04x11 - The Hunt for Stolen n*zi Treasure

[bunniefuu]

Tonight, an enduring

World w*r II mystery.

Somewhere, the Nazis

are sitting on a stockpile

of confiscated wealth.

Vast amounts of art, gold,

silver, and currency

are looted by the Nazis

and stashed all over Europe.

Anything of value

that can be stolen, they steal.

Though some is recovered

in astonishing finds,

much more is still missing.

Now, the mystery begins.

Where else did the Nazis

hide their wealth?

We'll explore the top theories

surrounding this lost treasure.

The CIA documents show this gold

is linked to these

high-ranking Croatian priests.

The n*zi gold train was found

in the Owl Mountains.

The diary says

that something around

$7 million worth of n*zi gold

was stolen by this officer.

Where did the Nazis

take their stolen loot,

and can it ever be found?

April 1945, as Allied forces

advance into n*zi territory,

they occupy the small town

of Merkers, Germany.

Merkers is right

outside of Frankfurt.

From a strategic perspective,

it's fairly unimportant.

The only thing notable

is a salt and potassium mine.

On the morning

of April 6th, 1945,

American m*llitary policemen

are patrolling an area

outside of Merkers

when they stop two refugee women

for violating a curfew.

As they're driving them back

to the American command post,

a German-speaking American MP,

Richard Mootz,

starts interrogating the women.

He wants to know

why they're out walking

in spite of the curfew.

As they drive

by the Kaiseroda Mine,

the women say,

"Forget the curfew.

"How would you like to know

about a significant amount

of stolen treasure?"

That question immediately sparks

intense interest.

Rumors of a vast

n*zi treasure horde

stored throughout Europe

are rampant.

Almost from the moment

that h*tler becomes chancellor

of Germany in 1933,

he instructs his m*llitary

to start stealing gold.

This begins domestically,

confiscating money

from local banks

and from Jewish citizens

that are being displaced

from their homes and sent

to concentration camps.

Once h*tler's army

start invading other countries,

they do more of the same,

and it goes beyond

just stealing gold.

Artwork, jewelry,

silver, platinum

anything of value that

can be stolen, they steal.

So, when the soldiers

hear the rumor

from these women

about stolen treasure,

they definitely take notice.

The news quickly reaches

U.S. General George S. Patton,

commander of the Third Army

in Germany.

By the time General Patton

hears this particular story

from Merkers,

the Allies estimate

that n*zi Germany

has taken nearly $600 million

worth of stolen gold.

This includes 223 million

from Belgium,

193 million

from The Netherlands,

additional gold from Austria

and Czechoslovakia.

And that's just

what Patton knows about.

It doesn't include millions more

in stolen gold

from private citizens

and businesses.

Despite these

estimates, Patton is wary.

Lots of people

have tried to get leniency

with promises

of hidden n*zi treasures,

and almost none of it

has panned out.

But Patton decides

it's still worth looking into,

because he knows that somewhere,

the Nazis are sitting

on a stockpile

of confiscated wealth.

We always have to remember

that even as late as April 1945,

the end of the Second World w*r

was not a forgone conclusion,

and lots of things

could have gone wrong.

Depriving the enemy of

a significant quantity of gold

is the equivalent of driving

a nail into his coffin.

Finding any part

of this treasure

will help the Allied w*r effort.

The only question is,

where is it?

According to the two women

detained in Merkers, it's there,

deep underground

in the local salt mine.

These women claim

to have eyewitnessed

these valuables

being transported

on trucks and crates.

And when valuables are moving

in the wrong direction,

meaning moving to the mine

and going down into it

rather than the other

way around,

that's where their suspicion

about things

of great value came from.

Within hours of the women

telling their story,

General Patton sends a bunch

of resources to Merkers.

He has to use fighting forces

that would otherwise

be committed to battle,

and designate them to come back

to Merkers

to provide a security cordon

around the area,

because after all,

he has to exercise great caution

that this might be a trap.

The next day,

April 7th, American soldiers

start interviewing

other eyewitnesses.

They talk to several men

in and around Merkers

who were forced

to work in the mine,

either clearing out rooms

or bringing gold down into it.

