Speaker 1: Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard mcclin smith, where
Speaker 1: for the weeks in between episodes, we look at stories
Speaker 1: and ideas that, for one reason or another, didn't make
Speaker 1: it into the previous show. In our last episode, A
Speaker 1: Death Less Ordinary, we heard the beguiling and tragic tale
Speaker 1: of Gunter Stole from Anshausen in Western Germany, who died
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty four in very unusual circumstances. Many wild
Speaker 1: theories sprung up in the absence of a satisfactory explanation
Speaker 1: for Stoll's death, including one that suggested you may have
Speaker 1: been selling industry secrets to the East German government after
Speaker 1: falling on hard times, and had been murdered in retaliation.
Speaker 1: If so, you may have been better off dedicating his
Speaker 1: time finding one of the countless number of treasures looted
Speaker 1: by members of the German Army and Third Reich officials
Speaker 1: during the Second World War that were rumoured to still
Speaker 1: be languishing in various attics, basements, and some more unusual
Speaker 1: and inaccessible places throughout the country. In fact, only a
Speaker 1: short drive away from Stoll's own town of Anshausen lay
Speaker 1: just one such treasure trove of priceless artifacts and artworks
Speaker 1: said to be worth billions of today's euros. Back in
Speaker 1: April nineteen forty five, a group of American troops whose
Speaker 1: story would go on to inspire the twenty fourteen film
Speaker 1: Monument's Men located the stash in the depths of an
Speaker 1: old copper mine known as Heine stolen in Siegen, just
Speaker 1: under five miles west of Anshausen. Among the pieces said
Speaker 1: to have been found there were the relics, which is
Speaker 1: to say, bones of the ancient kings Charlemagne, as well
Speaker 1: as an original Beethoven manuscript, paintings by Flemish artist Peter
Speaker 1: Paul Rubens, among hundreds of other equally valuable items. But
Speaker 1: that was far from all that was found. In a
Speaker 1: salt mine in Murkers in central Germany, gold worth two
Speaker 1: billion euros in today's money had been stashed by officials
Speaker 1: of the Third Reich, alongside four hundred tons of art,
Speaker 1: either stolen from individuals or taken from the Berlin State museums.
Speaker 1: And there were mines outside of Germany too, mines in
Speaker 1: countries annexed by Hitler's Third Reich, like the Altaucis salt
Speaker 1: mine in Austria, where troops found six thousand, five hundred
Speaker 1: seventy seven paintings, one hundred and thirty seven sculptures, and
Speaker 1: four hundred and eighty four crates of other art, as
Speaker 1: well as furniture, weapons, coins, and a wealth of books,
Speaker 1: including some from Hitler's own so called Fura's library, And
Speaker 1: so began the belief that these were not the only
Speaker 1: ones of their kind, that more hidden so called Nazi
Speaker 1: treasure existed, if only one had the tenacity and persistence
Speaker 1: to find it. It's nineteen forty seven. Lower Silesia, formerly
Speaker 1: in Germany, but by then in southwest Poland has been
Speaker 1: cleared of almost two million German nationals by the Soviet
Speaker 1: Union's Red Army. To fill the vacated towns and empty houses,
Speaker 1: the new Polish government had relocated hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 1: their citizens whose homes had been destroyed by the German military.
Speaker 1: Many of the new inhabitants would become treasure hunters, digging
Speaker 1: in the gold gardens and lifting floorboards to find silks
Speaker 1: and jewels, watchers and furs, porcelain and ammunition, all hidden
Speaker 1: and buried by the fleeing former German residents. Jue Herbert
Speaker 1: Closer a German military officer was injured falling from his
Speaker 1: horse and left for dead by his fellow officers, who
Speaker 1: fled off without him. He was swiftly captured and interrogated
Speaker 1: by the Polish secret police. Closer had been a high
Speaker 1: level police official in Vroswaft, the historical capital city of
Speaker 1: the Lower Silesia region. He confirmed much of what was
Speaker 1: already suspected millions, if not billions, of German marks worth
Speaker 1: of valuables had been hidden across the region. Locals believed
Speaker 1: that nearby thirteenth century Kazakh Castle was in fact a
Speaker 1: secret headquarters of Adolf Hitler. There were rumors too, of
Speaker 1: something called Project Resa, taken from the German word for giant.
Speaker 1: This since turned out to comprise a system of tunnels
Speaker 1: and bunkers, most of them still inaccessible today, buried fifty
Speaker 1: meters under the ground, located somewhere in the Awl Mountains
Speaker 1: in Lower Silesia. Many believed the tunnels were deliberately sealed
Speaker 1: off by the German army toward the end of the war.
Speaker 1: The actual purpose of whatever Project Resa may have been
Speaker 1: has never been ascertained, but a scattering of collapsed cave entrances,
Speaker 1: railroad tracks leading to abandoned construction sites and woodland ventilation
Speaker 1: shafts gave credence to the idea that the German Army
Speaker 1: were working on something out there. Locals also spoke of
Speaker 1: hearing loud blasts underground from about nineteen five three onwards.
