THE GOLD OF LAKE WEISSENSEE (“Hidden Traces of the Grey Wolf”).

A magnificent lake hides in the mountains of southern Austria. Here, the mountain air is filled with the tart aromas of pine needles and blossoming almonds, softened by breezes from the nearby Adriatic Sea. The lake stretches for many kilometers along the gorge, its crystal-clear streams offering invigorating swims and exciting fishing, and in winter the lake becomes a skating rink, with hundreds of skaters and tobogganers gliding across its ice. The astonishing scenery will remain in the memory of those who have visited these places, for the rest of their lives. This earthly paradise was once a favorite holiday destination for the bosses of the Third Reich.
All paradises have their secrets. In summer and early autumn, when the forest paths are carpeted with fallen pine needles and the hotels and guesthouses are hidden among the flowering shrubs, solitary strangers can be found in the dense thickets. These strange tourists avoid noisy companies and chance encounters. In their hands, they have some gizmos, similar to garden rakes. They use them to comb the lawns and bushes, obviously looking for something…

GAULEITER.
Early in the morning of one of the last days of April 1945, a small convoy of five military trucks, covered with tarpaulins and wearing the camouflage stripes typical of Wehrmacht transport, left an Italian town on the Adriatic coast. Each truck carried several armed soldiers in the uniforms of SS offensive units. The bodies of the lorries were lined with massive cases, padded with metal brackets, and each fitted with two padlocks. There were also containers of food and drink, blankets, and tents with picks and shovels underneath. The convoy included an Opel with SS registration plates. In addition to the driver, the car carried the commander of the police forces in the region, SS Gruppenführer Odilo Globochnik, and his two bodyguards.
The convoy crossed the Austrian border near the town of Villach and turned onto a country road. The trucks drove along a narrow forest clearing and soon disappeared into the dense coniferous forest on the north shore of the local lake Weissensee. There they stopped. The SS men dragged heavy crates into the woods and buried them in secluded places. There were nine stops. After the work was done, the ground over each hiding place was leveled and covered with fallen needles. Returning to the trucks, the SS men carefully covered their tracks so that even a wild animal would not find the recent human presence there. The Gruppenführer carefully mapped out all the hiding places, making clear notes that only he could understand. When the operation was over, the trucks drove through the town of Neusach and onto the highway, heading south from where they had come.

Two weeks later, after Germany’s surrender, SS Gruppenführer Globochnik was captured by the British. After interrogating him, the British threw a piece of rope into his cell and offered to hang himself. But the Gruppenführer had other plans. He gave the British one of his hiding places, which contained counterfeit British banknotes made by Sachsenhausen prisoners. And the Brits took the rope away.
In Bavaria, Globochnik was assisted by former Wehrmacht General Gehlen, who was now recruiting military specialists for the Pentagon. The confrontation with yesterday’s ally, the USSR, was beginning, and in this situation, America needed experienced personnel.
So Globochnik found himself in Washington, where he took a special course in the special services camp and was sent to Syria, the Middle East. There Stalin was already patronizing the young state of Israel, which was preparing plans for wars of conquest with its neighbors. The Kremlin card cheater, who had outplayed Hitler, had failed to capture all of Europe. Now he planned to turn nascent Israel into a ‘gopnik’ of a world revolution, the creators of which should become all the Marxist-Zionists who had muddied the waters in Europe since the turn of the century, many of whom Stalin knew personally.

