scr4 - I was thinking they could use them to smuggle supplys to the coast, not nessicarly to sub pens. But you are right about it being almost all earth under the frozen south.
I still think the hydroponics would work with UV lamps. You could have them underground and they would still grow. I know that hydroponics was pretty well known in the 50’s but I’m not to sure how well it was known in the 40’s.
For an added dash of verisimilitude, you might want to check into the story of U-977. It turned up in Mar del Plata, Argentina, after the surrender of Germany after a 108 day voyage, including 66 days continuously submerged and using a Schnorchel. The captain, Heinz Schaffer, wrote a book about it in 1952, entitled U-977. It’s out of print but I picked up a copy for a quarter at a used book store a couple of years ago.
Schaffer was interned and interrogated for weeks because of a persistent rumor that he had dropped off high-level Nazis in Antarctica. However, his log listed a number of ship and aircraft sightings which confirmed his route straight to Argentina. There was another U-boat tasked with a similar mission, but I am uncertain of its fate.
The Germans had a prototypical peroxide-powered U-boat which presaged the nuclear submarine in performance. They also had supply U-boats, called milch cows, designed to resupply other U-boats at sea. In addition, the German navy had a number of armed merchant raiders (sometimes mistakenly termed Q-ships), though most if not all were sunk before the end of the war, and a fairly extensive fleet of supply ships designed to keep its raider fleet at sea.
With all those goodies you should be able to get your Nazis to the Antarctic shore. If you wanted to get real creative, why not invent something like an “ice submarine” which could travel (slowly) underneath the Antarctic glaciers by melting or boring a path? Heck, you could even sink a base right at the north pole by heating it up and letting it settle through the ice.
Submitted for your perusal. . .
“Genesis” (1980) by W.A. Harbison
Interesting, but makes me glad my story is not using UFO’s.
While I love the idea of using U-boats for clandestine transport, I’ve had to rule it out. If for no other reason that even the German U-boats, far more advanced then any other nation’s submarines, were piss poor transports. Little room for anything past their own supplies, fuel and crew. Besides, until later in the war, they had to run on the surface for much of the time.
That’s what I was thinking. As long as Electricity could be supplied (Windmills would work fine here), food could be grown. And water really wouldn’t be a problem.
Two things,
Read the book South by Ernest Shackleton. It will give you great insight about survival in the cold.
Secondly, all your base are belong to us!
[somebody had to say it]
You could always contact the Australian Antarctic Division for clarification of any scientific details.
Well, I’m thinking that air travel(If for no other reason that it would be tough to actually navigate) would be suspended during the winter and that planes would be stored in shelters (heated somewhat if need be).
Good idea. He’d know, wouldn’t he? (IIRC, Everyone survived the expereince during his “Endurance” expedtion)
No Soup for you!
Hmmm… a story set in the 1930s about an expedition to Antarctica for strange and mysterious reasons? Your board name doesn’t happen to stand for an HP Lovecraft, by any chance, does it? 
I was wondering how long it would take for someone to pick up on that.
How near to the geographic pole is the south magnetic pole? Maybe you could have the Nazis working to develop a super-weapon involving Tesla-like technology, that has to be located near one of the magnetic poles to work.
Aparently the South magnetic pole is out in the antarctic ocean.
HPL - though it seems pretty unlikely that UBOATS would be used for transport and so forth, the Nazis did have plans that involved both north and south poles, for whatever reasons, and they DID use uboats to that effect. I don’t have time to post the links right now, but trust me, the Nazis WERE trying to construct some kind of base down there. Whether or not it actually happened, I have no idea.
Another bit of info - there are warm areas of earth in the south polar region, with warm waters(some of which connect to the ocean) and bare ground. Would’nt that be a great place to land a sub or build a base? You might wanna factor that into your story.
I’ll have those links in a few hours
Your transportation issues are solved. The windiest place on earth you say? Winds over 200 mph? Let’s just assume they did some research and development and came up with a wind powered vehicle. Some technical details supporting a vehicle that can travel 4 times faster than the wind! However, I don’t think these were land based.
I can’t find the link that had the sailboat looking things on skis and wheels that could also be a great form of transportation in a place that is virtually flat and has an excess of wind. Think of them like wind surfing on land.
here’s one link. I know you’ll find this interesting 
http://www.violations.dabsol.co.uk/enigma/enigmapart1.htm
dorkusmalorkusmafia ice boats regularly exceed the wind speed, but they are small and light. I am wondering if a 300’ steel hulled windjammer type ship on skis could work, my initial guess is that the friction would cause the skis to melt the ice and dig in…
On the Zeppelin angle I think it is just too windy.
I think what you need is a hover craft! Great all terrain capability, moderate lifting and load carrying, terrible fuel efficiency, but still kind of cool techno factor. hmmm…
ok, how about this. A wind driven ice ship combined with a mini zeppelin on the top. The zeppelin provides some lift so the friction on the blades is reduced, but not enough lift to fly so that the ship gets blown around. Imagine a windjammer sized vessel with a flat bottom, probably would need some outriggers since you wouldn’t have a balasted hull, so this is a trimaran, and along the under side of the main hull are huge hydrogen tanks that provide some lift. Add a huge amount of canvas sails, and off you go! At least until you hit that first mountain range, and then you are stuck. Now that I have rambled all this, I am going to post it anyway. You asked for ideas!
Well, if you really want to go with the sci-fi/alternate history route, you could try using an A9/A10 complex for long range, low capacity cargo drops…though if the Germans had enough of THOSE available that they could spare some for a research base, they’d definitely have used them for standard military purposes first.
For a slightly less-outrageous option, you might try a Me-264 bomber, which it was hoped, would be able to be converted to a transport version for supplying future German colonies in Africa. Still, like the a9/a10, you’d think an available one would be used for military purposes before research purposes, but if the research base was important enough (like…digging up a few “old ones,” maybe?), using a prototype bomber would seem a lot more realistic than using a prototype ICBM…and the Me-264 DID actually make it to the prototype stage, unlike the A9/a10.
'Hope I’ve been of some help,
Ranchoth
(If you thought that site was interesting, BTW, you might try [url=]http://j-aircraft.org/xplanes/, as well. Scary stuff.)
Quite interesting. THe only problem is that I’ve found is that the germans had no shortage of large submarines/bombers/transports, but they weren’t created until around 1942 at least. While good for supplying and building extentions an already existing base, they are two late to be used to actually partcipate in the original construction in the latter half of the 1930’s(assuming 1935 would be the beginning construction point).
But then again, if they had been able to create all the really advanced stuff by 1939, they might have won the war.
Since no one seems to like the windjammer on ice, 
What about a large Wing in Ground Effect (WIGE) aircraft? According to this site, the first WIGE research was done in the 20s.
It isn’t so hard to belive that the Germans could have secretly built and tested a large cargo plane built on the concept