Filmmaker Andreas Sulzer discovered a complex of underground tunnels and bunkers that the Nazis used to develop an atomic bomb in Austria. The network was discovered outside the small town of St. Georgen an der Gusen, near Linz. The location was found using intelligence reports – especially a critical 1944 report by the forerunner to the CIA from an American spy that noted the existence of a weapons program in the area – and radiation tests that showed higher than normal levels of radioactivity.

The 75-acre area was built using slave labor from the nearby Mauthausen-Gusen camp. The area had been inspected by the Allies following the war but they failed to find the secret network of tunnels. The entrance alone required heavy earth moving equipment to break through the terrain.

“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,” said Mr. Sulzer, speaking to the Sunday Times.

Mr. Sulzer’s work is partly funded by German state TV network ZDF. He is seeking to establish what became of SS General Hans Kammler who was in charge of the project and reported to SS Chief Heinrich Himmler. Kammler supervised Hitler’s missile programs, including the V-2 rocket fired against London in the latter stages of WW2. He was brilliant but ruthless and, apart from his work at the recently discovered secret location, he was also responsible for signing off blueprints for the gas chambers and crematoria at Auschwitz.