A wannabe Indiana Jones reckons he’s found billions worth of secret Nazi gold. But Burkhart List said the authorities won’t let him dig for it because of a single Stone Age tool.
The author, 75, has searched for years for the hundreds of missing masterpieces of Baron Ferenc Hatvany, a Jewish Hungarian art collector whose paintings were looted during World War Two. He believes he’s located the artworks, seized by the SS in 1944, in an underground depot near the village of Deutschkatharinenberg in the Ore Mountains, Germany.
The mining region, which has a warren of tunnels underneath, is long believed to harbour gold looted by Adolf Hitler’s henchmen.
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The would-be treasure hunter reckons it is full of art, gold and jewellery stolen from Jews in Hungary. However, red tape means he’s banned from digging as the area is deemed of of archaeological relevance because of a prehistoric tool found nearby.
He said: “It would be worth billions today. This gigantic magnetic field that showed up in the survey indicates something is hidden there. I don’t want to take anything for myself. I know this belongs to people...who lost their lives.”
His research suggests SS goons moved the stolen art and valuables to the area by lorry and train. The collection belonging to Hatvany, who died in Switzerland in 1958, include pieces by artists such as Monet, Degas and Pissarro.
His team was about to start digging when the Saxony authorities revoked its exploration rights. He is now appealing against the decision.
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