In 1945, after the defeat of Germany in World War II, part of its territory was transferred to Poland, including Lower Silesia. The German population either fled from there, or perished, or was later forcibly evicted, and the devastated cities were settled by visiting Poles, who were in possession of other people's houses with preserved utensils. Much remains from the previous owners, but not values. Before leaving, the Germans hid and buried their family jewelry and money in the ground in the hope that someday they would return home. Visiting Poles began to stumble upon such caches en masse and eventually got a taste.
Lower Silesia became famous as a land of treasure hunters. And although many decades have passed, conversations around this topic have not ceased to this day. Various legends about the "gold of the Nazis" still persist among the locals. For example, they say that with the hands of concentration camp prisoners, the Nazis created an entire underground city, in which, during the retreat, they “buried” untold wealth. A New Yorker magazine reporter visited the area and spoke to Polish treasure hunters. Here are the most interesting facts that the publication managed to unearth.
Rumors that there is a large cache of jewelry go back, among other things, to the stories of Nazi officer Herbert Klose, who was captured by the Polish security service, who once held a high position in the police of the city of Wroclaw, located in Silesia. During interrogations, he said that at the end of 1944, the local police helped residents of the city to centrally collect and hide valuables. They were sealed inside iron chests, but, according to Klose, he did not witness how they were hidden, so he did not know where they were.
The treasures that Klose talked about are now looking for local enthusiasts. Some of them organized a search society, the so-called Lower Silesian Research Group. Its members study maps and archival documents, do speleology and meet with eyewitnesses to the war. They believe the legend that there is a camouflaged tunnel in the Walbrzych area, where the Nazis hid a train with gold, precious stones and weapons. In August 2015, members of the society Andreas Richter and Petr Koper announced that they saw him underground with the help of radars. Local authorities announced that the find was about to be discovered. Rumors spread that the mysterious train may contain "Klose's gold", the flow of tourists has increased, but the opening has not yet taken place. However later,as Professor Janusz Madej of the Mining and Metallurgical Academy announced at a press conference in Walbrzych, scientists rejected the discovery of Richter and Koper. One of them, Michal Banasz from the Polish Academy of Sciences, used a thermal imager to find anomalies in the soil at the site of the supposedly hidden train. In his opinion, it was they who could inspire empty hopes in gold diggers.
In spite of everything, in the coming months, according to the New Yorker, Richter and Koper plan to more thoroughly survey the area of the tunnel with the mythical train. In addition, the authorities of the city of Kamienna Góra are going to look for possible "burial places" of the treasure trucks.
Tomasz Jurek, president of the research group, told the New Yorker that the train tunnel could be part of an entire underground city. Its main part, according to Jurek, should be located under the local castle Ksenzh. One of the indigenous women told the publication that during the Second World War, when the Nazis occupied the castle, explosions began to be heard regularly from the ground that lasted more than a year. There were rumors that an underground residence for Hitler was being built there.
Historians do know that during the war the Germans built a large underground complex in Lower Silesia, consisting of seven parts, one of which was located under the Ksiaz castle. This project was codenamed Riese (translated from German - "giant"). It is likely that the plans were to create a huge bunker for the Nazi elite - German historian Franz Seidler believes that it could shelter up to 27 thousand people. But this is not known for certain, since the documents on the project have not been preserved. The Nazis were probably in a hurry to get rid of them, so that they would not fall into the hands of the Soviet troops.
Andrzej Boczek, a treasure hunter from the town of Pilava Gurna, told the publication how to recognize the presence of underground tunnels. Firstly, you need to be guided by photographs from the times of the war - on them you can see the location of the barracks of the workers who built the underground city, and they, as a rule, were placed not far from the construction site. Secondly, it is necessary to compare the pre-war and post-war maps of the area and identify where new streams have appeared - water could well seep through the boulders that blocked the entrances to the tunnels. But, in addition to the rather traditional ones, local treasure hunters use more non-standard search methods. The author of the article recalls how one day, while walking in the vicinity of Walbrzych, one of the most famous explorers of the Nazi undergrounds, Krzysztof Szpakowski, demonstrated to him the operation of the instruments with which he calculates tunnels and gold. They had something like antennas that swiveled and pointed to certain points on the ground, like those used in dowsing.
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Finding treasures is associated with many difficulties. In order to start independent excavations, you need to obtain permission from the land owner. It is also necessary to act within the framework of the law, which obliges to declare the found treasure (in Poland, the lucky one can keep only a tenth of it, the rest - to the state). On top of that, this is a very nervous process, since treasure hunters often do not trust anyone, even their associates. They constantly think that they are being watched, and someone even admits that they are afraid for the lives of their relatives. They are frightened not only by the envy of others, but also by the legend about the "guards" of the tunnels. Many believe in a network of undercover agents made up of former Nazis or their followers, who are still looking out for hidden treasures. After the end of the war, few ethnic Germans really remained in Lower Silesia, and it was among them that these "guards" could have been.
There is an opinion among treasure hunters that the story with the mythical train was promoted only in order to distract the public's attention from something more that can be found in the mysterious bunkers. As Barrels told the New Yorker, the ground may well be hiding a Nazi-built flying saucer from us. As fantastic as it may sound, some historians, for example, really believe that the Germans were going to build space rockets in their Polish bunkers.
Even if treasure hunters get to the heart of the Riese underground complex, there may not be any long-awaited treasures. In the memoirs of one of the prisoners from the Nazi labor camp, it is said that, before leaving these territories, the Germans dismantled the tunnels and took out everything they could. In addition, as a worker who recently dug for one of the treasure hunters told the New Yorker, some of the dungeon chests (apparently once belonging to the Nazis) are empty. It is likely that they were devastated by the coming Soviet military.
Despite the possible exposure of the legend of "Nazi gold", the inhabitants of Lower Silesia are sympathetic to treasure hunters. Joanna Lamparska, author of books on local treasure hunters, told the New Yorker: "People will forgive them because they gave us good memories, excitement and hope." While there are some who take the revival around the treasure topic negatively, they say it distracts people from a more important aspect of the area's history - the atrocities committed by the Nazis and the suffering that the concentration camp prisoners who died during the construction of the Riese suffered.
