Nazi UFOs

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Artistic impression of a Nazi flying saucer, similar in appearance to craft allegedly photographed by George
Adamski, Reinhold Schmidt, Howard Menger, and Stephen Darbishire.

In ufology, conspiracy theory, science fiction, and comic book stories, claims or

stories have circulated linking UFOs to Nazi Germany. The German UFO theories
describe supposedly successful attempts to develop advanced aircraft or spacecraft
prior to and during World War II, and further assert the post-war survival of these
craft in secret underground bases in Antarctica, South America, or the United States,
along with their creators.[1] According to these theories and fictional stories, various
potential code-names or sub-classifications of Nazi UFO craft such
as Rundflugzeug, Feuerball, Diskus, Haunebu, Hauneburg-Gerät, V7, Vril, Kugelblitz 
(not related to the self-propelled anti-aircraft gun of the same name), Andromeda-
Gerät, Flugkreisel, Kugelwaffe, Jenseitsflugmaschine, and Reichsflugscheibe have
all been referenced.
Accounts appear as early as 1950, likely inspired by historical German development
of specialized engines such as Viktor Schauberger's "Repulsine" around the time of
World War II. Elements of these claims have been widely incorporated into various
works of fictional and purportedly non-fictional media, including video games and
documentaries, often mixed with more substantiated information.
German UFO literature very often conforms largely to documented history on the
following points:

 Nazi Germany claimed the territory of New Swabia in Antarctica, sent an

expedition there in 1938, and planned others. [2]
 Nazi Germany conducted research into advanced propulsion technology,
including rocketry, Viktor Schauberger's engine research, flying wing craft and
the Arthur Sack A.S.6 experimental circular winged aircraft.
 Some UFO sightings during World War II, particularly those known as foo
fighters, were thought by the Allies to be prototype enemy aircraft designed to
harass Allied aircraft through electromagnetic disruption; a technology similar to
today's electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapons.[citation needed]

Contents

 1Early claims
 2Later claims
o 2.1The Morning of the Magicians
o 2.2Ernst Zündel's marketing ploy
 o 2.3Miguel Serrano's book
 3In popular culture
 4See also
 5References
o 5.1Citations
o 5.2Works cited
 6Further reading
 7External links

Early claims[edit]
In World War II, the so-called "foo fighters", a variety of unusual and anomalous
aerial phenomena, were witnessed by both Axis and Allied personnel. While some
foo fighter reports were dismissed as the misperceptions of troops in the heat of
combat, others were taken seriously, and leading scientists such as Luis
Alvarez began to investigate them.[3][page  needed] In at least some cases, Allied intelligence
and commanders suspected that foo fighters reported in the European theater
represented advanced German aircraft or weapons, particularly given that Germans
had already developed such technological innovations as V-1 and V-2 rockets and
the first operational jet-powered Me 262 fighter planes, and that a minority of foo
fighters seemed to have inflicted damage to allied aircraft. [3][page  needed]
Similar sentiments regarding German technology resurfaced in 1947 with the first
wave of flying saucer reports after Kenneth Arnold's widely reported close encounter
with nine crescent-shaped objects moving at a high velocity. Personnel of Project
Sign, the first U.S. Air Force UFO investigation group, noted that the advanced flying
wing aeronautical designs of the German Horten brothers were similar to some UFO
reports.[4] In 1959, Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, the first head of Project Blue
Book (Project Sign's follow-up investigation) wrote:
When WWII ended, the Germans had several radical types of aircraft and guided
missiles under development. The majority were in the most preliminary stages, but
they were the only known craft that could even approach the performance of objects
reported by UFO observers.[5]
While these early speculations and reports were limited primarily to military
personnel, the earliest assertion of German flying saucers in the mass
media appears to have been an article which appeared in the Italian newspaper Il
Giornale d'Italia in early 1950. Written by Professor Giuseppe Belluzzo, an Italian
scientist and a former Italian Minister of National Economy under the Mussolini
regime, it claimed that "types of flying discs were designed and studied in Germany
and Italy as early as 1942". Belluzzo also expressed the opinion that "some great
power is launching discs to study them".[6]
The Bell UFO, a hoax from the year 2000, was among the first flying objects to be
connected with the Nazis.[citation needed] It apparently had occult markings on it and it was
also rumoured to have been very similar to a Wehrmacht document about a vertical
take off aircraft. It is directly related to the supposed crash of a bell-shaped object
that occurred in Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, USA on December 9, 1965. The same
month, German engineer Rudolf Schriever gave an interview to German news
magazine Der Spiegel in which he claimed that he had designed a craft powered by
a circular plane of rotating turbine blades 49 ft (15 m) in diameter. He said that the
project had been developed by him and his team at BMW's Prague works until April
1945, when he fled to Czechoslovakia. His designs for the disk and a model were
stolen from his workshop in Bremerhaven-Lehe in 1948 and he was convinced that
Czech agents had built his craft for "a foreign power". [7][8] In a separate interview
with Der Spiegel in October 1952 he said that the plans were stolen from a farm he
was hiding in near Regen on 14 May 1945. There are other discrepancies between
the two interviews that add to the confusion.[9] However, many skeptics have doubted
that such a Bell UFO was actually designed or ever built. [10]
In 1953, when Avro Canada announced that it was developing the VZ-9-AV Avrocar,
a circular jet aircraft with an estimated speed of 1,500 mph (2,400 km/h), German
engineer Georg Klein claimed that such designs had been developed during the Nazi
era. Klein identified two types of supposed German flying disks:

