01x10 - Unholy Alliances

[bunniefuu]

Throughout time, governments

and the people who work for them

have done strange

and even terrible things

in the name of national interest,

and sometimes they turn

to unlikely allies for help.

Tonight, a partnership with the FBI

transforms a small time gangster

- into Boston's kingpin.

- It's crazy.

You have this

combination of this FBI deal

and a crooked agent

giving bulger the power

to take over the Boston mob world.

The CIA commissions

assassins from the underworld.

They have to get Castro

out of the picture permanently.

It's a bold and risky move.

The idea of the CIA

partnering with the mafia

is so outrageous that no

one will possibly believe it.

And a pharmaceutical

company partners with the Nazis

to create super soldiers.

They take the entire

country in five weeks.

It's a crushing victory.

It's time to bring these

unholy alliances to light.

It's 1945.

World w*r ii is coming to an end,

and the allies are hunting

down n*zi w*r criminals,

but when many of

the fuhrer's henchmen

escape to freedom in South America,

it's clear someone is aiding them.

Who could be helping the Nazis escape?

When world w*r ii ends,

the allies are obviously desperate

to capture every surviving n*zi

and put them on trial

for their horrific crime,

but amongst the Nazis trying to flee

are hundreds of thousands

of displaced refugees,

all on the move and all in search

of a new life abroad.

To prevent Nazis escaping, every road,

train, and boat leaving

Europe is being watched.

Nothing and no one leaves

without being checked.

They tightened up the travel restrictions

to the extent that really there

was only one Avenue available,

and that was obtaining a red cross visa

that would allow you to get out.

Despite the allies capturing hundreds

of high ranking Nazis, many of Hitler's

most senior officers are missing.

The U.S. believes someone

is helping them escape Europe.

But who?

In 1947, an American attaché

in Rome named Vincent

la vista is put in charge

of monitoring this situation

to determine whether or not

former third reich officials

or military members

were attempting to use the red cross visa

to escape from justice.

La vista starts the

investigation at the red cross.

And that's when he hears

that there's something called

the papal refugee center.

Apparently, some refugees there

are able to get a Vatican issued letter

of recommendation

to leave, which means

they can skip the red

cross's background checks.

La vista asks his contacts

if there's been any suspicious activity

at the refugee center.

One name starts to

come up again and again,

a mysterious German based

in Rome known as Dr. Nix.

What la vista discovers is

that this mysterious doctor

is one of the leading characters

facilitating these pathways

that are being used

by former third reich officials

to escape out of

Germany and into Rome

and then South America.

Dr. Nix and his collaborators

are using escape routes called ratlines,

a reference to rats

getting off a sinking ship.

But even more shocking

is who is protecting nix.

An anonymous source

tells la vista that nix,

he's being sheltered inside the Vatican.

Apparently, nix not only has

the protection of the Vatican,

he's actively working for the Vatican.

The theory is that nix is

sheltering the Nazis in Rome,

and he's connecting

them with catholic bishops

who can assist them

in obtaining these letters

and identity paperwork that are critical

for them to achieve the red cross visas

that will allow them to leave Italy.

The Vatican is working hand in hand

with n*zi w*r criminals

because the church and the

Nazis share common ground.

They both despise communists.

In the aftermath of the conflict,

there are major communist movements

in czechoslovakia and

France and also in Italy.

Communism was in direct conflict

with the Roman catholic church

because it is atheistic at its core.

And the catholic church is concerned

that communist leaders will take over

Europe and Latin America.

South America is almost entirely catholic.

The Vatican is absolutely

terrified about anything

that might hinder its influence

among catholic

populations around the world.

Anyone that opposes

the spread of communism

is someone that ought to be supported.

And surprise, surprise,

if there's anybody in 1945

that has a reputation

for being anti-communist,

it's the Nazis.

So someone gets the idea

to give them free passage

out of Europe and set them up as allies

to fight communism and

save the catholic church

across the globe.

La vista sends everything he has

on the Nazis and the Vatican

back to the U.S. government,

but the report disappears.

