Of all the Nazi treasures, apart from the unknown number of "Hitler's vaults", the most attractive is probably the "Great German Treasure".
The so-called "Greater German Treasure" refers to the treasure buried at the end of 1944, when Nazi Germany was about to fall. At that time, Hitler still had the illusion of a comeback, so he decided to hide all the wealth looted in the war and use it for future military expenses.
According to Hitler's plan, thirty-five billion francs of treasure would be stored and one day re-emerged with the help of this wealth. In addition to the thirty-five billion francs of wealth, there were many gold bars, diamonds, precious stones, jewelry, works of art, as well as personal collections of the Nazi high command, ecclesiastical property, and some property seized from the Jews of Yugoslavia, Greece, the Czech Republic and other countries were later added to the plan.
Roughly speaking, the total value of these treasures is about seven hundred billion francs.
At that time, all hitler's cronies received the order to store all the property in Germany in the name of "state property". The amount of this property is so staggering that it will naturally be noticed by people with hearts.
It is said that the army led by General Patton had captured a fortune from the "Great German Treasure" in the late second period of World War II. On March 22, 1945, George Patton led the Allied forces across the Rhine, and two days later the army captured the village of Mox. On the afternoon of the capture of the village, Allied spies interrogated nearby villagers and learned of a message about the treasure that the Windstahl Mining Company had conducted clandestine activities around a mine.
Upon learning of this news, the Allied command immediately organized manpower, blockaded the area and imposed a curfew in the village. That night, several U.S. troops patrolled the neighborhood of Mox in jeeps, arresting two women who had violated curfew and traveled privately. So the soldiers interrogated the two women. According to two women, they were victims fleeing from France, one of whom was about to go to a nearby village to find a midwife. In humanitarian faith, soldiers took the woman in labour to a nearby village and found a midwife for her to deliver the baby.
On the way back to Mox village, as the jeep passed a mine, the American soldier casually asked the woman about the origin of the mine, and one woman said: "There is a lot of gold buried in this mine." Lieutenant Colonel Russell of the U.S. Army heard about this and personally came to Mox to verify the information. After questioning the local villagers, the lieutenant colonel determined that there was indeed treasure in the mine. In addition, Russell also heard the news that Paul, director of the German National Museum, had traveled to the mine many times and hidden some world-famous paintings in the mine.
To learn more details, Russell summoned the mine's leaders and Vic, a cashier who had worked at the German National Bank. Vic confessed to Russell that since 1942 the German National Bank had been transferring its reserves of gold and SS accounts to mines in the village of Mox. The activity of hiding property continued for three years, and seventy-six batches were shipped.
In addition, in March 1945, the National Museum and Gallery of Germany transported the collection to the mine. Due to the speed of the American investigation, the Germans tried to transfer the treasures in time before the Americans found them, but before they could dispatch personnel to arrange vehicles, the Americans arrived at the mine one step ahead of the others.
In the mine, the U.S. military found a secret chamber. After opening the Chamber of Secrets, Americans found themselves in a treasure trove of myths and stories. In front of them was a huge chamber with lighting fixtures and an area of about 800 square meters. In total, there are more than seven thousand marked pockets in the Chamber of Secrets, each with a knee height. Twenty rows of these pockets were neatly placed, each with a spacing of about one meter. On the other side of the chamber, the U.S. military also found a large number of bundles of banknotes.
The U.S. military then opened these pockets and began to take stock of their belongings:
More than 8,000 gold bricks;
Fifty-five boxes of gold bars (two in each box, twenty pounds per treaty);
Hundreds of bags of utensils made of gold;
1,000 bags of pure gold currency such as gold marks, gold pounds, gold francs, etc.;
More than seven hundred bags of pure gold dollars;
Hundreds of bags of metal coins from different countries;
Hundreds of bags of foreign exchange coupons;
Nine bags of ancient gold coins;
More than 2,000 bags and 1,000 boxes of cash with a total face value of over 2.5 billion;
Twenty silver bricks;
Forty bags of silver bars;
A bag of platinum;
More than a hundred bags of diamonds and other gemstones.
In addition to this tunnel, the U.S. military has made new discoveries in other tunnels. Many precious works of art lost in European museums, including various famous paintings, stamp albums, and antiques, were hidden in tunnels by the Nazis.
