In 2015, when two treasure hunters in Poland claimed they were close to finding a train filled with gold stolen by the Nazis in WWII, the news piqued the interest of execs at Corus Entertainment.  

VP of original content at Corus, Lisa Godfrey reached out to Toronto-based prodco Saloon Media, which it had previously worked with on series such as Miracles Decoded, asking for the prodco to do some digging and find a series behind the news story. The result is Hunting Nazi Treasure, an eight-part one-hour investigative docuseries produced by Saloon and London, U.K.-based BriteSpark Films. The series premieres Oct. 24 at 10 p.m. EST on History in Canada. It will air on More4 in the U.K. and AHC in the U.S at a later date.

The series chronicles the systemic theft of art and cultural artifacts during WWII and follows a team of investigators as they uncover missing treasures. It filmed in 13 countries between September 2016 and June 2017.

“We were determined to make the series relevant today. It wasn’t going to be a static, ‘stock-and-talk’ approach to history. History channel is very interested in seeing people today, digging up clues, going to the places where the history happened,” producer Steve Gamester of Saloon Media told Playback Daily.

Because of the scope of the project, bringing on board an international broadcaster and producing partner was a necessity. The company paired with U.K. prodco BriteSpark, which Saloon had previously partnered with on 10-part series Handsome Devils for Investigation Discovery and Slice in 2014. With the U.K. partner in place, More 4 (Channel 4) came on board as the international broadcaster. 

For Corus, the docuseries presented an opportunity to replicate the success of series like Curse of Oak Island (L.A.-based Prometheus Entertainment), which follows treasure hunters in Nova Scotia.  Oak Island, Godfrey said, offers viewers true-fact content with the excitement of a treasure hunt – a combination that has proven popular with audiences. The series, which is now heading into a fifth season, is the number one show on History Channel in the U.S. Season four averaged 5.4 million viewers across platforms per episode. And in Canada, the series has consistently ranked within the top two programs since its season one premiere, according to Numeris Data provided by Corus.

“[Hunting Nazi Treasure] was a chance for even wider co-viewing for the channel. Often the black-and-white, core history-[themed show] will skew to an older, male audience. We know by modernizing these stories, bringing them to the present and adding those elements that we see on shows like Curse of Oak Island, that can bring in a much wider diverse audience,” Godfrey said. 

The target audience for any History program is always 25 to 54, said Godfrey, and with its modern, adventurous take on a classic history story, “this should hit bull’s eye for us.”

Hunting Nazi Treasure is produced by creator Steve Gamester. Executive producers on the series are Saloon’s Michael Kot and Paul Kilback, BriteSpark’s Nick Godwin, and Paul Heaney and Robert M. Edsel. Kilback, Mick Grogan and Wayne Derrick direct.