Speaker 1: If Herbert Closer and his compatriots had been looking for
Speaker 1: somewhere to hide valuables, tunnels built under the Al mountains
Speaker 1: would have been the ideal location. Out of this story
Speaker 1: and others like it, came the local legend that a
Speaker 1: treasure filled train laden with more than three hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty tons of gold, jewels, weapons and artistic masterpieces left
Speaker 1: what was then the town of Breslau now Vrotswath, but
Speaker 1: never made it to its intended destination. Instead, the train
Speaker 1: is rumored to have entered the Project Resa site somewhere
Speaker 1: near Keswick Castle. One of few living sources of the
Speaker 1: Great Gold Train legend is retired minor Tadoit Slovakovski, now
Speaker 1: eighty four, who claimed to have first heard of the
Speaker 1: train from a German Man in the nineteen seventies. I
Speaker 1: have lived with this mystery for forty years, but each
Speaker 1: time I went to the authorities, they always silenced it,
Speaker 1: he once told the Associated Press. For over seventy years,
Speaker 1: people have scoured the Al Mountains for any sign of
Speaker 1: the train. Some say to no avail, others are not
Speaker 1: so sure. It's August twenty fifteen. Peter Copper from Poland
Speaker 1: and Andreas Richter from Germany have secretly open negotiations with
Speaker 1: the Polish government. They're asking for a ten percent finders
Speaker 1: fee before going any further, because they believe they have
Speaker 1: found the missing gold train using radar technology to penetrate
Speaker 1: the ground. Copper and Richter, co owners of a mine
Speaker 1: exploration company, believe their images show several carriages buried nine
Speaker 1: meters underground in a site inside the Al Mountains. This
Speaker 1: information is swiftly leaked and a media circus since hues.
Speaker 1: Thousands of Polish nationals and tourists alike flocked to the site,
Speaker 1: igniting a very singular type of gold rush along a
Speaker 1: two and a half mile stretch of Polish rail track.
Speaker 1: The Polish Deputy Culture Minister at the time was excited.
Speaker 1: He believed that the radar images confirmed with ninety nine
Speaker 1: percent probability that a train of one hundred meters in
Speaker 1: length had been found, despite its skepticism from historians and
Speaker 1: local governing authorities, who believed that surely, if there was
Speaker 1: treasure to be found, it would have been found by now,
Speaker 1: either by the Red Army who invaded subsequently, or by
Speaker 1: any one of the later searches that were conducted did
Speaker 1: in the region, but Copper and Richter remained under turret,
Speaker 1: and so did the tourists and treasure hunters who poured
Speaker 1: into the area armed with shovels and metal detectors, repeatedly
Speaker 1: asking each other have you found it? As they went.
Speaker 1: By late September twenty fifteen, the Polish military had begun
Speaker 1: work in Earnest, clearing trees and searching for booby traps, mines,
Speaker 1: or anything else that may indicate that something really was
Speaker 1: hidden in the designated area. On fifteenth of August twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: a year after their first negotiations, Copper and Richter began digging,
Speaker 1: accompanied by a team of sixty four people, including volunteers, engineers, geologists, chemists, archaeologists,
Speaker 1: and specialists in military demolitions. After seven days, how however,
Speaker 1: Copper and Richter came up empty handed. There was no train.
Speaker 1: The radar images thought to have been the train were
Speaker 1: revealed to be nothing but natural ice formations. Papers that
Speaker 1: had once celebrated Peter Copper and Andreas Richter's search now
Speaker 1: reported on their venture as a hopeless and eccentric foal's
Speaker 1: errand articles debunking their theories were published, and the gold
Speaker 1: Train was relegated once more to urban legend. Despite their failure,
Speaker 1: Copper and Richter were undeterred. Rather than accept the finding,
Speaker 1: they decided that they merely had to dig deeper and
Speaker 1: expand their net wider. In June twenty seventeen, the men
Speaker 1: oversaw a second excavation of the area, discovering seven human
Speaker 1: made cavities in the process. A further dig to investigate
Speaker 1: these was scheduled for the summer of twenty eighteen, but
Speaker 1: with financial support beginning to dry up, their efforts soon
Speaker 1: began to wane. In August twenty eighteen, Andreas Richter left
Speaker 1: the project. He remains convinced, nonetheless, that the train does
Speaker 1: exist somewhere out there. Peter Copper carried on a loan
Speaker 1: for a short time until January twenty nineteen, when he
Speaker 1: made a somewhat different but wholly welcome discovery. While helping
Speaker 1: to renovate a palace in the village of Struga, not
Speaker 1: far from the suspected train site, he discovered a series
Speaker 1: of large and priceless sixteenth century wall paintings hidden behind
Speaker 1: the plaster. The discovery of the twenty four painting in
Speaker 1: total is now considered possibly the most valuable of its
Speaker 1: kind in lower PSI leisure. Perhaps you might one day
Speaker 1: find the mythical gold train too. This episode was written
Speaker 1: by Ella McLeod. Unexplained is an Avy Club Productions podcast
Speaker 1: created by Richard McLain Smith. All other elements of the podcast,
Speaker 1: including the music, are also produced by Richard McLain smith. Unexplained.
Speaker 1: The book and audiobook, featuring stories that have never before
Speaker 1: been featured on the show, is now available to buy worldwide.
Speaker 1: You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes, and Noble Waterstones, among
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Speaker 1: with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've heard
Speaker 1: on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of your
Speaker 1: own you'd like to share. You can reach us online
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