The Hunt For The Nazi Gold Train Hidden In A Sealed Tunnel | Secrets Of The Reich | Real History

ever since the end of the second world war there have been rumors of hidden treasure the fabled Nazi gold the rumors lure treasure Hunters they can find Fame adventure and perhaps wealth it has a romantic feel to it and adventurous feel to it and it takes hold of you in 2015 there was a rumor to top them all the Nazi gold train it was said to have disappeared Without a Trace in the final months of the second world war in Europe had the train now been discovered in [Music] Poland it All Began in the summer of 2015 V is a city in lower Silesia Poland it was there near the line to r that the gold train was said to be hidden could an international sensation lie buing here Poland's top protector of monuments had no doubts that statement really fired people up conjecture became almost definite fact gold train fever broke out the buried train was said to lie underneath an embankment right beside the tracks it was great fun for the holidays especially for the hordes of [Music] sightseers has all the elements of a good thrill you good Adventure uh you know got gold hidden trains Nazis the gold train story was ideal for the Silly Season but at the 65 km marker in volik journalists from all over the world waited and watched to see if there was something more the area was sealed off and guarded Around the Clock even the Polish Minister for culture permitted herself to dream the Nazis plundered Museums Art Collections and art dealers all over Europe the most Brazen plunderer of them all was Hitler's Deputy Heron guring he said that he planned to do plenty of looting even of items that were out of fashion and so he [Music] did The Pick of the history of European art decorated kinhal his country house on the shaider heath near Berlin guring constantly vied with his warlord Adolf Hitler another great art Thief who stole works for a huge Museum that he had in mind for his native city of lint in May 1945 American troops seized a whole Train full of art Treasures in Hitler's Retreat Bea's Garden it was just part of ging's booty and only a small part of what the Nazis had plundered overall American experts began a systematic search for the looted art and they found it 5 million items of which 4 million had been been stolen or extorted from their owners the hall was worth billions and some of it has not been found to this day one example is the legendary Amber Room from the Catherine Palace near and Petersburg it was priceless the palace now has an exact replica in the original location but where is the real Amber Room what we definitely know about the Amber Room is that the Germans captured the Amber Room in the outskirts of Leningrad in in 1941 they brought the Amber Room um to kbur and there in 44 in late 44 Autumn 44 it disappeared so we know that in August 1944 there was was a heavy um air raid on on on kckb by the Royal Air Force and there's rumor that uh it was destroyed the Amber in in this specific attack others said no um it it was um it was safe it was not in the castle anymore and it was evacuated to western parts of the Reich was the Amber Room destroyed or was it transported further west theories abound more than about any other Nazi treasure it's a story without an ending uh well it it certainly is never ending because it's been going on uh for the past 70 years uh that's the first thing second thing is even in the 40 years that I had an interest in this area I could say that probably I've come across I don't know between 15 and uh 20 different scenarios where where it's been found or nearly found should we say add to them the latest scenario the ambero room was on a train a train that ended up in lower Silesia possibly here near the raway line at the 65 km marker in valik you can even write a book about uh the search for the Amber Room it's it's it's as such a whole story and of course it's um everything is possible I mean we have to see that that in 1945 um in the Reich there was a house and it's very very difficult to exclude a specific option a specific solution that this doesn't exist it's very difficult but uh on the other hand um it's very interesting to see that um since the 1940s nothing had be found I mean in 1940 the Allies um found a lot of treasures beat gold beat art whatever you want name it but after that time nothing had to be found and even after the German re unification when when hundreds of New Treasure Hunters searched in the tunnels of the former gdr nothing was found bigger than the rusty steel helmet immediately after the Allied victory in May 1945 American Specialists began looking for the stolen Treasures for Nazi [Music] gold the American forces were spending a lot of time looking for uh gold that had been stashed there by um um verar and SS troops some of it was found in in mountains some of it had been put in Lake some of it had been hidden in in in farms and and many many places few people are as well informed on Nazi Treasures as British author Ian saer he is probably the only private individual who has laid his hands on Nazi gold in recent