The most terrible secrets of the Third Reich. Secrets of the Third Reich. Top secret projects in Germany. The birth of the Nazi ideology. Aryan race

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Photo taken from the German Federal Archives

World War II touched almost every corner of the globe; according to historians, it claimed the lives of about 70 million people and destitute countless families. World War II is considered the deadliest conflict in human history; all her events were well documented. And even seventy years later, they have not been erased from the public consciousness. However, it is impossible that a conflict of this magnitude and scope did not have its share of unsolved mysteries, ranging from operations that have not been declassified to this day, to the strange, terrible events that took place in the dark recesses of the Third Reich. Many of the real mysteries of World War II have gathered a huge amount of conspiracy theories around them over the decades, so most of the dark events still lurk in the shadows. It's no surprise that some of the darkest mysteries surrounding Nazi Germany are only now beginning to surface. Just about them and will be discussed in this article.

1. Who were the seventeen British prisoners who were held in the Auschwitz concentration camp?

When Polish historians were doing preservation work in an old Auschwitz bunker in 2009, they stumbled upon what seemed to be out of place among other documents. It was a list of seventeen names, presumably British. He had no clear indication of who these people were or what they were doing in the infamous Nazi death camp.

Eight names were marked with a tick. On the reverse side of the list sheet, historians have found words in German, next to which the English equivalents were written - "now" (now), "never" (never), "since" (since then), and "then" ( then, then). According to the British newspaper "Telegraph", the list included such names as Gardiner, Lawrence and Osborne.

When trying to explain the cryptic list, many different theories have emerged. Some have argued that the names may actually have belonged to Jewish prisoners of war who were subsequently sentenced to death, double agents, or even British defectors.

However, to this day, the found list remains an unsolved mystery from the Second World War. No one knows for sure who these names belonged to, who these people were and why they were included in a separate list. In total, about 1.1 million prisoners were killed in the Auschwitz concentration camp between 1940 and 1945.

2. What happened in the Polish city of Malbork?

In 2009, construction workers discovered a mass grave in Northern Poland containing the remains of approximately 1,800 men, women and children. During the Second World War, the city, which was then known as Marienburg (today it is called Malbork), was part of Germany. At the end of the war, its 1,840 inhabitants were officially listed as missing. Their tragic fate became known only after more than sixty years, when a mass grave was found on the site of modern Malbork.

What happened in Marienburg several decades ago is not known for certain. The city and its environs were in the very center of fierce fighting between the forces of Germany and the USSR. Scientists have determined that some of the skeletons found in the mass grave had bullet holes. It was also revealed that a tenth of them were most likely executed.

It is believed that some of these people froze during a severe cold, but most of them - apparently before death - were taken away clothes and jewelry. In addition, scientists have established that the pit in which the killed and dead people were buried was formed as a result of a bomb explosion. Further excavations suggested that the remains belonged to at least 2,000 people who were not evacuated from Marienburg before the arrival of the Red Army. Anyway, these are all unconfirmed theories. The real fate of these two thousand residents of Marienburg continues to be a terrible secret of the Second World War.

3. Was there a movie in a Nazi time capsule?

In 1934, the Nazis decided to build a training center in the Polish city of Zlocenets, which was then in Germany and was called Falkenburg. In 2016, a group of archaeologists carried out excavations here. According to rumors, they managed to find something that has existed for decades: a time capsule.

It was a copper cylinder, inside of which, among other things, were found two copies of "My Struggle" (Adolf Hitler's book, combining elements of an autobiography with an outline of the ideas of National Socialism), various newspapers, coins and documents outlining the history of the building's concept.

The only thing scientists haven't found inside the cylinder is a documentary film dating back to 1933. It was because of him that they began all these searches. As a result, no one is sure what the content of this film was or why it was not included in the time capsule. His fate remains a wartime mystery.

4. What happened during the two months of the absence of the German submarine U-530?

It's no secret that a number of high-ranking Nazi party officials not only managed to escape Germany, but disappeared without a trace before they could be tried for countless war crimes. The idea that Hitler and Eva Braun might have been among those who managed to survive and escape Germany formed the basis of the Third Reich conspiracy theory. What the German submarine U-530 did during a sixty-day period in 1945 remains a complete mystery.

On May 8, 1945, all German submarines in the nearest port were ordered to surrender. All but one - U-530. Two months later, she appeared in an Argentine port. Her commander, Lieutenant Otto Wermuth, destroyed all the logbooks and threw away most of the equipment. He explained that he did not obey the order to surrender and proceed to the shores of the United States because he needed medical assistance, which he hoped to receive in a South American port.

After the story of U-530 became known to the public, rumors began to surface that the submarine had arrived at an Argentine port to disembark two passengers, a man and a woman. Such claims are nothing more than the usual conspiracy theory, but the reasons why Wermouth destroyed the logbooks and discarded most of the equipment are still unclear.

5. What happened to Herschel Grynszpan?


Photo taken from the German Federal Archives

On a November night in 1938, Nazi soldiers carried out a pogrom against Jews throughout Germany. This event went down in history as Kristallnacht. It was provoked by the actions of a teenager named Herschel Grynszpan.

On November 7, Grynszpan came to the German embassy in Paris and shot the first Nazi official he came across. His actions led to a hardening of the German policy towards the Jews. However, what happened to Grynszpan himself, we do not know.

Herschel Grynszpan was born in 1921. When he was fifteen years old, he moved to France. The teenager was outraged by what was happening in his home country, so he decided to kill a diplomat from the German embassy. Grynszpan was arrested immediately after the incident. His trial was scheduled for January 1942. However, due to military events, it was postponed. Nothing is known about Grynszpan's further fate.

6. What actually happened at Wewelsburg Castle?

It was Heinrich Himmler who ordered the occupation of the 17th-century castle located in the German village of Wewelsburg. The castle was destined to become the center of the occult activities of the SS under the leadership of Heinrich Himmler.

Initially, the castle housed the school of the SS. However, what were once classrooms soon became laboratories, where scientists researched everything from pseudoscience to mysticism, rune worship and ancestor cults. The premises were given names from the legends of the Holy Grail, so it is not surprising that all sorts of rumors began to appear around Wewelsburg.

Today, the Renaissance castle acts as a museum, where you can find a huge amount of paraphernalia of the Third Reich; it is designed to keep a history that we must not forget. Museum employees say that it is unlikely that pagan rites and rituals were once held within its walls, but one cannot be completely sure of this.

7. What was the Thule Society really like?

The German Thule Society was named after a mysterious country from ancient Greek mythology. Its members were engaged in the study and research of the occult. From the very beginning it worked closely with the Nazi regime: first with the German Workers' Party, then with the National Socialist German Workers' Party. However, there are many things we don't know about him.

There is an opinion that the Thule Society included such prominent figures as Rudolf Hess and Alfred Rosenberg, but this cannot be confirmed, since there was no official list of its members (there were about 1,750 people).

Much of what happened behind the closed doors of the Thule Society remains a mystery. Historians have long been intrigued by the question of how this research group managed to acquire considerable influence on German politics. They also often argue among themselves over whether Adolf Hitler was a member of the Thule Society or not.

For many years, scientists from all over the world studied one of the most mysterious objects of the Nazis. And now the researchers are confident that they have never come close to unraveling the main secrets of these mysterious buildings.

Reporting by Dmitry Soshin.

Not just a bunker, a large underground fortress. Hitler wanted to seal the eastern borders of the Third Reich with a reinforced concrete castle. "Earthworm Lair" - the largest defensive system in Europe - was built for almost 10 years.

Sylvia Banek, historian-enthusiast: "Rails of a narrow-gauge railway pass here. During the war, electric trains ran here, they carried soldiers and equipment."

Underground life was so intense that the tunnels gradually became squares and stations, although without platforms and waiting rooms. The waypoints near the "Northern Station" still work like new.

Silvia Banek, a student from Poznań, has been studying the "Lair of the Earthworm" for a long time. She is one of the few who are allowed to bring curious historians and journalists here. 5 years ago, the authorities set up guards near the entrance to the bunker: they are worried not only by teenagers who draw "graffiti". People began to disappear into the dungeon - 30 kilometers of tunnels have not been fully explored.

Sylvia Banek, enthusiastic historian: "This is a rather dangerous place. There is no complete scheme of all firing points and all tunnels. We have to fence off all unexplored places."

