Treasure hunters will soon be scouring the Dutch countryside for a cache of riches buried by German soldiers during WWII.
The story goes that during the final days of the Second World War, four German soldiers decided to bury a horde of riches in a field somewhere in the Dutch countryside.
Their stolen treasure consisted of gold, jewels, watches, diamonds and gemstones (worth over $15 million in today’s money) all placed inside four ammunition cases and buried in the ground.
Now, decades later, the National Archives of the Netherlands has released a trove of documents to the public – including the map allegedly showing the location of this buried treasure.
“A lot of researchers, journalists and amateur archaeologists are really interested and excited,” archives adviser Annet Waalkens told The Guardian.
The treasure is allegedly buried at the base of a poplar tree outside the village of Ommeren.
Its existence was only revealed because one of the soldiers who helped bury it – a man named Helmut S – let slip that it was there and that it had come from a bank that was bombed during the war.
This ultimately prompted multiple searches at the time, although the gold was never found.
Efforts to track Helmut down after the war also came up empty.
Some believe that the treasure was destroyed by bombing, while others think that it is still out there.
Whatever the case, the release of the map is likely to spark some concerted new attempts to find it.
Source: The Guardian