Original subtitles

[dramatic music]

- Throughout time, governments

and the people who work for them

have done strange and even terrible things

in the name of national interest,

and sometimes they turn to unlikely allies for help.

Tonight, a partnership with the FBI

transforms a small time gangster

into Boston's kingpin. - It's crazy.

You have this combination of this FBI deal

and a crooked agent giving Bulger the power

to take over the Boston mob world.

- The CIA commissions assassins from the underworld.

- They have to get Castro

out of the picture permanently.

It's a bold and risky move.

- The idea of the CIA partnering with the mafia

is so outrageous that no one will possibly believe it.

- And a pharmaceutical company partners with the Nazis

to create super soldiers.

- They take the entire country in five weeks.

It's a crushing victory.

- It's time to bring these unholy alliances to light.

♪ ♪

It's 1945.

World War II is coming to an end,

and the Allies are hunting down Nazi war criminals,

but when many of the Fuhrer's henchmen

escape to freedom in South America,

it's clear someone is aiding them.

Who could be helping the Nazis escape?

♪ ♪

- When World War II ends,

the Allies are obviously desperate

to capture every surviving Nazi

and put them on trial for their horrific crime,

but amongst the Nazis trying to flee

are hundreds of thousands of displaced refugees,

all on the move and all in search

of a new life abroad.

- To prevent Nazis escaping, every road,

train, and boat leaving Europe is being watched.

Nothing and no one leaves without being checked.

- They tightened up the travel restrictions

to the extent that really there was only one avenue available,

and that was obtaining a Red Cross visa

that would allow you to get out.

- Despite the Allies capturing hundreds

of high ranking Nazis, many of Hitler's

most senior officers are missing.

The U.S. believes someone is helping them escape Europe.

But who?

- In 1947, an American attaché

in Rome named Vincent La Vista is put in charge

of monitoring this situation to determine whether or not

former Third Reich officials or military members

were attempting to use the Red Cross visa

to escape from justice.

♪ ♪

- La Vista starts the investigation

at the Red Cross.

- And that's when he hears that there's something called

the Papal Refugee Center.

- Apparently, some refugees there

are able to get a Vatican issued letter

of recommendation to leave, which means

they can skip the Red Cross's background checks.

♪ ♪

- La Vista asks his contacts

if there's been any suspicious activity

at the refugee center.

- One name starts to come up again and again,

a mysterious German based in Rome known as Dr. Nix.

- What La Vista discovers is that this mysterious doctor

is one of the leading characters

facilitating these pathways that are being used

by former Third Reich officials

to escape out of Germany and into Rome

and then South America.

♪ ♪

- Dr. Nix and his collaborators

are using escape routes called ratlines,

a reference to rats getting off a sinking ship.

But even more shocking is who is protecting Nix.

♪ ♪

- An anonymous source tells La Vista that Nix,

he's being sheltered inside the Vatican.

♪ ♪

- Apparently, Nix not only has the protection of the Vatican,

he's actively working for the Vatican.

♪ ♪

- The theory is that Nix is sheltering the Nazis in Rome,

and he's connecting them with Catholic bishops

who can assist them in obtaining these letters

and identity paperwork that are critical

for them to achieve the Red Cross visas

that will allow them to leave Italy.

- The Vatican is working hand in hand

with Nazi war criminals

because the church and the Nazis

share common ground.

They both despise communists.

- In the aftermath of the conflict,

there are major Communist movements

in Czechoslovakia and France and also in Italy.

Communism was in direct conflict

with the Roman Catholic Church

because it is atheistic at its core.

♪ ♪

- And the Catholic Church is concerned

that Communist leaders will take over

Europe and Latin America.

- South America is almost entirely Catholic.

The Vatican is absolutely terrified about anything

that might hinder its influence

among Catholic populations around the world.

Anyone that opposes the spread of communism

is someone that ought to be supported.

- And surprise, surprise, if there's anybody in 1945

that has a reputation for being anti-communist,

it's the Nazis.

So someone gets the idea to give them free passage

out of Europe and set them up as allies

to fight communism and save the Catholic Church

across the globe.

♪ ♪

- La Vista sends everything he has

on the Nazis and the Vatican back to the U.S. government,

but the report disappears.