Bats are the only guardians of the dungeon. There are so many of them here that the local authorities declared the old ventilation shafts a nature reserve.

Everything was in the underground city: railway stations, hospital, barracks. And in the wing was a large armory room. Toward the end of the war, workers were brought here and machines were installed. For the underground factory, the cable had to be re-laid.

Engines for combat aircraft were assembled in a Polish underground. The workshop worked until February 1945: by that time, the Red Army had encircled the Mezeretsky district.

Every year, on Victory Day, military-historical clubs "play out" the assault on the underground citadel. In fact, "Earthworm's Lair" was printed out in 2 days. The surviving defenders of pillbox No. 712, the only firing point that held the defense, were released by the Red Army men home.

Robert Yurga, historian-enthusiast: "There were almost no officers among the Germans, soldiers, almost boys, lived in concrete bags. It seems that the command simply forgot about them."

If earlier speleologists and thrill-seekers from Holland and Germany aspired here, recently the Poles living in the neighborhood want to go underground.

Sylvia Banek, historian-enthusiast: "They come here several times, and not to look at the rusty rails! They ask a lot of questions. They are not indifferent to how their homeland was liberated."

Historians from Warsaw dream of dismantling the brickwork and getting to the side, "reserve" tunnels. By order of Stalin, they were walled up immediately after the war. And, perhaps, then "Earthworm's Lair" will reveal all its secrets.

The mystery of "Wilhelm Gustloff"

Considered the main ideologist of Nazism, Adolf Hitler's deputy for "ideological training" of members of the National Socialist Workers' Party of Germany, Alfred Rosenberg, was born in 1893 in the city of Reval, on the territory that belonged to the Russian Empire. Later, he studied in Riga and even in Moscow, where in 1918 he graduated from the Higher Technical School with a degree in civil engineering.

After coming to power in 1933, Hitler appointed Rosenberg head of the Foreign Policy Office of the NSDAP. Already during the Second World War, in fact, just before the attack on the USSR, in the spring of 1941, a special center for the problems of the eastern territories was created under the NSDAP Foreign Policy Department. On his birthday, April 20, 1941, Adolf Hitler informed Rosenberg that, given his excellent knowledge of the Russian language and the "Slavic question" in general, he decided to appoint Rosenberg Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories. The Fuhrer had no doubt that the Wehrmacht would break the resistance of the Red Army, and the vast expanses of Russia would be under German rule.

By an evil irony of fate, it was on May 9, 1941 that Rosenberg presented Hitler with draft directives on policy issues in those territories that the Wehrmacht was to occupy as a result of an attack on the USSR, it was planned to dismember the state, create governorships, Germanize the Baltic states and part of Belarus, as well as a number of other similar events. . Among other projects, it was planned to carry out a specific economic policy aimed at completely draining funds from the occupied regions and obtaining cheap, slave labor. It was also planned to create special Einsatzkommandos with a headquarters personally subordinate to Alfred Rosenberg to search for, capture and export cultural property to Germany.

These same teams, working in close contact with representatives of the Main Directorate of Imperial Security, must decide directly on the ground the fate of historical monuments, representatives of culture and art, and similar issues. As it seemed to the author of the project, the teams would begin to move deep into the occupied Russian territory along with the advancing units of the Wehrmacht ...

On September 8, 1941, the Germans firmly closed the blockade ring around Leningrad, and Wehrmacht officers looked with curiosity through binoculars at the dome of St. Isaac's Cathedral and the high spire of the Admiralty. The famous Tsarskoye Selo, with all its unique historical monuments, museums and palaces, turned out to be in the hands of the enemy. But the Germans were especially interested in the legendary "Amber Room", located in the Catherine Palace of Tsarskoye Selo - with all the precautions it was supposed to be dismantled, carefully packed and sent to Austria, to the city of Linz, where the National Socialists created a grandiose museum of Adolf Hitler. In his opinion, the work of the old German masters should decorate not Russian palaces, but the museum of the leader of the German people.

The "Amber Room" was immediately taken over by representatives of the headquarters of Rosenberg, in which they were actively assisted by the RSHA. The route of the stolen masterpiece ran through East Prussia, whose Gauleiter was Erich Koch, notorious for his cruelty - he actually ruled there from 1928, and after the Nazis came to power in 1933 he was "elected" chief president of East Prussia. In the same 1941, Hitler appointed him Reichskommissar for Ukraine.

Much later, after the defeat of Germany in World War II, when many German archives fell into the hands of the Allies, including the archives of the Rosenberg headquarters, which was engaged in outright robbery of the territories occupied by the Wehrmacht, it became clear with what scrupulous thoroughness the Einsatzkommandos kept records and described their "prey". This happened with the Amber Room: the archive contained a surprisingly detailed inventory of everything that the Germans put in boxes and prepared for shipment to East Prussia.

The special-purpose cargo was supposed to be delivered on military trucks to the railway station, and then reloaded into wagons guarded by SS men and sealed. According to not fully verified data, allegedly a convoy of trucks carrying boxes with the dismantled "Amber Room" were raided by Soviet aircraft on the way to the station - naturally, the pilots did not know that they were firing and dropping bombs on a masterpiece of world significance. For them, it was just a convoy of enemy trucks.

According to the testimonies of some German soldiers and officers, given by them after the war, some of the boxes were broken and some of the amber details were taken by some of those accompanying the cargo as a keepsake. Such testimony causes, to put it mildly, quite a strong doubt and complete distrust - you need to know how strong the discipline was in the German military units and, among other things, such a valuable cargo was probably accompanied as a guard not only by Wehrmacht soldiers, but also by SS men and certainly employees Rosenberg headquarters. Do not forget: the "Amber Room" was expected in Linz, in the museum of the leader of German science, Adolf Hitler! Who at that time from the soldiers and officers of the Wehrmacht would have dared to steal the exhibits intended for the Fuhrer Museum? Such actions could punish the death penalty!

In addition, the operation to remove the "Amber Room" from Tsarskoye Selo was led by the Gauleiter himself and the chief president of East Prussia, Erich Koch. Western independent experts believe that Koch, always distinguished by extreme cruelty and separatist sentiments, could passionately desire to take possession of the unique "Amber Room" himself and probably made some attempts to "pocket" the masterpiece. Koch never hid his cruelty, and he always skillfully hid separatism and exorbitant ambitions - by the way, he died only in 1986, but he never said anything to anyone about the fate of the Amber Room. Or are we simply unaware of his possible revelations?

According to the documents, the special cargo nevertheless reached East Prussia and there it was temporary, and perhaps permanent? - Gauleiter Erich Koch became the owner. It was not worth joking with Hitler, but the Gauleiter was very cunning and well able to weave intrigues, while remaining, it seems, completely unrelated. There is a version that it was on the instructions of the Gauleiter that his confidants began to skillfully maneuver the special cargo and succeeded so much in this that no one still knows where he is. Koch probably knew this for sure, and he ordered the Amber Room to be hidden. But it is equally likely that this is not the case at all.

For some reason, few researchers pay attention to the fact that during the period of active hostilities there are no documentary references to the famous masterpiece stolen by Rosenberg's henchmen in Tsarskoye Selo. The “Amber Room” never arrived in Linz, and Adolf Hitler, who was very mindful of such things and vividly followed the fate of all the unique creations, for some reason never once asked where the “Amber Room” was promised to him ?! But the Fuhrer had a huge private collection, estimated at a fabulous amount, and tried to constantly replenish it with new arrivals.

Again, some traces of the stolen masterpiece appear only three and a half years later, in January 1945, when the Red Army launched a decisive offensive on almost all fronts and struck especially hard in the Western direction. East Prussia found itself in the face of a real threat of imminent collapse. It was during this period that one of the largest German ships "Wilhelm Gustloff" was located there - at the end of the war, this marine giant of the Third Reich was turned into a floating base for submarines. The commander of the submarine fleet of the Reich, Admiral Dönitz, gave the order to send the Wilhelm Gustloff to Kiel to use it there as a floating base for the deployment of the planned new major submarine operations in the Baltic Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.

The German command decided to use the passage of a huge steamship to Kiel to evacuate some of the important cargo and personnel from East Prussia - the Red Army was constantly increasing the strength of its attacks and the pace of the offensive, so the Nazis were seriously afraid of not having time to run away. So on board the "Wilhelm Gustloff", in addition to the crew of the floating base, there were more than nine thousand passengers: employees of the RSHA of various ranks, cadets of evacuated military schools, pilots of naval aviation, submariners resting at that moment on the base, officers of various rear services of the Wehrmacht, party officials and others.

