Nazi gold train: Team starts Poland dig despite doubts

[SnakeMasteR]

Treasure hunters have begun digging at a site in south-western Poland where they believe a Nazi train, laden with stolen gems and arms, is hidden.

Experts say there is no evidence that the legendary train exists there.

The explorers - led by Piotr Koper from Poland and Andreas Richter from Germany - said ground-penetrating radar results were "very promising".

They think the train was hidden in a tunnel in 1945. The dig, near the city of Walbrzych, may take up to 10 days.

Since World War Two there have been rumours that a train full of loot and guns disappeared into a complex of tunnels - part of a secret military project which the Nazis never finished.

At the time the Soviet Red Army was advancing into the heart of Nazi Germany.

The Nazis had many miles of tunnels constructed near Walbrzych during the war.

In December Prof Janusz Madej from Krakow's AGH University of Science and Technology said its geological survey of the site had found no evidence of a train.

"There may be a tunnel. There is no train," he told a press conference in Walbrzych.

A spokesman for the treasure-hunting team, Andrzej Gaik, told reporters on Tuesday: "We have to find a railway track, probably the entrance to a railway tunnel and, if the tunnel exists, there should be a train there."

Local folklore said an armoured train had been carrying gold from what is now the Polish city of Wroclaw as the Soviet army closed in.

It was said to have gone missing near Ksiaz castle, 3km (two miles) from Walbrzych.

Source

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37093940

[luisam]

Maybe the Polish Gold Train is a legend, which might or not be confirmed, but the Hungarian Gold Train was absolutely real and it's a really black chapter of the U.S. Army history.

The Hungarian Gold Train was the German-operated train during World War II that carried stolen valuables, mostly Hungarian Jewish persons' property, from Hungary towards Berlin in 1945. After American forces seized the train in Austria, almost none of the valuables were returned to Hungary, their rightful owners, or their surviving family members.

Background

With the Soviet Army about 100 miles away from Hungary, on March 7, 1944, Adolf Hitler launched Operation Margarethe—the invasion of Hungary. The Arrow Cross Party – Hungary's fascist government, led by Ferenc Szálasi – collaborated with their German occupiers in forcing the estimated 800,000 Jewish citizens of Hungary to hand over all of their valuables to government officials. This included gems, gold jewelry, wedding rings, and anything else considered to be of high monetary value. The confiscated property was placed into individual bags and boxes which identified the owners, and receipts were issued. The majority of the Jews were shipped to concentration camps, particularly Auschwitz-Birkenau, most were murdered. The Hungarian authorities re-sorted all the confiscated valuables into content categories. By that time it was all but impossible to identify proper ownership of any of the valuables.

The "Gold Train"

In late 1944, the Soviet Army was advancing on the Hungarian capital of Budapest. A government official appointed by the Schutzstaffel (SS), Árpád Toldi, concocted a plan to evacuate much of the Jewish loot out of Hungary. Toldi ordered large amounts of the valuables onto a 42-car freight train that was to head for Germany.

According to various reports about the train, the contents included gold, gold jewelry, gems, diamonds, pearls, watches, about 200 paintings, Persian and Oriental rugs, silverware, chinaware, furniture, fine clothing, linens, porcelains, cameras, stamp-collections and currency (mostly US dollars and Swiss francs). Jewish organizations and the Hungarian government estimated the total value of the train's contents at $350 million in 1945 or almost $4 billion in 2007 adjusted for inflation.[3] Other estimates of the contents' 1945 worth are from $50 million to $120 million or $570 million to $1.7 billion in 2007 adjusted for inflation.

As the train meandered throughout Hungary and Austria, it stopped occasionally to transfer a great amount of the gold to trucks. The fate of the gold on those trucks remains unknown.

In Austria, the train was eventually seized by Allied troops, first by the French Army and then finally by the United States Army near the town of Werfen in May, 1945.

Fate of valuables from the "Gold Train"

The official United States asset restitution policy agreed upon at the 1946 Final Act of Paris Reparation Conference and by the Five-Power Agreement for Non-Repatriable Victims of Germany was to sell ownerless property for the benefit of non-repatriable refugees. These agreements were the basis for the creation of the Preparatory Committee for the International Refugee Organization.

The US had a different policy towards works of art. In accordance with long-standing international agreements, the US had a policy of restitution that "looted works of art and cultural material will be restituted to the governments of the countries from which they were taken."

