The Peculiar Case of the Buried Nazi Gold Train
May 5, 2016 6:26 AM Subscribe
Ever since the end of World War II, there have been rumors in Poland that the Nazis hid a substantial part of the loot from their European conquests in hidden tunnels underneath the Owl Mountains near Książ Castle. A number of independent researchers have worked to discover the location of these tunnels, but in the end, they found nothing.
...or did they?
A German and a Pole start digging for a train... sounds like some sort of joke.
posted by Capt. Renault at 7:02 AM on May 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Capt. Renault at 7:02 AM on May 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
They should probably rewrite the URL on the last article to disambiguate that they're talking about hunters for a Nazi gold train, not gold train hunters who are Nazis.
posted by acb at 7:19 AM on May 5, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by acb at 7:19 AM on May 5, 2016 [2 favorites]
I will always read stories about Nazi gold, which makes me feel bad because I find this aspect of these really awful people to be just the coolest thing. Thanks!
posted by lownote at 7:27 AM on May 5, 2016
posted by lownote at 7:27 AM on May 5, 2016
This kind of feels like Oak Island - Polish Edition to me.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:45 AM on May 5, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by Chrysostom at 7:45 AM on May 5, 2016 [4 favorites]
Also the subject of a fascinating article in this week's New Yorker. The scale of the Project Riese fortifications is pretty mindboggling:
The German historian Franz W. Seidler, in his book “Hitler’s Secret Headquarters,” writes, “The enormous scale of this project defies the imagination.” The total floor space of the facilities exceeded a hundred and ninety thousand square metres, which is almost forty times as large as the White House. The project’s engineers estimated that it would take 6.3 million workdays to complete. Albert Speer, the Third Reich’s Minister of Armaments and Munitions, wrote, in his memoirs, that Hitler and other Nazi leaders were worried about their survival “to an insane degree.” Reflecting on the Riese project, he complained that Hitler used far too many resources to build “that huge bunker,” noting that it “consumed more concrete than the entire population” of the country “had at its disposal for air-raid shelters in 1944.”
No one knows exactly what the Nazis were planning. The few surviving documents indicate that Riese was intended to be a bombproof refuge for the Nazi élite. Seidler estimates that it would have been capable of accommodating twenty-seven thousand people.
The prospect of finding gold seems much more boring than the potential to be the 1st person to discover a closed-off section of the system, or to get a good clue as to its intended purpose.
posted by ryanshepard at 9:18 AM on May 5, 2016 [8 favorites]
The German historian Franz W. Seidler, in his book “Hitler’s Secret Headquarters,” writes, “The enormous scale of this project defies the imagination.” The total floor space of the facilities exceeded a hundred and ninety thousand square metres, which is almost forty times as large as the White House. The project’s engineers estimated that it would take 6.3 million workdays to complete. Albert Speer, the Third Reich’s Minister of Armaments and Munitions, wrote, in his memoirs, that Hitler and other Nazi leaders were worried about their survival “to an insane degree.” Reflecting on the Riese project, he complained that Hitler used far too many resources to build “that huge bunker,” noting that it “consumed more concrete than the entire population” of the country “had at its disposal for air-raid shelters in 1944.”
No one knows exactly what the Nazis were planning. The few surviving documents indicate that Riese was intended to be a bombproof refuge for the Nazi élite. Seidler estimates that it would have been capable of accommodating twenty-seven thousand people.
The prospect of finding gold seems much more boring than the potential to be the 1st person to discover a closed-off section of the system, or to get a good clue as to its intended purpose.
posted by ryanshepard at 9:18 AM on May 5, 2016 [8 favorites]
Next season on The Detectorists...
posted by Mick at 12:14 PM on May 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Mick at 12:14 PM on May 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
Wow, this New Yorker story about the treasure hunters and the semi-mythical "guards" who protect it -- it's just fantastic. Some of them think the Nazis captured an alien spaceship and hid that in the tunnels!
THIS IS AWESOME.
... except, of course, for the nightmare of how the tunnels were excavated and built -- with slave labor, most of whom didn't survive the experience.
So, fascinating to read about, but also chronicles a truly horrifying thing.
posted by suelac at 12:15 PM on May 5, 2016 [2 favorites]
THIS IS AWESOME.
... except, of course, for the nightmare of how the tunnels were excavated and built -- with slave labor, most of whom didn't survive the experience.
So, fascinating to read about, but also chronicles a truly horrifying thing.
posted by suelac at 12:15 PM on May 5, 2016 [2 favorites]
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But it wasn't Geraldo's fault!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 6:35 AM on May 5, 2016 [4 favorites]