It will be 37 years before

the Vatican's dark secret

and U.S. silence will be revealed.

In 1983, historian and

renowned n*zi hunter

Charles r. Allen Jr. files

a freedom of information act request.

It unearths a really dark

chapter of Vatican history

helping Nazis escape justice.

The story is picked up

by "the New York times"

and becomes a global news sensation.

All eyes turn to the

Vatican demanding answers.

The Vatican strongly denies

being involved in this process,

and that instead, a series of

rogue bishops acting alone,

they were responsible for doing this

and that they were all

stripped of their positions,

and they're no longer a problem.

The U.S. doesn't just turn a blind eye

to the Nazis on the run.

It gives them jobs.

They recruit hundreds

of German scientists

to fight on a new frontier

against the Soviets in space.

In July of 1969,

650 million people tune in to watch

Ignition sequence start.

The enormous saturn v rocket

launch American astronauts out of orbit

and towards the moon.

Then four days later,

they make it to the moon

and Neil Armstrong etches

his name into the history books.

One of the most proud viewers

of the launch of the saturn v rocket

was the man that was

at the heart of its creation,

wernher Von braun.

He was the face of the

American rocket program

for more than two

decades, and the saturn v

was the culmination of a lifetime spent

inventing and testing rockets.

By the late 1960s, wernher Von braun

is a household name

in the United States,

and he's even been on the

cover of "time" magazine.

But very few people know what he did

before building rockets for NASA.

In 1985, "the New York times"

exposes the truth

about Von braun's past.

The article takes a deep

dive into declassified files

that were produced as a result

of a freedom of information act

request by a journalist

named Linda hunt.

Hunt found that Von braun

was a commissioned major

in the waffen ss, a branch

of the German military

notorious for being a place

where the true believers went.

Ss major Von braun's past

shocks the American public,

but not the U.S. government.

They knew about it all along.

He's not some disassociated scientist

who's just inventing rockets.

His production facilities for the rockets

that he's so devoted

to employ sl*ve labor,

and those sl*ves are

literally being worked to death,

and Von braun is well aware of that fact.

At the same time, they're

prosecuting n*zi criminals

at nuremberg, the American government

were prepared to Bury their morals

just so they can beat the

Soviets in the space race.

The contradiction just blows your mind.

Von braun is far from

the only n*zi scientist

working in the U.S.

It turns out there are more like him.

Hunt reveals a top secret

operation called paperclip

that president Truman authorized

during the closing weeks

of the second world w*r.

Operation paperclip is a program

to try to capture as many n*zi scientists

and engineers as possible.

Germany was regarded as

the mecca of hard science.

So the Nazis we really

want are the Nazis

that are a part of their

high technology programs,

and we'll do almost anything to

get our hands on those people.

We're going to have to hold our noses

and accept any help

that we can potentially get

from these n*zi inventors

in order to be able to offset

the rising power of the Soviets.

Secrets fester if left uncovered,

but thanks to Linda hunt,

the truth about Von braun

and operation paperclip is revealed.

For decades, James whitey bulger

runs Boston's

underworld with an iron fist.

He's in that position

because the authorities

who should be taking him down

are actually working with him.

It's January 1995.

It's early in the evening and

workers are headed home,

but the day has only

just begun for the FBI

and the Massachusetts state police

sitting in unmarked cars,

staking out a restaurant.

For the last six years,

the FBI and the state police

have been trying to build

an airtight case against

two of the city's most

reputed mob leaders,

James whitey bulger and his

number two, Stephen flemmi.

Bulger is not above utilizing any means

to consolidate power in the city.

He's connected to some 19 murderers

and is seen as a vicious

and ambitious gangster.

The task force is finally

ready to make their arrests.

The plan is for the

Massachusetts state police

to grab flemmi while

the FBI simultaneously

takes down bulger.

The state police were able to

corner the unsuspecting flemmi.

But when the FBI swoops

in to arrest bulger, he is gone

and nowhere to be found.

This isn't the first time

he has slipped through the net.

