All language subtitles for Historys.Greatest.Mysteries.S07E15.The.Search.for.Rommels.Gold.1080p.HULU.WEB-DL.H264-RAWR_track3_[eng]

Tonight, as the Allies

sweep through the Sahara
during World War II,

General Erwin Rommel,
the Desert Fox,

is suddenly on the run.

While Rommel is getting

pummeled by Allied forces,

the Germans make a
desperate dash to the coast

to protect their men,
but also stolen gold.

The Nazis take tens
of millions of dollars

in gold and treasures from
the Jews in North Africa.

Rommel has to send this
gold back to Berlin

or he is gonna face
Hitler's wrath.

But when the German surrender,

Rommel's $50 million in
gold is nowhere to be found.

One of the most vicious
organized crime operations

in all of Southern Europe

becomes intensely
interested in these rumors

about treasure just off
the coast of Corsica.

There is speculation
that this stolen treasure

may have never left
Northern Africa at all.

If Rommel knows
where the gold is,

the secret goes with
him to the grave.

Now we explore
the top theories

behind the missing treasure

and ask what really
became of Rommel's gold.

It's December, 1940

and the North African
campaign of World War II

isn't going well
for the Axis powers.

Italian forces had stormed
into Egypt a few months earlier

hoping to defeat the
British troops there,

but instead, the Italians
are getting pummeled

in the Sahara Desert.

By early 1941, Allied forces

take down nine
Italian divisions.

They capture 130,000 men.

For Hitler, any sort of setback

that happens to the Italians

in North Africa

is essentially threatening
Hitler's plan

to seize control of the
southern Mediterranean.

Hitler becomes furious
at these losses

that are happening to the
Italians in North Africa,

so he calls in one of his
aces, General Erwin Rommel.

Rommel is very popular in
the military and in Germany.

He has a legacy of success
from serving in World War I

and he was one of
the German officers

responsible for what we
know as the Blitzkrieg.

The term blitzkrieg
means lightning war,

and that's because it
doesn't rely on brute force,

but instead speed and precision.

Instead of pounding endlessly

against the enemy's front lines,

this tactic employed by Rommel
would identify a weak point,

create a breakthrough
at that weak point,

which will have the effect

of disrupting command
centers, splitting divisions,

and devastating communications
before the enemy can react.

In June of 1940, Rommel used

these blitzkrieg tactics
against the French successfully,

which only strengthened
his popularity

as a leader on the battlefield.

Hitler wastes no time

deploying Rommel
to North Africa,

appointing him commander

of the German military's
newly formed Afrika Korps.

Rommel arrives
in Libya in 1941

and initially they just
hold a defensive line,

but he starts employing
these blitzkrieg tactics

to take out the British Army

and to take out British
forces and Allied forces

and make inroads on that war.

And because of his successes,

he actually earns the
nickname the Desert Fox.

Behind the front lines
of Rommel's Afrika Korps,

another team is created
with a whole different goal,

which is to essentially
carry out the Holocaust

on the roughly 400,000 Jews

that are living in the
North African region.

Following the same
brutal pattern

seen across Europe

as the Nazis persecute the Jews,

they also steal their wealth

and that lays the groundwork

for what's known
as Rommel's gold.

The Germans target
one of

the oldest Jewish communities
in the entire world,

a community that's
over 2,000 years old,

an island off the coast of
Tunisia, known as Djerba.

For centuries, Djerba's
Jewish population

has been known for goldsmithing
and jewelry making,

which has produced
a treasure trove

that has been passed
down through generations.

In January,
1943, the Nazis storm Djerba

and begin their
ruthless plunder.

They get into the
heart of the city

and the primary synagogue

and they see the
wealth around them.

They go in and take everything.

The Jews are
stripped of all their rights.

And if that weren't enough,

they send the Jewish population

to newly created labor
camps in North Africa.

So now that we have the military
campaign in North Africa,

we also have the
Holocaust as well.

