Original subtitles

Get ready because "expedition unknown" is back...

Get out of here! Are you kidding me?!

...With our most daring...

That is it!

Look at that!

...Our most far-flung...

We are far, far, far from the civilized world.

...And our most adventure-packed season ever.

Okay, well that was officially the most "goonies" moment

of my entire life.

♪

ay-yi-yi!

We've got a wreck down here. Confirmed.

Hold on to something, boys.

[ tires squeal ] let's have an adventure.

Let's have an adventure.

Okay. Let's rock and roll.

♪

this is history right here.

♪

just stacked with skulls and bones.

Watch out! Rock!

So join me on the expedition of a lifetime.

Whoo-hoo-hoo!

♪

♪

this music sheet supposedly points to...

A stash of nazi gold

and hitler's personal diamonds.

What is this writing that's layered on top of the music?

It's made to look like a poem, but it's not.

"x" marks the spot.

"x" marks the spot.

It's like something out of a movie.

Of course.

It's so crazy, it almost has to be true.

[ tires squeal ]

this is a little sketchy.

Here we go!

Whoo-hoo-hoo!

Ooh, it's there.

Get out of here! Are you kidding me?

♪

♪

it sounds like the plot from a hollywood thriller.

In the closing days of world war ii,

a cache of plundered nazi gold and diamonds

worth tens of millions is hidden away deep in the alps,

and the only clues to its whereabouts

are encoded onto a piece of sheet music.

It has all the makings of a blockbuster movie,

but what if it's all true?

The year is 1945.

The nazis, on the brink of defeat,

rush to hide gold and silver from the looted banks of europe,

as well as hitler's personal stash of diamonds

in a secret location in the german countryside.

The location of the treasure

is known only to hitler's closest ally,

the keeper of all of his secrets,

his secretary -- martin bormann.

After hitler commits suicide,

bormann flees hitler's bunker in berlin

and is killed trying to escape the city.

As for the looted treasure,

it seems to have vanished without a trace until now.

Today, an investigative journalist thinks

he's discovered a clue

that could help solve the mystery --

small coded symbols within a musical score

once owned by bormann,

believed to contain secret instructions

for recovering the gold.

And several historians believe they're about to do just that.

So is the legend of the stolen nazi riches real,

and if it is, can they be recovered?

Join me as I cross europe

to see if the truth really is stranger than fiction.

My name is josh gates...

Look! Ha, ha, ha!

...Explorer, adventurer...

That is it!

...And a guy who ends up in some very strange situations.

Ah, ah, ah, ah!

With a degree in archaeology

and a passion for the unexplained,

I travel to the ends of the earth

investigating the greatest legends in history.

Okay, let's punch it.

This is "expedition unknown."

-- captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com

captions paid for by discovery communications

my journey into a musical heart of darkness

begins not in the wolf's lair of germany,

but in the netherlands.

In all my years of travels, I'm ashamed to say

I've spent very little time here in amsterdam.

My most memorable trip was a layover in college

where some guy gave me a weird mushroom

and told me to check out the van gogh museum.

Actually, I don't remember much about that trip, either.

Anyway, amsterdam.

If this city had a motto, it might be this --

"what's not to love?"

walking around amsterdam,

its reputation as a kind of stoner disneyland

quickly falls away,

replaced with what the dutch call

"gezelligheid," or "coziness."

in this quiet city of canals, churches, theaters, and museums,

you instantly feel like you've been here your whole life.

But standing amidst amsterdam's many amusements

are reminders of darker times.

The nazis invaded here in may of 1940,

part of the blitzkrieg of europe

that also saw the fall of belgium and France.

The third reich swept across the continent,

looting the bank vaults of the conquered

and confiscating whatever art and jewels

might fit the personal whims of adolf hitler.

To learn where some of that wealth may have gone,

I head to the doopsgezinde kerk church

to meet journalist karl hammer.

Josh, hi.

That's right. It's hammer time.

-Welcome. -Wow.

Look at this. This is stunning.

Yeah, 17th-century mennonite church

right in the middle of amsterdam.

And like everything else here...

-Beautiful. -...Beautiful.

Okay. Let's talk about this mysterious music sheet.

This music sheet supposedly points to...

A stash of nazi gold

and hitler's personal diamonds,

the most expensive diamonds the nazis ever had.

And tell me how you got involved with this.

Where did you first hear this story?

Well, I was working on another book about nazi art theft,

and this guy came up to me, and he said,

"I have this musical sheet,

which is actually a coded document

drafted by martin bormann, hitler's personal secretary."

gates: If adolf hitler was the heart of the nazi regime,

then martin bormann might have been its brain.

A loyal servant of the party

since the days before hitler took power,

bormann rose to become the fuhrer's personal secretary.

In 1945, with the war almost lost,

bormann was among the inner circle

that stood beside hitler in the fuhrerbunker.

On April 29th, 1945,

hitler signed his last will and testament.

