K.A.K.T.U.S. e. V.
Looted Art Investigation Group Thuringia and Saxony

About us - Secret Objects - Hints - Press Articles - Picture Archives - Info for Sponsors - Data base

 

Hints in books, which made us react !

From "Bernsteinzimmer-Report" by Paul Enke

Page 133 - It was known, that secluded buildings or factories owned by the governement were prefered to be used as deposits for art work.

Page 143 - The theory, that the Amber Room has been brought to Thuringia by members of Görings Air Force, is well justified. Several letters of readers support this version.

Page 161 - Mutschmann and Rhode made sure that objects were secluded and had good traffic access, when they were looking for suitable art deposits. The choosen object offers an ideal traffic situation. There is a small factory nearby,
producing parts for aeroplanes. It has a connection to the railway.

Page 162 - We could not find out, what Rhode did during his 4 day stay in Saxony. The proof of 2 days is missing where he can have visited other objects.

Page 165 - Locations overground in more than 250 castles of Saxony has been only one kind of depositing. One started more and more to explore underground rooms to use them as material deposits, for war production and also as deposits for art work and cultural assets. Only a few pits did not have problems with ground water. Only material could be deposited which was resistant against wetness. The few dry mines got prepared to take different war production plants. Such objects were not available to deposit art work. From a document of Prof. Fichtner we can see, that nevertheless one wanted to use them for this purpose. "I prepare 2 underground deposits because I am afraid of sabotage, to have a dry place for the most important objects in quiet properties of the governement.

Page 166 - Since these 2 deposits had a high humidity, one had the ideal thought to install "cabins" underground and keep them dry by air conditioning.

Page 167 - we found out that Gruve borrowed mining records several times. All of them were old mines, which have been out of use since a long time.

Page 168 - In some cases, we already had hints on strange happenings in the last months of the war to theses mines.
In some cases, the old tunnels got opened, but we never found dry mines. Caused by the blast, water got always stuck behind the closed entrance.

Page 173 - One says, Göring gave the order to burry the rest of the art work or to hide it in lakes. One of the involved persons made secret notices and tried selling them after returning from Southamerica at the end of the war for several millions.
There were among others 47 air and water dense aluminum boxes and metal boxes.

Page 174 - First we realised the huge amount of Göhrings loot. Other material got handled less careful, throughn on trucks and brought to a train transport. In February and March, each one train left to the south.

Page 177 - Former soldiers remember mysterious transports, which they accompanied to Thuringia.

Page 179 - Our intensive searching gave hints on art work, which has been brought from East Prussia to Thuringia.

Page 181 - Indeed, they startet already in January 1945 with the relocation to Thuringia. Also the Wehrmachtsauskunfts- stelle relocated to Saalfeld and Rudolstadt.

Page 185 - The plans to relocate to Thuringia explain, why the Amber Room could have been brought to Thuringia as well instead of to Saxony. A witness of the transport of the cuffins of the Hindenburgs said they got packed and walled up underground.

Page 189 - They had found a record saying that Gauleiter Koch has brought an art collection to Thuringia. This was the proof of the theory that Koch could have brought the most important art treasures to Thuringia instead of Saxony, in agreement with Bormann and Sauckel, the Gauleiter of Thuringia.

Page 193 - Of course, we can not exclude, that they came from East Prussia to Thuringia with a railway transport of the paratroopers of Göhring.

Page 195 - One wanted to bring the art collection of Koch from the Museum in Weimar to his new headquarter near Saalfeld, as soon as it was ready.

Page 196 - During the war, he was a member of the "Canaris Secret Service" as a lieutenant. He was often involved in transports. In the beginning of January 1945, the transport came to West Prussia under his command, where they loaded it on the railway. They gave Schneeberg in the mountains as a destiny. However, the transport got redirected to Thuringia for reasons which he could not tell.

Page 198 - When the Germans had to escape from the American troops in Thuringia in April 1945, they could only take the most important with them. Castles and other suitable buildings, even dancing halls did stay behind, filled up with luxurious items. A further transport was not available.

Page 205 -  Rudolf thinks he remembers, that the place was called with the letter code BSCH.

