Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Nazi Gold.

This is coolbert:

Here from Der Spiegel thanks to the tip from Freeper we have the story of the missing Nazi gold. A hoard of gold stashed since the end of the Second World War [WW2], the location of which has been preserved in an encrypted manner, a musical score which has now been decrypted?

The hunt is on!

"Secret Code: Music Score May Lead to Nazi Gold"


"Three attempts have been made in recent weeks to find buried Nazi treasure in the Bavarian town of Mittenwald, close to the Austrian border. Even though the holes in the ground have since been filled, the traces left by drills and blue markings are still visible below a thin layer of autumn leaves."

. . . .

"The whole idea of Nazi gold has long held a grip on the public imagination"

A grip on the "public imagination" and not without foundation!

"In April 1945, the Wehrmacht armed forces and officials of the Reichsbank approved a plan to store at least part of the reserves of the German Reichsbank at Einsiedl, a small town on the southwest shore of Lake Walchen. Much of these assets were handed over to the Allies, but around 100 gold bars, sacks of dollars and Swiss francs and possibly even more hoards went missing."

Presumably this is good stolen and looted from all over Europe, hastily buried in preparation for the rise of the Fourth Reich?

Gold in secret stashes a prize of war, ill-gotten gain  is a not so totally uncommon story, war booty or concealed by secret cipher. From WW2 we have the instances of:

1. Yamashita's Gold.

"Yamashita - Baes' gold, also referred to as the Yamashita - Baes treasure, is the name given to the alleged war loot stolen in Southeast Asia by Japanese forces during World War II and hidden in caves, tunnels and underground complexes in the Philippines . . . accounts that the treasure remains hidden in Philippines have lured treasure hunters from around the world for over fifty years, its existence is dismissed by most experts"


2. The Awa Maru sunken treasure ship.

"Having delivered her supplies, Awa Maru took on several hundred stranded merchant marine officers, military personnel, diplomats and civilians at Singapore. In addition, there were stories that the ship carried treasure worth approximately US$5 billion—40 metric tons of gold, 12 metric tons of platinum, and 150,000 carats (30 kg) of diamonds and other strategic materials."


3. The Beale Treasure that secret location of which concealed within a cipher of yet unresolved complexity.

"The Beale ciphers are a set of three ciphertexts, one of which allegedly states the location of a buried treasure of gold, silver and jewels estimated to be worth over USD$63 million as of September 2011. The other two ciphertexts allegedly describe the content of the treasure, and list the names of the treasure's owners' next of kin . . . treasure being buried by a man named Thomas Jefferson Beale in a secret location in Bedford County, Virginia, in 1820."

NONE of this ever seems to come to pass. Always the treasure sought but never found. That is the case here too?

coolbert.



3 comments:

Dan Kurt said...

re: WWII Nip and Nazi treasure, e.g., Gold.

Great novel on this plus much more:

Cryptonomicon, 1999 by Neal Stephenson, 1168 pages.
ISBN-10: 0060512806
ISBN-13: 978-0060512804

Dan Kurt

Steiner said...

How much gold could there have been? NS Germany had to pay for strategic materials from countries like Spain (tungsten) and Sweden (iron ore) in gold, and these nations would accept no substitute. This after nearly six years of war, during which foreign export earnings would have been nil.

Bert said...

Bert says: Not so much the value of the gold itself but the exploration, the secret message [supposedly encrypted], the hunt for the secret treasure. NOT the value of the stuff itself but the excitement of the HUNT!