Captain Burger also sought out Eichmann for a private conversation. “Obersturmbannführer, you are being sought as a war criminal,” he said candidly. “The rest of us are not. We have thoroughly discussed the matter. We feel that you would be doing your comrades a great service if you would leave us and appoint another commander.” Eichmann professed neither surprise nor anger at the direct remark. He had already decided to break away from the crowd and seek an escape on his own. “I will leave you alone on the Rettenbachalm,” he replied to his men. “The war is over. You are not allowed to shoot at the enemy any longer. So take care of yourselves.” With those two dozen or so anticlimactic words, the terrible wartime reign of Adolf Eichmann, one of the most feared men in Europe, fizzled to its conclusion.13
Eichmann took leave from the official stage for what would be a lengthy turn on the lamb. As he slogged through the heavy snows he regretted not having “done more for my wife and children.” While the war had been winding down he had been in such a “shock” he failed to make provision for them ahead of time. “I, too, could have had my family securely wrapped in a very comfortable cocoon of foreign exchange and gold,” he lamented years later, implying that many other officers has done exactly that. “In fact, I could easily have sent them on to the farthest, the most neutral of foreign countries. Long before the end, any of the Jews I dealt with would have set up foreign exchange for me in any country I had named, if I had promised any special privileges for them.” The manager of statistics had been too busy driving the Holocaust train to think ahead for a life after defeat, for when the twin iron rails would reach their inevitable end. Instead, all he was able to give his family was “a briefcase full of grapes and a sack of flour before going into the mountains from Altaussee.” Gold and safety he failed to provide, but poison he had in abundance. “I [gave] them poison capsules, one for my wife and one for each child, to be swallowed if they fell into the hands of the Russians.” Eichmann and Josef and Magda Goebbels’, it seems, were cut from the same piece of cloth.14
Advance elements of the American Army captured Altaussee and the deserted mountain defense post at Blaa Alm on May 8, 1945. The pair of trucks and radio car Doskoczil had seen parked and guarded outside the inn were recovered. The trucks were empty, but intact. The radio car had been burned. Not a soul was to be found. Adolf Eichmann, the SS troops, the Hitler Youth—all were gone now, scattered to the blustery Austrian winds. So were the boxes holding Eichmann’s millions in gold and currency.
The mystery of what happened to Eichmann’s gold remains. Could it have been shipped elsewhere during the war’s final hours? Rudolph Doskoczil argues passionately and persuasively against this scenario. The gold, he believes, “must have remained on the Blaa Alm.” He went on to observe that the trucks did not get back to Altaussee before the Americans arrived there on May 8. “It is out of the question that further transportation was made to Bad Ischl because the Americans were at that time already at Bad Ischl.” Moreover, he added, “the road leading to that place [Bad Ischl] was impassable [because it] was blocked by avalanches,” not to mention deep mud and slush.
So the trucks never left Blaa Alm, a small plateau a mere two miles square. Could Eichmann and his men have carried away the valuables? “Impossible,” concludes Doskoczil. “These things existed in such large quantities that they could not be transported by means of rucksacks” on foot up hillsides through deep snow. Besides, he added, “The other members of the ‘SS-Group Eichmann’ are partly in flight, the majority of them however, are in several American concentration camps in Bavaria and Glasenbach.” Was some of the gold hauled out in the pockets or rucksacks of a few men? Almost certainly. Then what happened to the large bulk of the treasure? “Buried by Eichmann and his administrative officer,” concludes Doskoczil, “because such actions were taken by various SS groups.”15 None of Eichmann’s gold was ever officially recovered by U.S. Forces.
Evidence that it never left the area was not long in coming. After the war small amounts of gold were regularly found in the Blaa Alm—Altaussee region. According to a local official, several kilograms of gold coins were found in one of the many hay huts that dotted the Blaa Alm in 1982. (A kilogram weighs slightly more than 2.2 lbs.) As one might imagine, the sensational discovery triggered a widespread treasure hunt by the local populace. No additional gold, however, was recovered. Or perhaps it is more accurate to write that no one reported finding any additional gold. Revealing that information would expose the finder to taxes and a whole host of other problems.