It's believed that at Djerba,

the Nazis steal tens
of millions of dollars

in today's money,

and that's not including
the countless millions

that have already been
stolen from North Africa.

Rommel's
domination of North Africa

doesn't last long.

By early March of 1943,

the Allies have
forced the Desert Fox

and his Afrika Korps to retreat.

It's one of the Allies'
first major victories

of World War II.

Not long after
the retreat, though,

Rommel leaves Africa for good.

As to the fate of all the gold

that was stolen from the
Jews of North Africa,

it's unaccounted for.

There are some rumors that
there might be a hoard of gold

somewhere within the realm

of about $57 million
in today's money

that still is out
there somewhere

waiting for someone to find it.

People have
launched expeditions,

some have even reportedly died

trying to go on
the hunt for this.

but it's still a big mystery

and no one knows where
Rommel's gold is.

80 years after the
war, people are still trying

to find this secret
resting place

of all of this stolen
gold and treasure,

and some people believe
that the answer lies

in studying Rommel's
battlefield tactics.

In June, 1942,
Rommel is on the move

and he's crossing into Egypt

and going towards
the Suez Canal.

The Suez Canal is very
important for the Allied forces.

This really powers
the British military,

everything from oil,
munitions, gasoline,

and so this is a very strategic
marker for the Axis here.

Ultimately, Rommel's
objective

in the North African campaign

is to advance on Alexandria
and seize the Suez Canal.

Doing so will cut the British
off from their colonies

and sever their supply lines,

and then it will
provide Germany access

to an oil-rich region.

Suddenly, the Afrika
Korps begins defeating

the British 8th Army
driving it back into Egypt

and Rommel seems unstoppable.

But Rommel's
rapidly advancing army

has a major problem:

it's moving way too fast.

Rommel's blitzkrieg
attacks are so fast

that sometimes he
runs out of supplies

before he makes it
to the front lines.

He runs out of munitions
and even drinkable water.

If he can't restock his
supplies quickly enough,

he can't make it
to the Suez Canal.

So Rommel makes
this desperate plea

to the Nazi high command.

He reaches out to
Berlin

and asks for these
urgent reinforcements.

Hitler says he's gonna send
them, but they never arrive.

This leaves Rommel
and his inner circle

to suspect that maybe Hitler

and the Nazi
leadership in Berlin

are jealous of Rommel's
success in North Africa.

Rommel makes another
plea directly to Hitler,

and Hitler says that he is going
to send the supplies to him

and they still never come.

Almost out of supplies,

surrounded by enemy forces
and rapidly losing ground,

Rommel seems to
be out of options,

but somehow the Desert
Fox strikes back

winning what many
historians call

one of the most
improbable Axis victories

of the North African campaign.

In February, 1943,

Rommel launches a surprise
attack

that culminates in an action

at a mountain pass
in central Tunisia

near the town of Kasserine.

Despite being undersupplied,

Rommel nevertheless takes on

two American divisions,
defeats them,

he causes over 6,000 American
casualties during the action,

he takes 3,000
American prisoners,

he kills 1,000
Americans in combat,

he destroys 183 armored
fighting vehicles

and captures dozens of
pieces of field artillery

in the first battle

in which the American
military fights Nazi Germany

during World War II.

It turns out to be

Rommel's last major victory in
the war,

and it's one that leaves the
Allied commanders stumped.

I mean, how did he do it?

Just days earlier, his
men were in retreat

and he was seriously
undersupplied.

What some historians
believe Rommel does

is, in order to rev
up his war machine,

he uses some of the stolen gold

and other items to
barter for resources

for items that he needs
to continue fighting.

The timing is curious

because the Battle of
Kasserine Pass takes place

just days after he's stolen
all of this loot from Djerba

so maybe it's not a coincidence.

Some argue that this
victory

had nothing to do
with the stolen gold,

that any gold that
was expropriated

from the Jews of Djerba

would've just been
sent back to Berlin,

and the victory was
produced in its entirety

by Rommel's skill as a
battlefield commander.

