Rico's rants: Gold train, still missing

War History Online has more on the train, maybe:

A lot has happened since our last update, so let us have a look at what is going on:

The tunnel is supposed to be fifteen meters wide, twenty-five meters below the surface and two kilometers long, the report in a local news paper said the tunnel is near the village of Walim, twelve miles from Walbrzych where the hunt has been centered.
Poland’s Deputy Culture Minister Piotr Zuchowski previously told reporters that he had been informed the buried train was more than a hundred meters long, and that he had seen an image from ground-penetrating radar that appeared to show the outline of an armored train. A Polish military museum says it has received an excellent quality ground radar image that shows the gold train in fine detail.
To our knowledge, the tunnel was discovered by the same two men who claimed to have found the ‘gold train’, said the report. It said using a 1926 railway map, they found that the tunnel lies near to the former railway station in Walim, reports the Daily Mail.
The lawyer that represents the two men claiming to have found the train has back-pedaled on claims it contains gold. Instead, he told local television last night, it may contain ‘valuable minerals’. “We will be a hundred per cent sure only when we find the train,” Zuchowski later qualified to CBS News.
The hunt for the train has claimed the first life. A 39-year-old Polish male was looking for the Nazi gold in a tomb on a local cemetery when he suddenly fell down four meters and did not survive. His two colleagues, who rushed to the police station to get help, have since been arrested on desecration charges. The men were searching the tomb of a very rich German family for gold.
The Polish military have now secured the wooded area where the mystery train is supposed to be. Military engineers say the area needs to be cleared before any search can be conducted. The area might contain in booby traps or volatile weapon which can endanger the participants in the search.
A spokesman for the army operations command, Lieutenant Colonel Artur Golawski, told The Associated Press that, following the inspection, local authorities have been told that fallen trees and shrubs must be removed if any serious examination is to be done of the area in the city of Walbrzych.
New theories that the train may contain dangerous cargo have surfaced in recent days as the wooded foothills of the Owl Mountains have become the center of fevered attention for history buffs, treasure hunters and tourism promoters.
The Daily Mail reports that a senior Moscow intelligence veteran has also thrown doubt on claims the train would contain treasures. And rather then containing gold, a source close to the investigation has told MailOnline it was becoming widely accepted that the World War Two train could contain the remains of inmates from the nearby concentration camp Gross Rosen.
The tunnels in the area were dug as part of the Riese project, the code name for a construction project of Nazi Germany in 1943–45, consisting of seven underground structures located in the Owl Mountains and Książ Castle in Lower Silesia, previously Germany and now a territory of Poland. Inmates from Gross Rosen were used during the construction of the tunnels. It is not unthinkable that the SS, trying to eradicate all traces of their crimes, moved a train with damning evidence in one of the tunnels to hide its existence from the oncoming Soviet troops.
The purpose of the project remains uncertain because of lack of documentation. Some sources suggest that all the structures were part of the Führer headquarters; according to others, it was a combination of HQ and the arms industry, but comparison to similar facilities can indicate that only the castle was adapted as an HQ or other official residence and the tunnels in the Owl Mountains were planned as a network of underground factories.
The Independent reports that the two finders have gone public in order refute the accusations that their story is a hoax.
“As the finders of a World War Two armored train, we, Andreas Richter and Piotr Koper, declare that we have legally informed state authorities about the find and have precisely indicated the location in the presence of Walbrzych authorities and the police. We have irrefutable proof of its existence.“
However not everybody is happy, Richter and Koper have since been expelled from a local history society because the group was “outraged” the men had claimed the train for themselves.
The Lower Silesian Study Group took action against Piotr Koper, who was the society’s vice president, and Andreas Richter amid a welter of debate and rumor surrounding the two men’s claims. The pair have demanded a ten percent finders fee from the government which has apparently been signed off by national officials.
Piotr Koper, from Walbrzych, Poland, and Andreas Liechter, from Germany, appeared on television this morning to swear to the fact the train does exist. Proof? The men have posted a picture to a website, taken with a GPR KS-700. According to them, it shows a section of land in 3D with visible shaft leading down about fifty meters
The press have been allowed into a network of tunnels, the same network of tunnels where the gold train is reported to be, that look in pretty good condition.
Tadeusz Slowikowski, 85, revealed to MailOnline how he first heard about the train, thought to be laden with gold, looted paintings and even the Amber Chamber back in the 1950s. Slowikowski said: ‘I became aware of the tunnel after saving a German man named Schulz from being attacked by two men. As gratitude for saving him, he told me about the tunnel.’ The story Schulz told him was one of murder, fear, and secrets, beginning in the dying days of the Second World War when another German man, then working on the railways, found the tunnel’s entrance. ‘A few Germans carried on living in the area after the war and this one had been working on the railways when he came across the entrance to the tunnel,’ Slowikowski explained to MailOnline. ‘He saw two tracks leading into the tunnel. The tunnel was blocked up very shortly afterwards.’
Poland says it’s “ninety-nine per cent” certain that a subterranean radar signal is that of a long-lost Nazi loot train. Is it Jewish gold? Is it Russia’s long-lost Amber Room? What about the Ark of the Covenant?
Excitement is running high. But the train, even if it exists, hasn’t actually been uncovered yet. Poland has deployed police and railway protection services to a stretch of track in Poland’s south west.
Polish authorities have backtracked on claims a buried Second World War train containing Nazi gold has been found in the country, just days after a minister claimed he was 99% sure of its existence.
Following two weeks of speculation about a ‘Nazi gold train’ with valuables on board, officials now say the evidence is “no stronger than similar claims made in past decades”.
Gold fever has descended on southwestern Poland since a top culture official gave credence to the claim of two treasure hunters to have located a legendary Nazi train loaded with valuables in an abandoned mountain railroad tunnel. Locals and foreigners have arrived by the scores in recent days with metal detectors and set to combing the forested area of the Owl Mountains in Lower Silesia where authorities said last week they had been shown ground-penetrating radar images of an armored train hidden in a tunnel.
Experts in Poland have said the apparent discovery of a Nazi train thought to be packed with looted treasures could be the first of many, suggesting just a fraction of Hitler’s vast tunnel complex in the country has so far been discovered.
An 85-year-old man who spent half his life searching for the missing Nazi gold train has revealed the murder, secret police intimidation, and deathbed confession that led to its sensational discovery under a hillside in Poland. The sprightly pensioner, who has an unrivalled insight into the hunt for the train, added that not only does he know where the train is hidden, but he also knows the identity of the two men who two weeks ago claimed to have found it, as well as the man who is said to have given a deathbed confession about its location.
As the world’s press descend upon the small town of Walbrzych in southwest Poland, the country’s equivalent of MI5, the Internal Security Service (ABW), have now moved into the area where the train is said to have disappeared seventy years ago, leading to speculation that secret Third Reich documents may be among its precious cargo. To summarize the day’s events:

Poland’s deputy culture minister says he is “convinced” the train exists.
He has warned people not to search for it, because it could be booby trapped or mined. Experts are warning that the gold could be tooth fillings, rather than pristine gold blocks. The identity of the two men claiming the ten per cent fee remains unclear, and the location or even existence of the train also remains unclear. Poland has appealed to war buffs and rail enthusiasts to stop searching for a Nazi train believed to have lain undiscovered for seventy years and rumored to carry treasure.
Authorities say they believe they have located the train in the county of Wałbrzych, after they were tipped off by a German and a Pole who said last week that they had found it, and expected a finder’s fee of ten percent. The culture ministry said “foragers” had since become active in the area and urged them to stop, saying they risked harming themselves. “I’m certain the train exists, but it might contain dangerous material,” said Piotr Żuchowski, the head of national heritage at the ministry. “This is an appeal for any further investigations to be put on hold until we have finished the necessary official procedures relating to securing the site.”
Local news reports say the train, believed to be military, went missing in 1945, packed with loot from the then eastern German city of Breslau, now Wrocław and part of Poland, as Soviet Red Army forces closed in.
Reports said the train contained up to three hundred tons of gold, as well as a batch of diamonds, other gems, and industrial equipment. According to local folklore, it entered a tunnel in the mountainous Lower Silesian region and never emerged. The tunnel was later closed and its location long forgotten.
France Info radio is reporting that, if the train exists, it will belong to the Polish state, under accords passed with Germany.
Damien Simonart, France Info’s Warsaw correspondent, said:

If there is Nazi gold in this train, we are not talking about Indiana Jones here, but gold pulled from the teeth of Jews in death camps. He added that, if the two unidentified treasure hunters really have struck gold, they will have to question their consciences over its origin if they do seal a deal to take home ten per cent of its value.
According to testimony from the tooth puller of Treblinka (a Nazi death camp in Poland), two suitcases containing eight to ten kilos left the camp each week, and Treblinka provided very little of the overall amount. So one can only imagine how much this amounted to by the end of the war.
Indeed, Himmler sent letters all over ordering Nazi workers to ‘accelerate, accelerate’.
We know the deported were gassed before they were incinerated. Joseph Mengele (the notoriously barbaric Auschwitz physician known as ‘the Angel of Death”) issued orders for their teeth to be searched for gold. So, when you ask for ten per cent of that, you have to know where it’s coming from. We’re not talking about Indiana Jones. I wouldn’t want people to associate the spiritual quest of the film with one that is so venal and indeed abject.
Matthew Day reports that a senior official in Poland’s culture ministry has called on treasure hunters searching for a Nazi gold train in southern Poland to stop because the train could be carrying dangerous materials, and its surroundings could be mined. The official also said he was “convinced” of the existence of the train.
More from Matthew Day, who is monitoring events from Poland:

According to “unofficial information” quoted in the local press a possible location for the train is in a tunnel just to the north of Walbrzych, adjacent to an in-use railway line. Apparently there is eyewitness evidence claiming there was a tunnel there but that its entrance was blown up by the Nazis. The area has been the site of previous hunts for the train.
The find has aroused strong interest from specialists in recovering looted Nazi belongings. Jerome Hasler, head of communications and strategy for the Art Recovery Group, told The Telegraph that he hopes Poland will, if gold is found, look to return it to its rightful owners.
He said that "e are still waiting for the facts to be established, but we very much hope that it this is a legitimate find. Not only would this train present great historical significance, but all opportunities to identify and return property looted during the Nazi era must be welcomed. If the find is confirmed, we encourage the Polish authorities to share information about any works of art recovered, so that any restitution efforts can begin in earnest."
So where are we with the “Nazi gold train” story?
Excitement grew when the deputy mayor of Walbrzych said he had been told by lawyers for the two men that the train had been found. But don’t get too feverish just yet. Zygmunt Nowaczyk, the deputy mayor, did say yesterday that the lawyers haven’t offered any proof of the alleged discovery. Nonetheless, Nowaczyk said he will pass on the information he has to the national government because, if found, the train would be state property.
How could you hide a train for seventy years? Trains are big things.
One of the questions many of us will have is the one above and just how it could remain hidden for long. Matthew Day in Warsaw, Poland explains how:

During the war, the Germans dug miles of tunnels into the hills and mountains around Walbrzych. Historians differ on why this was done. Some say they were creating a secret command center, others say they were underground factories for weapons, while others claim the tunnels were research sites for the atom bomb project.
But there are tunnels: some of them very big. At the end of the war, the Germans flooded or blew up a number of them. As a result, not all the tunnels have been explored.