Post by Dave Homewood on Oct 3, 2022 23:44:19 GMT 12
Lake In Austria May Hold Hitler’s Treasures
(From a Reuter Correspondent) _ VIENNA.
The last secrets of Hitler’s German Reich and considerable treasure in gold and platinum may lie hidden under the cool, blue surface of Lake Atter, set like a giant sapphire among the rugged Austrian mountains.
How it got there has not yet been entirely explained. Nor does anyone living know exactly what is buried beneath the waters of the lake, in which thousands of holiday-makers splash happily every summer. But the indications are that whoever succeeded in recovering the wreckage of a Nazi aircraft which sank in the lake in April 1945 will be a rich man for life.
The story goes back to the closing stages of the war, when British and American tanks were advancing into the heart of Germany and Soviet armies were poised along the River Oder, ready to deal the death blow at Berlin where Hitler was ensconced in his bombproof bunker. Austria at that time was a no-man’s land, where deserters and refugees peopled the roads and rumours and messages, passed from mouth to mouth, had long replaced newspapers and radio as sources of information.
One of the rumours which was cropping up more often than most was that Hitler was preparing to yield Berlin and most of Germany, and would make his last desperate stand in the “alpine fortress” of the mountains round Salzburg.
Plane Lost in Lake
One day during this confused period, on April 18, a Junkers 88 aircraft of the German Luftwaffe appeared over Lake Atter. It circled and lost height and finally skimmed into the lake and sank rapidly. Two members of its crew were saved. They told villagers that there had been another man aboard and, that the aircraft’s cargo was “sealed chests.” Since then, however, the two men have vanished.
Intelligence officers of the American armies which soon after this incident occupied Western Austria failed to find any trace of them in the multitude of prisoner-of-war cages which sprang up all over Germany and Austria, A rumour persisted that the aircraft had been carrying Hitler’s personal treasures and secret files.
The first attempts to salvage the wreck were made in 1947. Success seemed near when the anchors caught in some solid object on the bottom of the lake. Then the draglines snapped and the attempt was abandoned. The villagers, however, continued to talk of the sunken plane, its disappearing crew and its mysterious cargo.
In the summer of 1953, another recovery crew, including divers with modem equipment, set to work. They discovered that the aircraft lay about 230 feet down and that the waters of the lake became very murky below a depth of about 100 feet. After several weeks of slow, laborious searching a diver made a remarkable find: it was the statuette of an ape sitting on a collection of the works of Darwin and contemplating a human skull in its paw. Experts believed that although this object might have come from the plane, this was unlikely.
Other explanations put forward were that Alfred Rosenberg, the Nazi Minister for Occupied Territories, had owned a villa near the lake and that the ape-statue, symbolising the Darwinian theory of man’s descent from the ape, may have been one of his possessions.
Other objects recovered from the lake-bed included German-type small arms and a complete teleprinter. The recovery crew stopped work soon after that, giving shortage of funds as the reason.
Two years have passed since this episode, and no more salvage attempts have been made. But the rumours persist. Recently, a discovery made by a newspaper reporter from Graz gave them a fresh lease of life and a new foundation of fact. The reporter, who insists on remaining anonymous, found a former Luftwaffe officer, a certain Major K., who commanded a flight of three Junkers 88’s from Berlin to Salzburg on April 18, 1945. In April 1945, Major K. was in Berlin when he received an order signed by Hitler to prepare a flight of three machines for an unnamed destination. In those days, it was not easy, to lay hands on three airworthy aeroplanes in Berlin for non-combat tasks, even on Hitler’s order, but the major did it and reported to the Fuehrer on April 17.
Flight to Salzburg
The Fuehrer then personally ordered Major K. to fly 48 sealed chests and one unnamed passenger to Salzburg “at all costs.” The cargo was loaded the same night. The lone passenger was a man of about 40 who all the time wore a coat with upturned collar and sunglasses, and did not speak a word. His identity has never been established. The aircraft were about to take off in the small hours of April 18 when a lorry carrying six more sealed metal boxes drove up. These, too, were loaded, and the aircraft flew off towards Salzburg.
They passed safely over Leipzig and Munich, but a flight of American fighters struck at them on the last stage of the journey, when Salzburg was almost in sight.
“One machine was severely damaged, and I saw it make a forced landing on a lake,” the major is reported to have said. “But I and the other machine made it to Salzburg.” The cargo of the two remaining aircraft was unloaded by SS-men and civilians who seemed to be expecting it.
Major K. said he only discovered after arrival that the chests held secret documents from Hitler’s Chancellery, art treasures from museums and gold and platinum. From this it appears that the cargo of the sunken aircraft will continue to attract treasure-hunters with the means to finance a search 230 feet below the water.
But the fate of the cargo of the other two aircraft is also a big question mark. Hitler’s “alpine fortress” needed gold and valuables — and who knows where the sealed chests were hidden.