But the fact of
Rommel's unlikely win

and the missing treasure

leads some to wonder whether
Rommel used the Djerban's gold

to fund one last strike.

As the Nazi commander
of his Afrika Korps,

Erwin Rommel directed
his subordinates

to plunder riches from North
Africa's Jewish communities.

Rommel himself wasn't the one

personally overseeing
all this looting,

that was someone else entirely.

Some historians insist
that he is the one

who knows what happened
to the missing treasure.

His name is Walter Rauff.

Walter Rauff is a
notorious member of the SS,

he's a good friend of Hitler's

and he is one of the architects

of the final solution
or the Holocaust.

Rauff is also the man
that is known for inventing

a nefarious device
known as the gassing van.

It's a van with a airtight
rear that's outfitted

with an exhaust pipe

that feeds right back
into the container.

And so all of this
carbon monoxide

would essentially just be pumped
into the back of this van.

Anybody that was
inside is now dead.

And it's believed that
these gassing vans were used

to kill thousands of
Jews during World War II.

In 1942, Rauff arrives
in Northern Africa

and in coordination with
Rommel's Afrika Korps,

he sets his sights
on the region's Jews

and he starts conducting

what the Nazis call
executive measures.

And those are effectively
torture campaigns

where they go town to town,
city by city, and pillage.

Under Rauff's command,

the SS sets up a network
of forced labor camps.

More than 2,500 Jews would
later die at these camps.

He and other Nazi officials

are kind of adhering
to this rule

that when you conquer someone,

you are bringing all of
their wealth back to Germany.

The idea here is to
rob from the conquered

to fund the German war machine.

Their objective becomes
extracting wealth

from any and all
conquered territories

so that that wealth can then
be sent back to the Fatherland.

After Rauff
settles in Tunisia,

he surveys the Jewish enclaves

and he's attempting
to figure out

how much wealth is within
these Jewish communities.

He also takes it upon himself

to personally stand
shoulder to shoulder

with other members of the SS

and threaten the Jewish
population on the island

basically saying,
"Give us the gold

in exchange for your lives."

This isn't wealth
for Rauff,

this isn't wealth for Rommel,

they are under strict orders

to take all of the
wealth that they can

and ship it back to Germany.

This is supposed to
be for the Fatherland.

This is supposed to
be for the war effort.

If any of them were caught

keeping these goods
for themselves,

they would get
most likely killed.

But moving
these tons of plunder

would require very
strategic planning.

It's late February,
early March, 1943,

and as the Afrika
Korps is fighting

in the vicinity
of Kasserine Pass,

Rauff and his men are preparing

to make a beeline for
the Tunisian coast.

Rauff's goal is to escape

from the advancing Allied
forces with the gold

before they can cut off
his line of retreat.

Historians believe
Rauff makes it out of Djerba

with the stolen gold,

then heads for
the Tunisian coast

where it's allegedly loaded
onto a ship bound for Italy.

The supposed
plan for this gold

is to ship it from Tunisia

across to Italy,

then take it from Italy up to
Germany and then into Berlin.

In Berlin, there's
a place called

the Berlin Municipal Pawn Shop.

It sounds very simple,
"Oh, a pawn shop."

But in reality, this
is where all the wealth

that's being stolen across
Europe, across North Africa,

the gold, the jewelry,

everything that is being
gathered by force by the Nazis

is being shipped
to this pawn shop,

then it's being melted
down into gold bars.

Once you melt down the gold,
it can no longer be traced.

Then you can sell
it anywhere, right?

You can trade those
gold bars for cash.

You can trade those
gold bars for weapons.

You can do whatever you want.

Rauff's objective
in all of this

is to retreat toward the
Tunisian coast with the gold

so that it can be loaded onto
transports and sent to Berlin

to where it can be put to use

funding the German war machine.

It may have been difficult,
if not impossible,

to move the gold through
the collapsing front,

but some historians believe
that there is evidence

to suggest that
Rauff did just that.

