Diary Of SS Officer Could Lead To Historic Discovery Of Lost Nazi Gold
Śląski Pomost QuedlinburgThe 75-year-old diary belonged to an SS officer named Egon Ollenhauer.
The Nazis infamously ransacked and looted all treasure they could find. From the deserts of Africa to the Eastern European villages of Ukraine, nothing was safe. Even so, this next piece of history news was particularly astounding: In May 2020, researchers uncovered the diary of an SS officer which claimed a castle in Poland held 28 tons of stolen gold.
The diary claimed that the old fortress contained an incredible amount of gold bars, jewelry, and other valuables at the bottom of a detonated well shaft 200 feet underground. That well is currently situated on the property of the Hochberg Palace near the Polish city of Wroclaw.
This impressive clue to stolen Nazi treasure was first uncovered by a resourceful team of Polish-German researchers at the Silesian Bridge Foundation. Though the diarist never signs his name, the experts are fairly confident that it belongs to an SS Officer named Egon Ollenhauer.
Ollenhauer was the de facto liaison between SS officers who were hiding Nazi-looted treasure and higher-ranking members of the SS who merely wanted their valuables to be safely secured. The diary itself, meanwhile, was found at the German Masonic Lodge of Quedlinburg, which Ollenhauer frequented.
This group of Freemasons retained control of their lodge for decades after World War II came to an end. Surprisingly, they handed the diary to the Silesian Bridge Foundation as a gesture of goodwill and atonement.
The diary revealed that its author collaborated with Günther Grundmann, an art conservator whom Heinrich Himmler ordered to catalog and store the Nazis’ stolen art — and to prevent it from falling in the hands of the Allies. The diary also claimed that the well contained the corpses of numerous witnesses.
TemA OnlineThe Hochberg Palace in all its glory — where 28 tons of gold potentially lies hidden.
“Dr. Grundmann and his people had already prepared in the grounds of the palace a deep well,” it read. “The following was placed at the bottom in crates: jewelry, coins and ingots, many of them were damaged, they had traces of gunfire. After we finished everything, the well was blown up, filled in and covered.”
If true, the buried treasure would be worth about $1.5 billion dollars. Fortunately, the current owners of the Hochberg Palace have granted this research team permission to investigate the area. This could be one of the biggest historical discoveries of the year.
