All language subtitles for Forbidden.History.S05E03.The.Hunt.for.Nazi.Treasure.1080p.UKTV.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-BTN_track3_[eng]

In May 1945, American soldiers
crawled into a cave

in these mountains behind me

and uncovered a treasure trove.

Over 6,500 paintings, 2,300 drawings
and watercolours,

and over 1,000 pieces of sculpture
and tapestries.

From 1939, as the Nazis swept
through Europe,

they not only destroyed homes and
decimated populations.

They also plundered
cultural property

from every territory they occupied.

But what else were they after?

Why did much of it end up in caves?

And how much is still out there

waiting to be discovered?

The Nazis were so keen to get their
hands on all of Europe's

treasures for two reasons.

One was because it would
establish Germany

as the centre of world culture.

And two, because individual Nazis
wanted to line their own pockets.

It was the largest art theft

that the world has ever known.

It was taken from all over Europe.

And God knows how many
pieces of art

that the Nazis actually accumulated.

The Monuments Men were an
international organisation.

Their job was to go out into Europe
and into Southeast Asia

and collect the vast amount of
looted treasure,

artworks and artefacts.

It's nearly impossible to put a
finger on the value of the art,

the gold, the relics that
the Nazis stole.

It has to be in the tens of
billions...

..if not more.

From 1939 to 1945,

the deadliest conflict in the
history of mankind,

the Second World War, raged.

But beneath the bombs and amongst
the marching armies,

another perhaps often overlooked
battle was going on.

The fight to stop the Nazis from
stealing the cultural

treasures of Europe.

By 1943, Nazi plundering had risen
to such heights

that the Allies created a special
division to fight back.

They were known as
the Monuments Men.

They consisted of just a
few hundred men

and leading it was a group
of museum directors,

curators and art scholars who were
all signed up to military duties.

Their job description was simple -

to save as much of the culture of
Europe as they could during combat.

The Nazis were so obsessed

to gather Europe's treasures
and relics

for several reasons.

One - national pride.

Two - they wanted to demonstrate
that they uniquely had

ancient Aryan origins
and that they were worthy

of these relics,
and only they alone.

And third - it was residual wealth

to fund their ever-increasing
war booty.

So, the Monuments Men were formed
into a platoon

and basically put in the front line

to get to the artworks and the
monuments as quickly as possible

to stop them being destroyed
by the Nazis,

or hidden away at the bottom of a
lake or in a salt mine or whatever.

So, incredibly brave,
very knowledgeable people,

who did manage to recover
a lot of artwork.

They were experts in art

and sculpture and artefacts.

But also, they were preservers -
they had techniques

for preserving the artwork
that they found.

They had a list of all the treasures

and the arts and the relics and the
rest of it that had been plundered

from various cultural centres like
the Louvre and other museums

and they wanted to go
and grab it back

from the Nazis, and they did this
actually before the end of the war.

Europe was still one giant
battlefield, but they felt about it

so strongly that they wanted to go
out and risk life and limb

to get back these treasures which
the Nazis had taken

with no compunction whatsoever.

Once the war was over,

the extent to which the Nazis

had pillaged Europe's treasures
became clear.

The big question was, where had they
stashed it?

And so the Monuments Men were given
a new task - to find it.

The quest for answers

took them to the Austrian Alps.

And deep inside the Altaussee
salt mines,

the Monuments Men hit the jackpot.

They discovered that this
series of mines,

stretching some 60km
inside the mountain,

was used by the Nazis to store some
of their most precious stolen art.

Its location is remote
and hard to reach

but I'm meeting local mountain guide
Marc Unterberger

to help unravel the secrets
of the mines.

Oh, wow.

It's a pretty good hiding place.
JAMIE LAUGHS

So, what did the Monuments Men
find down here?

So, they find the most...or one of
the biggest art collections

during the Second World War.
During this time,

they hide here in the mountain 7,000
pieces of paintings, sculptures,

documents, gold, a little bit,
and also other stuff.

And so, that's an enormous
collection.

Yes, it's... Do we know what
the value was?

You can't count it
because until today

if you say, "What's the price
of the Madonna?"

you don't have any...
Sure. Any ideas.

And what kind of artists are we
talking about?

I mean they were... So, we have all
the big old artists

like Rubens, Michelangelo,

Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Van Eyck.

Also the biggest or the important...

What they find in here,
the Ghent Altar.

