4 Insane Theories People Still Believe About the Nazis

4 They Had a Secret Base in Antarctica

The Fuhrer decided early on that he wasn't content with just Germany, and wanted to try to grab as much of the world as he could. So why not grab the easiest, least defended area on the planet? And then, when he was done with France, he could go for the second easiest, least defended area on the planet: Antarctica.

On the Nazi Bullshit Plausibility Scale, which ranges from "could actually happen on planet Earth" to "not even in an Indiana Jones movie," this one at least makes some sense. Yeah, it's a mostly uninhabitable wasteland, but if you're the kind of asshole who wants to eat the whole pie before anyone else gets a piece, you don't leave the crumbs behind.

Plus, in theory, it could be a useful staging location for operations in the southern hemisphere (Added bonus: strategic, militarized penguins sound like an excellent use of Nazi resources). According to legend, the Germans built a base so strong that, after the fall of Berlin, they were able to retreat there and fend off attacks from the British and American armies for years. In fact, they purportedly hung on until the 1950s, when they were blown up with tactical nukes.

There's even a nugget of truth to the stories. The Nazis did stage a few expeditions to Antarctica, but so did the U.S., and the only thing we're hiding down there is the answer to who the alien was at the end of The Thing. It was ever so briefly hypothesized that our frozenest continent might really be useful in some way to either side, but common sense prevailed when they realized how stupidly cold it gets down there.

And there were some nuclear "tests" in the Antarctic region around the 50s, but whether or not they were secret missions intended to kick Nazi ass has yet to be revealed. You'll notice that the only bases there today are for science. We're still not really interested in Antarctica as a military stronghold, but maybe that's just because the Nazis beat us there and claimed it first. After all, they needed it for ...

3 They're Now Living Inside the Earth (Which Is Hollow)

... the hole down there that leads into the center of the Earth itself. Which is hollow, and now filled with Nazis, making our globe a big, antisemitic Twinkie.

The Hollow Earth Theory was nothing new, even in Hitler's time. It's as old as history, in fact, since basically every religion had the idea that there was an underworld inside the Earth. The theory took on "scientific" life in the 17th through 19th centuries, though. A number of learn'd gentlefolk, including Edmond Halley (the Halley's Comet guy), proposed the idea of an Earth made up of either concentric shells (of which we lived on the outermost) or absolutely nothing.

The originator of the modern Hollow Earth theory was an Army captain named John Cleves Symmes, Jr., who spent much of his life lecturing about his theory to people across America. It was basically the old-timey equivalent to a late night informercial. He also proposed that there were holes on the surface of the Earth that led down inside, which were located at the North and South Poles, and the Nazis' supposed secret base over the South Pole.

Symmes' proposal became a popular bit of pseudoscience, but it was never taken very seriously. It was mostly a spiritualist fringe thing until, for reasons that are beyond anyone with even a micron of sense, the theory was attached to the Nazis after World War II. No nuggets of truth this time. Just pure bullshit.

According to legend, Nazis discovered Symmes' hole in the planet at a secret location in Antarctica, then built their base there to protect it. They then retreated into the Earth itself when the war went sour, which means, in a James Bond-esque twist, that the secret base that supposedly got nuked may have just been a decoy. Even Hitler himself, who faked his death, now resides in the center of the Earth. Or he might, anyway, if he wouldn't be 125 years old by now.

2 Aliens Taught the Nazis Everything They Knew

Or maybe he's being kept alive indefinitely, thanks to the technology revealed to him by his good friends from outer space. Yep, the Third Reich was apparently buddy-buddy with aliens, who also let them borrow their UFOs. Because if any group on Earth could ever be trusted with extraterrestrial transportation, it was the Nazis.

During World War II, numerous reports were made of so-called "foo fighters"-- flying craft which didn't resemble any known military planes (History fact: many, if not all, of these were actually flown by Dave Grohl himself). This, combined with Kenneth Arnold's "flying saucers" sightings and the fact that Germany had successfully used rockets and jet engines, led to the belief that maybe the flying saucers were actually Nazi aircraft.

That led crazy people down the next closest mental rabbit hole: what if Nazis got the technology for jet propulsion from actual aliens? Screw Wernher Von Braun -- the real inventor behind the biggest leap in avionics history since the Wright Brothers was the Predator (I just assume that all aliens are Predators, unless otherwise specified). It's a good thing we recruited them all to our side after the war.

And where have they been meeting up with these aliens? Why, in their secret Hollow Earth base by way of Antarctica, of course! Oddly, these three conspiracy theories have been conflated into one megatheory that makes Indiana Jones and the Wolfenstein games look silly in comparison. There's even a Nazi moon base theory to go along with the Antarctic one. And hey, maybe Roswell was actually a crashed Nazi flying saucer, too!

Of course, the long take on this is that one day, the Nazis will emerge out of Antarctica from their lair at the center of the Earth, and from there, it will be just like Independence Day, but with more Nazis and lots of happy assholes on Stormfront.

1 Hitler Was Possessed by Demons

Leaving the megatheory behind, let's talk about what was up with that Hitler dude. In recent years, it's become common for researchers to claim that Hitler spent most of his time jacked up on the 1940s equivalent of meth, or that he had been driven to madness by an untreated case of syphilis. While those theories do make some sense, there's another one that explains everything.

Hitler was possessed by demons. Like, actual creatures from Hell, and maybe even the Devil himself. How they got there is anyone's guess, but I can not, in good conscience, rule out that young Adolf had a friend named Captain Howdy who spoke to him through a spirit board.

Now, this isn't like that time when you were ten and your grandmother caught you listening to The Beatles or something else innocuous and said you were possessed. This was an honest-to-goodness thing believed by none other than the Catholic Church.

According to church authorities, both Hitler and his chum Stalin were probably possessed by anything from a few minor gremlins all the way up to Ol' Scratch. This comes from the Vatican's Chief Exorcist, and if there's anyone who'd know what he was talking about when it comes to demonic possession, well, I think he would be our man.

But he's not the only one. According to Vatican documents, Pope Pius XII tried a "long-distance" exorcism on Hitler, but it unfortunately failed (Apparently, the reception gets spotty if you're outside of shouting distance?). Or maybe it worked, and he committed suicide when he saw what the demons had made him do. Whichever.

Note that this theory is not necessarily incompatible with all the others. We could very well have had an Antichrist Hitler who used his alien contacts to build superweapons and forge a stronghold in the center of the Earth. We are all so fucked.

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For more from Asher, check out 5 Mind-Blowing Academic Theories as Taught by Classic Movies. And then check out 16 Diabolical Acts of Evil by Famous Corporations.