Reflections: Nazi Gold

(Originally posted September 28, 2015)

Nazi Gold!

Seventy years after the end of WWII these words still excite the world. The recent claimed finding of the long-lost Nazi gold train demonstrates that. Turned out that claim was a hoax.

But here's a story about Nazi gold that's a bit closer to home; although it begins in Merkers, Germany, a long way from New Madrid.

There would be no reason to go there, unless you were fighting across Germany in World War II as a soldier in Patton's Third Army in April 1945.

And, there would be no reason to remember you were in Merkers or any other of the hundreds of German towns the army rapidly pushed through, except that Merkers is where the Nazis had stored their vast gold reserves in an underground salt mine.

As the story goes . . .

Approximately two months before the Third Army took the town, the Nazis, to protect their treasures and gold reserves from the intensified Berlin bombing by the allies, began moving those treasures for safekeeping to the salt mines in Merkers. Besides the below ground mines, there were numerous caves in the area that were also utilized for storage.

The Reichsbank, which was in charge of the gold reserves, began moving the gold out of Berlin in late 1944 to its branch banks. Following a devastating allied bombing raid on Feb. 3, the decision was made to move nearly $238 million to the salt mine in Merkers, about 200 miles southwest of Berlin.

Along with the gold, German currency worth about 1 billion, large quantities of foreign currency, SS loot from concentration camp victims, and art from the Kaiser-Friederichs Museum were also sent there for safekeeping. You can read about the mine and its hoard in chapter 36 of The Monuments Men.

Due to the speed of Patton's advance and problems with the German rail system, efforts to remove the gold, currency, loot and art from the mine failed on April 4, when the town was overrun and came under U. S. Army control. There the treasure remained--two thousand and one hundred feet below ground.

But, let us go back to the New Madrid part of this story.

In late 1943, at Camp Butner, near Durham, North Carolina, the 282d Engineer Combat Battalion was being organized. The Army determined that this new unit was the best place to send a young carpenter from New Madrid after he joined the Army in January 1944.

The unit shipped out of New York aboard a Liberty Ship and arrived in England where it was stationed in the small village of Budleigh Salterton. It remained in England through the D-Day invasion and finally went to France in late 1944 where it was assigned to the XII Corps in General Patton's Third Army.

The unit went into the line on Dec. 25, 1944, as the Army approached the encircled city of Bastogne to relieve the besieged 101st Airborne Division.

The mission of the 282d was to get troops across rivers. Europe is full of rivers, and the Third Army encountered many as it moved into Germany in 1945. The unit operated in the forward combat area behind the advancing infantry. Just as soon as the infantry secured the bridgeheads, the 282d would erect a pontoon or Bailey bridge, or bring in large rafts to move men and equipment across the river. They were followed by the Construction Engineers who would build a more permanent bridge. As soon as those bridges were completed, the 282d would disassemble its bridge and move forward with the infantry.

So the 282d was usually in the forward area.

It just so happened that the unit arrived in Merkers April 4.

Men of the 282d came upon one of those small caves. Inside were gold bars in the shapes of loaves of bread. They reported the find to their superiors, but before moving on, loaded up several of the bars as "souvenirs."

There were other caves discovered with treasure in the area, and in the confusion of war, it was probably easy to "confiscate" a few gold bars here and there.

But what to do with the gold?

Well, the New Madrid sergeant and his buddies decided to bury it. They couldn't carry it them with them and risk discovery and, perhaps, court martial.

They selected a spot they believed they would be able to easily locate after the war, dug a nice hole, made a few notes, covered up the gold, and rejoined the war.

The postwar division of Germany left Merkers on the Russian side and thus in East Germany. Under those circumstances the recovery and removal of the gold was practically impossible and very risky.

According to one friend, years after the war, the New Madrid sergeant returned to Europe with his wife on a memory tour. They visited the Merkers area. He surveyed the town and surrounding area and concluded that the gold was still there.

As the years passed he told this "war story" to several locals. Some even offered to go Merkers and recover the Nazi gold for him, but he didn't take them up on the offer and never revealed exactly where the gold was buried.

And there it lies today. . .maybe.