Nazi Quest for the Holy Grail – Forbidden History – History Documentary

Dive into the shadowy quest for the Holy Grail, the mystery of the Ghent Altarpiece, and the dark world of Nazi art theft. From Hitler’s artefacts to occultism in Nazism, uncover the secrets behind the stolen treasures that fueled a regime’s twisted ideology.

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At the end of World War II Allied soldiers uncovered vast hordes of stolen goods across Europe under Hitler’s command the Nazis had systematically plundered museums and private collections for priceless treasures and works of art of European art it’s truly staggering there’s works by Picasso works by Clint works by Caravaggio there’s many works

Of art that have simply disappeared while ravaging Europe of its cultural heritage rumor has it that Hitler was also on the Quest for an even bigger prize holy relics especially the holy grail and the power that having these objects would bring So on the one level these objects are historical artifacts of artistic and cultural Merit but one can’t get away from the fact that the occultism of Nazism also imbued them with special powers he believed that there was a coded treasure map built into the painting

That would have led to some of the most venerated Christian relics organizing a different type of power he was organizing the power of religious persuasion On January the 30th 1933 Adolf Hitler was appointed the chancellor of Germany over the coming months he grew in power and became a dictator he saw himself as king of the world What Nazism was trying to achieve was basically creating a political religion and that’s an incredibly powerful thing no one has really created a political religion before this point in quite the same way if you look at Nazism if you look at all of its elements holistically you can’t but come to the conclusion

That there’s something very religious about it and by that I mean it had beliefs it had a central figure it had an idea for how you would reach salvation it had a mission it had Dogma it had imagery you only have to think of the cathedrals of light at Nuremberg

Built by spear of their hypnotic chanting and marching of the adulation towards this one christ-like figure which is how Hitler monstrously liked to present himself so it should be seen as an ideology but with absolute cult wrapping around this What he strove to do was to replace organized religion in Germany with a new Nazi religion that Jesus would be an Aryan that instead of the Bible there would be mine camp and that instead of the crucifix there would be the swastika this would have been a horrifying church

It’s a church that believed in racial Purity a church that was part of a socialist government that believed that anybody that wasn’t of the purest form was not worthy of living or would have been subjected below the Aryans also they were pulling and hijacking elements of Pagan religion occult religion and

Throw in just the Nazi brutality imagine going to that church then there is German expansion throughout Europe began in 1938 with the annexation of Austria and then continued with the occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939. at the same time Hitler’s number two Henrik Himmler was expanding his knowledge of the occult

He was convinced the Nazis could achieve great victories by harnessing the powers of the relics the other Nazis in the hierarchy did lean towards the occult but mainly of course it was Heinrich Himmler a head of the SS who had this glorified idea of of how the chivalric ideal of the Medieval

Times could somehow be channeled through him and his henchmen and but he was completely bonkers the Nazis were systematically looting Europe of all of the ancient holy relics that they could but if you think about it from his perspective churches in Europe at this time period had a lot of

Power and persuasion over the local population by taking the most sacred things you’re taking the power and the influence and essentially kind of ripping the heart out he wanted the churches to be dictated by him the new religion the new Empire Hitler’s Empire Hitler’s religion

Hitler had an idea for after the war he was going to have this palatial Museum which would be the best and biggest Museum in the world and would have the best art in it so he basically sent his Stormtroopers out to bring that art back to Germany

Noah chani is an art crimes investigator and has been studying the Nazis obsession with artworks and Relics to understand the Nazi interest in holy relics it’s important to know the place of origin of Nazism and it really grew up in a socioeconomic World in middle class Germany and Austria where people

Were focused on mysticism and the supernatural this belief in the occult was really in the cultural oxygen of the time so it sounds Maybe funny to us today but at the time it was not very exotic and the Nazi party actually began as an occult fraternity before it morphed into a political party

Hitler and Himmler had this concept of creating a sort of new religion and one of the things that fascinated them was the legend of parsaval which was a medieval Christian poem that had been popularized in the late 19th century and also through Wagner’s interpretation of the Grail myth The AMA Christie or weapons of Christ were the implements that were used in Christ’s passion they consist of the crown of thorns the holy nails the Veronica Veil and pieces of the True Cross these objects were venerated by Catholics but also thought by some to have Supernatural powers

