Hunting the Nazi Gold Train

I've come to this remote corner of southern Poland

to try to unravel one of the last great mysteries

of the Second World War.

It's a story that's attracted the world's media.

Two men say they know the exact location

of the Nazi ghost train...

..That went missing in 1945.

This is an extraordinary story.

It's captured the imagination of many who live here,

even including

members of the Polish government.

I'm hunting for a secret tunnel...

Whoa! It's on a big scale, isn't it?

..that local legend says was hidden by the Nazis,

and in it, a lost train said to be laden with gold.

And do you think this is where

the rumours of this gold train comes from?

I'll consider the evidence that treasure might be hidden here.

An area that, for much of the war,

was considered the safest place in Nazi Germany.

I'll follow the treasure hunters

who've spent years searching for the train,

and may now be about to find something.

I'll delve into the region's past...

This feels like you're entering the dark heart of the Nazi world.

..revealing a high-level plan to build a top-secret Nazi HQ

in this remote corner of the Third Reich.

This extraordinary tale features a hilltop castle

converted into a bolthole for Adolf Hitler

in the final months of the war...

-This room now was going to be Hitler's bedroom?

-Yes, exactly.

..and a mysterious network of tunnels

dug out of the ground by slave labourers.

This was going to be an industrial underground city.

If Hitler was planning to retreat to this remote part of his empire,

then could Nazi gold have ended up here, too?

If it's true, it's the kind of thing that happens once in a lifetime.

A secret underground Nazi train

loaded with valuables, buried for decades,

local people who were silenced first by the Nazis, then by the Soviets,

finally coming out and telling their stories.

It's the kind of thing us history lovers dream about.

I've arrived in the outskirts of Walbrzych,

a former mining town in southern Poland, where for many locals,

treasure hunting has become an obsession.

I've arranged to meet Wojtek Malinowski,

a film-maker who grew up here

and who's been following the story for years.

-How are you doing? Nice to meet you, Wojtek.

-Nice to meet you.

A very beautiful place. WOJTEK CHUCKLES

If you think it's beautiful.

I'm hoping he'll show me the tunnel that's been making headline news

all over the world.

Come on, follow me.

But instead, he takes me to a non-descript piece of land

at a location known simply as Kilometre 65.

So what are we looking at here?

This area looks strange. What do you think?

This part of this area?

Yeah, there's steep banks here,

and then there's a sort of bowl there.

And some people think that it was...

a little part of this railway which connects to the tunnel,

which probably will be there.

All the rest of those banks

look like they follow the original railway line,

and yet here, there's this bowl.

Wojtek takes me to the K65 milestone,

where the entrance to the secret tunnel is believed to be.

Ah! What's this?

That is interesting.

I mean, it doesn't look anything like a railway tunnel.

Why do you think this is the area, particularly,

that the Germans camouflaged at the end of the war?

You're right. On the other side, over here, and...

-Yes, yes.

-..elsewhere, there are much older trees.

About 400 metres further along the same railway embankment,

Wojtek wants to show me two mysterious structures

which he thinks prove the Nazis were at work here.

So you think there's a tunnel underneath us now?

Yes. I hope.

You hope!

What are these?

No way. Ventilation shafts?

-Of course.

-Yes.

Wojtek isn't alone in his suspicions.

Local treasure hunters have been scouring this area for decades.

This is because in 1945,

the town of Walbrzych and the whole of Lower Silesia

were not part of Poland, but Germany.

It was also beyond the range of the Allied bombing campaigns

that targeted the country from 1942.

And so, rumour has it, many important documents, artworks,

even gold, were buried in the mountains.

But I'm after something more substantial than rumours.

I need firmer evidence before I can even start to believe

that there might be a secret Nazi railway tunnel

on the outskirts of this town.

What I really want is a first-hand account.

I'd love to hear from somebody who actually saw the railway,

the siding and the tunnel during the war with their own eyes.

There is one man who may be able to help.

His name is Tadeusz Slowikowski, he's a retired miner, and it was him

who first identified the great potential at this particular site.

He's spent the last two decades looking for Nazi loot.

Hi, Tadeusz. Dzien dobry.

-Dzien dobry.