Very few people knew

about the coordinated arrests,

so the state police want to know,

how does bulger keep getting away?

They become so

suspicious that they start

to actually think that someone in the FBI

is tipping bulger off.

The FBI was actually

starting to get frustrated

by these accusations that

were being made against them

by the state police.

So in a show of good faith,

they have now joined

forces with the state police

to lead the investigation into bulger.

The FBI investigation does not say

how bulger evades capture.

That only comes out three years later

at the trial of his right

hand man, Stephen flemmi.

When Stephen flemmi takes the stand

at his racketeering trial,

he's got a bombshell secret to share.

He reveals that he and bulger

had been recruited by the FBI

in the early 1970s, and have been

protected informants ever since.

Flemmi's testimony forces the FBI

to admit their alliance with bulger.

They confirm that bulger

was recruited in 1975

by FBI agent John

connolly to help take down

one of Boston's most powerful

mafia families, the patriarcas.

The deal was simple.

If bulger was to feed the FBI

enough intel on the patriarcas,

they would turn a blind eye

to all his criminal ventures

and provide him with

immunity from prosecution.

Just like that.

According to flemmi, the FBI isn't just

turning a blind eye to bulger's crimes.

At least one fed is actively helping him.

Flemmi's testimony is damning.

He tells the court that every time

law enforcement built a

case against him and bulger,

they were tipped off by an insider,

which allowed them to stay

one step ahead of the law.

The man on the inside, flemmi lets go,

is actually their FBI

handler, John connolly,

who's been working with the pair

for more than 20 years.

The Boston FBI is caught

completely off guard.

They discover that connolly and bulger

had actually grown up

in the same neighborhood

and developed a personal relationship.

They were old pals.

The revelation is just mind blowing.

But why would FBI break

bread with a notorious gangster?

Because of their close

ties, once bulger becomes

a confidential informant,

connolly is easily corrupted by him.

So in exchange for bribes,

connolly is feeding bulger information

about the police investigations.

The relationship with connolly and bulger

is exactly what empowers

bulger to basically become

the kingpin of the mob world.

It's crazy.

You have this

combination of this FBI deal

and a crooked agent

giving bulger the power

to take over the Boston mob world.

They made a monster.

By 1999, the FBI has

gathered enough evidence

to arrest connolly.

He's eventually convicted of racketeering

and second-degree m*rder

and is sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Meanwhile, bulger remains a fugitive

on the FBI's most

wanted list for 16 years.

In 2011, they finally

take whitey bulger down.

At his trial, he is

sentenced to life in jail.

But seven years later,

bulger pays the ultimate price.

For all those years as an FBI informant,

an ex-mafia hitman

murders him in his prison cell.

It's 2019 in Berlin.

A man is gunned down in cold blood.

The dead man is a

well-known enemy of Russia,

and his k*ller's name is a mystery.

An assassin is in the bushes

waiting for a Georgian national

to come walking by in

a public park in Berlin.

His target is zelimkhan khangoshvili,

a longtime enemy of the Russian state

who has fought against them in two wars

in the '90s and was now

living in exile in Germany.

Khangoshvili walks past.

The hitman emerges from the bushes.

He fires, and khangoshvili dies instantly.

After the assassination,

despite trying to blend in,

the German police find this

guy and quickly arrest him.

The assassin is carrying

a Russian passport

under the name of vadim sokolov,

but neither the passport

nor its holder is real.

When the assassin is apprehended

and they find his passport

under the name vadim sokolov,

they go searching through the records

but aren't able to find this guy.

He's a ghost. It isn't a real name.

It isn't a real passport.

The German police

announce to the world

that they have arrested a k*ller,

but they have no idea who he is.

The news explodes around the world.

Everyone wants to know,

who is this mysterious assassin?

Who is he working for,

and has he k*lled before?

A group of European journalists

start investigating this m*rder,

and they go out looking

for other assassinations

that there are similar methods used,

and they find one that's

eerily similar to this.

Six years earlier in Moscow in 2013,

a Russian entrepreneur is

gunned down in the street.

