10 Unsolved Mysteries Of WW2

From history class, to war movies, to practically everything the History Channel has ever made,
World War Two is everywhere.
It’s one of the most well known events in history, and made people like Churchill, FDR
and brush-face household names.
But there are still so many things we don’t know about WW2.
Did Hitler have a lovechild?
Where is all the hidden Nazi gold?
Were the Germans making a secret chemical superweapon?
Here are 10 Unsolved Mysteries of World War Two.
10) Hitler’s Son There are plenty of reasons to have a problem
with Hitler.
The questionable fashion sense, the poor anger management skills,, the whole “trying to
take over the world” thing.
But on top of all that, it turns out Adolf may have been a deadbeat dad.
French woman Charlotte Lobjoie spent decades after the war claiming she had borne a son,
and that the fuhrer was the father.
I’m not sure why you’d want everyone to know you slept with Hitler, but whatever.
The claim is that, during World War One, the then 16 year old Lobjoie had met Hitler while
he was on a break from the trenches.
They got tipsy together, and Lobjoie ended up pregnant.
Miss Lobjoie’s story is backed up by official German army papers, which claims the Nazis
regularly sent envelopes of cash to Miss Lobjoie’s address.
And the supposed son, Jean-Marie Loret, certainly has that trademark Hitler look.
If it’s all true, then Jean-Marie was no daddy’s boy.
After the start of World War Two, he joined the French Resistance, spending the rest of
the conflict actively trying to undermine the Nazi regime.
9) Rommel’s Underwater Treasure Between 1939 and 1944, Erwin Rommel was a
Field Marshall for the German military.
And a pretty good one at that.
Despite the whole “being a Nazi” [Direction: Air quotes] thing, historians from all sides
have praised Rommel’s brilliant military mind and fierce loyalty to his army.
It’s like the way you can despise Stalin, but have to respect his mustache game.
Rommel was so loyal to his side that, after hearing that the Nazis were losing across
the world, he decided to hide a load of seized German treasure to stop the Allies getting
it.
Instead of doing the standard Nazi gold thing, and sneaking it into a Swiss bank account,
Rommel is rumoured to have ordered divers hide four boxes containing a combined 200
kilograms of gold bullion off the coast of Corsica.
And if gold bullion isn’t your thing, he also hid piles of silver, numerous precious
gems and priceless paintings in the boxes.
Unsurprisingly, the prospect of this horde has long excited treasure hunters and historians
alike.
After all, even conservative estimates put the value of the boxes at $25 million.
There have been numerous dives around Corsica, and even some claims to have found the treasure.
However, to this day the specific location of Rommel’s gold remains a mystery.
8) Raoul Wallenberg Though few people have heard of him, this
Swedish architecture graduate is one of the greatest heroes of World War Two.
But to understand why, you need to know a little about the history of Hungary.
You see, Hungary was one of the Axis powers.
But they were one of the Axis powers in the way Scrappy Doo is one of the Mystery Gang:
part of the group, but useless and all their friends want to kill them.
In 1944, Hungary tried to make peace with the Allies and Hitler responded by invading
them.
That was bad news for Hungary’s Jewish population, as the Nazis starting deporting them to concentration
camps at a rate of 12,000 a day.
That’s when Raoul Wallenberg stepped in.
Acting as a diplomat for Sweden, Wallenberg landed in Budapest and printed off thousands
of travel visas from the Swedish embassy.
Although not legally binding, the documents looked official enough to trick soldiers,
and 60,000 Jews were able to flee the nation.
While this man’s heroism isn’t in doubt, his fate is.
After the Soviets invaded Hungary, they suspected Wallenberg of spying and arrested him.
Though the official USSR story is that Wallenberg died peacefully in jail of a heart attack,
most think this is a lie.
After all, USSR and “died peacefully” don’t typically go together.
Far more likely is that this hero was secretly executed.
Political scientist Vyacheslav Nikonov, who studied Wallenberg’s disappearance for years,
even claims he was used as a test subject for Russian chemical weapons for two years.
7) U-530 DRAFT 164 By June 7th 1945, the Second World War in
Europe had been over for two months.
