Nazi Millionaires: The Allied Search for Hidden SS Gold

by Kenneth A. Alford

  2. The entire idea of a last ditch “Alpine Redoubt” defense in Bavaria and northern Austria was absurd, but some truly believed in its viability. After itbecame obvious that the Allied drive across Europe and final German defeat was a fait accompli, officers and politicians in positions of authority, includingGerman propaganda minister Josef Goebbels, began to seriously consider reinforcing the southern mountainous area for a final defense. Bunkers, trainingfacilities, and airstrips would be built there, supplies stored there, conventionalarmies would eventually retreat there, and the Führer would arrive and direct animpregnable defense. Most informed higher-ups knew that a prolonged defensewith conventional forces was no longer possible. Thus the idea of a final Alpine defense strategy was proposed and propagated as a strategic ploy to convince theAllies it would be too bloody and costly to overrun the area. The only hope wasfor a negotiated peace. Intertwined within this fantasy was “Operation Werewolf[Wehrwolf],” whereby regular soldiers and militia would act as partisans before and after any surrender and cut roads, destroy rail lines, and poison wells behindthe lines [i.e., in occupied Germany]. Partisan activities (whether part of “Operation Werewolf” or not remains unclear) were reported in southernGermany and Austria as late as 1947. For more information on this fascinatingand overlooked aspect of the war, see Perry Biddiscombe, Werewolf! The History of the National Socialist Guerrilla Movement, 1944–1946 (Toronto,1998).

  3. Eichmann, “Memoirs,” Life Magazine, p. 155, 156. “Alm” means pastureor field.

  4. Eichmann “Memoirs,” Life Magazine, pp. 154–155. Eichmann’s smallmindedness is evident in a passage he penned about the Park Hotel’s proprietor, who “years afterward kept railing against ‘that dog Eichmann’ whorequisitioned his hotel and let his gang run it, inflicting all sorts of fancieddamages. The complaint was merely something rooted in his wretchedshopkeeper’s mind. By no means did we wreck everything in his hotel. On thecontrary, I finally yielded to the pressure of the doctor in charge of theneighboring field hospital, who had tearfully begged me to take my combattroops out of Altaussee so that he might declare it an open city. So we evacuated. Before my troops left, I personally saw the Red Cross nurses scrubbing and cleaning up, room by room, since the overcrowded hospital had to expand intothis pig’s hotel. It was set up as a hospital annex. The beneficiary of all thisclean-up operation was thus enabled to feather his own nest.” Ibid., p. 154.

  5. CIC Memorandum, “Statement of Rudolph Doskoczil,” interviewed byInspector Auerboeck, April 24, 1947.

  6. CIC Memorandum, “Statement of Rudolph Doskoczil,” interviewed byInspector Auerboeck, April 24, 1947.

  7. “Statement of Rudolph Doskoczil,” interviewed by Inspector Auerboeck, April 24, 1947.

  8. “Statement of Rudolph Doskoczil,” interviewed by Inspector Auerboeck, April 24, 1947; Eichmann, “Memoirs,” Life Magazine, p. 156. SS Captain AntonBurger, an Austrian, was an aide to Eichmann and had been deputy commanderof Theresienstadt concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. Burger helped deport10,000 Greek Jews to concentration camps, where most of them perished.“Concealed Gold, Jewelry, Foreign Exchange, and Weapons, Believed to beLocated in the Salzkammergut, Zell am See, Salzburg, and in the Tyrol,” July 3,1947.]

  9. Eichmann, “Memoirs,” Life Magazine, p. 156.

  10. Eichmann, “Memoirs,” Life Magazine, p. 156.

  11. Eichmann, “Memoirs,” Life Magazine, p. 156.

  12. Eichmann, “Memoirs,” Life Magazine, p. 156.

  13. Eichmann, “Memoirs,” Life Magazine, p. 156.

  14. Eichmann, “Memoirs,” Life Magazine, p. 155, 156. Josef and MagdaGoebbels poisoned their six children in the Berlin bunker before they themselveswere either killed or committed suicide.