In July 1987, author Kenneth Alford traveled to the Aussee region and met Frau Eggers at the Blaa Alm. The woman was wearing tall black rubber boots and a large cloth dress attending a handful of cows. “I was a young waitress at the Blaa Alm Inn during [Adolf ] Eichmann’s stay there,” she told Ken after he struck up a conversation with the woman. The subject of Eichmann’s lost gold quickly came up for discussion.
“It is too bad they never found it,” Alford told her.
The elderly Austrian woman smiled knowingly, tapped her walking stick into the ground, and shook her head. “Small bars of gold are every year found concealed in hay sheds or buried.”
“Really?” Alford replied. “I am conducting research on this subject. Can you put me in touch with anyone who has found some of this gold?”
At that Frau Eggers merely smiled, clucked her cows along, and walked away.16
Chapter 15
“It became apparent during this period that further amounts of gold, foreign currency, and jewels confiscated by the Gestapo in Vienna [and elsewhere] were hidden in the area of Altaussee.”
— Hofrat Reith, Chief of the Austrian Investigation Service of the Ministry of Property Control and Economic Planning
The Frau Connection:Iris Scheidler and Elfriede Höttl
Hofrat Reith smiled at his American counterparts and pulled out another pair of files. The conference in Inspector Anton Auerboech’s office was going better than even he had hoped. The CIC agents were impressed with what he and Auerboech had thus far accomplished. Now it was time to explain how it was that the Austrians learned so many details about what had transpired at war’s end in Upper Austria.
Rumors of gold and other treasures and priceless artifacts piled up as thick and fast as Alpine snow in the days leading up to the German capitulation. Shortly after the Americans occupied Altaussee, explained Reith, “seventy-five kilograms [165 lbs.] of buried gold were discovered by civilian members of the Austrian Resistance Movement.” These men, he continued, were on “sentry duty” when the gold was discovered. The soldiers were both diligent and honest. The entire cache was delivered to Captain L.A. Degner, a member of the 319th Infantry Regiment. Almost simultaneously, four Wehrmacht Sixth Army cash boxes containing 4,700,000 marks and diverse kinds of foreign exchange were found a few miles to the east in a salt factory at Bad Aussee. This mammoth currency cache, which was about to be burned by “two German military officials,”was also delivered into Degner’s hands. “It became apparent during this period that further amounts of gold, foreign currency, and jewels confiscated by the Gestapo [and SS] in Vienna [and elsewhere] were hidden in the area of Altaussee,” Reith told the American CIC agents.1
On May 17, 1945, Anton Auerboech, who had been a policeman before the war and an infantryman in the Wehrmacht after 1938, assumed police duties in Bad Aussee. The quaint market village, just three miles south of Altaussee, is nestled tightly in the Valley of Traun at the confluence of a pair of branch like fingers from a river bearing the same name. Surrounded by lakes, timber, and mountains, the salt- and mineral-spring spa is one of the most lovely spots in all of Austria. The new policeman’s arrival was marked by an early growth of narcissus. Within two weeks the hillsides and pastures would be in full bloom, an ancient sign of renewal that winter was a memory and European spring had arrived. The flowers were lovely, but it was what might be hiding under their beauty that interested the inspector. “I began to hear numerous rumors
about concealed gold,” he told agents Kauf and Dierick, “but I had little time to investigate because of my many duties. But I kept them in mind and continued to be alert for more of them.” His duties carried him back and forth between Bad Aussee and Altaussee, where three of the inhabitants of that small village of seventy-five families included the wives of SS men Adolph Eichmann, Wilhelm Höttl, and Arthur Scheidler. The Allies seeded the area with agents and Auerboech took it upon himself to pry into the lives and secrets of the latter two women.