decades he discovered it not in some dark hiding place but in a safe deposit box in a bank I got in touch with the American state department and suggested they start investigating a bank account in Munich um it did take them 13 years but at the end of that they did find two bars of gold that had shall we say disappeared in inverted commas um and had disappeared since 1945 this was not the only case for example in 1945 a train full of treasures stolen by the DSs from Hungarian Jews was seized by the US Army in Austria this really was a gold train it carried 52 boxes of gold and diamonds 1,560 boxes of silver the gold and cash reserves of a bank and many paintings a large part of the treasure disappeared after the American seized it it took 60 years for the US government to reach a settlement not everyone who came across such treasure proved honest the Temptation was certainly great given the value of the plunder today it seems highly likely that almost all of the documented Holdings of Nazi gold were recovered soon after the war but who can be sure personally I think I could say that um there there may be a small amount of Nazi gold to be found um this would probably be um gold that was hidden by people that uh died before they could get to it otherwise you'll appreciate that if you hide Nazi gold and and and you don't die under unforeseen circumstance you'd probably want to convert it into something like um cars uh houses and various other things so um there might still be some there but could there be hundreds of tons buried beneath this Railway line the treasure hunter Andreas rer would be pleased he and his partner would get a 10% finders fee in September 2015 they released a statement prepared by their lawyer we rich and copper would not say much more than that nor would they make public whatever evidence they had of their supposed F they said that they had found the train with a device like this a frequency modulated continuous wave radar system in other words ground [Music] radar the technology has several advantages private individuals can afford it and the testing method is simple saying like a number of academic experts Andreas oberholtz was cautious about the reliability of 3D imaging and Cooper were not the only ones inol who dreamt of finding the gold train the retired minor tados schakowski had spent half his life under its spell he acquired wartime German maps and even without Geo radar he concluded that the train lay hidden in the very spot where Risha and copper said it was according to slovik kovski a German Railway official gave him a crucial tip decades ago and that tip convinced him that the train was there one of the many people interested in the location of the train is Crystal fulan she advises the vuk city council and has been trying to solve the Region's underground puzzles for 15 years [Music] Crystal works with satellite images that clearly show up any irregularities in the terrain from the images she concluded that the railway track once ran between the suspected location of of the gold train and the most important building in vuk fonstein Castle now known by its polish name zamek in 1943 the castle was requisitioned for conversion into a regional headquarters for Hitler code named Rea or giant it was one of 20 fura headquarters located all over [Music] Europe nobody asked the question about money is it does it make any sense it was Hitler's decision somehow he was a travel Emperor like in the medieval times if you want Hitler did not lead um the armed forces and politics from the capital which is the normal way how it was done um remember the cabinet rooms in London or or other things in in was and so for and so forth but he led the the war and the third drive from various headquarters so this is the reason why so we have so many headquarters big headquarters with a lot of Bankers tunnels whatever in all of Europe these lift shafts descend 50 m from the castle into the depths of the Mountain at the bottom there is a Labyrinth of corridors and rooms on the next level down is an extensive network of tunnels they were to house the logistics of the fura headquarters but in some places the tunnels end in rubble and debris what lies behind it [Music] What secrets does still conceal might the closed off portion of the tunnel complex contain a rail link to the outside or even a full railway station as Chrystal fulin Suspects Hitler's Z Tu his special train at times during the war it was his most important means of transport and it was more than that the furus train was a special design um for um a moving headquarter if you want and this is very much a a design from the early stage of the war Hitler used it massively in 39 in Poland and also 1940 and this idea that the leader has to be close to the front it's not very far away in the capital and goes to the Opera and and whatever but he in a way has to share the experience and has to be close to his to his headquarters um and because it's it's a very it's a moving it's a modern moving War um he has to use um a moving headquarter if you want always ready to depart so could there have been a service