I went digging for buried Nazi gold – and this is what I discovered

In January 2023, the Dutch national archives released a map purporting to show where a cache of stolen treasure was buried during the Second World War. Guy Walters reveals how he tried to track it down – and the dark backstory that gave rise to the legend

A person in a dark shirt stands near the entrance of a rough‑walled cave. Red graffiti is painted on the rock above, and the cave interior fades into darkness

Published: April 26, 2026 at 5:00 PM

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I have been appearing in history documentaries for the best part of 20 years. Usually, they are something to do with the Third Reich and for the most part, the documentaries are weighty and serious, as indeed they should be. But nearly every year, I get a call – normally from a junior producer or researcher – who tells me they wish to make a documentary about Nazi gold, and if so, do I know where they might find some?

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It’s at that point that I ask them to think about their question very carefully.

If – I say – I did know the location of a load of Nazi bullion, do they think I would tell them? For a day rate? Furthermore, wouldn’t I have gone and dug it up myself, and currently be speaking from my 20-bedroom mansion in the Maldives?

The line invariably goes silent as the logic of my position seeps in. I then add that if they really want to find themselves some Nazi gold, they should just go to Zurich or Geneva and knock on the door of any Swiss bank and ask for a peek in the vaults. So far, so cynical.

But then, in January 2023, my position changed with an intriguing release from the Dutch national archives: a real-life treasure map, hand-drawn by a Nazi paratrooper, revealing where he and his comrades had buried a load of loot they had stolen towards the end of the war. The map even had a red ‘X’ that marked the spot, outside a village called Ommeren, along what was the Allied front line of Operation Market Garden in 1944.

A hand‑drawn map with labelled towns, a river running across the top, and a compass rose. At the bottom are two small inset drawings, including a terrain cross‑section and a landscape sketch.

The hand-drawn map released by the Dutch national archives in January 2023, allegedly showing the site of a treasure trove near the village of Ommeren. But where does the map’s red ‘X’ sit within the modern landscape? (Image by Getty Images)

The story goes that during the military operation, a bank in Arnhem was hit by a bomb and a few German soldiers took what they could from the remains. As they retreated, they buried the treasure to keep it safe.

So, this wasn’t technically Nazi gold, but it was close enough – actual treasure looted by actual Nazis! That would do nicely and might even make a good short film.

And so, at 5am the following day, accompanied by my cameraman son William and his mate Magnus dragooned in to do the sound, I set off to the middle of the Netherlands from deepest Wiltshire, the boot of my creaking Land Rover loaded with picks and spades. All my grown-up historian’s wariness had melted away – I was literally on a hunt for Nazi gold.

Digging for clues

We arrived at the site at around lunchtime, not surprised to discover that others were hot on the trail too. We found a couple of teenagers uprooting a bush in someone’s front garden, but I was sure they were in the wrong place. Then we came across a man in his forties digging a very deep hole on the side of a road – he even had a professional metal detector – but he too was way out.

After overlaying the rough treasure map on a Google Maps satellite view, we made our way to a spot near a wood, where we came across a retired businessman called Jan, who agreed that surely, we were pretty close to that tantalising red ‘X’.

So out came my pick, and I dug. And dug. And dug.

And – as I had subconsciously known would be the case all along – up came nothing. All I had to show for my labours were some very muddy jeans and a telling off from a policeman, who didn’t take kindly to a crazy Englishman excavating a significant part of his beat. With the light fading, we called it a day and rewarded ourselves with liquid gold in the form of the local brew.

All I had to show for my labours were some very muddy jeans and a telling off from a policeman

Despite my failure, I realised that the subject of Nazi gold might at least bring some TV treasure, rather than the actual stuff. The YouTube video we uploaded got a lot of views and was bought off William and turned into a streaming documentary by a production company. The Sunday Times even dedicated the whole third page of its news section to our adventures.

All this attention convinced me there was a series in this, and soon the good folks at the History Channel had commissioned me to present and direct a six-part series called The Last Hunt for Nazi Gold.