When they set out to see what they
could find, they were shocked

at the hoards of fine art, of gold,
of silver, of stash of the Nazis

of one kind or another, and they
were quite horrified

cos it gave them an inkling as to
the magnitude

of what had just gone on - they had
no idea it was a huge movement,

and most of the museums of Europe
had been depleted.

Going ever deeper into
the labyrinth of tunnels,

we were heading towards a cave
known as Springerwerk,

one of the locations of
the stolen art.

Which way are we going?
We're going this way - straight. OK.

So, now, 700 metres deep in the
mountain, we're getting

to one of the eight storage rooms,

the so-called Springerwerk.

You can already see the
wood constructions.

Yeah. And they begin to build
everything here in the mountain

in summer '43.

And in the winter of '43,
the first paintings

get here in the mountain.

Right, OK. So, this is the room

where the pictures
and the artwork... Exactly.

It's not only...

This room, what you see in front of
you,

it's this big chamber we're standing
right now. Oh, yeah - wow!

Look at this. And to build
everything in the mountain beneath,

over 1,200 cubic metres of wood.

Right, to secure the tunnels.
Exactly.

And what's this? "Vorsicht..."

My German's not so good.

You see...
MARC READS IN GERMAN

What means, "Attention -
marble. Don't drop."

Because if we open the box,

we can see why we should
not drop it.

What is it? This is a bomb

which was dropped over Linz during
the Second World War

and which did not explode,
and the Gauleiter decided

to blow all the art in the mountain
during the last days of the war up

so that everything was destroyed.

So, this is an unexploded bomb?

Exactly.

Fine. And, uh...

The reason why they had bombs here
was because when the...

If the Allies had discovered the
artworks, they were going

to blow everything up. Exactly.
So, before they can discover it,

the Nazis decided if the
Third Reich goes away,

it goes away with all the warriors
and also with the art.

Right - so, if the Nazis weren't
going to have it, no-one was going

to have it. Exactly.
OK, we'll put this down very gently.

The Monuments Men worked
very closely

with intelligence teams and
divisions and they were able to talk

to local people, displaced persons,

and uncover a huge amount of
information about what had been

hidden where, because it takes
a lot of manpower

to move that amount of material
into mines,

seal it up, build the necessary
fortifications around it,

and people talked about this.

So, in some instances, the Monuments
Men found this information just

by talking to locals.

So, now, this is the place...

..where all the art was
carried away,

and you can see now
only the empty boxes.

So, this very room

would have housed artworks from
old masters... Exactly.

..Vermeer, Rembrandt...
The big names we know

we have here in this storage room.

So, this would've been at the time
the most important

art collection in the world.
Exactly.

You can say until this time,
it's the...

The treasury of the world.

When it comes to valuing these
things, obviously if they ever were

to come on the open market, we're
talking about millions and millions

and millions of pounds. Sure.

All stored in a mine
under the mountain.

People watching this programme
will say,

"What a ridiculous place to put
valuable works of art!"

In a salt mine,
dripping with water.

Damp, awful conditions - but
basically, you go into the salt mine

where these works of art were stored
and you've got perfect conditions.

It's perfectly dry.

The conditions are, for some reason,
better than the basements

of the Tate or anywhere else.

And when you actually look
at the wood...

..it's as if I'd sort of knocked the
nails in last week

and created these frames.

It was perfect. And that's why they
stored all the works of art there.

Hitler's plan to keep all these
classic works of art preserved

in such excellent condition
eventually worked to the benefit

of the Monuments Men.

And much of what was recovered
can now be found

in museums across the world.

But it wasn't just paintings stashed
in chambers like this one.

The Nazis had stored lots of stolen
property in these mines,

from sculptures to coin
collections and even gold.

It's a little bit like the scene
in Raiders Of The Lost Ark,

when they discover where all the
hidden artworks were held.

This was... This was it.
This was literally the place.

Certainly, and we're standing
right now where the pictures

in the movies you see,

here is where the past happens.

And what would you say was the most
famous work of art

that was kept down here?

There is a lot of famous art
here in the mountain,

but one of the important ones,
not only for me,

was from Michelangelo,

the Madonna, and also

the Ghent Altar.

So, if you can say this to...
what the most know.

And was any of it damaged,

or was it all kept in pretty
good...? No.

Most... What's... What's here
in the mountain

was just well-preserved

because of the conditions.

Uh...