Page 210 - Action Amber Room finished, depositing in BSCH, entrances blasted, victims caused by the enemy. We are sure that it meant that they had killed the camp prisoners being involved in depositing.

Page 216 - On order of the Parteikanzlei, one started already in 1944 to search for places to store a large amount of records and art treasures without the danger of recovering for a long time. We have said that in 1943/44, a big action occured to find underground objects to install bomb secure war production and deposits. For this reason, all mines out of work, all mines in work and all caves got check for their suitability.

Page 219 - The most ideal deposit in this moment is a decentralised, underground deposit in areas of central Germany which are camouflaged very good and always under control. This is possible in the "Staatlichen Kalkwerk" of Lengefelde.
It has dry halls of 66x24x18 feet on floor 1 and floor 2. The are covered with 120 feet of stone and located 120 feet sideways in the mountain, absolutely bomb secure. 5 rooms can be used immediately, they give about 5500 sq ft. of deposit. The camouflaging, in a wide forest area, far away from big industry cities, is excellent. The factory still produces in this moment, so that the deposits underground are not in danger at all. They agreed to share the place with the Parteikanzlei and the Nazigauleitung of Saxony. Especially in spring, the need for underground deposites was as big as never before.

Page 220 - One has offered a deposit in the Westerzbegirge to the group Rosenberg, that they did not get at the end. However, not one of the documents about this case contains a hint on where this deposit was. Until now, we could not locate, where it was!

Page 225 - Albert Popp was busy with destroying traces of his work in the last days of April. Records and plans got burned or stored in tunnels, which got blasted afterwards.

From "Kunstraub in Europa" by Jakob Kurz

Page 301 - Indeed, the action in the east happened completely different like before in the west. This time, the Wehrmacht was involved in art robbery and destroyed unreplacable cultural assets without thinking.

Page 366 - In fact, one found out that the salt mine had problems with wetness, but by using roof paper for floors and roofs, the problem was fixed already. (Altaussee)

Page 376 - All human possible was done to save the art work.(in Altaussee) The mine in the mountain was absolutely bomb secure and offered in summer and winter a stable temperature of about 7 degrees Celsius and a relative humidity of 74 to 79 percent, ideal circumstances even for a longer stay.

Important hint from K.A.K.T.U.S. : Compared to the salt mine in Altaussee, the temperature in den salte mines of Thuringia is only 9 degrees Celsius with a relative humidity of only 60 to 70 percent!


From "Jubiläumsschrift Eisenbahnfreunde"

Train traffic between Ludwigsstadt and Lehesten stopped at the 13th of April, when the American troops arrived. View to the village Lehesten whose small railway station had many railroads.

At the 9th of April 1945, train traffic between Weimar and Lehesten stopped because of a bomb attack of the railway station Saalfeld. In Juli 1945, the Americans left the zone Thuringia to the Russians.


From the letters of the investigator Georg Stein

Dear Mrs. Dr. Storoschenko! I thank you for the hints to Otto Ringel. You talk about an unsecure source (Kommission Krolewski), but I have my own immaginations. Because of the agreement between you and me to exchange informations, I tell you that to my knowledge, the radio message was sent with a very high probability from the SS-radio station on the  Mantelburg (castle) near Ludwigsstadt in Northern Bavaria, because from there they had a direct connection to Fribourg near  Bern in Switzerland, where a special group of the SS worked for the delivering of NS-property to Switzerland. With this letter, I send you some interesting documents, especially the report about the operation "Bergung".

Sincerely Georg Stein


From letters of the prisoner Ryszard Kessler

"LAURA" is not a hiding place in my opinion, there were no obvious actions of the SS and so on. However, the so-called  Staatsbruch (slate mine in Lehesten) could be such a deposit. The whole surrounding was very suitable for such a use.
We did not realise anything. All wagons always arrived at night and the mine was not guarded from 4 pm to 8 am. Since all the transports arrived in this time, it can be possible that things have been deposited during night.