And certain key Nazis Himmler and Hitler above all really believed that they did but Chief among the objects the Nazis wanted to find was the Holy Grail the Holy Grail is incredibly significant for all sorts of reasons for different people for devout Christians it’s the cup that caught the blood of Christ as

He hung on the cross just after this Spear of Destiny pierced his side it is for other Christians the vessel that he drank out of at the Last Supper it is for people in search of global domination a vessel that is meant to provide that power if anybody wanted the Holy Grail

It was Adolf Hitler it was the thing that was going to give them Absolute invincibility and great knowledge and the meaning of life and everything else they would want it was the Holy Grail as The Story Goes Hitler thought he could locate the Holy Grail if he could

Get his hands on the Ghent Altarpiece within it he believed was a secret code that would lead him to The Relic the 12 panels of yan van Ike’s famous Adoration of the Mystic lamb is believed to be the most influential painting in history and perhaps the greatest artwork that the Nazis stole Everything bad that could possibly happen to a work of art has happened to this one it’s been stolen at least six times all are in part it’s been the object of forgery it was nearly destroyed parts of it were burned it was dismembered pillaged used for ransom the

Final and most dynamic adventure of the gandalta piece LED adhere to this salt mine deep in the Austrian Alps that was converted by the Nazis into this high-tech stolen art Warehouse the Alta say salt mines in Austria were one of the many underground storage facilities used by the Nazis

It’s believed that in this location alone over 7 000 pieces of art were hidden Noah meets with Harold pernkov a local expert to get a better understanding of how the Nazis used this underground treasure vault are going to walk about 700 meters meat that was hidden tell me a little

Bit about why this was such an ideal atmosphere to store art yeah in here we have 70 percent of humidity seven degrees of Celsius and the air is very salty so this may make perfect conditions except for iron so iron gets Rusty in here but all kind of paintings

Or even paper you think 70 or 75 percent of humidity would be too wet but the salt serves perfectly and I imagine there were no concerns about bombs because we’re very well secured inside this mountain yes we have 700 meters inside the mine and we have 200 meters of solid rock above us

People watching this program will think well what a ridiculous place to put valuable works of art in a salt mine dripping with water a damp awful conditions but basically you go into the salt mine where these works of art were stored and you’ve got perfect conditions it’s perfectly dry the conditions are or

For some reason better than basements or anywhere else and when you actually look at the wood it’s as if I sort of knocked the nails in last week and created these frames it was perfect and that’s why they stored all their Works about that So about how many pieces of art were stored here what was 7 000 paintings but also gold coin collections weapon collections Michelangelo’s Madonna from Bruce there were eight different rooms big rooms forty thousand square meters of storage room all we’re connected with regular tracks that’s why they didn’t

Have to carry them for it’s hard to say how many things were in here and it’s more hard to say the value of the whole collection sure When they set out to see what they could find they were shocked at the hordes of Fine Art of gold of silver of stash of of the Nazis of one kind or another and they were quite horrified because it gave them an inkling as to the magnitude

Of what had just gone on they had no idea it was a huge movement and most the museums of Europe had been depleted laughs when the Alta say Treasure Trove was discovered at the end of the war the Ghent Altarpiece was among the Priceless works of art hidden in these rooms He also wanted it because it was considered the single most important painting ever made and so it was to be the centerpiece of his planned super museum at lens but there are also some alternative theories about why he may have wanted it one of them goes that he believed that

There was a coded treasure map built into the painting that would have led to some of the most venerated Christian relics and that he might have wanted these for both symbolic and perhaps Supernatural reasons the occult was incredibly important to the Nazis but not for the straightforward reasons one might think

Yes Himmler clearly believed in this mumbo-jumbo but the reality is that the efficacy of it was not in performing rituals that did anything it was in cloaking the entire Nazi project in A Certain Magical legitimacy that leaped way back into the deepest mythical history that the German people

