‘Deathbed confession’ led treasure hunters to Nazi gold train
Polish minister says man who helped to conceal the locomotive in 1945 revealed its hiding place
‘We do not know what’s inside the train, but its armour indicates it has a special cargo’
THE tale of the legendary Nazi gold train took another twist yesterday, when a Polish minister said that the train’s existence was confirmed in a deathbed confession.
Piotr Zuchowski, head of conservation at the culture ministry, said the authorities had seen radar images of a train discovered by two treasure hunters – and that its location was divulged to its finders by one of the men who hid it.
“A man on his deathbed gave the people looking for the train the information they needed to find it,” Mr Zuchowski said. He described the find as “unprecedented”.
Since the end of the Second World War, rumours of a Nazi gold train that disappeared without trace in the last days of the conflict have swirled around the town of Walbrzych, near the Polish-Czech border. Stories placed the train in the hills around the town, where the Nazis dug a complex of tunnels, but despite many attempts to track it down it was never found – until now, it seems. Mr Zuchowski told a press conference yesterday that the dying man was involved in the operation to hide the train 70 years ago.
The identity of the man and the two treasure hunters – believed to be a Pole and a German – who claimed the find last week have not been revealed, and remain part of the mystery surrounding the train.
Mr Zuchowski said he was “99 per cent” sure that the train had been found after seeing photographs of an object taken with ground-penetrating radar. “This is unprecedented. The train is over 100 metres long, and is armoured. We do not know what’s inside but its armour indicates it has a special cargo,” said Mr Zuchowski. “There is probably military equipment but also jewellery, works of art and archive documents which we knew existed but never found.”
The suggestion that the train carried stolen personal items, rather than solid gold blocks, has provoked keen interest among specialists in returning looted property to their lawful owners.
“We are still very keen to establish the facts surrounding the content of this train, but certainly the discovery alone is of great interest,” said Mary Kate Cleary, research and due diligence director at the Art Recovery Group. “The Nazis engaged in a systematic campaign to loot works of art and cultural property from public and private collections in Europe, with close to 80,000 objects confiscated in Poland alone. If even a fraction of that number can be recovered from this train, then we could be witnessing one of the most significant finds in modern history,” she said.
The authorities and the finders have kept the exact location of the train secret because of fears that it could be booby-trapped and that any explosives around it could have become unstable, and thus pose a danger to other treasure hunters who have reportedly descended on Walbrzych in the hope of getting to the train first. Despite the news blackout on the location, Radio Wroclaw, a radio station in southern Poland, claimed the train was located somewhere beside a two-mile stretch of the Wroclaw-Walbrzych main line near Walbrzych. This would tie in with one of the original rumours of a gold train, which said the Nazis had parked a locomotive with trucks in a tunnel off the main line and then concealed the entrance. Although the exact contents of the train are still unclear, Mr Zuchowski said the two treasure hunters were in line for some kind of reward for their efforts.
“If it is confirmed the train is carrying valuable items, the finders can expect a 10 per cent finder’s fee, either in the form of a reward from the ministry or from the owners of the property,” said the vice-minister.
“Of course any items of value will be returned to their original owners, assuming we can find them.”
Archaeologists have said that any excavation process could take months. Along with the fear of landmines, unstable explosives and booby-traps, the train could now be buried under tonnes of earth and rock.