There is a record
showing a significant shipment

of gold coming into
Berlin in 1943.

There's no way to prove

that that's the gold
taken from North Africa,

but the timing is notable.

If the gold had made
it back to Berlin,

it's final location would
be really hard to know

because the gold bars
could be in private vaults

or they might just be mixed
into the global banking system.

In early May, 1943,

the Allies capture the
Tunisian capital of Tunis,

leading to the full
surrender of Axis forces

in all of North Africa.

The Allied forces
liberate

nearly 400,000
Jews in the region,

many of whom were forced
into those labor camps

that were set up
by Walter Rauff.

By late April of
1945,

Rauff sees the writing on
the wall.

He knows Germany
is about to lose.

He knows the war is over,
so he escapes to Italy.

He is captured there on April
30th, 1945 and interrogated.

Rauff ultimately
reveals little to nothing

in terms of concrete information

about the gold or
any stolen treasure,

and he ends up being
put in a POW camp

where he'll remain until
he escapes in 1946.

As to the fate of the stolen
wealth,

that remains a mystery.

On March 22nd, 1945,

General George Patton leads US
troops across the Rhine River

and into the heart of Germany.

As Allies close in, the
Nazis frantically seek

to hide all evidence
of their atrocities,

including stolen treasure
from around the world.

General George
Patton leads his troops

into the heart of Germany.

And they come across
this abandoned salt mine,

and they go into the mine,

they take an elevator
2,100 feet below ground

and they come across this
large steel-plated door.

So they blow open the door

and they are shocked by
what they find inside.

There are rows
and rows of loot.

You've got 8,000 gold
bars, cash, rare artwork.

And as they make their way
further back into the vault,

they start coming across
these bags and boxes

and suitcases that are full
of all this gold and jewelry

and all of them have a tag
on them with the name Melmer.

Melmer is a
notorious SS officer

and his task during World War II

is taking the wealth stolen
from Jews in concentration camps

and transporting
it back to Germany.

Many believe the
looted valuables

of the North African
Jewish population

could have been
taken to Germany,

melted down into golden tablets,

and then found its
way into this mine,

now discovered by
Patton and his troops.

There are some
historians

who dispute this theory

because there's no
proof tying this gold

directly to the gold that was
stolen from Northern Africa.

There is new information
which suggests

that perhaps the gold never
left Africa after all.

After the devastating
battle of El Alamein,

Rommel's Afrika Korps is
essentially in full retreat

and heading westward
back towards Libya.

And the Allied forces
are moving forward

and retaking control of the
country back from the Germans.

It's alleged by some

that elements of the Afrika
Korps during that retreat

may have been in possession
of the looted gold,

and during this hasty retreat,

the German soldiers may
have taken this gold

and made a mad dash
for the Libyan coast

so that it could
be buried there.

During the chaotic
Axis retreat,

the Germans were in crisis.

Supply lines were closed,
routes were cut off,

and it would've
been near impossible

to get the loot
out at that point.

According to reports,
German soldiers are seen

loading metal crates
onto armored cars

and driving through the
Libyan desert to the coast

where they bury those
crates in the seabed,

hoping to come back after
the war to retrieve them.

With the Germans
long gone from Africa,

the crates allegedly
lie in limbo

until a sea diver's chance
encounter years later.

In 1962, Robin Lee,
who's a British soldier,

is snorkeling off the
coast of Tobruk, Libya,

and he sees something
down on the sea floor

about 79 feet below him.

He sees these metal crates.

And so he tries
to free dive down

to go see what's inside of them,

but there's no way that he
can get these crates open

without having to come back
to the surface for air.

And he wants to go
back with full scuba gear

with the hopes of
unearthing these crates,

bring them to the surface and
seeing exactly what's inside.

But unfortunately, Lee
will never get the chance

because not long after
that snorkeling trip,

he actually gets transferred
to another base in Yemen.

Now while he's in Yemen,

Lee comes across an
old magazine article

that talks about two
Germans that were desperate

to try to find Rommel's
gold off the coast of Libya.