Really needed to boost their morale and to feel good about themselves this was just one of many locations where the Nazis hid their stolen loot all across Europe secret layers can be found where they stashed Priceless valuables and more importantly to the regime holy relics but even today nearly 80 years on some

Artworks remain missing Lost not clear whether the Nazis hid them so carefully we’ve yet to find them or whether they destroyed them if they perhaps were particularly repugnant in terms of their religious iconography Poland was invaded by the Nazis in 1939 and it became an important part of the reich’s strategy for taking over Europe like France and Italy its artwork and holy relics were ruthlessly stolen by the Nazis polish journalist and Explorer Johanna lampasca has spent several years investigating the Nazis theft of Art and

Holy Treasures it’s generally accepted that the Nazis hid this loot all over occupied Europe it was a vast collection of material they moved all very valuables items to Germany first to ballet into museums to private collection of Himmler Hitler and so on but when allies were approaching

From the west and when Russian army started to approach from the East they chose a few castles and palaces and Abbey in lower soil Asia to collect all this church and Museum items valuable things just to protect them from other armies thank you one of the locations that was used to

Store their plunder was lubias Abbey in Southwest Poland it’s a former Monastery an architecturally one of the largest Christian complexes in the world underground spaces were used extensively by the Nazis to build Research Laboratories and manufacturing plants Johanna has come to lubias to search its Subterranean tunnels and Chambers with a team of experienced local treasure Hunters can they find evidence of the Priceless holy relics and other valuables allegedly hidden at the site They had to find hidden places and in the end of War they brought it here explorers and treasure Hunters believe that something still may be hidden in this Abbey Amongst this Labyrinth of tunnels and passageways secret rooms and spaces lay hidden behind brick and stone walls team is using high-tech methods to explore these dark voids Kristoff is using so-called inspection endoscope Chimera it is a very small camera stick to a wire or a cable or a

Stick and you put it into very narrow hole to see what is on the other side of the wall In this Abbey the Germans made a military Factory during the war and they robbed the whole Monastery and they hit all valuables from this building somewhere as far as we know they were buried in equipped for a moment then they were stolen but there is a lot of

Treasure Hunters who still believe that something could be hidden in a locked Chambers in the cellars of this Abbey some people are looking for girls some people are looking for works of Arts nobody knows what is hidden here churches under the shadow of the Nazi regime saw their prized relics and

Masterpieces Spirited Away but this was more than mere robbery Hitler and many in his regime positively loathe the Christian religion [Applause] the reason why Hitler had such a loathing for Catholicism was that fundamentally the idea behind Catholicism and Christianity is that everybody is equal in God’s eyes that

Everybody shares God’s love to Nazis that’s absolutely anathema for them they’re a complete hierarchies of the order of people so they had to exterminate those values that they didn’t believe in so a war was begun against Catholicism the Nazis are arresting priests they’re closing down Roman Catholic organizations they’re shutting down

Catholic political parties and so there’s just this growing stress and tension between Catholicism and Nazism and with the Polish people he knew the majority were practicing Christians regular and faithful church-goers but wanted them to follow and believe in a new Nazi ideology Catholic Church was very strong linked

To Polish national history and it was very important for Germans to close the churches to destroy them to turn them into prison just to humiliate Christian Community in Poland they took over thousands of Polish churches many of those priests were sent to either concentration camps or killed

Most the relics and artifacts were taken and essentially just wiped the Polish Church culture from existence One of the most bizarre examples of Nazi cultural vandalism can be found here in Saint Michael’s church located in the town of alesno in present-day Poland a member of the local clergy leads Johanna to the site of this extraordinary crime during World War II Nazis come here and

Take down the biggest and most beautiful bell of this Saint Michael church it was taken to Germany and was lost until the end of the war because the Nazis never wasted anything they took the metal and they melted it down and they used it for munitions so they’d taken these bells from

Buildings of peace and turned them into weapons so terrified were priests at the prospect of their holy relics the chalices and the monstrances and the bells being stolen by the Nazis that they even put them into coffins and staged fake funerals in order to hide these items from prying Nazi eyes

