Transcript

Is There Sunken Nazi Treasure At The Bottom Of Lake Toplitz?

From Timeline - World History Documentaries · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 50 min · 5,555 words · 81 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Is There Sunken Nazi Treasure At The Bottom Of Lake Toplitz?", an episode of Timeline - World History Documentaries published January 2, 2026 (50 min, about 5,555 words). It mentions 18 people, works and ideas, including Lake Topitz, Nazi treasure, Alrech Gisfinkler, Victor Caroli, Alpine Fortress.

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: Alpine Fortress, Lake Topitz, Adolf Ikeman, Otto Scotseni
  2. – 10:00: Nazi treasure, Lake Topitz, Victor Caroli, Alrech Suan
  3. – 15:00: Alrech Gisfinkler
  4. – 20:00: Victor Caroli, Alouse, Alrech Gisfinkler, Hans Matlas
  5. – 25:00: Hans Matlas, Villa Kerry
  6. – 30:00: Alouse
  7. – 35:00: Lake Topitz, Adolf Ikeman, Otto Scotseni
  8. – 40:00: Alrech Gisfinkler, Lake Topitz, Nazi treasure, Lake Toplelets
  9. – 45:00: Lake Topitz, Goldfinger

Notable quotes from "Is There Sunken Nazi Treasure At The Bottom Of Lake Toplitz?"

  • In April 1945, disturbing intelligence reports reached the Allies. Nazi leaders were planning to retreat to a national redout they called the Alpine Fortress.
    about Alpine Fortress · at
  • Some 40 boxes were sunk into the dark waters of Lake Topitz. At this point in time, the American troops were barely 50 kilometers away.
    about Lake Topitz · at
  • Gisfinkler was a member of the resistance movement. After the war, the Americans appointed him district commissioner.
    about Alrech Gisfinkler · at
  • Count Victor Caroli had brought his collection of antique hunting rifles.
    about Victor Caroli · at
  • On the afternoon of May the 9th, 1945, they made their way to Villa Kerry to carry out a search and to arrest the enemy officers who were staying there.
    about Villa Kerry · at
  • He reached for his pocket and said, There you are. He was one of the resistance fighters. Those who had gold were able to fix things.
    about Hans Matlas · at
  • Their commander, Otto Scotsi, had been ordered to defend this last stronghold.
    about Otto Scotseni · at
  • And that was the start of all these stories about Aishman's treasure.
    about Adolf Ikeman · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Alrech Gisfinkler — Person · Referenced local power broker / resistance figure · 3 mentions · first at
    Presented as a British-parachuted Austrian resistance member who became district commissioner and later a politician; central to postwar seizures of refugees' valuables (notably the Caroli family's) and to later Lake Toplitz search efforts.
  • Victor Caroli — Person · Referenced refugee aristocrat / victim of postwar seizure · 4 mentions · first at
    A Hungarian refugee (described as ‘Count’) whose family’s valuables were seized; he was accused of war crimes, arrested, and handed to Soviets—his case anchors the episode’s theme of postwar chaos, power, and missing assets.
  • Hans Matlas — Person · Referenced eyewitness to postwar abuses / gold circulation · 3 mentions · first at
    Provides testimony about resistance fighters’ conduct after the war and about gold coins appearing in circulation (e.g., obtaining gold for a dental crown), reinforcing the theme that valuables likely dispersed locally rather than remaining as a single ‘treasure.’
  • Adolf Ikeman — Person · Referenced Nazi war criminal tied to ‘treasure’ rumors · 2 mentions · first at
    Portrayed as a major Holocaust perpetrator who arrived in the region with gold/foreign currency; his alleged ‘treasure’ becomes a long-running local legend (including a noted transcription error amplifying the story).
  • Otto Scotseni — Person · Referenced SS special forces commander · 2 mentions · first at
    Described as the commander of SS special forces in the region during April–May 1945, linked to hidden/buried valuables and to the broader mythos of Nazi gold in the Alps.
  • Elona Caroli — Person · Referenced refugee spouse pursuing restitution · 2 mentions · first at
    Victor Caroli’s wife; described as carrying personal valuables and later attempting (with U.S. authorities) to recover seized possessions—illustrating restitution struggles and disappearance of assets.
    Victor Caroli was deported to Hungary and released 3 years later. With the help of the US authorities, his wife Elona tried to get back their possessions.
  • Alrech Suan — Person · Referenced local witness / keeper of oral history · 1 mention · first at
    Introduced as the tavern owner at Lake Toplitz who heard decades of stories and observed the area, serving as a key narrator for how the gold myth persisted locally.
    No one knows more about the myth than Alrech Suan, who runs a tavern at Lake Topitz. For more than 50 years, he heard all the stories and was able to observe the lake at close quarters.

