Chapter Seventeen
Australia and the Antarctic Reich
Wartime Australia-1939 to 1945 - a time of whispered events now faded with the passing years. There was a time when the Burragorang and other Blue Mountains US-Australian secret space technology bases did not exist, but were preceded by those of another Earth-based power with an advanced technology that was reaching for the stars. The story about to unfold is no mere run-of-the-mill spy drama, although it once more involves the Blue Mountains, German secret wonder weapons research and the Antarctic continent.
At Leura Cascades east of Katoomba, on a long abandoned tourist walk, there is or was, a rock face containing a unique inscription. A small swastika and the SS symbol, together with names of German merchant seamen who visited the site while on leave from their ship one day in the last years prior to the outbreak of World War Two. Many of these merchant seamen were in fact working for German Military Intelligence, gathering all manner of information about Australia, in much the same way as were the Japanese at this time.
Like their pre-war Japanese counterparts, the Germans already knew our military strength – or lack of it – but were more interested in locating vast, out of the way regions, such as the Blue Mountains, for the top secret activities revealed in this chapter. Our far north, with its thousands of kilometres of unprotected coastline, from the Kimberley to Arnhem Land and the Gulf country, became in the last years of peace, a back door through which firearms, various other equipment and spies were smuggled into this country.
These infiltrators were under top secret orders to seek out remote locations in Australia’s vast interior, far from habitation, for the setting up of secret installations, the exact purpose of which was a closely guarded secret; a secret in fact closely associated with certain German plans for Australia. What were these plans?
Adolf Hitler, conscious of the growing world crisis in the years following his ascent to power, and aware at the same time that Germany could become isolated and encircled by her enemies, hatched a bold plan to seek out new areas with which he hoped to colonise with Germans and develop. As all the major countries were firmly in the hands of other governments, his attention was drawn to Australia and Antarctica. The Fuhrer was probably already aware of the claims of some scientists that Antarctica was not the inhospitable land of ice and snow that has always been thought to be.To investigate these claims he dispatched the “German Antarctic Expedition” of 1938-1939 – which followed an earlier investigation there by the German scientists E. von Drygalski and Wilhelm Filchner. The new expedition was commanded by Kapitaen Ritscher, accompanied by 82 crewmen and scientists. They spent 117 days exploring, mapping and photographing by air some 6,000 square kilometres of the Antarctic interior. Their expedition revealed mountain ranges of alpine proportions at least 4,000 metres in height, and the truly astounding discovery that there were warm water lakes in this region in which some of the men had actually swum in ordinary swimsuits.
There were also summer weather conditions that allowed the men to work shirtless in the open. Food was also in plentiful supply in the form of sea-life.
The expeditions report encouraged Hitler to make a claim for the new territory. Subsequently he ordered aerial flag drops every 20km and individual flag raisings were conducted with ceremony by Naval parties. The territory Hitler claimed was larger than Germany. He thus gave it the name of “Neu Schwabenland”. [New Swabia]. Was this territory ever settled? That remains to be seen.Within months World War Two began and Hitler’s attentions were directed elsewhere, and eventually toward the invasion of communist Russia. But gradually, with America’s entry into the conflict, and the devastating reversals on the eastern front, the tide began to turn against Germany. Hitler looked to the new secret wonder weapons program which he instigated, in the hope that through these the Third Reich would yet triumph. And what were these new secret weapons?
Germany certainly led the world in rocket research, and the V1 and V2 flying Bombs, wonderful weapons for their time, would pave the way for future space exploration; but their development, like the jet aircraft already under construction, would come too late to save National Socialist Germany.There was also the German atom bomb project. It has often been claimed by World War Two historical researchers that the German atom bomb project hardly got off the drawing board. This may not be entirely true. In 1964 this author spoke to a former RAF bomber pilot, who in 1944 was involved in a top-secret raid deep in the Bavarian Alps. “We had to drop our load on a factory situated in a valley. We weren’t even told what was being produced there. Our squadron went in one bomber after another but their loads hit everything but the target.
Then my plane went in. We dropped our bombs and flew on trying to gain height to get out of the valley when suddenly, up went the factory, and it seemed well nigh the whole valley, in a brilliant illuminating flash and a terrific explosion that absolutely shook our Lancaster. Whatever was being produced there was certainly something extraordinary that our side had to dispose of and fast. In retrospect, over the years since the war, I think we hit an atom bomb research site”, he said. Just how far into jet propulsion technology were Hitler’s scientists? Fighter planes such as the ME109 and ME262, and the Arado turbo jet bomber [with a range of 4,000km] are already well known, but what of the flying disc?
In 1944 time was running out for the Third Reich. The constant bombing raids of the allies brought death and destruction on a massive scale to the civilian population, together with the disruption of the transportation system and communications, resulting in delays in the delivery of badly needed raw materials to the factories. The bombing of the Pleoesti Oil Fields, Germany’s last remaining major source of crude oil, meant shortages of fuel [of which the Wehrmacht was by now woefully short] and this effected production of the special rocket fuel needed for the jet aircraft.
The allies were closing in on all fronts, and if Germany was to reverse the appalling military situation in which she found herself by late 1944, she needed time to have her own atom bomb, time to get enough of her new jet fighters airborne, and it appears, time to develop her new “Flying disc” jets with which Luftwaffe chiefs predicted they could “shoot down every allied plane in the air”!
An ageing former member of the Hitler Youth, who joined the Luftwaffe as a 17year old radio operator during 1944, prior to being reassigned after infantry training as a Panzergrenadier to the Belgian frontier for the Ardennes Offensive [December 16th 1944-January 16th 1945], was stationed in the control tower at Brussels Airport. Here, he informed me, he used to watch the test flights of all the latest jet aircraft, and how, because of the shortage of the special jet fuel, the planes had to be given diesel fuel, which caused huge billows of smoke as they took off. He saw the latest jet fighters and the new jet bomber test-flown with this fuel, and also another experimental craft, the Flying Disc. “Wonderful weapons for their time”, he says.
Last Saucer of the Third Reich
Last Saucer of the Third Reich. Worked on jet principle, rapid suction of air and expanding hot gases.
Speeds of 2000kph were reported by pilots, speeds of 4000-6000 kph were anticipated [and were achieved?]
Photo courtesy Strange Phenomena Magazine September 1979 issue.