One day inspector Teslar reported to his superiors that "Swiss citizen - permanent resident of Duszniki Zdrój - Kessler Karol proposes to indicate the place where two Rembrandt paintings are hidden, estimated before the war at 800,000. Reichs Marek ". However, a month later in the report he wrote that nothing could be found in the house indicated by Kessler after breaking the floor.
The report by Waldemar Wasiukiewicz also sounded sensational:
“I hereby report the following observations and facts about the Willenberg mountain area (…). On the basis of my own observations, interviews with Germans and the local population, I found a constant search by private persons for valuable objects - objects hidden by the encircled German army in the vicinity of this mountain. Personally, I was examining two open drift entrances at the foot of the mountain, and besides, I came across two mound entrances, car entrances I suppose. Local people are reluctant to provide any information related to this object as they do their own searches.
From the loose understatement it is certain that in the basement of the mountain there is a postal ambulance hidden and a pair of trucks with a valuable cargo, besides, it should be assumed that there are other interesting objects there. For those unfamiliar with the terrain, hitting the entrances is almost out of the question, except for one mound that is visible from the main road. This entrance has probably been blown up and it is believed that it is mined and this deters private people from digging up the underground corridor. "
Take care of this matter immediately!
The head of the PPT read the document and got a flushed face. He immediately wrote on it: "Attend this matter now!" . She was assigned to inspector Michał Wolski, who set off for Świerzawa the next day, and from there to Sędziszowa:
On June 11, 1949 I went with the Chief Inspector, Kowalski engineer and with the object reporting - Waldemar Wasiukiewicz to Wielisławka in order to introduce me to the matter and familiarize me with the area. Citizen Wasiukiewcz showed us two entrances to the interior of the Willenberg mountain . They are located on the slope of the mountain, right above the stream flowing at the foot of the mountain. They are difficult to access and almost invisible. For those unfamiliar with these entrances, they are almost impossible to find.
The article is an excerpt from the book Hitler's Lost Gold Znak Horyzont publishing house, which was released on March 25
I walked through one corridor inside for a distance of about 45 meters, until the collapse. The sidewalk is carved in stone, the height is not the same, in any case, with a slight bend, you can walk freely. In my opinion, a rock of this type could not have formed such a collapse by itself, especially since the corridor is not wide. It can be assumed that the collapse was made artificially by blowing up. Apart from these two entrances, citizen Wasiukiewcz led us to an interesting place behind the barn. Right behind it, on the hillside, there is a mound of small stone masked with clearly cut young spruce trees (...) (let's let your imagination run wild), opening both barn gates, and entering the mountain through the gate as if in the form of a barn. On the spot, after considering the situation, such a solution comes to mind.
Another interesting place is a huge mound on the slope of the mountain from the side of the road. On a steep, bare wall you can clearly see the old, non-sloped part and the newer part above the mound, which has slipped naturally or - more likely - artificial. Watching the characteristic cracks in the rock, and even the whole, huge rock part sliding downwards, noting the shape of some rock blocks on the side of the mound, automatically comes to mind the possibility of an entrance to the mountain at this point.
There are buildings on top of the mountain, destroyed today, which are supposed to be on the ruins of an old castle. Among the buildings, we noticed a hollow surrounded by rubble, quite regular, covered with earth and rubbish. There could have been a descent from the castle to the lower corridors, and the regular depression we found could have been the mouth of the shaft.
Citizen Wasiukiewicz drew attention to an interesting detail:the hollow we found is located just above the straight line connecting the mound next to the barn with the mound at the naked wall from the side of the road. I have not checked the application, but it is probably very accurate. Taking into account the results of the diagnosis to date and the constant search conducted by the local population, it should be stated that we are dealing with a very interesting object . It is imperative to conduct a thorough penetration and interview .
In the meantime, the case was also dealt with by the Public Security Office from Złotoryja, which was asked by the PPT for help in investigating the case. UB officers began interrogating and surveillance the inhabitants of Sędziszowa . And Wolski traveled to Sędziszowa several more times in the following weeks. In his report he wrote:
In the vicinity of Willenberg Hill, I met scouts-quartermasters of a large scout camp of the Service for Poland. They secretly told me about the treasures hidden in Mount Willenberg. I was trying to find out specifically from whom they got these supposedly sensational messages for me. They replied to me:- And here we heard, they talk about it!
While collecting information about the history of the mountain at the end of the war, I talked with people who supposedly had the best news from the Germans. For the second time I found out about the hostile attitude of the local population towards anyone who is too interested in the Willenberg hill . Scouts staying at the camp could be an excellent help for the PPT in gaining information. One should contact them and direct the entire intelligence operation. On the part of scouts, we should not encounter any difficulties in the form of falsehood or insincerity .
UB officers called in more people for questioning. They started with the mayor of Florczak and the manager of the local mill - Mazur. They informed them that there were still a few Germans in the village who needed to know something.
A postcard from the end of the 19th century, on the left Willenberg hill
Wolski from PPT also asked them, but they didn't tell him anything new. Also, the scouts he met again in August did not get any sensations from the locals. But one of the witnesses rekindled hope in the inspector.
"Interviewed:Klose Herbert. Born on October 7, 1919 (...) "- I read the header of one of the documents prepared by Wolski.
"Shit!" - I shouted loudly, so that a dog barked at the neighbors. “It's MY Klose! This is when the story began - four years before Klose fell into the hands of the Wrocław UB, including Jaromin! ”.