Concepts & topics

  • Nazi treasure — Concept · Core topic · 3 mentions · first at
    The episode extensively discusses the myth and reality of Nazi treasure, especially gold, hidden at the end of WWII.
    The legend of Lake Toplelets was born.

Places & events

  • Lake Topitz — Place · Setting · 7 mentions · first at
    Central location where Nazi officials allegedly dumped gold and other valuables at the end of WWII.
  • Alpine Fortress — Place · Setting · 3 mentions · first at
    A mythical Nazi redoubt in the Austrian Alps where Nazis planned to retreat at the end of WWII.
  • Villa Kerry — Place · Setting · 2 mentions · first at
    A location where Nazi officials stored gold and valuables, later looted by resistance fighters.
  • Alouse — Place · Setting · 4 mentions · first at
    A location where Nazi officials, including Adolf Eichmann, were active at the end of WWII.
    At the end of April 1945, Ikeman appeared in Altouse to meet the head of the Reich main security office, Ans Kton Bruner. Both men had a cash of gold to ease their journey.
  • Lake Toplelets — Place · 3 mentions · first at
    Km away. Since 1943 the Nazis run a naval testing station on the shores of Lake Toplelets to develop new wonder weapons. The regional Nazi party leader and a group of naval…
  • Aaya Land — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    A region in Austria where Nazi officials sought refuge at the end of WWII.
    At the heart of the mythical Alpine fortress was Baday, the main town in the region called Aaya Land.
  • Baday — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    The main town in the Aaya Land region, a focal point for Nazi activities at the end of WWII.
    At the heart of the mythical Alpine fortress was Baday, the main town in the region called Aaya Land.
  • Mirakas — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    A location where the US Army discovered Nazi loot, including gold.
    In 1945, deep inside the salt mine of Mirakas in Eastern Germany, they discovered vast quantities of gold and cash.
  • Orbastodorf — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    A village where the Caroli family, refugees from Hungary, stayed at the end of WWII.
    Victor Caroli, his wife Ela and their children finally ended up in the village of Orbastodorf just 10 km away from Badau.

Media & podcasts

  • Goldfinger — Media · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as a James Bond movie that featured the non-existent gold from Lake Topitz.
    During these years, Lake Toppllets became world famous. The non-existent gold was even featured in the James Bond movie named Goldfinger.

Full transcript with timestamps

As winter gave way to spring in 1945, the Second World War entered its final phase. Refugees, soldiers, and leading Nazis alike headed into the heart of the Austrian Alps, an unoccupied region of the former German Reich the Nazis called Alpine Fortress. Most of those on the move had nothing but the clothes on their bags, but a few had gold in their bags.

In April 1945, disturbing intelligence reports reached the Allies. Nazi leaders were planning to retreat to a national redout they called the Alpine Fortress. General Patton ordered the Third Army to advance on Austria. In the last 6 weeks of the war in Austria alone, thousands of civilians have been murdered by the Nazis.

It soon turned out that the Alpine fortress was little more than a Nazi propaganda myth. By the end of April, American, Soviet, British, and French forces had encircled the Ostark, as Austria was called during the Third Reich. At the heart of the mythical Alpine fortress was Baday, the main town in the region called Aaya Land. The remote valleys and mountains provided perfect hiding places. The region remained unscathed by war. In the weeks before the Americans arrived, a number of prominent Nazi officials and war criminals retreated to our land as a safe haven. The head of the Reich main security office and high-ranking SS general Ants Kenbrunner.

Adolf Ikeman responsible for the murder of millions. and local Nazi party chief Agugust Igruba. All were later tried and executed. Otto Scotseni, a notorious heroic figure for the Nazis, also came to our land. 3 days before the German army surrendered, gold fever broke out in our land. It began at the remote lake toplets. Here during the night of May the 6th SS officers tried to destroy evidence of their crimes. Earlier lorries with a secret freight had arrived from the Saxonhausen concentration camp over 800 km away. Since 1943 the Nazis run a naval testing station on the shores of Lake Toplelets to develop new wonder weapons. The regional Nazi party leader and a group of naval officials all came to observe when a 4-tonon charge of explosives was detonated.

