Martin Antonenko
A Fixture
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2008
- Messages
- 9,001
A treasure...!
Our story today has absolutely nothing to do with Sméagol, it actually happened!
On February 10, 1945, Prince Ernst Heinrich of Saxony buries with his two sons Dedo and Gero...
...together with a district forester the "treasure of the Saxons", the gold of the Wettins, near Moritzburg Castle...
...before he flees from the approaching Red Army to Sigmaringen to save the noble skin.
The blue-blooded had to rightly expect to be simply killed by the Soviets.
Mr. Prince and his companions must have been toiling away, because the Saxony Treasure does not consist of one or two, but a whopping 43 large wooden boxes! Value: Invaluable!
The district forester must have done the hardest and roughest work, because His Highness was thoroughly weaned from hard physical work.
A little later, the Saxon offspring sits with his sons in the safe Hohenzollern Castle Sigmaringen (later French occupation zone)...
...and shares the property, at least temporarily, with the also stormed Vichy Prime Minister by Hitler's grace, Pierre Laval (whom the French soon brought home to Paris, put on trial, sentenced to death and executed)...:
Everything seems to be well regulated - only the Lord of Saxony has not considered one thing:
The Soviet NKVD...
...got wind of the hiding operation and didn't take long to track down the district forester involved, whom the prince carelessly left behind in Moritzburg!
The dreaded men with the blue caps...
...are not squeamish during "interrogations" (many also rightly call it "torture"!) - and so it doesn't take long before the tormented forester reveals the hiding place to the Soviets.
What happened then is unclear for a long time, until a few parts of the Wettin treasure are suddenly publicly exhibited in 1947 in the Leningrad Hermitage Museum...:
The rest of the "Saxon Treasure" is still there today - in deports, it is assumed!
Everything?
No! Not everything, which is why our story isn't over yet!
The prince and his sons had secretly buried three boxes with particularly valuable pieces elsewhere - without the help of the district forester...:
They were also thought to be missing for a long time. The NKVD henchmen could not torture the location of the hiding place out of the forester in 1945 - because he knew nothing about it!
Finally, in October 1996, two illegal robber "archaeologists", the Dresden postman Hanno Vollsack,
... and his girlfriend Claudia Marschner...
... find the three boxes in question with a metal detector.
After two days of hesitation (and after it has probably become clear to them that they can hardly make money from their find with a total value of more than twelve million euros!), they contact the authorities - and both receive a fine.
However, this is amply compensated for by a finder's fee paid by Vollsack and Marschner from Wettin!
Of course, the authorities immediately confiscated the treasure - and later returned the contents of the three boxes to the people of Wettin.
In 1997 the treasures were presented to the public in an exhibition in the Georgenbau of the Dresden Residenzschloss...:
After that, a large part of the treasure was auctioned off - and the descendants of the Saxon rulers cashed in!
A very valuable piece, the so-called "Mohrenkopf Cup" by the Nuremberg goldsmith Christoph Jamnitzer from the 16th century can be viewed today in the Bavarian National Museum in Munich...:
In addition to the Mohrenkopf trophy, the most valuable parts are a coin collection and parts of the table silver of August the Strong, which are now owned by the Free State of Saxony and are on display in Moritzburg Castle...:
Our story today has absolutely nothing to do with Sméagol, it actually happened!
On February 10, 1945, Prince Ernst Heinrich of Saxony buries with his two sons Dedo and Gero...
...together with a district forester the "treasure of the Saxons", the gold of the Wettins, near Moritzburg Castle...
...before he flees from the approaching Red Army to Sigmaringen to save the noble skin.
The blue-blooded had to rightly expect to be simply killed by the Soviets.
Mr. Prince and his companions must have been toiling away, because the Saxony Treasure does not consist of one or two, but a whopping 43 large wooden boxes! Value: Invaluable!
The district forester must have done the hardest and roughest work, because His Highness was thoroughly weaned from hard physical work.
A little later, the Saxon offspring sits with his sons in the safe Hohenzollern Castle Sigmaringen (later French occupation zone)...
...and shares the property, at least temporarily, with the also stormed Vichy Prime Minister by Hitler's grace, Pierre Laval (whom the French soon brought home to Paris, put on trial, sentenced to death and executed)...:
Everything seems to be well regulated - only the Lord of Saxony has not considered one thing:
The Soviet NKVD...
...got wind of the hiding operation and didn't take long to track down the district forester involved, whom the prince carelessly left behind in Moritzburg!
The dreaded men with the blue caps...
...are not squeamish during "interrogations" (many also rightly call it "torture"!) - and so it doesn't take long before the tormented forester reveals the hiding place to the Soviets.
What happened then is unclear for a long time, until a few parts of the Wettin treasure are suddenly publicly exhibited in 1947 in the Leningrad Hermitage Museum...:
The rest of the "Saxon Treasure" is still there today - in deports, it is assumed!
Everything?
No! Not everything, which is why our story isn't over yet!
The prince and his sons had secretly buried three boxes with particularly valuable pieces elsewhere - without the help of the district forester...:
They were also thought to be missing for a long time. The NKVD henchmen could not torture the location of the hiding place out of the forester in 1945 - because he knew nothing about it!
Finally, in October 1996, two illegal robber "archaeologists", the Dresden postman Hanno Vollsack,
... and his girlfriend Claudia Marschner...
... find the three boxes in question with a metal detector.
After two days of hesitation (and after it has probably become clear to them that they can hardly make money from their find with a total value of more than twelve million euros!), they contact the authorities - and both receive a fine.
However, this is amply compensated for by a finder's fee paid by Vollsack and Marschner from Wettin!
Of course, the authorities immediately confiscated the treasure - and later returned the contents of the three boxes to the people of Wettin.
In 1997 the treasures were presented to the public in an exhibition in the Georgenbau of the Dresden Residenzschloss...:
After that, a large part of the treasure was auctioned off - and the descendants of the Saxon rulers cashed in!
A very valuable piece, the so-called "Mohrenkopf Cup" by the Nuremberg goldsmith Christoph Jamnitzer from the 16th century can be viewed today in the Bavarian National Museum in Munich...:
In addition to the Mohrenkopf trophy, the most valuable parts are a coin collection and parts of the table silver of August the Strong, which are now owned by the Free State of Saxony and are on display in Moritzburg Castle...:
