[Music]
in 1938 Adolf Hitler seized what Legend
said was history's most powerful weapon
if you hold it you're Invincible it was
said to be the spear which pierced the
side of
[Music]
Christ military leaders became almost
besotten with the idea of possessing
it and with the spear in his grasp
Hitler Unleashed Terror upon the
world but in the chaos of War this most
valuable of Europe's Treasures simply
vanished this was an emblem of War
Twisted by the Nazis to become symbols
of the Third Reich but one man Walter
horn would uncover the mystery of what
had happened to the Spear of Destiny
and one of America's Finest generals
obsessed with the spear would launch a
mission to find
it
1933 Adolf Hitler is elected chancellor
of
Germany Hitler was by no means a normal
person to be lead leading a country in
the middle of Europe in the middle of
the 20th century and especially one the
Sid of
Germany he was a very uh embittered
lonely Twisted abnormal individual who
had an enormous amount of drive and this
famous Will To Power um and that's what
really you know spurred him
on he is desperate to be the all
powerful leader of the German
people and create a new Germanic Empire
the trouble is he had won less than half
of the popular
vote his grip on power was nothing like
as strong as many people think I mean
after all most people hadn't voted for
Hitler the country is
divided and to realize his dreams he
will need to unite
it Germany was until just a few years
before it in real terms just a
collection of very very small states
you've got people in you know all up
near the Danish border and you've got
people all all the way down near Munich
and as far east into what we'd now be
part of Poland so what how do you unify
these
people Hitler encourages the Germans to
look to what he says is their
past he wants to portray himself as a
man who will restore Germany to a time
when it ruled
Europe and he wants to extend its
borders to those of the greatest German
Empire in
history the holy Ro
Empire the Holy Roman Empire was first
created by Charlamagne Charles the great
the Germanic King of the Franks in 800
ad its purpose to spread Christianity
through all of Europe for a thousand
years it dominated the
continent at its height stretching from
the North Sea to the
Mediterranean and ruling over what is
now Germany and much of Austria Poland
Italy and
[Music]
France now Hitler wanted to create an
even greater Empire in his own
image the Thousand-Year Nazi Reich with
himself at its
head he wasn't the type of person who
would like to cut deals and engage in
the art of statesmanship or diplomacy
this is a man who just wanted to drive
things forward the way he saw the world
should be in his eyes
but Hitler's difficulty is that there is
nothing Imperial about
him as the son of a workingclass
Austrian civil servant it is not enough
to Simply Proclaim himself the German
furer he needs to look like one he
needed to try and assimilate some of the
trappings of power and the type of
trappings that would be suitable for
someone who is ruling a kingdom in the
middle of Europe and of course what's he
going going to do he's going to look
back to history to find these
things he decided that to be an emperor
he would need the possessions of an
emperor was looking for emblem that
would underpin his claim to be leading
the German people back to a new era what
do we need ah well we need various items
that are associated with other people in
power the Holy Roman emperors had held
crown jewels as symbols of their
Authority an Imperial Crown a scepter
and an
orb but of all these symbols of past
German Glory one is more important than
all the
others it looks like a simple Roman
spearhead it is the Spear of
[Music]
Destiny
[Music]
the Spear of Destiny was set to be none
other than the spear that have pierced
the side of Jesus Christ as he hung on
the
cross the myth said that it was wielded
by a Roman Centurion called
Linus as the legend is told Linus was a
Roman Centurion who' served pilate
faithfully and it got cataracts he was
going blind and pilate pulled him out of
the ranks because he was no longer of
service as a fighter and gave him
relative easy Duty uh you know at Mount
Calvary you know making sure the
crucifixions went off as planned and
didn't require a lot of fighting didn't
require great
eyesight the Bible says that this
Centurion when inspecting the crucified
men was unsure if Jesus had
died so he thrust his spear into
Christ's
side blood allegedly dri down the side
of the spear into Linus's
eyes he was cured of cataracts he was
cured of his blindness he had a vision
of the future he had a vision of Jesus
as the
Messiah Linus was converted
instantly as Christianity spreads