Bormann was his witness and executor of his estate.

Now, what's interesting -- that at the end of the war,

when they were about to lose the war,

they had decided that they wanted to continue their ideals

in a fourth reich, so to say.

This idea that if the war is lost,

if the third reich falls,

they'll reorganize and come back.

Right, and they had this terror cell called werwolfin,

the werewolves.

-The werewolves? -Yeah.

Gates: But even werewolves need money,

so according to the story, bormann had to cover the bill.

To front that terror group, werwolf,

they needed gold and diamonds.

And they had a stash placed somewhere in bavaria.

Now, bormann needed to get a message to the south,

to the leader of the werwolf group there,

so he thought very cleverly,

"I'll have this sheet of music coded

to get to that gold and to those diamonds,"

and he sent a clergyman down south

to bring that document to the werwolves.

The nazis would allegedly use clergy

to pass messages through allied territory

since they would be less likely to be questioned and searched.

But if the story is true,

the sheet music was never delivered,

and it sat collecting dust for over 70 years.

If you want to, I can show you

because I've brought it with me.

You have the original sheet music?

I have the original sheet music.

Yes, I would love to see it.

♪

oh, my word.

-Take it out. -May I?

Take it out.

Gates: We don white gloves

because hammer says, "can't touch this."

wow.

Look at that.

Gates: This is the "March impromptu"

by the german-american composer gottlieb federlein.

First of all, before anything else,

to think that we may be holding a document here

that was in the fuhrerbunker

at the end of world war ii --

it is already kind of mind-boggling.

Yeah. It's then probably the last document

bormann ever drafted, so it's unique.

Now, I have to say also,

if you just handed this to me,

and I had no context, you know what I see here?

I see a pretty normal piece of sheet music.

-Yeah, yeah. -Right?

As a layman looking at this,

I would have no sense that there's a code here.

Well, one way to find it out --

you play the music,

look at the sheet, follow the notes,

and see where you find things

that are not in the music but that are on paper.

Okay. That's a good plan if I could play piano.

One step ahead of you.

I've invited two friends for you who can play the piano.

Yes?

Gentlemen?

Gates: Karl has invited a pair of dutch pianists

to play a command performance of the "March impromptu,"

but as I'm about to learn,

there's a lot more on the page than just the music...

...Strange symbols, characters,

and even cryptic text masquerading as lyrics.

[ piano playing ]

these are the elements karl believes constitute

a secret nazi message --

directions to find a cache of gold and diamonds.

Bravo.

Terrific.

So, josh, I have a copy of the sheet music and an overlay.

All the markings you see here in red, for instance,

are the things that they didn't play,

you couldn't hear,

but they are on the sheet music.

What is this writing that's layered on top of the music?

It's made to look like a poem, but it's not.

So the first line here says?

"we matthias die saiten streichelt."

which translates to?

"where matthew strokes the strings."

"where matthew strokes the strings."

I mean, who's matthew?

What strings?

Gates: There are also those strange characters amid the music

that karl thinks are part of the puzzle.

Where you see the little markers...

Yeah.

...They are all runic symbols.

You see "f.X.S." in the first line down.

"f.X.S." means franz xaver schwarz.

Gates: Franz xaver schwarz was the treasurer of the nazi party

from its very beginnings

and was so trusted by hitler that the fuhrer's will

was only to be opened in schwarz's presence.

In short, he was hitler's personal banker

and someone who would have certainly been aware

of any secret nazi slush funds.

In fact, some believe schwarz may even have been

the intended recipient of the coded music.

What's your own hunch?

Is there something out there to be found?

Yeah. Definitely.

-That was a quick "yeah." -yeah.

Gates: All that's left is to crack the code

or find someone who already has.

Are there people that are actively looking

for this treasure?

Oh, yeah, sure, and I'm sure that one day

the code will be cracked.

Question is, will there still be something in the ground?

-Hmm. -We don't know.

We'll have to wait.

Hey, thank you very much, karl.

-You're welcome. -I really appreciate it.

It was a real pleasure.

Gates: So is the music sheet truly a coded message?

Will deciphering it lead to a secret stash

of gold and diamonds?

To find out, I'll be joining up

with some of the most determined treasure hunters in europe.

But first, I'm gonna do what woodward and bernstein

taught me to do --

follow the money, which means I'm going to berlin.

♪

one of the few remaining examples

of nazi-era architecture is this --

the extremely inviting-looking reichsbank.

Commissioned in 1933,

millions of dollars in stolen gold, silver,

and other valuables from citizens,

as well as fortunes looted from conquered nations,

wound up here in the nazis' central bank.

Much of the looted assets of the nazi regime would be

deposited into the reichsbank

under the pseudonym max heiliger.

Heiliger ironically means "saint" in german.

Multiple heiliger accounts were created

to help launder these assets,

which by 1942 already filled several bank vaults.

But what happened to the money in 1945

is a mystery we still haven't solved even after 75 years.