♪ ♪

It will be 37 years before the Vatican's dark secret

and U.S. silence will be revealed.

- In 1983, historian and renowned Nazi hunter

Charles R. Allen Jr. files

a Freedom of Information Act request.

- It unearths a really dark chapter of Vatican history

helping Nazis escape justice.

- The story is picked up by "The New York Times"

and becomes a global news sensation.

All eyes turn to the Vatican demanding answers.

- The Vatican strongly denies being involved in this process,

and that instead, a series of rogue bishops acting alone,

they were responsible for doing this

and that they were all stripped of their positions,

and they're no longer a problem.

- The U.S. doesn't just turn a blind eye

to the Nazis on the run.

It gives them jobs.

They recruit hundreds of German scientists

to fight on a new frontier against the Soviets in space.

♪ ♪

- In July of 1969,

650 million people tune in to watch...

- Ignition sequence start.

- The enormous Saturn V rocket

launch American astronauts out of orbit

and towards the moon.

♪ ♪

- Then four days later, they make it to the moon

and Neil Armstrong etches his name into the history books.

♪ ♪

- One of the most proud viewers

of the launch of the Saturn V rocket

was the man that was at the heart of its creation,

Wernher von Braun.

He was the face of the American rocket program

for more than two decades, and the Saturn V

was the culmination of a lifetime spent

inventing and testing rockets.

♪ ♪

- By the late 1960s, Wernher von Braun

is a household name in the United States,

and he's even been on the cover of "Time" Magazine.

- But very few people know what he did

before building rockets for NASA.

♪ ♪

In 1985, "The New York Times"

exposes the truth about von Braun's past.

- The article takes a deep dive into declassified files

that were produced as a result of a Freedom of Information Act

request by a journalist named Linda Hunt.

Hunt found that von Braun was a commissioned major

in the Waffen SS, a branch of the German military

notorious for being a place where the true believers went.

- SS Major von Braun's past shocks the American public,

but not the U.S. government.

They knew about it all along.

- He's not some disassociated scientist

who's just inventing rockets.

His production facilities for the rockets

that he's so devoted to employ slave labor,

and those slaves are literally being worked to death,

and von Braun is well aware of that fact.

- At the same time, they're prosecuting Nazi criminals

at Nuremberg, the American government

were prepared to bury their morals

just so they can beat the Soviets in the space race.

The contradiction just blows your mind.

♪ ♪

- Von Braun is far from the only Nazi scientist

working in the U.S.

It turns out there are more like him.

- Hunt reveals a top secret operation called Paperclip

that President Truman authorized

during the closing weeks of the Second World War.

- Operation Paperclip is a program

to try to capture as many Nazi scientists

and engineers as possible.

- Germany was regarded as the Mecca of hard science.

So the Nazis we really want are the Nazis

that are a part of their high technology programs,

and we'll do almost anything to get our hands on those people.

- We're going to have to hold our noses

and accept any help that we can potentially get

from these Nazi inventors

in order to be able to offset

the rising power of the Soviets.

- Secrets fester if left uncovered,

but thanks to Linda Hunt,

the truth about von Braun

and Operation Paperclip is revealed.

♪ ♪

- For decades, James Whitey Bulger

runs Boston's underworld with an iron fist.

He's in that position because the authorities

who should be taking him down are actually working with him.

- It's January 1995.

It's early in the evening and workers are headed home,

but the day has only just begun for the FBI

and the Massachusetts State Police

sitting in unmarked cars, staking out a restaurant.

[dramatic music]

- For the last six years, the FBI and the state police

have been trying to build an airtight case against

two of the city's most reputed mob leaders,

James Whitey Bulger and his number two, Stephen Flemmi.

Bulger is not above utilizing any means

to consolidate power in the city.

He's connected to some 19 murderers

and is seen as a vicious and ambitious gangster.

- The task force is finally ready to make their arrests.

The plan is for the Massachusetts State Police

to grab Flemmi while the FBI simultaneously

takes down Bulger.

- The state police were able to corner the unsuspecting Flemmi.

- But when the FBI swoops in to arrest Bulger, he is gone

and nowhere to be found.

- This isn't the first time

he has slipped through the net.

