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