Much of the wealth from the heiliger accounts

was missing at the end of the war

and remains missing to this day.

That's why the music sheet is so intriguing.

It could lead to historic valuables --

valuables that could be returned to the heirs of wartime victims

or repatriated to museums.

Some believe that as the war became unwinnable for the nazis,

the wealth from the heiliger accounts

was taken from the vaults here and hidden all over germany.

The best way to investigate that is to utilize

germany's vast network of high-speed trains.

I'm buying my ticket south into central germany

to pursue a fresh theory on the hunt

for bormann's stolen treasure.

One of the most promising new leads in this case

is actually from a french explorer,

a guy named jean christophe boulet,

who's convinced that he's decoded the music sheet

and that it leads to a small german town

about 200 miles southwest of berlin.

It's a long trip --

that is, of course, unless you're traveling in a train

that does nearly 150 miles an hour.

To no one's surprise, the german trains

run right on time.

♪

and I'm soon at the end of my line

near the town eisenach.

I disembark and head into the nearby hills

to meet my old friend

treasure hunter jean christophe boulet.

Jean christophe.

Good to see you, man.

So you think this area has something to do

with this music sheet?

Why this area?

Okay.

Gates: Strategic it is.

We're close to the eisenach-kindel airport,

which during the war was such an alluring allied target

that it was firebombed into nonexistence.

And you think you can connect this place to the music sheet.

Okay. How?

Are we walking or driving?

[ tires squeal ]

gates: Cars can't go where we're heading,

so I'm furiously tailing jean christophe

on an all-terrain four-wheeler.

"hey, josh, what'd you do this weekend?"

"ah, oh, let's see.

A random french guy that I barely know

led me deep into a spooky german forest

looking for nazi plunder."

"josh, that seems like an ill-conceived plan."

"yes. Yes, in fact, it was."

he-yeah! Aahh!

You got it.

Oh, boy, big hill, big hill, big hill.

Here we go.

Here we go. Here we go.

Here we go. Here we go. Come on, girl.

Come on, girl. Come on, girl.

Come on, girl. Come on.

Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on.

Ah, [bleep]. It stalled!

I'll be right there.

Little bit of a problem here.

No, no, no, no, no.

Ahh.

Good evening and welcome

to "expedition unknown" headquarters.

I'm josh gates,

and I'll be with you all night

to kick off

another brand-new season

of "expedition unknown."

in the coming weeks,

I'll travel to the holy land

to investigate the mysteries of the life of jesus,

search for the holy grail of shipwrecks

in the great lakes...

Oh! We've got a wreck down here. Confirmed.

...And go diving in peru

to search for the fabled atlantis of the andes.

Ah, that's loco.

I'll also be answering your questions from social media

and, later, talking with ramy romany

about his adventures

finding and investigating the world's mummies.

We are trying to solve ancient mummy mysteries

using modern cutting-edge technology.

Like ancient "csi"?

Egyptian style, yeah. Yeah. Egyptian style.

But before all that, we've got some treasure to find.

So stick around.

The search for the nazis' stolen fortune

continues after the break,

and you won't believe what we uncover next.

It all happens right here, only on discovery.

Gates: To investigate an enigmatic sheet of music

that may contain directions to a cache of stolen nazi loot,

I've come to central germany...

[ tires screech ]

...Where treasure hunter jean christophe boulet

thinks he's cracked the code and is ready to strike gold.

I'm hopeful, but it's still a bit of an uphill climb.

Ah, [bleep]. It stalled!

Little bit of a problem.

Little bit of a problem here.

No, no, no, no, no.

Ahh. Okay.

Horrible and dangerous?

Okay. Let's try that again.

Come on, girl. Come on, girl.

Come on, girl.

Come on.

Yes!

No! Whoa!

Ha, ha, ha!

Yes! Let's go.

♪ I've been walking down the hill ♪

♪ I've been walking up the hill ♪

♪ ball and chain don't slow me down ♪

♪ no one can slow me down ♪

good lord.

It's easy to see why this treasure has never been found.

Germany may be one of the most

industrialized nations in the world,

but it's still got a lot of wilderness.

♪ nothing's gonna stop me now ♪

pull over!

Look at me.

[ laughing ]

look at me.

Look what you did to me.

French [bleep].

♪

first of all, I'm sending you my dry-cleaning bill.

All right. Listen, man, where are we going?

Okay, where are we?

Martin bormann was the press officer in this region?

And this is the mine

where a lot of gold and silver was stored.

Gates: Merkers mine has become

perhaps the most storied example of nazi plunder.

In April of 1945, a u.S. Army patrol

met some french refugees with an amazing story --

that the germans had hidden a fortune in a nearby salt mine.

The ninth army found a vault inside,

and when they blew the door,

they discovered over 8,300 gold bars

and 3,300 bags of gold coins, as well as silver, platinum,

and art worth tens of millions of dollars.

Jean christophe hopes bormann's musical code

might lead to a similar haul.