throughout the world Linus's spear
touched by the Son of God became a
revered holy
[Music]
Relic the spear was passed down first
through a succession of Roman emperors
and then to
Charlamagne Charlamagne carries it into
battle is Invincible as long as it's in
his hands it becomes known as a Talisman
for conquerors for military
force it is a military image that it has
of vanquishing
foes such was its Mystique that every
Holy Roman Emperor after Charlamagne
wanted to possess
it it became a symbol of their
Authority the spear at a very early
point in history uh is is a reflection
of power of
strength
Legend says that whoever held the spear
would be undefeated in
battle so not only do you you get a
sense of whoever has this uh is the true
World Monarch because he has it but if
you hold it you're
[Music]
Invincible it was clear why Hitler
wanted it but he didn't have it
in fact it was in Vienna the capital of
neighboring
Austria when the Holy Roman Empire was
dissolved in
1806 its heirs the hapsburgs moved the
spear to Austria where it ended up on
display in the hoffberg
palace and it was here in 1908 that
Adolf Hitler then a struggle Austrian
painter had first seen the spear and
begun to cover
[Music]
it according to one version of the story
Hitler had actually seen the spear in
the museum there and um apparently he
may have had some sort of moment of
epiphany in which he realized that this
was an incredibly important object and
he had been sort of touched by it
whether that's true or not doesn't
really matter the point was it was
regarded as being
important Hitler had long known where it
was
and now he was German furer all he had
to do was take
it on March the 12th 1938 German troops
crossed the border into
[Music]
Austria the world watched as the
Austrian government
collapsed
[Music]
Hitler was killing two birds with one
stone he was reclaiming lands once held
by the Roman
Empire and was now on the brink of
seizing the Spear of
Destiny got to realize that Austria and
Germany are in Hitler's eyes indivisible
and indeed they should never have been
defined in the first place
with Austria in his grasp Hitler now
activated the second part of his
plan to seize the
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description as the story is told as the
panzers were driving you know across the
border into Austria Hitler had an SS
officer in civilian Garb already planted
in the
museum
when he was alerted that the Border had
been crossed he uh changed into his
uniform pulled out his
gun and stood guard over those crown
jewels nobody was to touch them until
Hitler
[Music]
arrived
Hitler arrived in Vienna just 2 days
after the
[Music]
[Applause]
invasion one of the very first things he
does is to go to the hapsburg museum go
to the display case where the spear and
the crown jewels are
[Music]
and opens
it and takes possession of the
[Music]
spear he took hold of the spear on March
the
15th it was not a date picked by
accident he took the Spear of Destiny on
St Linus
day that's when the Centurion and you
know who allegedly carried it at the
crucifixion is
[Applause]
honored Hitler took the spear to the
southern German city of nurburg which
had been its home for centuries during
the reign of the Holy Roman
emperors there was absolutely no
question where Hitler was going to take
the spear once he absconded with it from
Austria he was going to take it back to
nurenberg
back to its spiritual home what was to
be the spiritual headquarters the
spiritual capital of Nazism of the
Thousand-Year
Reich taking his lead from the Holy
Roman Empire Hitler had decided to place
nurburg at the center of his new Nazi
rank Berlin is the brain nurenberg is
the
heart
here he had built vast parade grounds
holding hundreds of thousands of
Spectators he staged enormous rallies
showcasing German military
might extravagant displays presented the
German people with an image of the
future based on his vision of the
past we see news reels today of the
parades going through the streets in
nurburg of soldiers dressed as medieval
knights with the markups of the chest of
the crown
jewels symbolic of being returned to the
Homeland the Thousand-Year Reich
begins
by displaying the spear and the crown
jewels his message could not have been
any
[Applause]
clearer he was the heir to the Holy
Roman
[Music]
emperors
it was as if King Arthur had finally
gotten uh Excalibur and was marching
through town with
it and uh in a
triumphal uh
parade I've got
it with the Spear of Destiny in his
possession Hitler was convinced he would
be unstoppable in his aim to conquer the
rest of
Europe but of course it didn't turn out
that
way
by the beginning of
1945 5 years of war has devastated