Fortunately for the parishioners of alesno the mystery of their church bells had a happy conclusion for sixth year a Christian Community on Lesnar was wondering where the Bell could be they heard something about Bell Cemetery in Hamburg they heard that somebody recovered their bells in other cities so they decide to look for

Information and when they were informed that there is a church in Germany with a bell from a lesno they decided to act and they recover this piece of art but not all religious objects stolen from churches were put to such practical uses for the Nazis some holy relics served much more occult purposes

The Nazi’s grand plan was to capture and then display some of the greatest holy relics in the world In the end they only captured one piece the holy Lance which was claimed to be the actual spear that pierced Christ’s side while he was on the crucifix Spear of Destiny or Lance of longinus was something that Hitler felt had deep symbolic significance for him when he

First saw it in the museum in Vienna he said he felt as if he’d formally held it that it was his Talisman of power and it gave the destiny of the world to him in his hands despite the Nazis having taken it to Nuremberg today this legendary object is

Kept with the other Priceless artifacts in the treasury of the hofberg palace in Vienna Dr Franz kirschweiger is the collection’s curator in the class case that we have upstairs in the treasury we see the holy lands together with the big piece which was supposed to come from the holy cross of

Jesus Christ and it’s together with these immense huge two World cross actually which was made to house these two most precious relics it’s definitely very important to know that the holy lands is part of a big group of objects of Insignia and Relics that were brought together over many centuries

This extraordinary assortment of objects is part of the Imperial regalia the ceremonial crown jewels of the Holy Roman emperors dating back to Medieval Times the most important parts were the Imperial Crown Imperial Sword and the christ-linked Spear of Destiny Side of Christ and thus was empowered with his power then went on to develop even greater Legend as it passed from the hand of one powerful man to the other under the belief that if they wielded this beer they were omnipotent and they could bend the world to their will

For Hitler having the Imperial regalia the Holy Roman Empire was his aspiration to create a 1 000 year Reich I mean the Holy Roman Empire had lasted a thousand years so he wanted his right to last the same amount of time and in the same way the Holy Roman emperors had sacred

Relics which gave them Authority before the people Hitler viewed the sacred relics such as the Spear of Destiny in the same light Hitler got his hands on a spear of destiny now the fact is that several different objects have been presented as the Spear of Destiny which again goes to

Show you that the importance of this object isn’t really in the thing itself it’s in what it stood for As far as the lens is concerned the spirit is concerned we definitely know that the way it looks like is from a different age than from Christ Jesus Christ it comes from the carolinction time that means late 8th century and it’s probably linked to the person and the history of Charlemagne

The whole story of the spirit of longinus and the way it’s treated by these sort of junk historians it’s like the Ark of the Covenant in episode one of Indiana Jones is going to give them the Nazis infinite power it’s just total nonsense um it’s just another Relic that’s meant

To be associated with Christ and you know and I know that that’s just simply not true we are still in a process among Scholars to find out whether there is a chance that small parts may be of a former holy lands or of a former holy male was

Integrated was forced into the land so there are options that we we can say for sure no that’s definitely not true or we can say it’s definitely true so there is still a way of even for the ones who want to believe to do so For centuries Nuremberg had been home to the Imperial regalia and Hitler thought that the city was where they belonged but in the late 1700s these crown jewels were hastily moved from Nuremberg to Vienna to avoid Napoleon’s clutches and Hitler was determined to take them back

In 1938 the Lance as well as the rest of the Imperial regalia was brought back to its former home of Nuremberg Berg was sacred to the Nazis it was the traditional heart of the Holy Roman Empire in the Holy Roman Empire had been at its heart a German State and so Hitler

Wanted to return these items of power to this heart and Rule his Third Reich from it Nuremberg was the heart of Nazism it’s where Hitler held all the early rallies it’s where they would reconvene every year to extol the virtues of Nazism but it was also a deeply symbolic place it

Was one of the great medieval cities of Southern Germany it was a place where the church relics and Cathedrals had very powerful sway it was a symbolic place in the German mind and the Nazis harnessed all of that and made it their cult headquarters experience Today Nuremberg has moved on from its troubled past but the crumbling and decaying remains of the Nazi party rally grounds still evoke memories of the barbaric regime that constructed them a regime for whom ore and spectacle was key to its survival it’s an amazing feeling to be here for

