4 ms·

'Nazi gold train' investigators start excavating site in Poland

25 points by SQL2219 11y ago

dogma1138 11y ago
Considering the source of the gold how is this find going to be distributed?
- junto 11y ago
  If there is gold then it has probably come from a number of sources, including raided banks, the jewellery and gold filings of Jewish prisoners who ended up being gassed. I'm not sure how you'd figure out how to divvy that up fairly. I hope that they find the train and it is just empty out full of weapons, but no good and no art. Exactly for this reason.
  - dogma1138 11y ago
    well as far as gold goes they pretty much ingored the sources during the post WW2 world gold consolidation and redistribution but now it might be a bit more complicated. European Jewry wasn't the only source of gold, but it was one of the prominent ones as France and many other European nations actually stowed the gold away in the UK and in other places that weren't occupied. If there are any substantial amounts of goods there there will be a very ugly legal battle if there aren't goods there then anything outside of anything that might add to the historical record should probably be scrapped. While some people might argue that anything from that period has an historical value I quite disagree we all can assume which people trade in things like Hitler's dinnerware http://www.germaniainternational.com/hitler3.html http://www.germaniainternational.com/hitler3.html these types of items do not hold any historical value in my eyes, because other than confirming the pretty obvious fact that Hitler have had to eat dinner from time and that he would probably had some fancy plates it doesn't really add anything. And these types of items are usually traded by people who pretty much use them as alter pieces which is probably quite disturbing to most people.
  - jkot 11y ago
    Czechoslovak National bank had about 90 tons before war.
ggambetta 11y ago
While I find this ongoing story really intriguing, it pisses me off a bit that the actual Nazis plagiarised the plot of my novel!
- keithpeter 11y ago
  "When I was a teenager we knew something had gone on here. But there was no one to ask because all the (German) residents were shipped out of the area and replaced by Poles after the Potsdam Agreement." Just have a think about that: displacement leading to loss of historical continuity. How would people feel ending up in some city possibly hundreds of miles from where they grew up? Could be a nice sub-plot...
  - brerlapn 11y ago
    That is a pretty interesting idea for a sub-plot, and can be worked in more realistically than the amnesia/split-personality kind of plot that is more common (Memento, Tyler Durden). Sort of an exploration or investigation of a character's cultural/community genealogy.
  - ggambetta 11y ago
    It's an interesting idea! But I was being literal, my novel actually exists (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QPBYGFI http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QPBYGFI) and one of the major plot points is very similar to this real one. So maybe for the sequel :)
ChuckMcM 11y ago
Probably has all of the contents from Capone's safe :-) [1] It is interesting in this day and age how difficult it is to do good imaging underground. Seems like something computer power and GPUs should be able to address. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mystery_of_Al_Capone's_Vaults https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mystery_of_Al_Capone's_Vau...
huhtenberg 11y ago
None of the embedded photos is showing properly. Perhaps change link to http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/08/nazi-gold-train-investigators-start-excavating-poland http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/08/nazi-gold-train...?

25 points by SQL2219 11y ago

dogma1138 11y ago

Considering the source of the gold how is this find going to be distributed?

junto 11y ago
If there is gold then it has probably come from a number of sources, including raided banks, the jewellery and gold filings of Jewish prisoners who ended up being gassed. I'm not sure how you'd figure out how to divvy that up fairly. I hope that they find the train and it is just empty out full of weapons, but no good and no art. Exactly for this reason.
- dogma1138 11y ago
  well as far as gold goes they pretty much ingored the sources during the post WW2 world gold consolidation and redistribution but now it might be a bit more complicated. European Jewry wasn't the only source of gold, but it was one of the prominent ones as France and many other European nations actually stowed the gold away in the UK and in other places that weren't occupied. If there are any substantial amounts of goods there there will be a very ugly legal battle if there aren't goods there then anything outside of anything that might add to the historical record should probably be scrapped. While some people might argue that anything from that period has an historical value I quite disagree we all can assume which people trade in things like Hitler's dinnerware http://www.germaniainternational.com/hitler3.html http://www.germaniainternational.com/hitler3.html these types of items do not hold any historical value in my eyes, because other than confirming the pretty obvious fact that Hitler have had to eat dinner from time and that he would probably had some fancy plates it doesn't really add anything. And these types of items are usually traded by people who pretty much use them as alter pieces which is probably quite disturbing to most people.
- jkot 11y ago
  Czechoslovak National bank had about 90 tons before war.

ggambetta 11y ago

While I find this ongoing story really intriguing, it pisses me off a bit that the actual Nazis plagiarised the plot of my novel!

keithpeter 11y ago
"When I was a teenager we knew something had gone on here. But there was no one to ask because all the (German) residents were shipped out of the area and replaced by Poles after the Potsdam Agreement." Just have a think about that: displacement leading to loss of historical continuity. How would people feel ending up in some city possibly hundreds of miles from where they grew up? Could be a nice sub-plot...
- brerlapn 11y ago
  That is a pretty interesting idea for a sub-plot, and can be worked in more realistically than the amnesia/split-personality kind of plot that is more common (Memento, Tyler Durden). Sort of an exploration or investigation of a character's cultural/community genealogy.
- ggambetta 11y ago
  It's an interesting idea! But I was being literal, my novel actually exists (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QPBYGFI http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QPBYGFI) and one of the major plot points is very similar to this real one. So maybe for the sequel :)

ChuckMcM 11y ago

Probably has all of the contents from Capone's safe :-) [1] It is interesting in this day and age how difficult it is to do good imaging underground. Seems like something computer power and GPUs should be able to address. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mystery_of_Al_Capone's_Vaults https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mystery_of_Al_Capone's_Vau...

huhtenberg 11y ago

None of the embedded photos is showing properly. Perhaps change link to http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/08/nazi-gold-train-investigators-start-excavating-poland http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/08/nazi-gold-train...?