[Music]
Europe the spear has failed to bring
Hitler the victory he had dreamed
of his Ambitions lie in
tatters his Empire on the brink of
collapse and in the chaos the Spear of
Destiny one of the great Treasures of
Europe has
disappeared
but on an American army base in Belgium
pure luck will allow one man to track it
down Walter
horn is a lieutenant in the US third
Army his mission to interrogate German
prisoners of
war horn is no ordinary American
GI for one thing he's
German and 10 years earlier he had
narrowly escaped the clutches of the
SS in the 1930s horn was at University
in heidleberg Southwest Germany his
passion art
history his specialty was the relics of
the Holy Roman Empire he was an art
history major who just had the
misfortune to get uh his doctoral degree
in
1933 just as Adolf Hitler had come to
[Music]
power as a historian horn found himself
being sucked into Hitler's obsession
with proving the superiority of the
German
[Applause]
race he was invited to join a special
unit of the SS created specifically for
this purpose purpose the
anaura promising academics were press
ganged into the anaura the job to prove
at any cost that German culture was
Superior to every culture in the
world and who better for the anaura to
recruit than the impressive young
academic and PhD Walter
horn Walter was perfect Nazi material uh
he he had been a javelin contender for
the Olympics he came from fifth
generation Germanic Aryan stock you know
he was young he was good-look he was
well traveled this was the kind of man
the Nazis were looking
for but horn could see exactly where
Nazi control of German academic life was
leading Theon Ura can't just be seen as
a kind of harmless bunch of corrupted
academics who were just sucking up to
the Nazis because what they were proving
was helping to create a world viw that
was in essence evil and some of these
theories are directly related to the
idea of race and we all know what
happens when you apply these theories to
a regime that is as murderous as the
Nazis
are it leads directly to the gates of
aitz
horn wanted no part of
it so in 1934 he decided to flee
Germany he didn't want to give up his
homeland but he saw no option around it
one thing he knew is he had to get out
of
Germany you know the storm is coming
down this is no place to
be but as he began his flight to Freedom
horn learned that the SS were oned after
him he was very concerned he hated the
Nazis he didn't know if if it was
because of remarks that he had made uh
about the
Nazis to his horror one officer had
managed to track him
down the SS officer had his pistol and
uh I'm sure Walter was thinking that the
end had
come but horn was in for yet another
surprise
the SS officer essentially you know told
him yes we're looking for people like
you uh uh but good luck just don't come
back Walter horn eventually managed to
escape via Italy and then Cuba to
America where he became a naturalized
American
[Music]
citizen and that is how as a fluent
German speaker he ended up in Belgium
interrogating PS at the tail end of the
war as the Allied armies work their way
into Germany behind the front lines
you've got units doing various sort of
ancillary roles that are nevertheless
vitally important one of these of course
is to hunt for criminals I'm in straight
man hunts and what these people are
doing these war crimes units is to hunt
for evidence you know which hasn't been
burnt by the
gar for months horn had been uncovering
very little
but one afternoon a harmless looking P
changed all
that quite late in the day relative old
man is taken out of the prisoner pen to
be
interrogated private Fritz
Huber Fritz Huber has nothing really to
contribute or so it
seems private Huber said I'm sorry I
can't tell you any information cuz I I
really I don't know any information all
all I've been doing is you know slogging
gun cases around Walter felt sorry for
him offered him a cigarette offered him
a cup of coffee and they just sat and
chatted then Huber revealed something
that would blow Walter Horn's
mind Huber said I do know of a special
treasure a hidden
treasure are you at all interested in
art
history little could Huber have known
the man he was talking to had had a
doctorate in art history there wasn't
anything in the world Walter wanted to
hear more about you know than than art
and
antiques huba began to tell horn about a
Nazi Treasure Trove hidden beneath
nurburg castle one which supposedly
contain any number of Priceless pieces
of
art horn listened intently as Huber
listed the sort of items that any
imaginary pirate horde might
contain Huber was describing various
Treasures which could have been any kind
of depositories because we know the