According to Lee, he
recognizes these men as

former Afrika Korps soldiers,

who after World War
II had gotten jobs

working as maintenance engineers

at an old base located in Libya,

and now here they are
showing up in an article

about looted Nazi gold.

Lee remembers that he
used to see these guys walking

around the army base
sort of at odd hours,

and the guys would claim
that they were just looking

for, you know, unused munitions
for their Luger pistols.

But now Lee really thinks
that these two guys

were actually looking

for stolen gold off
the coast of Libya.

He now suspects
that they know the whereabouts

of Rommel's gold.

He always thinks
he's gonna come back,

but the political tides turn

and Libya is closed off for him,

and that is why to this day,

we don't know if those
crates contained any gold.

No one knows for sure
what was in those boxes,

but according to Lee,

they might carry
looted Nazi gold

from the North African
campaign back in 1943,

and if they were ever recovered,

there is certainly no record
of that having been done.

So to this day, this remains
one of the great mysteries

about looted Nazi
gold in North Africa.

The location of Rommel's
gold remains a mystery

until the winter of 1947
when a former German soldier

walks into the French consulate
in Stuttgart, Germany.

He wants to share a secret

that he's been hiding
for nearly five years.

A former German
soldier named Peter Fleig

walks into the French Consulate.

He is 21 years old at
the time, he's gaunt,

he has this big scar running
down the side of his face

and he says that he's
looking for a visa

to go to the island of Corsica.

Now this request raises a flag

for one of the
consulate officials,

because a German asking
for a visa to go to Corsica

seems a bit off considering
that during World War II,

Corsica was an island
that was battered

and just ravaged by the Germans.

So Corsicans have no
love for Germans at all.

In fact, the only Germans

that are on the island of
Corsica right now are POWs.

So if Fleig says that he
wants to go to Corsica,

he's essentially
risking his life.

As the story goes,

Fleig tells this
representative at the consulate

that after having
served in North Africa,

he is then transferred to the
Italian port of La Spezia.

Then during the summer of 1943,

he gets an order to
collect his scuba gear

and get ready to go.

Fleig is
an experienced diver

and he's supposed to help
clear mines from the area

and be on call for
search-and-rescue operations.

At this point, the Allies
have retaken North Africa

and they're allegedly going

to be crossing the
Mediterranean Sea

to launch attacks on Sicily
and Italy as a whole.

Against this imminent
threat of invasion,

Fleig gets picked
up by a speedboat

and whisked off to Corsica,

and he's told that
he's gonna be part

of this top-secret mission
ordered by the fuhrer himself.

According to Fleig,
he's then led into a room.

Inside are six metal crates

packed with gold, jewelry,
and other stolen treasures.

Allegedly Fleig is
told that the gold

and the crates was
loaded on a convoy

that was on its way to Berlin,

but then Allied
aircraft began bombing

and strafing Italian roads.

Some historians argue
that because of this,

the gold was then diverted
to Corsica and the plan was,

from there, the gold would
be buried on the sea floor

so that it could be
recovered after the war.

And Fleig, the
experienced diver,

is the man that would be
given the responsibility

of burying it.

On September 18th,

Fleig and four other German
officers

allegedly set out on a boat
with these six metal crates

into the Mediterranean Sea.

Fleig finds what he thinks is
the perfect spot to bury them.

It's about three
miles from the coast.

There's sort of a
rocky embankment

where he's going to take
each crate one by one

down to the sea floor
and secure it down there.

All he knows is that these
crates are meant for Germany,

they're meant for the war cause.

He's also smart enough to
know to take a special note

of where they are and
what it looks like

so that if Germany doesn't
get them someday, he can.

But just days
later, after returning to Italy,

Fleig's dreams of
outlasting the Germans

are thrown into jeopardy.

When Hitler allegedly
learns of this mission

to bury all of this
treasure at sea,

he flies into this wild rage.