From the book "Erinnerungen an Laura" by Ryszard Kessler

In the beginning of February, Leible had formed a new command. It consisted out of ten prisoners and thirty former workers of the mine. One could see black tunnel entrances down in the pit. At the top, there were many wagons waiting and next to them a raw of small mining wagons. It was absolutely quiet - no movement - no body seen. The mine was out of work. It was our task to empty the wagons and transfer the material into the small mining wagons. We found a wild mess of machines, tools, goods of all kind as well as furnitures. The guards said it would be evacuated factory equipement from East Germany. A small train came and pulled the small wagons down into the tunnels where the got discharged by the others.

Some boxes have been very heavy and we had to do all by hand.

It continued like that the whole February and March. Every morning, we found new wagons. The railway station Lehesten brought them to the mine every evening. It was obvious that the wagons never contained any food, clothes or shoes.

Comment by K.A.K.T.U.S. : In the beginning of April 1945, 2 trucks by the Wehrmacht brought away several wooden boxes from these mining tunnels. They got transported to different mines, some miles away, from which one is known today. One said, that they would contain food.


From "Geheimprojekt Mittelbau"

Page 42 - The Gauleiter of Thuringia "Sauckel" became "Generalbevollmächtigter für den Arbeitseinsatz" by Hitler in March 1942 and had many powerful rights for the use of prisoners.

Page 64 - In autumn of 1943, a suitable area got confiscated in Lehesten on order of the "Oberkommandos des Heeres".
The "Steinbruch-Verwertungs-GmbH" worked the largest slate mine of Germany.

Page 68 - "Vorwerk Mitte" near Lehesten had been given to the "Steinbruch-Verwertungs-GmbH" as an own company.

Page 82 - With the "Issue of Göring for the special constructions of Kammler", which got permitted in March 1944 by Hitler, the projects "DORA, LAURA, REBSTOCK" and others got into the competence of the Amtsgruppe C. The issue planed to construct war production plants above and underground for the Air Force of Görings and included constructions with an immense meaning for the Reich.

Page 142 - After the arrival of Major Robert Staver, the English did send a commision, consisting out of 6 members of the  Londoner war minstry, 2 members of the London air ministry and 2 American scientists to the "Mittelraum".

Comment by K.A.K.T.U.S. : It was the so-called "TEAM 163", which returned to England on the 22nd of May 1945. Only the 2 members Captain MacBride and Captain Welch did stay in Nordhausen, to write reports about underground productions sites and deposits. They also returned to England in the beginning of June 1945 and have been in Lehesten and Leutenberg as well!

Page 147 - The soldiers worked in three shifts to remove the stones which covered the deposit of secret papers in the blasted dynamite deposite room of the mine. They found 10 tons of documents about Mittelbau-Dora, which have been brought to the American zone.

From letter contacts with archives

Staatsarchiv Nürnberg, 12.18.1991 - We could not find anything and suggest to ask the archives in Rudolstadt or Bamberg.

Staatsarchiv München, 12.18.1991 - We do not hold records about Thuringia and suggest to write to the mining office or the archives in Freiburg or Potsdam.

Bundesarchiv Potsdam, 03.04.1992 - You would have to search through our records by yourself, which would be time consuming. We suggest to write to the Landeshauptarchiv in Weimar.

Bergamt Gera, 05.18.1992 - We do not hold records of mines which have been used for war production. We suggest to write to the mining company in Unterloquitz as well as to the Landesarchive Rudolstadt, Greiz, Meiningen or Gotha.

Carl-Zeiss-Werke Jena, 02.26.1992 - We have no knowledge about the use of underground mines in Southern Thuringia. Records do not exist.

Glaswerk, 11.13.1991 - We did not know, that the Glaswerke Schott & Gen. had used underground production sites near  Lehesten. We will check it out.

Glaswerk, 11.25.1991 - We could find a few records in our archives confirming your informations. It is mainly the notices of a former worker of our company. At the 18th of April 1944, our company got the order to move the production to underground rooms. The governement gave the order to relocate at the 16th of May 1944, since the Staatsbruch was found suitable. The construction period was planed with 12 to 14 months, why it could never produce. We do not have photos or plans.

Glaswerk, 11.28.1991 - We can not agree to your request of reading our records we have. They are part of a will and it has not been decided yet to publish it.


webmaster@amberroom.org

Special thanks to the Amber Room Organization for web space and support.

Copyright 2024 ©by amberroom.org - all rights reserved