Nazis looted you know major
museums but this this collection was
different
he described a scepter he described a
crown he described a golden orb what
they call uh you know the world orb of
Christianity and then he said it's a
spear it's a spearhead Roman
spirit and of course Walter knew
instantly The
Collection there was no question what it
was he was describing you know the crown
jewels of the Holy r Roman
Empire and the Spear of
Destiny horn pushed huba for every
detail and was amazed to find out the
length that the Nazis had gone to to
protect the Spear of
Destiny Huber said his father had been
hired by the head of the Nazi SS Hinrich
himler to install a ventilation system
in a hidden vault beneath neurenberg
castle and oh by the way my mother goes
in once a week to check on uh the
treasures that that are kept in in this
Vault uh she has to check the humidity
you know check against insects my
mother's got to wear white
gloves and as Huber is telling the story
Walter is getting more and more
interested Huber described a network of
tunnels beneath the castle which led out
to a secret entrance on the streets
below it looked like an active ongoing
antique shop and had had two uh two
doors for for bringing items in and out
but of course it was Nazis who were
going the in
andout aware that he had Poss ibly just
uncovered the location of one of the
world's great Treasures horn immediately
began to write up a report for his
superiors but fearing the American High
command wouldn't understand the
importance of the spear horn made sure
to write in detail even drawing a map of
the city to show where the Vault could
be
found Walter horn sat at a borrowed
typewriter and he typed up his an
intelligence report and of course being
an art historian I'm sure it it it well
it read it reads more like a art history
paper than a military intelligence
report horn worked
quickly he knew the advancing Allied
Forces were planning a huge offensive on
urberg and he feared that in the battle
the spear could be
destroyed he mailed it off fully
thinking that this would be dismissed as
um as
tangential to the fighting going on that
that that what military commander would
possibly uh conceive the Holy Roman
Empire crown jewels in the Spear of
Destiny to be a military
objective but in another amazing Stroke
of Luck Horn's report eventually landed
on the desk of the one man who had both
the power and the will to save the
spear General George S Patton also known
as Old Blood and
Guts was in command of the US third Army
in
Europe and was one of the generals
overseeing the invasion of
Germany a flamboyant man often pictured
with two silver revolvers he was a
brilliant t tank commander and
tactician a Catholic convert Patton saw
himself as a Christian
[Music]
Warrior but more than that he too was
obsessed with the legend of the Spear of
Destiny he had even written a poem about
what it must have felt like to plunge
the spear into the sight of
Christ
I cannot name my battles for the Visions
are not
clear yet I see the Twisted faces and I
feel the rening
spear perhaps I stabbed our savior in
his sacred helpless
side yet I have called his name in
blessing when after
times I
died
as US troops battled their way across
Europe Patton had been attempting to
track the Spear's
movements his fear was that the spear if
not found might be used as a Talisman to
inspire a Nazi
Resurgence but so far he had no idea
where the spear
was until Walter Horn's report landed on
his
desk love and behold that's exactly what
Patton was looking for and he found it
in the in that intelligence report you
know uh light bulb went off you know
this was a military objective for
Patton on the eve of the assault on
urberg Patton took an amazing
decision he ensured that a cracked team
of soldiers was sent to locate the
secret
vault but it would be no easy task
urberg had suffered a series of massive
bombing
raids thousands have died hundreds of
thousands
displaced they talk about the
devastation in Dres
but the devastation in Dresden
essentially came from a fire that
started that spread in nerenberg it was
literally from the tons and tons of
bombs and now the Allies intended to
send Hitler a
message they plan to capture nurg on
April the 20th the fur's
birthday Hitler was adamant that his
spiritual Capital would not
fall his instructions are that the
Defenders of Newberg will fight to the
last bullet and they the last man and
and even the last young
[Music]
child on April the 16th the US Army
began a fight to the death for the
city
P's special unit sent to locate the
spear was soon caught in the thick of
the
fighting it was narrow medieval streets
big battlements um it it was almost
essentially hand toand combat almost