They didn't find everything here
in the mountains,

they're not 100%.

Just tiny pieces or a tiny part

of the art got lost,

but they don't know it if the...

..if by the transport here
to the mine,

in the mine, or as the soldiers,
the Americans

take it away back to their owner.

So, you're saying that there's
a possibility

that there could still be treasure
down here?

The one... Well, others say
maybe in the mine

is still a piece of art.

So, if you find this, yeah.

You know what this means.

You can keep it?
THEY LAUGH

I don't know. I'll try it.

If I find something, yeah.

I'm not standing here.

Yeah, we should start
looking, right?

The Monuments Men were
incredibly successful

in what they discovered in the
Altaussee mine in Austria,

but also in other hiding places,

like the Merkers mine in
Germany itself.

Their efforts after the end
of the Second World War

led to more than 5 million

works of art being saved,

including paintings by Van Eyck,

Michelangelo, Rembrandt

and even Da Vinci's Mona Lisa

and the Last Supper.

But despite their
monumental efforts,

a huge amount of artworks

are still missing,

and so the search continues
to this day.

Remarkably, there's even
a possibility

that some of the stolen
Nazi treasure

remains hidden in the Altaussee
mine itself,

or the surrounding locality.

Few people know the history
of the area better

than local historian Hans Fuchs.

There he is.

Hi, Hans. Jamie. Hello. How are you?

Hello. Come in. Thank you.

Hello.

Thanks for agreeing to meet me.
Hello, hello.

So, I just had a fascinating
look around the mine.

You were at the mine? It's amazing.

It was great for you? Yeah.

What have you got to show me?

Jamie, I have a map for you.

You can see we are here now,

Steinberghaus, yes?

You can see the Steinberghaus. Yeah.

And here you go inside

and you were here in Springerwerk.

Yes.

So, this is where I explored here...
Yes. ..where the paint...

This is where the paintings and the
artwork was being...

Where the paintings... ..was kept.

Yes, but there are many other spots

in the salt mine.

That's here... Yeah. ..here, here.

So, it... Can I go and...?

Can I go and see these other places
as well?

You can't go inside here because
it's very dangerous, yes? Right.

Stones broke down and it's...

So, the mine has collapsed?

Yes, the mine has collapsed here.

But this was a small room,

what you're seeing,

much more bigger... Really?

..these spots, and all was filed
with artwork.

Really? Yes.

The vast amount of stolen art
discovered by the Monuments Men

in the Altaussee salt mine

is just one part of a network of
locations throughout Europe

that held the Nazi stolen treasures.

I have brought you a list.

Yes?

A list from the Nazis...

..and the Monuments Men...

..make a file... Right.

..from Washington National Archive,

and you can see how much
buildings,

sculptures, crimes was...
Wow. So, OK...

..was inside.

So, this is declass... This is
declassified documents,

and forgive... My German's
not very good.

So, what is it telling us here?

This is mosaics...?

OK, uh...

You can see 6,500 paintings

aquarelles, graphics...

Aquarelles meant...
This is watercolours?

Watercolours, yes, yes.

So, this is an extraordinary
amount.

But here...1,200...

HE SPEAKS GERMAN

Boxes.

And nobody knows what was
in the boxes, yes?

So, these were like the crates that
I saw? Yes.

The big wooden crates? Yes, yes.

Is it possible that there could be
some other paintings or artwork

hidden still in the mine?

Maybe, maybe,

but I cannot say it.

Maybe. Sure.

The Monuments Men were incredibly
successful.

I think they were surprised
by their own success.

We have photographs of them
standing by, you know,

classic works of art.

Standing by gold bullion stacked
as tall as they are.

You know, jars full of gold teeth

that presumably were taken

from Holocaust victims.

I mean, shock waves went through

the Allies when they realised

just the extent of how the Nazis

had pillaged EVERYTHING in Europe.

They found all these fabulous
works of art.

That's one thing,

but then they suddenly come
across bags and boxes

that are absolutely
crammed full of gold fillings

from people's teeth,

and thousands and thousands of
gold wedding rings

stored in the salt mines.

But it wasn't just art

that Hitler was after.

In this museum here in front of me

lies an altogether
different artefact

that the Nazis took.

The Hofburg Palace in Vienna

was used by the Nazis to store
looted art.

But it also held treasures of
its own.