The following year passed quickly. In September of 1946, Hofrat Reith and section chief Dr. Otto Gleich drove from Vienna to Salzburg to take custody of a fortune in priceless artwork that had been recovered there by the Americans. On the way the pair stopped in Bad Aussee, where they “became acquainted with Auerboech” for the first time. The new inspector “told them about the steady stream of rumors and the gold and currency that had been found immediately following the surrender.”Reith, a survivor of Dachau and Buchenwald, was keenly interested in the story. “He told me to investigate further,” explained Auerboech, “and that he would be in touch with me in the future for additional reports.”2
Another five months slipped past. When Auerboech received word that he was about to be transferred to a new post, he drove to Vienna in February 1947 and informed Reith. A relocation, he complained, would completely disrupt his ongoing investigation. Reith had enough clout to pull strings halfway across the country and arrange for the inspector to remain in Bad Aussee. There, he informed him, you will “devote [your]time wholly to the subject matter.” Reith also devoted significant energies helping Auerboech track down leads. They seemed to be as plentiful as narcissus in June. Credible clues led them from Salzburg to Zell am See, Innsbruck to Vienna, and Altaussee to points north in southern Germany and beyond. The pair visited “numerous sites in the region of Altaussee and accumulated considerable evidence to substantiate the validity of reports which had hitherto been regarded as somewhat fantastic.” Reith reached the conclusion that “the exact location of sizeable amounts of gold could be determined.”
In order to achieve this end, however, interrogations of key individuals were necessary. He and Auerboech cobbled together a list of thirty-six people, some still under U.S. arrest and some now free, for questioning. Satisfied he had done all he could with his means at hand, Reith prepared a preliminary report in April 1947 and submitted the memorandum up the chain of command to the Federal Minister of Property Control and Economic Planning. The report ended with a plea for American assistance in a joint operation, which Reith deemed “absolutely necessary” for success. His boss agreed. Evidence was gathered together and Reith, briefcase in hand, contacted Agent Robert Kauf. And that is how the group of men ended up sitting at Auerboech’s desk in Bad Aussee on June 18, 1947.
If there was any one particular catalyst that propelled Reith to pen there port seeking American support, it was the success Auerboech enjoyed interviewing two women: Iris Scheidler and Elfriede Höttl. Both were married to men who had close ties to the upper echelon of Nazi power brokers. Both husbands were now marking time in Allied hands. Both women told incredible stories any professional would deem worthy of additional investigation.
Thousands of middle and high ranking German officers found themselves pacing in detention cells at war’s end. Arthur Scheidler was one of them. Ernst Kaltenbrunner’s former right-hand man was languishing in jail while his ex-chief sat in the dock at Nuremberg staring at evidence of his crimes under the harsh light of public scrutiny. Another detainee was Dr. Wilhelm Höttl who, in a delicious twist of irony, was interned at Dachau twelve miles north of Munich. The former concentration and death camp, where tens of thousands has been murdered or starved to death, had been converted into a large prison camp and trial court by the U.S. Army. Many of Höttl’s former superiors has sent entire families to languish and die within its confines.