center for Hitler's train here where the gold train is said to be one thing is certain Hitler's train itself is definitely not here we know that it was based in a tunnel um at templehof Airfield and it was then moved mov um out of the capital out of Berlin to Austria and it was blown up at selam in Austria single cars of the train have survived in other places and and were used by by the Federal Republic of Germany and and others but the whole train ended this is very sure ended in telami in May 1945 in late September 2015 the Polish Army took over the suspected location of the gold train sappers moved in looking for booby traps mines or unexploded [Music] [Music] [Music] bombs P copper one of the two hopeful gold train Hunters was disappointed he thought that searching to the depth of a meter was nowhere near enough all they would find would be Earth copper and risher believed that their GE radar modeling had identified a train like this a German armored train of the kind used to patrol railway lines during the war some of these trains are still missing to this day would one now be found in vsit of course it's possible that somebody brought the train um shortly before Brea was totally surrounded by the Red Army and circled by the Red Army out of brlo to protect um the railway tracks and whatever so this is possible we don't know it um it's not not for sure but it's still an option mobile gun turrets these armored trains were built in Breslau some of these trains survived and and they had they had guns had anti aircraft guns anti tank guns and obviously we know for sure that one of these trains ended up in breast slow and was because of his guns was used against the Red Army at the end of January 1945 the Red Army Was preparing its assault on Silesia it was closing the ring around the silesian capital Breslau known today as rof a railway line ran from the capital to valuk then known by its German name of Valen B on that line not far from venburg 15-year-old Gothard veltz saw something one night in January he's never forgotten [Music] it vly SC Byers what did Gothard velt see that night was it a train transporting tanks or was it an armored train like the one said to lie hidden in VB problem with eyewitnesses is not that they deliberately are lying and and tell you any any for stories but um you know we know how the human memory works and the human memory always you know fits pieces and bits together from the past and from very recent times I saw a train and I'm still really believing it so therefore it's the memory of an eyewitness is only pushes Us in the direction and we have to verify and have double check it if this can really be the case [Music] in January 1945 the fate of Breslau hung in the [Music] balance the Nazis declared the city a fortress despite its obvious lack of defenses gaigher Kyle Hunker demanded allout resistance to the end overturned trams were supposed to hold back the tanks of the Red Army the most most powerful land force in the world by mid-February the Red Army had cut Breslau off [Music] completely in the name of self-defense Breslau committed suicide buildings were blown up so that Red Army soldiers couldn't occupy [Music] them G hunka had a corridor blasted through the center of the city to build an air [Music] [Applause] strip while they were strafed by low flying planes [Music] pointless deaths the airstrip was only ever used once by hunka himself on the 6th of May 1945 he disappeared from breslo it's a sad part of the story to put it that way that these agitator who uh always delivered this hate speeches uh and never give up speeches and presented him himself as a core of the defense that these gaigher tried to escape and obviously made it out of brla this is what we know for sure that that he made it out of brlo and then he disappeared did Hunker make plans for after Germany's defeat did he have valuables taken out of Breslau before it was cut off works of art gold he had the authority this is another angle that has treasure Hunters [Music] speculating after the war polish intelligence interrogated a former Breslau policeman who had remained in Poland instead of fleeing to Germany as most other Germans did hair closer testified after at first denying it that at the end of the war the SS and the police had amassed a horde of gold in the Breslau Police Headquarters the gold came mainly from the city's Banks and it was stored in dozens of large boxes he only found out later what the boxers had held the so-called breau gold treasure has never been found could this be another piece in the gold train puzzle [Music] or is it only a persistent [Music] rumor rumors start sort of rumor did you see that train what train oh that armored train oh so and and it it it grows like Topsy it sort of gets bigger and bigger and and and bigger and larger and more valuable and and of course then there's the sort of well there still there are um there tunnels in there and and there's you can't get to them anymore they blew them blew the entrances up so well do you think that that any of those trains are still well there could be you know and do you think