Like the Berlin m*rder,

it looks like a professional hit job.

The k*ller shot his victim multiple times

and fled on a bicycle.

The prime suspect in the case

is a man named vadim krasikov.

The investigative

journalists want to know,

are krasikov and

sokolov the same person?

Back in 2013, Russian

police quickly launched

a worldwide search for him

and a red notice warrant

was filed with Interpol.

There's an interesting

thing about this red notice.

It has a picture on it, and that picture

is almost identical to the person

that they know as vadim sokolov.

So they discovered that sokolov is

actually a guy named krasikov.

In December 2019,

the journalists hand over

their findings to German investigators

working on the assassination

of zelimkhan khangoshvili,

the man k*lled in the Berlin park.

Because of the efforts

of these journalists,

krasikov is put on trial

in 2021 in Germany

and is convicted of the

m*rder of khangoshvili.

The German government sentences him

to life in prison.

Krasikov is identified,

but there is still one question.

Who is he working for?

As the judge delivers the verdict,

he makes a shocking disclosure.

The court believes krasikov was acting

on a state contract authorized

by Vladimir put in himself.

When that information comes out,

the kremlin vehemently denies that.

The Russians really

categorize these allegations

as absurd and unproven.

Three years later, cameras capture

the largest high profile

prisoner exchange

between Russia and

the west in recent history,

and the truth is finally

available for all to see.

The U.S. and other western countries

have agreed to the release

of 15 people held in Russia.

They will be swapped

for Russian prisoners

held in the west.

A middle aged man in a

tracksuit walks down the steps.

When he reaches the bottom,

he receives a warm embrace

from president put in.

The man being greeted like

an old friend is vadim krasikov.

The cozy hug between tyrant and hitman

confirms what the world knew all along.

Vadim krasikov is

working for Vladimir put in.

Putin is blatantly making

a mockery of the west,

because he first publicly denies

having any kind of

relationship with krasikov,

and then here he is rolling

out the red carpet for the guy,

effectively confirming the alliance.

Krasikov was, I guess,

the perfect person

to become putin's personal hitman.

Putin joining forces with a contract k*ller

made headline news, but

Russia isn't the only nation

to do a deal with a k*ller.

In order to eliminate a

common enemy on foreign soil,

the CIA will join forces with the mob.

In 1959, fidel Castro leads

his communist party to power

in the Cuban revolution.

The island of Cuba is barely

100 miles from america,

but it's a threat too close for comfort

for the U.S. government.

The CIA want communism out of Cuba,

so that means they have to get Castro

out of the picture permanently.

It's a bold and risky move.

The CIA does not want to

be tied back to the crime.

The CIA reaches out to a fixer,

someone who has connections

to the U.S. criminal underworld.

And he comes back with the names

of two potential collaborators,

mobsters John roselli

and Sam giancana.

It's a serious gamble to

try and approach them,

but in a way, it's kind

of a masterstroke too.

The CIA is confident

that if word gets out,

the idea of the CIA

partnering with the mafia

is so outrageous that no

one will possibly believe it.

The mobsters agree

to meet with the CIA.

It seems they have their own agenda.

Roselli and giancana

have their own interests

in seeing Castro removed from Cuba,

as he's been shutting

down their lucrative casinos

in the island nation as well.

The mob don't just hate Castro's politics.

The Cuban leader is

also bad for business.

The CIA offers them

$150,000 to do this hit.

And they don't just decline the offer.

They offer to do it for free.

Giancana and roselli

are happy to take this on

without compensation

because they believe

that this will constitute

a get out of jail free card

for them later on.

This is doubly crazy.

You've got the CIA trying

to take out a foreign leader

and the mafia turning

down money for the hit.

These mobsters want to

take a more subtle approach.

They don't want to sh**t Castro.

They want to take a lethal pill

and put it into his food or his drink,

and the CIA actually gives this operation

basically a rubber stamp.

Finding someone in Cuba

who's willing to poison Castro

is the easy part.