One British POW

who had also been forced

to work in the mine tries

to make a sort of crude map

for the Americans

to show them the location

of the treasure room.

Army engineers survey the area

and start making plans

to descend into the mine.

Patton tells everyone to keep

this potential treasure

top-secret.

Don't report it to anyone

until they have it in hand.

On April 8th,

American forces enter the mine.

I can't imagine what

must have been going

through the mind of these troops

as they go down

into this deep mine.

They don't know

what they're going

to encounter down there,

they don't know who

they're going to encounter

down there.

There could be

armed n*zi guards,

there could be booby traps,

there could be nothing.

Exploring this mine

was no small task.

It's a network of tunnels

below the surface,

18 square miles in overall size.

There's no convenient signage.

There's nothing that says,

"n*zi gold, this way."

But based on

the interviews with people

that work there,

they know to go to a room

called Room Eight.

And as they approach,

it's pretty clear

there's something

very important inside it.

The room is sealed

by a huge steel door.

The door is impenetrable.

But the engineers figure

the adjacent brick wall is not.

So, they load up one side

with dynamite.

That's how they open the vault.

The first thing

the American soldiers see

is gold literally

tons of gold.

This is the motherlode.

Room Eight's not a room at all.

It's more of a cavern

than anything.

It's 75 feet wide,

150 feet deep,

12-foot ceilings

it's a massive open space.

They count 8,198

individual bars of gold,

each worth thousands of dollars.

The world hasn't seen

this much gold in one place

outside of Fort Knox.

And that's just the beginning.

Besides the gold bars,

they also find gold bullion,

currency from England,

France, and Germany,

gold coins, platinum,

and the plates used

to make German Reichsmarks.

Also hidden in the mine,

hundreds of priceless

stolen artworks.

In other words,

this was the largest

German pawn shop of the time.

Anything that had

any value at all

had been crammed

into this one cavern

inside this mine complex.

So, everyone is ecstatic

and amazed

by this once-in-a-lifetime

discovery.

There's so many riches,

so many treasures.

But then they get

to the back of the room,

and the mood changes.

In addition

to the precious metals,

they find 189 suitcases

filled with gold

and silver household items

that have clearly been stolen

from everyday people.

But that's not the worst of it.

In some of the suitcases,

they find a horrific sight

hundreds and hundreds of teeth,

human teeth that all have

gold fillings in them.

Nobody has to ask where

these gold fillings came from.

They already know.

They're the teeth

of thousands of Jews

extracted from the living

and the dead

in concentration camps.

They had gold fillings

ripped out of their head,

because that gold had value.

It gives you an idea

of how cynical

the n*zi view was

towards humanity,

towards human decency

and dignity.

I don't know of anybody else

besides the Nazis

who did anything like that.

As they come to terms

with their grisly discovery,

American forces need

to figure out the next steps.

It's a task so daunting that

Generals Patton and Eisenhower

show up in person to supervise.

The generals approve

a logistical plan

to get all this heavy stuff out

from 2,000 feet below the ground

and move it to safety.

Remember, there's still

a w*r going on very close by,

so it's an already difficult job

made even harder.

As all of this material

is moved from inside the mine

to above ground,

it's taken into Frankfurt

to an old bank building

that had been captured

by Allied forces.

And as all of the material

is being deposited at that bank,

and an accounting of all of it

is being completed,

there's recognition for the fact

that there's a lot

still missing.

The gold, silver, and currency

that was found at Merkers

adds up to about $250 million.

But according

to Allied estimates,

the Nazis stole closer

to $600 million.

So, what was found at Merkers

isn't all of it.

Not even close.

This of course means one thing

there's more out there.

So now, the real mystery begins.

Where else did the Nazis

hide their stolen treasure?

The discovery of

250 Million dollars

in stolen n*zi loot

in Merkers, Germany, in 1945

inspires a m*llitary

treasure hunt

that lasts long after the end

of World w*r II.

The U.S. and our allies

continue to occupy the area

for many months after the w*r.

There's a lot of work

to be done

helping displaced people,

shoring up infrastructure,

cleaning up dangerous unused

amm*nit*on and expl*sives,

and trying to track down

more of what the Nazis stole.

The overall quantity of treasure

that was discovered

at the Merkers mine

is believed to be less than half

of the total amount of treasure

that n*zi Germany looted

during the Second World w*r.