  15. “Statement of Rudolph Doskoczil,” interviewed by InspectorAuerboeck, April 24, 1947.

  16. Author Interview with Mrs. Eggers, Altaussee, 1987.

  Chapter 15 Notes

  1. “First Progress Report: Concealed Gold, Jewelry, Foreign Exchange, andWeapons, Believed to be Located in the Salzkammergut, Zell am See, Salzburg, and in the Tyrol,” July 3, 1947, p. 3.

  2. “First Progress Report: Concealed Gold, Jewelry, Foreign Exchange, andWeapons, Believed to be Located in the Salzkammergut, Zell am See, Salzburg, and in the Tyrol,” July 3, 1947, pp. 3–4. “A young attractive Jewish agent, against his will but under orders to do so, had become Eichmann’s wife’s lover inAltaussee after the war. He lived with her for about one year but was unable toobtain any useful information about either Eichmann’s whereabouts or any valuables he may have hidden.” Interview, Tuviah Friedman, Director ofDocumentation Center, Haifa, Israel, November 20, 1985.

  3. First Progress Report: Concealed Gold, Jewelry, Foreign Exchange, andWeapons, Believed to be Located in the Salzkammergut, Zell am See, Salzburg, and in the Tyrol,” July 3, 1947, p. 7.

  4. “Statement of Frau Iris Scheidler,” undated (but probably April 16, 1947).The colonel, whose name was never revealed in CIC reports, apparently transferred back to the United States.

  5. “Statement of Frau Iris Scheidler,” undated (but probably April 16,1947); “First Progress Report: Concealed Gold, Jewelry, Foreign Exchange, andWeapons, Believed to be Located in the Salzkammergut, Zell am See, Salzburg, and in the Tyrol,” July 3, 1947, p. 7. During an interview in a CIC office FrauScheidler discovered an American agent in possession of a silver case for a cologne bottle that belonged to her husband. The case, which had been confiscated at the time of his arrest, was returned to her at her request.

  6. The story of this gold shipment is detailed in Chapter 13, “ErnstKaltenbrunner’s Missing Sacks of Gold.”

  7. “Statement of Frau Iris Scheidler,” undated (but probably April 16, 1947).

  8. “Statement of Frau Iris Scheidler,” undated (but probably April 16, 1947).

  9. Trial of War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal, November 14, 1945-October 1, 1946, 42 vols. (U.S. Printing Office, 1947–1949), vol. 21, p. 228 (commonly known as the “Blue Series”).

  10. CIC Memorandum, “Subject: Wilhelm Höttl,” May 31, 1945; Trial ofWar Criminals before the International Military Tribunal, p. 228.

  11. “Subject: Wilhelm Höttl,” May 31, 1945. Frau Elfriede Höttl toldinvestigators her husband was a Major, or Obersturmbannführer. CICMemorandum, “Statement of Elfriede Höttl,” April 4, 1947. Allen Welsh Dulleswould become the future director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1953–1961, an organization that grew out of the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS.

  12. Wilhelm Höttl, The Secret Front: The Story of Nazi Political Espionage (New York, 1954), pp. 288–293; “Special Investigative Report on Höttl,” June,20, 1945; “Subject: Wilhelm Höttl,” May 31, 1945. Höttl was so dedicated to theidea of undermining the German Redoubt effort that his activities during the lasthours before the capitulation included the scrutinizing of Allied propagandaleaflets. He suggested the leaflets point out that only “war criminals” werecontinuing the fight to save their own skins. Ibid.

  13. “Statement of Elfriede Höttl,” April 4, 1947. Bad Aussee and Altaussee are 4.5 kilometers, or 2.8 miles, apart.

