On the evening of April 4th, an American patrol jeep saw two women walking in the street of Merkes village in violation of the curfew, so it stopped to question them. They claim to be French refugees. On the way home the next morning, when passing the wellhead of Kaiseroda mine, American soldiers asked what mine it was. To their surprise, one of the women pointed to it and said, "That's the gold mine."
Lieutenant Colonel Rosell, the commander of the local American army, went to Merkes immediately after receiving the news. After questioning, he confirmed the truth of the news. In addition, Russell also learned that Dr. Paul Reif, the curator of the German National Museum, had looked after some famous paintings hidden in the mine there. Russell then asked the mine officials, large and small, and Werner Vic, the chief cashier of the foreign exchange department of the German National Bank. Vic confessed that since August 1942, the German National Bank has hidden its gold reserves and the property looted by the SS (including gold, foreign exchange and artworks) in the bank account of Merkes Mine. The hiding activity lasted until June 1945, and a certain * * * * delivered 76 batches of property. In addition, in March of 1945, 14 museums and galleries in eastern Germany also transported their collections there. The Germans wanted to transfer Merkes's treasures to other places, but before they could raise vehicles, the American vanguard troops had already arrived there.
On the morning of the 7th, all the entrances to this mine were guarded by the army. In the morning, Russell and others entered the mine from the main tunnel. In the main tunnel 2200 feet above the ground, they found 550 sacks piled on the wall, all of which were German marks. Further inside is a brick wall three feet thick, with a heavy steel safety door in the middle and a cellar hidden behind it. The next day, Russell and others came to the cellar again, and the modern steel door was quickly blasted by explosives.
It is difficult for Americans to describe the scene in the treasure house in words: in front of them is a secret room with lights, 23 meters wide and 45 meters long. There are more than 7,000 marked bags in it, knee-high and in 20 rows. On the other side of the room are bundles of cash, and the words "Melmer" are printed on the label of each bundle. These boxes obviously belong to an alias account of the SS. This is the first clue to the scope and complexity of Nazi Germany's plundering of wealth in Europe.
They opened the bag and listed these items: 8 198 gold ingots, 55 boxes of gold bars (two in each box, each weighing 10 kg), hundreds of bags of gold utensils and products, 1300 bags of goldmark, gold francs and gold pounds, and 71/kloc-. 9 bags of rare ancient gold coins, 2,380 bags and 1, 300 boxes of Deutsche Mark cash with a face value of 2.76 billion, 20 pieces of silver ingots weighing 200 kg each, 40 bags of silver bars, 63 boxes of 55 bags of silver plates, 1 bag of platinum (including 6 pieces of platinum ingots), 165438 from In other tunnels, a large number of precious works of art from European national museums and private collections were found: oil paintings, prints, pencil drawings, sculptures, antique clocks and stamps. Even more cruel, the gold products also include several bags of gold teeth pulled out from the prisoners in the concentration camp.
(Interior of Hall 8 of Mox Salt Mine)
General Patton immediately demanded that the wealth be handed over to the Supreme Command of the Allied Expeditionary Force. On April 15, these treasures were transported by hundreds of trucks to the German National Bank in Frankfurt under the escort of fighter planes. In mid-August, the allies weighed and evaluated this. Among them, the value of gold exceeds 260 million US dollars, and the value of silver is 270,000 US dollars. There is also a bag of platinum and 8 bags of rare gold coins that have not been valued.
At the beginning of 1946, the monetary gold (bricks, bars and coins) in Merkes's treasure was handed over to the Allied War Compensation Committee, and finally to the gold restitution committees of the United States, Britain and France. They are responsible for returning the gold to the central bank of the injured country as soon as possible.
Eisenhower (first from the right), accompanied by General Bradley (second from the left), Lieutenant General Barton (first from the left), Major General Eddie (third from the right) and other 12 generals, inspected Nazi gold and cash hidden in Mexican salt mines.
Eisenhower is checking a box of silverware.