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They lie near the village of Merkers. The mines have a long history of salt extraction, and hold the record for concealing large amounts of Nazi gold during World War II. A hundred tons of gold and many works of art presumed to be stolen were discovered by the liberating United States Army in 1945.
The Kaiseroda salt mine complex near Merkers stored over 400 million Reichsmarks worth of Nazi gold (equivalent to 2 billion 2021 €), [5] thousands of crates of artworks that had been transferred from the Berlin State Museums for safekeeping, [6] and many stolen works of art.
The Merkers area of the municipality is famous for its salt mine, where large amounts of Nazi gold, and many stolen works of art were discovered by the United States Army in 1945. General Dwight D. Eisenhower himself went into the mine in April 1945 in order to examine the find. The area is now a visitor attraction, the Merkers Adventure Mines.
Last August two treasure hunters said they had "irrefutable proof" of the existence of a World War II-era Nazi ghost train filled with stolen gold.
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During the war, Portugal was the second largest recipient of Nazi gold, after Switzerland. Initially the Nazi trade with Portugal was in hard currency, but in 1941 the Central Bank of Portugal established that much of this was counterfeit and Portuguese leader António de Oliveira Salazar demanded all further payments in gold. [22]
Merkers, Germany: The Kaiserode mine at Merkers was discovered by the U.S. 3rd Army under General George S. Patton in April 1945. Reichsbank gold, along with 400 paintings from the Berlin museums and numerous other crates of treasures were also discovered. Discoveries also included gold and personal belongings from Nazi concentration camp victims.