During Scheidler’s internment, his wife Iris, a lithe and attractive 34-year-old native of Vienna, took up with a U.S. Army colonel stationed in Nuremberg. The pair were in love and wanted to marry. Unfortunately, the sticky situation of an existing marriage kept them from exchanging wedding vows. In an effort to alter the status quo, the colonel arranged for Iris to visit Scheidler and obtain his consent for a divorce. No one could have predicted the simple visit designed to end a marriage contract would trigger one of the largest treasure hunts in history.3
Exactly when Frau Scheidler first met with her jailed husband is uncertain. When they did meet, Scheidler took the opportunity to inform his unfaithful wife, sitting a handful of feet away across a table, that he and Kaltenbrunner had hauled a fortune in gold and currency from Berlin to Austria in April 1945. “The treasure was in the vicinity of Altaussee and is now missing,” he told her. If Scheidler revealed this information to his wife in an effort to buy her loyalty and keep her from running off with the unnamed American colonel, it worked. Iris dropped plans to divorce her husband and marry the officer, and instead returned immediately to her Altaussee residence. She would find it impossible to keep the story secret.4
In early April 1947 (whether weeks or months had passed since Frau Scheidler’s initial visit with her husband is unclear), another rumor of a golden cache hidden away in Upper Austria reached the keen ears of Inspector Auerboech. Unlike so many others, however, this one waste the red directly to a person living in Altaussee: Frau Iris Scheidler. The officer energetically followed through with a visit to her home, where “he eventually gained her confidence and was given the information contained in Exhibit V.” This memorandum detailed her husband’s responsibilities during the war and his working relationship with Ernst Kaltenbrunner. Some of it was very personal; the Allies, though, already had much of the same information. Of far more interest to Auerboech was the news concerning Kaltenbrunner’s gold and how Iris came to possess the information (as just related, her husband had told her during her visit to the Nuremberg jail). She professed to know nothing more than that the fortune had existed in April-May 1945 and was now missing. She had been trying to discover what happened to it, she explained to Auerboech, but had not been successful. The fact that she had not been allowed to see her husband “since March 1947” only made finding the gold that much more difficult.
Auerboech’s developing leads had also guided him to the front door of Frau Elfriede Höttl, the wife of SS officer Dr. Wilhelm Höttl. She, too, was tied into the network that had information about the mobile wealth that had deposited itself into Austria’s scenic highlands. When Auerboech informed Reith of these important developments, the pair devised a plan of action. At Auerboech’s insistence, both women agreed “to cooperate in finding out the hidden assets of gold and foreign exchange.” In exchange, their husbands would be treated well and perhaps released from custody. A meeting was organized on or about April 12, 1947, between Frau Scheidler and her husband in Nuremberg. The only question now was whether Scheidler knew more than he had thus far disclosed, and whether he would talk fully about it. As it turned out, he knew a great deal. So did his wife, and much of it had yet to be revealed.5
Tired of jail and anxious to be free, Scheidler agreed to cooperate fully with the investigation. In return he was allowed “a leave for several days” with his wife. Out spilled a slew of information, including how the RSHA train was damaged by Allied fire, the mix up between boxes filled with personnel files and other boxes filled with gold and currency, and the final disappearance after the cases were put on a truck in Gmunden and driven in the direction of Imst under the control of a couple SS men.“These people are known to me,” he told his wife, but he could not mine the proper parties for more information sitting behind barbed wire in the camp at Nuremberg. “I will be able to give more particulars concerning the precise location of the gold at our next meeting,” he said, hoping that freedom would soon strike in his direction.6
When debriefed on the matter, Frau Scheidler volunteered additional facts of which neither Auerboech nor
Reith was aware. In September 1946, she and her sister-in-law, Irmgard Gottschalk (Arthur Scheidler’s sister), had met with Scheidler in Nuremberg. There, Gottschalk related a strange, though reasonably credible, story. “Just before the surrender, gold and silver coins as well as an amount of weapons were buried or rather sealed in the canal…before the gate or beneath the gate to the former concentration camp of Ebensee.” The notorious death camp at Ebensee, Austria, was a sub-camp of the larger complex at Mauthausen located at the southern tip of Traun Lake about 50 miles southwest of Linz. It was liberated by the Americans on May 9, 1945. By the end of the war some 350 inmates were dying there each day, stacked up like cordwood in front of the buildings. Each concentration camp was a repository jammed with individual stories of mechanized death and hardship and suffering beyond imagination. Did Ebensee’s library of secrets also include hidden gold? Frau Gottschalk did not witness these things. She had been told about the treasure trove “by a member of the aide-de-camp’s office in Berlin, who was present when the burying or the sealing was performed.” Arthur Scheidler confirmed the story and even produced a sketch of the location for his wife who, in turn, passed it along to Auerboech and Reith. “These assets would be immediately seizeable,”she told them, “but whether that is advisable I must leave for the decision of the Austrian Government.”7
Nazi Millionaires Page 29