Very few people knew about the coordinated arrests,

so the state police want to know,

how does Bulger keep getting away?

- They become so suspicious that they start

to actually think that someone in the FBI

is tipping Bulger off.

The FBI was actually starting to get frustrated

by these accusations that were being made against them

by the state police.

- So in a show of good faith,

they have now joined forces with the state police

to lead the investigation into Bulger.

- The FBI investigation does not say

how Bulger evades capture.

That only comes out three years later

at the trial of his right hand man,

Stephen Flemmi.

- When Stephen Flemmi takes the stand

at his racketeering trial,

he's got a bombshell secret to share.

He reveals that he and Bulger had been recruited by the FBI

in the early 1970s, and have been

protected informants ever since.

♪ ♪

- Flemmi's testimony forces the FBI

to admit their alliance with Bulger.

- They confirm that Bulger was recruited in 1975

by FBI Agent John Connolly to help take down

one of Boston's most powerful mafia families, the Patriarcas.

♪ ♪

The deal was simple.

If Bulger was to feed the FBI

enough intel on the Patriarcas,

they would turn a blind eye to all his criminal ventures

and provide him with immunity from prosecution.

Just like that.

- According to Flemmi, the FBI isn't just

turning a blind eye to Bulger's crimes.

At least one Fed is actively helping him.

- Flemmi's testimony is damning.

He tells the court that every time

law enforcement built a case against him and Bulger,

they were tipped off by an insider,

which allowed them to stay one step ahead of the law.

♪ ♪

- The man on the inside, Flemmi lets go,

is actually their FBI handler, John Connolly,

who's been working with the pair

for more than 20 years.

- The Boston FBI is caught completely off guard.

- They discover that Connolly and Bulger

had actually grown up in the same neighborhood

and developed a personal relationship.

They were old pals.

- The revelation is just mind blowing.

But why would FBI break bread with a notorious gangster?

♪ ♪

Because of their close ties, once Bulger becomes

a confidential informant,

Connolly is easily corrupted by him.

So in exchange for bribes,

Connolly is feeding Bulger information

about the police investigations.

- The relationship with Connolly and Bulger

is exactly what empowers Bulger to basically become

the kingpin of the mob world.

- It's crazy.

You have this combination of this FBI deal

and a crooked agent giving Bulger the power

to take over the Boston mob world.

They made a monster.

♪ ♪

- By 1999, the FBI has gathered enough evidence

to arrest Connolly.

♪ ♪

- He's eventually convicted of racketeering

and second-degree murder

and is sentenced to 40 years in prison.

♪ ♪

- Meanwhile, Bulger remains a fugitive

on the FBI's most wanted list for 16 years.

♪ ♪

- In 2011, they finally take Whitey Bulger down.

At his trial,

he is sentenced to life in jail.

♪ ♪

- But seven years later, Bulger pays the ultimate price.

For all those years as an FBI informant,

an ex-mafia hitman murders him in his prison cell.

♪ ♪

- It's 2019 in Berlin.

A man is gunned down in cold blood.

The dead man is a well-known enemy of Russia,

and his killer's name is a mystery.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

- An assassin is in the bushes

waiting for a Georgian national

to come walking by in a public park in Berlin.

His target is Zelimkhan Khangoshvili,

a longtime enemy of the Russian state

who has fought against them in two wars

in the '90s and was now living in exile in Germany.

♪ ♪

- Khangoshvili walks past.

The hitman emerges from the bushes.

♪ ♪

He fires,

and Khangoshvili dies instantly.

- After the assassination, despite trying to blend in,

the German police find this guy and quickly arrest him.

- The assassin is carrying a Russian passport

under the name of Vadim Sokolov,

but neither the passport nor its holder is real.

- When the assassin is apprehended

and they find his passport under the name Vadim Sokolov,

they go searching through the records

but aren't able to find this guy.

He's a ghost. It isn't a real name.

It isn't a real passport.

- The German police announce to the world

that they have arrested a killer,

but they have no idea who he is.

- The news explodes around the world.

Everyone wants to know,

who is this mysterious assassin?

Who is he working for, and has he killed before?

♪ ♪

- A group of European journalists

start investigating this murder,

and they go out looking for other assassinations

that there are similar methods used,

and they find one that's eerily similar to this.

