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| 'Nazi gold train': deathbed confession may have revealed location | 'Nazi gold train': deathbed confession may have revealed location |
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| A deathbed confession may have revealed the location of a Nazi train rumoured to have been carrying gold, which has been missing in Poland since the second world war. | A deathbed confession may have revealed the location of a Nazi train rumoured to have been carrying gold, which has been missing in Poland since the second world war. |
| Related: Fortune hunters flock to Polish town after alleged find of Nazi gold train | Related: Fortune hunters flock to Polish town after alleged find of Nazi gold train |
| Poland’s deputy culture minister, Piotr Zuchowski, said ground-penetrating radar had found images of a train near Wałbrzych, in the country’s south-west, on a 4km stretch of railway near the Wroclaw to Wałbrzych line. | |
| Calling it an exceptional find, Zuchowski said the fact the train appeared to be armoured indicated it was carrying valuable cargo. A deathbed confession from an unnamed man had led officials to the site, he added. Zuchowski said the dying man was involved the operation to hide the train 70 years ago. | Calling it an exceptional find, Zuchowski said the fact the train appeared to be armoured indicated it was carrying valuable cargo. A deathbed confession from an unnamed man had led officials to the site, he added. Zuchowski said the dying man was involved the operation to hide the train 70 years ago. |
| “I am more than 99% certain that this train exists,” he told a press conference on Friday. | “I am more than 99% certain that this train exists,” he told a press conference on Friday. |
| The German train has long been rumoured to have gone missing filled with up to 300 tonnes of gold, jewels and weapons, as well as valuable art, when the Nazis were fleeing Russia’s Red Army. According to local legend, an armoured train packed with treasure from the then German city of Breslau (now Wrocław in Poland) was driven into a tunnel in a hillside near a medieval castle near Wałbrzych as the Red Army was approaching and the Allies were carrying out air strikes in the final days of the war. | The German train has long been rumoured to have gone missing filled with up to 300 tonnes of gold, jewels and weapons, as well as valuable art, when the Nazis were fleeing Russia’s Red Army. According to local legend, an armoured train packed with treasure from the then German city of Breslau (now Wrocław in Poland) was driven into a tunnel in a hillside near a medieval castle near Wałbrzych as the Red Army was approaching and the Allies were carrying out air strikes in the final days of the war. |
| During the war, the Germans built a system of underground tunnels in the mountainous region of Wałbrzych and the city of Wrocław, from where the train is believed to have departed. The area was German territory at the time, but became part of Poland when the war ended. | |
| Treasure hunters have been searching for the train since the end of the war, as did the Polish army during the communist era, but it was never found. | Treasure hunters have been searching for the train since the end of the war, as did the Polish army during the communist era, but it was never found. |
| Earlier this month, a Pole and a German, acting through lawyers, told local authorities they had found an armoured train with valuables in a disused tunnel and demanded a finder’s fee of 10%. | |
| Zuchowski told reporters on Friday the lawyers had been informed the train was over 100 metres long. He said he was shown a blurred image from a ground-penetrating radar that showed the shape of a train platform and cannons. | |
| “We will be 100% sure only when we find the train ,” Zuchowski said. Wałbrzych regional authorities would conduct the search, using military explosives’ experts, in a procedure that would take weeks, he added. | |
| “This is a find of world significance, on a par with discovering the Titanic,” Jarosław Chmielewski, the lawyer who has written to the parish council on the men’s behalf, told Radio Wrocław last month. | |
| The announcement led to a crowd of fortune seekers descending on the area, the authorities said, forcing the authorities to appeal to enthusiasts searching for the train after warning it could be booby-trapped. | The announcement led to a crowd of fortune seekers descending on the area, the authorities said, forcing the authorities to appeal to enthusiasts searching for the train after warning it could be booby-trapped. |
| “If the train does actually exist, there’s a significant chance it is mined,” council chairman Jacek Cichura told the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza. “It could also contain a large amount of methane gas”. | “If the train does actually exist, there’s a significant chance it is mined,” council chairman Jacek Cichura told the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza. “It could also contain a large amount of methane gas”. |
| Previously, talk of Nazi treasure in Wałbrzych led to speculation that the long-lost Czarist Amber Room, which treasure hunters have sighted in plenty of other locations was to be found in the region, more specifically, in a tunnel leading to Wałbrzych castle. Despite searches, nothing has ever been found. |