Secret Nazi Nuclear Complex Used to Try to Build Atomic Bomb Discovered in Austria

Secret Nazi Nuclear Complex Used to Try to Build Atomic Bomb Discovered in Austria
Zachary Stieber
1/1/2015
Updated:
7/18/2015

A Nazi nuclear bunker was discovered in Austria under a large weapons factory.

The complex, which features a network of tunnels and bunkers used by the Nazis to try to to build an atomic bomb, was discovered in Austria by filmmaker Andreas Sulzer.

Sulzer sparked the finding after reading a 1944 report by an American intelligence agency from a spy who noted the existence of a secret weapons program in the area.

The complex was discovered just outside of St. Georgen an der Gusen near Linz, with the help of radiation tests and intelligence reports. 

The underground complex, which spans about 75 acres, was underneath a weapons factory. Earth moving equipment was required to break through the soil, concrete, and granite blocks above the network.

Allied forces had inspected the weapons facility after the war but missed the secret underground complex. 

“Prisoners from concentration camps across Europe were handpicked for their special skills--physicists, chemists or other experts--to work on this monstrous project and we owe it to the victims to finally open the site and reveal the truth,” Sulzer told the Sunday Times

Up to 320,000 slave laborers were forced to build the network and the weapons factory.

A number of artifacts, including SS helmets and other Nazi relics, have already been recovered from the complex.