WARSAW, Poland (AP) – A Polish official said Friday he has seen an image made by ground-penetrating radar that seemed to prove the discovery of an armored Nazi train missing in southwestern Poland since World War II.
Local lore says a German train filled with gold, gems and armaments went missing around the city of Walbrzych while it was fleeing the Red Army in the spring of 1945. Fortune-hunters have looked for the so-called “gold train” for decades, and in the communist era, the Polish army and security services carried out apparently fruitless searches for it.
During the war, the Germans built a system of underground tunnels in the mountainous region of Walbrzych and the city of Wroclaw, from where the train is believed to have departed. The area was German territory at the time, but became part of Poland when the war ended.
Recently, a Pole and a German, acting through lawyers, told local authorities they had found an armored train with valuables in a disused tunnel and demanded a financial reward.
Deputy Culture Minister Piotr Zuchowski told reporters the lawyers had been informed the train was over 100 meters (109 yards) long and called it an “exceptional” discovery.