- Six years earlier in Moscow in 2013,

a Russian entrepreneur is gunned down in the street.

Like the Berlin murder,

it looks like a professional hit job.

The killer shot his victim multiple times

and fled on a bicycle.

- The prime suspect in the case is a man named Vadim Krasikov.

- The investigative journalists want to know,

are Krasikov and Sokolov the same person?

- Back in 2013, Russian police quickly launched

a worldwide search for him

and a red notice warrant was filed with Interpol.

- There's an interesting thing about this red notice.

It has a picture on it, and that picture

is almost identical to the person

that they know as Vadim Sokolov.

♪ ♪

So they discovered that Sokolov is

actually a guy named Krasikov.

- In December 2019, the journalists hand over

their findings to German investigators

working on the assassination of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili,

the man killed in the Berlin park.

- Because of the efforts of these journalists,

Krasikov is put on trial in 2021 in Germany

and is convicted of the murder of Khangoshvili.

♪ ♪

- The German government sentences him

to life in prison.

- Krasikov is identified,

but there is still one question.

Who is he working for?

- As the judge delivers the verdict,

he makes a shocking disclosure.

The court believes Krasikov was acting

on a state contract authorized by Vladimir Putin himself.

♪ ♪

- When that information comes out,

the Kremlin vehemently denies that.

The Russians really categorize these allegations

as absurd and unproven.

- Three years later, cameras capture

the largest high profile prisoner exchange

between Russia and the West in recent history,

and the truth is finally available for all to see.

- The U.S. and other Western countries

have agreed to the release of 15 people held in Russia.

They will be swapped for Russian prisoners

held in the West.

A middle aged man in a tracksuit

walks down the steps.

When he reaches the bottom, he receives a warm embrace

from President Putin.

The man being greeted like an old friend is Vadim Krasikov.

♪ ♪

- The cozy hug between tyrant and hitman

confirms what the world knew all along.

Vadim Krasikov is working for Vladimir Putin.

- Putin is blatantly making a mockery of the West,

because he first publicly denies

having any kind of relationship with Krasikov,

and then here he is rolling out the red carpet for the guy,

effectively confirming the alliance.

- Krasikov was, I guess, the perfect person

to become Putin's personal hitman.

♪ ♪

- Putin joining forces with a contract killer

made headline news,

but Russia isn't the only nation

to do a deal with a killer.

In order to eliminate a common enemy on foreign soil,

the CIA will join forces with the mob.

- In 1959, Fidel Castro leads his Communist Party to power

in the Cuban Revolution.

The island of Cuba is barely 100 miles from America,

but it's a threat too close for comfort

for the U.S. government.

- The CIA want communism out of Cuba,

so that means they have to get Castro

out of the picture permanently.

It's a bold and risky move.

- The CIA does not want to be tied back to the crime.

♪ ♪

- The CIA reaches out to a fixer,

someone who has connections

to the U.S. criminal underworld.

And he comes back with the names

of two potential collaborators,

mobsters John Roselli and Sam Giancana.

- It's a serious gamble to try and approach them,

but in a way, it's kind of a masterstroke too.

The CIA is confident that if word gets out,

the idea of the CIA partnering with the mafia

is so outrageous that no one will possibly believe it.

- The mobsters agree to meet with the CIA.

It seems they have their own agenda.

- Roselli and Giancana have their own interests

in seeing Castro removed from Cuba,

as he's been shutting down their lucrative casinos

in the island nation as well.

- The mob don't just hate Castro's politics.

The Cuban leader is also bad for business.

- The CIA offers them $150,000 to do this hit.

And they don't just decline the offer.

They offer to do it for free.

- Giancana and Roselli are happy to take this on

without compensation because they believe

that this will constitute a get out of jail free card

for them later on.

- This is doubly crazy.

You've got the CIA trying to take out a foreign leader

and the mafia turning down money for the hit.

♪ ♪

- These mobsters want to take a more subtle approach.

They don't want to shoot Castro.

They want to take a lethal pill

and put it into his food or his drink,

and the CIA actually gives this operation

basically a rubber stamp.

- Finding someone in Cuba who's willing to poison Castro

is the easy part.

Roselli knows an anti-communist worker

at Castro's favorite restaurant.