And Globochnik himself, sitting in the sands of Syria, thought of the gold he had buried on the shores of Lake Weissensee, waiting to be discovered. A native of Slovenia, he had a meteoric career in Hitler’s Germany, holding positions that pure-blooded Aryans could only dream of. Like most Slavs, Globochnik was what is called ‘unclean’. Appointed Gauleiter of Vienna after the annexation of Austria, he was stealing and cheating, and Hitler sent him to Poland to command the Treblinka concentration camp. The fox was put in charge of the chicken coop. In the camp, the new commandant formed a gang that mined for gold for him. Everyone in his establishment was busy: a team of Jewish shoemakers forged gold coins and gems from the shoes and clothes of the dead; the furnace workers sifted the ashes of the crematorium for molten crumbs of gold; the guards carried it all to the commandant’s table. Chickens carried golden eggs to the commandant, receiving sausage, cognac, and cigarettes in return. Globochnik didn’t know how to fight. He could steal, and he was good at it wherever he was assigned by the big boss, with whom Globochnik shared the booty. There is no other way to explain why, instead of being punished on the Eastern Front, the Treblinka commandant and thief ended up in the Adriatic seaside resorts of Italy, where he was put in charge of all the police forces in the region.

At the very end of the war, Himmler discovered that Globochnik had embezzled a large part of the SS funds. All concentration camps were supervised by the SS, it was their farm. The commandant of Treblinka had entered someone else’s henhouse. Demands for the return of the loot were ineffective, Globochnik refused and waved. Himmler probably ordered his men to punish the thief.
Before leaving Washington, Globochnik shared the secret of Lake Weissensee with his CIA handler, handing him a piece of transparent tracing paper with the hiding places marked with crosses. It was enough to place the tracing paper over the correct map to see where the gold was buried. Globochnik hid the number of the correct map, hoping that this secret would protect him from surprises. But surprises are surprises, they come suddenly and no one is safe from them. Arriving in Syria, Globochnik soon died an unexplained death.

***

PARTNERS.
Many years have passed since then. The CIA agent had retired, but the buried treasure of the Nazis kept him busy. Putting a tracing paper on a region map didn’t give the right picture. Globochnik’s foresight and cunning created a problem for the American. Through the channels of his organization, he found in Europe one of the surviving Ukrainian guards, who in April 1945 helped the SS to hide the boxes. This Ukrainian showed interest in the case and helped find a German who was one of the truck drivers carrying the secret cargo. In the summer of 1989, the retired agent and his buddy flew across the Atlantic, and the four partners met in Austria, near Lake Weissensee. Three of them were in their seventies, the oldest was German and the youngest was a retired agent’s buddy. In a local bookstore, they came across a pre-war 1938 map that marked country roads and mountain trails for hikers near the lake. A tracing paper overlaid on this map showed a high probability that this time they had found what they were looking for.

The partners worked out a plan. They agreed not to meet in public, to maintain secrecy. The German rented a small camper wagon, the kind tourists usually travel in. They loaded the camper with shovels and pickaxes, a roll of tarpaulin and a highly sensitive metal detector, powerful flashlights, canned food, water, and so on. The Ukrainian rented a room in a guesthouse on the shore of a lake and rented a fishing boat, showing his interest in night fishing by all his actions. The Americans rented a tiny house on the edge of the forest and hung out all day in eateries and in nature, where the retired agent painted watercolors of landscapes and his young friend flirted with lonely women who came here looking for such adventure. A German drove the camper into the thicket and camped not far from the planned first cache. Lying in a hammock, he demonstrated to random tourists a complete break from civilization, and they, out of delicacy, began to bypass the place in order not to disturb the old man. Which is exactly what was required.

***

THE FIRST CASHE.
On the night of June 10, 1990, they got down to business. Not even two hours had passed in the search when the metal detector gave a signal. The stash turned out to be a kilometer from the dead end of the road that led to the town of Neysach. They worked with shovels, throwing earth on the tarpaulin, and soon came across the boxes. Four were found, their wooden casing thoroughly rotten and easily broken into. In each of the crates were found small metal containers, waxed and in perfect condition. After loading the containers into the camper, they quickly filled in the hole by trampling the earth and piling rocks and snags on top. In the cabin the Americans had rented, the company proceeded to examine the find. The containers contained a decent amount of jewelry and ornaments: gold rings and brooches, gold coins. Having made an inventory of what was found, everyone went to rest. The Ukrainian took the flattened containers to a boat and sank them in the lake.