There is evidence that secret special cargoes of an unknown nature and purpose were also taken aboard the huge steamer. In particular, the witnesses indicated that the naval officers mentioned the need to handle the cargo with extreme care. But whether it was the legendary "Amber Room" is not exactly known.

Finally, the loading was completed, and the huge steamer went out to the open sea. However, the Nazi sea giant was not destined to reach Kiel - the Soviet submarine S-13, commanded by Lieutenant Commander Marinesko, was looking for a target not far from the coast. Noticing the huge silhouette of the Wilhelm Gustloff at dusk, the Red Fleet submariners prepared for a torpedo attack. Insufficient lighting only contributed to the success of the Soviet sailors: three torpedoes fired by them hit the side of the German superliner one after another. Literally in a matter of minutes, the Wilhelm Gustloff sank and lay down on the ground, approximately at a depth of forty meters.

Now it is almost impossible to establish who was the first to connect the tragedy of the German steamship and the feat of the Soviet submarine with the stolen Rosenberg team in Tsarskoye Selo with the legendary "Amber Room". But the mystery of "Wilhelm Gustloff" imperiously pulled a chain of new, already post-war events associated with unsolved mysteries and unsolved mysteries.

Officially, the location of the German superliner that sank after a torpedo attack was established eleven years after its death, in 1956. The Wilhelm Gustloff lay on the ground in international waters. Seventeen years later, in the summer of 1973, a large group of Polish scuba divers made several dives on purpose and examined the ship's hull. Imagine their surprise when, having penetrated through the giant holes, they saw that someone had already been there before them and even tried to cut through the thick steel bulkheads with underwater cutters. Who did it? Those who knew exactly the secret of the Wilhelm Gustloff's cargo? And only the secret services of Nazi Germany knew her!

It is quite plausible that the former SS men and members of the Einsatzkommando took all measures to be the first to get to the mysterious cargo - in 1956, many participants in those events now far from us remained alive. They certainly could know exactly where and what exactly to look for on a huge sunken ship.

But were they looking for the legendary "Amber Room"? In East Prussia, there were enough other, no less exciting, interesting and terrible secrets. It can be reasonably assumed that such secret and clandestine goods were taken out on the superliner, such as documentation of the Wolfschanze Fuhrer's headquarters located in East Prussia, archives of the Eastern Branch of the Abwehr, secret files of the Gestapo, Reichsbank values ​​​​not exposed to water and much, much more. For example, it is known that the Germans usually hermetically sealed metal boxes with currency, and gold and precious stones are not afraid of sea salt and water at all: they do not lose value even after lying at the bottom for hundreds of years!

Was only "Wilhelm Gustloff" able to attract seekers of mysterious treasures? As it turns out, in that square of the sea at the bottom there is practically a whole cemetery of unsolved secrets and next to - or almost next to - with the superliner sunk in 1945 by Captain-Lieutenant Marinesko, the huge ship General von Stuben, the transport steamer Moltke, lie on the ground, the patrol ship of the Nazi Navy "Posse", the German ship "Goya" and several other ships. Each of them went to the bottom just in the victorious spring of 1945, and on each of them could be the Amber Room, and any other mysterious and mysterious, and possibly precious secret cargo.

As for the "Amber Room", then, according to the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Defense, it may well be in Hitler's reserve headquarters, located in the highlands of Thuringia in Germany. However, the German government did not react to these data.

According to other information that leaked to the press in the last decade of the 20th century, the legendary amber masterpiece nevertheless ended up in the collection that belonged to Koch. Allegedly, he hid it in an underground labyrinth located under the main square of the German city of Weimar. Perhaps this is not so, but for some reason the Germans urgently concreted all the entrances to the system of underground bunkers near Weimar.

And the Wilhelm Gustloff superliner still lies in the dark depths of the cold Baltic waters and patiently waits for the dark secret stored in its holds, twisted by explosions of torpedoes, to be revealed.

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A lot is known today about the developments of the Third Reich in the field of `flying saucers`, and we talked about them. However, the number of questions has not diminished over the years. How successful were the Germans in this? Who helped them? Was the work curtailed after the war or continued in other, secret regions of the globe? How true are the rumors that the Nazis had contact with extraterrestrial civilizations?

Oddly enough, but the answers to these questions should be sought in the distant past. Researchers of the secret history of the Third Reich today already know a lot about its mystical roots and those backstage forces that brought Hitler to power and directed Hitler's activities. The foundation of the ideology of fascism was laid by secret societies long before the emergence of the Nazi state, but this worldview became an active force after the defeat of Germany in the First World War. In 1918, a circle of people who already had experience in international secret societies founded a branch of the Teutonic Knights in Munich - the Thule Society (after the name of the legendary Arctic country - the cradle of mankind). Its official goal is the study of ancient Germanic culture, but the true tasks were much deeper.

The theorists of fascism found a suitable candidate for their goals - the power-hungry, mystical experience and, moreover, drug-addicted Corporal Adolf Hitler, and inspired him with the idea of ​​world domination of the German nation. At the end of 1918, the young occultist Hitler was admitted to the Thule Society and quickly became one of its most active members. And soon the ideas of the Thule theorists were reflected in his book My Struggle.

Roughly speaking, the Thule society solved the problem of bringing the German race to dominance in the visible - material - world. But `he who sees in National Socialism only a political movement knows little about it`. These words belong to Hitler himself. The fact is that the occult owners of Thule had another, no less important goal - to win in the invisible world, metaphysical, so to speak, `other world`. For this purpose, more closed structures were created in Germany. So, in 1919, a secret `Lodge of Light` (later `Vril` - according to the ancient Indian name for the cosmic energy of life) was founded. Later, in 1933, the elite mystical order `Ahnenerbe` (Ahnenerbe - `Heritage of the Ancestors`), which since 1939, at the initiative of Himmler, has become the main research structure within the SS. Having fifty research institutes under its control, the ʻAhnenerbe` society was engaged in the search for ancient knowledge that allows developing the latest technologies, controlling human consciousness with the help of magical methods, and carrying out genetic manipulations in the villages of creating a `superman`.

Non-traditional methods of obtaining knowledge were also practiced - under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs, in a state of trance or contact with the Higher Unknowns, or, as they called it, `Outer Minds`. The ancient occult `keys` (formulas, spells, etc.) found with the help of `Ahnenerbe` were also used, which allowed establishing contact with `Aliens`. For "sessions with the gods" the most experienced mediums and contactees were involved (Maria Otte and others). For the purity of the results, the experiments were carried out independently in the `Thule` and `Vril` societies. Some occult 'keys' are said to have worked and through independent 'channels' almost identical technogenic information was received. In particular, the drawings and descriptions of `flying discs`, in terms of their characteristics, significantly exceeded the aviation technology of that time.

Another task that was set before scientists and, according to rumors, was partially solved was the creation of a `time machine` that allows you to penetrate into the depths of history and obtain knowledge of ancient high civilizations, in particular, information about the magical methods of Atlantis, which was considered the ancestral home of the Aryan race. Of particular interest to Nazi scientists was the technological knowledge of the Atlanteans, which, according to legend, helped build huge sea vessels and airships driven by an unknown force.

In the archives of the Third Reich, drawings were found explaining the principles of `twisting` thin physical fields, allowing you to create some kind of techno-magic apparatus. The acquired knowledge was transferred to leading scientists for `translation` of them into an understandable engineering language for designers.

One of the developers of techno-magical devices is the famous scientist Dr. V.O. Noise. According to the evidence, his electrodynamic machines, which used rapid rotation, not only changed the structure of time around them, but also hovered in the air. (Today, scientists already know that rapidly rotating objects change not only the gravitational field around them, but also space-time characteristics. So there is nothing fantastic in the fact that when developing the `time machine`, Nazi scientists got the effect of antigravity, no. Another thing, how manageable these processes were.) There is evidence that an apparatus with such capabilities was sent near Munich, to Augsburg, where its research continued. As a result, the SSI technology division created a series of `flying discs` of the `Vril` type.