-Dzien dobry! Dzien dobry!

-I'm Dan.

Tadeusz Slowikowski is one of the last men alive

to have spoken to Germans who claim that during the war,

they saw a second train track at Kilometre 65.

Ah, your man cave, Tadeusz.

He first heard about the mysterious tunnel

from an engine driver's assistant

who regularly travelled along the railway line.

He's even built a replica of the site as it's been described to him,

in his garage.

So, here we go. This is the model of the tunnel and the siding.

-And this is Kilometre 65 here?

-Tak.

So you've talked to an engine driver on this mainline

who saw two carriages here in the siding?

Tadeusz tells me that he's spoken to other locals

who confirm the train driver's account.

Like him, they also claim to have seen military trains

on a hidden track running off the mainline into a tunnel.

It's great to see a visualisation of Tadeusz's theory,

it's not all just words any more.

You can actually see it laid out.

And if what he says is true,

high walls would have prevented anyone using that mainline

from looking into these sidings here,

with the exception of that one guy,

that enterprising guy, who stood up on the coal behind his locomotive

and peered over and saw this siding.

And there's the tunnel.

And we have seen some...

possibly some of the stones from that tunnel at the site.

Looking at this, what really strikes me

is why did the Germans go to all this trouble

to make sure that this little siding

and the tunnel it was connected to remain secret?

There must have been something pretty important down there.

After speaking to Wojtek and Tadeusz,

a picture is starting to appear.

A collapsed tunnel entrance,

possible ventilation shafts emerging from the ground,

Second World War accounts

of a secret railway line hidden from view by the Germans.

It's tantalising, if circumstantial evidence.

But it's been enough for some locals to have gone one stage further.

In 2014, local historian Andreas Richter and builder Piotr Koper

decided to scan the area with ground penetrating radar,

and they've agreed to show me what they found.

Andreas, let's see some of the surveys from this area, then.

Let's have a look at the tunnel and the train.

What the radar technology revealed

convinced them there really was something unusual at the site.

So you're saying that... There's a sort of central stripe there.

You're saying that's an unnatural, that's a man-made feature?

HE SPEAKS POLISH

That's the side of the tunnel? That's the wall of the tunnel?

It's reaching up higher than what's in between it,

and in between it, there appears to be a man-made, symmetrical object,

a big, substantial object, like it's a train with an engine.

The images are very seductive.

But are the treasure hunters seeing what they want to believe?

They don't claim the train is full of treasure,

but there could be a great deal of money in this for them

if they really have struck gold.

Well, you can't help but be carried away by their enthusiasm,

but I did leave there slightly questioning their motivation.

What was really driving them on?

A great love of history and archaeology?

Or the desire to get their hands on that Nazi gold?

They're claiming a 10% finder's fee and they have employed a lawyer,

so they must believe they're onto something.

So what is it about this part of Poland

that's caused so much speculation?

That's what I need to find out next.

For much of the war,

this south-eastern corner of the Third Reich

was far away from the front lines...

..and out of range of the Allied bombing campaigns

that from 1942

started to lay waste to the country's industrial heartlands.

The regions that fed the German war machine.

Factories were relocated here

and precious works of art were stored away for safekeeping.

And beneath these mountains,

they developed one of the most incredible schemes.

A project so extraordinary, it defies imagination.

There's a reason why the reports of a secret tunnel at Kilometre 65

haven't just been dismissed out of hand

and Piotr and Andreas derided as a pair of hopeful amateurs,

and that is to do with its particular location.

It isn't just a random railway siding in the middle of Poland.

It sits right next to one of the most extraordinary and sinister

Nazi projects of them all.

A huge, secret underground labyrinth of tunnels

burrowed out in the final years of the war.

Its codename was Riese.

Giant.

This top-secret project started in 1943.

Hitler entrusted the work to his favourite architect,

Albert Speer, and his most skilled and trusted engineers,

Organisation Todt.

This organisation was responsible for major construction projects.

The autobahns in the '30s...

..the Siegfried Line,

the Reich's western defences,

and the construction of the Atlantic Wall

along the western coastline of Occupied Europe.

But now they were tasked with something even more ambitious.