Hitler wanted to build his
Third Reich

on strong cultural foundations
from the past,

and so the Nazis also hunted
for relics,

something Heinrich Himmler
knew a lot about.

And one object in particular

captured their attention.

And this...is that object.

Now back here in Vienna,

it's called the Spear of Destiny,

or the Holy Lance,

and it's said to have pierced
the side of Christ himself

at the time of the Crucifixion.

Now, embedded within it,

supposedly, is one of the nails

that attached Jesus to the cross,
which, if you think about it,

is an odd thing for an atheist
like Adolf Hitler

to be interested in.

It's hard to really separate what
Hitler was trying to acquire

from what Himmler was trying
to acquire,

but I think we could safely say

Hitler wanted the fine art,

the masterpieces

of the classical world.

Himmler wanted the relics,

he wanted the Holy Grail,

he wanted the crystal skulls.

He wanted things that would prove
Germany's Aryan roots,

and together, it was a quite
formidable combination.

They were both very motivated
by this idea of the Aryan super race

and the history of Aryanism
and Ariosophy,

and for them this was more than just

a political mantra.

This was something that was

almost spiritual in its veneration

of the Germanic-ness

and the Germanic race.

But Himmler had this crackpot
occult side to him as well

that Hitler gave him free rein
to indulge.

Dr Franz Kirchweger is a curator at
the Hofburg Palace,

and can shed some light on
why Hitler and the Nazis

were so interested in the lance.

Does the lance you have
in the museum

actually date from the time of the
Crucifixion,

and could it have been used to
pierce the side of Christ?

It's incredibly difficult

to give a definite answer

about relics in any sense,

and everywhere, whether they

are real, coming from the time
of Christ,

and whether they have been used
during the Passion of Christ.

As far as the lance is concerned,

the spear is concerned,

we definitely know that the way
it looks like

is from a different age

than from Christ, Jesus Christ.

It comes from the Carolingian time -

that means late 8th century.

Even if we have something
within the Holy Lance

which is in the middle,

which was understood as to come from
the Crucifixion of Christ

as one of the holy nails,

even if we could find a way to prove

it comes from the time of
Jesus Christ,

we will probably never know
if it was really used

for this very specific moment

that makes it a relic.

So, for us, it's difficult,

how to deal with,
believe and the knowledge.

There is so much in between

that makes it uncertain and unclear

whether that's really the
real relic.

Himmler was very centred

upon the idea of relics,

and of charging magically objects.

He had the idea that he could
surround his SS officers in a room

for a ritual,

with alleged relics

or certainly objects of
symbolic value

that somehow would

set off into the room magical vibes
that they could pick up on

and that would fuel their souls

in what might be termed evil.

Himmler has his kind of
Nazi Camelot.

So Wewelsburg Castle, a residence
that he bought before the war.

He even had an
Arthurian round table there,

and he wanted to bring to Wewelsburg

the treasures from
the Passion of Christ.

So, he wanted the Crown of Thorns,

he wanted the Holy Grail,

he wanted the Holy Lance,

and he did manage to get some of
those things to Wewelsburg,

in the hope that he could turn it
into this SS capital city

and that he would be the
Nazi King Arthur

and that the mystical power would
help them to win the war.

It's OK for us to have people

who want to believe these stories,

and the ones that say,

"No, we don't have this
specific proof."

And I can tell you especially

as far as the lance is concerned,

we are still in the process,

among scholars,

to find out whether there
is a chance

that small parts maybe

of a former holy lance

or of a former holy nail

was integrated,
was forced into the lance.

So there are options
that we can say for sure,

"No, that's definitely not true,"

or we can say,
"It's definitely true."

So there is still a way of - even
for the ones who want to believe -

to do so.

It's not easy to get inside
the head of Himmler.

But when you do, you realise his
quest for these ancient relics -

whether it be the Spear of Destiny
or the Holy Grail or others -

was not just for a trophy.

Somehow, he felt that these objects
were talismans

for the Nazis to become
the most prestigious power

the planet has ever known.

And that's what the quest was for.

The quest was for power
through ancient relics.

Although Hitler may not have been
quite so obsessed with relics,

he certainly had a passion for art,
which originated from his youth.

The young Adolf Hitler famously
failed to gain entrance

to the Vienna Art Academy
here behind me.

Apparently he was very good
at drawing buildings,

less so people.

But that didn't stop him
from believing himself

to be an art connoisseur.

And so once he'd come to power,
back in 1933, almost immediately

his artistic preferences became law.