Remember, this wasn't

their gold to begin with.

They took it from governments,

banks, everyday citizens,

all of whom deserve

to have it returned.

It's estimated that about 90%

of what was found at Merkers

was eventually returned

to its rightful owners.

But where

did they hide the rest?

After the salt mine,

we know a few things

about where the Nazis like

to keep their stolen treasure.

It's a remote location.

It has cold low-oxygen

conditions

ideal for preservation,

and it's a facility

that's already

in use for something.

So, trucks coming and going

wouldn't have been seen

as suspicious.

And they don't have to build

a bunch of new stuff.

There's already electricity,

manpower,

and plenty of storage space.

Among the first possibilities,

a n*zi weapons testing facility

in Austria near Lake Toplitz.

Soldiers descend on the area

in May of 1945

and begin interviewing

potential witnesses.

Ida Weisenbacher

provides a personal account

in which she details the way

that German troops

arrived at her home,

and how they got a truck

stuck in the mud,

and they needed assistance

transferring crates

that carried something on board,

onto a horse-drawn cart

so that they could move them

toward the lake itself.

Ida described seeing

possibly hundreds

of sealed n*zi crates,

and they take the crates

up the mountain

in multiple trips.

Ida says she witnesses

all those crates

get dumped into Lake Toplitz.

Ida, of course, has no idea

what's in these crates.

But the Allies suspect

it might be n*zi treasure.

Lake Toplitz sits at the edge

of the Austrian Alps,

an ideal site

for covert operations.

It's so remote

and hard to reach.

The Allies would never spot it.

It's over a mile long,

a quarter of a mile wide

and it has a depth

of up to 300 feet.

This area is known

as the Dead Mountains.

It's inaccessible

and frozen over

for five months of the year.

When it is accessible,

its only entrance

is a steep dirt path.

Let's just say

it's a pretty good place

for the Nazis to hide anything.

These same conditions

make it a difficult place

to search.

First off, it's very hard

to get equipment

in and out of there.

An underwater search

of a 300-foot-deep lake

requires a lot of machinery.

Even just sending in

divers is gonna be difficult.

'Cause keep in mind,

this is the mid-1940s.

At this point, the first

SCUBA apparatus, the Aqua-Lung,

has only just been invented

by Jacques Cousteau.

And there's no such thing

as a dry suit,

which is what divers today

use to keep warm

in cold temperatures.

The Navy spends

two years devising a plan

to explore

the 300-foot-deep lake.

In 1947, they're finally ready.

They go down about 60 feet,

and then they have to stop.

They've encountered

an impenetrable wall of wood.

Toplitz is surrounded

by a forest,

so over the years

trees have fallen into the lake,

creating this wooden barrier

about 60 feet down.

It's very, very

difficult to operate

in that environment.

The divers are challenged

just to get beyond it

to see what's on

the other side of it.

And that could easily hide

things of great value.

The divers then begin

swimming along the barrier

hoping to find the crates

that may have fallen on top.

But sadly,

they don't find anything.

Whatever was in

those crates was heavy enough

to sink past that barrier,

which implies possibly

n*zi gold.

And the fact that these crates

sunk to the bottom

of Lake Toplitz

means it's extremely difficult

to pull them back out.

After one of their

divers drowns in 1947,

the Navy calls off the search.

The Navy finally decides,

this is basically

an impossible task.

But that's not gonna stop

others from trying

to explore Lake Toplitz.

And it doesn't stop people

from dying either.

There's a string

of suspicious death

associated with Lake Toplitz.

These begin

soon after World w*r II ends.

In 1946, two men,

Helmut Mayer and Ludwig Picher,

are both found m*rder*d

near the lake.

During the investigation

into this m*rder,

it is ultimately revealed

that the two men

had once worked

at Lake Toplitz during the w*r.

You have to wonder,

did they come back

knowing there was something

worth retrieving from that area?

They certainly had

the background

to know what might

be down there.

And if so,

were they k*lled because of it?

In the 1950s

there are several more deaths.

In 1952, a French civilian

is found dead at the lake.

And during the investigation

into his death,

the bodies of two other people

are found,

and those two people

have both been sh*t in the head.