I want to find out what the Riese project was about

in the hope it might shed some light on why so many people believe

there's a hidden Nazi train in this area.

Ah.

Whoa!

A narrow bit there.

It's soaking wet in here.

I've heard about people entering the dark heart of the Nazi world before.

This feels like you're doing it literally.

Local historian Lukasz Kazek

has agreed to guide me through the Riese.

We've come maybe 800 metres into the mountain here.

How long are these tunnels?

I can see there's tunnels moving off in all directions.

Is this a natural cavern that they've just hit into?

What were they doing down here? What was the point of this complex?

And so you think this was going to be a huge...

almost an industrial underground city?

Lukasz tells me that many Riese tunnels have yet to be discovered,

while other explorers have claimed that the Nazis hid treasure

and top-secret weapons here in the last days of the war.

All this seems to strengthen the case for the possible existence

of another secret tunnel at nearby K65.

The Nazis did complete other projects like this,

like the vast underground factories

discovered in central Germany after the war,

where military aircraft and advanced rockets like the V2

were being manufactured.

But if the Riese project had been finished,

it would have been even bigger.

Could Hitler have been planning to develop

even more deadly weapons down here?

It was surprising me

how much moisture was coming into the tunnels back there.

Some sections of the tunnel have completely flooded.

You have to get along hauling yourself on a rope.

It's just otherworldly.

Totally silent.

Whatever the Riese tunnels were intended for...

..there is no doubting their impressive scale.

This is the biggest space I've seen down here by far.

It's probably three storeys high.

100 metres long, at least.

It's vast.

It's like an underground cathedral.

It's not surprising that the people who came after,

the Poles who arrived in this area,

when confronted with these ghostly, echoing, half-built monuments...

..made up stories, made up legends.

These caverns have bred a whole generation of conspiracy theories.

Some say the Riese complex was even designed

to house the German atom bomb that the Nazis were developing.

But whatever its purpose, one thing that's certain

is that these tunnels came at an incredible human cost.

It's estimated that 5,000 people subjected to forced labour

died on the project,

hacking out granite rock in temperatures just above freezing.

For the thousands of innocent people worked to death here,

Project Riese was simply a giant tomb.

I'm going to Gross-Rosen concentration camp.

It would have supplied the slave labourers

for the excavation work carried out underground.

Over the entrance is the great Nazi lie - "work sets you free".

Emaciated prisoners like these carried out the backbreaking work.

Local expert Marta Sadlocha has studied the living hell

that was Camp Gross-Rosen.

Most of the military industry

was focused in the hands of forced labourers

or prisoners of concentration camps,

and in the case of camps like this,

the work was a means to kill them all,

so extermination was, of course, fulfilled in here.

Of all the Nazi labour camps,

the ones at Riese had the harshest living conditions

and some of the highest mortality rates.

The average life span was two or three months for one person,

and this is how long they actually could live,

especially when they worked as physically as here.

So was Riese seen as a particularly brutal way to finish prisoners off?

-That's why they sent the Jewish prisoners there?

-Definitely.

People had to work underground

and even when the walls were exploded in some parts,

they were sometimes not released to the surface,

so they still had to work in the dust

and various different toxic fumes out of the explosive substances

so, yeah, they were ending even quicker than here.

With death tolls rising, and the Soviets advancing,

what must have been going through the minds of the men in charge here?

Well, the last couple of days at the Riese and the Gross-Rosen camp

have just driven home the sheer insanity

of what the Nazis were doing in this region.

I mean, the inhumanity and barbarism of that camp.

But also, underlining that,

the stupidity of murdering your own workforce when, allegedly,

they were working on this enormously important, grandiose project,

which actually just seems to me to be a totally insane folly,

its purpose, still to this day, a mystery.

I want to find out what else was going on in this region

that might help to explain why a Nazi gold train

could have ended up here, too.

This is Ksiaz Castle,

the largest and most stunning palace in the whole of Lower Silesia.

The site of the suspected tunnel is less than two miles away.

I've come here, as I've heard that there is a link between the castle,

the Riese tunnels and the mystery at K65,

and that Hitler himself may lie at the heart of the connection.

-Hi there.

-Welcome to Ksiaz Castle.

