Where did the Czech gold go at the end of the Second World War? Part 3 - Otto Skorzeny from 28.2.1945 to 20.5.

The period of Otto Skorzeny's career from the beginning of his career to the end of February is quite clear and transparent and does not seem to conceal any material facts. The period of three years, from 20 May 1945 to 27 July 1948, is also clear; he was in Allied prison camps. The 80 or so days between these dates, however, conceal many uncertainties. We shall try to deal with this phase in more detail and critically evaluate the information and testimony obtained.

First, a quotation from the book "I Skorzeny"

(Telephone call from Alfred Jodl to Otto Skorzeny 28/2/1945)

"Hand over command in Schwedt to a commander selected by you personally from among the SS officers and report to the Führer's headquarters without delay," was the sternly worded instruction.

Why? he asked himself anxiously.

Leaving might remind many of flight, which would hurt his reputation, for the fighting here was nearing its climax - and among the men under his command there were somewhom he regarded not only as subordinates but as friends, having been with him on many previous deployments, including the rescue at the Gran Sasso mountain hotel.

"Why should I leave?" he asked Colonel-General Alfred Jodl the same question by telephone.
"The Führer's orders," Jodl replied.
"Does he have a special mission for me?"
"I don't know anything about that, but he insists on his decision," admitted the Chief of the Operations Staff of the German Armed Forces, adding his guess: "Maybe he just doesn't want you to fall there somewhere near the Oder unnecessarily."
"Unnecessarily...?!" reacted Skorzeny irritably. "If you see the situation here in this way, then I must tell you that many German men are dying unnecessarily."
"And so Skorzeny left Schwedt.

In about a hundred hours, the bridgehead was captured by the Red Army. Other sources state that Skorzeny asked that his closest officers leave with him, and this was refused, saying that the order applied only to him.

Why did Hitler recall Skorzeny? We know that in early March he was given the task of blowing up the bridge at Remagen. However, this bridge was not occupied by the American army until March 7; Hitler could not have known this until February 28. Skorzeny is in Berlin for the whole month of March and arrives at headquarters. According to his memoirs, he meets Eva Braun there and she invites him to tea with Hitler, but he refuses. Supposedly the only time he meets Hitler is on 31 March 1945, where they exchange only a few polite words. This lasts until the beginning of April, when Skorzeny leaves for the Protectorate.

This is very strange. In fact, it is claimed that Skorzeny, who was notorious for his enormous activity (his officers at Friedenthal could reportedly be recognized by their tired faces), suddenly inat the most critical period, he does nothing at all, walks into Hitler's main tent, where he does not meet Hitler in the few square metres. That's hard to believe and not at all in keeping with Skorzeny's character. In my opinion, the only rational explanation is that at that time he was intensively engaged in preparing and organizing...of a highly secret operation that even the top generals didn't know about, and it was probably on Hitler's direct orders. What that action was can only be speculated - I will give working hypotheses below.

On 30 March 1945, I received orders from OKW to transfer my staff to the Alpine Fortress, where virtually the entire Führer's headquarters was to be moved (quoted from "My Command Operations").

Interestingly, the very next day, 31.3.1945, he meets Hitler "by chance and for the only time".

Sometime in the first week of April, Skorzeny leaves for the Protectorate. During the interrogation, as in his book, he claims that he left in the direction of Lázně Velichovka. He was accompanied by his adjutant, untersturmführer Gallent, and his chauffeur, Anton Gfölner, and a radio operator who had been detached from the OKW (Skorzeny had a powerful radio with him). He had orders from Colonel-General Jodl to travel regularly along the southern front and report to OKW on the situation.

In Velichovka Spa on 10.4.1945 (a date he repeatedly mentions both during the interrogation and in his book) he allegedly met Field Marshal Schörner, commander of Army Group Mitte. They discussed the military situation and Skorzeny offered Schörner 100 of his troops from Jagdverband Ost II (ridiculous - Schörner's army then numbered about 900,000 soldiers. "It had about 9,400 guns and mortars, 2,400 tanks and over 1,000 aircraft" - source: https://radiozurnal.rozhlas.cz/polni-marsal-schorner-se-o-kapitulaci-dozvedel-ve-velichovkach-6263432?nonmob=1).