This is getting kind of creepy.

One death, that's one thing.

But this is a string

of murders around a lake

that supposedly has n*zi gold

at the bottom.

As these stories start

to spread through the press,

more and more people

really do believe

that there is something

secret and valuable

hidden at Lake Toplitz,

and maybe someone's guarding it.

In 1959, an expedition

sponsored by German magazine

Der Stern,

tries to finally

solve the mystery.

By this time, diving technology

has improved substantially,

so it's slightly less dangerous

to dive the lake.

It's not without risk,

but the Der Stern divers

are able to stay there for more

than five weeks at the site.

And eventually,

they reach the bottom.

What they see

is truly remarkable.

The crates are down there.

This is incredible!

And they're able to bring

15 of them up to the surface.

But when they pry

the crates open,

they don't find gold.

They find paper money,

millions of British pounds

700 million, to be exact.

The reason that the Nazis

dumped all of this

British paper currency

into Lake Toplitz was because

it was all counterfeit.

Back in the 1940s

Adolf h*tler started a plan

called Operation Bernhard

to flood Great Britain

with fake currency

to drive up inflation

and basically wreck

the British economy.

Operation Bernhard

was never fully realized.

And now, thanks to

the Der Stern divers,

we now know what happened

to at least some

of those counterfeit bills.

But is there more to uncover?

The Der Stern divers reported

that there were more boxes

at the bottom of the lake,

but because of all the money

already spent on this mission,

they were told to leave

those boxes alone.

Those 15 crates, though,

linked them directly

to Operation Bernhard,

and they also established

the truth

of the Ida Weisenbacher

personal account.

In the decades since,

several expeditions,

some very well-funded ones,

are mounted to try to recover

the rest of the crates.

They find some n*zi artifacts.

Some divers report

seeing aircraft

and other weapons down there,

but so far,

no stolen n*zi treasure.

Unless we figure out

some technology

to go and drain Lake Toplitz,

it doesn't look to me

like anybody's ever

going to figure out

exactly what's down there.

And so, we're gonna have

to live with this mystery

for a long time to come.

In the immediate aftermath

of the w*r,

the U.S. government

is determined

to find more

hidden n*zi treasure.

From 1945 until 1948,

all branches of the American

m*llitary

are involved in trying to

discover looted n*zi treasure.

And one of the elements

of the American m*llitary

that's involved in this search

is the O.S.S.

The O.S.S., the Office

of Strategic Services,

is the precursor

to today's CIA.

But in 1947,

it's an unexpected agency

that makes a breakthrough.

When we think

of government agencies

and important investigations,

we don't think of the U.S.

Department of the Treasury.

But as it turns out,

a Treasury agent

by the name of Emerson Bigelow

is searching for n*zi treasure.

And in many ways,

a Treasury agent

is the right person

to go sniffing around this idea

of looted n*zi gold.

In 1947 Bigelow sends a memo

to his superiors claiming

to know what happened

to a large chunk

of the stolen n*zi gold.

His memo is so incendiary

that it really just gets swept

under the rug.

And it isn't until

50 years later

when it gets declassified

that this bombshell

finally comes to light.

The Bigelow memorandum

is ultimately revealed

in a 1997 documentary,

and what he found

was that a very, very large

quantity of money

went into a bank account

that was owned by the Vatican.

Bigelow's theory

begins in Croatia.

In World w*r II, the Nazis

set up a puppet government

in Croatia called the Ustasha.

They're in power from 1941

till the end of the w*r in 1945.

Let's be clear

they're put there

by the Nazis, for the Nazis.

The Ustasha are just

as vile as the Nazis.

They participate in the same

form of r*cist terrorism

that's fueled

by a distorted view

of both Roman Catholicism

and Islam

something they called

Croatian Nationalism.

Like h*tler, they want to purify

the blood of the country

by mass-murdering Jews,

Serbs, and Roma.

It's estimated that they k*ll

hundreds of thousands of people.

And the Ustashe extorted gold,

and jewels, and other valuables

from people who they threatened,

saying that, "If you do not

give this to us,

you could be sh*t,

you could be otherwise k*lled."

And so, people who had

the gold, gave it.