He orders that the four Nazis

that accompanied Peter
Fleig on the mission

are brought back to Germany,

court-martialed, and
sentenced to death.

Now, Fleig is sent to the
Russian front as punishment,

but reportedly escapes
back to Germany

after the war comes
to its conclusion.

He bides his time in
Germany for a while,

tends to his wounds before
mustering up the courage

to walk into the
French consulate.

Fleig assures his interrogators

that he's the only
one still alive

who knows where the stolen gold
from North Africa is hidden,

and now he's ready to
help the French find it.

They are intrigued
enough

that they put together
a search party in 1948

and Fleig is gonna be
the one to lead it.

So the plan is that
Fleig is gonna dive down

to that exact spot where he
says he deposited the gold

and he's gonna use
salvage equipment

to try to bring it
back up to the surface.

They spent two
months out there in the water

looking for these cases.

Fleig takes them
from place to place,

is so certain of where it is.

This is gonna be
an expensive trip.

They've got a ship,

they've got crew that they're
paying to go out there

all on the word of this German

who claims he knows where
this lost treasure is.

But soon, the
French begin to suspect

that Fleig has an
ulterior motive.

They start to see
that Fleig's story

might not be adding up
the way that he told it.

For starters, when they
go out into the water

and they start diving
for these crates,

they notice very quickly
that he is a horrible diver.

He doesn't know how to
resurface correctly,

and they were worried that
he would get the bends,

a condition that a
diver can experience

if they come back up to
the surface too quickly.

Not only is he
a terrible diver,

he also is
misidentifying landmarks

and his coordinates
also seem to be off.

It's at this point they begin
to question who he really is.

They think he's a conman

that may have learned the story

from somebody who befriended
maybe an SS officer

who actually knew where
this gold was buried,

but they don't think Fleig
is who he says he is.

After two
months, the French are like,

"That is enough, we're done,"

and they walk away and
send Fleig off on his own.

The French have the idea

that Fleig probably just
misidentified the landmarks

that he couldn't really
remember where it was

and it was just lost.

After the expedition,
Fleig is arrested

for never returning the
salvage operator's camera.

Once he's in jail, he starts
making up these hand-drawn maps

of new locations where
this gold might be.

Now why would Fleig have
made up this whole story?

Well, some believe that he
was actually just trying

to send the French
on a wild goose chase

because they refused
to give him a reward

for helping him find the gold,

and maybe Fleig was
going back to Corsica

to try to get all
the gold for himself.

After he's released
from jail in late December,

Peter Fleig vanishes.

Now, French authorities do
conduct a search for him.

They don't find him,
but they do speculate

that he probably made
his way back to Germany.

However, it's also rumored

that he might have made
contact with another group

before making his
way back to Germany

and that group being
the Corsican mafia.

The French expedition's

highly publicized failure
to find Rommel's gold

sparks a global obsession to
find this elusive treasure.

Yet back on Corsica,

one of the most feared
organizations in the world

may already know where it is

and they'll stop at nothing
to get their hands on it.

For decades, the
Corsican mafia maintained

a near total grip on
parts of the island

controlling prostitution,

illegal gambling,
drug trafficking,

and they've done so
with such brutality

that their reputation
extends well beyond Corsica.

During World War II,

they hated the Germans more
than they hated anybody else.

France had controlled Corsica.

As France is defeated, Corsica
comes under German control.

So the mafia works with
the French resistance

to try to break up the German's
stronghold over Corsica

and to kick them out.

The deal that they
make with France

is that after the war,

they'll be able to do whatever
they want there in Corsica.

It's
during this time

that the mafia reportedly
becomes obsessed

with finding Rommel's
gold for themselves.

The first person to
make this connection

is a world-famous novelist.

In 1963, the British
author who created James Bond,

Ian Fleming, writes this book

called "On Her Majesty's
Secret Service,"

and there's this passage
in there about this, quote,

"mysterious business"
of Rommel's gold

being buried at sea off
the coast of Corsica.