Roselli knows an anti-communist worker

at Castro's favorite restaurant.

In April 1962, he arranges for poison pills

to be delivered to the assassin.

The months pass, and

Castro still isn't dead.

It could be because Castro

never went to the restaurant.

It could be because the guy

took the money and disappeared.

Or it could be that Castro

is just too well protected.

The delays make CIA's top

brass increasingly nervous

about relying on the

mafia to do their dirty work.

So in October 1962,

the CIA and the mobsters

agreed to abandon the plot

and keep their alliance top secret.

This was one deal that was

never meant to be made public,

but in 1974, the truth was revealed

with fatal consequences.

"The New York times"

publishes an exposé

which accuses the CIA of being involved

in assassination attempts

against foreign leaders

like fidel Castro.

A government investigation

is immediately launched.

During the investigation

into plots to k*ll Castro,

roselli and giancana are identified

and summoned to testify.

But before giancana can

take the stand, disaster strikes.

He's shot dead in his Chicago home.

Roselli fears he will be next.

But rather than go into hiding,

roselli risks his life to

tell the senate the truth.

"The New York times" was right.

The CIA did recruit him to k*ll Castro.

But just weeks later in Miami,

his body is found

stuffed inside an oil drum.

Who k*lled the two hit men?

Well, someone knows,

but they're not telling.

To this day, no one's been

charged with either m*rder.

In the run up to world w*r ii,

Hitler believes his blitzkrieg tactics

require troops with superhuman stamina.

So he strikes a deal with

a pharmaceutical company

to supply his soldiers

with a brand-new drug,

methamphetamine.

What German scientists

discovered in the 1930s

is that methamphetamines can be used

to treat a whole host of conditions.

Things like narcolepsy, weight loss,

but they can also enhance

athletic performance.

The Germans are hosting

the Olympics in 1936,

and Adolf Hitler wants to show

the superhuman capabilities

of German athletes.

Methamphetamine tablets

are prescribed to these athletes.

The third reich decides

to go one step further.

German military doctor

named Otto rank believed

that methamphetamine could be used

to turn soldiers into super soldiers.

Drugging a whole

army with amphetamines

doesn't sound like a very wise plan,

but Hitler is convinced

that it is his path to victory.

In 1939, Germany is

planning an invasion

of Poland, the event

that will ignite world w*r ii.

Germany since world w*r

I has been thinking about

how to potentially fight the next w*r,

and they have figured out a better way

to use the materials at hand,

and that way is blitzkrieg.

Blitzkrieg means lightning w*r.

It's all about speed and mobility.

In 1939, there are a million men

in the German military,

a force that is soon to be

launched across the world.

So how does the third

reich get enough pills

to supply every soldier

within a matter of months?

The high command strikes

a deal with Germany's

biggest pharmaceutical

company, temmler.

Temmler make a type

of meth they call pervitin.

For temmler, this represents

a money making opportunity

because they're going

to produce tens of millions

of doses of pervitin.

For the n*zi regime, they're going to

chemically create the

superhumans that Hitler

already believes Germans to be.

It's a match made in financial heaven.

On the Eve of the

invasion of Poland in 1939,

the German troops

are issued pervitin pills,

and the result is that

they are able to hike

35 miles without stopping.

They're able to persist for three days

without stopping to sleep.

They take the entire

country in five weeks

and k*ll 100,000 Polish

soldiers in the process.

It's a crushing victory.

But these are the early days of the w*r.

To keep the blitzkrieg going,

they're gonna need a lot more pills,

so temmler agrees to ramp

up production of pervitin.

Between April and July 1940,

the temmler factories produce

over 800,000 pervitin tablets every day,

and that turns into 35 million tablets

across the entire German military.

The use of pervitin is

going to fuel n*zi armies

to conquer the low countries.

In a matter of only a few short weeks,

German armies drive the

British off the continent.

The speed of the advance

is mind-boggling to the west.

In 1941, the Nazis discover that soldiers

using their wonder drug

are facing dire consequences.

They become addicted to pervitin.