But then how does this place relate to

the music sheet and the mystery?

♪

gates: We hop off the atvs and unfold a smaller,

flatter version of germany.

Gates: All right. So this is a map of germany.

This poem of sorts, yeah.

Okay, the last one.

Okay, which means?

"end of the dance." all right.

Uh-huh. The end of the dance, the edge of the country.

Okay.

So we're looking for something on the border.

All right.

Okay, "where matthias strokes the strings."

okay, so that's the matthias who's stroking the strings.

Gates: Matthias klotz was a renowned violin maker

from the bavarian alps.

Jean christophe is sure that

"where matthias strokes the strings"

is his hometown of mittenwald, far to the south of here.

Gates: So we're gonna circle this.

Mittenwald. Okay, what's next?

Gates: From there, he takes me through the rest of the clues.

"edelweis uber schwarzwald" refers to

the edelweiss plant in the southwest of germany,

and "kein wasser kalt," meaning "no cold water,"

may narrow it down further to a hot spring

in the town of bad sacckingen.

Gates: Okay, so this is location number two.

Okay, we got two towns. Now what?

Gates: The next lines, "predigtstuhl kreuz u. Kranz"

and "nordost die krone,"

jean christophe thinks has connections to two towns

in the north -- konigstuh and glucksburg.

Cross the four cities?

Okay.

Gates: Jean christophe brings out some string

to play connect-the-dots.

Gates: So we're gonna create an "x" here,

and I assume we're interested in what's at the center, yes?

[ laughs ]

eisenach.

That's where we are right now.

And that's why we're here because...

..."x" marks the spot.

Gates: From here, jean christophe wants to take a walk in the woods.

Okay. We've got our "x" on the map,

but it's a pretty big "x."

what are we looking for out here in the woods?

Okay.

Gates: As we've learned from merkers mine,

the nazis did use caves to hide treasure.

Considering bormann was the press officer in this region,

caves near here are a major target for jean christophe,

and that's not all.

For centuries, legends have surrounded the caves

in this forest.

One was even said to be the literal home on earth

of the goddess of love, venus.

The nazis were fascinated with classical mythology,

so a cave devoted to venus --

jean christophe thinks it's too perfect a place

for bormann to pass up.

Right. So we find the caves

and then hopefully find the loot.

Gates: And so our hunt for caves begins --

that is, if we can get to them.

Wow.

All right. Now, this looks like cave country.

All this looks real craggy in here.

Sure. Yeah. Let's do it.

Big drop-off here. Whoa-ho-ho.

Ooh!

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Gates: We find a thin ribbon of passable ground

to make our way down,

and by passable, I mean I'd give it about a "d."

this is a little sketchy.

Yeah, stick to the wall.

Gates: We edge along the cliff face.

One bad step, and jean christophe

will be a party of one at dinner tonight.

I feel like a mountain goat.

How do you say "mountain goat" in french?

In the states, a shamwow is a miracle product

for cleaning up messes.

It's from the makers of slap chop.

Gates: Finally, a secluded opening appears

in the side of the cliff.

Ah! Does that go back?

Oh, hell yeah, it does! Look at that!

That's a cave!

Gates: On the hunt for a cache

of stolen nazi gold and diamonds,

treasure hunter jean christophe boulet and I

are scouring the forests of central germany for a cave

that he thinks might hold the loot.

Does that go back?

Oh, hell yeah, it does. Look at that!

That's a cave.

[ laughing ] nice work, man.

Gates: It's remote, difficult to access, and foreboding.

In other words, it's perfect.

After you. Let's see where it goes.

Gates: We enter the cave

and start looking for all that glitters.

Oh, wow. This goes way back.

Gates: These limestone chambers extend beneath the hillside

into multiple tunnels.

Gates: This is crazy.

Gates: This cave was once believed to be

the legendary home of the goddess venus.

Jean christophe is hoping that somewhere inside,

the nazis sealed up a vault of gold and diamonds.

Before we find anything, though,

the main tunnel comes to a sudden end.

Dead end?

Does it go any further?

It definitely goes back.

We have a snake cam in one of the packs.

Grab that, and we can see what's back here.

Gates: Jean christophe goes down another of the cave's passages

to metal detect while I rig up our snake cam,

a tiny camera attached to a thin, flexible cable.

If there's a chamber here,

this device should be able to see it.

Okay, so we can see there's a really narrow tunnel,

and then there's kind of a right turn here.

Probably nobody has ever seen around this corner.

There's more around the corner. Look at that.

The chamber continues a little bit,

and then shortly thereafter...

...End of the line, a true dead end.

All right. Nothing back there,

not even venus, who I was really,

really looking forward to meeting.

I reel in the camera and go to share my find

with jean christophe.

Hey, so good news.

That little tunnel back there does continue.

There's a little more to the chamber,

but a dead end.

And the metal detector?

Where?

On the shelf?

