Last Secrets of the Third Reich

On the 17th of August, 1987, news of the suicide of Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s former deputy, spreads across the world. It seems the 93-year-old hanged himself in the notorious prison for Nazi War-Criminals: Spandau near Berlin. But his death is as mysterious as his life had been.

The battlefields of the Second World War have been analyzed countless times. But it wasn’t just fought in large-scale offensives. There‘s a face of the Second World War that took place in secret, behind enemy lines, and with very high stakes.

At the beginning of April 1945, 2 heavily armed trains leave Berlin, carrying virtually all of the remaining Reichsbank assets. It amounts to billions of Reichsmark. Hard on their heels is a convoy of trucks carrying more than 9 tons of gold. Their destination: the ‘Alpine Fortress’.

The U-Boat is U-513. It takes 46 of its crew to their deaths – only 7 men survive. But until now, the final resting place of U-513 and what exactly happened to it has remained a mystery. The adventurer Vilfredo Schürmann made it his mission to find the submarine off the Brazilian coast.

The key figure in this story is Hitler’s personal physician Dr. Theodor Morell. From Christmas 1936 until Hitler’s suicide, Morell remains at his side, always willing to hand out some dubious treatments from his personal apothecary. Soon, life without Morell and his potions become unthinkable.