But one thing is important here. Skorzeny probably did meet with Schörner (Skorzeny did not deny it, because there were probably enough witnesses to that meeting in the mess hall, and investigators would have found out), but it was most certainly not on April 10, 1945, as Skorzeny repeatedly claimed. Julius Mader's book "The Hunt for the Scarred Face" states that:

"Skorzeny was at that very moment (April 8, 1945) with several men of the Special Commandos in the Peter-Jordan-Strasse in Vienna, from where he was taking away on trucks the bulky loot stolen in many countries. ... The Regional Court for Criminal Matters has the testimony of the former head of the Vienna Gestapo, Saniter, in fascicle 27a Vr 7604/61."

He was certainly still in Vienna on 11 April 1945. This is stated in his book "My Command Operations" and is stated in agreement by all other sources, because it is corroborated by two written sources.

Skorzeny sent a telegram to Colonel General Jodl, the head of OKW: "Everything indicates that Vienna will fall today, 11 April 1945.
Furthermore, the archives of the Reich Chancellery contain a radiogram which the then SS-obersturmbannführer Skorzeny sent directly to Hitler and also expressed himself quite openly: "On the roads leading from Vienna to the west I have come across more or less chaotic scenes of mass retreat and I recommend that very decisive measures be taken here." (quote from Roman Cílek: Skorzeny, Life on the Edge, the first telegram is also mentioned in other sources)

The assumption that Skorzeny is in Vienna on 8 April, then travels hundreds of kilometres across Moravia to Velichovka to return to Vienna is beyond reality. Moreover, on 10.4.1945 Schörner was not yet in Velichovka.

In Libor Parizek's book "US Mission Velichovky" it is written that the unit occupied Velichovky on 27 March but the general - field marshal Ferdinand Schörner did not arrive until 15 March. (He was promoted to field marshal on 5 April 1945). Anyway, Skorzeny very strongly emphasizes that after 11.April 1945 he never set foot in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia again (protocols from the interrogation in the prison camp www.fronta.cz link Questions > General and Uncategorized > Otto Skorzeny and Czechoslovakia), but also in the book R. Cílek: Skorzeny - Life on the Edge). He is obviously lying to cover up some secret mission.

The date 15 April 1945 is interesting from another point of view. In order to arrive in Velichovka on 15 April, Schörner had to leave Berlin on 14 April. And on 14 April, according to Mr. Houska's testimony, a convoy under the command of Otto Skorzeny also left Berlin. So the hypothesis that on the morning of 14 April there was a meeting between Hitler, Skorzeny and Schörner (perhaps Josef Spácil), after which Schörner and Skorzeny left to carry out their tasks, and that the two met two or three days later in Velichovka is quite logical.

Moreover, there is a contradiction in his own statement, where he states in his book that the reason for his trip was that he had orders from Colonel General Jodl to regularly drive through the southern front and report to OKW on the situation. On the other hand, just a few lines above he writes that he went to Vienna because he learned in Velichovka on 10 April 1945 that Vienna was threatened.

The following is a quote from the interrogation of Skorzeny as given in the book by R. Cílek: "I Skorzeny ..."

"But you were undoubtedly in the Protectorate during the war, weren't you?"

"In March 1942 I was treated in Karlovy Vary. Then I didn't get to the Protectorate again until April 10, 1945, when I visited the headquarters of Schörner's Army Group Center in Moravia. Field Marshal Schörner and I briefly assessed the general situation, and our factual and propaganda-free reflections on whether it was possible to hold the front had already taken a rather pessimistic form. At the same time I received the news that the conquest of Vienna by Russian troops was inevitable. I immediately set off there. First, I needed to find out what the situation of the local Sud-Ost fighter corps was and whether there was any danger of its encirclement, and since my family was staying in Vienna, I was naturally also interested in their fate. I arrived in Vienna, which looked like a dead city and was on fire in many places, at the beginning of the night and learned that the Fighter Group had been transferred to defend the Alpine Fortress. I found my mother's house in ruins, but a neighbour who had come out of the cellar assured me that mother, wife and daughter had escaped in time. I drove past the Russian lines to my apartment in Dobling, where I picked up several hunting guns that were of trophy value to me and I did not want to leave them at the mercy of the enemy. Then I headed for Upper Austria via the Waldviertel. I had absolutely no interest in the Protectorate at that time."

