DATELINE :- 2nd August 2000
AUSTRIA TREASURE SEARCH
Nazi-hunters mount search for lost loot
A team of American divers is to search a lake in Austria for boxes of gold and art objects stolen by Nazis and dumped as the Allies gained ground towards the end of WWII.
It is believed that Lake Toplitz, in the Alps, could also hide boxes of forged money and documents intended to help Nazis escape to South America, according to a report in the Sunday Times.
The documents, experts believe, could also reveal how assets seized by the Third Reich were deposited in Swiss banks; detail workings of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp; and show how the Vatican aided in the transfer of funds to South America.
It might also be revealed just how the SS planned, in Operation Bernhard, to counterfeit billions of fake pounds sterling for dropping over Britain, in an attempt to destabilise the British economy.
The diving operation is being mounted by the Simon Wiesenthal Nazi-hunting Centre in Los Angeles, backed by Maryland's Oceaneering Company, which located the wreck of the Titanic.
Some items have already been found. The Nazis were unable to reclaim the Toplitz treasures before a diving project, funded in 1959 by Germany's Stern magazine, brought up boxes of forged British pounds and SS documents detailing the Odessa project, which provided escape routes to South America for key Nazis such as Adolf Eichmann, Josef Mengele and Klaus Barbie.
Stern's investigation was torpedoed when Austrian police confiscated the finds. Further dives were organised in 1963 by the Austrian government, which said it had recovered another 38 boxes, but would not make any comment on their contents.
Witnesses, however, spoke of some 130 boxes being sunk, which would leave many still to be retrieved. The idea that further boxes remain was reinforced when, in 1973, Heinz Riegel, thought to be acting for Nazis domiciled in South America, was caught trying to mount an illegal diving operation in the lake and expelled from Austria.
Riegel, now 80 and living in Germany, is the last living member of the Lake Toplitz Research Group, which included SS men and Third Reich intelligence officers. Some were committed to an unsuccessful attempt to re-establish the Nazis in Germany after the war.
Riegel had been given a map showing where boxes lay, in some 94m of water. Those maps have now been made available to the dive team, which was due to dive the lake for 10 days in June.
Bill Owen, its leader, said: "This was the dumping ground of the Third Reich, and I'd say we have a 50-50 chance of finding all that we're looking for."