Any WW II buffs heard of this?

[lowyder993s]

Men claim to find Nazi train loaded with treasure in Poland

Kinda cool if legit.

[Rick Lee]

Could turn into a cool story. But if they only get to keep a 10% finder's fee, I'd have just kept quiet about it. I'd also be surprised if that area hasn't already been very combed through. Even though Breslau became part of Poland, lots of Germans from that area are still alive and go back to visit. I had a very close friend who fought in the Wehrmacht, he was from Breslau and, when he got out of prison in 1946, could not go back there. But once Poland opened up around 1989, it was pretty common for Germans to go back and visit and my friend did many times. I have to think some of the folks who were involved in moving that loot had to know where to go back and fetch it, if it was, indeed, still there.

[varmint]

more likely to get rich selling shovels than digging for lost treasure.

whatever happened to the guys who said they knew where a squadron of spitfires were buried in malaysia?

[JJK78-951]

They claim the train could contain upwards of 300 tons of gold. DAMN! I'd be negotiating for a finders fee as well, I did the quick math on that and the finders fee on the gold alone at below market value is more then $900,000,000~

Not to shabby.

Lets not forget that there are likely many other treasures which are more or less priceless there too.

I'd bet that they don't get to keep much of the actual treasure but will be cut a government check.

[tabs]

Love for it to be true, but am skeptical. How do ya hide a train for 70 years. Especially from the Russians who had all the time in the world to find any goodies. How do you hide those steel rails, or somebody getting curious about where they lead to?

The only way it could happen is if there was a tunnel on an obscure and out of the way siding where the entrances were blown. It would have to not be worth excavating and putting back into service as where it led was not of any use after the war.

[tabs]

The Amber Room from the Hermitage is still missing from WW2?

[Hawkeye's-911T]

Paging Geraldo Rivera!

[Ayles]

Originally Posted by Hawkeye's-911T

Paging Geraldo Rivera!

[MRM]

I've been fascinated by stories like this since I read a book that claimed that Martin Bormann survived the war and used Nazi treasure to capitalize the post-war German economic miracle from his hiding place in Brazil or Venezuela. The kernel of truth in the book was the premise that former Nazis had access to looted treasure and used it to invest in German industry at a time when their economy was starved for capital and they got rich on their investment as the German economy grew. It is well documented that high ranking Nazis were stashing treasure everywhere they could. Some of it was recovered. Some of it has never surfaced again.

My Nazi treasure book claimed that the biggest lost treasure of WWII was a cargo crate filled with looted diamonds that was the cargo of a sub tasked with spiriting the loot out of Germany and getting it safely on shore somewhere else (I forgot where). Supposedly the area around the landing site and rendezvous point was in danger of being overrun by partisans, so the sub commander followed protocol, marked a spot in relatively shallow water and dropped the cargo box in the Mediterranean where it could be easily recovered when the coast was clear. Something went wrong with marking the spot and they were never able to recover the diamonds. The most titillating claim was that we know that no one ever recovered the diamonds because it would have been such a big discovery that no one could keep that number of diamonds under wraps - it would distort the world market. Therefore the diamonds are still out there, within sight of some beach, and that even to this day divers discretely ply the area until the local mafia, who has laid claim to the lost treasure, explain to them that they should spend their vacations elsewhere. Sometimes I daydream that the captain's log of the sub were captured and are stored somewhere in a former Soviet archive where they'll be discovered and provide the final clue to an intrepid researcher. Sounds like the plot to a book, doesn't it?

Anyway, if the legend of the treasure train is true, it had to have been hidden somewhere that the people in charge thought would be hidden enough to be safe but close enough to be retrieved, but the spot turned out to be more difficult than anticipated. It has to be someplace too remote to have been stumbled onto by accident or by modern treasure hunters.

I think Tabs' hypothesis is correct. Whoever was in charge of the train made sure that almost no one knew what was on that particular train and arranged to have it sent deep into a siding in an unfinished tunnel. They blew the entrance to the siding so that no one knew the siding was there and they assumed the tunnel just ended. The train was far enough back that more modern metal detectors aren't able to sense it.

The trick is finding just such a spot that was convenient enough to hide the train back then but too remote to have gotten back to since then. Sounds easy, doesn't it?

[oldE]

Marshalling a train loaded with goodies as the Russkies were hammering on the door?
And then moving it toward the enemy?
Seriously?
Oh yes, then hiding it successfully for 70 years.

Sorry. I don't buy it.

Best
Les

[herr_oberst]

This is the perfect time to start a GoFundMe campaign to search for loot stolen by Nazi officers and stashed in secret places around the world.

[Rick Lee]

I think it's been pretty well established that Martin Bormann died while trying to escape Berlin.

In other WWII treasure news, just two hours ago I walked into a gun store and heard a guy say to an old lady, "We'll give you $600 for it." She made a phone call and said, "They said $600 for the Luger." My ears really perked up and I asked if I could see it. Matching numbers DWM Luger with capture papers for $600. Oh man, I wish I had gotten to her first.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

.....But if they only get to keep a 10% finder's fee, I'd have just kept quiet about it...

It might be their best bet.

Either they have eyeballed the treasure or not.

If they have then they may have determined the enormity of the recovery was beyond their means. Then they need to start involving others and the story is out. They may have considered they would end up putting time and money into it only to spend years in court with the government fighting to keep a slice.

If they have not seen it in person and the effort to do so is again a time and money suck on the risk that it's another Capone's vault they would be better off taking 10% and letting someone else foot the bill and risk coming up empty handed.

Net net, either way, 10% of a treasure that large is certainly motivation to take the easy / risk free path.

[Jrboulder]

I've been to a number of railroad tunnels that collapsed around the WWII era and these days even above tree line it's hard to tell a tunnel ever existed. With all the destruction and confusion after years of war and occupation nobody is going to excavate some tunnel on some little branch line that goes nowhere. The rails probably got pulled up for scrap or relay and the grade is probably so overgrown and eroded you wouldn't know it if you were standing on it.

[Brian 162]

Originally Posted by varmint

more likely to get rich selling shovels than digging for lost treasure.

whatever happened to the guys who said they knew where a squadron of spitfires were buried in malaysia?

The Spitfire's weren't there. I forget the details but they weren't buried where they thought they were.

[Holger]

The lawyer representing the anonymous treasure hunters is astonished that everyone talkes about gold. He says the train could contain industrial material or something else. Nobody talked about gold.

The tale is that there where two trains vanished in the area of Walbrzych at the end of WWII.
Eyewitnesses also talk about trains with the German bank logo on them. C'mon.

I would be very surprised if they find anything - 70 meters below the surface or under the trainstation of the neighbour town, also talked about!

[lowyder993s]

Confirmed: Long-Lost Nazi Loot Train Found In Poland

[JJK78-951]

I'm not gonna lie - I'm super excited about this find and can't wait to see what is in there!!!

[jshape]

I really hope it pans out. How cool after 70 years!

[wayner]

People seem to misplace trains all over the world!

From the archives: The lost train of nowhere | Ottawa Citizen