Thank you. It's more like a palace that a castle.

It is a palace AND a castle.

Mateusz Mykytyszyn has studied the history of the castle.

Since 1509 until 1933, it belongs to Counts of Hochbergs.

Mateusz tells me

how the Nazis confiscated the castle from its owners

and planned to make it the centre of their operations in this area.

Let me show you this interesting thing.

This is a very different feel, isn't it?

This is actual Nazi work. This is the guard room.

The room that they were preparing

for protecting important people that were staying here in the castle,

and it was actually an escape room

for elevators, for shafts, that they are here.

So shafts leading where?

Leading under the ground, into the tunnels.

So there's a whole network of tunnels under the castle?

At least two levels. Some people say more.

We know right now for sure that there are at least two levels

of over 1,400 square metres underground tunnel,

covered with concrete in 75%.

So that's why this place is talked about as part of the Riese complex,

-because they tunnelled here as well.

-Exactly.

Let me show you the shaft that is still here

and that was one of the evacuation elevators,

so you could escape very easily to the underground.

I've been to the rest of the Riese,

it was for factories and for underground armaments.

Why incorporate this palace?

We believe it's supposed to be a headquarters

for very important people from the German Reich.

So who was supposed to come here?

Very important person,

I think the most important in the German Reich at that time -

Adolf Hitler.

Mateusz tells me

that work to convert the castle began in mid-1944.

INAUDIBLE

The plan was to make it suitable for the Nazi High Command.

At the same time as many thousands of German soldiers

were losing their lives on the Eastern Front,

no expense was spared as the Nazis redecorated the castle.

The beautiful green and red rooms were painted white,

its baroque and rococo features ripped out

and replaced with the Nazis' favourite neoclassical style,

making room for the greatest works of art looted from across Europe.

It's amazing how much the Nazis managed to reshape this.

They only had a year. It must have been a huge effort they put in.

Not even a year. Ten months.

And 25 young architects

were working here on preparing this splendid residence,

known as the Pearl of Silesia,

to the grandest residence of Adolf Hitler.

And that was the room that was prepared for him as his bedroom.

-This room now...

-Yes.

-..was going to be Hitler's bedroom?

-Yes.

Exactly. And that's why these two...

doors were created, two pearl doors, to lead to his bathroom,

but not only bedroom, but also his private lift

leading to the tunnels under the ground.

So, just outside the doors of his bedroom, he had a lift,

so if there was an air raid or something,

he could just get straight in and go down to the tunnels.

The Riese mystery just grows larger and larger

every time I learn more about it.

And there is so many more mysteries to actually uncover here.

Clearly, what Hitler had in mind here was a new command centre.

By the time the Nazis took over this castle,

the war in the East was going badly

and the Soviet Red Army was advancing.

Hitler seems to have responded to that

by doubling down on the war effort, prepare himself and his empire

for a war of annihilation against the Soviet Union.

He had the vast Riese complex constructed in this area,

kilometres of tunnels perhaps designed to be

top-secret weapons production facilities.

The new Fuhrer HQ was to be linked to the Riese complex,

creating a subterranean shelter

for 27,000 top Nazi and SS personnel,

spread across 25 kilometres.

The resources this project consumed

were a massive drain on the war effort,

something the Nazis could ill afford at this time.

Albert Speer, who was Hitler's chief architect

and weapons production minister,

said that what was going on in this region

sucked in more concrete, more materials,

than the construction of every single air-raid shelter

right across the Third Reich,

so this was a huge focus for Hitler himself,

and a big clue to that still lies beneath my feet.

My guide to the tunnels under the palace is Leopold Stempowski...

-How are you doing?

-Hello.

..who has lived in the castle grounds all his life.

He tells me that work here

was far more sophisticated than at the Riese,

only a few miles away.

Yeah, that's completely different, isn't it?

Two storeys high, concrete-lined.

Whoa!

It's on a big scale, isn't it?

It's a lot further advanced that the other tunnels I've seen.

This must have been a priority for them.

I can now see what all the concrete was used for.

Leopold then showed me a peculiar section of wall.

It could indicate that something incredibly big

was being hidden here.