Some even die from

heart failure and suicide.

But despite the risks,

the drug continues to be given to troops

for the remainder of the w*r.

The alliance between the

pharmaceutical company

and the Nazis remains hidden until 2015,

when author Norman ohler

unearths lost military documents.

Even after world w*r ii ends,

temmler continues to produce pervitin

all the way until 1988.

Macon, Georgia, 1932.

A medical experiment

is about to be launched.

On the surface, it looks fine.

A government agency working

with a respectable university

to research a life-threatening disease,

but the truth behind their

partnership is much darker.

Life in the U.S. in the early 1930s

is incredibly tough. The

economy has collapsed.

Millions of Americans

are struggling to get by.

Macon, Georgia is one

of the poorest regions

in the nation in the 1930s.

It's also predominantly African American.

In the fall of 1932,

signs began appearing in macon offering

free blood tests and medical treatment,

particularly for African American men.

Charlie pollard is one of the men

who takes up the offer.

Like many African

Americans in macon county,

he has never had

access to medical care.

A sample of his blood is taken,

and when the results return,

he is told that his blood is bad

and that the cause is unknown,

but doctors promise

to monitor the situation.

But the doctors know

exactly what's wrong

with pollard's blood.

He has a deadly infection called syphilis.

It affects one in ten Americans,

and there are almost half a

million new cases every year.

Its symptoms can be

managed with treatment,

but there is no cure,

and, right now, little is known

about how it progresses.

Syphilis is extremely infectious,

and it can start with a painless rash

that may not even be noticed.

But over time, it eats away at your body,

your brain, your spinal

cord, your heart, your aorta.

It can be life-threatening.

What pollard doesn't

know is the United States

public health service has set up

a clandestine experiment

using African American men like him

as human Guinea pigs to observe

the long-term progression of the disease.

They won't try and manage the disease.

Instead, they simply monitor

their worsening symptoms

and prescribe them with placebos.

The U.S. public health service

can't carry out the study alone.

They need a site and they need people

whom the community will trust.

Just a ten minute

drive from macon county

is an African American college

named the tuskegee institute,

and it's the perfect place.

The public health service

approaches the institute

and offers to underwrite the study.

For an African American

institution in the 1930s,

funding is scarce.

It's an offer they can't turn down.

And so this unholy

alliance is basically forged

by the fact that the United States

public health service has the funding

to provide to tuskegee, and in exchange,

the U.S. public health service promises

that they'll be on site to

direct all the experiments,

to provide the medical treatment

for the test subjects.

The deal is done.

Now all they need is people.

And they ultimately

focused their attention

on African American men.

Given the existence of

segregation at the time

and the belief in the inherent

inferiority of black people,

it seems natural that they'll be able

to conduct the study on black men

with few consequences.

With the local men

duped into participating,

the tuskegee study of

untreated syphilis begins.

Patient Chris pollard is not alone.

Over the next 11 years,

he and 600 other patients

will regularly make trips to

tuskegee for medical treatment.

But in 1943, syphilis is rendered curable

with the arrival of the life-saving

antibiotic penicillin.

Despite this, the U.S.

public health service

decides to continue

the tuskegee experiment.

So they're going to

continue to let people die

when their syphilis could

be cured by penicillin

almost instantly.

This is just extraordinary.

It's tantamount to m*rder.

The project continues

for another 29 years,

until 1972, when journalist Jean Heller

exposes the alliance between

the government and college

after documents detailing the experiment

land on her desk.

The United States public health service

has violated the most fundamental tenets

of its mission to promote

and protect public health,

and in this alliance with

the tuskegee institute

has wreaked havoc and suffering.

It is a major betrayal of the public trust.

The world knows the awful truth.

The government is forced to act.

Three months after the article,

an advisory panel is formed

who finds the experiment

medically unjustified

and is finally terminated.

Pollard and the other

surviving members of the study

launch a class action lawsuit,

and, in 1974, they are

awarded $10 million

with free medical treatment

for the rest of their lives.