♪ ♪

In April 1962, he arranges for poison pills

to be delivered to the assassin.

- The months pass, and Castro still isn't dead.

It could be because Castro never went to the restaurant.

It could be because the guy took the money and disappeared.

Or it could be that Castro is just too well protected.

- The delays make CIA's top brass increasingly nervous

about relying on the mafia to do their dirty work.

So in October 1962, the CIA and the mobsters

agreed to abandon the plot and keep their alliance top secret.

- This was one deal that was never meant to be made public,

but in 1974, the truth was revealed

with fatal consequences.

- "The New York Times" publishes an exposé

which accuses the CIA of being involved

in assassination attempts against foreign leaders

like Fidel Castro.

A government investigation is immediately launched.

- During the investigation into plots to kill Castro,

Roselli and Giancana are identified

and summoned to testify.

But before Giancana can take the stand, disaster strikes.

He's shot dead in his Chicago home.

♪ ♪

Roselli fears he will be next.

- But rather than go into hiding,

Roselli risks his life to tell the Senate the truth.

"The New York Times" was right.

The CIA did recruit him to kill Castro.

♪ ♪

- But just weeks later in Miami,

his body is found stuffed inside an oil drum.

- Who killed the two hitmen?

Well, someone knows, but they're not telling.

To this day, no one's been charged with either murder.

♪ ♪

- In the run up to World War II,

Hitler believes his blitzkrieg tactics

require troops with superhuman stamina.

So he strikes a deal with a pharmaceutical company

to supply his soldiers with a brand-new drug,

methamphetamine.

[soft dramatic music]

- What German scientists discovered in the 1930s

is that methamphetamines can be used

to treat a whole host of conditions.

Things like narcolepsy, weight loss,

but they can also enhance athletic performance.

[people shouting German together]

- The Germans are hosting the Olympics in 1936,

and Adolf Hitler wants to show the superhuman capabilities

of German athletes.

- Methamphetamine tablets are prescribed to these athletes.

♪ ♪

The Third Reich decides to go one step further.

German military doctor named Otto Rank believed

that methamphetamine could be used

to turn soldiers into super soldiers.

- Drugging a whole army with amphetamines

doesn't sound like a very wise plan,

but Hitler is convinced that it is his path to victory.

[people shouting German together]

- In 1939, Germany is planning an invasion

of Poland, the event that will ignite World War II.

♪ ♪

- Germany since World War I has been thinking about

how to potentially fight the next war,

and they have figured out a better way

to use the materials at hand,

and that way is blitzkrieg.

♪ ♪

Blitzkrieg means lightning war.

It's all about speed and mobility.

♪ ♪

- In 1939, there are a million men

in the German military, a force that is soon to be

launched across the world.

So how does the Third Reich get enough pills

to supply every soldier within a matter of months?

The high command strikes a deal with Germany's

biggest pharmaceutical company, Temmler.

Temmler make a type of meth they call Pervitin.

- For Temmler, this represents a money making opportunity

because they're going to produce tens of millions

of doses of Pervitin.

For the Nazi regime, they're going to

chemically create the superhumans that Hitler

already believes Germans to be.

It's a match made in financial heaven.

- On the eve of the invasion of Poland in 1939,

the German troops are issued Pervitin pills,

and the result is that they are able to hike

35 miles without stopping.

They're able to persist for three days

without stopping to sleep.

They take the entire country in five weeks

and kill 100,000 Polish soldiers in the process.

It's a crushing victory.

- But these are the early days of the war.

To keep the blitzkrieg going,

they're gonna need a lot more pills,

so Temmler agrees to ramp up production of Pervitin.

- Between April and July 1940, the Temmler factories produce

over 800,000 Pervitin tablets every day,

and that turns into 35 million tablets

across the entire German military.

- The use of Pervitin is going to fuel Nazi armies

to conquer the low countries.

In a matter of only a few short weeks,

German armies drive the British off the continent.

The speed of the advance is mind-boggling to the West.

♪ ♪

- In 1941, the Nazis discover that soldiers

using their wonder drug are facing dire consequences.

♪ ♪

They become addicted to Pervitin.

Some even die from heart failure and suicide.

