Latest / The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories / Hitler’s Secret Plan to Bomb New York—The Amerikabomber Revealed

Transcript

Hitler’s Secret Plan to Bomb New York—The Amerikabomber Revealed · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:04
Speaker 1: A German Air Force plane on its way to New York.
0:08
Speaker 1: Its secret mission to carry out Hitler's final plan of
0:12
Speaker 1: destruction and transform the skyline of New York into a
0:16
Speaker 1: towering inferno. It could have happened on September eleventh, half
0:22
Speaker 1: a century before that date, would indelibly burn itself into
0:26
Speaker 1: our collective memory. This film reveals for the first time
0:45
Speaker 1: Hitler's secret plans to attack the United States.
0:48
Speaker 2: He was a dream of considerable ability. He dreamed of
0:52
Speaker 2: a lot of things.
0:54
Speaker 3: To do as much damage as possible on the other
0:56
Speaker 3: side will back down eventually.
0:58
Speaker 1: Hitler's engineers were feverishly to develop innovative weapons of mass destruction.
1:05
Speaker 3: Does constructing weapons make you an evil person?
1:07
Speaker 1: There is no taboo that remains unbroken.
1:10
Speaker 2: It would have been feasible to find volunteers to two
1:14
Speaker 2: coins who his admissions.
1:17
Speaker 3: That we were willing to fly any missions, but we
1:20
Speaker 3: did hope to have at least a small chance of surviving.
1:26
Speaker 1: Hitler's insane dream was to use suicide attacks to bring
1:29
Speaker 1: the superpower United States to its knees.
1:32
Speaker 3: Tell her, tell me, I'll lay my own life on
1:36
Speaker 3: the line if it means I can kill many times
1:39
Speaker 3: as many people someplace else.
1:42
Speaker 2: I think he dreamed of the whole city just disappearing.
1:47
Speaker 2: In the first tone.
1:55
Speaker 1: Nineteen thirty seven, Hitler has been in power for four years.
2:00
Speaker 1: The scenario of a coming world war is already taking form.
2:07
Speaker 1: Hitler begins seeking contact with the air Force. It will
2:10
Speaker 1: play a special role and his plans to conquer the world.
2:14
Speaker 1: Arms deals worth millions.
2:16
Speaker 4: Are at stake.
2:25
Speaker 1: Augsburg, November twenty third, nineteen thirty seven. On this date,
2:33
Speaker 1: Hitler paid a visit to the Meserschmidt airplane factory. Villie Messerschmidt,
2:37
Speaker 1: one of the leading airplane engineers of the Third Reich,
2:40
Speaker 1: realizes which way the wind is blowing. Whoever can deliver
2:44
Speaker 1: the weapons Hitler needs for the wars he is planning
2:47
Speaker 1: to wage stands to win the race in the arms industry.
2:50
Speaker 1: At the end of the day long visit, Messerschmidt leads
2:53
Speaker 1: Hitler to a secret hangar. He stands before an enormous
2:57
Speaker 1: long range bomber. Hitler is impressed this, Messerschmid explains to
3:02
Speaker 1: him as an airplane he could use to attack America.
3:11
Speaker 3: Because Hitter was not an aircraft engineer, or even someone
3:14
Speaker 3: who understood technology, you couldn't persuade him with words or statistics.
3:19
Speaker 3: But you could show him visially. You could have this
3:21
Speaker 3: and it would look like this or this. After all,
3:23
Speaker 3: the best method for motivating someone to buy something.
3:27
Speaker 4: Am not rapid.
3:31
Speaker 1: The dummy of the long range bomber led to a
3:34
Speaker 1: cataclysmic misjudgment. From then on, Hitler believed he could wage
3:41
Speaker 1: a war of aggression against the United States, but it
3:45
Speaker 1: was still too early to take on the world's greatest power.
3:49
Speaker 1: So Hitler attempted to placate the United States into thinking
3:52
Speaker 1: it had nothing to fear. He was a wolf in
3:55
Speaker 1: Lamb's clothing and pretended to want peace.
4:00
Speaker 5: Yet clearest piolists Ali Jugen upright that the hawk to
4:05
Speaker 5: one up speak of the darks I lived out for
4:10
Speaker 5: the American script bas Bingle and the growing unbah.
4:14
Speaker 2: Sin, Hitler's word was not considered a really reliable word.
4:25
Speaker 2: So in spite of telling telling Roosevelt that he would
4:28
Speaker 2: never uh never invade, well be aggressive against America, no
4:34
Speaker 2: one believed him. This was not this was not a
4:38
Speaker 2: coin that had much value.
4:43
Speaker 1: The White House took the threat of an attack by
4:45
Speaker 1: Hitler's Germany quite seriously. The US military sketched out a
4:49
Speaker 1: horrible potential scenario. A transport zeppelin could carry German airplanes
4:55
Speaker 1: across the ocean to bomb New York. September one, nineteen
5:04
Speaker 1: thirty nine, Hitler's invasion of Poland begins. As a result,
5:09
Speaker 1: England and France declare war against Hitler. The raw materials
5:13
Speaker 1: they need are supplied by ships coming from the United States.
5:17
Speaker 1: The shipping routes in the Atlantic become a theater of war.
5:21
Speaker 1: German submarines begin torpedoing English freighters. Hitler expressly forbids his
5:34
Speaker 1: navy from attacking American ships. Under no circumstances does he
5:39
Speaker 1: wish to provoke the United States, not until he has
5:42
Speaker 1: finished preparations for a war with the American superpower. Meanwhile,
5:48
Speaker 1: the German industrial base competes for defense contracts. The engineers
5:53
Speaker 1: let their imaginations run wild. Many of them take the
5:56
Speaker 1: initiative and begin developing weapons for future battle, including those
6:01
Speaker 1: to take place across the Atlantic. Messerschmidt Project Office, December twentieth,
6:08
Speaker 1: nineteen forty Villi Messerschmidt orders his engineers to develop a
6:15
Speaker 1: fully functional airplane based on the mockup of the America bomber.
6:24
Speaker 1: Meser Schmidt is putting all his eggs in one basket.