It also mentions two
treasure hunters in the book.

You've got one
character in the book

that's referenced as Fleigh

who vanishes off the
face of the earth

according to the novel,

and then the other treasure
hunter ends up dying

because he ends up getting
riddled with bullets.

It's
a work of fiction,

but there appears to be
some truths woven in.

Before writing this,

Ian Fleming was the real deal.

He was a spymaster and
he oversaw operations

in Northern Africa and Europe,
and that included Corsica.

It was during his time as
an intelligence officer

he got an intelligence briefing

which said that Rommel was
sending a vessel to Berlin

that sank off the
coast of Corsica

filled with treasure and gold.

Fleming's intelligence
work also exposes him

to elements of organized crime,

including the Corsican mafia.

Through his writing, he
speculates that the mafia

becomes very invested in
finding Rommel's gold.

The author Ian
Fleming

is about to publish the book "On
Her Majesty's Secret Service,"

and as a part of that,
he's being interviewed

by a British journalist
named Peter Haining.

In that interview,
Fleming mentions

how there are rumors of
looted Nazi gold in Corsica,

and he even suggests the
involvement of organized crime.

As the story goes, this
idea sticks with Haining

who would go on to
research it for decades,

and he comes to the conclusion
that the Corsica mafia

may have been involved in what
happened to Rommel's gold.

According to the theory,

in order to scale up
their criminal empire,

the mafia targets Rommel's gold.

There's a report
of a local diver

who's gunned down on the island.

He had been going
around to local bars

and claiming that he knew
where Rommel's gold was.

Now the case goes unsolved,

but Corsicans really believe

that he was killed by the mafia.

Then Corsican police,
acting on a tip,

approach this group of men
that are ready to set sail.

These men then start
firing at the officers.

Several people are wounded

and two of the men aboard
the ship are captured.

They're later ID'd as mobsters

who are in search
of Rommel's gold.

Though the
treasure remains elusive,

the mafia may be
preventing anyone else

from finding it first.

The Corsican mafia may
very well be preventing anyone

from going to look for the
gold because after the war,

they get significant
control of the coastline.

So they're gonna know

if anyone is going out
in search of the gold

Irish adventurer John
Kilbracken learns firsthand

how dangerous it can be
to look for Rommel's gold.

He arrives on the island
of Corsica in 1963

with a fully funded expedition.

It's reported that
a year earlier

Kilbracken tracks
down the one person

who says he knows exactly
where that gold is buried,

the mysterious Peter Fleig.

Reportedly the
two strike a deal,

and that is that Kilbracken
will fund the expedition

and Fleig will come along
and bring his expertise

as well as a map showing the
exact location of the gold.

But the Corsican mafia

reportedly gets word
of their endeavor.

According to
another historian,

Kilbracken and his team are
threatened by the Corsican mafia

and told to not go
looking for the gold.

And it's this threat
that causes Kilbracken

to completely call
off the expedition.

But Kilbracken firmly believes

that they were in the right spot

and had they a
little bit more time,

they would've found
that treasure.

Some say that
the key to the whereabouts

of Rommel's gold
is to find the Nazi fugitive

originally put in
charge of stealing it.

In 1946,

Walter Rauff escapes
from a POW camp in Italy.

He hides out in a convent
for several months in Rome.

He briefly resurfaces

as an intelligence
officer in Syria in 1948.

So he keeps managing
to evade capture

despite being one of the
most-wanted war criminals.

And he's able to do this
because of the ratlines,

this secretive, pro-Nazi
network of human smugglers.

Ratlines are

a series of safe houses

that are set up by these
pro-Nazi sympathizers

to help Nazis escape.

And most routes
in these ratlines

go from Ally-occupied territory

to places that are much more

sympathetic towards ex-Nazis,

specifically in South America.

And these ratlines are
orchestrated in plain sight.

They're operating
openly in Italy

and other Ally-occupied
territories.

Yet some contend

that in order for Rauff
to access the ratlines

and travel great distances
to South America,

he would need access
to vast sums of money.