Nowhere was this more apparent
than in the art festivals

which took place in Munich
from 1937.

The Great German Art Exhibition
was a grand display of works

that Hitler approved of,

from idealised soldiers
and landscapes to German women.

A few streets away,

the Degenerate Art exhibition
did the opposite.

Here, people were invited to come
and laugh at modern abstract art,

art that Hitler didn't like.

He wanted the good stuff,
as he called it.

He wanted the old masters,
the very valuable stuff.

And so he wanted it from everywhere
that he took over -

Czechoslovakia, Poland, France.

He wanted all of the masters,
he wanted them over into Germany

so he could have them,
so he could own them.

But the other stuff,
the degenerative art,

that had to be destroyed.

But then, of course, they realised
that actually there was money in it,

or, of course, it could be sold.

A lot of it was destroyed,
a lot of it was sold.

The big question, of course, is,
where did all this art come from?

The answer?

It was taken from Germany's
art galleries and museums

and stolen from its people.

In 1938, Austria was incorporated
into the Reich,

and more art became available to
the regime, and the Nazis took it.

It was the Reichsleiter Rosenberg
Institute that was set up,

basically, to co-ordinate...

..bringing of all the works of art
from all around Europe to Germany.

As the Nazis moved into one country
after another,

they basically carry out the mass
looting of museums, of libraries.

They went for extraordinary things
like church bells.

They took all the stained glass out
of Strasbourg Cathedral

and shipped it off.

And some of these museums -
the Louvre, for example -

desperately tried to hide their
artworks before the Nazis arrived,

and the Nazis would have people
go out to find it

and bring it back into Germany.

There was one artwork that Hitler
was especially keen

to get his hands on -

the Art of Painting

by the Dutch painter Vermeer.

But he faced a problem -

it couldn't simply be taken.

And so he had to resort
to more legal means.

And in November 1940,
he acquired it through his agent...

..something that art expert
Konrad Kramar is very familiar with.

Ah! And this is it,
the famous Vermeer!

It is. It's a beautiful painting.
It is.

And it's in a very small room
after all, interestingly.

I mean, they could have placed it
in one of the big halls.

But still, that's the place
where it is.

So it's fair to say that this was
one of Hitler's favourite paintings.

Well, even more than that,
it was his favourite painting.

And he was so obsessed by it
from its young days

that he wrote about it,
talked about it,

and when the time came, he found out
he couldn't loot it.

Normally, he would ruthlessly
have them all looted,

especially here in Vienna
from the Jewish families.

But, as it was,

this picture here wasn't in the
possession of a Jewish family.

It was a wealthy, very high-ranking
Austrian noble family, the Czernins.

And the Czernins were,

to be quite frank,
very hard to put under pressure

because they were wealthy,
they were rich, they were powerful.

So it was kind of difficult
to have them sell this painting.

Do we know how much he paid for it?

Well, in today's money,

it would be about five million
euros, you could say.

So this was in Hitler's
own private collection.

Well, it ended up - as we all know -
in Altaussee, in the mine.

It was planned to go and be one
of the most prominent pieces

in his Fuhrermuseum.

But the Vermeer painting
was a notable exception.

As the war raged and Hitler's armies
swept across Europe,

countries like Poland, France
and Belgium had their art stolen.

The Nazis plundered the galleries
and private collections of Europe

on an unprecedented scale.

And by the end of the war,
millions of pieces of art -

from paintings to sculptures -
were stolen.

Some made their way into the private
hands of the Nazi leadership,

but most of it was destined
for Hitler's Fuhrermuseum in Linz.

So, of course, the Nazis
were taking artworks

that had been owned
by Jewish people.

And clearly, the owners had been
carted off to concentration camps,

so they could simply
take that artwork,

but also, they went after art
they knew was there.

After all, a lot of this art was
catalogued. They knew it existed.

So they would go that
artwork ruthlessly,

interrogating people,
breaking into museums,

breaking into private residences,
breaking into private libraries

and ransacking them.

The Nazis collected so much art
and so many relics, you have to ask,

"What were they intending
to do with it all?"

Well, of course, we know that
Hitler was planning

his own museum in his hometown that
was going to display a lot of it,

a lot of the classical art.

Then you have Wewelsburg,
where you can be assured

that the most sacred relics
would have been on display

for only the Nazi elite,
not the general public.

