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Title: US lawyer Ed Fagan seeks Nazi gold in Czech Republic, as well as bond settlements
Source:
czechposition.com
URL Source: http://www.ceskapozice.cz/en/busine ... well-bond-settlements?page=0,0
Published: Nov 1, 2011
Author: Chris Johnstone
Post Date: 2011-11-02 10:41:40 by X-15
Keywords: holoco$t
Views: 91
Comments: 3
Larger-than-life US lawyer Ed Fagan is seeking two types of treasure in the Czech Republic: As well as his already publicized efforts to follow up claims on a series of interwar Czechoslovak bonds, he is also on the trail of Nazi gold thought to be hidden in the country during the dying days of WWII. Fagan, together with a business partner, in the US state of Florida, expects by the end of December to dig at one of three sites south of Prague where they believe that Nazi treasure shipped out of Berlin in April 1945 might have been hidden. “The ground will be hard, so it will be good to dig,” Fagan told Czech Position on Tuesday, just after presenting his bond demands to the Czech Finance Ministry. “We have all the authorizations. ... We started off with five locations where the treasure might be found and now we have narrowed it down to three.” The Nazi treasure trail began in Berlin towards the end of WWII when Hitler’s deputy Martin Bormann and other leading Nazis prepared to ship out precious treasures that they had looted across Europe as the allies closed the noose on the capital from the East and West. The only route open was to the south towards Prague. Some documents seem to suggest that the Nazi treasure was buried in tunnels at an SS concentration camp near the town of Štchovice, around 30 kilometers from Prague. “The treasure is thought to be made up of jewels, company certificates, and precious metals,” Fagan explained. There has been speculation that the hoard could contain Belgian gold shipped to France during WWII or the lost Russian masterpiece, the Amber Room, a paneled room made from precious stones for the Tsars. Fagan’s involvement stems from his search for lost bonds and other confiscated Jewish property in Switzerland. In 2009 he was told that records suggested that a large quantity of money and property had been hidden by the Nazis at the end of the war. Fagan has been involved in action against Swiss banks in the 1990s for failing to repay money and assets belonging to Holocaust victims. He then got into contact with the Sudeten-born Czech, Helmut Gaensel, who has led the search in the Czech Republic for the Nazi treasure; he was put in the same prison by the Czechoslovak Communist authorities in 1961 and 1962 as the Nazi colonel Emil Klein, who is said to have been tasked with burying the treasure at the SS concentration camp south of Prague. “The French prisoners of war used to seal the tunnel were executed afterwards,” continues Fagan, who added that Klein and his deputy also killed the six SS guards who carried out the execution. Klein was extradited to Germany in 1964 following a prisoner exchange and died there in 1973. He had maintained contact with Gaensel after both were freed. Gaensel, cooperating with the Czechoslovak authorities in 1968, made attempts to find the treasure in 1968, but those attempts were thwarted by the invasion of Soviet-led Warsaw Pact forces that put an end to the so-called Prague Spring. He has continued the attempts since the 1989 fall of the Communist regime. Fagan says he has prepared the legal ground to secure the treasure if the attempts at the end of the year, or later, hit the jackpot. “We are going to file the claim under a victim support group that has a right to make such claims. We have agreed that with the Prague central authority which represents victim support groups here,” Fagan explained, add that the group represents all victims of WWII and Nazi persecution, not just the Jews. Filing in such a way should help stave off claims from the Czech government to some of the treasure, though the litigious US lawyer is expecting a clash with Czech authorities in any case. “I would also like to find some relatives of the French prisoners of war who were executed at the burial site at the end of the war. It would be nice if they could benefit,” Fagan added. As well as Gaensel’s account, Fagan has also been convinced that the Czech treasure hunt has a real chance of success thanks to documents relating to Nazi SS general Hans Kammler. Kammler, a civil engineer who was put in charge of the V2 rocket program, is believed to have died in Prague at the end of the war after being charged to supervise the transport of the Nazi treasure. Inter-war bonds On the more conventional legal treasure chase over inter-war bonds, Fagan filed a series of demands with the Czech Ministry of Finance on Nov. 1. The demands seek cooperation from the ministry in seeking whether dollar denominated bonds issued by the Czech spa town of Karlovy Vary in 1924 with a 30-year expiry are not forgeries and that claims on unredeemed bonds are legitimate. The bonds were not honored in 1954, at the height of the Cold War. 
General Patton's Third Army discovered 100 tons of Nazi gold hidden in a salt mine near Gotha, Germany
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#2. To: X-15 (#0)
They must be kidding! Clint Eastwood got that gold. Remember "Kelly's Heroes"?
#3. To: BTP Holdings (#2)
Clint Eastwood's grandfather got the first pile of gold in The Good, The Bad & The Ugly".
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