  14. “First Progress Report: Concealed Gold, Jewelry, Foreign Exchange, and Weapons, Believed to be Located in the Salzkammergut, Zell am See, Salzburg, and in the Tyrol,” July 3, 1947, p. 9–10. Hofrat Reith was wrong about the gold: it did not make it into the proper hands. After the Austrians issued thereceipts for the precious metal, the gold disappeared. No one seems to haverecognized this fact until the authors of this study determined that the golddiscovered by salt miner Johann Pucher was never formally recorded as havingbeen received at the Foreign Exchange Depository in Frankfurt, Germany. Somewhere between the time it was turned in and the time it was to have been turned over to the Americans, the gold vanished.

  15. “First Progress Report: Concealed Gold, Jewelry, Foreign Exchange, and Weapons, Believed to be Located in the Salzkammergut, Zell am See, Salzburg, and in the Tyrol,” July 3, 19
47, p. 9.

  16. “Statement of Elfriede Höttl,” April 4, 1947.

  17. “First Progress Report: Concealed Gold, Jewelry, Foreign Exchange, and Weapons, Believed to be Located in the Salzkammergut, Zell am See, Salzburg, and in the Tyrol,” July 3, 1947, p. 3; “Statement of Elfriede Höttl,”April 4, 1947.

  18. “First Progress Report: Concealed Gold, Jewelry, Foreign Exchange, and Weapons, Believed to be Located in the Salzkammergut, Zell am See, Salzburg, and in the Tyrol,” July 3, 1947, p. 3; “Statement of Elfriede Höttl,”April 4, 1947; “Assets of Gold and Foreign Currency of the RSHA Berlin/Dislocation in the Salzkammergut, Salzburg and the Tyrol,” April 26,1947, p. 5; CIC “Statement of Walter Grötzl,” June 20, 1947.

  19. “Concealed Gold, Jewelry, Foreign Exchange, and Weapons believed to be located in the Salzkammergut, in Zeller See, Land Salzburg, and in theTyrol,” p. 3, August 18, 1947. Albrecht Gaiswinkler seems an unlikely suspect. Recently declassified Austrian documents claim he rescued Leonardo da Vinci’sMona Lisa from the Nazis. Officials speaking on behalf of the Louvre in Paris (where the Mona Lisa was, and is today, exhibited) deny the report. They claimthe painting never left France and that the occupying Nazis had absconded earlyin the war with a centuries-old copy of the priceless piece of art. Gaiswinkler, these same documents continue, deserted from the Wehrmacht and fled toFrance in June of 1944, where he hooked up with the French Resistance. Somehow the industrious Austrian managed to bring with him severaltruckloads of weapons and 500,000 francs. Gaiswinkler was later sent back intoAustria, where he served with the Free Austrian Movement against the Germans. According to a newly published book by William Mackenzie, The Secret Historyof SOE: Special Operations Executive 1940–1945 (St. Ermin’s Press, 2001), which was written just after the war and until recently classified, Gaiswinkler turned over several mid-level Nazis to the Americans and “rescued a number ofNazi treasure hoards, including the Mona Lisa and the Austrian Imperial Crown Jewels.”

  20. “First Progress Report: Concealed Gold, Jewelry, Foreign Exchange, and Weapons, Believed to be Located in the Salzkammergut, Zell am See, Salzburg, and in the Tyrol,” July 3, 1947, p. 3; “Assets of Gold and ForeignCurrency of the RSHA Berlin/Dislocation in the Salzkammergut, Salzburg and the Tyrol,” April 26, 1947, p. 5.

  21. “Assets of Gold and Foreign Currency of the RSHA Berlin/Dislocationin the Salzkammergut, Salzburg and the Tyrol,” April 26, 1947, p. 6. In August1947, when the CIC began to doubt Hofrat Reith’s “investigative work,” anagent reported that “an investigation was conducted to determine whether it waspossible to ‘push’ or ‘drop’ a car laden with gold and jewelry into the lake. Anexamination of the shore line of Zeller See convinced this source that such an act was impossible to execute.” “Concealed Gold, Jewelry, Foreign Exchange, andWeapons believed to be located in the Salzkammergut, in Zeller See, LandSalzburg, and in the Tyrol,” p. 3, August 18, 1947. This conclusion contradictsan earlier CIC statement that an investigation demonstrated a car could bepushed into the lake.