6:28
Speaker 1: He knows the only way he can beat the competition
6:31
Speaker 1: and the race for defense contracts, is by being the
6:33
Speaker 1: first to deliver the bombers. Hitler once for his attack
6:37
Speaker 1: on the United States. The problem is, never before has
6:40
Speaker 1: an airplane succeeded in flying across the Atlantic and back
6:44
Speaker 1: without taking on extra fuel.
6:47
Speaker 2: At that time, it was not possible for us to
6:51
Speaker 2: fly our planes from America to England.
6:55
Speaker 4: They go from.
6:56
Speaker 2: America to Newfoundland to England. So the the extent to
7:03
Speaker 2: which they could build a plane to go without reeflew
7:09
Speaker 2: fueling or the way to America.
7:12
Speaker 4: Would have been very difficultichs.
7:17
Speaker 3: Far as I know, the task was to achieve eleven
7:20
Speaker 3: thousand kilometers and the load capacity of three tons. That
7:24
Speaker 3: was something no other airplane had ever been able to do,
7:28
Speaker 3: but the two sixty four was very close to accomplishing it.
7:35
Speaker 1: In the meantime, Hitler and Goering began developing alternatives to
7:39
Speaker 1: sending bombers directly from Germany to attack the United States.
7:43
Speaker 1: They planned to conquer Iceland, which could serve as a
7:46
Speaker 1: stepping stone in the Atlantic. German bombers would then be
7:50
Speaker 1: able to take off from there and attack America, because.
7:55
Speaker 3: That would have enabled him to cut off about a
7:57
Speaker 3: third of the distance between Europe and America. If I
8:00
Speaker 3: remember my geography, the distance would have been shortened by
8:03
Speaker 3: about a third if he had a logistical base. That
8:07
Speaker 3: means if you have a base there, you can land fuel,
8:09
Speaker 3: up station equipment, make repairs. It would be like a
8:13
Speaker 3: land based aircraft carriers out to.
8:15
Speaker 4: Speak, it made all sense.
8:18
Speaker 2: I mean, in war plans, you plan everything and then
8:23
Speaker 2: comes the problem of priorities.
8:26
Speaker 4: Do you have the ability, do you.
8:27
Speaker 2: Have the equipment, do you have the people, do you
8:30
Speaker 2: have the resources to do it? And are those vesources
8:33
Speaker 2: you being used for the best purpose or not.
8:39
Speaker 1: Hitler orders the commander in chief of the Navy and
8:42
Speaker 1: Marida to present plans for conquering Iceland. The invasion plan
8:47
Speaker 1: is code named Icarus. American intelligence agents never learned of
8:53
Speaker 1: these plans, but Washington foresaw the weakness Iceland could represent
8:58
Speaker 1: and Roosevel beat Hitler to the punch. He succeeded, and
9:04
Speaker 1: stationing American troops on the island.
9:13
Speaker 2: Was considered a possibility which we should deny to the Germans.
9:18
Speaker 2: You don't have to know their plans because logically you
9:21
Speaker 2: can figure out it's one of the possibilities, and therefore
9:25
Speaker 2: you should deny them that possibility.
9:30
Speaker 1: With the war between military strategists and secret services already
9:34
Speaker 1: under way, Roosevelt began probing Congress looking for a political
9:39
Speaker 1: majority for a war against Hitler's Germany. The American public
9:44
Speaker 1: was split between opponents and proponents of the war. An
9:50
Speaker 1: unusual demonstration was held in Madison Square Garden in New York.
10:21
Speaker 2: There were enormous amount of Germans who were pro Nazi
10:27
Speaker 2: and who wanted Germany to win the war. They were
10:30
Speaker 2: playing on eighty sixth Street the movie about the conquest
10:37
Speaker 2: of the Germans over the French, Zeke Investon I think
10:41
Speaker 2: it was called. And there were demonstrations pro German demonstrations,
10:47
Speaker 2: certainly in Yorkville, which was the center of the German population.
10:53
Speaker 2: And there were a lot of Irish who also were
10:55
Speaker 2: very anti anti English. And there was a certain a
10:59
Speaker 2: very large portion of the population who did not plant
11:03
Speaker 2: America to intervene in the war.
11:08
Speaker 1: At the grassroots level, the Deutsch amerikanes Chabunt was active
11:12
Speaker 1: as the US extension of the Nazi Party for the FBI.
11:16
Speaker 1: Members of the group, mostly Americans of German ancestry were
11:20
Speaker 1: considered potential agents of Hitler's and therefore a threat to
11:24
Speaker 1: the domestic security of the United States. In one famous case,
11:29
Speaker 1: they succeeded in cracking a German spy ram. Using a
11:32
Speaker 1: hidden camera. The FBI filmed German agents passing on secret
11:36
Speaker 1: documents and showed the film to the American populace.
11:42
Speaker 6: Walking into this trap is Colonel fitz Dukane, a leader
11:46
Speaker 6: of the spy ring and a professional German spy. He
11:56
Speaker 6: is removing diagrams of the M one rifle, an airborne tank,
12:00
Speaker 6: a pp boat, and a late model plane which he
12:03
Speaker 6: had concealed in his sock. The important looking man is
12:09
Speaker 6: Hotwood Pliss, who worked for the United States Line as
12:12
Speaker 6: a cook. In these pictures, Kliss has brought to Sawyer
12:16
Speaker 6: the blueprints of the steamship America, showing the plans of
12:20
Speaker 6: a secret gun in placements.
12:24
Speaker 1: But not all of Germany's spies were discovered. They were
12:28
Speaker 1: able to scout out potential attack targets in the United States.
12:32
Speaker 1: Plans were created specifying which American industrial plants it would
12:36
Speaker 1: be necessary to bomb in order to prevent the United
12:39
Speaker 1: States from upgrading its munitions. Now the Reich's Air Force
12:45
Speaker 1: Ministry is ready to give the go ahead for the
12:48
Speaker 1: americ Obama Messerschmidt has achieved his goal. He is expected
12:54
Speaker 1: to deliver the first thirty planes within a year's time. Washington,
13:03
Speaker 1: September eleventh, nineteen forty one. The White House knows nothing
13:08
Speaker 1: of Hitler's America bomber plans. Roosevelt announces to the people
13:13
Speaker 1: that the greatest danger comes from another direction.