Engineers also tested underwater missiles here. Lake Topitz was a restricted area. Reports of what really happened during the night of May the 6th left plenty of room for speculation. They got us out in the middle of the night a few days before the war ended. They wanted us to take boxes to Lake Topitz. Their lorry had broken down so they couldn't drive there themselves. When we came down, there were two lries and about 15 SSmen. They told us to bring the boxes to Lake Tuplets as quickly as possible. So, we loaded up.

It was still dark and we drove by the light of a lantern. Quite eerie. And while we were back there, I saw how they dumped them in the lake.

Some 40 boxes were sunk into the dark waters of Lake Topitz. At this point in time, the American troops were barely 50 kilometers away. I went back and forth until 10:00 in the morning when they told us to stop and then they all disappeared. All the assessment including the lorries wing.

Speculation began. Tales of crates filled with incriminating documents, secret weapons and gold. The legend of Lake Toplelets was born. But what had the SS men really dumped in the lake? No one knows more about the myth than Alrech Suan, who runs a tavern at Lake Topitz. For more than 50 years, he heard all the stories and was able to observe the lake at close quarters.

There were people who said that gold was dumped in the lake. And of course, word gets around and these things never lose anything in the telling. The people would start saying, "Okay, perhaps the whole thing was a cover up. Maybe we've been told that stuff was dumped here." While in fact, it was hidden somewhere else. The nature of the lake makes it particularly hard to unveil any secrets. It is wedged high up between the mountains in a valley so narrow the wind can only stir up the water to a depth of about 20 m. Here, fish and plants can survive.

Deeper down, however, there is no oxygen, no life. Anything that sinks to the floor of the lake is preserved for centuries. If something exists, it would still be there. But can it really be a treasure of gold? It's not as absurd as it might sound. Time and again on its eastward advance, the US Army stumbled across Nazi loot. In 1945, deep inside the salt mine of Mirakas in Eastern Germany, they discovered vast quantities of gold and cash. At the same time near Ven, American troops seized the famous Hungarian gold train carrying tons of valuables stolen from Hungarian Jews.

Nearby in Matsé, the holy crown of Hungary was taken into US custody. Lorries loaded with gold and foreign currency became stranded near Valkans in Bavaria. Parts of these treasures suffered a similar fate. They just vanished into thin air. Lost riches soon faded from memory, but not in our land, where rumors of Nazi treasure flourished. For centuries, the population had eaked out a precarious living, farming the forbidding land and defying the harsh climate. It left its mark on the people.

Stories of fantastic treasures brought wild imaginings mixed with hope for a better tomorrow. Among the foreign visitors coming to our saland at the end of the war was a young girl from Hungary. Today she lives in New Zealand. Sophie is the daughter of the Caroli family. In February 1945, the Carolies fled the advancing Red Army heading west. At the time, Sophie was a young girl. I do remember very very um vividly um the endless um number of people all going vest. The road was like like a wave of humanity. everything that had wheels was going.

And I remember at night um we stopped wherever we could and asked for shelter and people were marvelous. Victor Caroli, his wife Ela and their children finally ended up in the village of Orbastodorf just 10 km away from Badau. Here they stayed at the home of the Schlurmer family. The Schlurmer's daughter, Gertruda, was roughly the same age as Sophie, and for a few weeks, their fates were entwined.

I gave her a complete dental dress set from a frock, an apron, a scarf, and a blouse, just the kind we wore in Aussie. She wanted to dress like an Austrian too like

and she was so happy. As early as April 1945, preparations for the arrival of the Allied troops were made in the land. The British parachuted four young Austrians into the area. One of them was Alrech Gisfinkler. Gisfinkler was a member of the resistance movement. After the war, the Americans appointed him district commissioner. He later wrote a controversial book about his adventures. Valtan, a former US agent, met Gisinkler in bad.

Giswinkler did an amazing job in Bad. The place was full of refugees. in effect Nazi collaborators from Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and other countries and many others too. Lots of artists as well. Gis Winkler was incredibly active. He organized festivals in our city and placed the Ramoot a large villa with extensive grounds at the disposal of the artists. There was T Lingan with his daughter Ushi, Peter Cder, Johannes Histas and his wife.