Could these accounts of a large space behind this wall

indicate the existence of a secret railway line out of the castle?

So, what's interesting is, we are very close here

to the site where those people claimed to have found a tunnel

with perhaps a train in it.

Surely that's related to this big facility here,

because we're so close.

Were there plans for a rail connection

from these tunnels to the mainline at K65?

It's possible, because we know

that Hitler travelled everywhere on military trains

and that most of his HQs had hidden railway access.

It makes me wonder if this is what they were planning at the castle.

While I was at the castle,

they did tell me that there used to be a narrow gauge railway,

a little service railway, that came off the mainline just here

and possibly followed the line of this raised embankment here.

What's fascinating, what's tantalising,

is that we're now only 400 or 500 metres away

from where the finders think they've identified that tunnel

with the collapsed entrance.

Could it have been...?

Could it have been that the plan was to expand this railway,

allow a full-scale train to go up to the castle,

delivered the Fuhrer to his headquarters?

In which case, that tunnel back down there,

it could have been a facility in which to house the Fuhrer's train,

keep it away from prying eyes.

And that's why, because of the sensitivity around it,

being designed for Adolf Hitler himself, it was disguised in 1945.

It's possible.

If they do find a tunnel at K65,

the fact that Hitler himself could be connected to it

gives this investigation a whole new level of importance.

This could be a historical gold mine,

whether there's treasure there or not.

Back at K65, the Polish authorities

are taking the claim that a tunnel exists seriously.

But they're worried the Nazis may have booby-trapped the area.

So before any dig can start, the army are sent in.

This is just the latest in a series of hold-ups

to hit the treasure hunters.

In 2015, Piotr and Andreas' hopes suffered a dramatic setback.

With so much speculation about the train,

other experts got in on the act,

carrying out their own surveys of the site.

And at one packed press conference, with the world watching,

the show was stolen by another team of experts,

led by geophysicist Professor Madej.

His announcement was a showstopper.

I'm going to see the man who may have just killed our story.

I'm interested to know why two sets of people

could have such wildly different results.

Professor Madej works at the renowned

AGH University of Science and Technology in Krakow,

the world's oldest geophysics department.

HE SPEAKS POLISH

His assistant is going to give me a demonstration

of the magnetometer equipment they used at K65.

-Is it heavy?

-No, no.

-Yes. Yes, yes.

-Very heavy.

-And you had to carry it all around that railway site?

-Can I...?

-Yeah.

-Thank you.

-That is heavy. Wow!

And he makes you do this?

-OK, it's good for you, it's good.

-Yes.

-OK.

-So can I see how fast...?

Let's go into the corridor. Let me see how fast you walk over the site.

Come on.

OK?

OK, yeah. OK, go for it.

Oh, so you can go quite fast, if you're looking for a big object.

BEEPING

Sounds like it's going crazy.

And so when you were...

Is this the exact equipment you used

-to demonstrate there is no train down there?

-No train.

You're breaking hearts, saying there's no train.

Professor Madej proceeded to give me the science behind his conclusion.

He told me they had found some anomalies at the site,

but these were quickly discounted.

So, could the only gold train

be this one on Professor Madej's desk...

..and what the world is getting excited about

be just a pipe lying a metre below the ground?

Professor Madej's results seem damning,

so I've decided to revisit the treasure hunters.

Has it made your job more difficult

because the scientists said there's nothing there?

Is it now harder to get the excavation going?

Andreas and Piotr are not giving up

and are still planning to go ahead with their dig.

In fact, they're so convinced they're right,

they're investing their own money to prove it.

While they sort out the finance and permissions for the dig,

I want to look into how Nazi gold could have got here.

The evidence I've gathered so far...

A possible secret railway line linking the castle to K65,

the spot where the treasure hunters want to dig.

Plans for a new headquarters for Hitler.

A network of underground tunnels,

perhaps to house Hitler's weapons factories.

The idea that Nazi treasures could have been sent here for safekeeping

is, at the very, least plausible.

But where did it come from?

The answer could lie in the location itself.

K65 marks the distance to the regional capital, Wroclaw.

When Hitler came to power, it was called Breslau,

and during the war, the city was a safe haven

for valuable national treasures, as well as stolen Nazi loot.