  22. “Nazi Fake British Currency Found in Lake,” USA Today, November21, 2000; “Nazi Chief’s Seal Found in Alpine Lake,” by Michael Leidig, LondonTelegraph, November 16, 2001.

  23. “Assets of Gold and Foreign Currency of the RSHA Berlin/Dislocationin the Salzkammergut, Salzburg and the Tyrol,” April 26, 1947, p. 6.

  24. “Concealed Gold, Jewelry, Foreign Exchange, and Weapons believed tobe located in the Salzkammergut, in Zeller See, Land Salzburg, and in theTyrol,” p. 1, August 18, 1947.

  25. “First Progress Report: Concealed Gold, Jewelry, Foreign Exchange, and Weapons, Believed to be Located in the Salzkammergut, Zell am See, Salzburg, and in the Tyrol,” July 3, 1947, pp. 7–8.

  Chapter 16 Notes

  1. CIC “Summary Report,” unsigned, June 20, 1947.

  2. CIC, “Statement of Walter Grötzl,” June 8, 1947, p. 1.

  3. CIC “Summary Report,” unsigned, June 20, 1947, p. 1. It is worthwhile remembering the statement filed by former SS officer Rudolf Doskoczil concerning Eichmann’s gold. Doskoczil, it will be recalled, was looking for his personal belongings when he walked into a room in the hotel and spotted a table piled high with gold coins and foreign currency. See “Statement of Rudolf Doskoczil,” April 24, 1947, p. 2. Assuming Doskoczil’s statement is accurate (and circumstantial evidence on many fronts corroborates it), the room and table held potentially millions in stolen loot. Yet, these thousands of gold coins represented just the tip of the bullion iceberg, for now we know that untold boxes holding bars of solid gold were also at the hotel at the same time, all under Eichmann’s control.

  4. “Statement of Walter Grötzl,” June 8, 1947, p. 5.

  5. “Statement of Walter Grötzl,” June 8, 1947, p. 2. Troy weight is a system of units of weight in which the grain is the same as in the Avoirdupois system, but the pound consists of twelve ounces, or 5,760 grains. Most of the gold coins confiscated in postwar Austria were small, about the size of a dime, or 1/12 of a troy ounce. In 1947 a troy ounce was worth about $35 American dollars, so a small gold coin had a value between $3.00 and $4.00.

  6. “Statement of Walter Grötzl,” June 8, 1947, p. 2. Haas may have been involved in either discovering or recovering a treasure cache that was only partially turned over to the proper authorities.

  7. “Statement of Walter Grötzl,” June 8, 1947, pp. 3–4.

  8. CIC “Summary Report,” unsigned, June 20, 1947; “Statement of WalterGrötzl,” June 8, 1947, p. 1. Anton Auerboech had become suspicious of Kronberger’s activities and apparently pulled the deed so that he could not sell the property until his investigation was complete. It is not known what became of his investigation.

  9. CIC “Summary Report,” unsigned, June 20, 1947; “Statement of Walter Grötzl,” June 8, 1947, p. 1. A “pension” is a boarding house or hotel in Europe, never very elegant and usually quite small.

  10. CIC “Summary Report,” unsigned, June 20, 1947; “Statement of Walter Grötzl,” June 8, 1947, p. 6; CIC “Summary Report,” unsigned, June 20, 1947, pp. 1–2.

  11. “Statement of Walter Grötzl,” June 8, 1947, p. 7. Exactly who Stefan Kumeritsch was and what he did for a living is unknown. The only place his name appears in the records is during the Walter Grötzl questioning session of June 10, 1947.