The opera singer Max Lawrence Max. Those are the ones I can still remember today. He was the master of the OAN, so to speak, much more than the Americans really. Ginkler gathered a group of armed helpers around him, partly recruited from former resistance fighters. They soon controlled access to essential goods and jobs, while the fear of life under the Nazis began to evaporate.

Everyone had been frightened of everyone else for a long time. They were afraid to be denounced and would end up in a concentration camp because of some stupid remark.

People were executed for listening to foreign radio stations. And then this pressure was lifted. People were free again and could talk about whatever they wanted and nothing happened to you. That led to a certain light-heartedness. The old rules no longer applied and the new ones were not yet clear. This state of uncertainty offered many opportunities. And while optimism had returned, supplies continued to be short.

Alrech Gisinkler was the man of the moment. In autumn 1945, he was even elected to the Austrian Parliament. He had armed forces at his disposal and enjoyed excellent relations with the US forces, allowing him to make arrests and seize property.

People said they had seen gold in his office and that he was involved in shady businesses. Giswinkler acted quite the lord of the manor in our sealant. He cut an impressive figure, a man with a great deal of poise. He was a very imposing man and radiated self-confidence. And of course, he stood out from the crowd because he had a luxury car, the kind that no one else could afford and lots of attractive young girlfriends. In late June 1945, Gis Vinkler's path crossed that of the Kaii families in Orbersf. The family from Hungary was still lodging with the Schlurma family.

The guests attracted attention in the area. The refugees had arrived with many boxes, their own car, and generous supplies. They appeared to be very well off. A few of their possessions have survived to this day. Damasque napkins, silver table service, a few paintings. In 1945, everything was hidden up in the attic of the Schlur's house.

There were carpets, paintings. They were all rolled up. They must have been valuable paintings, and there were a large number of guns.

Count Victor Caroli had brought his collection of antique hunting rifles. His wife Elona carried personal possessions that were invaluable to her.

She said to my mother, "Please take care of this box for me. It contains my daughter's truso. There was silverware in them and who knows what else."

And then his men came bursting in. They rushed up to the attic and carried everything off with them. It was like a raid. There was nothing we could do or say about it either.

Victor Caroli was accused of being a war criminal and was arrested. The Americans handed him over to the Soviets. And I remember some people um saying to my mother, "Don't don't worry. This this has got to be put right. This is

your husband didn't do anything wrong." And um we just couldn't imagine that the Allied groups would do that. The valuables of the Carolies ended up in Gis Winkler's custody. The Caroli case and others like it eventually resulted in a police investigation. 4 years later, Alrech Gisfinkler resigned from his political positions. Victor Caroli was deported to Hungary and released 3 years later. With the help of the US authorities, his wife Elona tried to get back their possessions. Some of them had just disappeared. Others materialized in nearby villages.

I once saw carpets in a house in Mitandorf and I said, "Ah, those are the Carolinies. Those are Carol's carpets there."

The injustices didn't end there. As Hans Matlas attests, Matlas helped save Hitler's collection of looted art treasures from a Nazi plan to destroy its hiding place in the salt mines of Alouse. Shortly after the end of the war, Hance ran into the new local law enforcement recruited from former resistance fighters. With him was his girlfriend, Millie.

One day, Millie and I had to go up to the mountain. Millie had to go up there for her sister who was looking after the animals up there the way people did.

We had to take food up there. So anyway, up we go. And on the way by the first house on the right there's a villa and that's where the resistance fighters were standing. Where are we going? They asked. Millie replied to my sister up on the mountain. Ah yes, Ia. Iguba, they said.

Inuba. In a They were hunting Gao lighter Augusta. A high-ranking Nazi politician who was hiding out somewhere in the mountains. The armed resistance fighters suspected anyone who passed by. You can go, they said to Millie, and you stay here.

I said, I won't. I'm just as much a free man as you are. It was hard to resist the temptation of gold and cash in those days, as shown by events at the romantic Alta Villa belonging to the painter Crystal Kerry, a distant relative of the US foreign secretary John Kerry. There members of the German foreign intelligence set up camp with Ants Calton Bruner in command and they had gold in their luggage. Among them was SS officer Victor Sichka, his wife Paula, and their small son Wolf Gang. The gold was stored in Villa Kerry, ready to be used to fund intelligence service operations.

