Stolen Russian church gold. That was the next story Frau Höttl shared with the Austrian investigators. Sketchy details on this particular conspicuous cache of loot were already in the hands of the investigators;Höttl’s statements helped flesh out the story. Six Wehrmacht travel cases were delivered into Austria during the final days of the war. How they arrived there and who brought them is not known. As Höttl told it, between May 10 and May 15, 1945, “6 cases containing golden objects from [Russian] churches had been sent to Bad Aussee by officials of the police-station Altaussee, or by members of the [Austrian] Independence Movement.” The shipment was in boxes or chests marked “typewriters”and had been specifically “demanded by the Minister of Finance for Ausseer land, by the name of Winkler, a merchant at Bad Aussee.” The former chief of the Free Austrian Movement and Burger meister of Bad Aussee, Albrecht Gaiswinkler, who had been planted in the Altaussee area as an informant, reported that the cases of priceless ecclesiastical treasures “were properly surrendered” to Austrian authorities. This statement was recorded on April 4, 1947. A later investigation seemed to contradict Gaiswinkler’s declaration.
One of the six cases tracked to Bad Aussee was spotted there by an Austrian informer who told officials “he saw one of the chests in the Caf é Vesco at Bad Aussee, and upon opening it observed written on the inner side of the cover the word “Charkow” [a city in the Ukraine], beneath which were several Russian characters he could not read.” The chest held a monstrance (a receptacle within which the host is held), an icon representing the Madonna with a golden veil, and a number of small gold statues of shepherds and saints. “The case is extremely heavy,” he told them, “and the figures are as heavy as lead.” This case was apparently “taken over” by a Croatian man and former SS soldier named “Schaghy.” The mystery man was a cook in an American kitchen at Bad Aussee and “a typewriter mechanic by profession.” Someone ordered Schaghy to deliver the treasures “to the local priest at Bad Aussee which, however, was never done.” This case was supposedly transported to Grundlsee from Bad Aussee, and from that point by boat to Wienern. “From Wienern,” concludes the report, “the trace was lost and may only be recovered by means of further investigations.” Agents combed the area and dis covered that several of the six cases had been left with Karl Rastl, a farmer in the village of Wienern. These cases, they concluded, “contain the so-called Russian church gold.” The agent drafting the report wrote,“For reasons of restitution to the USSR, it would be of important significance for the Austrian State to recover this gold.” A subsequent search of Rastl’s property in July, however, turned up only “two Wehrmacht chests…containing books, which belonged to a studious Wehrmacht soldier.”18
Several Austrian citizens involved with this matter incriminated Albrecht Gaiswinkler and accused him of stealing the church gold. Further interrogations shed little additional light on the matter. Johann Pucher signed a CIC statement claiming Gaiswinkler was himself a crook responsible for stealing American, Dutch, and Swiss currency that had been turned over to American authorities. Pucher, it will be recalled, had discovered a fortune in gold after the war ended and had voluntarily turned it in to the proper authorities. On August 3, 1947, Special Agent Frank P. Dierick interviewed Gaiswinkler, who by this time was a member of the Austrian parliament. Gaiswinkler scoffed when confronted with the allegations uncovered by Austrian and American investigators. Reith, he spat contemptuously, was a “ridiculous man, lacking a knowledge of the most primitive investigation methods.” As for the Russian church gold, “that was found in 1945.” According to Gaiswinkler, an art expert named Wolfgang Gurlitt, a resident of Linz, was brought in to appraise the collection. “It was learned that the church figurines were made of tin, painted over with gold paint.” These things “have little intrinsic value,” he continued, “only an artistic value, and were surrendered to the Military Government in Bad Aussee.”