Oh, I see what you're talking about.

Yes, yes, yes.

Yeah, there's something green up there.

What is that?

Unbelievable.

Look at that.

[ laughs ] what is that?

It's beautiful.

It's really weird because it is not part of the cave.

This is not, like, some mineral growth from in here.

This is something that was placed here.

I don't know.

If these were emeralds or diamonds,

maybe this could be a nazi cache,

but I think this was, like, an offering,

part of the venus-cave story.

This place has been associated with venus for so long.

Maybe someone came and made an offering to venus.

That, or it's from the planet krypton,

and it's the only thing that can kill superman.

[ laughs ]

gates: While it's a thrill to find anything in here,

this isn't what I came for.

Let's put this back

and let it continue to honor venus,

if that's what it was for.

We just got to hope

that lex luthor doesn't find this thing.

Gates: The world's gone dark by the time we exit the cave.

Jean christophe will be back

to explore this area more thoroughly,

but for me, it's "auf wiedersehen, eisenach,"

and "guten morgen, autobahn."

this is a vintage military mercedes-benz g-wagen

used by the german bundeswehr, or armed forces.

This vehicle is often referred to as "the wolf,"

a nickname shared by none other than adolf hitler himself.

The traffic might move fast out here,

but there are still rules.

I've actually deleted all of the german names out of this phone

because by law, it needs to be "hans-free."

I mean, that's a terrible joke.

Hello.

I set my cruise control at ludicrous speed

for the 300-mile trip to continue my investigation

in the town of mittenwald, germany.

Mittenwald, you'll recall, was a location

to which bormann's music sheet allegedly refers,

where matthias strokes the strings.

That's because this was the hometown

of a renowned violin maker, matthias klotz,

and some believe the sheet music is supposed to lead right here.

♪

I drive outside of town to a secluded cabin

in the alpine woods.

This is cozy.

I'm here to meet a pair of researchers

who have spent years looking for bormann's missing millions,

jurgen proske and sebastian eberle.

Come on in. Look at this place.

You found all this?

Yes, we found all these relics here in the area.

That's incredible.

Gates: The table is covered with dozens of wartime artifacts

that the pair has recovered in the nearby woods --

byproducts of their years trying to crack bormann's code.

The one thing I really recognize on this table,

of course, is this. Yeah.

So this is another copy of the "March impromptu,"

of the famous music.

So I take it that you believe that this area, mittenwald,

really is where this treasure is buried.

Let me explain.

Gates: Using the same six lines from the score,

jurgen has reached a totally different interpretation

of the clues as jean christophe.

Though they agree on mittenwald being the answer

to "where matthias strokes the strings,"

jurgen believes the edelweiss refers to nearby army barracks

that use the flower as its emblem.

The clues about "predigtstuhl," "kreuz," and "kranz"

he claims refers to three mountains

that surround this town.

How convinced are you that the treasure is around here?

100%. Absolutely.

Because all the clues point to here and nowhere else.

And if you connect them, it's a interesting symbol.

Gates: Plotting the site on a map forms a symbol that,

while unrecognizable to me,

is instantly recognizable to them.

Okay, so if you connect them, you get...

You know this symbol?

I do not know this symbol.

That's the signature of hitler.

This is the signature of hitler?

This is the signature of hitler.

Gates: The resemblance is uncanny.

By connecting the sites, the resulting pattern looks

almost exactly like adolf hitler's signature

from the end of April in 1945,

exactly when the gold was reportedly hidden.

This is the signature of the owner of the treasure,

and this is hitler.

It's like something out of a movie.

Of course.

It's so crazy, it almost has to be true.

Yeah.

Gates: But when with all that,

jurgen and sebastian still couldn't be certain

they were looking in the right place

until they found one more artifact.

We have one special finding

which points towards the treasure,

and that is this.

-What is this? -It's the molding pan.

-It's a mold? -For silver...

-For silver? -...And for gold.

They took gold, like those coins down there,

and they molded it inside...

-Right. -...This area and hide it.

This is literally the type of mold

that they would've used to melt gold and silver

down into the bars that were stored in the reichsbank.

-Yeah. -Of course, yeah.

That is a really tangible connection to this story.

How well have you searched the area where this came from?

Once or twice in this area,

but we haven't searched it thoroughly,

and that's what we want to do.

-I can see why. -Yeah.

You want to join?

Yeah. Yes, I want to join.

I want to see what was in here.

-Okay. Let's go. -Let's go.

Gates: Having seen the evidence,

jurgen seems like a mad genius, or simply mad.

Only time will tell.

We grab our metal detectors

and hike into the woods toward the spot

where jurgen and sebastian discovered the metal mold.

How often do you guys come out searching?

Well, nearly every weekend.

Wow. So this is more than just a part-time hobby.

[ laughing ] yeah, it's an obsession, at least.

Yes, an obsession.

And what do your families think?

They think you're crazy? They are happy.

You're in good air at least and healthy air,

and you're moving, you know?