Skorzeny's stay in Vienna on 11 April 1945 can be documented, he sent a pessimistic radio dispatch to Colonel-General Jodl: "Everything indicates that Vienna will fall today, 11 April 1945."

From the above we can take it as proven that Skorzeny went from Berlin to Vienna, (certainly not via Velichovky, however he claims it), where he was at least on 8-11 April 1945. Sometime around that time he may have met Pawlofski and Tutter in Vizovice, (the testimony of Confidant Bata), this cannot be ruled out, it is even probable. It can also be assumed that he helped them to create (or even created) a plan for an anti-Partisan action in the area of Ploština - Prlov, but he did not take part in it personally. Skorzeny also wanted to take some of his troops out (again, indications that he was acting under orders, without which he certainly could not and would not have wanted to take people out). In any case, he probably only took away the elite he trusted (again, indications of a covert operation). In the description of the events of 8.4. in Vienna (see above), it talks about "a few men and trucks", it does not look like a large corps. Pawlofski and Tutter and their men remained in Moravia. Apparently the atmosphere was not good, the Soviet troops were already close and how the captured SS officers would end up was known. The unbridled killing could have been and was vaporized by the total stress and fear of the Nazis of death or capture by the Red Army.

Skorzeny claims that he went directly from Vienna to Upper Austria. This is possible, although he did not end up there, because he almost certainly went back to Berlin (see Mr. Houska's testimony below). It is quite possible that he left Vienna with the loot on trucks for the Alps, left the men and trucks there, and went back to Berlin himself. Which way? It was rational to check the route of the future transport. To arrive with a convoy of trucks, for example, at a bridge over the Danube destroyed by bombing would have been a major complication. Skorzeny would certainly have checked the route he was to take a week later with the valuable cargo.

We have traced information about his stay in the Alps from another source in the book "Hitler's Millionaires" and in extracts from the book "Nazi Gold". Ian Sayer, Granada Publishing-1984. ISBN O.246.11767.2." in(http://www.redcap70.net/A%20History%20of%20the%20SS%20Organisation%201924-1945.html/S/SPACIL,%20Josef.html ), where it is recorded that on 26 April in the Alps Josef Spaczil allocated funds and valuables. (SS-Standartenführer Josef Spacil was the chief treasurer of the SS and was apparently the nameless SS colonel in Mr. Houska's account as the column left Berlin Josef Spacil - Wikipedia). Skorzeny was supposed to get some diamonds, but the courier embezzled them and ran away, so Skorzeny's deputy Radl got 50,000 francs in gold and some other currency. It is very uncharacteristic of Skorzeny to send an aide to get the money; he usually arranged such things very actively himself. However, he may not have been in the Alps at that time, according to Mr Houska's testimony he did not arrive there until the evening of 27 April. What he did between 11.4.1945 and 27.4.1945 does not emerge from these sources.

However, this period is covered in great detail by the prisoner Mr Houska's testimony. According to his own testimony, Mr Houska took part in a transport under Skorzeny's command in April 1945. He gave his testimony about these facts in Písek, and later spoke with the editors of the World in Pictures, where this testimony was published in 1965. Unfortunately, I did not obtain the original, but a detailed (probably verbatim) transcript is in the book "The Secrets of František and the Vltava Springs". Here I give the transcription according to this book:

The third transport, which passed through the Protectorate, is documented in detail and is interesting because the column of cars was led by Colonel SS Skorzeny himself. (There is an error here, at that time Skorzeny was a lieutenant colonel, he was not promoted to colonel until 20.4.) The MV operatives elaborated this signal by agency combinations in such a way that it became conclusive evidence that the most secret archives of the RSHA were stored in the Bohemian Forest. Several prisoners from the so-called RSHA Hauskommando in Berlin went with this transport. Among them was František Houska, who came from Prachatice. He also gave his testimony to the editors of the magazine Svět v obrazech (World in Pictures) after the discovery of boxes of Nazi documents in Černý jezero. M. Kocíková and K. Beran recorded his memories of the transport. In the State District Archive in Prachatice I found his records, such as those issued to citizens returning from concentration camps after the war. The document shows that the information Houska gave to journalists about his imprisonment is true and the testimony is most likely credible. F. Houska was a member of the Communist Party and after Munich he went to Prague to avoid arrest. He failed to do so and was arrested by the Gestapo on April 1, 1939 He was imprisoned in Písek until April 4, 1939, in České Budějovice from April 4, 1939 to April 20, 1939, and in Linz prison from April 20, 1939 to April 28, 1939. From there he was sent to the concentration camp in Dachau and then to the Buchenwald concentration camp, where he spent four years. On October 30, 1943, he was taken for interrogation to Berlin, directly to the headquarters of the RSHA. Here they found that he had not been involved in any anti-Nazi resistance and held no positions in the Communist Party. Perhaps because he was a trained shoemaker, he was assigned to the Hauskommando of the Berlin RSHA prison. He repaired shoes, scraped potatoes, took care of poultry that was destined for the officers' kitchen, etc. Here he had the opportunity to see the head of the Gestapo Heinrich Müller, the Minister of the Interior and Reichsführer of the SS Himmler, the head of the RSHA Kaltenbrunner and even Hitler. Here he witnessed the execution of German officers after the failed assassination of Adolf Hitler, Hitler's mysterious prisoners such as Canaris, Schacht (Hitler's financier) and others. At the beginning of 1945, several cars were parked near the prison garage, and from one of them they were unloading some metal boxes, the kind of boxes in which file cards are stored, but smaller in size.

A few days later, he saw Müller, Himmler, Kaltenbrunner and the plain-clothes SS Colonel Skorzeny enter the garage. Around 12 April, the order came to prepare provisions for the long journey. On the evening of 14 April, the following convoy left Prinz Albrechtstrasse No. 8:

A truck with provisions and four Hauskommando prisoners with the tarpaulin pulled down, the prison commander's personal car with the driver, another personal car, in which sat a standard SS officer, and next to him a plain-clothes SS colonel Skorzeny.Four trucks covered with tarpaulins followed, and the column was closed by a tin-bodied truck of the kind used by the German army for transporting wounded (probably a radiowitz). In it rode an aide to Gestapo chief Muller and his secretary.

Later, F. Houska found out that all four trucks were loaded with tin registration plates.However, he concluded from the fact that the trucks were not fully loaded that the registers must have been heavy. The convoy drove mainly at night. During the day they waited for Skorzeny, who was always going somewhere.

Let's follow the route of the convoy:

On 14 April, at night, they passed through Dresden, Tinovec, and on 15 April, a lorry with provisions ...the radiator in Teplice was damaged and had to be repaired. From Teplice, the convoy continued to Prague. they stopped in Bredovská Street, where the Pečkárna was, with the famous Prague Gestapo headquarters. they stayed here on April 16th and 17th.

From other sources I found out that on these days Skorzeny was visiting the Reich Protector K.H. Frank. What they discussed is not known.

On 18 April the column arrived at Pribram, where they spent the night. On the morning of 19 April Skorzeny caught up with them and left again for Prague.The convoy continued on and Skorzeny caught up with it again near Milín. Late in the evening of 20.4. the convoy split up again and Skorzeny and his private car and one lorry with registration plates, turned off in the direction of Železná Ruda. (Note - on this day it was Hitler's birthday and Skorzeny was promoted to SS Standardführer - Colonel)

When I first read these documents, I wondered where F. Houska got the certainty that the cars had turned onto the Iron Ore.Shortly after Strakonice, before Volynia, there is indeed a turn to Vacov, via Stachy to Kašperské Hory, Hartmanice and from there to Železná Ruda. But Skorzeny could have turned off before Stachy to Zdíkov, from there to Kvilda and Prameny Vltavy and there in a prepared shelter to store the registration books. He could also only go to Kašperské Hory, which had the status of a district town and was part of the county of Bayerische Ostmark. I wanted to explain this ambiguity in F.Houska and I asked the Security Forces Archive to find out, whether there is a record of his name being extracted by STB operatives in the year 1965. It is a 20-minute job.

I did not get a positive or negative answer.

Note - of course, in 1965, the Czechoslovak Republic was prosecuting Skorzeny with an international arrest warrant for the events in Ploshchina and Prlova and certainly had no interest into smear the unquestionable testimony of a concentration camp inmate which showed that Skorzeny was hundreds of miles away at the time of these massacres. Especially when emotions were running high:

"16. "On September 16, 1962, thousands of Czechoslovak citizens gathered in Ploshchina and from there sent a resolution to the authoritiesto the UN Secretary-General U Thant, demanding that Otto Skorzeny be arrested and punished immediately." - See Julius Mader - The Hunt for the Scarred Face.