like taking one street after another and
it was very dangerous kind of
fighting children were actually being
used as Scouts
the Germans fought right down virtually
you know to the last man
[Applause]
standing in the chaos of the battle
Patton's unit armed with Horn's M
embarked on their Dangerous Mission to
locate the secret
vault that unit now lost many
men to work their way where the vault
was when they got there they couldn't
even find it there had been such
Devastation so many bombing and they
wasn't even sure that they gotten to the
[Music]
location but then they made a
discovery one of them found a uh crevice
a sort of tunnel like thing and they
dropped
in
at the end of a long dark underground
tunnel they found something
[Music]
staging set into thick
concrete the Steel Vault door 8 ft high
and 12 in
thick but there was a
problem the giant Vault doors were
locked
[Music]
shut door itself was impenetrable at
that point one one of the Munitions men
was literally about to uh you know plug
dynamite in in uh in the sides of this
giant vault
door but just moments before the charges
were detonated a German civilian came
forward and stopped the Munitions
man luckily he was stopped at the last
minute because you know God knows what
might have happened uh to the contents
inside a German who a representative the
mayor of nurburg gave the Allies the
combination of this Vault he said please
please don't don't don't blow this
up very special things here and and they
they open they open the
vault behind the giant door the gis
discovered a vast and Incredibly
sophisticated underground
complex this had to be the Vault that
the prisoner Huber had described but it
was on a scale beyond anything they had
imagined commissioned by Hinrich himler
it was an enormous expansion of old beer
sellers beneath the nurenberg car
[Music]
himler
secretly sent in teams of architect
teams of Builders to
reconfigure This Beer Celler into a
high-tech Vault and and I don't use that
term high-tech Loosely foot thick
reinforced steel special locking
mechanisms the walls were lined with
various materials uh to keep the
moisture out air purification system its
own generator system it had water it had
showers it had baths it had a kitchen it
had its own little escape hatch you
could have a team of people living in
there for months at a
time the gis could hardly believe what
they had
found but unsure of exactly what they
had discovered the message was sent for
horn to come to nurenberg to identify
the contents of the
Vault
when horn arrived he was shocked by the
state of this once beautiful medieval
[Music]
city picture uh a moonscape picture uh
you know churches missing their rules um
uh bodies strewn
[Music]
about horn was led to the
[Music]
Vault even though the contents had been
described to him by Huber horn was
stunned by what the vaults
[Music]
contained there is just this fantastic
room full of Europe's treasure which can
rival anything you'll see in the Lou or
or or the British Museum and it really
is a real treasure Trove and the guys
who went in there realized my God I mean
how much had the Nazis taken you know
every box was just full of something
more and more
[Music]
incredible horn was shown a small wooden
[Music]
crate
in it unmistakable to Horn's Expert Eyes
was the Spear of
Destiny horn became a hero when uh he
recovered his Spear of
Destiny now the question
was what were they to do with
him
[Applause]
May 1945 the Allies declare victory over
Hitler's Nazi
regime six years of war draws to a
close Hitler had committed suicide in
his Berlin
bunker the Allies uncovered millions of
dollars worth of Europe's finest
Treasures stolen by the Nazis
we know the Nazis looted you know major
museums major collections were brought
Wholesale in by
train now began the task of returning
these Treasures to their rightful
owners Walter horn had assumed the spear
would be returned to
Austria the Spear of Destiny come from
the hoffberg in a museum in Vienna this
is where he expected he fully thought
they would be returned to Patton had
other
[Applause]
ideas it seemed that Patton too had
become Bewitched by the power of the
Spear of
Destiny Patton said and and openly
declared that that these relics this
Spear of Destiny are not artwork these
are emblems of War Twisted by the Nazis
to become symbols of the Third
Reich Patton was the type of man who
very much would have liked the idea of
the Spear of Destiny you know in his
back pocket and wanted to take it back
to the United
States perhaps he believed as as did
Hitler that you know whoever possessed
this spear would be
invincible so adamant was Patton on
having the spear that Dwight Eisenhower
the supreme commander of of all Allied