13:17
Speaker 7: And within the past few weeks the discovery was made
13:20
Speaker 7: of secret air landing fields in Columbia within easy range
13:26
Speaker 7: of the Panama Canal.
13:30
Speaker 2: Colombia to America is not that far far off, I
13:34
Speaker 2: mean particularly, But they probably were some plans, but nothing,
13:42
Speaker 2: nothing really effective. And I don't think Roosevelt could have
13:49
Speaker 2: thought for one minute that he could enter the war
13:53
Speaker 2: on that pretext.
13:54
Speaker 4: A possible.
13:57
Speaker 2: Bombing attack from Columbia to the United States, if possible,
14:02
Speaker 2: could not be used as a casas pelly. And I'm
14:07
Speaker 2: sure Roosevelt was looking for a casaspelly.
14:13
Speaker 1: In his search for a reason to go to war.
14:16
Speaker 1: Roosevelt attempted to impress upon the American people the extent
14:20
Speaker 1: of the threat Hitler represented.
14:26
Speaker 7: Conspiracy has followed conspiracy, his intrigues, his plots, his machinations,
14:36
Speaker 7: its sabotage in this new world are all known to
14:41
Speaker 7: the government of the United States.
14:44
Speaker 2: Paranoia has always been a disease which comes very easily
14:50
Speaker 2: under those circumstances. I'm sure there was an enormous amount
14:53
Speaker 2: of paranoia.
14:57
Speaker 1: The paranoia was so widespread that Washington ordered its embassies
15:01
Speaker 1: in South America to prepare blacklists of ethnic German immigrants.
15:07
Speaker 1: Several thousand of them were subsequently handed over to the
15:10
Speaker 1: FBI by South American governments and incarcerated in the United States.
15:19
Speaker 1: Pearl Harbor, December seventh, nineteen forty one, Japanese aircraft attacked
15:27
Speaker 1: the most important military outpost of the United States in
15:30
Speaker 1: the Pacific, killing more than two thousand military personnel. It
15:35
Speaker 1: was the first time America had been attacked within its
15:39
Speaker 1: own territory, a traumatic experience that immediately brought about a
15:43
Speaker 1: change in the political views of the American public.
15:47
Speaker 4: Pearl Harbor.
15:49
Speaker 2: From one day to another, America knew it was in
15:53
Speaker 2: the war. There was no longer any doubt. Don't forget
15:59
Speaker 2: up to then. They were all kinds of movements for
16:01
Speaker 2: and against the minute we were in the war. The Americans,
16:06
Speaker 2: who were none interventionists, no longer had an argument.
16:13
Speaker 4: The decision had been taken.
16:16
Speaker 1: As a consequence of the Japanese attack. Hitler also decides
16:20
Speaker 1: to declare war on the United States. This was a
16:23
Speaker 1: development no one in Washington had anticipated at the time.
16:27
Speaker 2: He had enough enemies, he had enough problems, he had
16:30
Speaker 2: enough fronts he had to fight on, and it was
16:33
Speaker 2: surprising even to us.
16:35
Speaker 4: I think Hitler thought.
16:38
Speaker 2: That, seeing the Japanese war machine, that America would be
16:44
Speaker 2: so busy with the Japanese that they could not devote
16:47
Speaker 2: many resources to Europe.
16:51
Speaker 4: Ye of oximouth, the classes.
16:53
Speaker 3: It must have been clear to every adult that America
16:56
Speaker 3: could not be defeated. But there was a lot of
16:59
Speaker 3: ent here's the as and then after Russia with America
17:02
Speaker 3: didn't look so terribly bad anymore.
17:06
Speaker 1: Hitler now unleashes his hatred for America in the German
17:10
Speaker 1: Parliament the Rice Tag. He vilifies the American president as
17:14
Speaker 1: a Jew and a warmonger.
17:19
Speaker 5: Were distant visit in the Rose Station as TIA's in
17:25
Speaker 5: common after and that's a constable striking as we enjoyed
17:29
Speaker 5: russ and Alice Holden seen Lady Mussen beyond the usual
17:33
Speaker 5: parties of mertian Land, pres identifying the start and cast
17:37
Speaker 5: actortity to crive that's praised his mutuals any cast frank
17:41
Speaker 5: that they are a dis that is that Siels and
17:44
Speaker 5: canst companies. In the nick imprints me up and strutten
17:49
Speaker 5: behind the unstar as in the Apsic that union nearest
17:52
Speaker 5: Franklin roose Iron starting at the under and aligned supperlesson.
17:59
Speaker 1: The new enemy is now called America. Hitler instructs Gerbels
18:04
Speaker 1: to begin a propaganda offensive against the United States. A
18:07
Speaker 1: simple message is to be hammered home to the German populace.
18:11
Speaker 1: The United States of America is an uncultured Jewified nation
18:16
Speaker 1: ruled exclusively by monetary greed.
18:19
Speaker 8: Is the Tommy Platzina Leidenschaft, yeah Lta flies million and
18:25
Speaker 8: Resa Arabata in Rulos and gungazet. Thus is the vet
18:29
Speaker 8: Dizzy kempen Ontizia in Deutschland via a free environment as Kaspina,
18:36
Speaker 8: theing ghettos as Austin's Arshin and the alsteba On Taylor
18:40
Speaker 8: in anipopola that wes ha taftan on Pius Latins and
18:49
Speaker 8: apul Zoga taran kana yet seiner schmutzigen finger in als technique,
18:54
Speaker 8: the eigen a ladden.
18:56
Speaker 7: Is snell Suzamauna.
18:59
Speaker 2: Then Ses maintained that the Jews were running America, they
19:04
Speaker 2: were running the banks, they were running American politics, and Roosevelt,
19:09
Speaker 2: they claimed, with Jewish too.