THE PRESS, 28 JULY 1955
(From a Reuter Correspondent) _ VIENNA.
The last secrets of Hitler’s German Reich and considerable treasure in gold and platinum may lie hidden under the cool, blue surface of Lake Atter, set like a giant sapphire among the rugged Austrian mountains.
How it got there has not yet been entirely explained. Nor does anyone living know exactly what is buried beneath the waters of the lake, in which thousands of holiday-makers splash happily every summer. But the indications are that whoever succeeded in recovering the wreckage of a Nazi aircraft which sank in the lake in April 1945 will be a rich man for life.
The story goes back to the closing stages of the war, when British and American tanks were advancing into the heart of Germany and Soviet armies were poised along the River Oder, ready to deal the death blow at Berlin where Hitler was ensconced in his bombproof bunker. Austria at that time was a no-man’s land, where deserters and refugees peopled the roads and rumours and messages, passed from mouth to mouth, had long replaced newspapers and radio as sources of information.
One of the rumours which was cropping up more often than most was that Hitler was preparing to yield Berlin and most of Germany, and would make his last desperate stand in the “alpine fortress” of the mountains round Salzburg.
Plane Lost in Lake
One day during this confused period, on April 18, a Junkers 88 aircraft of the German Luftwaffe appeared over Lake Atter. It circled and lost height and finally skimmed into the lake and sank rapidly. Two members of its crew were saved. They told villagers that there had been another man aboard and, that the aircraft’s cargo was “sealed chests.” Since then, however, the two men have vanished.
Intelligence officers of the American armies which soon after this incident occupied Western Austria failed to find any trace of them in the multitude of prisoner-of-war cages which sprang up all over Germany and Austria, A rumour persisted that the aircraft had been carrying Hitler’s personal treasures and secret files.
The first attempts to salvage the wreck were made in 1947. Success seemed near when the anchors caught in some solid object on the bottom of the lake. Then the draglines snapped and the attempt was abandoned. The villagers, however, continued to talk of the sunken plane, its disappearing crew and its mysterious cargo.
In the summer of 1953, another recovery crew, including divers with modem equipment, set to work. They discovered that the aircraft lay about 230 feet down and that the waters of the lake became very murky below a depth of about 100 feet. After several weeks of slow, laborious searching a diver made a remarkable find: it was the statuette of an ape sitting on a collection of the works of Darwin and contemplating a human skull in its paw. Experts believed that although this object might have come from the plane, this was unlikely.
Other explanations put forward were that Alfred Rosenberg, the Nazi Minister for Occupied Territories, had owned a villa near the lake and that the ape-statue, symbolising the Darwinian theory of man’s descent from the ape, may have been one of his possessions.
Other objects recovered from the lake-bed included German-type small arms and a complete teleprinter. The recovery crew stopped work soon after that, giving shortage of funds as the reason.
Two years have passed since this episode, and no more salvage attempts have been made. But the rumours persist. Recently, a discovery made by a newspaper reporter from Graz gave them a fresh lease of life and a new foundation of fact. The reporter, who insists on remaining anonymous, found a former Luftwaffe officer, a certain Major K., who commanded a flight of three Junkers 88’s from Berlin to Salzburg on April 18, 1945. In April 1945, Major K. was in Berlin when he received an order signed by Hitler to prepare a flight of three machines for an unnamed destination. In those days, it was not easy, to lay hands on three airworthy aeroplanes in Berlin for non-combat tasks, even on Hitler’s order, but the major did it and reported to the Fuehrer on April 17.
Flight to Salzburg
The Fuehrer then personally ordered Major K. to fly 48 sealed chests and one unnamed passenger to Salzburg “at all costs.” The cargo was loaded the same night. The lone passenger was a man of about 40 who all the time wore a coat with upturned collar and sunglasses, and did not speak a word. His identity has never been established. The aircraft were about to take off in the small hours of April 18 when a lorry carrying six more sealed metal boxes drove up. These, too, were loaded, and the aircraft flew off towards Salzburg.
They passed safely over Leipzig and Munich, but a flight of American fighters struck at them on the last stage of the journey, when Salzburg was almost in sight.
“One machine was severely damaged, and I saw it make a forced landing on a lake,” the major is reported to have said. “But I and the other machine made it to Salzburg.” The cargo of the two remaining aircraft was unloaded by SS-men and civilians who seemed to be expecting it.
Major K. said he only discovered after arrival that the chests held secret documents from Hitler’s Chancellery, art treasures from museums and gold and platinum. From this it appears that the cargo of the sunken aircraft will continue to attract treasure-hunters with the means to finance a search 230 feet below the water.
But the fate of the cargo of the other two aircraft is also a big question mark. Hitler’s “alpine fortress” needed gold and valuables — and who knows where the sealed chests were hidden.
THE PRESS, 28 JULY 1955
