Treasure Hunters Drill For Nazi Gold

BERLIN — Treasure hunters yesterday began drilling in search of Nazi gold and looted paintings that they believe were buried in the Ore Mountains near the Czech border by retreating German forces at the end of World War II.

"It is the moment of truth," said Heinz-Peter Haustein, the mayor of the nearby town of Deutschneudorf, speaking to reporters over the noise of drilling equipment. "These are days you don't have often in life — I have been waiting for this for 10 years. We are planning to drill all week."

The team led by Haustein, using an electromagnetic pulse measuring instrument, discovered a manmade cavern underground at Deutschkatharinenberg, a hamlet in the mountains. The equipment showed that metal buried there is probably gold or silver, according to Christian Hanisch, a treasure hunter.

Hanisch said he believes the hoard contains bars of gold belonging to the Nazi party. He also said the buried loot may include paintings stolen by Hermann Goering, the commander of the Luftwaffe, and evacuated from his villa near Berlin before the end of the war.

Haustein, who is a Free Democratic Party member of the German parliament, is seeking clues to the fate of the Amber Room, an 18th-century Russian palace chamber stolen by the Nazis.

A 53- year-old engineer, Haustein's profile on the parliamentary Web site describes him as "devoted in his quest to find the legendary Amber Room."

The room, made of panels covered with amber and gold leaf, was created by Prussian and Russian craftsman and given to Czar Peter the Great by Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm I in 1716.

In October 1941, the Nazis dismantled it from the Catherine Palace near Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, and shipped it to Konigsberg, now Kaliningrad. It hasn't been seen since 1945.

The first hole drilled today in the hillside at Deutschkatharinenberg revealed little, except that there is water below the surface.

"That's a good sign," Hanisch said in an interview at the site as he ordered a burger from a roadside stall. "It suggests that there is a hollow there that is increasing the pressure."