THE GOLD DIGGERS OF MERKERS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 10 April 1945, Page 4

THE GOLD DIGGERS OF MERKERS

THERE is a plot in the story of the captured German treasure which would warm the hearts of R.L.S. or our more modern mystery writers. Truth turns out to be stranger than fiction, for it would indeed be an ingenious teller of tales who could link up the slender thread of relevancy between a German woman having a baby and the discovery, deep down in the bowels of a salt mine with miles upon miles of dank, dark tunnels, of the whole backing of the Reich currency, plus paintings by Rembrandt, Raphael and Van Dyke, plus Classical and Egyptian antiques which the German curator of the State Museums, Dr. Rave —who was captured with the other treasures—claims were honestly come by, having been removed from Berlin for safe keeping!

As so far told in New Zealand there are some gaps in the story which provide excellent scope for the imagination. How, for instance, did the two American military policemen assisting the mid wives at the accouchement come to win their confidence so that the secret of the hidden treasure was not safe in feminine keeping? It would be interesting to reconstruct the conversation. The 200 British prisoners who were forced to unload and store this precious freight, and who lost no time in telling about it after liberation, are worthy of a place in the cast of characters. It was surely unkind of the Third Army men to move so fast that they disturbed and captured three of the eight Nazi financial experts who found their return journey with the uplifted treasure cut off by bridges blown up while they were on a rescue errand down the mine. The Third Reich also has its loot experts, for another cable yesterday reported the presence, near the scene of battle in the Ruhr pocket, of a cavern filled with treasures, both German and “acquired.” What a pity Hermann Goering, art connoisseur, is not there. Another useful pointer for the fiction writer is the ring of twelve gun-bristling tanks round the mouth of the salt pit. This seems to open up new possibilities in adventure writing. The blowing of a hole in the brick wall to find out what was inside is, however, very old stuff though the occasion could not wait on Ali Baba’s “Open Sesame.” If the salt is losing its savour for the Nazis they at least meant to make good use of the cellars, but what a rash act fo cart the treasure into central Germany and set it down in the path of Patton. However, it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good. While the paper currency reserve and the hundred tons or gold—hard food for deep underground they might have acted as a brake on inflation within the Reich, and our airmen certainly did so when their bombs broke up the banknote printing presses in February. Mr Nash and the Reserve Bank, please take note.