  12. “Statement of Walter Grötzl,” June 8, 1947, p. 7; CIC, “Statement of “Mrs. Sevecek,” June 11, 1947, contained on page 7 of the Walter Grötzl statement. We have been unable to determine any additional information on “Mrs. Sevecek.” The only place her name appears in the records is the statement appended to the Walter Grötzl questioning session of June 10, 1947.

  13. “Concealed Gold, Jewelry, Foreign Exchange, and Weapons believed to be located in the Salzkammergut, in Zeller See, Land Salzburg, and in the Tyrol,” p. 1, August 18, 1947.

  14. “Concealed Gold, Jewelry, Foreign Exchange, and Weapons believed to be located in the Salzkammergut, in Zeller See, Land Salzburg, and in the Tyrol,” p. 2, August 18, 1947.

  15. “Concealed Gold, Jewelry, Foreign Exchange, and Weapons believed to be located in the Salzkammergut, in Zeller See, Land Salzburg, and in the Tyrol,” p. 3, August 18, 1947.

  Chapter 17 Notes

  1. CIC, “Preliminary Report on External Assets of Walter Schellenberg,” pp. 2–3, prepared by E.E. Minskoff, undated (probably early 1946).

  2. CIC, “Preliminary Report on External Assets of Walter Schellenberg,” p. 3, prepared by E.E. Minskoff, undated (probably early 1946).

  3. CIC, “Preliminary Report on External Assets of Walter Schellenberg,” p. 7, prepared by E. E. Minskoff, undated (probably early 1946).

  4. “Preliminary Report on External Assets of Walter Schellenberg,” pp. 7a and 7b.

  5. “Preliminary Report on External Assets of Walter Schellenberg,” pp. 7c and 8.

  6. “Preliminary Report on External Assets of Walter Schellenberg,” pp. 7c and 8.

  7. “Preliminary Report on External Assets of Walter Sch
ellenberg,” pp. 8–13, Appendix A, and Air gram letter from Bern, September 11, 1945.

  8. For more information on Count Folke Bernadotte, see his entry in the Postscript, pp. 292–293.

  Postscript Notes

  1. Richard Breitman, “Historical Analysis of Twenty Names from CIA Records,” National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). This fascinating and detailed document can be found online at the NARA site at: www.nara.gov/iwg/declass/rg263.html#augsburg.

  2. For a recent and interesting article on the “ratline,” Father Krunoslav Draganovic’s role, and Allied intelligence operations, see Tom Rhodes, “Nazi Loot Used in Cold War Fight,” Ottawa Citizen, September 10, 2000.

  3. Hecht, Perfidy, pp. 58–60.

  4. Donald, Neff, “Jewish Terrorists Assassinate U.N. Peacekeeper Count Folke Bernadotte.” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (September 1985), pp. 83–84; New York Times, September 18, 19, and 20, 1948.

  5. O’Donnell, The Bunker, p. 186.

  6. 303rd Counter Intelligence Corps, “Examination of Political Background, Character and Ability,” June 17, 1946; 970th CIC report, “Subject: Hirschfeld, Walter,” July 7, 1947; “Biographical Report by Walter Hirschfeld,” June 22, 1946; British Counter Intelligence Corps Group, “Subject: Hirschfeld, Walter,” June 1949; CIC, Agent Report: “Barbie Klaus,” October 19, 1949.

  7. “Interrogation of Wilhelm Höttl, Preliminary Report,” April 1, 1953; National Archives, RG 319, IRR Case Files, Personal, Box 617. Walter Schellenberg ran the German Foreign Intelligence Service, Bureau VI, RSHA.

  8. History of Counter Intelligence, “Occupation of Austria and Italy,” (U.S. Army, March 1958), Vol. XXV, p. 48.

  9. CIC, “Interrogation of Dr, Höttl, Preliminary Report,” April 1, 1953.