The next generation of `flying saucers` was the `Haunebu` series. These devices are believed to use some of the ideas and technologies of the ancient Indians, as well as the engines of Viktor Schauberger, the most prominent scientist in the field of fluid movement, who created something similar to a `perpetual motion machine`. There is information about the development in the IV experimental design center of the SS, subordinate to the Black Sun society, a highly secret `flying saucer` `Honebu-2` (Haunebu-II). In his book `German flying saucers` O. Bergmann gives some of its technical characteristics. Diameter 26.3 meters. Engine: `Thule`-tachyonator 70, diameter 23.1 meters. Control: impulse magnetic field generator 4a. Speed: 6000 km / h (estimated - 21000 km / h). Flight duration: 55 hours and more. Adaptability for flights in outer space - 100 percent. The crew of nine people, with passengers - twenty people. Planned mass production: late 1943 - early 1944.

The fate of this development is unknown, but the American researcher Vladimir Terzicki (V. Terzicki) reports that the further development of this series was the Haunebu-III apparatus, designed to combat air with naval squadrons. The diameter of the `plate` was 76 meters, the height was 30 meters. Four gun turrets were installed on it, each of which mounted three 270mm caliber guns from the Meisenau cruiser. Terziyski claims that in March 1945 this `saucer` made one revolution around the Earth. The `dish` was set in motion by a `free energy engine, which ... used the almost inexhaustible energy of gravity`.

In the late 50s, the Australians found among the captured films a documentary German film-report on the research project of the `V-7` flying disc, about which nothing was known until that time. To what extent this project was implemented is not yet clear, but it is known for certain that the famous specialist in `special operations` Otto Skorzeny was instructed in the middle of the war to create a detachment of pilots of 250 people to control `flying saucers and manned missiles.

There is nothing incredible in the reports of gravitational engines. Today, scientists working in the field of alternative energy sources know the so-called Hans Kohler converter, which converts gravitational energy into electrical energy. There is evidence that these converters were used in the so-called tachyonators (electromagnetic gravitational engines) `Thule` and `Andromeda`, produced in Germany in 1942-1945 at the `Siemens` and `AEG` factories. It is indicated that the same converters were used as energy sources not only on `flying disks`, but also on some gigantic (5000-ton) submarines and on underground bases.

The results were obtained by scientists ʻAhnenerbe` in other non-traditional areas of knowledge: in psychotronics, parapsychology, in the use of `subtle` energies to control individual and mass consciousness, etc. It is believed that the trophy documents relating to the metaphysical developments of the Third Reich gave a new impetus to similar work in the USA and the USSR, which had underestimated or curtailed such research until that time. Due to the extreme secrecy of information about the results of the activities of German secret societies, it is difficult to separate facts from rumors and legends today. However, the incredible mental transformation that took place in a matter of years with the cautious and rational German inhabitants, who suddenly turned into an obedient crowd, fanatically believing in crazy ideas about world domination, makes one think...

In search of the most ancient magical knowledge, `Ahnenerbe` organized expeditions to the most remote corners of the globe: to Tibet, South America, Antarctica ... Special attention was paid to the latter ...

This area is still full of secrets and mysteries. Apparently, we still have to learn a lot of unexpected things, including what the ancients knew about. Officially, Antarctica was discovered by the Russian expedition of F. F. Bellingshausen and M. P. Lazarev in 1820. However, indefatigable archivists discovered ancient maps, from which it followed that they knew about Antarctica long before this historical event. One of the maps, compiled in 1513 by the Turkish admiral Piri Reis, was discovered in 1929. Others have surfaced: the French geographer Orontius Phineus from 1532, Philippe Buache, dated 1737. Fake? Let's not rush...

All these maps very accurately depict the outlines of Antarctica, but ... without ice cover. Moreover, on the Buache map, the strait is perfectly visible, dividing the continent into two parts. And its presence under the ice layer was established by the latest methods only in recent decades. We add that international expeditions that checked the Piri Reis map found out that it is more accurate than maps compiled in the 20th century. Seismic surveys have confirmed what no one had guessed: some of the mountains of Queen Maud Land, which until now were considered part of a single massif, turned out to be in fact islands, as indicated on the old map. So there is no question of falsification, most likely. But where did such information come from people who lived several centuries before the discovery of Antarctica?

Both Reis and Buache claimed that they used ancient Greek originals when compiling maps. After the maps were discovered, a variety of hypotheses were put forward about their origin. Most of them boil down to the fact that the original maps were compiled by some high civilization that existed at a time when the coasts of Antarctica were not yet covered with ice, that is, before the global cataclysm. It has been argued that Antarctica is the former Atlantis.

One of the arguments: the dimensions of this legendary country (30,000 x 20,000 stages according to Plato, 1st stage - 185 meters) approximately correspond to the size of Antarctica.

Naturally, scientists ʻAhnenerbe`, who scoured the world in search of traces of the Atlantic civilization, could not pass by this hypothesis. Moreover, it was in perfect agreement with their philosophy, which asserted, in particular, that at the poles of the planet there are entrances to huge cavities inside the earth. And Antarctica became one of the main targets of Nazi scientists.

The interest shown by the leaders of Germany on the eve of World War II in this distant and lifeless region of the globe could not be rationally explained then. Meanwhile, attention to Antarctica was exceptional. In 1938-1939, the Germans organized two Antarctic expeditions, in which the Luftwaffe pilots not only examined, but also staked out for the Third Reich a huge (the size of Germany) territory of this continent - Queen Maud Land (soon she received name `New Swabia`). On April 12, 1939, the expedition commander Ritscher, who returned to Hamburg, reported: “I have completed the mission entrusted to me by Marshal Goering. For the first time, German aircraft flew over the Antarctic continent. Every 25 kilometers, our planes dropped pennants. We have covered an area of ​​approximately 600,000 square kilometers. Of these, 350,000 were photographed`.

Goering's air aces did their job. It was the turn of the `sea wolves` of the `fuhrer of submarines` Admiral Karl Dönitz (1891-1981) to act. And submarines secretly headed for the shores of Antarctica. The well-known writer and historian M. Demidenko reports that, while sorting through top-secret SS archives, he discovered documents indicating that a submarine squadron during an expedition to Queen Maud Land found a whole system of interconnected caves with warm air. `My submariners discovered a real earthly paradise`, Dönitz dropped then. And in 1943, another enigmatic phrase came from his lips: `The German submarine fleet is proud of the fact that on the other side of the world it has created an impregnable fortress for the Fuhrer`. How?

It turns out that for five years the Germans have been carrying out carefully concealed work to create a Nazi secret base in Antarctica, code-named `Base 211`. In any case, this is stated by a number of independent researchers. According to eyewitnesses, from the beginning of 1939, regular (once every three months) flights of the research ship `Schwabia` began between Antarctica and Germany. Bergman, in his book German Flying Saucers, claims that from this year and for several years, mining equipment and other equipment, including railroads, trolleys and huge cutters for tunneling, were constantly sent to Antarctica. Apparently, submarines were also used to deliver goods. And not just ordinary ones.

Retired American Colonel Wendelle C. Stevens reports: `Our intelligence, where I worked at the end of the war, knew that the Germans were building eight very large cargo submarines (were Kohler converters installed on them? - V. Sh. ) and all of them were launched, completed and then disappeared without a trace. To this day, we have no idea where they went. They are not on the ocean floor, and they are not in any port that we know of. This is a mystery, but it can be solved thanks to the Australian documentary (we mentioned it above. - V.Sh.), which shows large German cargo submarines in Antarctica, ice around them, crews stand on decks waiting for a stop at the pier` .

By the end of the war, Stevens claims, the Germans had nine research facilities that were testing 'flying disc' projects. ʻEight of these enterprises, along with scientists and key figures, were successfully evacuated from Germany. The ninth building is blown up... We have classified information that some of these research facilities have been moved to a place called `New Swabia`... Today it may already be a decent-sized complex. Maybe those big cargo submarines are there. We believe that at least one (or more) disc development facilities have been moved to Antarctica. We have information that one was evacuated to the Amazon region, and the other to the northern coast of Norway, where there is a large German population. They were evacuated to secret underground facilities.'

Well-known researchers of the Antarctic mysteries of the Third Reich R. Vesko, V. Terziyski, D. Childress claim that since 1942, thousands of concentration camp prisoners (labor force), as well as prominent scientists, pilots and politicians with families, have been transferred to the South Pole with the help of submarines and members of the Hitler Youth - the gene pool of the future "pure" race.

