Newly Released Map Reignites Quest For $18 Million Nazi Treasure

The tale is a popular one—that the Nazis hid a stash of treasure as they retreated from occupied territory at the finish of Earth War Two. In the Netherlands, around the city of Arnhem, legend has it that 4 German soldiers hid treasure well worth at least 2 or 3 million in Dutch guilder in 1945, which now would be worthy of all over $18 million.

80 yrs afterwards, the National Archives of the Netherlands has just released plenty of paperwork which scientists imagine will virtually mark the place where the cash was buried. There is just one catch—the map is somewhere amongst 1,300 files. What is actually a lot more, there is a single that is 7 centimetres thick, and paperwork the Dutch government’s lookup for the money immediately after the war, but they weren’t able to retrieve it.

Consider it is April, 1945 and the Allies are close to liberating the metropolis of Arnhem. 25 miles absent, in the little village of Ommeren, some troopers in the German Wehrmacht are receiving anxious about the 4 ammunition situations they have amongst their belongings, complete of watches, gems, coins and jewelry. Annet Waalkens, an adviser at the Nationwide Archives advised The Guardian that “they determine to bury the treasure, mainly because it is just getting a bit far too incredibly hot less than their feet and they are acquiring scared.”

A selected German soldier, Helmut S, assisted to bury the loot and was evidently a small bit far too eager to convey to anyone upon his return to Berlin. He advised people today there that the troopers came across the treasure on the streets when the Arnhem department of the Rotterdamsche financial institution was bombed in August 1944.

This understanding was passed on to the Beheersinstituut, the Dutch Institute of Asset and House Management who were responsible for monitoring down the prosperity that was taken from individuals who went lacking during the war. One of the German troopers made a map and it was this map that Helmut S at some point handed above to officials, who by themselves tried using to obtain the money—on the third time, even with the aid from Helmut himself—but to no avail.

There are lots of theories about wherever the money is and if it is nevertheless in situ. Waalkens says there are lots of rumors involving Allied troops (there was allegedly looting on all sides) or possibly locals witnessed the burial and dug it up later.

In addition, Helmut’s info are not straight, as Arnhem was not bombed in August 1944, but later in September for the duration of Operation Market Back garden (a deadly operation for many troops that is usually categorized as a single of the most important failures of Planet War Two).

Now, Dutch researchers are hoping that for the reason that the documents—and crucially they believe the map—are now on-line and accessible to see in The Hague, people today could be ready to drop new light on what took place. Waalkens hopes that the map is continue to there and that the treasure can be observed to give back again to its rightful entrepreneurs. The map is offered to anybody who wishes to attempt to come across the treasure.

Helmut S is a pseudonym as the authorities believe that he may nevertheless be alive. He was born in 1925 but there is no document of his dying and he has not been traced given that.