It was also the transit point for much of the gold and jewellery

taken from Jews killed in the death camps.

But by early 1945, the Soviet Red Army was at the gates.

As the city prepared for a last stand,

the Nazis desperately tried to move their valuables to safety.

I'm meeting Professor Tomasz Glowinski,

an expert on Breslau's wartime fate.

He tells me what evidence there is for treasures leaving

before the Soviets encircled and sealed the city.

And do you think this is where

the rumours of this gold train comes from?

This evacuation of valuables from the city?

As the Soviets closed in, Breslau descended into chaos,

as people tried to flee by any means possible.

The main station was crowded with civilians

desperately seeking a way out of the city.

So, could a train with a cargo full of gold

have left Breslau at this point,

slipping out amidst the confusion and panic?

It is possible to believe

that this city was in such a state of chaos and uproar

that a shipment of gold could have made it here in trucks,

unobtrusively transferred onto a train and taken out of town.

It would have been a crazy time.

These platforms thronged with refugees

trying to escape the clutches of the Russians.

And it strikes me that a small shipment...

It could have slipped out of the city.

People weren't taking notes in triplicate and filing them.

It is possible.

Back at K65,

Andreas and Piotr have finally been given permission by the authorities

to clear the area in preparation for their dig.

Crowds have started to gather to get a sneak peek,

but our treasure hunters

have decided to fence the dig off from the public

in order to keep anything they find private.

While we wait for the dig to begin,

I've been looking for evidence that gold was hidden

in the hills and mountains around K65,

and I think I've found it.

HE SPEAKS IN HIS OWN LANGUAGE

This is fantastic.

Classic golden age Polish television from the 1970s.

Might not look that much to the modern eye,

but this is actually a vital clue

into whether any German gold could have got out of Breslau

before the Soviets arrived.

HE SPEAKS IN HIS OWN LANGUAGE

In the interview, a member of the Polish Security Service

claimed the Nazis had hidden large quantities of gold

in nearby mountains.

The man at the root of this mystery is Herbert Klose.

Klose claimed to have been a vet in the Wehrmacht,

though Polish Intelligence in fact believed he'd been an SS officer.

Klose's being a little bit evasive,

but he does admit to taking part in an operation

where 50 chests of gold were taken out of Breslau,

and he even says where he took them.

The film followed the route that Klose claims to have taken,

and I've decided to retrace it, too, up into the mountains.

Jelenia Gora is in the same mountain range as Walbrzych

and only 50 kilometres from K65.

According to Klose, they brought the treasure on the back of trucks

up here to the slopes of Mount Sniezka,

which is on the modern Polish-Czech border.

Up here, high in the mountains,

they transferred that treasure from the trucks to horseback.

Now they went up the hill on the horses with the treasure,

and at that point, he tells interrogators

that he fell off his horse and got an injury.

Well, slightly convenient, you might think.

He goes back down, he goes to hospital,

and he's not there when the treasure is deposited for safekeeping

somewhere in these hills.

One of his comrades comes back down, visits him in hospital,

and tells him that the mission was completed, the treasure was stowed.

But he, of course, claims he doesn't know where it is.

It does mean that I could be just metres away from Nazi gold now.

I've got to get out of Silesia.

I've got gold fever, like everyone else in this place.

Going crazy.

But it is tantalising.

The Klose story is evidence

that the Nazis were hiding secret cargoes of gold

in the mountains not far from Walbrzych.

So if there is any secret tunnel at K65,

one of those cargoes could have ended up there.

The diggers are moving in, and after a year of growing anticipation,

the excavation has finally begun.

Andreas and Piotr have assembled a team of 64 people,

many local volunteers,

and they're confident of uncovering a secret Nazi tunnel and train.

So far on this journey, I've been down tunnels, I've visited castles,

I've seen the appalling human cost of the mad Nazi building plans,

I've followed the journey of Nazi gold,

and now I'm back here at Kilometre 65.

Behind me, the dig is just beginning,

and we are finally going to find out

whether those treasure seekers have got exactly the right place,

as they believe, and whether there's gold down there.

Piotr and Andreas have opened up several trenches

along the top of the embankment,

where their surveys indicate the tunnel is located.