In addition to the mysterious giant submarines, at least a hundred serial `U` class submarines were used for these purposes, including the top-secret `Convoy of the Fuhrer`, which included 35 submarines. At the very end of the war in Kiel, these elite submarines were stripped of all military equipment and loaded containers with some valuable cargo. The submarines also took on board some mysterious passengers and a large amount of food. The fate of only two boats from this convoy is known for certain. One of them, `U-530`, under the command of 25-year-old Otto Wehrmouth, left Kiel on April 13, 1945 and delivered to Antarctica the relics of the Third Reich and Hitler’s personal belongings, as well as passengers whose faces were hidden by surgical bandages. Another, `U-977`, under the command of Heinz Schaeffer, repeated this route a little later, but what and whom she transported is unknown.

Both of these submarines arrived in the Argentine port of Mar del Plata in the summer of 1945 (July 10 and August 17, respectively) and surrendered to the authorities. Apparently, the testimonies that the submariners gave during interrogations extremely excited the Americans, and at the end of 1946, the famous Admiral Richard E. Byrd (Byrd) received an order to destroy the Nazi base in New Swabia.

Operation `High Jump` (High Jump) was disguised as an ordinary research expedition, and not everyone guessed that a powerful naval squadron headed for the shores of Antarctica. An aircraft carrier, 13 ships of various types, 25 aircraft and helicopters, more than four thousand people, a six-month supply of food - these data speak for themselves.

It would seem that everything went according to plan: 49 thousand photographs were taken in a month. And suddenly something happened, about which the US authorities are silent until now. On March 3, 1947, the expedition that had just begun was turned off, and the ships hurriedly headed home. A year later, in May 1948, some details surfaced on the pages of the European magazine `Brizant`. It was reported that the expedition met with stiff resistance from the enemy. At least one ship, dozens of people, four combat aircraft were lost, nine more aircraft had to be left as unusable. What exactly happened can only be guessed at. We do not have original documents, however, if the press is to be believed, the crew members who dared to reminisce spoke of `flying discs` that `surfaced from under the water` and attacked them, of strange atmospheric phenomena that caused mental disorders. Journalists cite an excerpt from R. Byrd's report, allegedly made at a secret meeting of the special commission: `The United States needs to take defensive actions against enemy fighters flying from the polar regions. In the event of a new war, America could be attacked by an enemy that has the ability to fly from one pole to another at incredible speed!`

Almost ten years later, Admiral Byrd led a new polar expedition, in which he died under mysterious circumstances. After his death, information appeared in the press allegedly from the diary of the admiral himself. It follows from them that during the 1947 expedition, the plane on which he flew out for reconnaissance was forced to land by strange aircraft, `similar to British soldiers' helmets`. The admiral was approached by a tall, blond, blue-eyed man who, in broken English, delivered an appeal to the American government demanding an end to nuclear testing. Some of the sources claim that after this meeting, an agreement was signed between the Nazi colony in Antarctica and the American government to exchange German advanced technologies for American raw materials.

A number of researchers believe that the German base in Antarctica has survived to this day. Moreover, they talk about the existence of a whole underground city called `New Berlin` with a population of two million people. The main occupation of its inhabitants are genetic engineering and space flights. However, direct evidence in favor of this version has not yet been presented. The main argument of those who doubt the existence of a polar base is the difficulty of delivering there the colossal amount of fuel needed to generate electricity. The argument is serious, but too traditional, and they object to it: if Kohler converters are created, then the need for fuel is minimal.

Indirect confirmation of the existence of the base is called repeated sightings of UFOs in the area of ​​the South Pole. Often they see `plates` and `cigars` hanging in the air. And in 1976, Japanese researchers, using the latest equipment, simultaneously spotted nineteen round objects that `dived` from space to Antarctica and disappeared from the screens. The ufological chronicle periodically throws up food for talking about German UFOs. Here are just two typical messages.

Late in the evening, Raymond Schmidt, a businessman, a grain buyer, came to the sheriff of the city of Kearny and told a story that had happened to him near the city. The car he was driving on the Boston-San Francisco highway suddenly stalled and stopped. When he got out of it to see what had happened, he noticed a huge `metal cigar` not far from the road in a forest clearing. Right in front of his eyes, a hatch opened and a man in ordinary clothes appeared on the retracted platform. In excellent German—Schmidt's native language—the stranger invited him to board the ship. Inside, the businessman saw two men and two women of quite ordinary appearance, but moving in an unusual way - they seemed to be sliding on the floor. Schmidt also remembered some kind of flaming pipes filled with a colored liquid. After about half an hour he was asked to leave, the `cigar` silently rose into the air and disappeared behind the forest.

November 6, 1957 USA, Tennessee, Dante (near Knoxville).

At half past seven in the morning, an oblong object of `indeterminate color` landed in a field a hundred meters from the Clark family home. Twelve-year-old Everett Clark, who was walking his dog at the time, said the two men and two women who stepped out of the apparatus spoke to each other 'like German soldiers from a movie'. The Clarks' dog rushed towards them with a desperate bark, and after it other neighbors' dogs. The strangers at first unsuccessfully tried to catch one of the dogs that jumped up to them, but then they abandoned this idea, went into the object, and the device silently flew away. Reporter Carson Brewer of the Knoxville News Sentinel discovered downed grass at the site in a 7.5 by 1.5 meter area.

Naturally, many researchers have a desire to lay the responsibility for such cases on the Germans. `It seems that some of the ships that we see today are nothing more than a further development of German disc technology. Thus, in fact, it may be that we are periodically visited by the Germans` (W. Stevens).

Are they related to aliens? Today there is contact information (which, however, should always be treated with caution) that such a connection exists. It is believed that contact with a civilization from the Pleiades constellation occurred long ago - even before the Second World War - and had a significant impact on the scientific and technological developments of the Third Reich. Until the very end of the war, the Nazi leaders hoped for direct alien help, but they never received it.

Contactee R. Winters from Miami (USA) reports the existence of a real alien spaceport of the Pleiadian civilization in the Amazon jungle at the present time. He also says that after the war, the aliens took on the service of some of the Germans. Since then, at least two generations of Germans have grown up there. They interacted with aliens from an early age. Today they fly, work and live aboard extraterrestrial spacecraft. And they do not have those desires to rule over the planet that their fathers and grandfathers had, because, having known the depths of space, they realized that there are things much more significant.

And in conclusion of the chapter, let's talk about another mysterious project, the fate of which has haunted researchers for a good half century.

On March 25, 1942, the Polish captain, pilot Roman Sobinsky from the British Air Force strategic bomber squadron participated in a night raid on the German city of Essen. Having completed the task, he, along with everyone else, turned back, rising to a height of 500 meters. But he just leaned back in his chair with relief to take a break, as the machine gunner exclaimed in alarm:

We are being pursued by an unknown device!

New fighter? Sobinsky asked, remembering the unsafe Messerschmitt-110.

No, sir captain, - answered the machine gunner, - it seems that this is not a plane. It has an indefinite shape and glows...

Here Sobinsky himself saw an amazing object that ominously played with yellow-red tints. The reaction of the pilot was instantaneous and quite natural for a pilot attacked over enemy territory. “I thought,” he later stated in his report, “that this was some kind of new diabolical thing of the Germans, and ordered the machine gunner to open aimed fire.” However, the device, which approached at a distance of up to 150 meters, completely ignored the attack, and there was something - it did not receive any, at least a little noticeable damage. The frightened machine gunner stopped firing. After a quarter of an hour of flying "in the ranks" of the bombers, the object rapidly rose and disappeared from sight with incredible speed.

A month earlier, on February 26, 1942, a similar object showed interest in the cruiser Tromp of the occupied Netherlands. The ship's commander described it as a giant disc, apparently made of aluminum. An unknown guest watched the sailors for three hours, not fearing them. But even those, convinced of his peaceful behavior, did not open fire. The farewell was traditional - the mysterious apparatus suddenly soared up at a speed of about 6000 kilometers per hour and disappeared.

March 14, 1942 at the secret Norwegian base "Banak", which belonged to Twaffeflotte-5, an alarm was announced - a stranger appeared on the radar screen. The best base, Captain Fisher, lifted the car into the air and at an altitude of 3500 meters discovered a mysterious object. “The alien apparatus seemed to be made of metal and had an aircraft fuselage 100 meters long and about 15 meters in diameter,” the captain reported. - Ahead could be seen something similar to antennas. Although he did not have motors visible from the outside, he flew horizontally. I pursued him for several minutes, after which, to my surprise, he suddenly took the height and disappeared with lightning speed.

