# Nazi Gold Train? Place Your Bets **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 4, 2015, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-gold-train-place-your-bets/729918 "2015-09-04T17:21:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Archeonomist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7cd45c/32.png) [@Archeonomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Archeonomist)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2015, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-gold-train-place-your-bets/729918/21 "2015-09-05T09:20:31Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > However, the Swedes weren’t particularly frightened of, nor fond of, the nazis — despite their own repellent eugenics copied from the masters of eugenic madness ( the Americans ) — Germany couldn’t have held Sweden, who had and still have, a redoubtable army, not to mention arms industry. The Swedes were initially very nazi friendly, the King had a good relationship with Hitler and they corresponded throughout the war. Sweden would also allow German troops to travel through Sweden on their way to fight in Narvik. The Germans didn’t need to invade Sweden. > [@Claverhouse](#): > > Norway did not volunteer to be invaded, and Hitler only did so because the British were doing so first. . . The British considered an invasion or at least some form of military action to secure vital ports like Narvik, from where the Swedish iron was shipped. They never got around to doing it though. > [@Claverhouse](#): > > Fun Fact: the only initial violent resistance to the German invasion came from Vidkun Quisling and his NS mob. It’s a fun fact. It’s also pure fiction. I have no idea where you get this from. The first violent resistance to the invasion was the sinking of the German cruiser Blücher carrying troops to invade Oslo in Drøbaksundet. There was a lot of resistance to the invasion, but Norwegian military was badly equipped and badly organized so they had no real chance against the Germans. It didn’t help that there were some nazi friendly officers that simply capitulated at once. On topic - I think it would be enough of a sensation if they found an intact German train from the war hidden away in those mountains regardless of any gold. Personally, I don’t think there will be much treasure to be found but one can always hope. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2015, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-gold-train-place-your-bets/729918/22 "2015-09-05T10:54:48Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > how would the conspirators have gotten access to rolling stock in the last few months of the war when every train was needed for the war effort? While I’m inclined to believe the whole thing is hokum for a bunch of other reasons, the answer to this one objection is simple: while every train may have been needed for the war effort, that didn’t stop Hitler from pulling many trains away from the war effort in late 1944 and presumably early 1945 to try to complete the Final Solution before the Reich fell. If you’re a Nazi official in a position to swipe a serious stash of the Reich’s gold, you’re also probably in a position to redirect a train that had been destined for Treblinka. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2015, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-gold-train-place-your-bets/729918/23 "2015-09-05T13:10:21Z")
The story is bogus, because existing bank records would show any significant amount of gold missing from a bank. Plus, it has been 70 years-pretty hard to keep somthing hidden like this. But as in the case of the “Amber Room” there is just enough to keep the story interesting. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Bredin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@John\_Bredin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Bredin)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2015, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-gold-train-place-your-bets/729918/24 "2015-09-05T14:15:48Z")
I voted the middle option because I think it’s plausible there’s a train, but the claim it contains gold is wishful thinking. I think it’s something more mundane: an armored military train pulled into a tunnel to evade aerial bombing and got trapped when a bomb collapsed the portal. ---
**Author:** ![Aquadementia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aquadementia/32/555_2.png) [@Aquadementia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquadementia)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2015, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-gold-train-place-your-bets/729918/25 "2015-09-05T14:44:21Z")
I find a train full of gold hard to believe. What I would expect it to be is a world domination weapon buried until there was enough plutonium to power it. Nothing as mundane as a bomb of course. Probably a scalpel ray beam to surgically cut off undesirable parts of the Earth’s crust. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2015, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-gold-train-place-your-bets/729918/26 "2015-09-05T16:26:50Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > American corporations and administrations have sold a _lot_ of weapons around the world, even to people they had nothing in common with ( and occasionally which weapons would end up being pointed at Americans ); didn’t mean their profiting was a sin. Weeeelll, there’s a world of difference between “a sin” and “a tacky, but legal act.” 😉 I used to work across the street from Al Capone’s Vaults. :rolleyes: My money is on “publicity stunt for a crappy movie.” And even if it isn’t, The Asylum, who gave us Sharknados 1, 2, and 3, will make sure it is! ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2015, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-gold-train-place-your-bets/729918/27 "2015-09-05T18:35:21Z")
I’m somewhere in between options two and three. I think the idea of a entire trainload of gold worth uncountable billions being buried is… implausible at best. There are lots of reasons why they’d have just moved it elsewhere, why there wouldn’t be that much gold, why records should exist of it, etc. On the other hand, a buried safe full of gold? A train full of many valuables including a little gold? Those kinds of possibilities I think are quite likely. Any German with half a brain knew the war was lost by summer of '44, giving them essentially a year to prepare for what would happen afterward. It would have to be done in relative secrecy because you sure as hell don’t admit to the Fuhrer that you’re diverting war resources to pad your post-surrender retirement fund. Then you let the rumor mill work on that seed. What started as a (potentially) truthful “The German general hid a bar of gold in the luggage compartment” eventually grew into “The Nazis put Fort Knox on a train and buried it in our backyard.” ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2015, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-gold-train-place-your-bets/729918/28 "2015-09-05T18:43:57Z")
