German submarine discovered off the coast of Denmark. The U-3523 was a Type XXI submarine.

Missing sub rumored to have brought Nazis to South America discovered
By Jon Lockett, The Sun

April 18, 2018 | 1:08pm

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The missing submarine was found off the coast of Denmark. Sea War Museum Jutland

A missing German submarine said to have taken the defeated Nazi leadership to South America has been discovered after being lost at sea for nearly 73 years.

The U-3523 was one of Hitler’s Type XXI submarines – a new and highly advanced design which came too late to stop an allied victory.

It was the first class of U-boats designed to sail submerged for a prolonged period of time and had a range which allowed it to sail non-stop to South America.

The U-3523 was thought to have been sunk by a British B24 Liberator attack on May 6, 1945, but the inability to locate the wreck fuelled rumors that it had escaped.

Now the wreck has been located ten nautical miles north of Skagen – Denmark’s northernmost town – and nine miles west of the position reported by the British bomber.

Denmark’s Sea War Museum, which found the submarine, said there was no evidence that it was escaping with Nazi leaders or loot.

Gert Normann Andersen, the museum’s director, said: “Rumor has it that the submarine had great valuables from Germany because it was heading away from Germany even though the war ended.”

“I think the rumor developed because U-3523 was a very modern, long-distance U-boat and some Nazis tried to escape with valuables in the last days.”

“But the submarine was going to Norway, and not to South America with Nazis and valuables.”

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The German Type XXI submarine was so advanced that the US, France, Soviet Union and China would end up copying it.Getty Images
Declassified documents from US intelligence have fuelled claims that the Nazi leadership, including Adolf Hitler himself, escaped to South America in the final days of the war.

One CIA file dated October 3, 1955, carried allegations from a former SS trooper named Phillip Citroen that Hitler had been hiding in Colombia and later Argentina.

The trooper even had a photo taken in 1954 in the Colombian city of Tunja, allegedly showing him with a man said to be Hitler.

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For years, the missing submarine was a locus of conspiracy theories.Sea War Museum Jutland
The document stated: “According to Citroen, the Germans residing in Tunja followed this alleged Adolf Hitler with an idolatry of the Nazi past, addressing him as ‘der Fuhrer’ and affording him the Nazi salute and storm-trooper adulation.”

Meanwhile a file from the FBI archives, dated September 21, 1945, detailed eyewitness claims that Hitler had arrived in Argentina via a submarine two-and-a-half weeks after the fall of Berlin.

It said: “By pre-arranged plan with six top Argentine officials, pack horses were waiting for the group and by daylight all supplies were loaded on the horses and an all-day trip inland toward the foothills of the southern Andes was started.”

“At dusk the party arrived at the ranch where Hitler and his party, according to (redacted), are now in hiding.”

Several prominent Nazis are also known to have fled to South America, including Adolf Eichmann – a leading architect of the Holocaust, and the notorious Auschwitz doctor Josef Mengele.

However, the new discovery proves that U-3523 never made the trip and sank with all 58 crewmen.

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Sea War Museum Jutland
Andersen also has a copy of the last telegram sent by the submarine, dated May 5, 1945, which makes no mention of any precious cargo or high-ranking passengers.

Nazi Germany would sign the first instrument of unconditional surrender just two days later on May 7, 1945.

Scans of the seabed reveal the U-boat now lies in 403 feet of water, making it very difficult to access.

Unusually, the whole fore of the ship lies buried in the sand, while the stern stands 65 feet above the bottom.

Nazi Germany built 118 Type XXI U-boats but – due to poor quality control – only four were fit for combat before World War II ended and just two were deployed, neither sinking any allied ships.

Their design was later copied by Britain, the US, France and the Soviet Union with Soviet models subsequently inspiring Chinese submarines.

Only one original Type XXI U-boat survives, the Wilhelm Bauer (formerly U-2540), which is now part of the German Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven.

 

Das Boat

 

Never had the chance to see it.
German Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven. - Yahoo Video Search Results

 

Type XXl is the Father of the USS TANG Class
tang classsubmarines - Yahoo Image Search Results

 

I never saw the XXI in Bremerhaven though I was there many times. I did see an old German WW1 submarine in the Munich museum which was pretty amazing. They have it cut in half and all I can say is someone would have had to be absolutely nuts to get into one of those things.

As far as the XXI taking Nazis to South America, who knows, but whether they did or did not many made it there.

 

Got to see U 505 in Chicago museum of science an industry in the mid 70's. Type VII C U boat.

 

That's a ME TO

 

No reason they can't go down and look.
Who knows it may be full of loot.

 

Here is a bit of trivial for all the bubbleheads and want to be's among us… Germany started WW2 with only about 50 (think it was actually 54) submarines. There was a huge in-fighting for a Blue Water navy as opposed to submarines...but just think 'what if' they started with 200+ instead as it took years to build Battleships but only months to build submarines.

 

And by the end of the war they lost 800.

 

There has always been rumors that the XXI's were used to ferry gold and looted treasures to South America...many of those treasures are still missing, actually a huge amount of them.

 

Sadly, yes. Most were due to the Allies breaking the supposedly 'unbreakable' enigma code and the advances in their technology; while Germany continued to have in-fighting and tried incorrectly to support Blue Navy and the submarine force until it was too late.
Anyway, I don't want to get too far off topic...

 

they did a complete re-hab on the exterior and moved her inside to it's own "sub pen" - you can walk around the exterior now and see previously excluded sub items >>>> she'll be around now for the future ....

U-505 On-board Tour

 

There were many contributing factors to the defeat of the Axis forces, not least of which was the irrational belief that by his sheer will that Hitler could force a negotiated peace upon his opponents. It was touch and go while America was uncommitted to the Allied cause, but once America belatedly entered the WW2, the end for Germany, Italy, Japan and the minor Axis powers was inevitable. Had Britain been occupied, the process would have taken somewhat longer, but the end would have been just as inevitable, just that more of Europe would most probably have become Soviet satellites.

 

Love the lines on that hull!

Toured the 505 back in the 60's when Dad was stationed at Great Lakes..

 

They were doomed before they started - Germany is about the size of Montana. As noted, once the US entered the fray, it was all over but the shooting. They got as far as they did simply because they armed before anyone else.....

 

That would be like California trying to take over the USA. Wait I ought not to have said that,moonbeam will be trying it next.
MAGA