Photo. Walked carefully into the darkness deep below the castle Ksiaz castle searching for Nazi Gold Train, Wałbrzych, Poland. Did the “gold train” really exist?
Adolf Hitler and the Nazis are believed to have stolen billions of pounds worth of treasures in a struggle to fund the creation of a Fourth Reich. There are theories about hidingplaces in bunkers, chambers, tunnels, burried trains, benath castles, sunken shipwrecks in Atlantic, and dumped in lakes - from Europe to South America.
On the 29th September 2012 I took a walk in the tunnels and chambers under the Ksiaz castle, Poland, in the area where the 'Nazi Gold Train' is supposedly hidden underground. Stories tell of a German miner who obsered the Nazis packed up their "gold train" and parked it inside the Owl Mountains. Despite numerous searches since 1945, including by the Polish Army during the Cold War, no evidence of the train and the treasure has been found. Historians believe that train never has existed.
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Riese was the code name for a construction project of Nazi Germany between 1943 and 1945. It consisted of seven underground structures in the Owl Mountains and Książ Castle in Lower Silesia, which was then Nazi Germany and is now Poland.
Treasure hunter claims to have Found Legendary Lost Gold Train. Treasure hunter Piotr Koper has announced in 2016 that he has possibly uncovered the legendary Nazi gold train at the bottom of a lake. After more than a decade of searching, could the Polish explorer have finally located the locomotive.
In March 1945, the Nazis set off from the city of Goerlitz with a convoy of artwork from a museum and treasures from Russia’s Amber Room. According to a legend, a local miner observed a group of German soldiers transported a train in the end of the war. It was allegedaly filled with valuables, and was hidden some place in the Owl Mountains, near the town of Walbrzych.
Deep inside the Owl Mountains, the Third Reich dug a vast network of mineshafts and tunnels between 1943 and 1945, perhaps to hide a secret weapons program, or to carve out an impenetrable subterranean bunker for Hitler's last stand. Since dubbed the “Nazi gold train,” the locomotive has become a topic of interest for both historians and treasure hunters. For some, it’s become an obsession, with many attempts being made to find it over the years. Some have warned the train likely doesn’t contain any gold or treasures. Instead, they posit that it was loaded with chemical agents the Nazis were transporting to Berlin in a final attempt to stop the Soviet Red Army.
Whatever the Nazis had planned for their extensive underground complex, it was dug by forced labor from nearby concentration camps, and the invaded army from the Soviets spoiled it. In 1945, with the Red Army at the doorstep, the Nazis fled their Owl Mountains refuge, blasting most of their tunnels to rubble behind them.
The potential discovery comes weeks after treasure hunters located a secret network of tunnels at a former German Army headquarters that is thought by some to lead to the famed Russian “Amber Room,” though the jury’s still out on whether either of these “discoveries” will bear fruit. The Amber Room was built for Tsar Peter the Great in the 1700s and filled with gold, amber, and precious jewels, all of which were stolen by the Nazis and disappeared after World War II.
How likely is it to be a train full of treasued hidden underground in the area? The data says that there's only 5 percent we know about. The rest of it has been blasted away and blocked off. There's tons of stuff back there for sure.
The Nazi Gold Train story may have the whiff of myth, but it's rooted in historical precedent. A similar Nazi train carrying more than 5 tons (4.5 metric tons) of gold, 700 pounds (317 kilograms) of diamonds and pearls, 1,250 paintings and thousands of Oriental rugs -- stolen from grand estates as well as everyday victims of the Nazi genocide -- was intercepted by Allied forces in 1945 and dubbed the Hungarian Gold Train.
And the region surrounding the Owl Mountains, which was part of Nazi Germany in the 1940s, is home to several large mansions, and one exceptional castle, where Nazis were known to have stashed artwork and jewels. Much of it was never recovered. Based on what I know from the time I visited the site, there has not been found any concrete evidence to confirm the existence or location of the Nazi Gold Train. The legend continues to be a subject of interest, speculation, and occasional searches by treasure hunters, but it remains shrouded in mystery and controversy.
The mystery of the purpose of building these tunnels and chambers from the Second World War lives on, but it is the tragic story of the Gross Rosen concentration camp prisoners we really need to think about. They dug up these tunnels on Hitler’s order. It is their story that is engraved on the walls of those tunnels. Keep in mind that the Nazis used thousands of prisoners as slave labour, many from concentration camps like Auschwitz, to build this amazing underground complex.
Stein Morten Lund, 29th September 2022
Additional information
Riese, or "Giant" in German) was the code name for a construction project of Nazi Germany between 1943 and 1945. It consisted of seven underground structures in the Owl Mountains and Książ Castle in Lower Silesia, which was then Nazi Germany and is now Poland. None of them were finished, and all are in different states of completion with only eleven per cent reinforced by concrete.
The purpose of the project remains uncertain because of the lack of documentation. Some sources suggest that all the structures were part of the Führer Headquarters; according to others, it was a combination of headquarters (HQ) and arms industry, but comparison to similar facilities can indicate that only the castle was adapted as an HQ or other official residence and the tunnels in the Owl Mountains were planned as a network of underground factories. The construction work was done by forced labourers, prisoners of war (POWs), and prisoners of concentration camps, and many lost their lives, mostly as a result of disease and malnutrition. Read more about the history and constructions on Wikipedia Project Riese.
According to incomplete data (source: Wikipedia), at least 13,000 prisoners worked for the project. Most of them were transferred from the Auschwitz concentration camp. The documents allow identification of 8,995 prisoners. All of them were Jews,about seventy per cent from Hungary, the rest from Poland, Greece, Romania, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. Mortality was very high because of disease, malnutrition, exhaustion, dangerous underground works, and the treatment of prisoners by German guards. Many exhausted prisoners were sent back to the Auschwitz concentration camp. The deportation of 857 prisoners is documented as well as 14 executions after failed escape attempts. An estimated total of 5,000 victims lost their lives.
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