Shortly after the US army seizure of the train, the majority of the assets was transferred to a Military Government Warehouse in Salzburg. The paintings, however, were stored in the Salzburg Residenz. As ownership of the valuables was impossible to ascertain, the official US position, as stipulated by United States Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall, was that the belongings were to be given to refugee aid organizations in accordance with international restitution agreements.

However, the Central Board of Jews in Hungary, an organization representing Jewish interests in Hungary, and the new government of Hungary, was aware of the American seizure of the train and lobbied extensively, and sometimes passionately, for the return of all the contents of the train to Hungary where they could be sorted out in an effort to return them to their rightful owners or their family members. The US Government continually ignored the Hungarian pleas.

The majority of the remaining assets from the train was either sold through Army exchange stores in Europe in 1946 or auctioned off in New York City in 1948, with the proceeds going to the IRO. According to The New York Times the auction receipts totaled $152,850.61, or approximately $1.3 million in 2007 adjusted for inflation. Items of clothing allocated for Army exchange store sales that were considered of lesser value were turned over to a Division chaplain for distribution "to needy DPs" (displaced persons).

Some of the property from the train ended up in the possession of high-ranking US Army officers who were stationed in Central Europe to oversee post-war and Marshall Plan reconstruction efforts. By requisition order of Major General Harry J. Collins, Commander of the 42nd Infantry Division (the famed "Rainbow" Division), many of the items were used to furnish his home. Other items furnished the homes and offices of other US military officers including Brigadier General Henning Linden and General Edgar E. Hume. The property included chinaware, silverware, glassware, rugs, and table and bed linen.

The ultimate fate of approximately 200 paintings seized from the train is unknown. As they were deemed "cultural assets" under official US restitution policy, they should have been returned to their country of origin. That country should have been Hungary, but the paintings somehow came into the possession of the Austrian government; their current whereabouts is unknown.

Developments since 1998

The United States government kept most of the details of the Hungarian Gold Train secret from the public until 1998, when US President Bill Clinton created the Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets in the United States. A report prepared by the committee, published in October 1999, detailed the handling of the train's assets by the United States and cited a multitude of "shortcomings" of the US restitution efforts in Austria that eventually led to the property from the Hungarian Gold Train being so readily dispersed by United States officials. It concluded that the application of several policies regarding many assets on the train ensured that they were never returned to their rightful owners.

In 2001, Hungarian Holocaust survivors filed a lawsuit in a Florida district court against the United States government for the government's mishandling of the assets on the Hungarian Gold Train. David Mermelstein was the only survivor present at the mediation. In 2005, the government reached a settlement worth $25.5 million. The money was allocated for distribution to various Jewish social service agencies for the benefit of Holocaust survivors.

Funds from the settlement are still being distributed. On June 3, 2014, a report was filed with the federal court detailing that between July 1, 2012 and June 30, 2013, $464,553.56 had been distributed to 12 Jewish social service organizations in Australia, Canada, Hungary, Israel, Sweden and the United States.

 

Source: The Hungarian Gold Train

[pc71520]

12 hours ago, luisam said:

Maybe the Polish Gold Train is a legend, which might or not be confirmed

Until found, nobody knows for sure if it ever existed...

[luisam]

2 hours ago, pc71520 said:

Until found, nobody knows for sure if it ever existed...

 

For sure the Polish Train existed. Stolen values were transported to Germany in trains from all around Europe, including Poland.

The actual  legend is that the train had not left Poland and it is kind of "hidden treasure", still somewhere in Polish territory

[gipsy]

2 hours ago, luisam said:

For sure the Polish Train existed. Stolen values were transported to Germany in trains from all around Europe, including Poland.

The actual  legend is that the train had not left Poland and it is kind of "hidden treasure", still somewhere in Polish territory

it's possible u r ryt but imo exist some secrets in human history which never will be broken.

btw. most mysterious & expensive  gold train is Russian empire's one  which disappeared & did't find till now. tonns of pure Russian gold just found new owner/s ,same happened with Austrian/Polish/Hungarian  gold  ...stolen bloody gold was always  a base of economic "miracles" of some states from the beginnin' of the times

any case-wish a luck to any ppl who search & found ,like Mel Fisher (an example) did.

[SnakeMasteR]

Doubt they will ever find something in Poland, the only kind of proof that ever existed was faked and the rest pretty much evolves in pure myth. But what else to do with free time? ?

[pc71520]

13 hours ago, n0_risk! said:

Doubt they will ever find something in Poland, the only kind of proof that ever existed was faked and the rest pretty much evolves in pure myth. But what else to do with free time? ?

I feel the same.