Gaiswinkler’s deposition conflicts with statements gathered from other witnesses, including the observation by one that “the figures are as heavy as lead.” Tin is not a weighty metal. The communist-leaning politician refused to say anything more on the subject. No record that the Russian objects were turned in at Bad Aussee has been found. Was Gaiswinkler lying to block further investigation? Agent Dierick was unsure. My interviews with Gaiswinkler, he wrote, “elicited strong indications that [he] has kept for his personal use considerable quantities of gold and currency found in the Altaussee region.” Dierick had been informed that “the Military Government has an extensive case against Gaiswinkler but that, because of the parliamentary immunity [he]presently enjoys, the case has been merely filed.” Nothing ever became of the investigation into Gaiswinkler’s suspected criminal activities.19
And there the trail ends. Whether the precious church treasures were ever located and returned is unknown, and no further records have been found on the subject.20
Was Heinrich Himmler’s car at the bottom of an Alpine lake?According to Frau Höttl, that’s exactly where it was. “About one year ago,” she began, “I learned from a friend that shortly before the surrender a special car of Himmler’s was brought to Zell am See and was dropped there into the lake. This special car contained large treasures of jewels, diamonds and gold.” The location, she continued, “is watched even now by a man unknown to us,” she said, referring to herself and her husband. She did not know who dumped the auto into the lake, or who ordered it done. “Incredible as this statement appeared in the beginning,” wrote a CIC agent a few weeks later, “it was nevertheless confirmed by a report”filed in May of the previous year by Hofrat Reith. Additional investigation demonstrated “the possibility of the dropping of a special car does exist…. Two points are to be considered for the dropping.” The first was “the southeast shore toward Fisch horn. This place can easily be reached…and is comparatively shallow. To all probability the car has been dropped there by the SS.” However, there was one other spot along the north shore near the castle Prielsu, a former SS hangout during the war and the property of Josef Thorak, one of Hitler’s favorite sculptors.“This part of the lake is shallow, overgrown with reeds and appears to be suitable for the dropping.” These credible claims, concludes the report,“should be followed up with appropriate and extremely confidential investigations.”21
The credibility of these early postwar reports was bolstered by later discoveries that confirmed the Nazis did indeed conceal valuables in Austria’s remote mountain lakes. In 1963, the Austrian Interior Ministry sent divers into mile-long Lake Top litz to determine whether the rumors of sunken treasure were true. Without much difficulty they retrieved several caskets of forged currency notes, the product of Operation Bernhard. A ban on further diving was implemented, ostensibly because divers attempting similar feats lost their lives. Until 2000, no modern equipment had ever been used to comb its 350-foot depth. Local authorities finally gave a company called Oceaneering Technologies a license to search to “once and for all clear up if there is anything down there and put the past behind us so we can get on with the future.” Three weeks of painstaking searching located “a field of debris,” including the remains of crates. Bundles of British counterfeit notes, most of them £10 denomination, were brought to the surface. In the fall of 2001, a Dutch sport diver discovered Ernst Kaltenbrunner’s personal seal in the shallows of Altaussee Lake. While no gold or jewels have been discovered to date, the Nazis absolutely used Austrian lakes as a dumping ground for illicit items.22
Was Himmler’s car pushed off into the resplendent lake spreading out below Fischhorn castle with the hope that its valuable contents could be retrieved at a later date? Like so many other golden threads this trail ends, abruptly. Not another whisper of Himmler’s treasure car is found among the official records from this period. Perhaps Frau Höttl was right, and the sunken auto was being monitored by former members of the SS and its contents were secreted away without anyone being the wiser. Perhaps the car and its treasures remain buried deep in Austrian
lake silt. Of course, Himmler’s car might never have been pushed into the lake in the first place. Until definitive records of the recovered loot or a rusting wealth-laden auto breaks the surface of Zeller Lake, we will never know for sure.23
Fraus Iris Scheidler and Elfriede Höttl had eagerly cooperated and shared what appeared to be very valuable information with the Austrians and Americans. Enough strands of substantiation existed to corroborate the gist of their fantastic stories. Auerboech, Reith, Dierick, and others, however, did not fully trust them. The women, they concluded, “appear to have considerations for their personal advantage.” What, if anything, were they hiding? What else did they know? The Americans, too, were becoming a bit suspicious. Their sights, however, were focused on Hofrat Reith and his investigatory methods.