Things like the Holy Grail,
they would have gone there.

And then the coffers of Himmler and
Goering

and all the other Nazi elite,

they would take some
for themselves, certainly.

And they would probably
keep some hidden,

because it's a source of wealth
that they would need to fuel

the Third Reich into the future.

Just give me an idea of
how important the Fuhrermuseum

was to Adolf Hitler.

I would say he followed this plan
since he was young,

since he was a young man,

and he followed this plan
until the end.

If you look at the Fuhrerbunker
in Berlin in the spring of '45,

days before Hitler died,

he spent most of the time staring
at the model of the Fuhrermuseum -

still dreaming of this place
which he wanted to have

and which he thought
would be, somehow...

..the thing he would leave
for world history.

So it was going to be his legacy.

Do you think it will be fair to say
that the Fuhrermuseum was singly

the most important thing
that Adolf Hitler wanted to create?

Well, Linz, his mother town, and the
way it should look as a capital city

was always in the focus
of his plans,

and in the centre of Linz, as the
Fuhrer's city, was the Fuhrermuseum.

This extraordinary city would be
laid out in a very impressive way

which would, of course, all serve to
point to their dominance

in the world, and also the fact
that they were new Roman emperors.

They were emperors of the world.

On May 7th 1945, Germany surrendered
and the war in Europe was over.

But as the victorious Allies
celebrated, a big question remained.

What had happened to all
the cultural property

that the Nazis had stolen?

And so the Monuments Men
were given a new task - to find it.

Come the end of the war, the Nazis
realised it's not going to end

the way they wanted.

So they're taking these artworks
and this gold and these relics,

and putting them in
the nearest caves

or the underground railway stations.

Or even as they're retreating
through Italy,

they're taking relics and paintings
out of museums as they go,

almost desperately.

It's now all about preservation

and saving it to fight
for another day.

Towards the end of the war,
it was clear that all this art

and all this wealth
couldn't stay in Berlin,

where it would be discovered.

So it was shipped out of Berlin.

It was shipped out on trucks and
buried in salt mines around Germany,

presumably with the intention
that either it would be there

to be recovered
if the Germans won the war,

or it would be kept away from the
Allies if the Germans lost the war.

It's now over 70 years since the end
of the Second World War,

and you might think that all hope of
recovering these treasures is lost.

But artworks still continue
to be found.

In 2011,

a vast collection of artwork worth
some £830 million was discovered

in a Munich flat.

This was the home of
Cornelius Gurlitt,

the son of Hildebrand Gurlitt,

one of the most important
art-dealers of the Third Reich.

80-year-old Cornelius Gurlitt
recalls helping his father

save works from wartime Dresden,
dismissing suggestions

he might return some of the
1,406 paintings and drawings

to survivors of Nazi persecution.

I've arranged to speak with author
and journalist Stephan Koldehoff

to find out more about how
Gurlitt's collection came to light.

So, Stephan, can you tell me what
Hildebrand Gurlitt's role was...

..during the war?

Hildebrand Gurlitt was one of the
main art-dealers who was working

for Hitler in two ways.

One way was that in 1937, 1938,

the Nazis would remove many works
of art from German museums

and they were to be sold.

Not to be destroyed, but to be sold,
to raise money for the war.

And Hildebrand Gurlitt was one of
the four art-dealers who had to sell

thousands of works of art
to art-dealers in foreign countries.

But the second thing was that
Hitler was also planning

to found a big museum -

bigger than the Louvre in Paris
or any other museum in the world -

and for that, he needed
works of art as well.

So when the Nazis invaded countries
like France or the Netherlands

or Belgium or Poland, also there,
Hildebrand Gurlitt was active

to steal or blackmail or also to buy
works of art for that planned museum

to be built in Austria.

And were all the paintings recovered
at the end of the war?

No, there are still very many
families, mainly Jewish families,

who are still in search for
what once belonged to them.

Many, many works never
appeared again,

either on the market
or in private collections.

Of course, some of them may have
been destroyed during the war

or after the war, having been looted
by other people.

But, no, I think at least half of
those works have come to light

after the war.

In 2010, Cornelius Gurlitt was found
with 9,000 euros in his wallet.

He wasn't married, he didn't have
a pension, he didn't have a job,

so there was a huge tax
investigation done.

And they raided his apartment
in Munich

and they found something like
1,600 works of art

stored in his apartment,
and a lot of them

had been stolen by the Nazis

from Jews and from different
art foundations around Europe.