As well as looking for Nazi gold, my co-host Justine Ostrowska and I suspected it would be fun to broaden the remit, and so we included other treasures looted by the Nazis, such as the Amber Room (a gold-panelled chamber stripped from Russia’s Catherine Palace), the fabled Nazi gold train (an armoured locomotive stuffed with treasures, supposedly buried in Poland), and countless missing paintings.

An opulent baroque room with amber‑toned wall panels, gold mouldings, framed paintings, chandeliers, and elegant furniture including draped chairs and display tables.

The Amber Room in Russia’s Catherine Palace, 1931. A decade later, the advancing German army would dismantle and reconstruct the chamber in Königsberg Castle in what was then Prussia. No trace of the room was found at the end of the war

Gangsters and Monuments Men

All of these are, in a sense, Nazi gold. The tone of the show, as you shall see, is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, and we have as much fun meeting the wonderful – and sometimes weird – characters who are obsessed that such-and-such a spot contains billions of pounds of treasure, as we do in doing the digging ourselves.

But despite all the jocularity and my wariness of actually finding any treasure, the story of Nazi gold is a serious one. The Third Reich was undeniably a gangster state, and like all gangsters, the Nazis stole – and stole big time. Every country they invaded was plundered, its gold, silver, and other priceless treasures taken to Germany.

This is not to forget the gold stolen from the Jews, often gruesomely wrenched out of the mouths of so many corpses. It is hard to give a precise figure, but in today’s money, it is estimated that the Nazis stole some £8.5 billion worth of gold, of which some £1.5 billion to £3 billion was taken from Jews. This does not count the other treasures stolen, the value of which runs into the hundreds of billions.

The first obvious question is this: where did it all go?

The good news is that a lot was recovered. About half the bullion was found by the Americans in a massive mine called Merkers in Thuringia, while much other gold – and indeed silver – was found in banks in Berlin and throughout Germany.

Another billion pounds’ worth was unearthed in the hills above Lake Walchensee in southern Bavaria, where it had been taken by mules led by Nazi soldiers at the end of the war. Many artworks were discovered in a salt mine above the village of Altaussee in Austria by the Americans and their unit of ‘Monuments Men’ – a team of art experts seconded into the army and later the topic of a 2014 George Clooney movie.

An underground storage cavern with rough rock walls, lined with rows of tightly packed sacks and stacks of crates. A narrow rail track runs through the centre under overhead lights.

Hundreds of sacks of bullion sit in the Merkers mine, Thuringia, 1945. Around half of the bullion looted by Nazis during the Third Reich was found here (Image by Getty Images)

And now for the next obvious question: how much is missing? It is impossible to give a reliable answer. Most sensible historians suspect the figure is very low, and if any gold is missing then it is extremely likely to lie in bank vaults in Switzerland. It is well known that many senior Nazis spirited their wealth into the country towards the end of the war, but thanks to the notorious secrecy of Swiss banking laws, to establish just how much is there – if any – is very difficult, to put it mildly.

But Switzerland was not the only country where the Nazis sent their plunder, with countries such as Spain and Argentina also receiving Nazi wealth, which was often laundered through a system of dummy companies.

Those of a more conspiratorial bent firmly believe that many millions of pounds worth of gold and artworks still lie hidden, and it is these characters that Justine and I decided to meet on our month-long road trip around central Europe over the summer.

Four uniformed soldiers stand on stone steps outside a large building. Three hold framed artworks, and a fourth stands behind them writing on a notepad.

Four of the American ‘Monuments Men’ retrieve stolen paintings from Neuschwanstein Castle, c1945. The art experts were tasked with protecting and recovering cultural treasures stolen by the Nazis (Image by Getty Images)

Treasure hunters

Armed with proper treasure-hunting equipment, including pickaxes and metal detectors, we joined forces with those who have been hunting Nazi gold and treasure for decades. Some of those we met more than raised our eyebrows, while others were far more plausible and made me reevaluate my scepticism.