19:12
Speaker 1: In response to the German propaganda, Roosevelt commissions anti propaganda
19:17
Speaker 1: films of his own, made for American audiences. They present
19:21
Speaker 1: a drastic view of Hitler's plans for world domination.
19:25
Speaker 9: Conquer Eastern Europe and you dominate the Heartland. Conquer the heartland,
19:35
Speaker 9: and you dominate the world island. Conquer the world island,
19:41
Speaker 9: and you dominate the world.
19:45
Speaker 1: In Aryan fertility camps, according to the American propaganda, babies
19:49
Speaker 1: were being produced with the speed and efficiency of an
19:51
Speaker 1: assembly line.
19:53
Speaker 10: Of course, the children from this assembly line belong to
19:55
Speaker 10: the state to be scientifically claimed for conquest.
20:00
Speaker 1: Hitler's declared objective, they said, was to raise the Nazi
20:03
Speaker 1: armies of tomorrow Today.
20:07
Speaker 9: Every day in all German customers.
20:41
Speaker 1: There is growing fear in Washington of a potential threat
20:44
Speaker 1: through the many ethnic Germans who live in the United States.
20:48
Speaker 1: Roosevelt decides to put three thousand of them in state custody.
20:52
Speaker 1: They are sent to internment camps built especially for this
20:55
Speaker 1: purpose in Texas and Florida.
20:59
Speaker 2: If you didn't voluntarily come, you were arrested and sent there.
21:03
Speaker 2: This was not a concentration cab. This was a detention
21:06
Speaker 2: cab to take you out of the population and to
21:09
Speaker 2: supervise you and to make sure that you did not
21:13
Speaker 2: get involved in destabilizing the country. You're an enemy alien
21:18
Speaker 2: was under the Geneva Convention.
21:22
Speaker 1: Germans were not the only ones in turn. Japanese nationals
21:26
Speaker 1: were also detained. They spent the duration of the Second
21:30
Speaker 1: World War behind bars as next door neighbors in a
21:34
Speaker 1: parallel world. The American government was satisfied with the success
21:44
Speaker 1: of its security measures.
21:47
Speaker 2: They took away a destabilizing element in the population. You
21:52
Speaker 2: didn't have people routing for Hitler on eighty sixth Street
21:57
Speaker 2: in New York. That said, when it contributed to the
22:01
Speaker 2: peace and the well being of the country.
22:05
Speaker 1: While America was busy defending its internal security, the German
22:09
Speaker 1: Air Force still had no planes with which it could
22:12
Speaker 1: attack the United States. Gouring began pressuring Villie Messerschmidt to
22:16
Speaker 1: finally come through and deliver the America Bomber the regime
22:19
Speaker 1: longed for, but messer Schmidt had to admit that his
22:23
Speaker 1: calculations were a little too optimistic.
22:29
Speaker 3: It's not that they made a false assumption. It's definitely
22:32
Speaker 3: not that they would have failed that way too. That
22:34
Speaker 3: would have been noticed. I mean, if they'd done calculations
22:38
Speaker 3: that didn't compute. But they had a range of tolerance,
22:41
Speaker 3: so they always just used the most optimistic assumptions. Others
22:45
Speaker 3: do the same thing, but there was always the chance
22:47
Speaker 3: that customer would place an order.
22:52
Speaker 1: Messer Schmidt was unable to fulfill his promise to find
22:55
Speaker 1: a way to cover the distance to the United States
22:58
Speaker 1: and back. Fearful of losing the huge contract, he presented
23:02
Speaker 1: a stopgap solution to the Reich's Air Force Ministry. It
23:06
Speaker 1: would be possible to refuel the America Bomber in mid
23:09
Speaker 1: flight with the help of another aircraft. While Messerschmidt's engineers
23:14
Speaker 1: are busy perfecting and untested technology, American assembly lines began
23:19
Speaker 1: producing the bombers the United States needed for its war
23:22
Speaker 1: against Hitler's Germany. The Americans had a decisive advantage. Their
23:27
Speaker 1: bombers didn't have to fly non stop across the Atlantic.
23:30
Speaker 1: They could be transported first to England and set out
23:33
Speaker 1: to attack Germany from there. The new threat from the
23:37
Speaker 1: Skies forces Hitler's hand. He must find a way to
23:40
Speaker 1: stop the American arms industry. Brittany, May twenty seventh, nineteen
23:48
Speaker 1: forty two, a German submarine departs from the Atlantic coast
23:52
Speaker 1: of France and heads towards the United States. On board
23:56
Speaker 1: is a troop of German agents whose mission is to
23:59
Speaker 1: carry out some sabotage operations in America. The code name
24:03
Speaker 1: of the secret command troop is Pastorios. On June thirteenth,
24:14
Speaker 1: the submarine reaches New York's Long Island in the dark
24:18
Speaker 1: of the early morning hours. The German agents, equipped with
24:21
Speaker 1: several kilograms of explosives, go on land. A US Coast
24:26
Speaker 1: Guard agent patrolling the beach discovers the Germans. They threaten
24:30
Speaker 1: him and pay him two hundred and sixty dollars, hoping
24:33
Speaker 1: to bribe him into forgetting what he has seen. The
24:41
Speaker 1: agents arrive at the nearest train station disguised as normal Americans.
24:46
Speaker 1: They board a commuter train to New York.
24:54
Speaker 2: I mean four people with a limited amount of dynamite
24:58
Speaker 2: with a limited amount of FA access to really worthwhile
25:02
Speaker 2: targets was not going to make much difference, and I
25:07
Speaker 2: think it was more psychologically the Germans wanted to do
25:11
Speaker 2: it to show what they could do. It would not
25:14
Speaker 2: have been an effective way of in any way slowing
25:17
Speaker 2: the war effort.
25:20
Speaker 1: The Coast Guard informs the FBI that the Nazis have
25:23
Speaker 1: smuggled a command troop of agents into the country. The
25:26
Speaker 1: group is believed to be in New York. The FBI
25:29
Speaker 1: immediately cranks up the largest manhunt in American history, but
25:33
Speaker 1: to no avail. The agents take rooms in a luxury hotel.
