The Czech Republic is now the site for lost Nazi gold, as Poland was recently.
Treasure hunters have slightly increased the population of Štěchovice, 20 miles from Prague, the country’s capital, as they search for $50 billion in gold and diamonds contained in 54 boxes.
The hunt is based on evidence unearthed in archives that Nazi officer General Emil Klein built the boxes and filled them with paintings, gemstones, gold, and documents from the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institute in Berlin, a German medical and scientific organization.
The hunt began thirty years ago by the amateur detective Josef Mužík and recently teamed up with Sudeten German Helmut Gänsel, a Sudeten German and a former employee of the Czech intelligence service who interrogated Klein after World War II.
The story of the treasure has been brewing since the war’s end in 1945.
Documents found in the Weimar area of Germany in 1993 have led many experts to believe that the Nazis did stash booty at that location.
Gänsel claims that he has the original documents about the treasure and has specific information about the location of the supposed treasure. He said that the documents and a precise area map were from Klein, the one-time SS general in control.
Gaensel was employed by the Czech and various other secret services. In 1964 he arranged the release of Klein from Czechoslovakia’s KZ Valdice Prison.
Throughout the 1970s and up to late 1989, there were attempts to find the Štěchovice treasure then under the command of the Communist defense and interior administrations.
Gaensel purchased the relevant property in 1992 and with Czech authorities signed an exclusive agreement to obtain the sole rights to locate the hoard.
He and Mužík hope to unearth it before the spring of 2017.
Reportedly, the treasure is hidden by 16 feet of debris at the cave entrance, The Sun reported.
In 2016, treasure hunters sought three trains in the vicinity of the town of Wałbrzych in southwest Poland hunting for treasure which was apparently buried underground and filled with abandoned Nazi bullion.
But after a lengthy dig, hunters found nothing. Historians claimed the trains didn’t exist.