♪ ♪

- But despite the risks,

the drug continues to be given to troops

for the remainder of the war.

- The alliance between the pharmaceutical company

and the Nazis remains hidden until 2015,

when author Norman Ohler

unearths lost military documents.

- Even after World War II ends,

Temmler continues to produce Pervitin

all the way until 1988.

♪ ♪

- Macon, Georgia, 1932.

A medical experiment is about to be launched.

On the surface, it looks fine.

A government agency working with a respectable university

to research a life-threatening disease,

but the truth behind their partnership is much darker.

[tense music]

[train whistle toots]

- Life in the U.S. in the early 1930s

is incredibly tough. The economy has collapsed.

Millions of Americans are struggling to get by.

- Macon, Georgia is one of the poorest regions

in the nation in the 1930s.

It's also predominantly African American.

In the fall of 1932,

signs began appearing in Macon offering

free blood tests and medical treatment,

particularly for African American men.

- Charlie Pollard is one of the men

who takes up the offer.

Like many African Americans in Macon County,

he has never had access to medical care.

♪ ♪

- A sample of his blood is taken,

and when the results return,

he is told that his blood is bad

and that the cause is unknown,

but doctors promise to monitor the situation.

But the doctors know exactly what's wrong

with Pollard's blood.

He has a deadly infection called syphilis.

It affects one in ten Americans,

and there are almost half a million new cases every year.

- Its symptoms can be managed with treatment,

but there is no cure,

and, right now, little is known about how it progresses.

♪ ♪

Syphilis is extremely infectious,

and it can start with a painless rash

that may not even be noticed.

But over time, it eats away at your body,

your brain, your spinal cord, your heart, your aorta.

It can be life-threatening.

♪ ♪

- What Pollard doesn't know is the United States

Public Health Service has set up

a clandestine experiment

using African American men like him

as human guinea pigs to observe

the long-term progression of the disease.

♪ ♪

- They won't try and manage the disease.

Instead, they simply monitor their worsening symptoms

and prescribe them with placebos.

- The U.S. Public Health Service

can't carry out the study alone.

They need a site and they need people

whom the community will trust.

Just a ten minute drive from Macon County

is an African American College named the Tuskegee Institute,

and it's the perfect place.

- The Public Health Service

approaches the institute

and offers to underwrite the study.

For an African American institution in the 1930s,

funding is scarce.

It's an offer they can't turn down.

- And so this unholy alliance is basically forged

by the fact that the United States

Public Health Service has the funding

to provide to Tuskegee, and in exchange,

the U.S. Public Health Service promises

that they'll be on site to direct all the experiments,

to provide the medical treatment

for the test subjects.

- The deal is done.

Now all they need is people.

- And they ultimately focused their attention

on African American men.

Given the existence of segregation at the time

and the belief in the inherent inferiority of Black people,

it seems natural that they'll be able

to conduct the study on Black men

with few consequences.

- With the local men duped into participating,

the Tuskegee study of untreated syphilis begins.

♪ ♪

- Patient Chris Pollard is not alone.

Over the next 11 years, he and 600 other patients

will regularly make trips to Tuskegee for medical treatment.

- But in 1943, syphilis is rendered curable

with the arrival of the life-saving

antibiotic penicillin.

Despite this, the U.S. Public Health Service

decides to continue the Tuskegee experiment.

- So they're going to continue to let people die

when their syphilis could be cured by penicillin

almost instantly.

This is just extraordinary.

It's tantamount to murder.

- The project continues for another 29 years,

until 1972, when journalist Jean Heller

exposes the alliance between the government and college

after documents detailing the experiment

land on her desk.

- The United States Public Health Service

has violated the most fundamental tenets

of its mission to promote and protect public health,

and in this alliance with the Tuskegee Institute

has wreaked havoc and suffering.

It is a major betrayal of the public trust.

- The world knows the awful truth.

The government is forced to act.

- Three months after the article,

an advisory panel is formed who finds the experiment

medically unjustified and is finally terminated.

- Pollard and the other surviving members of the study

launch a class action lawsuit,

and, in 1974, they are awarded $10 million

with free medical treatment for the rest of their lives.

♪ ♪

- In the last days of the Second World War,

an extraordinary alliance forms between enemy soldiers

to fight against fanatical SS stormtroopers.