troops in Europe had to
intervene a huge argument broke out
between these two iconic figures but
before it could be resolved tragedy
[Music]
struck his car is hit by a lorry uh he's
virtually paralyzed he's in hospital for
a short period and then he
dies with Patton died the last obstacle
to the spear returning home to
[Music]
Vienna special plane was dispatched
under a very heavy armed guard because
you know these are uh you know
considered the most valuable Treasures
that the Nazis had ever looted and there
was a special return ceremony in Austria
and today
they're back in the museum
essentially uh in the same room in the
same part of the museum uh where they
were when Hitler took
them but there remains one outstanding
question what was this item that Walter
horn had recovered and that so many
people had fought and died for could it
really be the spear that Charlamagne
held the very spear that pierced C
side Robert feather a trained metallist
was the first person in 40 years to be
allowed to examine The Spar
scientifically I was called in to
examine the sphere U because I've had
previous experience um of um
metallurgical work on ancient artifacts
I trained as a metallist uh and I've
sort of have done a lot of work in
ancient metals and
materials one of the first tests he did
was to see if there were traces of Blood
on the spear if it were Christ's blood
it would be the most staggering
discovery of all
time I took swabs of the the spear just
in case there was any biological
material I mean if if it's a spear it
could have had some blood on it
somewhere and the remotest chance that
some of it might be Jesus's blood just
Ur So I thought i' better do it just in
case it's someone going to say why
didn't you but no traces of blood could
be
found next he did a series of
non-destructive tests to uncover the age
of the spear we did xrf which is x-ray
fluorescent tests we did um microscopic
analysis we did um full high powered
x-ray analysis these tests finally gave
an approximate date to the spear itself
the 7eventh or 8th Century
a to say that it was the spear that went
into the side of Jesus I think is um
rather difficult if not virtually
impossible it's impossible really to
have had much contact with someone who
was supposedly died eight centuries
before it was
made science had proven that the Vienna
Lance was not the spear that had pierced
the side of Christ
so does this mean it is worthless had
thousands of lives been risked in
pursuit of nothing more than a medieval
forgery after all one uncomfortable fact
even for Hitler was that it wasn't the
only spear claiming to be the Spear of
Destiny problem with the spear is that
there quite a few of them I mean I think
there are at least four there are
competitor Spears in different places to
the Vienna Spar there there's one inmad
in
Armenia it doesn't look very much like a
spear and it's more more rather like a
Roman bannerad but nevertheless they
rever it uh and there's another one in
in in Poland which is almost certainly a
replic a later middle-aged reproduction
there's another one in St Peters in the
Basilica of St
Peters which is said to be part of the
spear
that pierce the side of
Jesus but it seems that the spear Hitler
coveted had a value that none of the
others
had we know more about the early history
of the Vienna spear than any of the
others and we can trace it certainly in
written record back to the 8th
Century that date is extremely
significant it was when Charlamagne the
first holy Ro Roman Emperor was rising
to
[Music]
power this spear may not have been the
spear which pierced Christ's side but it
was the spear held by the Holy Roman
emperors there is no question that that
spear was the one carried by the Holy
Roman emperors and that this was the one
passed on you know throughout history
through tradition and was the one that
that Hitler Hitler
took and H had understood something
else it doesn't matter what something is
what matters is what people believe it
to
[Applause]
be for centuries the spear had been
revered by the most powerful rulers of
Europe and that for Hitler was enough to
make it something worth having doesn't
really matter whether this was the spear
that was shoved into the side of Jesus
it it doesn't matter it's what people
think is what matters it's what people
choose to believe the fact that it
doesn't go date back to the crucifixion
doesn't make it to my mind any less
valuable because what it represents in
the larger sense is is what's important
even though it's very easy today to look
at it as all being part of it's all
mumbo jumbo it's kind of you know junk
history it's kind of Mythology it
Superstition it's important
[Applause]
[Music]