But let us return to the column. The remaining vehicles continued towards Vimperk. Before Vimperk they stopped to spend the night. On the morning of 21 April, the prisoners and guards washed themselves in Volyňka and filled the coolers with water. Skorzeny arrived soon afterwards. He left in the direction of Strakonice and soon returned.Before noon, a lorry with which Skorzeny had left for Železná Ruda late in the evening of the previous day reached them. Late in the evening of 21.Then, on April 22nd, they drove through Vimperk and waited until morning on roads unknown to F. Houska.On 25 April, in the afternoon, they continued their journey to Strážný, Frauenau and Pasov.between Freyung and Passau, the prison car separated from the convoy and Skorzeny's car. The following morning the prison wagon continued from Passau to Munich, where it waited for the day. Then, on the 27th of April, they reached Rosenheim, and from there they reached a kind of farm. They arrived here at night and put themselves to sleep in the stable. In the morning the owner of the farm introduced himself to them.It was Dr. Schmied, who was Rudolf Hess's personal physician.After his departure for England in 1941, Schmied was for several monthsfor several months in the RSHA prison, where he worked as a prison doctor.He knew some of the Hauskommando prisoners personally and helped many of them to escape, providing them with a safe escort.Before his escape, F. Houska overheard a conversation between Skorzeny and the Gestapo chief's aide, Müller:

"We have to wait here for the boss. Müller stayed in Austria for some time and then travelled to Argentina with false documents. The travel agency for the Nazi leaders was a charitable church organization connected to the Vatican.What did the little metal registers contain? F. Houska knows for a fact that they were loaded into one car. That they could have been in three other trucks is only conjecture.What was the point of Skorzeny's driving back and forth?Was he transferring anything from the trucks to his personal car? If something like that was going on, the Hauskommando prisoners were certainly not there as witnesses.

Simon Wiesenthal, a well-known Nazi hunter who has spent his life tracking down Nazi criminals.In his book Ich jagte Adolf Eichmann (Gutersloh, 1961), he claims that the SS colonel and sabotage expert in VI. Department of the RSHA, Otto Skorzeny, with the last transport with which he arrived at the Alpine fortress at the end of April 1945, brought 22 boxes, each containing 48 kg of gold, 20 gold bars, each weighing 2.4 kg.

This account is very interesting and perfectly covers the blank period not covered by other sources. If Skorzeny was in Vienna on 11.4, he could have been back in Berlin on 12.4 (nor did he need to be, the preparations could have been made without him, there is evidence of his presence only when he left on 14.4, and he would have done so comfortably). That he was carrying gold (and perhaps paper currency) is very well possible. For one thing, there is the statement from Wiesenthal's book, and for another, the timing is consistent. The Nazis confiscated gold and currency from all over occupied Europe, and there were many tons of gold bars and many bags of currency and boxes of gems in the vaults of the Reichsbank. The task of depositing these valuables was entrusted to the Minister of Economic Affairs, Walter Funk, and the head of the RSHA, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, to whom it logically fell under the brief. They chose the potash mine at Merkers in Bavaria as the deposit site, where they took several carloads of gold and currency in March 1945. (According to Soucek, seven hundred and thirty gold bars weighing a total of almost nine tons, twenty-five boxes of precious stones, and six large bags of sealed currency). Later the line was destroyed by Allied air raids. The cover-up of the operation was so poor that, in his book "The Amber Chamber", Ludvík Souček develops the theory that it was only meant to distract from the actual hideout. I personally doubt that the choleric Hitler would have agreed to the programmatic loss of billions of dollars or gold marks for such a dubious advantage. Rather, I'd venture to bet on the incompetence of the two dummies. In any case, the Allies immediately after capturing the area in question got information about the mine and on April 8, 1945, they also selected it.

In this context, one can also understand the mention in the book "My Command Operations"

The Minister of Economics and the Director of the Reichsbank Funk sent me their two adjutants and asked me to take care of the Reichsbank treasure. I let them know, with due courtesy, that I was not a safe-keeper but a soldier, and that they were at the wrong address.