25:39
Speaker 1: Once there, presenting himself as a defector capable of revealing
25:43
Speaker 1: the Nazi sabotage plans. Their leader, John Dash, discloses the
25:48
Speaker 1: entire planned operation to the FBI. The other agents are
25:52
Speaker 1: subsequently arrested. Dash also informs the FBI about the impending
25:56
Speaker 1: arrival of additional sabotage commandos.
26:06
Speaker 10: Begging for sabotage material buried by Nazi agents landed from
26:09
Speaker 10: a U boat on the coast of Florida, and the
26:12
Speaker 10: boxes are found by the FBI. Four saboteurs came ashore here,
26:17
Speaker 10: while four others were secretly landed on Long Island. The
26:19
Speaker 10: boxes contained material investigated by the FBI TNT for sabotage explosions.
26:26
Speaker 2: I think it was a useless operation, a eustless operation
26:30
Speaker 2: which youthed resources not very wisely. The people themselves were
26:38
Speaker 2: not extremely competent. They were not professionals, they were not
26:42
Speaker 2: particularly well trained. They didn't exactly know what they're supposed
26:46
Speaker 2: to do. They did have contacts. Those contacts, unfortunately, also
26:52
Speaker 2: suffered afterwards from their experience, and they were very quickly eliminated.
26:59
Speaker 1: FBI Chief Hoover takes advantage of this opportunity to remind
27:03
Speaker 1: the American people to be even more vigilant.
27:06
Speaker 11: Otho saboteurs may try to come to our shows, they
27:09
Speaker 11: must be stopped. We asked every citizen to immediately report
27:14
Speaker 11: any information regarding espionage, sabotage, or Unamerican activities to the
27:20
Speaker 11: Federal Bureau of Investigation.
27:22
Speaker 4: Hoover was the big eye. He found him.
27:25
Speaker 2: Never mind that the man came in and gave himself
27:28
Speaker 2: up and gave him all the details he wanted, all
27:31
Speaker 2: the credit, and he got old of the credet.
27:36
Speaker 1: But there was one detail Hoover kept from the public
27:39
Speaker 1: that the agents had a second mission to carry out
27:42
Speaker 1: acts of terrorism in the heart of New York as
27:45
Speaker 1: part of an effort to shock the American public.
27:51
Speaker 2: If a bomb had gone off in Macy's, or a
27:53
Speaker 2: bomb would have gone off in Grand Central Station, it
27:56
Speaker 2: would have caused a certain amount of worry, in acid
28:00
Speaker 2: amount of.
28:04
Speaker 4: Public public hysteria.
28:09
Speaker 1: Hitler's terrorist agents received harsh sentences meant to discourage others
28:14
Speaker 1: from attempting anything similar. Except for John Dash and another defector,
28:19
Speaker 1: they were all sentenced to death. Augsburg Airfield, December twenty third,
28:30
Speaker 1: nineteen forty two. The day has finally arrived, six months
28:37
Speaker 1: later than originally planned. Messerschmidt's America bomber is ready for
28:41
Speaker 1: its inaugural flight under test pilot Carl Bauer. The first
28:46
Speaker 1: flight is successful, but before long its lightweight construction, intended
28:51
Speaker 1: to guarantee the plane can fly the long distance to America,
28:54
Speaker 1: presents problems.
28:56
Speaker 4: Messr Schmitz Frups.
28:56
Speaker 3: Target message planes always the most lightweight, but they were
29:02
Speaker 3: always pushing the limit as far as size is concerned,
29:05
Speaker 3: and this also proved to be the case when the
29:07
Speaker 3: two six's four was tested. The engines tended to fall off,
29:10
Speaker 3: the other parts occasionally failed to operate properly due to
29:14
Speaker 3: their extreme lightweight construction. Basically, no problem. That's how you
29:17
Speaker 3: get the lightest planes by not reinforcing everything, and that
29:21
Speaker 3: was message of its principle, to build them as lightweight
29:23
Speaker 3: as possible, and if something falls apart or proves to
29:26
Speaker 3: be too weak, then it would be reinforced.
29:30
Speaker 1: The authorities at the Reich's Air Force Ministry began to
29:33
Speaker 1: have their doubts about Messerschmidt's promises during decided the Air
29:37
Speaker 1: Force needed to entertain new plans about how to bomb
29:41
Speaker 1: the United States. In a secret meeting in March fifteenth,
29:44
Speaker 1: nineteen forty three, the air travel experts of the Third
29:48
Speaker 1: NICH discussed novel ways of attacking the United States of America.
29:54
Speaker 1: A young colonel named Victor fan Losberg suggested an extraordinary operation.
29:59
Speaker 1: He said he would like to fly a special mission
30:02
Speaker 1: to drop eight ton bombs throughout New York City.
30:08
Speaker 3: There were ideas such as doing the whole thing with
30:14
Speaker 3: a seaplane. Blowman Foss that built the two to two
30:19
Speaker 3: two I think it was that was already capable of
30:23
Speaker 3: flying tremendous distances and start and land even in three
30:29
Speaker 3: meter waves, so that meant it was conceivable, for example,
30:35
Speaker 3: to fly with a full load to a distance about
30:38
Speaker 3: one thousand kilometers off the coastline, whereas submarine would be
30:42
Speaker 3: waiting to supply the logistics such as fuel and cargo,
30:46
Speaker 3: in other words, bombs, and the plane would then have
30:50
Speaker 3: no problems flying the final one thousand kilometers and attacking
30:55
Speaker 3: the target. Say it was New York. Return, refuel again,
31:00
Speaker 3: and fly home.
31:00
Speaker 4: So they tied them.
31:01
Speaker 3: Youph and get in the Holliday.
31:05
Speaker 1: The generals expressed interest in los Bag's plan, especially after
31:09
Speaker 1: he said in response to a question that his goal
31:12
Speaker 1: would be to hit symbolic targets. Among others, he would
31:15
Speaker 1: aim for the Jewish neighborhood.
31:19
Speaker 2: The way the Nazis thought they were as much interested
31:24
Speaker 2: in propaganda as they were in effective action.
