SS Bank Heist - Berlin 1945

[Music] many people are today aware that in the last months of the war in europe the germans hid vast quantities of gold currency and other treasure in southern germany and austria in a desperate attempt to prevent its capture by the advancing allies the most famous of these caches was the biggest the story had begun with an air raid on berlin on the 3rd of february 1945 when 950 u.s b-17 flying fortress bombers had devastated the center of hitler's battered capital killing 3 000 civilians and rendering 120 000 homeless among the buildings hit was the giant reichsbank building a huge turn of the century edifice as big as the nearby reich chancellery the bank's 5000 employees survived inside basement bunkers but the building's upper stories were all but destroyed it was decided soon after to move much of the bullion and currency assets out of the building to safety outside the city a very deep potassium mine at mercas 200 miles southwest of berlin was selected over a hundred tons of gold plus bundles and boxes of paper currencies smaller caches of gold coins and many other valuables were transferred to the kaiserholder mine and carefully sealed up huge amounts of our treasures from german museums and also those looted from occupied territories were placed in the mine which had over 30 miles of underground galleries the complete hoard was almost the entire remaining wealth of nazi germany it's been estimated to value around seven billion dollars at today's prices unfortunately for the germans the u.s advance east was quicker than they had anticipated america's was captured by the u.s 90th infantry division of patton's third army on the 4th of april 1945. the americans didn't know about the buried treasure for two days until french forced labourers and a british pow sergeant who had been part of the massive amount of labor used to move the gold and the other treasures into the mine told them the incredible story after breaking into the mind the americans discovered the biggest treasure horde in human history so following the movement south of the bulk of the reichsbank's remaining bullion and paper money that ended up captured by the americans at murkers the story appears to be at an end or is it actually a considerable amount of bullion and currency remains securely under lock and key in berlin the soviets had been headed towards berlin for some time and appeared poised to launch a final offensive across the river order about a hundred kilometers east of the city something therefore needed to be done the reichsbank president dr walter funk persuaded hitler to authorize another movement of cash and bullion south to be stashed in the mountains of austria and bavaria the temporary reichsbank building where the remaining valuables had been moved after the other building had been destroyed still held 6.83 per cent of germany's gold the balance having been lost at murkers there were also many millions in paper currencies reichsmarks us dollars british pounds swiss francs etc the reichsbank branches began consolidating assets and shipping some of it to berlin to be placed in a special shipment south for example 780 gold bars arrived in berlin and 730 with us sent south 50 bars were retained in berlin they joined 40 other gold bars still in the vaults and never sent to meccas in mid-april two special trains and a truck convoy from the berlin police left the capital for bavaria in addition to the gold bars shipped out there was also at today's prices three billion dollars of paper currencies including 52 bags belonging to the reich main security office the rsha the central administration of the ss state due to allied interdiction of the road and rail system it took the germans almost two weeks to travel 500 miles south and along the way large amounts of cash and bullion were stashed in various places mostly in secret locations some of it given to ss officers but that's another story we will be concentrating on berlin and the wealth they left behind on the 22nd of april 1945 rene dyer's situation conference in the fura bunker hitler had suffered what many at the time assumed was a nervous breakdown the soviet offensive had crossed the oda river on the 16th of april battled through the last major german defenses east of the capital on the zelo heights and pressed on to the city's outer defence ring arriving on the 20th of april hitler's 56th and last birthday the soviets began to progressively surround berlin and started to fight towards the city center a plan was already in place codenamed operation ceralio to evacuate hitler and his inner staff to the obersalzberg in bavaria to continue the war from hitler's house in the mountains but on the 22nd of april hitler went berserk when his last military moves in berlin were frustrated by too few troops and equipment once he stopped shouting about the treachery of the army and the waffen-ss tasked with fending off the red army in the capital he announced to his shocked audience that the war was lost and he would stay in berlin to the end then shoot himself operation cerralio did happen and i've dealt with this movement of many key personnel south in a previous video link in the end screen for many senior nazi party and ss officials hitler's apparent abdication of responsibility as fuhrer and intention to die meant that it was time for them to start looking to their own survival and to survive meant access to money dr ernst kaltenbrunner the tall scarface austrian leader of the rsha had already moved south to austria on the 20th of april where he had a property reichsfuhrer ss himmler who also had escaped from berlin north had named kaltenbrunner commander-in-chief of german forces in southern europe but in reality kaltenbrunner and his staff were preparing to save their own necks with roots out of berlin soon to be cut by the soviets kaltenbrunner sent a message to one of his department heads still in berlin to take immediate action s s standard fuhrer joseph spacio was the head of the rsha's section 2 budget and administration effectively a chief accountant in 1940-41 spasil had been commander of the security police in the netherlands and was a wanted war criminal he may also have been involved with operation bernhard the ss forging operation that used concentration camp prisoners to produce millions of fake british banknotes in any case what better man to lead a bank robbery than a hardened ss officer who was also an accountant on the 22nd of april 1945 spazil accompanied by members of his staff and other ss troops arrived outside the reichsbank in a small convoy of cars and trucks marching into the building pistol drawn sparsil bruscley ordered the bank's employees to open the vaults sparsils men took jewels including diamonds securities including bearer bonds and all the remaining bags of foreign exchange the remaining gold bullion appears not to have been taken as it would have been too heavy to move by air now the only viable way to leave the capital at today's prices spacio's little robbery netted the ss over 131 million dollars and if you are wondering what became of the gold bullion left in the vaults the red army took it after the 2nd of may when berlin surrendered spazil's next part of the plan involved getting the hell out of dodge everything had however already been laid on the small collection of vehicles drove straight through the shattered streets to one of the airfields still in german hands the currency and valuables along with his staff and their family members boarded awaiting junckers 52 transport and under cover of darkness took off out of the burning city and headed first to prague to refuel and then on to salzburg in austria close to hitler's mountaintop headquarters at the auburn salzburg arriving safely at salzburg airport spasil was met by an ss truck and the loot offloaded spaso ensured that his wife was taken to safety at bad issue a pretty spar town in upper austria the truck was driven to bergvis some days passed until reports began to arrive that french and american forces were closing in on the region on the 4th of may espacio had a meeting with the gaul leiter of salzburg and several ss officers the situation was clearly dire the americans were expected to capture salzburg and the actress garden very soon the solution was to bury a portion of the loot on a steep slope under trees near the row between taksenbach and roris later more of the stolen treasure was packed into six jute sacks and an iron chest and buried in another hole near raris spasil still had plenty of loot with him this he began to give out to his staff and other ss officers on the 7th of may sparsel met wanted war criminal ss brigada fura erik naumann of the ss security police and a former einsatzgruppen death squad commander on the eastern front they drove to rajdthat in austria to meet one of the most infamous ss officers of the war uberstumbanfura otto scotseni hitler's commando leader scorseni was famous for having liberated deposed italian dictator benito mussolini from a mountaintop hotel in 1943 in a daring glider raid and was also famous to americans for the secret mission to infiltrate english-speaking ss commandos behind american lines from the battle of the bulge sparse hill handed to scotceni's adjutant hobstone fuhrer carl radl in 1945 currency values 50 000 francs in gold coins ten thousand swedish crowns five thousand us dollars five thousand swiss francs and five million reichsmarks worth today of course many millions the next day the eighth of may the very last day of world war ii in europe at fishhorn castle space hill handed to ss hobstone fuhrer franz conrad who had been responsible for requisitioning all factories and jewish property in the warsaw ghetto five 500 000 reichsmarks the 55 men in conrad's command also received all their back pay all of this loot was carefully hidden the ss officers hoping to use it as bargaining chips to obtain their freedom if or rather when the u.s rounded them up dr kaltenbrunner and scorceney went into hiding in the mountains with small groups of their men hoping to wait out the storm as u.s forces took control of the area on the 8th of may esparzo changed from his ss colonel's uniform into a german army corporals uniform and joined the retreating 352nd infantry division as it surrendered to the americans but sparsel was soon identified and interrogated spazil led the americans to one of his caches believing that they would release him at raurus under a barn the americans discovered 19 bags of gold coins weighing 10 and a half kilos in total worth today 1 million 772 000 in the house's attic they found several sacks of u.s dollars and british pounds a total today of around eight million dollars more stashes were found further eroding what spazzle and his men had stolen from berlin but at the end of the operation unknown to the americans 123 million dollars today's values remained unaccounted for so what became of it well unfortunately unlike in the movies in this story the bad guys actually won and won big you remember scott saney's cut that was calculated to be tens of millions of dollars at today's prices scotceni gave himself up on the 16th of may 1945 and was extensively interrogated concerning his many wartime exploits but in three years of imprisonment he kept his mouth shut never mentioning the reichsbank treasure he had hidden found not guilty of any war crimes he actually escaped from us custody with the help of some of his wartime comrades when scorceney resurfaced in spain in 1950 he was immensely wealthy he became part of the madrid high society married a countess and dealt in arms his arms and railway stock deals amounted to over 53 million dollars in today's money and it was pretty obvious where that had originated a lot of this cash was used to help fund the ss escape organization de spiner the spider which spirited away many war criminals into hiding in south america otto scorseni died in madrid in 1975 age 67. joseph sparcell testified against his former boss calton brunner at the nuremberg trials and was later working as a clerk in munich it has been alleged that he owned a chain of supermarkets sparsel died in 1967 at the age of 60. as for the reich bank treasures still today huge sums remain missing unaccounted for since nineteen forty five how much try five point six billion dollars a lot of it is actually held in banks in switzerland vatican city london and many other capital cities and perhaps many millions still remain hidden in caches in the austrian and bavarian alps or at the bottom of alpine lakes just waiting to be found thanks for watching please subscribe and share and also visit my audiobook channel war stories with mark felton you can also help to support both of my channels at paypal and patreon details in the description box below you