And at the end of 1942, a German submarine fired cannons at a silver spindle-shaped object about 80 meters long, which quickly and silently flew 300 meters from it, not paying attention to heavy fire.
* * *

On this, such strange meetings with both the one and the other of the warring parties did not end there. For example, in October 1943, the Allies bombed Europe's largest ball bearing factory in the German city of Schweinfurt. 700 heavy bombers of the 8th Air Force of the USA participated in the operation, and 1300 American and British fighters accompanied them. The mass nature of the air battle can be judged at least by the losses: the Allies - 111 downed fighters, about 60 downed or damaged bombers, the Germans - about 300 downed aircraft. It would seem that in such a hell, which the French pilot Pierre Klosterman compared with an aquarium full of crazy sharks, nothing could capture the imagination of the pilots, and yet ...

British Major R. F. Holmes, who was in command of the bombers, reported that as they passed over the factory, a group of large shiny disks suddenly appeared, which, as if curious, rushed towards them. We calmly crossed the line of fire of German aircraft and approached the American "flying fortresses". They also opened heavy fire from onboard machine guns, but again with zero effect.

However, the crews did not have time to gossip on the topic: “Who else has been brought to us?” - it was necessary to fight off the pressing German fighters. And then ... Major Holmes's plane survived, and the first thing this phlegmatic Englishman did when he landed at the base was to submit a detailed report to the command. It, in turn, asked intelligence to conduct a thorough investigation. The answer came three months later. In it, they say, then the famous abbreviation UFO was used for the first time - according to the initial letters of the English name "unidentified flying object" (UFO), and the conclusion was made: the disks have nothing to do with the Luftwaffe or with other air forces on Earth. The Americans came to the same conclusion. Therefore, both in the UK and in the USA, research groups were immediately organized, operating in the strictest secrecy.
* * *

Not bypassed the problem of UFOs and our compatriots. Few have probably heard about it, but the first rumors about the appearance of "flying saucers" over the battlefield reached the Supreme Commander back in 1942, during the Battle of Stalingrad. Stalin at first left these reports without any visible reaction, since the silver discs had no effect on the course of the battle.

But after the war, when information reached him that the Americans were very interested in this problem, he remembered the UFO again. S.P. Korolev was summoned to the Kremlin. He was handed a pack of foreign newspapers and magazines, adding:

Comrade Stalin asks you to express your opinion...

After that, they gave translators and locked me up in one of the Kremlin offices for three days.

On the third day, Stalin personally invited me to his place, ”Korolev recalled. - I reported to him that the phenomenon is interesting, but does not pose a danger to the state. Stalin replied that other scientists, whom he asked to get acquainted with the materials, were of the same opinion as me ...

Nevertheless, from that moment on, all reports of UFOs in our country were classified, reports about them were sent to the KGB.
* * *

Such a reaction becomes understandable, given that in Germany, apparently, the problem of UFOs was dealt with earlier than the allies. At the end of the same 1942, the Sonderburo-13 was created there, which was called upon to study mysterious air vehicles. His activities were codenamed "Operation Uranus".

The result of all this, according to the Czech magazine "Signal", was the creation of their own ... "flying saucers". The testimony of nineteen Wehrmacht soldiers and officers who served during World War II in Czechoslovakia, in one of the secret laboratories for the creation of a new type of weapon, has been preserved, the magazine reports. These soldiers and officers witnessed the flights of an unusual aircraft. It was a silver disk 6 meters in diameter with a truncated hull in the center and a drop-shaped cabin. The structure was mounted on four small wheels. According to the story of one of the eyewitnesses, he observed the launch of such a device in the fall of 1943.

This information to some extent coincides with the facts set forth in a curious manuscript that recently caught my eye in the reader's mail. “Wherever fate threw me,” wrote electronic engineer Konstantin Tyuts in a cover letter to her. - I had to travel around South America. Moreover, he climbed into such corners that, frankly, they lie quite far from the tourist trails. I had to meet different people. But that meeting remained in the memory forever.

It was in Uruguay, in 1987. At the end of August, in the colony of emigrants, which is 70 kilometers from Montevideo, a traditional holiday was held - the festival was not a festival, but everyone “buzzed” famously. I'm not a big fan of "this thing", so I lingered at the Israeli pavilion (the exposition was painfully interesting there), and my colleague walked away "for a beer." Here I look - an elderly smart man in a light shirt, ironed trousers is standing nearby and staring at me intently. Came up and talked. It turns out that he caught my dialect, and this attracted him. Both of us, as it turned out, were from the Donetsk region, from Gorlovka. His name was Vasily Petrovich Konstantinov.

Then, taking the military attache with us, we went to his house, sat all evening... Konstantinov ended up in Uruguay just like dozens, maybe hundreds of his compatriots. Having been freed from a concentration camp in Germany, he moved not to the east, to "infiltration", but to the other side, which saved him. I wandered around Europe, settled in Uruguay. For a long time I kept in my memory that amazing thing that I took out from the distant 41-43s. And finally, he spoke out.

In 1989, Vasily died: age, heart ...

I have the notes of Vasily Konstantinov, and, offering a fragment of his memoirs, I hope that he will amaze you in the same way that the oral story of their author struck me at one time.

It was hot July 1941. Every now and then, unhappy pictures of our retreat rose up before my eyes - airfields pitted with funnels, a glow in the half-sky from entire squadrons of our aircraft burning on the ground. The constant howl of German aircraft. Piles of metal interspersed with mangled human bodies. The suffocating haze and the stench from the wheat fields engulfed in flames...

After the first skirmishes with the enemy near Vinnitsa (in the area of ​​our then main headquarters), our unit fought its way to Kiev. Sometimes, for recreation, we took refuge in the forests. Finally we came to the highway six kilometers from Kyiv. I don’t know what exactly came to our freshly baked commissar’s mind, but all the survivors were ordered to line up in a column and march along the highway towards Kiev with a song. From the outside, it all looked like this: a group of exhausted people in windings, with heavy three-rulers of the 1941 model, were moving towards the city. We only had time to walk just a kilometer. A German reconnaissance aircraft appeared in the blue-black sky from the heat and conflagrations, and then - the bombing ... So fate divided us into the living and the dead. Five survived, as it turned out later in the camp.

I woke up after an air raid with a shell shock - my head was buzzing, everything was swimming before my eyes, and here - a kid, his shirt sleeves were rolled up, and threatened with a machine gun: "Rusish Schwein!" In the camp, I remember the rantings of our commissar about justice, brotherhood, mutual assistance, until they shared and ate the last crumbs of my miraculously surviving NZ together. And then I fell down with typhus, but fate gave me life - slowly I began to get out. The body needed food. "Friends", including the commissar, at night, hiding from each other, crushed the unripe potatoes collected during the day in the neighboring field. And what am I - why transfer good to a dying person? ..

Then I was transferred to the Auschwitz camp for trying to escape. Until now, nightmares have haunted me at night - the barking of cannibal German shepherds, ready, on the orders of the SS guards, to tear you to pieces, the cries of the camp foremen-capos, the moans of the dying near the barracks ... Memories pile up like a terrible dream when in a pile of half-dead bodies and corpses I, a prisoner in the convalescent block, who again fell ill with relapsing fever, was waiting for my turn in the storage tank near one of the crematorium ovens. There was a nauseating stench of burnt human flesh all around. A low bow to a female doctor, a German woman (there was an article about her in the Izvestia newspaper in 1984), who saved me and got me out. That's how I turned out to be a different person, and even with the documents of a mechanical engineer.

Somewhere in August 1943, some of the prisoners, including myself, were transferred near Peenemünde, to the KTs-A-4 camp, as it turned out, to eliminate the consequences of Operation Hydra, a British air raid. By order of the executioner - SS Brigadeführer Hans Kampler - the prisoners of Auschwitz became the "katsetniks" of the Peenemünde training ground. The head of the range, Major General Deriberger, was forced to involve prisoners of KTs-A-4 to speed up the restoration work.

And then one day, in September 1943, I was lucky enough to witness one interesting event.

