Stories about the possible discovery of a long-lost “Nazi gold train” in Poland have been floating around recently, but I was ignoring them because Slate generally tries to only publish real facts and, c’mon, a Nazi gold train? The potential existence of said train is now being discussed even in the august pages of the New York Times, though, and a Polish government official has gone on the record to say that he believes it’s been located. From the Times:
Local lore says a German train filled with gold, gems and armaments went missing around the city of Walbrzych while it was fleeing the Red Army in the spring of 1945 … During the war, the Germans built a system of underground tunnels in the mountainous region of Walbrzych and the city of Wroclaw, from where the train is believed to have departed.
Two men whose identities have not been made public told authorities they’ve found the train and have asked for a financial reward to reveal its specific location. Polish deputy culture minister Piotr Zuchowski is involved in the case:
[Zuchowski] said he was shown an image — albeit blurred — from a ground-penetrating radar that showed the shape of a train platform and cannons, and added he was “more than 99 percent certain that this train exists.”
Let’s throw a keg party in the gold train!