The very first time at the Nazi rally grounds in Nuremberg if you can imagine tens of thousands of people gathered here during six enormous rallies between 1933 and 1938 this is the Zeppelin field and over here on this grandstand is where Hitler would have given his most famous speeches

But as Hitler stood on the podium at Nuremberg promising an Empire to last a thousand years he also looked to the past to help secure it there are a couple of ideas about why Hitler wanted to possess the Crown Jewel so badly particularly the Spear of Destiny the more accepted theory is its

Symbolic value that it would symbolically link him to all of the past Germanic Kings the Holy Roman emperors and he saw himself as the Latter-Day version of them a new Incarnation for the Third Reich but then they’re the more exotic theories that may posit and it’s entirely plausible that Hitler

Would have believed this that some of these holy relics particularly the sphere of Destiny might have granted the owner some sort of superhuman powers in fact the legend goes as a spear of destiny if it’s carried in battle whoever carries it can’t lose and we know that Hitler and Himmler were

Researching things that would support the war effort for Supernatural means as well so it’s entirely plausible to believe that Hitler thought hedging his bets the possession of the Spear of Destiny might have helped from a military standpoint as well the holy Lance or Spear of Destiny was initially kept in Nuremberg together

With other Priceless pieces which comprise the Imperial regalia or German crown jewels but as the tide of War turned against the Nazis thoughts soon turned to hiding their precious relics Noah follows the trail which takes him into the Heart of the City when the second world war was brought to

Germany and the Allies started bombing there was a serious concern that some of the art Treasures of Nuremberg including the crown jewels would be destroyed in an Allied air raid in order to prevent this it was ordered that the crown jewels should be stored in a secret bunker a vault underneath Nuremberg

Castle where I’m standing now that vault is where the crown jewels remain throughout the war until they disappeared from this locked vault hey this tunnel system is known as the kunst bunker Noah meets guide Andreas Clements who can tell him more about the Intriguing site where the Imperial regalia and the

Holy lands were safely hidden from the allies the banker originally was a beer seller the beer sellers are now 640 years old there are four football fields of them and in some spots they’re up to four floors deep this place was bomb proof the spot where we’re standing right now has

Approximately 24 meters of solid Sandstone rock on top so that was safe from bombs next thing they did they put in a ventilation system so fire was no problem here bombs were no problem here the place was dry the place was well ventilated so at least during wartime

This was perfect to start artwork even as the Allies overran Germany the treasure stored in the kunst bunker should have remained hidden but a U.S Army intelligence officer named Walter horn had a lucky break Yet horn wasn’t an average intelligence officer he had an extensive education in art history Walter horn was a senior intelligence officer in the U.S army and at the end of the war he was interrogating a 48 year old German private a rather beleaguered figure called Fritz Huber

And he was asking him about biological chemical weapons that the Americans will worry that Hitler may have concealed in in certain ways that could be used at the end of the war they weren’t getting anywhere in the interrogation and then Hoover just asked him whether he was interested in old art

And not realizing maybe that horn was a professor of History A A medievalist at Harvard and he then started to describe artifacts which horn suddenly realized was the Imperial regalia including the Spear of Destiny and it was buried underneath Nuremberg Castle in an air-conditioned bunker the American forces captured Nuremberg

In April 1945 and Horn sent a report detailing where they could find the Nazi secret bunker but before the U.S soldiers could enter the Aladdin’s Cave of treasures the Imperial regalia were removed by three clever Nazi soldiers who were one step ahead towards the end of the war it became

Clear that rather sooner than later nurburg would be conquered by the Americans they were coming quite close the three men in charge of the bunker wanted to save the regalia from the as they put it cultureless Americans so they conspired to remove the most important pieces Crown scepter orb and sword yeah

By July 1945 Germany was defeated and Horn had transferred from intelligence into The Monument’s Fine Arts and archive program this group better known as The Monuments Men was established by the U.S government to track down art and cultural items stolen by the Nazis and they had been sent to the Nuremberg