Exactly.

Gates: Walking through the thick woods,

it occurs to me that germany

is where the story of "hansel and gretel" was written.

We don't find a witch's house,

but what we do find is just as creepy.

Oh, my god! It's a bunker!

-Wow. It's an old one. -Look at that. From the war.

Yes, it's from the war.

And what would this be doing

all the way up here in the woods?

I don't know. It could be anything.

-Should we check it out? -Yeah, of course.

Proske: Be careful.

Oh, it's not collapsed. It definitely goes back.

Oh! Look at this... Little niche here.

Kind of a double entrance, and then look at this.

It is carved right out of the solid rock.

It's amazing.

Gates: The woods around mittenwald

escaped the front lines of world war ii,

yet this bunker appears to be built to withstand

a vicious attack.

-Hey, look here. -Absolutely amazing.

Look at this.

-This is old iron. -Old iron.

It's a driller from a drilling machine.

You know, you put it in the drilling machine,

and it goes like, "whoa."

-wow. -[ speaks german ]

proske: Well, there are the drill holes.

-Look at that. -You can see they prepared for explosives.

So they were gonna blast even deeper.

-Yeah. -Wow.

There is also a concrete basement here.

Yeah, there's a concrete slab.

And here it's also something made of metal.

Is it a...

Wood and metal everywhere.

Okay, well, it's not a very extensive place.

I have no idea what it was used for,

but it looks a bit like whatever they were planning here,

they gave up on.

Gates: If they had finished, perhaps we might know

what purpose the nazis imagined for this bunker,

but right now, we need to return

to where jurgen and sebastian found the metal mold.

♪

wow. Huge gorge down there.

Yeah, it's very deep and very hard to cross.

Gates: We hike through the forest for an hour,

but we still have a long way to go.

Watch your footing.

Gates: I think we're about to hit a dead end

when jurgen shows me something jaw-dropping

and possibly josh-dropping.

Jurgen? Yeah.

What the hell is this?

His is how we get across.

No.

♪

gates: Treasure hunters jurgen proske and sebastian eberle

think they've cracked a 75-year-old nazi code

hiding the location of looted gold

and hitler's personal stash of diamonds.

They've already found world war ii relics

and a molding pan used for gold bars,

but one thing is separating us from their search zone.

Jurgen? Yeah.

What the hell is this?

This is how we get across.

That's how we get across?

Of course.

Who put this here?

Oh, the mountain troopers are using it to get across.

And it's safe?

It's quite safe.

And we have to go to the other side of this thing?

We have to go to the other side

to reach the area where the mold was found.

Okay. Let's do it.

-Sounds good. -No, it doesn't sound good.

It sounds terrible. Go. -You will love it.

I will not love it.

Gates: We don harnesses and clip in for the ride.

Jurgen, when was the last time somebody used this?

And made it across?

Germans are known for their humor.

[ laughing ]

gates: I inch toward the edge of the cliff

and steel myself to take the plunge.

Just off a cliff.

[ breathes deeply ]

here we go!

See you later. He-yeah!

Whoo-hoo!

Here we go! Ha, ha, ha!

Oh, my god!

Oh, god. Oh, god. Oh, god. Oh, god.

Oh, god. Ahhh!

Ah! Ah!

[ grunting ]

okay. That hurt.

Okay, I made it. -Great, josh.

Great, josh. You made it.

I think I broke my finger, but I made it.

Okay, who's next?

Gates: Now it's jurgen and sebastian's turn.

Okay, you ready?!

Yes!

Be careful! The ending's a little tough!

Yippee!

Yeah.

Gates: They fly across the gap

without an instant of hesitation.

You got it?

Good, good, good, good, good.

Good man.

Nice job. All right.

Let's clip this in and get back to work.

♪

gates: Safely across the gorge, we're finally close

to where sebastian and jurgen found the mold,

so with metal detectors in hand,

we begin sweeping the forest floor

for a cache of gold.

Well, we have fanned out, which is another way of saying

that they've left me alone in the woods,

but that's all right.

Divide and conquer.

♪

gates: And it doesn't take long for jurgen to get a hit.

Hey, guys, I've got a signal here.

-You got a hit? -Yeah.

What do you got?

My detector tells me it's iron.

[ metal detector beeps ]

whoo! That's a good signal.

I think it's in the center.

-You think right in there? -Yep.

Gates: Jurgen whips out a knife

that I wouldn't want to see in a dark alley

and begins breaking up the ground.

Ooh, it's there. It's there.

Gates: It turns out that our metal-detector hit was,

number one, with a bullet.

Is it a nail? -Ahhh!

-It's a bullet! -It's a bullet.

Look at that!

Unbelievable. Look at that.

Eberle: [ speaks german ]

here's another.

Another. Ha!

Unbelievable. Is there more?

There's still one.

Three of them. Oh, my word.

Now we have to take a look.

Here.