- In May 1945, the war in Europe is almost over.

Hitler has taken his own life

and the Allies are heading towards victory.

- In the Austrian Alps, there are still

active units of the Waffen SS,

the Reich's most zealous defenders.

For them, the prospect of defeat

only increases their lust for blood.

- The Waffen SS are Hitler's elite shock troops.

They are the most hardcore, fanatical Nazis.

They have no intent of surrendering,

even as the war is clearly about to be over.

- They want blood,

and they're out to find suitable victims.

- The SS have a target,

Castle Itter, an Alpine hotel turned prisoner of war camp.

- Castle Itter had once been a luxury hotel,

but it was taken over by the Germans in 1938.

It was converted into a 19-cell prison in 1943.

- The prisoners in Castle Itter aren't just

your run of the mill POWs.

These are fairly high-ranking individuals.

♪ ♪

- With rumors of a German surrender approaching,

the commander at Castle Itter decides to take his life.

♪ ♪

- Their commander dead, the prison guards

fear they will be captured by the Americans,

so they abandon their posts.

♪ ♪

- When the commandant of Castle Itter commits suicide,

news of his death quickly spreads through the area.

There's a group of about 150 SS troops in the woods

in the vicinity, and they realize

that now Castle Itter is no longer under Nazi control.

They start moving toward the strong point

with mayhem on their minds.

- The prisoners in the castle know that the SS is out there.

They're nearby,

and the prisoners are understandably quite concerned

that if the SS comes to the castle,

they'll execute all the prisoners.

♪ ♪

- They know if they're going to survive,

they need to take drastic action,

so they send the prison cook to find help.

♪ ♪

- He takes an SOS letter to American troops

who are rumored to have captured

the nearby town of Worgl.

When he gets there, he realizes that the Americans

have not yet taken the town after all.

The cook encounters another German officer

named Sepp Gangl.

- He hands the letter over,

but to his shock, Gangl isn't hostile.

He's a battle-hardened major

who is disillusioned with the Nazi cause

and tired of all the bloodshed.

- Gangl has troops with him, but he doesn't have enough

to put up a defense against the 17th SS

as they move through the area, and Gangl understands

that if we're gonna save these guys,

we're gonna need help.

We're going to have to reach out to the American troops

that are known to be nearby.

- What Gangl decides to do is to proceed

under a flag of truce,

essentially waving a white flag.

- Slowly and carefully approaches the Americans.

In front of him is 27-year-old Captain Jack Lee.

- When Captain Lee spots a German soldier approaching,

he's on high alert.

He has no idea if this is a trap.

- After a bit of back and forth,

Lee becomes convinced that Gangl

is exactly what he claims to be,

and the two of them agree to combine forces.

- After years of conflict,

it's an unimaginable partnership.

GIs and Germans work together.

- These guys have been machine gunning each other

and throwing grenades at each other for years,

and now suddenly, they're erstwhile allies

in defending against Hitler's most fanatical soldiers.

- But they're heavily outnumbered.

Even with the American reinforcements,

there are only 24 armed men capable of resisting

an SS force of 150 fanatical Nazi troops.

But they do have an advantage in that

they are in a prepared defensive fortification.

♪ ♪

And all of a sudden, the SS assault begins.

The chatter of machine guns,

the explosion of mortar rounds.

These troops are under siege.

♪ ♪

- After hours of bitter fighting,

somehow the alliance holds strong.

The SS are defeated and withdraw from the fight.

- The action is not without loss.

While trying to rescue one of the prisoners, Gangl,

he's caught in a crossfire and shot by a sniper.

He's the only casualty of the action.

♪ ♪

- The operation is a success,

but the involvement of Major Gangl

and his countrymen is not mentioned

in American newspapers,

only in classified military reports.

- It's more than 70 years later, in 2013,

when Gangl's role in one of the strangest alliances of the war

makes international headlines.

♪ ♪

A full account of the Battle of Castle Itter

is finally published by historian Stephen Harding.

♪ ♪

- When nations vie for power, foes can turn into friends

and former allies can become enemies,

but as these files reveal, secret and unholy alliances

can influence history.

I'm David Duchovny.

Thanks for watching "Secrets Declassified."