THE SECOND STASH.
The next night they moved to a place that was marked on the map in the eastern corner of the lake. There they found a campground for campers and a road that led to the E-55 highway, which was 9 kilometers away. The stash was about two kilometers from the campground and the close presence of tourists required special precautions.
A pine tree grew on the spot indicated by the metal detector, and they had to work hard to cut it down and drag it away, cut the stump, and free the treasure from the rhizome. But 8 heavy boxes were worth it. Having removed the traces of their work, tired and excited, they drove the camper away with their booty.
The containers of this cache contained gold rings, jewelry, and vast quantities of antique ancient Greek gold and silver coins. Everyone was tired, their muscles ached, and age was taking its toll. It was decided to rest for a few days, to gain strength.
On one such resting day, the Americans were sitting on the veranda of a beach restaurant when their attention was drawn to a pair of tourists with metal detectors in their hands. Serious-looking men were searching the coastal bushes.
“…There’s been a lot of them here in recent years,” the restaurant owner waved his hand in the direction of the tourists, “they’re looking for Nazi treasures. No one has found anything yet, but my friend has made a good business out of renting them metal detectors and shovels. And for us, the more tourists the better, for our pockets,” he smiled, ” If you want to try your luck I’ll give you everything you need for half price!”
In the evening they laughed, remembering this episode.

***

THE THIRD STASH.
On the night of June 15 was their next outing. The hiding place was marked on the map not far from the second one, in the eastern corner of the lake, on the sandstone of a pine grove. They began their search after midnight and the night witches helped them reach the treasure after only an hour. The six drawers of this cache were filled with gold coins, diamonds and emeralds, and a large number of gold bars, each weighing ten pounds. From that moment they realized that they had dug up a gold mine that would assure each of them a carefree life, forever…
And the worry arose as to how to preserve all this wealth. All millionaires are equally miserable, living in fear of losing their wealth. All beggars are equally miserable in their envy of the rich. They both get insomnia, and they both swallow antidepressants or alcohol. And die early.

***

FOURTH STASH.
A day’s rest and then back to the hunt for gold. The cross on the map marks a spot twenty meters from the third cache. It seems that Globochnik hid his main load here, in a secluded spot in the eastern corner of the lake, hidden by pine trees. They found and opened this one on 17 June. Six crates were filled with gold coins, religious gold medallions, Russian icons, and silver-trimmed antique 18th-century pistols that Wehrmacht soldiers had stolen from Catherine the Great’s palace at Tsarskoye Selo, near St. Petersburg. The treasures found were too much for the camper, so a retired CIA agent bought a large truck, similar to the covered lorries used to transport furniture when moving house. There were more and more of them around the lake, people were leaving the noisy city for a quiet place, and the American’s purchase did not arouse the suspicions of his neighbors.

***

FIFTH CACHE.
On the night of June 21, their metal detector detected the fifth stash. Five drawers of this cache were filled with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, gold coins, and gold bars. Lots of gold! Then there was a problem that almost cost them the loss of all the wealth they had found. The thing was that a group of young Americans had camped in the neighborhood for the night. One of them got drunk on beer and started shooting at the pine trees with a shotgun until the police arrived. The drunken cowboy was calmed down, but the treasure hunters were alarmed by the appearance of the police. The Ukrainian and the German feared the police would return. They had much to fear – even a routine police identity check could end up revealing their past, costing them their freedom or even their lives. And the wealth they found would be confiscated. So a couple of Europeans decided to enjoy what they had found and get away. The next day the treasure was divided. The German and the Ukrainian preferred to get their share in gold coins and precious stones, which were easier to sell in Europe. The Americans got gold bars, antique coins, and art objects. That was settled.