The PPT inspector reported the hearing:
Warned of liability for false statements (Articles 140 and 141 of the Criminal Code), Klose testifies as follows. Before the war, there was a large, free entrance to the interior of the Willenberg Mountain, closed with a grate. There were many tours that visited the grottos in the interior of the mountain. The key to the grate was in the town hall in Schoenau (Świerzawa). The entrance was on a bare rocky wall on the side of the road. Today I cannot pinpoint where this entrance was located. It was about five meters high and four meters wide. I saw them for the last time and I was inside in August 1938 (...) We were in the middle of the mountain for about two hours, we wanted to go to the other side, but we went to the top of the restaurant. I'm sure the entrance was collapsed by the German army in 1945
Search
Thus, in September, an intensive search began on the slopes of Wielisławka. engineers from the nearby copper mine "Lena", but shortly thereafter the director general of the PPT ordered them to be discontinued - because nothing was found here either. It was probably about them that Klose Dumański was told later during the interrogation at the Public Security Office in Wrocław, when he mentioned that "the state was already looking at the top" . PPT inspectors did not manage to return to Sędziszowa. The company was dissolved in 1951
At that time, the matter of Klose and Willenberg's treasures was continued independently by the Public Security Office, supervised by Władysław Jaromin from Wrocław. It was his reports that first went to the desks of employees of the Ministry of Public Security, and after its liquidation, first to the Committee for Public Security at the Council of Ministers, and when the Security Service was created, to the Ministry of the Interior.
The treasures - lost German gold and works of art stolen during the war - were soon to be handled by properly trained officers of the Citizens' Militia , whose commanders, from 1956, also supervised the Security Service. Most of them were simply former security officers, including Jaromin.
In order to create conditions for the organs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to be able to serve the Polish working masses faithfully and to effectively protect our people's state against hostile international activity and domestic reaction, it is necessary that the ranks of the Security Service should consist of ideologically hardened and politically mature employees with extensive experience life and deep respect for working people. (...) I cordially greet you in the ranks of the officers of the Ministry of the Interior. More than once you have shown your devotion to the cause of socialism and self-sacrifice in the fight against the enemies of the people's power, our state and nation. (...) Fight effectively with spies, saboteurs, terrorists and other enemies of the People's Republic of Poland.
- wrote in a special order Władysław Wicha, Minister of Internal Affairs.
The stories from Sędziszowa about the treasures hidden in the tunnels of the Wielisławki mountain written by the inspector of Przedsiębiorstwo Poszukiwania Terenowych and officers of the Security Office from Złotoryja and Wrocław, the records of the interrogation of Herbert Klose from 1953 and the files concerning the attempts to recruit him by the UB for cooperation have now found their way to the desks of the Citizens' Militia officers and from them straight to Warsaw, to the Ministry of the Interior. There he became interested in them, among others Ryszard Matejewski, for many years associated with the security services , first in Gdańsk, then in Warsaw.
He was the deputy director of the Investigative Department of the Ministry of Public Security, the head of the 2nd Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, i.e. counterintelligence, and from 1965 the director general for the SB in the ministry. Eventually he became deputy minister and general. What else can you say about him? That his eyes were always glowing at the thought of gold. After all, the country was still very poor. Now he had the opportunity to look for them. And that power corrupts, we know perfectly well from history and literature. Matejewski was also tempted. He wanted gold and jewelry from all possible sources. He would not despise German treasures.
Stolen Gold
From the 1960s to 1971, a group of robbery officers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs led by Matejewski carried out a secret operation in the West and illegally obtained foreign currency and gold - they stole, armed robberies, intimidated, and maybe even committed more terrible crimes. The money thus obtained was supposed to be later allocated to the routine operational activities of intelligence and counterintelligence. However, the ministry criminals sold their jewelry, dollars, German marks and pounds sterling for their own use. To buy a TV set, coffee and canned ham in pewex or a divine-fragrant, one-of-a-kind cacharel powder for a wife.
Because you couldn't get anything in stores, and you couldn't get anything from the West. But - as it happens in life - the matter is revealed! Because those who earned the least from the practice began to denounce their colleagues. In addition, more and more people knew about it, and the Ministry of the Interior had even a shop where you could buy a gold ring, a necklace or a watch - everything stolen from someone in the West.
Department I of the Ministry of the Interior used the services of a group of people involved in criminal activities in Western countries. People of the above-mentioned they had foreign exchange values obtained as a result of illegal manipulations (frauds). From this group, the Department obtained certain foreign exchange values (gold jewelry, precious stones, etc. - worth about PLN 20 million), donating them to the State Treasury.
- he wrote in a secret note to Prime Minister Piotr Jaroszewicz, director of one of the departments of the Ministry of the Interior.
When it started to get hot, the Ministry of Internal Affairs officers hid some of the treasures on their recreational plots on the Zegrze Reservoir, which is why the case was given the code name "Zalew".
The article is an excerpt from the book Hitler's Lost Gold Znak Horyzont publishing house, which was released on March 25
36 people were arrested, several were sentenced, including Ryszard Matejewski, to 12 years' imprisonment. In their homes, investigators found 82 kilograms of gold, over 150,000 American dollars and PLN 5 million. The whole is worth PLN 40 million.
The article is an excerpt from the book Lost Gold of Hitler by Znak Horyzont Publishing House, which was released on March 25