cons, this might
be a great one to check out. Again that it
is Salt Like Comic Con fan x and they're amazing,
So thank you again for having me. Do you also
have someone her, ma'am? I do? Uh? And this is
one that I again it's something somebody made for us,
because we've been getting a lot of really amazing handmade things. Uh.
And this is from our listener Jillian, who has some
(28:44):
of the most beautiful handwriting. It is so neat on
Earth and she says hello from beautiful banf Tracy and Holly,
thank you so much for the many hours of knowledge
and entertainment. I often cross stitch while listening, but quickly
realized that family and friends can only own so many
cross stitch pieces to be able to keep my hands busy,
I had to think of people outside of my circle. Holly,
I saw this pattern and immediately thought of you. I
(29:05):
hope it fits in well with your Haunted Mansion collection.
Cheers Jillian. Oh my gosh, she cross stitched me this
beautiful portrait of the hitchhiking ghost from the Haunted Mansion
with the Hanted Mansion in the background. It is so
cute and I'm absolutely hanging it in my living room
with all of my other Hanted Mansion pieces. I love it,
love it, love it so much. Thank you so much, Jillian.
I can never really tell you how much I appreciate
(29:27):
all of these things that people make for us, because
they're beautiful and they're so pretty. Everybody knows I'm like
a big art doork and I love art and creativity,
so it really always just blows me away and delights
me to to have that be something that people want
to share with us. I love it, love it, love it.
If you would like to write to us about your
love of art and creativity or anything else, you can
do so at History Podcast at how Stuff Works dot com.
(29:48):
You can also connect to us at Facebook dot com
slash mist in history, or on Twitter at miss in History.
You can find us at pinterest at pinterest dot com,
slash mist in history at miss in history dot tumbler
dot com, and on Instagram at missed Industry. If you
would like to learn a little bit more about what
Brian and I talked about, you can go to our
parents site, how stuff Works. Type in the word Nazis
(30:09):
in the search bar and you will get an article
called what did the Nazis have to do with Archaeology
among a variety of other topics on the subject. Uh.
If you would like to visit us, you can do
that at missed in history dot com, where you can
sign show notes for every episode Tracy and I have
worked on together, as well as an archive of every
episode ever of the show of All Time from way
back when it was just a few minutes long in
(30:30):
the very beginning, and we encourage you come and visit
us at missed in history dot com and how stuff
Works dot com for more on this and thousands of
other topics. Because it has to works dot Com
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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