The Merkers Mine Treasure
By Greg Bradsher
Late on the evening of March 22, 1945, elements of Lt. Gen. George Patton's Third Army crossed the Rhine, and soon thereafter his whole army crossed the river and drove into the heart of Germany. Advancing northeast from Frankfurt, elements of the Third Army cut into the future Soviet Zone and advanced on Gotha. Just before noon on April 4, the village of Merkers fell to the Third Battalion of the 358th Infantry Regiment, Ninetieth Infantry Division, Third Army. During that day and the next the Ninetieth Infantry Division, with its command post at Keiselbach, consolidated its holdings in the Merkers area.
Walter Funk, president of the Reichsbank and Reich minister of economics, decided to send most of the gold reserves, worth some $238 million, and a large quantity of the monetary reserves to a mine at Merkers, about two hundred miles southwest of Berlin, for safekeeping. Space in that mine, like all of the other salt and potassium mines in Germany, had been requisitioned by the government because firms found it necessary to store materials and continue armament production underground because of the bombings.
On February 11 most of the gold reserves, including gold brought back from the branch banks to Berlin for shipment to Merkers, currency reserves totaling a billion Reichsmarks bundled in one thousand bags, and a considerable quantity of foreign currency, were transported by rail to Merkers.
Early the next morning, two military policemen guarding the road entering Keiselbach from Merkers saw two women approaching and promptly challenged and stopped them. Upon questioning, the women stated that they were French displaced persons. One of the women was pregnant and said she was being accompanied by the other to see a midwife in Keiselbach. After being questioned at the XII Corps Provost Marshal Office, they were driven back into Merkers. Upon entering Merkers, their driver saw the Kaiseroda mine and asked the women what sort of a mine it was. They said it was the mine in which the German gold reserve and valuable artworks had been deposited several weeks before and added that local civilians and displaced persons had been used for labor in unloading and storing the treasure in the mine.
The Americans Enter the Mine On the morning of April 7 military personnel interrogated civilians to obtain information on storage of Reich property in the mine. Also that morning, new entrances to this mine and to other nearby mines were found by the Americans at Leimbach, Ransbach, and Springen. Guards were immediately placed at these entrances. Later that morning, General Earnest directed that a company of the First Battalion of the 357th Infantry Regiment be posted to guard the main entrance of the Merkers mine. This company was reinforced with tanks from the 712th Tank Battalion, tank destroyers from the 773d Tank Destroyer Battalion, and Jeeps mounting machine guns for antiaircraft defense. Reinforced rifle companies were also ordered to guard entrances at Kaiseroda and Dietlas. Around 11 a.m. another entrance to the mine was found at Statinfsfeld by the First Battalion. Accordingly, a tank destroyer company was dispatched to guard this entrance.
Early on April 8 Earnest, Russell, a public affairs officer, photographers, reporters, and elements of the 282d Engineer Combat Battalion entered the mine. They would be joined several hours later by Eddy, his deputy chief of staff, and a G-5 officer. One of the engineers who inspected the brick wall surrounding the vault door thought it could be blasted through with little effort. Therefore the engineers, using a half-stick of dynamite, blasted an entrance though the masonry wall. The Americans entered the vault, so-called Room No. 8, which was approximately 75 feet wide by 150 feet long with a 12-foot-high ceiling, well lighted but not ventilated. Tram railway tracks ran down the center of the cavern. On either side of the tracks, stretching to the back of the cavern, were more than seven thousand bags, stacked knee-high, laid out in twenty rows with approximately two and a half feet between rows. All of the bags and containers were marked, and the gold bags were sealed. Baled currency was found stacked along one side of the vault along with gold balances and other Reichsbank equipment. At the back of the cavern, occupying an area twenty by thirty feet, were 18 bags and 189 suitcases, trunks, and boxes. Each container bore a packing slip showing the contents and a tag bearing the name "Melmer." It was obvious that it was SS loot. Within days it would be confirmed that it was, and within ten days, the Americans would learn the extent of the loot and the identity of Melmer.(21)
In order to examine the contents, some of the seals on the bags were broken, and a partial inventory was made. The inventory indicated that there were 8,198 bars of gold bullion; 55 boxes of crated gold bullion; hundreds of bags of gold items; over 1,300 bags of gold Reichsmarks, British gold pounds, and French gold francs; 711 bags of American twenty-dollar gold pieces; hundreds of bags of gold and silver coins; hundreds of bags of foreign currency; 9 bags of valuable coins; 2,380 bags and 1,300 boxes of Reichsmarks (2.76 billion Reichsmarks); 20 silver bars; 40 bags containing silver bars; 63 boxes and 55 bags of silver plate; 1 bag containing six platinum bars; and 110 bags from various countries.
http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1999/spring/nazi-gold-merkers-mine-treasure.html