In addition to this, there are some infuriating treasures, such as several bags of gold teeth extracted from the mouths of concentration camp victims, which fully demonstrate the cruelty of the Nazis.
General Patton discovered that most of the treasures came from the victim countries, and he immediately recognized the political nature of the treasures. Subsequently, General Patton did not act rashly, but transferred the wealth to the Allied High Command.
On April 15, the treasures were filled with hundreds of trucks, temporarily sent to the Frankfurt Bank under the protection of fighter jets. In August of the same year, the Allies valued the property. According to weighing and estimating, the value of gold is about $260 million, and the value of silver is about $270,000. This is only the gold and silver portion of the treasure, and no estimates have been made of platinum, gemstones and artworks. At the beginning of the following year, all the treasures found by Mox were transferred to the Allied War Reparations Commission, which was responsible for the Gold Return Committee of the Three Kingdoms of Britain, The United States and France, and returned the treasures to the lost owners, that is, the victims of the looting.
The incident caused an uproar around the world, and after the end of World War II, many unscrupulous people who were trying to get rich overnight were eager to find this ill-gotten wealth and take it for themselves. In addition, the Allies were constantly tracking down the whereabouts of the treasures, and the Allies had formed a treasure hunting team that found Nazi treasures worth more than ten billion francs in an abandoned mine. Everyone knows, however, that these treasures are nothing compared to the astronomical amounts looted by the Nazis.
In 1946, two treasure hunters who wanted to make a fortune, Pitchell and Helmut, broke into the Austrian mountains with a "treasure map". It didn't take long for the locals to find the bodies of the two money-hungry guys. Near the two bodies, the locals found several hidden treasure holes that had been dug beyond recognition, and according to the situation in the caves, the two treasure hunters had found traces of the treasure, but they did not take the treasure alive, but were assassinated. After the death of the two, someone transferred the treasure, so the locals failed to find the treasure in the cave.
Over the next decade, there were several murders in the area caused by treasure hunters.
According to Austrian police analysis, the murders all point to the fact that the treasure hidden in the Alps is still closely monitored and guarded by former Nazis.
Since then, austrian police have paid close attention to the area, and sure enough, some traces of Nazi activity have been found. Not long after, Austrian police caught a Nazi in the area and found a document from his body. In total, six.6 billion Swiss francs, nine.9 billion U.S. dollars, fourteen tons of gold bars, more than two hundred diamonds and tens of thousands of works of art are recorded on this document. However, the Nazi's mouth was so strict that the Austrian police tried their best to pry open his mouth and reveal the whereabouts of the treasure.
In addition to the Austrian police, the US FBI has also been watching the whereabouts of this treasure. In July 1959, German personnel came to Lake Toplitz, carrying advanced sonar detectors and underwater cameras to survey Lake Toplitz. After the unremitting efforts of the technicians, sixteen treasure chests were finally found seventy meters underwater.
After salvaging, the chests surfaced. Subsequently, the treasure chest was opened and a large amount of pounds sterling was found inside. Unfortunately, these pounds are all counterfeit. However, the imitation technology of the fake pound sterling is very sophisticated, enough to be fake. If exchanged for the same amount of real banknotes, the value of these pounds should exceed ten billion francs.
So why did the Germans make these fake pounds?
It is said that the Germans arrested some counterfeiters and imprisoned them in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, forcing them to print a large number of pounds sterling. As for the purpose of the Germans, it is obvious that they want to disrupt the market with these fake pounds and exchange them for real money.
So, in addition to the treasures mentioned above, where are more "Great german treasures" stored?
It has been said that the main nazi property had been dispersed throughout Austria through multiple transfers, mainly in Salzkamerk, Salzburg, Gastein and other places. Some people also feel that the Nazis will not be too casual when choosing the treasure site, and the possibility of the Nazis hiding treasure in the small city of Oss is relatively large.
Because Oss was one of the last strongholds of the German army to resist during World War II. It is reported that this small city is of little strategic significance, but why did the Germans put up the last resistance here? The reason is self-evident. Proponents of this claim claim claim that a treasure worth about two hundred million marks was buried somewhere in the small town of Oss.
Although there are many claims about the "Great German Treasure", and many countries have sent relevant personnel to search, there has been no news about the excavation of these treasures in recent years. When will this ill-gotten wealth be seen again? I'm afraid only time will give us the answer.
Resources:
["The Great German Treasure", "The Mystery of the Nazi Treasure"]