I will venture an assumption. Hitler did not want the gold and currency he had taken from all of Europe to become the spoils of the Allies, much less the Soviets. That's why he ordered a total of two actions to secure it. One was the safekeeping of the deposits of the Reichsbank, and this task he entrusted to Funk and Kaltenbrunner. The second was to collect the scattered deposits in the still-controlled part of the Reich - Vienna and Austria, Slovakia, Dresden, Teplice (and the Sudetenland in general), Prague, Silesia (perhaps the gold train), South Bohemia. This second part was put in charge of Spácil and Skorzeny. Walter Funk, who was unaware of Skorzeny's assignment (and presumably of the whole second action), sent his two adjutants to ask Skorzeny for help. He could not oblige them, because he was in charge of the second action, and so he turned them away. But after the war it was a good argument to pretend that he had nothing to do with the hidden deposits. Because hiding the Nazi deposits was an open secret by the end of the war, and who else could have been in charge of it but Skorzeny? So he pretended it didn't compare to his military honor. Whoever wants to believe that.

Here the interesting figure of Standartenführer Josef Spacil stands out. This Sudeten German was Kaltenbrunner's personal accountant and took care of the SS funds. He was the head of the 2nd section of the RSHA and was also responsible for printing the fake English banknotes. Kaltenbrunner was his direct superior and allegedly a personal friend. He officially took it upon himself (on Himmler's orders) to withdraw the rest of the Reichsbank funds. Various sources contradict each other in details, stating, for example, that he shipped the Reichsbank deposits via Munich to the Alps on 22 April 1945 in three private cars. This cannot be true for two reasons - on 22 April 1945 Berlin was already completely surrounded by the Red Army and the Nazi cars could not leave, and on the other hand the weight of the deposits certainly exceeded the capacity of three cars. They were valued at the equivalent of US$ 9.191 million. If everything was in gold, at a gold price of US$ 37.25/troy ounce in 1945, this represents a weight in excess of 10.5 tonnes.

I would like to draw attention to one more part of Mr. Houska's testimony:

another passenger car in which a Standard SS officer was sitting, with a plainclothes SS Colonel Skorzeny sitting next to him.

Since there were certainly not many SS colonels, and certainly not those who had access to the deposits of the Reichsbank, it is reasonable to assume that the nameless SS standard bearer in Mr. Houska's statement was Josef Spaczil, and that Skorzeny took away what Spaczil had taken from the Reichsbank on Himmler's orders. Spácil later flew with his wife and secretary/mistress and other prominent people to South Germany. He distributed a considerable amount of funds (mainly Reichsmarks to pay off the mercenary debt), but also gold and currencies in smaller amounts. Whether the gold and currency came from the Reichsbank is doubtful. In the book Hitler's Millionaires, it says that SS and Wehrmacht units made their resources available to Spácil. It's plausible that they wanted to get rid of the gold and currency because they represented a great responsibility - embezzling Reich property was an immediate execution, and handing over valuables to the official SS treasurer, Spácil, was one of the few ways to get rid of the responsibility. This may be the source of the gold francs that Spácil subsequently handed over to Skorzeny. Spácil did disclose his hiding places, but only money and valuables equivalent to $US 492,401 were found, about 5% of what he admitted to theoretically taking from the Reichsbank. This may have been taken by the three passenger cars, but more likely it was gold and currency deposits that Spaczil had received from other SS units already directly in southern Germany. He gave out Reichsmarks to pay the soldiers and officers, which were already worthless to him by that time.

When a task or order is given in the army, the allocation of men, material and finances to provide such a task is also dealt with within the framework of that task. At this point, Skorzeny's whole April expedition begins to make sense. His task was to secure the maximum amount of gold and currency for the future (perhaps with specific tasks on what to use these funds for after the war), both from the leftover deposits of the Order ofBank (which could not be moved to Bavaria because the Allies had bombed the railways in the meantime) and by confiscating all resources on the way to the Alpine fortress. The route through the Protectorate was the logical choice, the Americans were already in Germany and the Russians in Poland, the only corridor to the Alps was through Bohemia, and the Bohemian Forest between the American and Russian armies. Skorzeny's troops were in Moravia, so he had to take the most reliable part of them out.