They've also been doing new scans of the area,

which they say back up their original findings.

The new scans have instilled confidence in the team

that they will definitely find something.

THEY SPEAK POLISH

Everything in this investigation suggests that it is just possible

that gold could be hidden somewhere in these mountains.

But is it at Kilometre 65?

Before I find out if Andreas and Piotr are right,

there's one last story that I want to explore.

When I first came here, 85-year-old miner Tadeusz Slowikowski

told me that the Nazi security around K65 was very tight,

and that some local residents living near the tunnel entrance were killed

as the Soviets approached Walbrzych on the last day of the war.

So are you saying that the Nazis

murdered the people who lived in these houses?

Tadeusz thinks these murders are evidence

that the Nazis wanted to keep their activities at K65 secret.

A secret so significant

that uncovering it could cost you your life.

This intrigues me, because while I've uncovered some evidence

that a gold train might be buried around here somewhere,

this could help pinpoint it to the exact place

where the treasure hunters are digging.

I've decided to try and check it out.

Frustratingly, the original house has since been demolished.

But incredibly, given all the death and mayhem

of the last stages of the war, the murder of these three people

was actually recorded in a local church register.

It's the first time I've actually been able to sit down

with some real evidence in black and white,

written down at the time of these events that I'm trying to unravel.

It's evidence that three women were murdered

in exactly the place that we're fascinated by,

metres away from this secret railway siding.

But tragically, frustratingly, it doesn't tell us who did it.

And it puts the date

at exactly the time when it could have been either side.

The German Army were in the process of collapsing,

this was the last day of the Third Reich,

and the Soviet Army were on the fringes of town,

about to push in and take over.

It's an absolute turning point in world history,

and these three women were killed at that time.

The fact is, this doesn't get us any closer

to being definitive about whether there's a tunnel under that hill

and whether it was deliberately disguised.

Back at the dig, and like me, Piotr and Andreas have hit a dead end.

What they thought was the top of the tunnel

is in fact a glacial deposit,

intricate rock formations dating back millions of years,

and the train they thought they'd seen on their scan

hasn't yet materialised.

I get the sense they're not feeling quite as confident

as they once were.

Where does your scan show that the train was?

So you're saying, "There is still a tunnel here, we just haven't found it yet"?

Piotr and Andreas are saying that to dig deeper,

they need heavy drilling equipment,

and they require extra permissions from the authorities

before continuing.

For now, the treasure hunters have no choice but to fill the hole in.

Well, the dig has officially finished,

and we can now say for certain

that the hunt for the Nazi gold train has produced no Nazis,

no gold and no trains.

I've got to admit, I'm a little bit gutted.

I tried to remain sceptical throughout,

but a little part of me wanted to believe,

a little part of me hoped that there would be a gold train down here

and that I would be privileged enough to witness

one of the most remarkable moments

of archaeological discovery of all time.

But instead, there's nothing.

It's frustrating that no gold train has yet been found,

but I think I've uncovered an even more compelling story.

Could the secret Riese tunnel complex and the remodelled castle

reveal one of Hitler's final and most ambitious plans?

Was he hoping to retreat here,

relocating his weapons factories to the tunnels below

and then fighting on from this final defensive redoubt?

If this was his plan, then perhaps it makes it more likely

that there is a gold train hidden somewhere in these hills.

And maybe it's just a matter of time till someone finds it.

As I was preparing to leave, I got a surprise call from Wojtek,

the local film-maker I first met when I arrived,

asking me to meet him half a kilometre away from the dig.

He was the man who first persuaded me

there could be something to this legend.

He still thinks our treasure hunters are onto something,

but they're not digging in quite the right place.

You see, I came onto this piece of land with you

and you convinced me the train was here.

I was so excited because of these what might be ventilation shafts

or hatch covers or something.

Why aren't they digging here?

So, the treasure hunters never found their gold.

But it's not going to stop them.

And the reason is because this part of Europe

has such an extraordinary history,

a history of conquest, tumult, population shift, hidden tunnels,

bunkers, buried treasure,

and all of that ensures that no-one in this area

is ever going to stop looking for Nazi gold.