31:29
Speaker 4: It would have created in America a certain amount of.
31:35
Speaker 2: Lack of confidence in the government being able to protect
31:39
Speaker 2: the population the way the eleven nine attack the nine
31:46
Speaker 2: eleven attack. The effect of the nine eleven attack was
31:50
Speaker 2: more of why didn't you, Why weren't you able to
31:55
Speaker 2: tell about it beforehand and protect us from it, And
31:58
Speaker 2: the same thing would have happened with this.
32:02
Speaker 1: Losberg's risky plan of attack was approved, but due to
32:10
Speaker 1: unfavorable weather conditions, the mission had to be postponed until
32:14
Speaker 1: the spring of nineteen forty four. By that time, however,
32:18
Speaker 1: the United States had largely succeeded in driving the German
32:21
Speaker 1: submarines away from its coasts. It was too late for
32:25
Speaker 1: Losberg's plan. While the German air force could only dream
32:34
Speaker 1: of bombing America, American bombers had long since conquered the
32:38
Speaker 1: skies over Germany. They blanketed German cities and industrial centers
32:42
Speaker 1: with bombs. Hitler was livid about the failure of his
32:46
Speaker 1: air force and accused Gurring of incompetence. He ordered his
32:50
Speaker 1: armaments minister, Albert Speer, to come up with alternative ways
32:54
Speaker 1: to mount an assault on America. Hitler's headquarters Volschanzen, July seventh,
33:03
Speaker 1: nineteen forty three. It was on this day that Albert
33:07
Speaker 1: Speer brought two up and coming rocket engineers to meet Hitler.
33:12
Speaker 1: Their names were Vaner vrom Braun and Walter Dornbacher. The
33:16
Speaker 1: two showed Hitler a secret film that would radically change
33:20
Speaker 1: his war plans with regard to America. The film showed
33:29
Speaker 1: the lift off of a rocket that would shortly thereafter
33:32
Speaker 1: be named the V two and with which the German
33:35
Speaker 1: Army would target England beginning in nineteen forty four. Hitler
33:40
Speaker 1: was impressed by the film. With a rocket like this,
33:43
Speaker 1: at least in the visionary plans of Dornberger and Van Braun,
33:47
Speaker 1: it would soon be possible to launch an attack on America.
34:02
Speaker 1: Fascinated by this daring plan, Hitler made rocket research and
34:06
Speaker 1: development top priority. Dornberger and Van Brown achieved their goal
34:12
Speaker 1: in their project center on the island of Pennamunde. They
34:15
Speaker 1: began developing the A ten, an intercontinental rocket designed to
34:19
Speaker 1: attack the United States, but the American Secret Service got
34:35
Speaker 1: wind of the plan.
34:39
Speaker 2: It was possible that they might have a rocket that
34:43
Speaker 2: could go all the way from Germany to America. And
34:46
Speaker 2: by the time we figured out that they might work
34:50
Speaker 2: on that, we had pretty well found out where the
34:54
Speaker 2: rockets were made and where the paths were from which
34:57
Speaker 2: they was ended, and we the sites.
35:04
Speaker 1: On August eighteenth, nineteen forty three, bombs rained down on
35:08
Speaker 1: the Pennamunda research facilities. Hitler immediately placed the execution of
35:13
Speaker 1: the secret rocket project under the direct responsibility of SS
35:18
Speaker 1: Chief Heinrich Himmler. It was he who developed Project Cement.
35:23
Speaker 1: The plans called for a huge kilometers long production plan
35:26
Speaker 1: to be built underground in order to protect it from
35:29
Speaker 1: Allied bombing raids in Austria saults Kamagoud region and under
35:34
Speaker 1: the direction of the SS, work began in one of
35:37
Speaker 1: the largest construction sites of the Third Reich Cadepopzi.
35:44
Speaker 3: When we got to aben Ze to work in a quarry,
35:48
Speaker 3: there were one thousand of us. After two months, on
35:54
Speaker 3: least five hundred of us were left.
35:57
Speaker 4: Sort.
35:58
Speaker 3: The others died of cold and from the long hours
36:03
Speaker 3: of hard work. It was always cold. It was always
36:09
Speaker 3: the raining or snow.
36:15
Speaker 1: Within a short period of time, Himmler had several thousand
36:18
Speaker 1: laborers brought to Edenz. The captors were forced to work
36:22
Speaker 1: twenty four hours a day under inhumane conditions, blasting tunnels
36:27
Speaker 1: into the mountain side for the America Rocket.
36:34
Speaker 3: I had a friend. His name was.
36:42
Speaker 4: Steinbrook.
36:44
Speaker 3: He was seventeen years old. His first day, he was
36:53
Speaker 3: killed when a heavy stone fell on him.
36:58
Speaker 12: Things like that happened, Oh maritterestorlia chinasta vule escogne.
37:09
Speaker 4: It would.
37:11
Speaker 7: S s.
37:12
Speaker 1: Brigade leader Hans Kamler drove the work at aben Ze
37:15
Speaker 1: mercilessly forward. The rocket researchers at Penemunde looked on as
37:20
Speaker 1: hundreds of forced laborers were worked to death. That was
37:23
Speaker 1: the only way the engineer's monstrous rocket project could take shape.
37:36
Speaker 1: Installed in one of the tunnels was an eighteen meters
37:39
Speaker 1: tall assembly room for the future America rocket. But even
37:45
Speaker 1: worse than the forced labor in the tunnels was the
37:48
Speaker 1: cement camp in which the prisoners were held. Those who
37:52
Speaker 1: collapsed under the brutal working conditions were systematically removed and
37:56
Speaker 1: housed in the so called hospital block. There, the SS
38:01
Speaker 1: allowed them to slowly starve to death. Of the prisoners
38:11
Speaker 1: who survived the tortuous work conditions at Abenz, a few
38:14
Speaker 1: occasionally tried to escape. These attempts were brutally punished.