We have to go back to Skorzeny's visit to Field Marshal Schörner. This visit apparently occurred on his second trip, when most of his column was in Prague and he disappeared for three days (16-18 April 1945). This fits the timing, by which time Schörner was already there. The question is the purpose of his visit. That he came for a friendly chat about the situation at the front and the hundred men is highly unlikely. In this situation, it occurs to me (it's speculation, but it fits logically) that in the recent past a so-called gold train carrying the deposits from Wroclaw, which was hidden in the underground tunnels of the Ksiaz castle near Walbrzych. Supposedly the train was going to Berlin, but I don't think so, because at that time the Red Army was already several kilometres away from Berlin and, on the contrary, the deposits were being moved from Berlin to unoccupied territories, especially to the Alps. It would be logical for the train to go to Jaromer (where Schörner's staff train was parked about 5 km from Velichovka) and then on through Bohemia to the Alps. The railway runs here, we can only guess why the train stopped at Walbrzych. It is almost certain that some of the soldiers accompanying the train (probably the train commander himself) reported its hiding place to their superiors. According to some sources, the train was carrying, among other things, 300 kg of gold. It can therefore be hypothesized that Skorzeny, as part of the repatriation of the rest of the Empire's gold reserves, left Prague in his own vehicle (leaving the other vehicles of the column in Prague), agreed with Schörner (they were seen in the dining room and had to admit the meeting, only they moved it forward by a week), took the gold and cash from the train and returned to Prague to join the rest of his column.

At the end of the war a considerable amount of gold also disappeared from Prague (see part one), and it is usually assumed that this gold was hidden along with the archives in Stechovice. However, it cannot be ruled out that this gold was the subject of negotiations with K.H.Frank (mentioned in the above mentioned book by Antonín Kunec "The Secret of Františkov and the Vltava Springs" - see quote above) and that it was also taken away by Skorzeny on 18.4.1945. The route of his convoy from Prague to Pribram led past Štěchovice, it was enough to load it.

Maybe Slovak gold was also counted here. The train departed from Žilina on 10 April 1945 and headed for Štěchovice. We can imagine that it was this cargo that Skorzeny's convoy was waiting for in Prague on 16 and 17 April. However, due to delays, the convoy did not arrive in Benešov until the beginning of May, by which time Skorzeny was already in the Alps.(https://www.armyweb.cz/clanek/ve-stinu-stechovickeho-pokladu-slovenske-zlato-zmizelo-u-tynce-nad-sazavou)

It can be assumed that he also took gold from Konopiště on the way. His visit is mentioned in the article and he obviously did not go there on a trip. So any search for Nazi gold at Konopiště is probably also futile.

Newly discovered documents.

https://badatele.net/nove-objevene-dokumenty-utajeny-pribeh-zlata-ukryteho-na-konopisti/

Skorzeny's detour on April 20-21, 1945 towards Iron Ore remains unclear. Antonín Kunc is convinced that this is where Skorzeny hid his cargo in underground spaces in the Šumava region of Františkov. I find this very unlikely. At that time it was clear that Czechoslovakia would be occupied by the Red Army within a few weeks. Storing the treasure in a place where it was obviously not going to be accessed anytime soon, not to mention picking up any deposits, would have made little sense. It is speculation, but I assume that Skorzeny did not hide anything in this area, but instead picked it up. Perhaps it was also some gold, but there is more likely the possibility that it was secret documents. There were underground aircraft factories here and, for example, jet engine workshop documentation may have been worth more than gold in the spring of 1945. On that 21 April, Herman Göring was also in Šumava at Špičák (where the Luftwaffe headquarters was being prepared). natura.baf.cz/natura/2004/2/20040203.html. It is very possible that the two met and passed on something to each other.

In any case, it was something extremely important. The fact that on 20 April 1945 Hitler promoted Skorzeny to SS-Standartenführer (Colonel) is a testimony to this. I refer to the part where I described how Skorzeny received the Knight's Cross after the action in Italy. Hitler rewarded him immediately. In this case, it can be expected with a high degree of probability that Skorzeny reported by his radio to Berlin the fulfillment of the order and was promoted that very day. On the same day, Spaczil was promoted to SS-Oberführer. Incidentally, that was Hitler's birthday that day, and on that occasion there were also promotions.

The column with Skorzeny continued through Passau to Rosenheim, where they waited for the Chief.

Here his deputy Karl Radl arrived with about 250 men. In his memoirs (My Command Operations) he mentions that they met in Radstadt, which is a town about 100 km from Rosenheim, but has a railway station. Since he later describes the tryst for Hitler as having "let his men board alongside his command train" it can be assumed that Radl and his men from Friedenthal arrived on a special train that had already been left there for Skorzeny's use. This was probably the guard company that Skorzeny left under Radl's command at Friedenthal when he left with the rest of his men for Schwedt.