One way to test the credibility of the women and Reith’s investigation was to thoroughly search at least one of the sites. The assets hidden at the Ebensee concentration camp, Iris Scheidler had asserted, “would be immediately seizeable.” Reith believed the information to be “ninety-five percent certain.” Determined to find out for themselves, the agents traveled to the former concentration camp on July 21, 1947. A search of the area out side the gate for what might be a sealed manhole cover turned up a likely candidate in exactly the area described. With the assistance of Captain Nichols, the officer in charge of the U.S.F.A Ammunition Depot, Lambach, Upper Austria, the excited agents placed explosives around the manhole and detonated them. A cloud of smoke and flame rose into the air and a few seconds later chips of concrete rained down around them. The agents hurried over to the manhole and looked inside. Disappointment waited to greet them. “No valuables or weapons were found after the explosion. What had been believed by Reith to be a cement cover over a manhole was discovered to be merely the foundation of a former gatepost,” wrote a disappointed Dierick. “Although [the camp is] the likely location of ‘tooth gold’ and jewels,” he continued, “it may be necessary to search a broader area.”24
The failure to quickly substantiate Scheidler’s assertion that valuables had been hidden at Ebensee served to heighten a sneaking suspicion that she was playing games with them. Auerboech’s investigation also pointed in that direction. He had been quietly gathering evidence that Kaltenbrunner’s gold may not be missing after all. “In contrast to the statements made by [the] Scheidlers,” explained Dierick in a detailed CIC report, “the opinion exists among former SD [and SS]personnel that the chests of gold and foreign exchange [destined] for Kaltenbrunner actually arrived at Altaussee [in May 1945].”
The level of the agents’ suspicion rose when Iris Scheidler herself, perhaps without thinking about the consequences, breezily explained that Franz Steindl—“who is said to be an illicit dealer in gold and jewels”—had paid her a visit at Altaussee. The man whose wife lived on the Vomperberg had arrived without warning one day and demanded $20,000 “on the order of [SS Obersturmbannführer Wilhelm] Wanek’s assistant, Kurt Auner,” who had recently been released from Camp Marcus Orr. The agents knew Steindl dabbled in jewels and gold coins in the Salzburg area (his primary clients were American soldiers). Steindl’s demand and Auner’s order “seems not only to confirm the existence of the gold [in the first place],” explained Dierick, “but also to indicate that it is concealed.” In other words, the gold supposedly hijacked by the SS men tasked to guard it had actually made it to Altaussee—and former SS and SD officers believed Frau Scheidler either had it in her possession, or had direct access to it.25
Proving it would be a whole different matter.
Chapter 16
“Grötzl, this is a business in which I can earn something, and I don’t care about anything else!”
— Reinhard Haas to Walter Grötzl
The Gold Trade in Upper Austria
The fraus of Altaussee, Iris Scheidler and Elfriede Höttl, had seen an opportunity and worked overtime to deflect attention away from their own nests. Their detailed statements were varnished with veracity, but the depth of the finish was yet to be determined. Neither woman had come completely clean with the investigators, of that Hofrat Reith and the American agents were confident. Both women knew more than they were telling.
Evidence steadily amassed supporting the general thrust of their story. “By the evidence accumulated up to now,” wrote a CIC agent two months after the initial round of interviews with the women, “it can clearly be seen that great amounts of gold and foreign exchange were a short time before the surrender hidden by the SS at several locations near Aussee and at other places.” Moreover, he continued, “it is evident that already considerable amounts are in the hands of former Nazis and members of the SS, who use them for carrying on a thriving trade and for living an easy life unhampered by regular employment.”
