NAZI TREASURE HUNTS
There’s gold in them there Heils!
IN SEARCH OF THE NAZI GOLD TRAIN
Tales of treasure hunters being “on the verge of finding” legendary hoards are all too frequent; news of anyone actually finding something, less so. Gold, jewels, art and unique treasures such as the Russian Amber Room allegedly stolen by the Nazis and stashed at the end of the war (see FT237:20-21) as they escaped are particularly popular.
In 2015 there was much excitement about the “Nazi Gold Train” a supposed armoured train full of gold and art that had been concealed in mine workings somewhere in the Owl Mountains in southern Poland (see FT332:4). Prompted by an alleged deathbed confession from someone involved in concealing the train, treasure hunters Piotr Koper and Andreas Richter carried out a search of abandoned Nazi tunnels with the support of Polish authorities. This produced an anomaly on ground-penetrating radar that prompted the pair to say they were “99% certain” the train was there, creating a media frenzy; then, nothing. The radar trace was revealed to be a natural geological feature, the dig abandoned, and nothing more was heard from the treasure hunters about the mine, apart from a plan to build a replica of the train nearby as a tourist attraction. This appears not to have materialised either, but Koper was back in the news in July 2021, having once again found what he believes is the Nazi Gold Train, this time at the bottom of a lake. He announced that his team had used ground-penetrating radar, bottom sonar, an underwater drone and a proton magnetometer to find indications of steel that could be the train at the bottom of a lake in the Polish village of Zarska Wies. He enlisted the services of famed Polish diver Marcel Korkus to investigate, but the result was once again disappointing; Korkus emerged from the lake and said he could “confirm the existence of a lime kiln in the northwestern part of the body of water”, but was unable to say whether the train was lying beneath the sediment, although he believed it “unlikely”. warhistoryonline.com, 8 Jul 2021.
QUEDLINBURGER CACHE
Meanwhile, in May this year, under a conservatory in an abandoned Polish palace in the village of Minkowskie, described as “a former Nazi brothel”, Roman Furmaniak of the Silesian Bridge Foundation believed he had found a canister containing four tons of Nazi gold worth £200m. The Foundation says that it located the gold using a map from descendants of SS officers belonging to a mysterious religious group known as the Quedlinburgers who were part of a secretive masonic lodge that dates back over 1,000 years. The map was in the diary of an officer named Michaelis, who was said to be the link between senior SS officers and local aristocrats who wanted help to protect their property from the Soviets. Allegedly, the canister contains
Koper believes the Nazi Gold Train is at the bottom of a Polish lake
gold stolen from the Reichsbank in Breslau by Heinrich Himmler in the last months of the war to fund the establishment of the Fourth Reich. “This particular deposit was hidden by an SS officer called Von Stein. The SS planned to use it to reestablish agriculture in Ukraine to feed the new Reich,” said Furmaniak, and apparently the diary details 10 more deposits, still to be found. He claims that he was given the diary because the Quedlinburger group includes the descendants of SS officers who now want to make a gesture of atonement for Poland’s suffering at the hands of Germany during World War II. Beyond Furmaniak’s claims, nothing seems to be known about the Quedlinburgers, but the town of Quedlinburg, in lower Saxony, was strongly associated with a Nazi cult in the 1930s and 1940s due to its links with the 10th century king, Henry the Fowler, often described as the first king of Germany; Himmler appeared to believe he was a reincarnation of Henry (see FT196:32-39).
Furmaniak says that three German historical institutions have confirmed the genuineness of the diary – although this is just to say that the materials in it are consistent with a mid-20th century origin, not that they verified its contents – while Magdalena Tomaszewska from the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, to whom the diary had been made available, would only say that the Ministry could not yet confirm the diary’s authenticity. Having used ground penetrating radar at the location where they believe the diary indicates the gold was buried, Furmaniak’s team found a structure 10ft (3m) down that was thought to be a drum 5ft (1.5m) long and 20in (50cm) across. When they drilled at the spot, according to Furmaniak, “The first drill showed unnatural contortions.” A second probe to the other side behaved in the same way, while the third struck an object. Apparently all that remained to be done before the treasure hunters could get their hands on the gold was for the Polish army to check the alleged container for booby traps before it could be raised to access the treasure. However, at the time of writing, they would seem to still be waiting, as nothing further has been heard from Furmaniak and his foundation. D.Mail, 12 May 2022; Sun 12 May 2022.