In the last days of the second world w*r,

an extraordinary alliance

forms between enemy soldiers

to fight against fanatical

ss stormtroopers.

In may 1945, the w*r

in Europe is almost over.

Hitler has taken his own life

and the allies are

heading towards victory.

In the Austrian alps, there are still

active units of the waffen ss,

the reich's most zealous defenders.

For them, the prospect of defeat

only increases their lust for blood.

The waffen ss are

Hitler's elite shock troops.

They are the most

hardcore, fanatical Nazis.

They have no intent of surrendering,

even as the w*r is

clearly about to be over.

They want blood,

and they're out to find suitable victims.

The ss have a target,

castle itter, an alpine hotel

turned prisoner of w*r camp.

Castle itter had once been a luxury hotel,

but it was taken over

by the Germans in 1938.

It was converted into

a 19-cell prison in 1943.

The prisoners in castle itter aren't just

your run of the mill pows.

These are fairly high-ranking individuals.

With rumors of a German

surrender approaching,

the commander at castle

itter decides to take his life.

Their commander

dead, the prison guards

fear they will be captured

by the Americans,

so they abandon their posts.

When the commandant of

castle itter commits suicide,

news of his death quickly

spreads through the area.

There's a group of about

150 ss troops in the woods

in the vicinity, and they realize

that now castle itter is no

longer under n*zi control.

They start moving

toward the strong point

with mayhem on their minds.

The prisoners in the castle

know that the ss is out there.

They're nearby,

and the prisoners are

understandably quite concerned

that if the ss comes to the castle,

they'll execute all the prisoners.

They know if they're going to survive,

they need to take drastic action,

so they send the prison cook to find help.

He takes an sos letter

to American troops

who are rumored to have captured

the nearby town of worgl.

When he gets there, he

realizes that the Americans

have not yet taken the town after all.

The cook encounters

another German officer

named sepp gangl.

He hands the letter over,

but to his shock, gangl isn't hostile.

He's a battle-hardened major

who is disillusioned with the n*zi cause

and tired of all the bloodshed.

Gangl has troops with him,

but he doesn't have enough

to put up a defense against the 17th ss

as they move through the

area, and gangl understands

that if we're gonna save these guys,

we're gonna need help.

We're going to have to reach

out to the American troops

that are known to be nearby.

What gangl decides to do is to proceed

under a flag of truce,

essentially waving a white flag.

Slowly and carefully

approaches the Americans.

In front of him is

27-year-old captain Jack Lee.

When captain Lee spots a

German soldier approaching,

he's on high alert.

He has no idea if this is a trap.

After a bit of back and forth,

Lee becomes convinced that gangl

is exactly what he claims to be,

and the two of them

agree to combine forces.

After years of conflict,

it's an unimaginable partnership.

Gis and Germans work together.

These guys have been

machine gunning each other

and throwing grenades

at each other for years,

and now suddenly, they're erstwhile allies

in defending against Hitler's

most fanatical soldiers.

But they're heavily outnumbered.

Even with the American reinforcements,

there are only 24 armed

men capable of resisting

an ss force of 150 fanatical n*zi troops.

But they do have an advantage in that

they are in a prepared

defensive fortification.

And all of a sudden,

the ss as*ault begins.

The chatter of machine g*ns,

the expl*si*n of mortar rounds.

These troops are under siege.

After hours of bitter fighting,

somehow the alliance holds strong.

The ss are defeated and

withdraw from the fight.

The action is not without loss.

While trying to rescue

one of the prisoners, gangl,

he's caught in a crossfire

and shot by a sn*per.

He's the only casualty of the action.

The operation is a success,

but the involvement of major gangl

and his countrymen is not mentioned

in American newspapers,

only in classified military reports.

It's more than 70 years later, in 2013,

when gangl's role in one of

the strangest alliances of the w*r

makes international headlines.

A full account of the

battle of castle itter

is finally published by

historian Stephen Harding.

When nations vie for power,

foes can turn into friends

and former allies can become enemies,

but as these files reveal,

secret and unholy alliances

can influence history.