MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – Nearly 5 miles off the coast of Miami Beach, a yacht sits at the bottom of the ocean.
This vessel — dubbed the Ostwind — has a strange history. It was once owned by Adolf Hitler.
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The 80-foot-long yacht was commissioned by the infamous dictator in 1938 as an Olympic racing yacht, though it never actually competed.
According to historian Mike Miller, Hitler’s plan was to ride the yacht into England after Germany’s victory, where he would accept Winston Churchill’s surrender aboard the boat.
However, history had different plans.
After Germany’s defeat, the U.S. reportedly took control of the Ostwind, which was used as a training craft at the U.S. Naval Academy before being sold to a Nazi memorabilia collector in the 1970s, the Ocala Star-Banner reports.
The collector took the yacht to Jacksonville for repairs, but it was ultimately abandoned, and a marina owner then took possession.
Despite offers from a Nazi group to buy the yacht and turn it into a shrine, the marina owner ultimately reached out to Miami Beach officials about using the Ostwind as an artificial reef.
Eventually, the boat was taken from Jacksonville down to Miami Beach in 1989, and it was sunk off the coast to around 275 feet deep, state records indicate.
Nowadays, the only way to view the WWII-era relic is to throw on some scuba gear and take a dive.
Of course, the Ostwind isn’t the only strange object to be sunken off of Miami’s coast.
According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the following items have also been sunk near Miami Beach to create artificial reefs:
- Smoke stacks
- Radio towers
- Airplanes
- Army tanks
- A water tower
- Tugboats
- Oil rig structures
- A railroad barge
- A minesweeper warship
To learn more about the many shipwrecks off of Florida’s coasts, click here.
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