 A non-rotating disk developed at Breslau by V-2 rocket engineer Richard

Miethe, which was captured by the Soviets, while Miethe fled to the US via
France, and ended up working for Avro.
 A disk developed by Rudolf Schriever and Klaus Habermohl at Prague, which
consisted of a ring of moving turbine blades around a fixed cockpit. Klein claimed
that he had witnessed this craft's first manned flight on 14 February 1945, when it
managed to climb to 12,400 m (40,700 ft) in 3 minutes and attained a speed of
2,200 km/h (1,400 mph) in level flight.
Aeronautical engineer Roy Fedden remarked that the only craft that could approach
the capabilities attributed to flying saucers were those being designed by the
Germans towards the end of the war. Fedden (who was also chief of the technical
mission to Germany for the Ministry of Aircraft Production) stated in 1945:
I have seen enough of their designs and production plans to realize that if they (the
Germans) had managed to prolong the war some months longer, we would have
been confronted with a set of entirely new and deadly developments in air warfare. [11]
Fedden also added that the Germans were working on a number of very unusual
aeronautical projects, though he did not elaborate upon his statement. [12]

Later claims[edit]
The Morning of the Magicians[edit]
Le Matin des Magiciens ("The Morning of the Magicians"), a 1960 book by Louis
Pauwels and Jacques Bergier, made many spectacular claims about the Vril
Society of Berlin.[13] Several years later writers, including Jan van Helsing,[14][15] Norbert-
Jürgen Ratthofer,[16] and Vladimir Terziski, have built on their work, connecting the Vril
Society with UFOs. Among their claims, they imply that the society may have made
contact with an alien race and dedicated itself to creating spacecraft to reach the
aliens. In partnership with the Thule Society and the Nazi Party, the Vril Society
developed a series of flying disc prototypes. With the Nazi defeat, the society
allegedly retreated to a base in Antarctica and vanished into the hollow Earth to meet
up with the leaders of an advanced race inhabiting inner Earth.
Ernst Zündel's marketing ploy[edit]
Further information: Ernst Zündel §  UFOlogy
When German Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel started Samisdat Publishers in the
1970s, he initially catered to the UFOlogy community, which was then at its peak of
public acceptance. His books claimed that flying saucers were Nazi secret weapons
launched from an underground base in Antarctica, from which the Nazis hoped to
conquer the Earth and possibly the planets. [17] Zündel also sold (for $9999) seats on
an exploration team to locate the polar entrance to the hollow earth.[18] Some who
interviewed Zündel claim that he privately admitted it was a deliberate hoax to build
publicity for Samisdat, although he still defended it as late as 2002. [19][20]
Miguel Serrano's book[edit]
In 1978, Miguel Serrano, a Chilean diplomat and Nazi sympathizer, published El
Cordón Dorado: Hitlerismo Esotérico [The Golden Thread: Esoteric Hitlerism] (in
Spanish), in which he claimed that Adolf Hitler was an Avatar of Vishnu and was, at
that time, communing with Hyperborean gods in an underground Antarctic base
in New Swabia. Serrano predicted that Hitler would lead a fleet of UFOs from the
base to establish the Fourth Reich.[21] In popular culture, this alleged UFO fleet is
referred to as the Nazi flying saucers from Antarctica.[citation needed]

In popular culture[edit]
 In 1947, Robert A. Heinlein published Rocket Ship Galileo, a science fiction
novel featuring a German moon base.[citation needed]
 In 2018 Revell released a scale model of a Nazi flying saucer called
"Haunebu II", with an accompanying description written as if the kit was depicting
a historical craft.[22][23] After criticism on the grounds of historical inaccuracy, Revell
issued an apology and removed the model from production and distribution. [22][23]