Our group was finishing the demolition of a broken reinforced concrete wall. The whole brigade was taken away under guard for a lunch break, and I, as having injured my leg (it turned out to be a dislocation), remained to wait for my fate. Somehow I managed to set the bone myself, but the car had already left.

Suddenly, on a concrete platform near one of the nearby hangars, four workers rolled out a round, resembling a basin turned upside down, an apparatus with a transparent teardrop-shaped cabin in the middle. And on small inflatable wheels. Then, with a wave of the hand of a short, overweight man, a strange heavy apparatus, shimmering in the sun with silvery metal and shuddering with every gust of wind, made a hissing sound like the noise of a blowtorch, broke away from the concrete platform and hovered at a height of about five meters. Having swayed for a short time in the air - like a "roly-poly-up" - the apparatus suddenly seemed to be transformed: its contours gradually began to blur. They seem to be out of focus.

Then the device abruptly, like a top, jumped up and began to gain altitude like a snake. The flight, judging by the rocking, was unsteady. Suddenly a gust of wind came from the Baltic, and the strange structure, turning over in the air, began to lose altitude sharply. I was doused with a stream of burning, ethyl alcohol and hot air. There was a blow, a crunch of breaking parts - the car fell not far from me. Instinctively, I ran towards her. We need to save the pilot - the man is the same! The pilot's body hung lifelessly from the broken cockpit, the fragments of the skin, flooded with fuel, were gradually enveloped in bluish wisps of flame. The still hissing jet engine was sharply exposed: in the next instant everything was on fire...

So my first acquaintance with an experimental apparatus that had a propulsion system took place - a modernized version of a jet engine for Messerschmitt-262 aircraft. Flue gases, escaping from the guide nozzle, flowed around the body and, as it were, interacted with the surrounding air, forming a rotating cocoon of air around the structure and thereby creating an air cushion for the movement of the machine ...
* * *

The manuscript ended here, but what has already been said is enough for a group of voluntary experts from the Tekhnika-Molodezhi magazine to try to determine what kind of flying machine the former prisoner of the KTs-A-4 camp saw? And this is what, according to engineer Yuri Stroganov, they did.

Model No. 1 of a disk-shaped aircraft was created by German engineers Schriver and Gabermol back in 1940, and tested in February 1941 near Prague. This "saucer" is considered the world's first vertical take-off aircraft. By design, it somewhat resembled a lying bicycle wheel: a wide ring rotated around the cab, the role of the “spokes” of which was played by effortlessly adjustable blades. They could be put in the right position for both horizontal and vertical flight. At first, the pilot sat as in a conventional aircraft, then his position was changed to almost recumbent. The machine brought a lot of problems to the designers, because the slightest imbalance caused significant vibration, especially at high speeds, which was the main cause of accidents. An attempt was made to make the outer rim heavier, but in the end the "wheel with a wing" exhausted its possibilities.

Model No. 2, called the "vertical aircraft", was an improved version of the previous one. Its size has been increased to accommodate two pilots lying in chairs. Engines were strengthened, fuel reserves were increased. For stabilization, a steering mechanism similar to an aircraft was used. The speed reached about 1200 kilometers per hour. As soon as the desired height was gained, the bearing blades changed their position, and the device moved like modern helicopters.

Alas, these two models were destined to remain at the level of experimental developments. Many technical and technological obstacles did not allow them to be brought up to standard, not to mention serial production. It was then, when a critical situation arose, and Sonderburo-13 appeared, which attracted the most experienced test pilots and the best scientists of the "Third Reich" to research. Thanks to his support, it became possible to create a disk that left far behind not only all the then, but also some modern aircraft.

Model No. 3 was made in two versions: 38 and 68 meters in diameter. It was powered by a "smokeless and flameless" engine by the Austrian inventor Viktor Schauberger. (Apparently, one of these variants, and possibly even an earlier prototype of even smaller dimensions, was seen by a prisoner of the KTs-A-4 camp.)

The inventor kept the principle of operation of his engine in the strictest confidence. Only one thing is known: the principle of its operation was based on an explosion, and during operation it consumed only water and air. The machine, which received the code name "Disk Belonze", was ringed by an installation of 12 inclined jet engines. They cooled the “explosive” engine with their jets and, sucking in air, created a rarefaction area on top of the apparatus, which contributed to its lifting with less effort.

On February 19, 1945, the Disk Belonze made its first and last experimental flight. In 3 minutes, test pilots reached an altitude of 15,000 meters and a speed of 2,200 kilometers per hour in horizontal motion. He could hover in the air and fly back and forth with almost no turns, but he had folding racks for landing.

The apparatus, which cost millions, was destroyed at the end of the war. Although the plant in Breslau (now Wroclaw), where it was built, fell into the hands of our troops, it did nothing. Schriever and Schauberger escaped Soviet captivity and moved to the United States.

In a letter to a friend in August 1958, Viktor Schauberger wrote: “The model tested in February 1945 was built in cooperation with first-class explosion engineers from among the prisoners of the Mauthausen concentration camp. Then they were taken to the camp, for them it was the end. After the war, I heard that there was an intensive development of disk-shaped aircraft, but, despite the elapsed time and a lot of documents captured in Germany, the countries leading the development did not create at least something similar to my model. It was blown up on Keitel's orders."

Schauberger was offered $3 million by the Americans for revealing the secret of his flying disc and especially the "explosive" engine. However, he replied that until the signing of an international agreement on complete disarmament, nothing could be made public and that its discovery belonged to the future.

To be honest, the legend is fresh... Just remember how Wernher von Braun unfolded in the States, on whose rockets the Americans eventually flew to the moon (we will talk about his activities in detail in the next chapter). It is unlikely that Schauberger would have resisted the temptation if he could show the goods with his face. But he didn't seem to have anything to show. For the simple reason that he, it can be assumed, if he did not deceive, then he simply did not have all the necessary information. And most of his assistants, first-class specialists, ended up in Mauthausen and other death camps.

However, the allies received a hint that such work was still underway. And not only from Schauberger. Our units, having seized a secret factory in Breslau (Wroclaw), also probably found something. And after some time, Soviet specialists launched their own work on the creation of vertical take-off vehicles.
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Evidence of this can be at least a "barrel", which I happened to see in one of the hangars of the aviation museum in Monin. The official name of this outlandish aircraft is a turbofly. It was tested in the late 50s by our famous test pilot Yu. A. Garnaev. Here is how an eyewitness, honored test pilot, Colonel Arkady Bogorodsky described this event:
“The engine is running, the flames cut through the ground, knocking out stones and turning them into dust. This dust disperses around in clubs, and nothing is visible except dust.

And suddenly, at the top of this tangle, an engine nozzle is shown, then a cabin, racks - and now the entire turboplane is already visible, hanging at a height of ten meters ... "

The turboplane hovered and moved due to the lifting force of a jet engine installed vertically. And it was controlled by gas rudders. So here, perhaps, a variation of the “Belonze Disk” took place, which then led to the creation of rocket modules for landing troops on the moon and modern vertical take-off and landing aircraft, of which there are many varieties - both foreign and our domestic ones.

One of the most promising, in my opinion, is the "flying loaf", or "EKIP" - an original aircraft created in our country by a team of scientists and engineers led by Doctor of Technical Sciences L. N. Shchukin.

Aeronautical engineers have long sought to improve aircraft in traditional ways. They increased the aerodynamic quality and reliability, reduced fuel consumption and the mass of an empty car - because these parameters directly affect the cost of passenger and freight transportation. However, according to a number of researchers, the maximum flight weight of aircraft made according to the classical scheme has approached the limit, for example, this applies to the heaviest aircraft in the world, the An-225 Mriya. One of the reasons for this is the design of the take-off and landing gear, in other words, the landing gear.

An unexpected way out of this situation was proposed by L. N. Shchukin. The EKIP concern (ecology and progress) created under his leadership has already produced a number of projects for transport aircraft of a fundamentally new type with a take-off weight of 9 to 600 tons. The first thing that catches your eye is their shape, reminiscent of the notorious UFO. But if you approach the analysis of "EKIPs" from an engineering point of view, then nothing fantastic will turn out.

In terms of layout, they represent a small elongation flying wing with a very thick profile, up to 37 percent of the chord length. They do not have the usual fuselage, and the payload, engines, fuel, equipment, crew and passengers are housed in the body, and only the tail and small consoles with aerodynamic controls protrude beyond the contours of the device. Instead of a wheeled chassis - an air cushion.