They were k*lled

as well as the people

who didn't have the gold,

but that was the Ustashe method.

The stolen gold

is sent to Germany's Reichsbank

to be melted down into bars

and coins.

According to Bigelow's report,

towards the end of the w*r,

the Ustasha make efforts

to hide this money,

and they also help German Nazis

hide some of theirs.

When Bigelow talks

to intelligence agents,

they tell him

that 350 million Swiss Francs

have been taken

out of the country.

That money would be worth

$1.5 billion today.

But more eye-popping

than the amount

is what happened to it.

According to Bigelow's sources,

that transfer of wealth

was overseen by officials

with the Vatican.

Bigelow's sources

claim they have proof.

Some of it was discovered.

About one-third of it

was confiscated

by British authorities

at a checkpoint

on the Austria-Switzerland

border.

It traveled up from Croatia

into Austria,

and Bigelow's sources

believe it was ultimately headed

for a Swiss bank account

owned by the Vatican.

Meanwhile, according to

the Bigelow memo,

approximately 200 million

Swiss Francs' worth of gold

did get through to a Vatican

bank account in Switzerland.

Bigelow's research ends there.

But in 1997,

investigative journalists

Mark Aarons and John Loftus

pick up where he left off.

Mark Aarons has made

a name for himself in Australia

for hunting down former Nazis.

And John Loftus

is a former prosecutor

with the U.S. Department

of Justice's n*zi-hunting unit.

In that capacity,

Loftus has access to CIA files.

As they dig deeper,

more shocking evidence emerges.

The CIA documents prove

that this gold

is directly linked

to these high-ranking

Croatian priests in Rome,

one of which has

a Vatican association,

who are involved in getting

this looted n*zi gold

into Swiss bank accounts.

But that money

doesn't stay in there for long.

They claim some of the n*zi gold

was used

to relocate

Croatian n*zi officials.

Aarons and Loftus' research

seems to blow the lid

off of a three-part scheme

involving the Vatican,

the Nazis, and the Swiss banks.

So, when they publish

their research in 1998,

what do they call the book?

"Unholy Trinity."

Many top-ranking Nazis

are put on trial

and ex*cuted in Nuremberg

after the w*r.

But the Ustasha

are notably absent.

Almost the entire

Ustasha hierarchy

just walks away scot-free.

Their leader, Ante Pavelic,

aka the Butcher of the Balkans,

is actually received

as an honored guest

at the Vatican for two years

after the w*r.

Other high-ranking Ustasha

escape to relative luxury

in South America,

and that's where

some of the gold went.

It paid for passports,

transportation,

places to live,

food to eat, et cetera.

If this is true,

this money goes back

into the hands

of the n*zi puppets

who stole it in the first place.

According to Aarons and Loftus,

the conspiracy

doesn't end there.

Just when you thought

you couldn't be more disgusted

by this whole affair,

it gets worse.

The authors present evidence

that the CIA

not only knew about it,

but they helped make it happen.

In 1998,

the U.S. Congress

passes the n*zi w*r Crimes

Disclosure Act,

which requires the release

of any government records

pertaining to n*zi

w*r criminals.

As a result,

over 300,000 pages of documents

linking the U.S. Army

and the CIA to this

have been disclosed.

And now, declassified

Army Intelligence reports

states that by the summer

of 1947,

the U.S. forces

were actively supporting

the people-smuggling operation.

The CIA wanted Nazis to escape

Europe for two reasons.

Some of them

were advanced scientists

that could help

the U.S. m*llitary.

Others could be planted in areas

that faced the growing thr*at

of Communism.

They placed high-ranking

former Nazis

in various

South American countries

with a mission to quell

any potential

Communist uprisings there

and install

U.S.-friendly leadership.

One of the most notable examples

is Operation Condor,

where n*zi w*r criminal

Klaus Barbie is used

to help overthrow the government

of Bolivia.

The influx of ex-Nazis

into South America

is known as the "ratline."

According to Bigelow,

Aarons, and Loftus,

this ratline operation

was paid for.

It was financed by the very gold

that had been looted

by the Ustasha

on behalf of n*zi Germany

that then ultimately

made its way

into Vatican bank accounts.

But here's the thing.

