Mysterious gold-laden train may have
been found by treasure hunters in
Poland The tale of a legendary Nazi ghost train
carrying gold which allegedly disappeared
without trace in the dying days of the Second
World War has taken a new twist. Two men have filed a “finder's claim" with a
district council in Poland for an “armoured
train” carrying precious metals, fuelling
speculation the mysterious train has been
located. The claim was filed in the south-west Polish
town of Walbrzych and could put an end to 70
years of rumour, myth and fruitless treasure hunts for the ghost train. According to local media reports, two
claimants - a Pole and a German - say they
have found a 500-foot long “armoured train”
with gun platforms and a cargo of “precious
metals”. The claim was lodged because under Polish
law treasure finders can keep 10 per cent of
the value of their find.

It is believed that towards the end of the war, as the Red Army closed in on the city of
Wroclaw, Nazis loaded a train with gold and other treasure and sent it south west. "Lawyers, the army, the police and the fire
brigade are dealing with this,” Marika
Tokarska, an official at the Walbrzych district
council, told Reuters. “The area has never been excavated before
and we don’t know what we might find.” According to local legend, the train vanished
after heading into mountains straddling the
current Polish-Czech border. “In the region we actually two gold train
stories,” Joanna Lamparska, a local historian,
told Radio Wroclaw. “One is supposed to be under a mountain and
the other somewhere around Walbrzych. "But no one has ever seen documentary
evidence confirming the existence of such
trains." Other historians point out that the Nazis dug
miles of tunnels in the south-west mountains of
what is now Poland in one of the biggest
construction projects in the history of the Third
Reich.

The reason for the tunnels remain shrouded in
mystery, and some believers in the ghost train
argue the Germans may have excavated secret railway stashes and hidden the loot in one of them for safe keeping. The value of its cargo may also explain the
lack of documentation of the train as the
Germans could have put secrecy before
paperwork, they say. How the gold came into the Nazis' posession
also remains unclear. It has been suggested
the treasure is linked to the Nazis’ monumental
wartime looting spree, which stripped museums and private houses of their
artworks. Walbrzych local government has refused to
comment on the matter other than to ask the
claimants to come forward and give the
location of the apparent find as it may have
been boobytrapped with mines. Taduesz Slowikowski, a treasure hunter who
has searched for the missing train, said he
was sceptical that the alleged find in southern
Poland would still contain the treasure.