On 27 August, Polish Radio announced that two people have presented evidence that they have discovered Nazi Germany’s legendary “Gold Train,” containing art and that’s especially “laden with precious metals,” and that the pair are demanding a 10% cut of its value, for finding this nearly 200-yard-long train, in a hidden mountain tunnel in the Polish town of Walzbrych, formerly the German town of Waldenburg. Nazis had constructed the tunnel in 1943, to hide valuables from Soviet forces, in the event that Germany might lose the war.
Soviets conquered Nazi forces at Waldenburg on 8 May 1945; and, until now, this heavily armored train had not been found. On August 27th, the town announced that agreement was reached with the German citizen and the Polish citizen, who jointly claim to have made the find, agreeing to pay them their demanded 10%. The report says, “As outlined in their claim to Wałbrzych authorities, ‘the train contains valuable objects, costly industrial materials and precious metal ores’.” So, the town is now seeking assistance from the Polish government, to provide mine-detection and other help, so that the site can safely be entered by the town’s officials, in order that the train’s cargo can be itemized and estimated. According to a report in Britain’s Telegraph, Poland’s military are “cordoning off” the area.
The initial Polish report noted that, “As Germans fled the advancing Red Army at the end of the war, innumerable valuables were evacuated. Thousands of these, including artworks such as Raphael’s ‘Portrait of a Young Man’, which had been looted from Poland’s Czartoryski Museum during the war, have not been traced until this day.”
According to warhistoryonline,
“Damien Simonart, France Info’s Warsaw correspondent, said: ‘If there is Nazi gold in this train, we are not talking about Indiana Jones here but gold pulled from the teeth of Jews in death camps.’ He added that if the two unidentified treasure hunters really have struck gold, they will have to question their consciences over its origin if they do seal a deal to take home 10 per cent of its value.”
However, with the announcement now, that Walzbrych has agreed to that payment, there will also be complex legal decisions by the Polish Government, and perhaps also some broader questions of international law, regarding whether and how assets that were extracted from people who were exterminated can belong legally to any government, and to any finders; and, if so, then at what percentages.
The report by Simonart says that,
“The Walbrzych region is home to dozens of kilometers of underground galleries. The Nazis had dug them during the war to secretly produce strategic weapons, but it may very well hide a train full of gold.”
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