Whatever wasn't spent

on this nefarious scheme

should still be sitting

in the Vatican's bank.

This could be hundreds

of millions of dollars in gold,

which we'll probably never

be able to recover.

Unsurprisingly, the Vatican

denies every last bit of this.

This is, of course, a denial

coming from an entity

that has a document policy

by which they destroy everything

every 10 years.

One thing we know

if history tells us anything,

it's that money can corrupt

even the most seemingly sacred

institutions.

Perhaps someday,

some long lost document

will show what happened

to all that gold

that made its way

to Switzerland.

But until then, it's part

of the significant tally

that remains lost.

By 1948, 3 years after

the end of World w*r 2

the United States government

begins to slow down efforts

to locate any additional

stolen n*zi goods.

But a global army

of amateur treasure hunters

picks up the mantle,

and in 2015,

one team announces

a breakthrough.

September 4th,

Lower Silesia, Poland.

Researchers Piotr Koper

and Andres Richter

claim that they know

where to find

a massive cache

of n*zi treasure.

Koper is Polish,

Richter is German.

Together, they release

an announcement that they have

received a deathbed confession

from a former German officer

who knew the whereabouts

of a train

laden with n*zi gold

that was on its way

through Poland

and back to Germany,

but it never made it

to its destination.

During the w*r, h*tler orders

that 330 tons of gold

will be loaded onto a train

and moved west

to a more secure location.

If this story is true,

this would represent

a giant chunk of the gold

that we think is still missing.

According to Koper and Richter,

the planned route of the train

was from Breslau

to somewhere in Germany,

but at some point

the train was diverted and sent

near the city of Bydgoszcz.

The question is,

where did it go from there?

The pair starts by looking

for potential hiding spots

along the train route.

h*tler is many things,

but he's not shortsighted.

And by 1943, he sees

how the tides of the w*r

are starting to turn.

Allied air raids are increasing,

and they're taking a toll

on h*tler's w*r machine.

So, he starts making plans

for worst-case scenarios.

This is the beginning

of Project Riese,

h*tler's attempt to fortify

and move his operations

underground.

Project Riese was

a German construction project

during the Second World w*r

that sought to establish

this very extensive

underground bunker network

in the Owl Mountains in Silesia.

The Nazis excavate

a massive labyrinth of tunnels.

Though it's never finished,

some suspect the purpose

is to create

an underground headquarters

and miles of underground

factories

safe from Allied bombers.

Koper and Richter

zero in on a location

near the Project Riese tunnels.

It's a widely held belief

in Poland

that this n*zi gold train

could have entered

Project Riese locations,

and then ended up

where Koper and Richter

are actually looking.

At some point in 2015,

Koper and Richter went

without a license and used

ground-penetrating radar

to do a readout of a site

along the Bydgoszcz rail line.

And they believed

that this showed

an underground structure,

which they believed

was the correct density

to be a train.

Encouraged, the researchers

share their evidence

with the local press.

As Koper and Richter's

claim sort of gets out,

the Polish government,

both local and national,

are forced to respond.

And by and large,

they seem to support

the assertion that the train

is there.

Polish Deputy Culture

Minister Piotr Zuchowski

throws the weight of

the government behind the claim,

saying that there's

a 99% probability

that a train

more than 300 feet long

was found in the Owl Mountains.

Later, it's also revealed

that Koper and Richter

have made a pretty sweet deal

with the Polish government,

saying basically, "Hey,

if you support the excavation,

we'll give you

90% of the profits."

It's an astronomical figure

if it pans out.

This, of course,

ignites a media circus,

and the hunt is on.

Before they can dig,

the Polish Army

is sent in to secure the area.

All of Europe was littered

with munitions after the w*r,

and in this area in particular,

it was a hotspot

of German activity.

So, before there can be

any digging,

they have to perform a UXO,

or unexploded ordnance search.

Then, they clear-cut

the area of its trees.

Finally, they scan

and probe the area

to certify that there are

no dangerous expl*sives below.

On August 15th, 2016,

Koper and Richter, along with

a large group of volunteers,

officially begin digging.

This team consisted

of about 60 people.

They had a geologist,

they had engineers,

they had laborers,

of course Koper and Richter.

The cost of this dig amounted

to about $130,000,

and it was all funded privately.