After the war, Rauff
resurfaces in Chile,

and the belief is that he,

the man who originally
expropriated the gold

to begin with, held onto it

and used it to fund his
winding escape from Europe

at the end of the conflict

that brought him
to South America.

Now, while in Chile,

Rauff and his family are
given protective status,

so essentially they're
shielded from extradition.

They can't be taken
back to Germany.

At the same time, because
he's residing in Chile,

the Chilean government
actually calls up Rauff and

turn him into an intelligence
officer for the country.

Rumors swirl about,
how is Rauff able

to secure passage for
himself and his family?

At the end of the
war, many former Nazi leaders

purchased their
freedom using bribes

to pay for everything from
forged documents to safe passage

and then protection from
foreign governments.

But did Rauff
fund his escape to Chile

off the gold stolen
persecuted Jews?

Recently declassified
documents may provide answers.

In the early 2000s,

the CIA declassified
intelligence information

from the American
military in World War II

due to the Nazi War
Crimes Disclosure Act.

And in this dossier,
there is a report

of a sighting of Walter Rauff

on the streets of Rome in 1947,

and he is carrying a suitcase.

[Amory Inside of this suitcase
is supposedly gold and jewelry

and all sorts of
other treasures,

but Rauff refuses to
say where it came from.

Rauff could have brought

this same suitcase with
him to South America

because by all accounts,

he is living a very
comfortable life there

and he's free to espouse
his pro-Nazi views.

It's reported that
Rauff

was welcomed as a VIP in Chile

and that he was welcomed

in the highest offices
of Pinochet's government,

working specifically
in intelligence,

and that he had the
resources and the wherewithal

to ingratiate himself
among his new hosts.

Rauff remained an unrepentant
Nazi to the bitter end.

At his funeral, other
expatriate Nazis

shouted "Heil Hitler" and
delivered the Hitler salute.

In an off-camera
interview,

Rauff's grandson doesn't believe

that his grandfather
had any access

to any sort of stolen gold
during his time in Chile,

but his grandfather
never really spoke

about his experiences
during the war

so his grandson really
doesn't know all that much

about his grandfather's
time during World War II.

So whether or not

Rauff had access to this gold

to be able to fund
his lifestyle in Chile

continues to remain a
mystery to this day.

Decades later, the search

for Rommel's gold continues

with one recent endeavor
rekindling belief

in a well-worn theory.

In more recent
times,

British author and
investigator Terry Hodgkinson

says he knows where
Rommel's gold is.

He firmly believes
that this gold

is at exactly the place
that Fleig said that it was,

that it's just there off
the coast of Corsica.

It's near a rocky outcropping

and that it's there buried
underneath the seabed.

His theory
hinges on the accuracy

of a code scrawled on the
back of a faded photograph.

Terry Hodgkinson
has this photo

that he's obtained
of Peter Fleig.

It's worn out, but there are
lines and numbers on the back

and he thinks that
these are coordinates

that actually point
right to the gold.

Hodgkinson is
convinced

that these are the
exact coordinates

of the location
of Rommel's gold,

and he says he's
deciphered them,

but he still needs to raise
the money for the expedition

and get past the Corsican mafia.

If anybody were to
actually find this missing gold,

hopefully they would be required

to share some of that bounty

with the families of
the North African Jews

who had that wealth
stolen from them

and were forced into
those labor camps

that were set up by Walter
Rauff during World War II.

I mean, after all,
it is their treasure,

so it only makes sense

that it would be
returned back to them.

For more than 80 years

the whereabouts of Rommel's gold

has been one of the most
famous enduring mysteries

of World War II.

Explorers and documentary crews

continue to regularly
travel to Corsica

and other locations
around the world

to search for the
missing war bounty.

Many believe that the
loot is still out there

and that, one day, the
full story of Rommel's gold

can be added to
the history books.

I'm Laurence Fishburne.

Thank you for watching
"History's Greatest Mysteries."