Aircraft designers back in the 30s dealt with the problem of creating such a "inhabited wing". One of the first to address it was K. A. Kalinin, who built the seven-engine bomber K-7 in 1933. In its wing of 20 percent thickness, office space, fuel, cargo were located, and only the crew, for a better view, was put in a gondola placed forward. Such a wing provided a very high aerodynamic quality, which directly affects the efficiency of the machine. A passenger version of the K-7 with large windows was also developed.

However, the Kalinin aircraft had a lot of unused internal volume, and it was possible to increase the layout density only by increasing the relative thickness of the wing, which was not possible at that time. As is known from the course of aerodynamics, the maximum values ​​of the lift coefficient are obtained with a relative wing thickness of 14–16 percent. Its further increase leads to a decrease in the limiting angles of attack, the amount of lift and an increase in drag, which adversely affects the aerodynamic quality of the machine and its efficiency. This phenomenon is associated with a forward displacement of the separation point of the boundary layer against the oncoming air flow.

As far back as the 1930s, aviation specialists proposed to control the flow around the wing. Imagine that it is with a slit at the top. Through it, air is sucked off by a special device and therefore does not collide with the boundary layer flowing in the opposite direction - therefore, separation does not occur. There is another way, by the way, which has become widespread in aviation - blowing off the boundary layer at the points of its separation from the bearing surface. A combined version is also used, when the boundary layer of the wing is both sucked off and blown off.

The main difficulty that designers face here is that this consumes a significant part of the power of the power plant, which is why they use only blowing off the boundary layer, and then during landing approach, when the engines are not working at full power.

It was this method that the engineers of the concern "adopted" - in the places of the alleged separation of the flow, along the supporting body, they proposed to make slots in which air microcirculation would be created. Then the oncoming flow will not slow down - its speed will be supported by artificial vortices. By the way, the first experiments on the so-called non-separated flow were carried out back in 1978 at the Geodesy Research Institute on a thick wing model. Everything may seem very simple, but EKIP had to work hard before a successful, economical device appeared.

In addition, the air intake located in its upper part should also improve the flow around a very impressive body. Designers have already turned to such a solution, because it still reduces the likelihood of foreign objects getting into the engine during takeoff and landing. However, there was a negative interference of the air intake and the airframe of the aircraft, especially at high angles of attack. And when flying at high speed, say, 700 kilometers per hour, air intake from the top of the carrier body could lead to the appearance of local supersonic zones that degrade the aerodynamic quality of the machine. At the same time, this arrangement improves its stability. As they say, in one we win, in the other we lose. So, you have to look for the golden mean ...

Compared to conventional aircraft, EKIPs will have a 3–5 times lower specific load on the bearing surface, therefore, the inductive drag will decrease, and the maximum aerodynamic quality will increase to 17–25, while flying in the ekranoplan mode - up to 22– thirty. Therefore, "EKIPs", according to the terminology proposed by the prominent Soviet aircraft designer R. L. Bartini, should be classified as ekranoletov.

The use of landing gear on an air "cushion" will make it possible to exclude takeoff and landing only on concrete strips. Note that there have been attempts to implement it on aircraft before, but things never went beyond experiments. One of the reasons for this is a “cloud” of water drops, dust and snowflakes that escape from under the flexible guard when moving and get into the engines, settling on the hull. Instead of a flexible fence, the concern's specialists used a gas-jet curtain created together with the "cushion" of the auxiliary power unit - air jets flying out at a pressure of slightly more than 1 atmosphere from nozzles located around the perimeter of the apparatus will cut off the "cushion" from the atmosphere. In addition, it is supposed to mount ionizers in the nozzles so that if positively charged dust particles fall on the body, then only in the designated places.

Perhaps it was the work of such systems that the prisoner of the concentration camp noticed. Remember, in his manuscript, he mentions that at some point the body of the aircraft began to lose its sharpness, as it were? .. But let's return to our days.

Shchukin and his team had to solve the problem of controlling the EKIPs at the beginning of the takeoff run and hover mode, when the aerodynamic systems are ineffective. For this, it is proposed to use small-sized liquid-propellant engines from the Buran orbiter, modified for new operating conditions.

The entire power plant of the EKIPs is divided into three groups. The first includes marching PK-92 or D-436, the second - unique, unparalleled dual-mode AL-34, which will create increased pressure under the bottom of the vehicle during takeoff and provide a boundary layer control system, the third - LRE stabilization and control at small speed, takeoff and landing.

And now let's try to compare the largest of the "EKIPs" L4-2 with the giant An-225. With the same takeoff weight of 600 tons, the L4-2 will deliver a load of 200 tons over a distance of 8,600 kilometers, while the Mriya will deliver only 4,500 kilometers. In this case, the latter will need a stationary airfield with a runway length of at least 3.5 kilometers. For R4-2, you will need a platform six times shorter. Such characteristics can be achieved thanks not only to the high aerodynamic quality of the EKIP (for Mriya it does not exceed 19), but to a greater weight return.

The layout of the EKIP allows passengers to have an all-round view through the extensive portholes made of structural glass - "stained-glass windows", as the authors call them.

For almost 10 years, Lev Nikolaevich Shchukin had to prove the advantages of aircraft of a fundamentally new type. Initially, many authorities met his ideas with hostility, but over time, the ice of mistrust was melted, and today the prospects for the use of "EKIPs" in the national economy and in the armed forces are obvious. The first prototypes of the “flying saucer” have already been created and tested, inside which not mythical aliens are placed, but our compatriots.
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It is likely that the Americans have gone through a similar path in their time. And in the mysterious hangar No. 18, which journalists like to remember from time to time, there really are fragments of “flying saucers”. Only aliens have absolutely nothing to do with them - the trophies of the Second World War are stored in the hangar. And over the past decades, based on their study, the Americans have managed to create many curious aircraft.

So, recently a mysterious "unknown star" was seen at one of the secret US air bases.

At first, this name - "Darkstar" - was attributed to the mysterious strategic reconnaissance aircraft "Aurora". Recently, however, the fog of secrecy has gradually begun to dissipate. And it became clear that in reality it belongs to an unmanned high-altitude aircraft of Lockheed Martin, created as part of the Tier III Minus program. The official demonstration of the prototype took place on June 1, 1995 in Palmdale (Antelope Valley, California), where the company's factories are located. Prior to this, only vague guesses were made about the existence of the machine.

Unmanned high-altitude aircraft "Unknown Star" was developed jointly by Lockheed Martin and Boeing. The share of participation of each company in the implementation of the program was 50 percent. Boeing specialists were responsible for the creation of a composite wing, the supply of avionics and the preparation of the aircraft for operation. Lockheed Martin handled fuselage design, final assembly and testing.

The machine presented in Palmdale is the first of two being created under the Tier III Minus program. It is made using stealth technology. In the future, it is likely that comparative tests of these “invisibles” will be carried out with the Teledyne model, which was previously selected by the Pentagon as part of a program that provides for the creation of a whole family of unmanned reconnaissance aircraft.

In total, it is planned to purchase 20 vehicles from Lockheed and Teledyne each. This should allow unit commanders to receive operational information during exercises or combat operations almost around the clock in real time. The Lockheed aircraft is designed primarily for short-range operations, in high-risk areas and at altitudes above 13,700 meters, its speed is 460-550 kilometers per hour. He is able to stay in the air for 8 hours at a distance of 900 kilometers from the base.

Structurally, the "Unknown Star" is made according to the "tailless" aerodynamic scheme, has a disc-shaped fuselage and a high elongation wing with a slight reverse sweep.

This unmanned reconnaissance aircraft operates in a fully automatic mode from takeoff to landing. It is equipped with the Westinghouse AN / APQ-183 radar (intended for the failed A-12 Avenger 2 project), which can be replaced by the Recon / Optical electronic-optical complex. The aircraft has a wingspan of 21.0 meters, a length of 4.6 meters, a height of 1.5 meters and a wing area of ​​29.8 square meters. The weight of the empty vehicle (including reconnaissance equipment) is about 1,200 kilograms, with a full load - up to 3,900 kilograms.

Flight testing is being conducted at NASA's Dryden Test Center at Edwards Air Force Base. If they are successful, then the aircraft can be put into service at the end of ours, the beginning of the next century.

So, as you can see, from time to time you can even benefit from seemingly empty talk about “flying saucers”.