Bunker to track down the Imperial regalia detailed in Horn’s report The Monuments Men find the bunker they do an inventory and early on they notice huh four most important pieces were missing and they start looking for them for those three guys they find two of those guys and they interrogate them for

Several hours and at first they keep their mouths shut and at one point one of them gives up the location shows the real uh regalia to the Americans supposedly after they promised him the regalia would not be taken to the U.S but would be given back to Vienna

So it’s interesting that they chose four objects but they didn’t take the holy lands no it shows you what was considered important they chose what they considered important the symbols of power not the relics thanks to the efforts of The Monuments Men lost masterpieces such as the Ghent

Altarpiece and the Imperial regalia of the Holy Roman emperors were recovered amid the chaos and Devastation that followed Germany’s eventual defeat in fact their colossal undertaking saw a staggering 5 million pieces of Art and artifacts recovered and returned to their rightful owners The Monuments Men were incredibly successful I think they were surprised

By their own success we have photographs of them standing by you know classic works of art standing by you know gold bullion stacked as tall as they are you know jars full of gold teeth that presumably were taken from Holocaust victims I mean shock waves went through

The allies when they realized just the extent of how the Nazis had pillaged everything in Europe but the story is far from over while many looted works surfaced from the Nazi’s hidden network of caves and bunkers a significant number of other pieces are still out there somewhere

Either lost or in the wrong hands the legacy of the Nazis having spent so much time plundering and looting cultural artifacts relics art is still with us these objects still surface today on the black market in auction houses in private Collections and there are still lists of the vast number of

Them that remain missing there are still black markets for Antiquities from World War II stolen goods and you’d be surprised at just how many illegal auctions And Trades are going on and goods from that era but there are teams of forensic scientists archaeologists ex-police officers and detectives actively hunting down some of

These artifacts relics and treasures to get them back to the families of the original owners Yeah almost 80 years after their theft individuals and organizations around the world are still on a quest to recover these lost works in the Polish city of Krakow there’s a collection of restored paintings that reflect the fate of so many of these stolen Nazi Treasures journalist and Explorer Johanna lampasca

Visits Saint Mary’s Basilica to learn the fate of the cycle of Saint Catherine of Alexandria from art conservation expert katazina pakula paintings yes you know it was eight panel paintings made by hanzis Von kunbach who was a painter Renaissance painter from Nuremberg and they have been ordered to

Crack off in the Golden Age of Polish culture it was the beginning of the 16th century the eight paintings that made up this medieval Masterpiece were taken by the Nazis during World War II but even today not all have been recovered unfortunately after the war out of eight

Paintings from one another piece six paintings came back so still two are missing and San Maris Basilica is searching on the Polish Ministry of culture and hoping that they are still existing how does it feel to lose all these beautiful pieces of Art

It is a great loss it is a great loss of course for the church and for the cultural from the emotional point of view uh it is priceless and they are unique and they are of the best quality we know of the works of Hans from kumbak

I think it’s a huge tragedy that so much of this religious art iconography and treasure is still missing even today now some of it clearly was simply destroyed you know maybe an Allied bombing rate uh you know which is obviously even more tragic in a way and then you’ve now

Today got people trying to find this treasure um you’ve got people whose entire life’s work is to try and maybe find one work of art yeah while we do have a sense of certain specific items that we are searching for and there are people out there all the

Time trying to recover them we really don’t know the true magnitude of what’s missing and don’t even know in some respects what we should be looking for many of these artworks that are considered still missing are actually being actively traded through Black Market networks and it’s become even

Easier to do so now with the internet and the Deep Web and there are people who fetishize some of these artifacts and trade in them as Commodities and that goes on every day There are many existing Commissions in Europe and in the United States and Canada to try to repatriate a lot of these pieces as they’re found some of them eventually wound up in state and local museums and have been relocated to the families from once they were stolen

But many of them still reside probably in private collections or remain underground maybe never to be found many people are still obsessed with finding the missing art including of course the people’s families who originally owned some of these because a lot of the art was originally owned by

Jewish families who simply had it removed from them at least six hundred thousand of them were stolen from Jewish families and some hundred thousand of them still remain at Large foreign