Yearly, the Nationwide Archives of the Netherlands (NA) publishes 1000’s of paperwork that had been both beforehand unseen by the general public or out there for examine solely below strict safety measures. Amongst these launched this January is a treasure map displaying the suspected location of a trove of jewellery, watches and valuable stones that had been supposedly stolen by a bunch of German troopers in 1944. Labeled till now and drawn by hand, the map describes the area the place the haul, which has by no means been situated, was supposedly stashed. Based on the sketch, the property had been buried close to Ommeren, within the jap Netherlands, in a spot that has been searched 3 times already by the authorities.
The story, because it seems within the paperwork launched by the NA, is as follows. In August 1944 throughout a bombardment, a department of the Rotterdamsche Financial institution (now ABN Amro) was broken in Arnhem, round 25 miles from Ommeren. The contents of the safes saved there have been scattered on the street and “the German troopers stuffed their pockets with the loot,” says Annet Waalkens, an advisor the NA, through phone. Operation Market Backyard, an allied try to drive a bridgehead over the Rhine to strike at northern Germany, was launched in September 1944. Based on the paperwork, “they put the jewels inside ammunition crates and hid them within the carriage of a prepare.” “We had thought they buried it in 1945, a few weeks earlier than the liberation of the world by the Allies, someplace in Ommeren,” says Waalkens.
The recordsdata names a Sergeant Main Kastel, a Sergeant Bräuer and a Non-public Biebert because the troopers who took the haul. They had been seen by one other German soldier known as Helmut, who was born in 1925. Helmut mentions August 1944 because the time when the financial institution was hit by a shell “after which he needed to preserve watch when the packing containers had been buried,” says Waalkens. Based on specialists, the boys had been members of Main Rudolf Witzig’s parachute battalion, one of many elite formations of the German Wehrmacht. The Dutch army mission stationed in Berlin adopted the path of rumors in regards to the existence of such treasure, consulting with the heads of the Dutch institute that reviewed the destiny of the haul: the info matched. “They then sought out the soldier, who was dwelling within the German city of Baden-Baden, and took an announcement. Because the map was amongst his possessions, he was taken to the Netherlands to assist seek for the treasure. Two of the three servicemen who buried the jewels died later in the course of the battle. The third couldn’t be situated,” Waalkens recounts.
Regardless of the terrain on the map being totally searched on three events, the ammunition crates containing the jewels had been by no means discovered. The authorities laid out just a few attainable situations earlier than abandoning the search. “It might be that the soldier, Helmut, invented the entire thing; maybe a Dutch farmer within the neighborhood dug it up; or somebody from the Dutch institute that investigated the matter took benefit of their place,” says Waalkens. The authorities additionally thought {that a} US officer stationed within the space on the time might have found it.
For Historian Joost Rosendaal, of the Radboud College in Nijmegen, the story is intriguing and needs to be investigated, though he questions the sequence of occasions. “We knew there have been bombardments within the lead-up to Operation Market Backyard, however no banks in Arnhem had been hit,” he tells EL PAÍS over the telephone. “A number of banks within the metropolis had been looted in late 1944 and February 1945.” He additionally notes that the Witzig battalion was preventing on the jap entrance in Latvia and Lithuania in August 1944. “They solely arrived within the Dutch area we’re speaking about in February 1945.” Rosendaal additionally states that each one the preventing, bombing and looting of banks within the space is documented, “and the Germans pressured the inhabitants of Arnhem from their houses due to the concern of resistance fighters, and since they needed an open battlefield,” within the face of the Allied advance. Arnhem was empty on the finish of September 1944, “and looting was widespread.” Native residents had been pressured to go away on foot. “They left with nothing and after they returned there was nothing left,” he says. The Allies liberated Arnhem on April 15, 1945.
Arnhem was a key goal of Market Backyard, which befell between September 17 and 27 of 1944 and was designed to safe bridges throughout the Rhine for an infantry push into Germany. The river fashioned a pure border and the German Military had a number of armored divisions within the area, which for six months turned the entrance line between Wehrmacht and Allied troops. Market Backyard finally fell wanting Arnhem, regardless of liberating Eindhoven and Nijmegen, and is taken into account one of many largest army failures of World Warfare II. Rosendaal explains that the a part of Ommeren indicated on the map as the location the place the treasure is buried “was an aristocratic property utilized by the Nazis as a headquarters, and bombed by the Allies on April 24, 1945.”
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