those trains could have treasure well why else would they blow them up you and and suddenly you've got this sort of question and answer thing going on with people saying well that's right that could have happened this could have happened suddenly all of that is not conjecture anymore it's fact V November 2015 once the Polish Army had declared the area safe geophysicists from the CAU University of Technology examined it closely look over there said toos sovi the first treasure hunter the points for the train were in that depression about 100 met along this is what supposedly happened the train turned off from the main line line and entered the tunnel the tunnel entrance was then blown up to seal it but did it happen light would soon be shed an object as large as a train undiscovered for over 70 years would be a real sensation but why did no one mention this operation back in 1945 you've got a train driver you've got uh ver marked officers you've got people looking after the treasure so everybody comes out okay before they Dynamite it and nobody says anything at the end of the day seven decades later all the others have said nothing and one person has has said well look I'm just want to tell you where it is now before I die uh Is it feasible I my answer to that would be not at all besides there were more logical places to hide a train a few kilometers south of valuk is the ox head Tunnel located well outside the city it was intended to be a shelter for Hitler's special train behind that at the former charot and Bron military railway station there is a 200 square km area full of underground puzzles here in the owl mountains the Nazis built gigantic tunnel systems as part of the Rea fura headquarters project Rea is first of all a headquarter um headquarters for Hitler so a lot of tunnels bunkers um facilities for Hitler himself but also for his staff um and his political staff staff and for the whole Armed Forces so it's it's a huge it's a huge complex but there's a plus so on top of this as an addon was the idea of the relocation of the German industry um below ground level so because of the a light air attacks became worse and worse and worse there was a decision that um key Industries um should be relocated into Tunnels for in the last years of the war the Luft vafer was l and less capable of countering the Allied bomber offensive during the day the Americans systematically destroyed German industry while at night the British laid waste to Germany's major cities virtually all of them went up in flames in the last years of the [Music] war in mid 1943 a huge construction project got underway hundreds of German Armament companies were moved into bombproof underground galleries like these in schvatz in trol today these places are monuments to homicidal megalomania then they were top priority sites for building jet fighters and long range missiles Advanced new weapons that were supposed to turn the tide of the war back in Germany's favor the production and development of the Rockets were part of the evergrowing empire of Hinrich himmler's SS most of the rocket assembly was done by slave laborers from concentration camps such as these in the M balora underground Factory in turingia a bombproof bunker complex was also built for himler himself and the other SS leaders near Hine in Austria himler would never use it the power of Hinrich himler and the SS rested primarily on the Unlimited Supply of slave labor from the concentration camps the laborers who built the tunnel complexes were worked to [Music] death they were replaced by new laborers from the camps it was called Annihilation through labor in the owl mountains of Loa salesia the tunnel systems were never finished sometimes it's not clear what the tunnels were even for the Germans dict tunnels like vs there so there are so many installations um and the problem is they we don't have a final report from the Germans so it would have been really brilliant to have a report from May 1945 one day before the Red Army entered the complex we have this number of tunnels H and and the they should be used for this and that and we have that kind of installation in it we don't have that kind the only thing we have for sure is a report by Albert as early as 1944 Albert reported using 257,000 cubic M of concrete and carving out 213,000 cubic M of tunnels figures that far exceed what is known about today it's always you know a policy you make a policy within the system with your reports to present yourself in the in the best possible light or the second option is that a lot of tunnels were destroyed by the Germans or by the Russians we don't know or even by the poles so we just don't know that and very little is is is is open to the public we know of half a dozen tunnel systems south of buik but are there more no one is willing to rule it out it's quite possible even probable that the owl mountains still have a few more surprises in store tunnel entrances that have been filled in or blasted shut are being discovered all the time Crystal Fulon alone reported four suspected tunnel sites late in [Music] 2015 she has recruited two cavers from