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Speaker 1: All right, we know that one of the most horrifying

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Speaker 1: things about Adolf Hitler and the Nazis was their belief

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Speaker 1: that they were a superior breed of human being and

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Speaker 1: they wanted to wipe out any group of people who

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Speaker 1: didn't fit their diluted standards. But did you know that

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Speaker 1: some of the top Nazi officials saw themselves as superhuman

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Speaker 1: because they believed their ancestors came from the Lost City

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Speaker 1: of Atlantis. They searched for Atlantis along with relics that

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Speaker 1: were otherworldly, like the Holy Grail. I'm Patti Steele, Maniacs

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Speaker 1: and mysticism. Next on the backstory. The backstory is back. Well,

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Speaker 1: we've all seen a lot of the Indiana Jones flicks,

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Speaker 1: but did you know that major parts of those stories

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Speaker 1: are based on fact. It seems that before and during

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Speaker 1: World War Two, the Nazis actually were hunting for mystical objects.

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Speaker 1: They truly wanted to get their hands on things like

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Speaker 1: the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail, just

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Speaker 1: like we saw those movies. And it went beyond that.

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Speaker 1: Many of the top Nazi brass believe they were descended

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Speaker 1: from a superior race of human beings. They were convinced

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Speaker 1: it was their job to prove that and to wipe

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Speaker 1: out everybody else. Now, imagine you're a young Nazi soldier

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Speaker 1: in the sess and you're assigned to the an Inerba,

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Speaker 1: that's the branch dedicated to the heritage of the German

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Speaker 1: people and their alleged racial superiority. That research would take

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Speaker 1: you down some insane pathways. The powers that Bee have

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Speaker 1: you searching the world for objects imbued with superpowers to

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Speaker 1: increase strength, political power, and even control life itself. That

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Speaker 1: search may take you into caves in Iceland, to monasteries

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Speaker 1: in the mountains of Tibet, and to the depths of

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Speaker 1: the oceans. It's totally like the characters from Indiana Jones,

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Speaker 1: delving into ancient tombs trying to decipher primitive documents, many

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Speaker 1: carved in stone, and all along you're being closely watched

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Speaker 1: by a genocidal maniac S s boss, Heinrich Himmler, who

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Speaker 1: also ran the concentration camps. Himmler believed that the Third

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Speaker 1: Reich was a modern incarnation of the leaders of an

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Speaker 1: ancient super race, and he wanted those ancient relics because

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Speaker 1: he thought they held the key to ultimate power. And

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Speaker 1: at the same time justified Nazi ambitions and how they

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Speaker 1: achieved those goals. He wanted to prove that the German

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Speaker 1: people were directly descended from the people of the Lost

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Speaker 1: city Island of Atlantis, written about by Plato. Plato described

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Speaker 1: Atlantis as an entire continent in the middle of the ocean,

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Speaker 1: perhaps the Atlantic or the North Sea. It was thought

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Speaker 1: to have once dominated Europe, Africa, and South America, but

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Speaker 1: after angering the gods, Atlantis had sunk into the sea,

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Speaker 1: maybe following an earthquake. But it was never really clear

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Speaker 1: that Plato's story was anything other than an allegory about

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Speaker 1: nations that had too much huey and attempted to control

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Speaker 1: the world. Sort of ironic that the story echoed exactly

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Speaker 1: the Nazi plan, but Himmler believed Atlantis was real and

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Speaker 1: he wanted that power back for Germany. It seems one

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Speaker 1: of Himmler's desires was to eventually replace Christianity with the

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Speaker 1: pagan religions of Germany's past, so ties to the pagan

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Speaker 1: belief in Atlantis would help him toward that goal. Himmler's

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Speaker 1: Institute for the Study of Atlantis, as well as the

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Speaker 1: Study into the Aryan super race led to a fully

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Speaker 1: established research team by nineteen thirty five, and Hitler himself

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Speaker 1: ordered its expansion several years later. They actually based much

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Speaker 1: of the strategy for winning World War II on this

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Speaker 1: mystical belief. But the Nazis also had a backup idea,

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Speaker 1: the hollow Earth theory, which suggested that the Earth is

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Speaker 1: hollow and that there are two enormous holes where you

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Speaker 1: could actually enter Middle Earth, one at the south pole

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Speaker 1: and one at the north and they believed it was

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Speaker 1: also a possibility that the German people could have been

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Speaker 1: descended from a super race in that subterranean world. Kind

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Speaker 1: of weird, right, Well, wasn't completely without some backup. Some explorers,

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Speaker 1: including the respected polar explorer Admiral Richard Byrd, were said

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Speaker 1: to embrace the theory. Now, Himmler ordered teams from the

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Speaker 1: Onerba to explore deep caves and mines looking for portals

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Speaker 1: to the underworld. They scoured ancient writings and conducted geological surveys,

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Speaker 1: anxious to prove this mythical underworld was the divine birthplace

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Speaker 1: of the Arian civilization and that belief in their superiority

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Speaker 1: was a cornerstone of the Nazi regime. Now once again,

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Speaker 1: this tale of the weird explorations of the Nazis was

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Speaker 1: turned into yet another Indiana Jones book, Indiana Jones and

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Speaker 1: the Hollow Earth. But it didn't stop there. The Onerba

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Speaker 1: also searched Tibet for a creature called the Yeti aka

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Speaker 1: the abom domable snowman. They went to Ethiopia in search

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Speaker 1: of the Ark of the Covenant. They went to Vienna

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Speaker 1: to steal the Spear of Destiny, part of the crown

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Speaker 1: jewels of the Holy Roman Emperor, which was said to

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Speaker 1: be the lance used to pierce Christ's side as he

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Speaker 1: hung on the cross. By the way, that lance eventually

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Speaker 1: disappeared from a locked vault in Nurenberg at the end

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Speaker 1: of the war. And finally, in one of the craziest

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Speaker 1: stories about the Onerba, some insiders said they tried to

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Speaker 1: develop Nazi zombies. They were said to be researching a

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Speaker 1: method to bring fallen Nazi soldiers and others back to life.

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Speaker 1: They wanted to reanimate those dead soldiers to fill out

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Speaker 1: their ranks and send them back into battle as super warriors.

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Speaker 1: While there's no proof of that program, it does fit

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Speaker 1: in with the horrifying experiments the Nazis did on their

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Speaker 1: prisoners as well as their own soldiers to test the

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Speaker 1: limits of human endurance. Of course, in the end, it

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Speaker 1: seems the Nazis were unable to find any artifacts with

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Speaker 1: super natural powers, unable to prove they were descendants of

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Speaker 1: a lost super race from a mythical place they never found,

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Speaker 1: and unable to win a war that was the ultimate

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Speaker 1: test of good versus evil. If you have any stories

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Speaker 1: that you would like me to take a deeper dive

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Speaker 1: into and share, you can DM me on Facebook at

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Speaker 1: Patty Steele or on Instagram at Real Patty Steele. I'm

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Speaker 1: Patty Steele. The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premier Networks,

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Speaker 1: the Elvis Durand Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer

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Speaker 1: is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new

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Speaker 1: episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to reach out

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Speaker 1: to me with comments and even story suggestions on Instagram

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Speaker 1: at Real Patty Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to The Backstare with Patty Steele. The

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Speaker 1: pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know