Gates: Now we need to find out

the caliber of our discover, literally.

It's from a k98.

A k98. So educate me. What's a k98?

It's the standard rifle of the wehrmacht.

Also, it was used for the machine gun for the m42.

Gates: The k98k mauser rifle was standard-issue

for the german armed forces in world war ii

and was used in every theater of battle

in which the nazis fought.

This forest was not a battlefield during the war,

but finding this ammunition all but confirms

that nazi soldiers were here.

But why?

Were they burying bormann's millions?

With a pocket full of bullets, we quickly resume the search,

spreading out through the area

to cover as much ground as possible.

And again, we get a signal.

[ metal detector beeps ]

-whoa. -Big hit.

I have a signal.

-Big hit. -Big hit.

[ metal detector beeps ]

back here as well --

another hit, or the same thing,

and it's just coming from under the rock.

I don't know which.

Gates: The reading is strong enough to surround a large rock,

so we're forced to roll it away to pinpoint the signal.

[ grunting ]

-gosh. It's a big one. -Huge.

-Everywhere. -Everywhere.

-Everywhere. -Seems strong, whatever it is.

No, it's iron --

iron or metal, at least.

It's metal. But we have dig carefully

in case it's an explosive.

Explosive like what?

-Mines. -Mines?

-Mines, yeah. -Have you found mines before?

Yes, they secured their caches with mines.

Oh, that's called

"beginning-of-the-day" information.

That's not... That's not "now" information.

You wouldn't have joined us...

-No! -...If I told.

-I'd be in a car. -[ laughing ] yeah.

So we have to be very careful here about digging now.

Yes, we do.

-Very careful. -Be very careful.

Gates: Yes.

Take the small shovel, not the big one.

Yeah. I'm gonna take the small shovel,

I'm gonna hand it to you, and then I'm gonna sit

about 30 feet behind this tree.

Okay? And I will watch with binoculars.

Gates: After assuring me that I probably won't get blown up,

jurgen carefully digs in with his knife.

But the first thing we find isn't metal at all.

Wait, wait, wait, wait.

What is this?

This is leather.

-What? -Leather.

-It's leather? -Leather.

That is leather. What the hell?

It's a small part.

What is this from?

It could be from anything, at least.

Here.

That's metal?

Yeah, here is metal -- a bullet.

Another bullet?

-Yeah. -Aha! Another shell.

-Another shell. -Another full bullet.

-Yeah, yeah. -Yeah.

Here is the other part of leather.

-More leather. -Yeah.

-That's more leather. -Whoa. There's still leather.

What if it's a part of the ammunition case?

Proske: Yeah, if it fits from the...

From the german wehrmacht?

...From the ammunition pack, you know, they're carrying...

That's part of an ammunition case.

...Because that's why there is ammunition down here.

So these things are held.

Yeah, the soldiers have the case on the uniform.

Are you kidding me?

Gates: First the ammo, now the bag.

Perhaps we're not far off from gold and diamonds.

♪

ay-yi-yi.

[ laughing ] oh, whoa.

I'm getting nervous.

It's an old belt.

That's a belt.

It is a belt. It is.

I mean, that is insane.

Well, that's not what's setting of the metal detector,

so what is setting off the metal detector,

and what is this thing?

I don't know.

It's iron, at least. That's iron.

I would be very careful with that.

It's round on top.

Wait, wait, wait.

It's metal.

What is this?

Get out of here! Are you kidding me?!

Josh gates here, still completely intact

since we did not encounter any land mines

during my search,

though the bullets we found

seemed to indicate that

we're on the right track.

Still, I do have my thumbs available

for scrolling social media,

so let's take a look at one of your questions.

This comes from a viewer who asks,

"what was your favorite expedition from last season,

and what are you most looking forward to in season 5?"

great question.

My favorite adventure from last year

was our trip to the jungle ruins

of the maya city of el mirador in guatemala.

Oh, man! Look at that!

We worked alongside archaeologists

hunting for the tombs of the so-called snake kings,

and in the process, we used laser mapping

to discover a temple complex

that has never been seen by the modern world.

Oh, my god. -Up, up!

We could literally be looking at a snake king here.

As for the new season, one of my favorite expeditions

is our quest for the truth behind the crystal skull of doom...

Wow.

...A very real object with very murky origins.

Is it a mystical relic with dangerous powers

or one of archaeology's tallest tales?

We'll head deep into the jungles of honduras

on a true indiana jones adventure,

and in a few weeks, you'll get to see what we discover.

Oh, my god! Get a camera down here!

Come here! Look at this!

But for now, let's take a short break,

and when we return,

you won't believe what we found in the forests of germany.

Stick around.

Gates: My expedition into germany

happens to coincide with the christmas season,

and there's no better place to celebrate than munich.

♪

munich has everything you want out of a great city.

It's got world-class art,

historic architecture,

award-winning beer,

and for one day out of the year,

it has something that most cities don't have --

monsters.