Allied intelligence officers had other concerns beyond their former enemy’s living well off stolen loot. Many saw a dangerous storm cloud looming on the distant horizon. The report warned “that these people and the leaders of the SS will after their release have an opportunity to use these assets—they speak of X-millions and even of 10 billions—for establishing a new organization and thus precipitate not only Austria but the whole of Europe into another disaster.” That fact alone, concluded the report’s author, provides “the necessity for a thorough investigation of the whole case.” The CIC’s concern that the Nazis might rise again and seriously threaten Europe seems, from our perspective today, borderline delusional. The authors of this report, however, did not enjoy the historical benefits we have gleaned from a rearview mirror which looks back almost six decades into the past. In the immediate aftermath of the world’s most destructive war, the threat of a resurgent Nazi movement was on everyone’s mind. To those living in the second half of the 1940s the possibility seemed all too real.1
As it turned out, the Intelligence reports were misguided on one count but right on the money with the other. The last thing the vast majority of former SS officers (and even most diehard Nazis) who had survived the world conflagration desired was another deadly European war. One was enough for a lifetime. Many had already witnessed two. But dabbling in the lucrative postwar underground trade in gold and foreign exchange in Austria was another matter entirely.
“It was the summer of 1946, I believe, when the wife of Reinhard Haas showed me blank bills with official stamps of the police-station (Vienna).” So begins the extraordinary report of undercover Austrian informer Walter Grötzl, upon which much of this chapter is constructed. The informer-agent blended into war-torn Austrian society as an unemployed former soldier living hand-to-mouth. In this condition he took up an acquaintance with Reinhard Haas and his wife. Both lived comfortably without visible means of support. The blank bills facilitated that lifestyle. With the help of a typewriter, Haas used the official papers to forge, among other documents, travel and employment permits, which allowed him to slip in and out of the American occupation zone. Haas, as Grötzl soon learned, also trafficked in the thriving black market that had engulfed Europe. Small quantities of cigarettes, cocoa, bacon, diesel oil, and coffee were the common currencies of his trade. Austrian authorities had little interest in this facet of Haas’s budding new career. It was his access to a continuous and reliable stream of gold that piqued their interest.2
As far as Grötzl could determine Reinhard Haas began dabbling in the black market gold trade in early 1947. By this time Grötzl had fully gained the Haas’s confidence, and the subject of gold was a frequent topic between them. A few days into the 1947 New Year found Haas and Grötzl conversing in the former’s modest flat at Puchen No. 81. Grötzl was a frequent visitor there. Conversation naturally tacked in the direction of the recent unpleasantness and its impact on their respective lives. Making a living in postwar Europe was difficult for almost everyone; most people found themselves mired in serious financial distress without much hope for the future. Haas and some of his associates, however, fell outside that wide circle.
Haas looked at his new friend intently and then
spilled the beans. “At the surrender in 1945 a friend of mine named Hans took gold in small boxes, packed in cotton-wool, to a baker named Fritz Binder in Altaussee.”
Grötzl’s interest was suddenly aroused. “Gold? Where did he get it?”
“From the Park Hotel in Altaussee,” Haas replied. “They were bars of gold. Hans had hidden them there.” Grötzl, of course, knew of the rumors that the SS had trucked in gold and stored it, at least temporarily, at the hotel. The subject was a common one among the citizens of Upper Austria.
“Hans,” as Haas explained to Grötzl, was Hans Herbert. He was German, but exactly where he was from is unknown. Herbert had spent the war marching in the ranks of the SS, and during the general retreat had ended up in the Aussee region. He was quartered at the Park Hotel in Altaussee when the capitulation was signed. Herbert may have been associated with SS-Group Eichmann, which arrived at the hotel with millions in gold and currency. Or, perhaps, he was with one of several other groups of SS that had streamed into the area that late April and early May two years past. What is firmly known is that somehow Herbert managed to get his hands on a sizeable amount of the precious metal while sojourning in Altaussee. The gold, or that portion not in the form of coins, was shaped in bars “half an inch square” and packed in boxes on a lorry of the SS-Group Eichmann.3
Nazi Millionaires Page 31