> [@Aquadementia](#): > > I find a train full of gold hard to believe. > > What I would expect it to be is a world domination weapon buried until there was enough plutonium to power it. Nothing as mundane as a bomb of course. Probably a scalpel ray beam to surgically cut off undesirable parts of the Earth’s crust. You mean something sort of like a Biblical Ark in a crate? We all know what happens when \*that \*gets unearthed by the wrong group. ---
**Author:** ![Aquadementia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aquadementia/32/555_2.png) [@Aquadementia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquadementia)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2015, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-gold-train-place-your-bets/729918/29 "2015-09-05T19:02:34Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > You mean something sort of like a Biblical Ark in a crate? We all know what happens when \*that \*gets unearthed by the wrong group. Yeah, could be almost anything: Spear of Destiny, 666 four leaf clovers, a monkey’s paw, Merlin’s pointy hat. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2015, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-gold-train-place-your-bets/729918/30 "2015-09-05T22:42:59Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > However, the Swedes weren’t particularly frightened of, nor fond of, the nazis — despite their own repellent eugenics copied from the masters of eugenic madness ( the Americans ) — Germany couldn’t have held Sweden, who had and still have, a redoubtable army, not to mention arms industry. Well, the Americans and the British…:rolleyes: So Germany could occupy France and a large chunk of the USSR but couldnt hold Sweden?..:dubious: ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2015, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-gold-train-place-your-bets/729918/31 "2015-09-05T22:56:52Z")
France and the USSR are largely flat. Great tank terrain. Fjords and mountains, not so much. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2015, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-gold-train-place-your-bets/729918/32 "2015-09-05T23:20:28Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > France and the USSR are largely flat. Great tank terrain. Fjords and mountains, not so much. Like Norway? And France had a massive army. That was a ridiculous post. The Germans would have rolled over the Swedes in a matter of weeks. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-gold-train-place-your-bets/729918/33 "2015-09-06T01:05:01Z")
More likely, it contains decaying, and therefore **dangerous** munitions. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-gold-train-place-your-bets/729918/34 "2015-09-06T01:28:09Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > More likely, it contains decaying, and therefore **dangerous** munitions. I agree. Or some other product produced by local slave labor or raw materials. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-gold-train-place-your-bets/729918/35 "2016-05-06T13:57:56Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > Again, if such a train existed for the purpose of hiding gold there would likely be a record of the train and a record of the cargo…German bureaucracy and such. There were factories in the area built into the hills; the train is likely related to them. The Germans wanted to hide these as they were operated by slave labor and thousands died there. There is a [long and fascinating article about the gold trains](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/09/searching-for-nazi-gold), treasure and other oddities of the Silesia area in the current\* New Yorker\*. According to the author, no one really knows what the massive underground constructions were intended for - a uber-bunker for the Nazi elite, factories for V2s and other super-weapons, aircraft storage. There are dozens of different stories, even from contemporary interrogations of SS personnel who were part of the projects. So there are cases where the famed Nazi bureaucracy didn’t document every move, or held it so closely that it was effectively destroyed before falling into Allied hands. By the way, about halfway through the article, the real reason for the _Riese_ (“Giant”) excavations comes to light. Buckle your seatbelts, space cadets. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-gold-train-place-your-bets/729918/36 "2016-05-06T16:49:07Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > By the way, about halfway through the article, the real reason for the _Riese_ (“Giant”) excavations comes to light. Buckle your seatbelts, space cadets. Here, let me read that for us: > [@](#): > > But during my visit with Andrzej Boczek, at his cottage clubhouse, he scoffed at the notion that there was a treasure-laden train buried at the 65th Kilometre. “It was made up to get attention from world media,” he said. This “train tale” was simply a ruse devised by treasure hunters to distract from “what is really hidden underneath.” I asked him to elaborate. What was the real treasure, if not Klose’s gold? Boczek reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a creased piece of paper. He unfolded it and waved it in the air briefly, allowing me a fleeting glimpse. The image on the paper was unmistakable: it was a flying saucer. > > I wasn’t entirely surprised to see it. Tomasz Jurek had also mentioned to me that he was looking for a spaceship that the Nazis had allegedly built and hidden underground in Lower Silesia. Igor Witkowski, a Polish journalist and author, has written a book about Nazi “wonder weapons” and notes that “rounded, experimental flying vehicles” were seen at Książ Castle during the war. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-gold-train-place-your-bets/729918/37 "2016-05-06T17:04:34Z")
Bah; everyone knows that late in the war the bulk of the Nazi’s hoarded gold disappeared from a bank in the village of Clermont, France. Rumor has it the culprit was a unit of irregular US Army troops led by a non-com named Kelly. There was even a documentary made about it in the late '60s. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-gold-train-place-your-bets/729918/38 "2016-05-06T17:23:36Z")
So now we know why the Americans and Soviets were racing to the moon. They wanted to get all the Nazi gold that was stored there. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-gold-train-place-your-bets/729918/39 "2016-05-06T17:44:41Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > Bah; everyone knows that late in the war the bulk of the Nazi’s hoarded gold disappeared from a bank in the village of Clermont, France. Rumor has it the culprit was a unit of irregular US Army troops led by a non-com named Kelly. There was even a documentary made about it in the late '60s. Stop with the negative waves, El Kabong! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-gold-train-place-your-bets/729918.md?page=1)