​Submarine Rumoured To Have Smuggled Adolf Hitler To South America Found After Almost 73 Years

The U-3523 - which was one of Adolf Hitler's Type XXI subs - was a new, highly-advanced U-boat design that could sail for long periods of time.

It was designed for such prolonged travel underwater that it could have even made it to South America.

It was believed to have been sunk by a British attack in May 1945, but when the wreckage wasn't found afterwards, rumours began to circulate that it had actually managed to sail off - adding to other theories that some top Nazis had been able to flee before being caught.

Yeah, classic conspiracy theory stuff, right there.

The wreck was discovered 10 nautical miles north of Skagen in northern Denmark, and nine miles west of where the 1945 attack took place.

Gert Normann Andersen, the Sea War Museum's director, said: "Rumour has it that the submarine had great valuables from Germany because it was heading away from Germany even though the war ended.

"I think the rumour developed because U-3523 was a very modern, long-distance U-boat and some Nazis tried to escape with valuables in the last days.

"But the submarine was going to Norway, and not to South America with Nazis and valuables."

Nice one, Gert, shutting down theories left, right and centre.

According to the Daily Mail, declassified US intelligence documents have in the past fueled such claims that Nazi leaders (potentially including Hitler) escaped to South America as WWII drew to a close.

One file from September 1945 contained eyewitness accounts that Hitler had turned up in Argentina by submarine a few weeks after the fall of Berlin.

"By pre-arranged plan with six top Argentine officials, pack horses were waiting for the group and by daylight all supplies were loaded on the horses and an all-day trip inland toward the foothills of the southern Andes was started," it said.

"At dusk the party arrived at the ranch where Hitler and his party, according to [redacted], are now in hiding."

Of course, the idea that some of the Nazis fled to South America isn't entirely far fetched, as many were proven to have done so - including Auschwitz doctor Josef Mengele.

However, even if anyone did manage to flee to the faraway continent, at least we now know it can't have been via this submarine.