Channel: Mark Felton Productions

Views: 995,074

Rating: 4.9514728 out of 5

Keywords: Bank Heist, Robbery, Gold, Berlin, Skorzeny, Mark Felton

Id: eMy-AKoZEvA

Length: 15min 59sec (959 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 31 2021

Reddit Comments

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[u/The_notorious_F_A_T]

This sounds like a real version of “Kelly's Heroes”. Loads of interesting historical You Tube videos on this guy's channel. Very well done.

[u/Sirosky]

Somehow I knew it was Mark Felton video before clicking on it. Mark Felton produces interesting and entertaining videos. But keep in mind that he's not exactly a credible source. Felton has engaged in plagiarism without fact checking the content he plagiarized. Others have also raised concerns over the quality of his content.

TL;DR: man's content is interesting and easy to digest, but he is not a credible source. Doesn't hurt to watch for fun, but if you're interested in a subject, and want to learn more, please don't rely on this channel.

[u/WearingMyFleece]

It’s astonishing the lengths SS went to preserve themselves after the war. Looting their own country of its wealth and dressing up as Wehrmacht soldiers to escape interrogation. Some surviving and using their loot to help others escape Europe.

[u/cman_the_bartard]

My grandfather said when he worked with former woffen SS in the Congo they had a habit of making the first mission object the banks when taking an area .

[u/AngryTheian]

Hmmm, these are big numbers.

10.5 kilos in 2021 gold prices is about 630K not 1.75 million. If you use the 1945 gold price, then adjust for 2021 buying power its even less, about 187K.