♪

this is the festival of krampus,

a bizarre counterpart to christmas.

While st. Nick comes to reward good little children,

krampus is here to scare the naughty ones.

Naughty and nice, though, are subjective.

Somebody help me! Aaaah!

Gates: Now, who's to say krampus doesn't sometimes make mistakes?

This is not okay. Aaaaah!

Welcome back. I'm josh gates.

And before we get back to the nazi treasure hunt,

I have got a very special treat -- ramy romany.

He is an egyptian egyptologist, a mummy expert,

and he's also the host of "mummies unwrapped,"

discovery's newest series,

premiering right after this episode

of "expedition unknown."

he's also a great old friend. How you doing, man?

Josh. Great to see you.

Thank you so much. Still looking adventurous.

Still one too many buttons undone on the shirt for taste.

It's my thing. I know it is.

I can't pull it off. -One day, one day, you'll have enough chest hair.

No, it's so pasty under here.

Nobody wants to see that.

So, tell me about the series.

"mummies unwrapped" is a great show.

We are going around the world

trying to solve ancient mummy mysteries

using modern cutting-edge technology.

We are headed to mexico.

We're going to egypt.

We're going to peru, argentina,

denmark.

We're even going to oklahoma and...Massachusetts.

My home state! Yes!

You're telling me there are mummies in massachusetts?

There are mummies in massachusetts,

and there are mummies everywhere around the world.

You heard it here first -- mummies in massachusetts.

Be sure to catch the series premiere of "mummies unwrapped"

coming up immediately after this episode of "expedition unknown,"

only on discovery.

♪

gates: In the alpine forest near mittenwald, germany,

searching for gold and diamonds hidden by the nazis

in the closing days of world war ii,

treasure hunters jurgen proske and sebastian eberle

have turned up historic wehrmacht ammunition

along with a leather ammo bag

and now what might be proof

that the army was active in this area.

Eberle: It's a part of the gas mask.

Oh, my god!

Get out of here! Are you kidding me?!

[ laughs ] look at it.

Wow. This is absolutely incredible.

I have to say, just holding this

is emotionally kind of disturbing,

but it's also historic. Yeah.

I mean, this is part of the story of a soldier...

-Yeah. -Of course, yeah.

...Of a nazi, of the war itself.

I mean, this is a lost piece of history.

Gates: The gas mask and the other finds

are a sobering reminder of the devastating war

that germany perpetrated over 80 years ago

only to be defeated on this, their home soil.

Then, as if to make the connection ironclad,

we make another incredible find.

-Look at this. -Is it a gun?

-That is a gun. -Oh, my god!

-Oh, my god. -Holy [bleep].

Look at that. It's a rifle.

-Yeah, it's a rifle. -Yeah, it's a rifle.

But it's a machine gun. It's a small one.

You can see. Oh, my god!

That sets... It's history.

-It's history. -Yeah, it's history.

-Look at that. -Josh, look.

Here, the gun has two triggers.

Yeah, the dual triggers. Look at that.

What gun has two triggers?

For a single shot and full automatic.

Are you kidding me with this?

This is unbelievable.

[ laughing ] what?

Look at that.

That's really, really...

Really...

Now there was wehrmacht in here.

There was german army here.

There was german army in here.

Gates: The weapon is likely an italian-made

beretta submachine gun

frequently used by the german armed forces.

The gun was capable of firing 600 rounds per minute

and had a range of over 200 yards.

It is every bit a weapon of war.

I think it's a german soldier because the german used also

during the end of the war the weapons from the italians...

-Sure. -...From the russians.

They hadn't have any more for themselves.

Gates: The beretta was actually the weapon of choice

for many german troops, including the ss.

They weren't always easy to come by.

It's hard to imagine a solider burying one

except under desperate circumstances.

The gun would seem to complete our rather macabre set,

but there's still more to be uncovered.

The magazine.

That is the magazine.

Gates: Jurgen's theory that the german army was here

seems confirmed.

I'm literally, for, you know, like,

fourth time in my life maybe, speechless.

I don't know what to say.

It's really, really extraordinary.

It's an incredible and terrifying and important thing.

-Yeah. -It's all those things.

It's amazing.

Gates: Jurgen and sebastian will probably spend every weekend

for the rest of their lives in these woods

until the loot is found.

As for me...

I leave mittenwald both shaken and stirred.

It may be exciting to look for buried riches,

but hovering over each step of my journey --

the darkness of the third reich that cannot be dispelled.

So are the symbols on this music sheet

bormann's secret code,

or merely an elaborate conspiracy theory?

I've gone exploring in the remote corners

of germany's caves and forests in search of the answer

and found not gold

but the scars of a past more recent

than we may be comfortable considering.

One thing is indisputable.

Even if bormann's loot is never found,

there are billions in nazi plunder

that remain unaccounted for,

the property of their victims still unrecovered,

reparations still unmade.

Though this expedition may be over,

the mission goes on.