Among the latter was the charismatic Cornelia Ostler, who has been treasure hunting across Germany nearly all her life, a passion imbued in her by her late father, who was also a fanatical treasure hunter. Cornelia’s speciality is looking for the gold that she believes is still missing above Lake Walchensee. While many believe that it was all recovered, Cornelia is adamant that there is still some to be found, and her copious documentation and archive material is undoubtedly impressive – and pretty convincing.

Some of the treasure hunters we met more than raised our eyebrows, while others were far more plausible

Also plausible was a friendly German chap called Jürgen Proske, with whom we spent a sweltering day high up a mountainside in a secret location in southern Germany. Like Cornelia, Jürgen has been hunting all his life, and while he may not have found any gold, he has certainly found all sorts of Nazi-era relics, some of which are of much historical interest, and even have some monetary value.

Lending Justine his far more professional metal detector, I am delighted to report that we did indeed find something, and we found it quickly. I am not going to give away any plot spoilers, but all I can say is that Justine has not yet replaced her old Porsche.

Two people stand among tall trees and dense greenery. One holds a metal detector, and the other, wearing a backpack, holds a walking stick.

Lifelong treasure hunter Jürgen Proske shows Justine Ostrowska, co-host of The Last Hunt for Nazi Gold, how to use sophisticated metal detecting equipment (Image by Guy Walters)

What was refreshing about the likes of Jürgen and Cornelia is their acknowledgement that their chances are very slim indeed, but they both share a gut conviction that if there’s even a small chance of any Nazi gold still being out there, then it has got to be worth an effort. At the very least, treasure hunting is fun, good exercise, and as their spouses often comment, at least it’s a hobby that gets them out the house at the weekend.

A dark legacy

But then there are the hunters whose tales are just a little too tall for my taste. One of our ports of call was Wałbrzych in southwest Poland, where it is said that a whole train of Nazi gold is hidden in a hillside. The leading proponent of this theory is Piotr Koper, who says that he has spent the value of a second home in looking for the train. He has commissioned extensive ground radar surveys, and while the endless readouts and bits of data all seem very impressive, I’m not sure they scream ‘Nazi gold train’ at me.

Nevertheless, we did go and have a look, and unfortunately all Justine found was the existence of a place which truckers seem to regard as an open-air lavatory, a discovery that meant we had to keep the windows open when Justine got back in the Jeep.

Then there was Burkhardt List, a historian and inveterate treasure hunter, who is absolutely determined that a stash of artwork worth hundreds of millions is located deep beneath a clearing in a wood near the Czech-German border. I liked Burkhardt, but as the show reveals, I didn’t care much for his theory. When I asked him what was stopping him from trying to arrange an excavation, he looked at me darkly and informed me that the ‘Fourth Reich’ was against him, and that agents of this nefarious network of neo-Nazis had even gone so far as to attempt to poison him.

Four people stand close together outdoors, smiling in front of a wooden structure and greenery. They wear casual clothing, including grey, yellow, light green, and black shirts.

Guy Walters with treasure hunters Jürgen Proske and Sebastian Eberle, and the programme’s co-host Justine Ostrowska (left to right). “If there’s even a small chance of any Nazi gold still being out there, then it has got to be worth an effort,” says Walters (Image by Guy Walters)

Ultimately, the biggest lesson I learned from The Last Hunt for Nazi Gold was that you never know. It is easy to be sceptical, and to be honest, I largely still am, but there are enough sensible people who think there might be a bar or two of gold kicking around some Mitteleuropean mountainside. And of course, if they find it, then perhaps they will end up in their very own mansion in the Maldives.

But then again, the decent thing to do would be to give it back to those from whom it was stolen. What’s important to remember is that the story of Nazi gold, while entertaining on one level, is also very dark indeed.

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Guy Walters is a historian, author and journalist. He is the co-host of The Last Hunt for Nazi Gold, a Sky History documentary

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