But hiding treasure is no easy task in densely populated Europe. There is always the risk that the group hiding the treasure will be observed by a gamekeeper, a mushroom picker or a grandmother collecting sticks. Even the men burying the boxes or sinking them in the lake, even if they are SS volunteers, are not entirely reliable. In a few years after the war they may certainly think of adding to their salary or pension and go and try to collect the gold. This may be why Skorzeny took four concentration camp prisoners with him, including Mr. Houska. They could have buried the treasure, then they would have been shot and no one would have known anything. (This is how Captain Flint worked in Stevenson's Treasure Island.)

There is one place where Skorzeny could have hidden the treasure without the risk of unwanted witnesses. It is a valley near Hitler's headquarters in the vicinity of Berchtesgaden and Eagle's Nest, which is only a few dozen kilometers by road from Rosenheim. All the ordinary people had already been evicted from this area before or during the war, and construction work was carried out without any documents. Here the treasure could be hidden easily and without witnesses.

Quote from Julius Mader: The Hunt for the Scarred Face:

"The officers of his staff, SS Haupsturmführers Hunke and Radl, rummaged through old archives and snooped around the abandoned...mine shafts that were to be used as shelters, ammunition stores and hiding places."

That Skorzeny hid something here is generally assumed. The book "Hitler's Millionaires" states that none of Skorzeny's hiding places have been found. Although Skorzeny denied having deposits from the Reichsbank, he undoubtedly possessed some items that have not been found. It was not only the 50,000 gold francs he had received from Spácil, but also some hunting weapons. We can also go back to his testimony (see above): I drove past the Russian lines to my apartment in Dobling, where I collected several hunting weapons that were of trophy value to me and I did not want to leave them at the mercy of the enemy. Then I headed for Upper Austria via the Waldviertel.

The items that the Americans confiscated from him during his capture he lists quite accurately in his book "My Command Operations":

In October 1943 he gave duce to all the paratroopers who landed with the gliders at Campo Imperatore and to my...to my sixteen SS men with gold wristwatches with the letter "M" engraved on the face. Each officer also received a gold stopwatch. In addition to the wristwatches and stopwatches, the Duce gave me a gold pocket watch with the letter "M" set with rubies and the date 12 September 1943. The Americans confiscated it from me in 1945. Other souvenirs were lost in the confusion! A photograph, an honorary dagger of the Fascist militia, as well as the medal of the "Order of the Musketeer Centenary", which was awarded to only one hundred Italian soldiers.

So where's the treasure? I last encountered him in Rosenheim. The mysterious figure of Dr. Schmied, who made the escape of Houska and the other prisoners possible. If we assume that Skorzeny took prisoners with him as the manpower needed to hide the treasure, whom he could then kill to conceal the treasure's location, we can assume that Dr. Schmied knew about this and programmatically saved the prisoners' lives. Then he probably knew the location of the hiding place as well, perhaps he prepared it as a local expert. After all, he was in Berlin and then met Skorzeny on the spot.

What did the hiding place look like? Skorzeny had certainly counted on going there in the future and collecting parts of the treasure. So it's hardly just some dug-out hole in the woods. It's got to be some kind of structure. Maybe an old mine, like a tunnel. We have a record of his aides searching the archives for such sites - see above. Skorzeny was a civil engineer by profession, he could brick something up or disguise it. Apparently he did it in such a way (even after the prisoners escaped) that only he knew about the hiding place. I have no idea what happened to Dr. Schmied, I have not traced anything about his fate. Since he would probably be the second person after Skorzeny to know about the location of the treasure, I certainly wouldn't recommend any insurance company to take out a life insurance policy on him. But I don't know.

After that, Skorzeny and his men retreated quietly to the Alpine valleys and waited for the war to end. After the official surrender, Skorzeny gave his men discharge papers from the army (so no one could accuse them ofdesertion), paid them their remaining wages in Reichsmarks from Josef Spaczil and sent them home. Finally, he himself sent information to the Americans that he was surrendering. When they did not respond, he personally went to surrender. The whole surrender was a great comedy, but it is beyond our inquiry, who wants to be entertained should read his book.

More next time. The fate of Skorzeny and the treasure after the war