Munich Andrea's Villa and Norbert hunts frequen they are well equipped and very experienced as we um down they go into a Nazi underworld that has been sealed off for 70 years the purpose of the complex is still unknown Andreas cautiously checks the site [Music] but there seems to be no way in and then his gas monitor beeps methane is produced in tunnels like this when the timber supports rot who gets in for a fool Hardy treasure hunter plunged to his death in the region as recently as September 2015 the sealed off tunnels of the Rea project still hold many Secrets the most mysterious part is the UA complex from the surface a shaft descends 50 m into the depth s a secret document from the last days of the war states that weapons and ammunition were to be stored here for a strong point it is therefore quite possible that this was where the reported vuk train was heading and that the train transported only weapons Not Gold the director of the UA complex estimates that only half of it has been explored what is hidden in the inaccessible areas many of the tunnel roofs are as high as the ceiling of a cathedral there is enough space to accommodate large equipment or even whole trains plans for what Mr lozanovski the director of the museum has a remarkable hypothesis [Music] after Germany's surrender the Soviets evidently searched here for just that installations associated with German Atomic research decades later the physicist deogi ferof one of the fathers of the Soviet atomic bomb mentioned help from German scientists during a private [Music] conversation but what did the Soviets find at ovka that is still uncertain these foundations on the surface of the complex are particularly remarkable so no one has been able to explain them so the cargo on the vuk train if the train ever existed could have been high technology rather than gold or weapons the Soviets clearly expected to find materials for German Atomic research however Russian files that could throw light on this are not yet available we don't know for sure what kind of installations what kind of research was done in at least parts of the tunnels of the Rea complex um but it's very likely that the Russians um very soon after the first soldiers arrived there had a scientific and academic committee and try to get to get everything and and and bring it back to the Soviet Union but this part of the story um can only be told if you have Russian documents but we don't have access to these sources yet so it's still um a history to be told in the future vuk the 15th of December 2015 the mayor has called a press conference on the gold train the city has probably never seen so many camera teams today is to be the Moment of Truth For the First Time P copper and Andreas risher will publicly present the results of their Geo radar tests Professor M from the Kau University of Technology will then discuss the final of his working group Risha and copper display a 3D computer model that they have superimposed on an aerial photo of the site they remain convinced that it probably shows a hidden armored train it shows regular rectangular structures but then it's Professor M's turn with scientific thoroughness he presents the test methods that he and his working group used and the results they reached he devotes a great deal of time to the magnetometer tests that he and his colleagues conducted he makes it exciting finally he leaves the conclusion to a journalist in the room Richa and Copper's Expressions speak for themselves is this the end of the vuk gold Train The crucial point is the scientists could not detect enough metal in the hill for a train to be inside it and that's it there is a handshake for p copper as if after a tennis [Music] match but who is Right copper and Richa are not about to give up [Music] is it really worth spending so much money searching for a train that may not even exist at least not here they are of good conscience I'm sure now there may be something there okay it's possible that there's something there but I think that they will be very disappointed with what they find things like German Army helmets or or gloves or or supplies or or things that have Rusty I mean you see or or maybe a knife or a gun or something like that those are the sort of things that they might come across but even if that proves to be the case there are still many undiscovered sealed tunnels in the region where the train could be finally I'd just like to say there will always be stolen Nazi treasure awaiting Discovery at the end of the rainbow the story of the salesian gold train is not over [Music] yet [Music]

Channel: Real History

Views: 21,638

Keywords: 2015 Discovery, Asian Cultures, Cultural Heritage Insights, Dan Snow, Digging Into History, Documentary Series, Educational Content, Hidden Treasures, Historical Figures, History Buffs, History Channel, History Documentary, Hitler's Third Reich, In-Depth Analysis, Little Dot Studios, Lost Fortunes, Real History, Space Race, Suzannah Lipscomb, Urban Legend, World Historians

Id: Avo18ivwcMw

Length: 49min 14sec (2954 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 16 2024