Obviously, there's just still
so much out there

that has not been returned.

There are presumably hundreds,
if not thousands,

of private collections that
have stolen artworks in them.

And what of all the gold
that the Nazis took?

Part of the Nazis' hoard
was found in locations

such as the Merkers mine in Germany,

while some of it disappeared
into European banks.

But much of it is still missing.

The Monuments Men were immensely
successful in financial terms.

In just one example,

the Merkers mine - which is just
northwest of Frankfurt -

they found $520 million
worth of gold and currency,

which, in today's money,
is over $7 billion.

Legend has it that a Nazi train
lies buried somewhere,

containing a vast quantity of gold.

Its whereabouts remains one
of the greatest questions

of the Second World War.

In Poland, a few years ago,

it appeared that it may have
been finally found.

It was an event that sparked
global interest.

Two men, a German and a Pole,

have set off something of a
gold rush in the woods of Poland.

They claim they've discovered
a Nazi train loaded with treasures

from the closing days
of World War II.

One of the great legends of
Nazi gold is the Nazi gold train

that was supposedly driven
into a Nazi complex in what is now

modern-day Poland.

And it's supposed to have
an incredible hoard of gold.

We do know that the Nazis were
moving a lot of gold around

at the end of the war,

obviously as they were losing
parts of their empire.

And this train was taken
into a burrowed-out tunnel

in the Owl Mountains in Poland.

And of course, people have been very
keen to find this and other gold

that the Nazis hid towards
the end of the war.

Now, in 2016, there were some
excavations carried out,

because radar did indicate that
there was a train-like object

within the mountain.

It was found to be a kind
of a geological quirk,

a strange rock formation.

But that said, that doesn't mean
it's not there.

And I think it's pretty certain that
we're going to turn up

some more Nazi gold,
as periodically does turn up.

The Nazi train buried in
a hillside in Poland

turned out to be wishful thinking.

If it did indeed exist,
it is still out there somewhere,

out there with millions of
pieces of art

which are yet to be recovered -

works by the likes of Raphael,
Van Gogh, Rubens and Canaletto...

..even the Amber Room from Russia,

once dubbed the
Eighth Wonder of the World.

The Nazis destroyed a lot.

They used flame-throwers
to destroy stuff.

In other words, "If we can't
have it, you can't have it back."

There is stuff to be found.

German soldiers would have
stolen stuff.

The locals would have probably known
where the stuff was in the mines,

and would have taken stuff as well.

Even down to Cornelius Gurlitt.
They actually found,

in a suitcase that he'd got
in a hospital, a Monet.

We have no way of knowing
how much is still out there

in private collections.

We have, actually, no way
of knowing - if we're very honest -

whether it was the Nazis who took
all of the stuff in the first place,

because, you know, as is the way
with large armies,

they will tend to pick up the
odd thing as they move through,

and so perhaps the Allies
have some of it.

The thing is, that the records,
such as they are,

probably aren't all the records

or are selective in what
they choose to record.

But it's important to appreciate
just how successful

the Monuments Men were.

During and beyond the war,
they tracked, located and returned

more than five million artistic
and cultural items

stolen by Hitler and the Nazis.

Their role in preserving
cultural treasures

is without precedent.

The story of Nazi art and
Nazi loot is by no means over.

There's an immense amount that
still hasn't yet been recovered,

either secreted in places
one simply doesn't know where,

or still lost in the
financial system.

It's really difficult to say how
much of the Nazi loot -

the treasures, the gold,
the relics - has been reclaimed

and how much of it remains.

Now, say 50% has been recovered.

That means some of the most
incredible works of art,

some of the most incredible
hoards of gold and silver

and some of the, arguably,
potentially greatest relics

of antiquity are lying there
in a cave somewhere,

sitting in a no longer used
rail station

or high up in a mountain somewhere.

I think, over time,

we'll find some of this, but just
how much is there and what's there?

That remains a mystery.

Nazi Germany's legacy can be seen
in the scars on the landscape,

the graveyards scattered in every
city, town and village in the world,

and perhaps, I guess more subtly,

in the gaps in the
art galleries of Europe,

where once hung the greatest
paintings in history.

The theft of art was
a cultural crime

the likes the world had never seen,

but hopefully, more and more
will be recovered

so that generations can enjoy them
once again.

I'll see you next time.

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