So you can imagine the Argentinian navy were pretty surprised when a Nazi U-boat suddenly
surfaced in South American waters and surrendered.
The U-530 was captured in the waters outside Mar del Plata in Central Argentina, and its
crew arrested.
Assuming the submarine’s captain wasn’t just forgetful or lazy, it seems likely something
suspicious was going on during the U-boat’s two month absence.
Especially when you consider that the U-530’s crew had all destroyed their individual IDs.
Unfortunately, U-530 Captain Otto Wermuth refused to divulge any information about his
vessel and its disappearance after the war.
Many people have theorised that the submarine was shuttling high-ranking Nazi officers to
friendly South American countries.
That would certainly explain why the U-530’s passenger log had also been destroyed.
Some even go so far as to claim the U-Boat dropped Hitler and Eva Braun off in Argentina.
Where presumably Adolf spent the rest of his wife being teased by Eva for trying to fight
Russia and America at once.
6) The British 17 In 2009, historians doing routine preservation
at Auschwitz, stumbled across something unexpected.
Hidden away in a bunker at the camp, Auschwitz expert Dominek Synowiec discovered a list
of 17 surnames.
Written on a scrap of celluloid, the list contains names like Osbourne, Lawrence and
Gardiner.
[EDIT: Would it be possible to split screen a graphic with names appearing]
The list was found in the Monowitz Prisoner of War camp, a part of Auschwitz used to hold
mostly British prisoners of war.
That, coupled with the English-sounding names, means most people can agree the list is a
collection of British soldiers.
However, no-one really knows any details beyond that.
Adding to the mystery is the fact that eight of the names had ticks by them.
And the back of the list is also peppered by the German phrases for “since then”,
“never” and “now”.
[EDIT: Same list back back with Germna words on.
Since then is “seit damals”.
Never is “nie” Now is “jetzt”.]
Synowiec suspects it’s a list of Prisoners of War, but admits that he has no way of knowing
for certain.
Others have claimed that the names are a list of traitors or a secret British SS division
that fought on the side of Nazis.
Whether a group of POWs or SS spies, we can all agree it would make a terrible listicle.
5) The Yamashita Treasure If you ever take a gap year down to the Philippines,
make sure you keep an eye out for hidden treasure.
After all, it’s the only realistic chance you have of paying off your student loan.
According to Filipino legend, Japan’s forces spent much of their time in the country stealing
everything that wasn’t tied down.
They even supposedly had a secret squad, called The Golden Lily, committed to it full time.
However, as Japan started to lose battle after battle to America, such pilfering became impossible.
Instead Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita ordered his men to start hiding the treasure
in caves and tunnels around the Philippines.
For a long time, this story was considered an urban legend.
However, recent discoveries suggest there may be more truth to this rumour than many
thought.
In June 2017, a video surfaced online of someone uncovering what appeared to be a large stash
of gold in a Filipino cave.
Though the stash has yet to be verified, its discoverer believes the horde to be the Yamashita
treasure, potentially finally putting this mystery to rest.
Oh, and before you feel too jealous of the treasure hunter, you should know that the
gold has been booby-trapped with explosives.
Poor guy.
That’s like winning the lottery, and finding out you have to collect your winnings from
a crocodile pit.
4) The Cap Arcona Disaster On the 3rd of May 1945, Britain’s Royal
Air Force spotted three enormous cruise ships leaving from the Bay of Lubeck in Germany.
Knowing that a small army of SS members and concentration camp guards had fled to the
region, the Allies believed these ships were their final escape.
In one of the biggest mistakes of the war, the RAF flew in and bombed them into the ocean
floor.
The Cap Arcona, the Deutschland and the Thielbek were all sunk.
But horrifically, the ships turned out not to transporting SS soldiers but concentration
camp internees.
Almost 7,000 people who had managed to survive the holocaust were drowned in the sea.
Adding to the tragedy is the fact the war ended the very next day.
Although we can all agree this event was awful, the causes behind it remain something of a
mystery.
Some claim the Nazis deliberately stuffed the ships with camp survivors, hoping the
Brits would accidentally kill the prisoners off for them.
