Long Lost, Oft Rumored Nazi Submarine Discovered Off the Coast of Denmark

A submarine long theorized to have transported Nazi officials to South America has finally been found — sunken near Denmark.

The missing World War II-era U-3523 submarine was an advanced sub-aquatic war machine developed just as the Third Reich began to collapse. One of Nazi Germany’s Type XXI U-boats, it was one of only two that ever made it into the water. Like its only sibling, it never had the chance to wage war.

The U-3523 could remain submerged longer and travel much further than its predecessors. After its disappearance, popular theory suggested that it had been used to ferry high-ranking Nazis to a South American escape. And even though it was supposedly sunk on May 6, 1945, by a British bomber, the mysterious disappearance of its wreckage helped to perpetuate those legends. A declassified CIA document even proposed the possibility that Adolf Hitler himself might have used the craft to escape.

Unfortunately for the legions of World War II conspiracy theorists, it does not seem that the U-boat was carrying Nazi royalty or ill-gotten gold. It also appears that the sub was attempting an escape toward Norway rather than South America.

Of course, a few infamous Nazis did manage to hide in the southern reaches of our continent: “The Angel of Death,” Dr. Josef Mengele, and holocaust engineer Adolf Eichmann. The first was never brought to justice, but the second was hanged in 1962 in Israel after being captured by Mossad.

The discovery of the submarine wreckage is just another loose end from the chaos at the conclusion of the Second World War. Now, if we could just find that moon base.