After one week of digging,

the team halts their work,

finding no evidence of a train,

train tracks, or any other

manmade objects,

at least not to a depth

of 60 feet.

They found that this GPR anomaly

turned out to be a natural

geologic formation.

Koper and Richter

didn't give up,

because at this point,

they claimed to have found

many other anomalies,

but they simply didn't have

the funds to excavate them.

Richter eventually

leaves the team,

but Koper continues to search

for the n*zi gold train.

In 2021, he announces

he's found new evidence

of a train at the bottom

of a lake in a Polish village.

Additional site analysis

is ongoing,

so hopes of recovering

this particular stash

of n*zi gold aren't over yet.

By 2016, most searches for

stolen n*zi plunder

are helmed by amateur

investigators.

Among them, German

treasure hunter Jurgen Proske,

who's working on

a unique approach.

Proske's taken

a different method

for looking into

looted n*zi gold,

whereas others are more consumed

by trying to find additional

hordes or deposits of gold

that are undiscovered out there.

What Proske is doing,

is he's looking at the records

associated with hordes that have

already been discovered

to determine

if anything was overlooked.

He turns his attention

to a story

that unfolds in 1945

at Mittenwald, Germany,

right near the Austrian border.

There, on April 20th, 1945,

n*zi Colonel Franz Pfeiffer

and six officers

gather at a German

m*llitary base.

Coincidentally,

this is h*tler's birthday.

The Allies are closing in,

and Pfeiffer is given

one final mission

to hide a stash of n*zi gold.

The Nazis consider this gold

their last best hope

for preserving

the future of the regime.

The aim is to hide it

until they can return to power

and a new Reich can be formed,

which will be funded

by the gold.

Pfeiffer swears

his men to secrecy,

then orders 365 sacks of gold

loaded onto a convoy of trucks.

The order itself comes

from Reichsfuhrer-SS,

Heinrich Himmler.

Himmler orders several

truckloads of looted valuables

to be transported to the area

where Pfeiffer is in command.

The n*zi's first plan

is to hide it

in this bowling alley

that was abandoned.

So, they bring it all there,

and they deposit it

in the building.

Then, days later,

Allied forces are approaching.

They have to go back, take it

all out of the bowling alley

and find someplace else

to hide it.

It's clear they're gonna

have to move this stuff

much farther away.

So, they choose

a new destination

a lodge up in the mountains

outside of a little town

called Einsiedl.

The lodge is owned

by a man named Hans Neuhauser,

who lives there with his wife

and son.

And Hans basically has no choice

but to let the Nazis in

and do whatever they say.

After unloading

the gold at Neuhauser's lodge,

the Nazis next use mules

to move it

further into the mountains.

In the span of just 24 hours,

the Nazis had dug pits,

and they deposited gold

into these, and then

covered them back up.

And it's none too soon,

because the Allies

arrive on scene

three days later.

The freshly dug pits

are easily spotted

by the Allied soldiers.

In total, 12 tons

of gold bullion is unearthed,

valued at nearly three-quarters

of a billion dollars today.

So, they recover this gold.

It's another great true story

of buried n*zi treasure

that continues to inspire

treasure hunters today.

Most treasure hunters

use this story as evidence

that other undisclosed locations

of n*zi gold may exist.

But not Proske.

Proske decides to keep looking

into this story.

What if the Allies

never found all the treasure?

Is there any evidence to suggest

that some of this

did in fact get left behind?

Sure enough,

Proske finds that evidence.

In 2016, amongst

a collection of antiques,

Proske finds the diary

of a former n*zi officer,

and in it, this guy claims

to have taken

some of the Einsiedl gold

and put it in his own

secret hiding spot.

The diary says that

about $7 million of n*zi gold

was stolen by this officer

and hidden somewhere nearby.

Remember, this is gold

the Nazis stole

that this officer

then stole from them.

According to the diary,

the officer hid the gold

near the base of a steep hill.

On top of the hill

is a flat area with a hut.

To Proske, this is like

a pirate treasure map

that's gonna lead him

right to the gold.

There's just one problem.

The story in the diary

doesn't end after the w*r.

It continues.

Several years later,

the officer goes back

to this location

to dig up the gold.