Others believe the ships were co-ordinated by the charity Red Cross, and that the RAF
had been warned in advance.
Unfortunately, the official version will remain a mystery until 2049, when RAF documents of
the incident will be declassified.
3) The Battle of Los Angeles On the 24th of February 1942, air raid sirens
started to sound around LA.
Several watch stations were certain they’d seen a Japanese jet, and the local military
guard decided to respond as calmly and carefully as possible.
I’m just kidding, they responded by lobbing 1,400 anti-aircraft shells into the air like
they’d just declared war on the sky.
The barrage lasted from 3 to 4AM, after which the guns stopped and everyone had to sheepishly
admit they hadn’t hit anything.
The official report at the time declared the event a ‘false alarm’.
And many historians have chalked the mistake up as a case of wartime jitters getting the
best of people.
However, many of the more conspiracy-minded out there are skeptical of this claim.
They point out that there must have been something up in the air to trigger the panic.
Unfortunately, they can’t agree what that “something” was.
Some argue there was a Japanese fighter, and it just got away.
Some claim there was a borderline undetectable secret Japanese weapon in the air.
And some just say it was a UFO.
Hey, I never said they were all good theories.
2) Anne Frank’s Betrayer Anne Frank may have died at the young age
of 15, but her story has become one of the most famous in the world.
After the Nazis invaded the Netherlands, the Jewish Frank family went into hiding in a
concealed room above the office the father had worked in.
There they remained hidden for just over two years, with only a handful of people knowing
their secret location.
Then in August 1944, the room was stormed by German police and the Franks were sent
to Auschwitz.
Anne Frank, her mother and her sister were all executed there.
While this story rose to prominence because of the publication of Anne Frank’s diary,
one factor remains unknown.
Who turned the Frank family in?
Historian and biographer Carol Ann Lee suspects Tonny Ahlers, a member of the Dutch Nazi party
and violent anti-semite.
Others believe the informant was the office’s stockroom manager Willem van Maaren, who was
apparently very interested in where the Franks had gone.
Some have even claimed that the discovery was an accident, and that the police were
looking for stolen rations when they stumbled across the Franks.
Although Ahlers, van Maaran, and others were questioned by Dutch police after the war,
no definitive verdict was ever reached, and the mystery remains forever unsolved.
1) Project Chronos Throughout the Second World War, the Nazis
were working on so many crazy world domination weapons, their plan to steal the Arc of the
Covenant in Indiana Jones looks comparatively sane.
From bouncing bombs to an orbital disk designed to reflect the sun’s heat at enemies, if
it sounds like the sort of thing a cartoon supervillain would do, the Nazis tried it.
But no Nazis secret weapon is more mysterious than Project Chronos.
Little is known about this mysterious device except that it was also called ‘Die Glocke’
[Die Glo-ke] [DIRECTION: Air quotes], which is German for ‘The Bell’.
[DIRECTION: Air quotes] Which is not a very scary name.
[EDIT: Make quoted text appear onscreen]
What is scary is what Die Glocke might have been.
Although no-one knows for certain, rumours abound about the the 5 metre tall weapon’s
secret capabilities.
One theory, pushed by historian Igor Witkowski [Wit-Cow-Ski], is that The Bell had vials
of the deadly Xerum 525 inside.
Theoretically, when dropped on an area, the bell bomb would break, dowsing everything
within a 200 metre radius.
People’s blood would congeal inside them and their skin would crystalise.
Yeah, not nice stuff.
Then again, these are the Nazis we’re talking about.
Witkowski’s terrifying theory is actually the most grounded explanation of Die Glocke.
Others have claimed the device was everything from a wormhole machine to a UFO to a secret
Nazi time machine.
Which I hope is false.
If only because Adolf and Joseph's Excellent Adventure doesn’t have quite the same ring
to it.
So, those were 10 Unsolved Mysteries from World War Two.
Which one surprised you the most?
Did we leave any unsolved mysteries off the list?
Let us know in the comments below.
And if you want more Second World War surprises, check out 10 Insane Secret Weapons From World
War Two, playing now.

10 Unsolved Mysteries Of WW2

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