38:23
Speaker 3: Two Russis tried to escape, They caught up with them
38:28
Speaker 3: and released dogs on them. The dogs tore them apart
38:32
Speaker 3: until they were dead. Then they brought their bodies to
38:36
Speaker 3: the gate of the camp and left them there for
38:38
Speaker 3: everybody to see, like a monument those gates.
38:43
Speaker 1: Was more than eight thousand forced laborers died in Abenz,
38:51
Speaker 1: trying to fulfill the insane dreams of the Nazi engineers.
38:55
Speaker 1: Seven kilometers of the underground tunnel system were finished, but
39:03
Speaker 1: then the military situation brought a sudden end.
39:05
Speaker 4: To the secret project.
39:07
Speaker 1: Orders came from the Armament's Ministry. From now on, instead
39:11
Speaker 1: of modern intercontinental rockets, the underground factories would produce synthetic fuel.
39:20
Speaker 1: The reason the Americans had located the central weakness of
39:24
Speaker 1: Hitler's war fuel production. Since May nineteen forty four, the
39:29
Speaker 1: Allies had been targeting German refineries. It was the beginning
39:33
Speaker 1: of a new strategy that was developed by the US
39:36
Speaker 1: Secret Service, and it would ultimately decide the war.
39:42
Speaker 2: Intelligence is based on many things. It's based on open sources,
39:50
Speaker 2: reading newspapers and listening to radio, on information you get
39:58
Speaker 2: from diplomatic sources, an information you get from intelligence agents,
40:04
Speaker 2: and these are all put together, and to some extent,
40:10
Speaker 2: a lot of the information we analyzed during the war
40:14
Speaker 2: were based on what we knew. The Germans industrially were
40:18
Speaker 2: able to do.
40:21
Speaker 4: Arms.
40:22
Speaker 1: Minister Spere warned Hitler in a secret Reich document. He
40:26
Speaker 1: estimated the loss of German fuel production at ninety percent.
40:30
Speaker 1: That meant Speer said that the military defeat of the
40:33
Speaker 1: Third Reich was now just a matter of a few months.
40:40
Speaker 1: The lack of fuel quickly became evident. The planes of
40:44
Speaker 1: the Lufwaffe were grounded, allowing the Allies to attack German
40:48
Speaker 1: airfields unhindered. Coincidentally, they also happened to destroy the prototype
40:57
Speaker 1: of Messerschmidt's America Bomber without ever having learned about the
41:01
Speaker 1: existence of the project. In response to the bombing raids
41:08
Speaker 1: and the imminent military defeat spar some of the Third
41:11
Speaker 1: Reich's weapons manufacturers at a secret arms conference, Hitler made
41:16
Speaker 1: a speech to the industrial leaders. He painted the rosy
41:19
Speaker 1: picture of a future with huge markets for them to
41:22
Speaker 1: sell their wares.
41:25
Speaker 5: Bend the Greek be zi and freednis danda the Dutch
41:31
Speaker 5: and dutcha irrecurs the start that the predicul despite the
41:38
Speaker 5: conperiod pretty chap mamazing fact possibil about thanks.
41:45
Speaker 7: The old bath Fasic.
41:48
Speaker 5: Mainstream muslimba daki, the Keptaso schniprin shnupre premril fasenbo is
42:00
Speaker 5: analin who is anginee de mensana bacahold or d v
42:05
Speaker 5: comedy althree.
42:09
Speaker 1: The idea behind Hitler's speech. He wanted to inspire the
42:12
Speaker 1: engineers to greater achievements, hoping they would finally come through
42:16
Speaker 1: with new, radically different weapons. Bud Eilsen Fall nineteen forty four.
42:27
Speaker 1: An important visitor has made an appointment with the engineering
42:30
Speaker 1: office of the Focal War Factories, doctor Fritz Nallinger, the
42:34
Speaker 1: chief of development for the defense contractor Daimler Benz. Following
42:39
Speaker 1: the demise of Messerschmidt's America Bomber, Nollinger senses his opportunity
42:44
Speaker 1: to win big. He wants to present Hitler with a
42:47
Speaker 1: new America bomber and thereby ensure that Daimler Benz becomes
42:52
Speaker 1: the leading arms manufacturer of the Third Reich. To achieve
42:56
Speaker 1: this goal, he needs the cooperation of Professor Kurt Tun,
43:00
Speaker 1: the chief engineer of the Focal Wolf Factories. Tank's reputation
43:04
Speaker 1: is legendary. Before the war started, he built in record
43:08
Speaker 1: time a passenger plane that was capable of flying NonStop
43:12
Speaker 1: across the Atlantic, the so called Condor. Now he is
43:16
Speaker 1: to build a new America bomber for Mercedes as fast
43:19
Speaker 1: as possible.
43:21
Speaker 3: Tank had the advantage that he was a pilot himself.
43:28
Speaker 3: He broke in the plane himself, which meant he had
43:31
Speaker 3: direct feedback and was able to transfer his own experience
43:36
Speaker 3: and of course what he felt himself as a pilot,
43:39
Speaker 3: into the best possible construction. And there he was a
43:42
Speaker 3: genius of a man, I must say, and some of
43:45
Speaker 3: what he did was also very avant garde. It grew
43:48
Speaker 3: out of his own genius and his understanding of how
43:50
Speaker 3: a plane should fly.
43:54
Speaker 1: But first tank must deal with the familiar problem of distance.
43:58
Speaker 1: How can he build a plane capable of flying all
44:01
Speaker 1: the way to America and back? And Bud Eilsen, Nullinger
44:07
Speaker 1: and Tunk discussed new radical thoughts. What if one dispensed
44:11
Speaker 1: with the flight back?
44:14
Speaker 3: Of course, his idea was to fly the Condor over,
44:17
Speaker 3: drop the bombs, and then jump out with the parachute.
44:20
Speaker 3: There was a definite chance of survival. It was an
44:22
Speaker 3: equipment lost, as they used to call it, but the
44:24
Speaker 3: pilot would be saved.