When he returns,

he can't find it.

He lost it.

The ensuing years

have changed the landscape,

so it looks very different

from when the officer

first buried it.

If that isn't karma,

I don't know what it is.

So, what does this say

to Proske?

It says maybe that gold

is still out there

waiting to be found.

And Proske has something

the officer didn't

a metal detector.

So far, Proske has

made dozens of trips

to this area looking

for the n*zi gold.

And he's found

several promising leads.

He's found grenades,

a n*zi helmet, amm*nit*on

all things which indicate

activity in the area.

And this isn't a place

that had any active fighting

during the w*r.

These artifacts mean

that maybe one or more Nazis

were up to something

in this area.

Maybe hiding gold.

So far,

Proske hasn't found any gold.

But like any good

treasure hunter,

he's still at it.

In 2019, decades after the

end of world w*r 2

a new lead to the location

of lost n*zi treasure emerges.

A Masonic lodge in Quedlinburg

in Germany decides

that they want

to atone for their associations

with Adolf h*tler and the

National Socialist Third Reich.

They have hung onto a large

quantity of documents

relating to the n*zi

time period,

including a diary

that was maintained

by a former SS officer

who wrote under

the assumed name Michaelis.

They decide to give

all this memorabilia

to the Silesian

Bridge Foundation,

a Polish-German

antidiscrimination cooperative,

as sort of an apologetic

gesture.

At first, the Silesian

Bridge Foundation

accepts all this stuff.

Just, "Thank you very much."

It's just a nice way to accept

and heal some of the wounds

from the past.

But when they start

to read the diary,

they realize this gesture

could be worth much more.

It immediately becomes clear

why the author used a pseudonym,

because the diary details

11 different locations

that Himmler himself picked out

to hide n*zi treasures.

Many of these locations

are thought

to include gold coins,

metals, jewelry

items that were deposited

with n*zi police

for safekeeping

as Allied forces approached.

One of these locations

is described

as having 47 valuable pieces

of art from artists

to include Botticelli

and Rembrandt.

The Silesian Bridge

decides to go

and inspect some

of these locations,

and they choose

as their starting point

the biggest horde of them all,

and it's a location

that is supposedly warehousing

28 tons of n*zi gold.

It's hidden in an abandoned

castle

called Hochberg Palace.

The foundation

puts together a search team

led by their president,

Roman Furmaniak.

The location

actually makes sense,

because Hochberg Palace

has a special reputation

as a n*zi hangout

during World w*r II.

During the Second

World w*r, the German m*llitary

maintained a network

of bordellos

some for the common soldiers,

some for the officers.

And during World w*r II,

Hochberg Palace

was what they called

an offizieres bordelle,

meaning an officers' bordello.

It's not all that far-fetched

to assume

that there might have been

some hidden treasure here.

People are constantly

coming in and out

of this location,

so Furmaniak actually obtains

eyewitness accounts of people

who said they saw treasure

being stored in the palace.

Unfortunately, since the w*r,

this site has severely

deteriorated,

making it dangerous to explore.

The team starts

carefully searching the area.

They use

ground-penetrating radar

to sweep the area

for safety purposes,

and in the process,

may have actually revealed

the hiding spot.

The diary says the gold,

48 crates of it,

are buried 200 feet down

at the bottom of a well.

This well would have been

encased in metal.

And in their initial scan,

the team discovers

what appears to be

a large metal casing.

Encouraged

by this promising find,

the foundation hopes

to begin digging soon.

It takes time to coordinate

these big search efforts

like this.

You have to work

with the government,

you have to work with

local authorities.

There's always the danger

of unexploded ordnance,

so you have to coordinate

with the m*llitary as well.

They're only just now

beginning this excavation

at Hochberg Palace,

and who knows what they'll find.

Can you imagine $1.7 billion

worth of n*zi gold

being returned to its victims?

I hope it happens.

The world is watching.

In addition to their research

at Hochberg Palace,

the Silesian Bridge Foundation

hopes to explore the other

10 sites in the diary

one by one.

Each brings a fresh chance

to fully recover

the missing treasure.

And perhaps, one day,

more will be found.

I'm Laurence Fishburne.

Thank you for watching

"History's Greatest Mysteries."