***

During this adventure, the German strained his back and on the way back, he was stuck in Munich, in an asylum for the elderly. There he received full board and medical care, occasionally making small but expensive gifts to the pretty girls on the nursing staff. Everyone loved him and he was happy.
The Ukrainian made it to Switzerland, where he married a young Slavic woman. The couple opened a restaurant, the income from which helped launder the money from the sale of treasures. The wife knew nothing about it, and antique dealers who bought stones from the Ukrainian only knew that he received an inheritance from American relatives and now makes ends meet. The police did not care about the old man.

The Americans remained at the lake. They found and opened two more caches, which were located on the sandy slope of the eastern edge of the lake, in a pine forest.
Now the back of their truck was packed to the roof with gold, religious artifacts, and museum exhibits. The question was how to get it all to America.
On July 4, they left the vicinity of the lake and after driving 9 kilometers on a dirt road came to the highway E-66. Then they decided to continue their way south, to one of the Italian seaports. The back part of the covered body was filled with old, worn furniture, the car was thoroughly registered, and the Americans had clean documents and diligently pretended to move to a new place of residence.

In that part of Europe, Americans are always greeted with hospitality and friendliness. When they crossed the border, they told the customs officials that they were going to Venice, where they planned to open a furniture business. Without arousing suspicion, the buddies made it safely to the port. There they bought a sailing-motor fishing schooner with a powerful diesel engine and a large fuel tank, planning to cross the Atlantic on this schooner. Without hurry and trying not to attract attention, they dragged the treasures on board the schooner, painted black paint and soot on the gold bars, and stacked them in the double-bottom spats, where they were no different from the cast-iron piles of keel ballast. All other valuables they hid in caches behind the plating. Now every foot of the fishing schooner’s length was worth a million dollars.
In the evenings, the Americans hung out at the harbor tavern. There they easily found several sailors willing to help them move the schooner to America. For this, they were promised help in obtaining American papers.

***

One early morning the schooner left port. Beyond the Strait of Gibraltar, the ship unfurled its sails and disappeared into the blue ocean….

TWO COMMENTS.
1) The resurrection of Odilo Globochnik (from Wikipedia).
“…Globochnik, ?”-1945, SS Brigadenführer (Major General), was the head of the “death camps” in Poland during World War 2. In occupied Poland, he headed the Lublin police and was the founder of Belsen, Majdanek, and Sobibor, as well as Treblinka. In 1941, he was in charge of all the camps in Poland. Arrested in Austria by Allied forces in early May 1945, he committed suicide in prison….”.
The fate of SS General Odilo Globochnik is little known to historians, and decades after that war is of interest to very few…
On the postwar adventures of SS General Globochnik in his diaries told the former chief of the Gestapo, General Muller. The general hid in Switzerland, where he was recruited by the intelligence services and moved across the ocean to his new masters. After Muller died in the 1980s, some of his diaries were published by a journalist with useful connections at Langley, and I was fortunate enough to acquire these publications.
Globochnik’s personnel file had this characterization: ‘His adventurism and cunning often lead him to break established boundaries, even within the SS order.’ But he got away with a lot, as he was one of Himmler’s cronies, the Reich’s chief SS officer.

2) Where’s one more stash…?
There were 9 hiding places. One of them Globochnik gave to the British, and seven were found and cleaned by our heroes. That makes eight. The last, the ninth, was inaccessible to our searchers because the place was already asphalted under the parking lot and was owned by the owner of one of the local hotels.

How can you find this last stash?
First, you will need a good metal detector – these toys are not a problem in our time. Secondly, having shown curiosity over a mug of beer to find out from local old people what parking lots near the lake were asphalted first in those post-war years. Then under a far-fetched pretext, showing diplomacy and a share of cheekiness, to agree with the owners of hotels and go through the parking lots with a metal detector. For the adventurer will not be very difficult to find the treasures of the last stash, and with them a secure future. Risk is a noble thing. And he who doesn’t take risks doesn’t drink champagne!

© Copyright: Walter Maria, 2021, №221010201243