44:27
Speaker 1: Yet another problem arose. The Condor was already getting on
44:31
Speaker 1: in years and was now much too slow to withstand
44:34
Speaker 1: the new generation of American fighter planes. The German pilot
44:38
Speaker 1: was sure to be shot down long before he ever
44:41
Speaker 1: reached the United States. For the attack to succeed, they
44:45
Speaker 1: would need a faster bomber. Nullinger promised the solution. Daimler
44:51
Speaker 1: Benz was already working on jet engines. Berlin, winter nineteen
45:00
Speaker 1: forty four. Generals and pilots of the Luftwaffe meet at
45:04
Speaker 1: the height of the war to exchange thoughts and the
45:07
Speaker 1: latest information. For quite a while now, rumors of heroic
45:12
Speaker 1: acts of flying have been making the rounds. Some pilots
45:19
Speaker 1: had managed to bring down American bombers using a so
45:22
Speaker 1: called ramming maneuver. They flew their small fighter planes right
45:26
Speaker 1: up behind the American bombers, defying death. They used their
45:30
Speaker 1: propellers like circular saws to slice through the bomber's tails.
45:34
Speaker 1: The planes fell from the sky like ripe fruit. Most
45:48
Speaker 1: of these heroic stories were nothing but propaganda. Instead of
45:52
Speaker 1: saving themselves by bailing out with a parachute, most German
45:55
Speaker 1: pilots died when their planes crashed to the ground. The
46:00
Speaker 1: Allied bombers were able to continue flying even after being rammed.
46:05
Speaker 1: The German lookbuffer saw the ramming attacks as welcome proof
46:09
Speaker 1: of the heroic dedication demonstrated by German pilots and the
46:13
Speaker 1: fateful battle for the Reich. When Mercedes development chief doctor
46:18
Speaker 1: Fritz Nollinger learned of these assessments, he suddenly knew how
46:21
Speaker 1: to solve the distance problem of his America bomber. Weiss
46:28
Speaker 1: Air Force Ministry January nineteenth, nineteen forty five. On this day,
46:37
Speaker 1: Daimler Ben's chief of development, doctor Fritz Nallinger, introduces the
46:42
Speaker 1: America bomber project to Gering's entire chiefs of staff. The
46:46
Speaker 1: solution for an attack on America, Nollinger says, is the
46:49
Speaker 1: so called piggyback method. Tests had shown that it was
46:54
Speaker 1: possible to use a large cargo plane to bring smaller
46:57
Speaker 1: planes to their target areas, where they would disengage and
47:01
Speaker 1: continue independently. As soon as KnowledgeR projects the engineer's draft
47:11
Speaker 1: of his bomber onto the wall, it becomes clear what
47:14
Speaker 1: the underwriting idea for his project is. It is the
47:18
Speaker 1: use of manned bombs steered by suicide pilots to produce
47:22
Speaker 1: maximum destruction of their targets.
47:36
Speaker 3: It was a radical new way of thinking that was
47:38
Speaker 3: actually quite inhumans. I must say that something one just
47:42
Speaker 3: cannot do. It goes against every sense of justice and
47:46
Speaker 3: is the origin of terror. I will lay my own
47:49
Speaker 3: life on the line if it means I can kill
47:53
Speaker 3: many times as many people someplace else does income.
47:58
Speaker 1: The project wins approval. It is January nineteen forty five,
48:03
Speaker 1: four months before the war's end.
48:07
Speaker 2: I think Hitler had all kinds of dreams of glory
48:12
Speaker 2: and dreams of hate. And I can well imagine him
48:16
Speaker 2: imagining that New York was being bombed and fire bombed
48:22
Speaker 2: and destroyed, and the skyscrapers falling into the street. He
48:27
Speaker 2: was a dream of considerable ability. He dreamt of a
48:31
Speaker 2: lot of things, and I think that was one of
48:35
Speaker 2: his good hate dreams he had.
48:41
Speaker 1: From the diary of.
48:42
Speaker 3: Albert Shpear, I remember how in the RAI headquarters he
48:51
Speaker 3: had them showed the films of London burning, the clouds
48:54
Speaker 3: of fire above Warsaw, and the exploding convoys, And I
48:59
Speaker 3: recall the green that filled him each time. I never
49:03
Speaker 3: saw him so beside himself as he was towards the
49:06
Speaker 3: end of the war, when in his delirium he fantasized
49:10
Speaker 3: how it would be when New York went down in
49:13
Speaker 3: a sea of flames. He described how the skyscrapers would
49:18
Speaker 3: transform themselves into gigantic burning torches, how they would collapse
49:22
Speaker 3: on each other, and how the exploding city would reflect
49:25
Speaker 3: against the dark of the night sky.
49:35
Speaker 1: The America bomber was never put into action, but the
49:39
Speaker 1: German suicide pilots were actually recruited. In order to stave
49:43
Speaker 1: off the approach of the Red Army. They crashed into
49:46
Speaker 1: the bridges over the River Oder. A shared farewell letter
49:49
Speaker 1: has been retained for posterity.
49:51
Speaker 13: There floated before it, and the farewell letter reads as follows,
50:00
Speaker 13: Comraden comrades, at.
50:04
Speaker 3: Seven eight pm today we will fulfill our destiny. Yeah game,
50:16
Speaker 3: we volunteer ourselves for our fuer for our homeland, for Germany.
50:23
Speaker 3: Haimad hile to you, comrades, and they all signed it.
50:36
Speaker 1: The suicide deaths of the pilots were totally senseless. One
50:40
Speaker 1: day after they crashed into them, the Red Army reconstructed
50:43
Speaker 1: the bridges, but the careers of Hitler's engineers continued long
50:48
Speaker 1: after the end of the war. Professor Villie Messerschmidt developed
50:55
Speaker 1: new aircraft for the German Army.
51:01
Speaker 4: Vena.
51:02
Speaker 1: Van Brown built the first moon rocket for the United States.
51:09
Speaker 1: Professor Kurt Tunk went to Argentina and designed jet airplanes
51:13
Speaker 1: for Parong. Doctor Fritznellinger was elected to the board of
51:20
Speaker 1: Daimler Benz and was awarded the Order of Merit of
51:23
Speaker 1: the Federal Republic of Germany in nineteen fifty four,