The Sichka family had little property of their own. All the valuables they had were kept in the Prem with me lying on top of them. The old pram used to have a hole in the middle for a potty and that was where they kept their valuables. that was in there. And I was in there, too. That's all my mother told me. The most important things were actually all in there the whole time. And there's not much room for money there.

Zishka's superior stored golden documents in this chest and elsewhere in the house. In the days after the war, the resistance fighters wanted to arrest the enemy German officers. It's unclear if they also knew about the gold stash. On the afternoon of May the 9th, 1945, they made their way to Villa Kerry to carry out a search and to arrest the enemy officers who were staying there. Later, when she was interrogated, Paul Sichka described how the men had been extremely agitated and had even threatened to shoot the women. She added, "My impression was that they were all drunk. They forced their way into the rooms with guns and stole whatever they could get their hands on.

According to her statement, everything the resistance fighters laid their hands on disappeared into their rucks sacks. One man is even alleged to have downed the contents of a bottle of Oda cologne. And then according to Polet Sashka, the men grabbed gold coins with greedy hands. After they left, the cupboards were empty and so was the chest. The gold had vanished into thin air, or so it seemed. Around this time, there were a striking number of gold coins in circulation in the region. In a miraculous change of fortune, some locals no longer had financial worries.

Hans Matlas, who was working as a truck driver, discovered who had pocketed some of the gold. Once I won't give any names, I had to go to the dentist because I needed a crown. And he asked whether I had anything for it. Some gold for the crown. I said, "I don't." And later when I was driving again, I said to the guy, "I was at the dentist. I need gold for a crown." He reached for his pocket and said, "There you are." He was one of the resistance fighters. Those

who had gold were able to fix things. Soon, rumor had it, a number of US Army officers had fixed things for themselves too. 4 weeks after the turbulent house search, a resistance fighter made a spectacular discovery in the garden of Villa. several hastily buried boxes. Yan Pukha remembers the day his father discovered them. I was working for the post office at the time and had just come home from work at lunchtime and there he was coming down from the villa carry with two boxes. and I helped him carry them up to the house and then he was off again almost running to the police.

It didn't take them long to get here and they took their boxes away to Bad Sea where the boxes were opened. But after that the trail goes cold. Inside the boxes, there were probably more than 20,000 gold coins, gold bars, and cash in dollars and Swiss Franks. Everything was officially registered and handed in to the authorities. And then it vanished. But there was almost certainly more gold at Villa. Gold that had disappeared before the house was searched. SS officer Victor Zichka was the last person to admit having had it. Shortly before the Americans arrived, Zitka, his superior officer, and their guides drove to the Tower Pass with 30 kg of gold as a safety reserve. The plan was to meet some British officers who were concealed in a mountain hut and to negotiate a separate peace agreement.

The next day they returned to Alouse. Sashka later claimed that for safety reasons he split from the group carrying the gold in his rucksack on a path away from the road. After several hours on foot, he met up again with the two accompanying cars. By then it was nighttime. When the cars finally arrived back in Alouse, US troops and resistance fighters were trying to intercept them. The first vehicle was able to get through. The second one was stopped. Sajka and his companions stated that they were locked in a cellar and their luggage and their gold were somehow left behind.

The next day, the rucks sack with the gold had vanished. Some of it, it is said, helped Austrian and American households make ends meet. In the last weeks of the war, many highranking Nazis carried gold to pay for their escape. During April and May 1945, SS special forces were still scattered in the mountains. Their commander, Otto Scotsi, had been ordered to defend this last stronghold. His men were hiding out in small groups in the area.

One of these groups was waiting in a valley near Mittenorf, just a few kilometers distance from Badassi. It was a group of paratroopers commanded by 25-year-old Hubert Sherman. Yseph Pa who was 15 at the time met Sherman and his men in midMay when they surrendered. It was about 4 or 5:00 in the afternoon and all of a sudden I saw vehicles coming. They were mostly lries used to transport personnel transport in the rows in the back of the lorry. SS men were sitting.

They were armed with submachine guns and were all in full uniform. The Americans just looked at them calmly and let them pass.

Why? Because they already knew that it was all over for them in Edeny. Because there was an SS internment camp over there. And I think some of them were even singing in the lorry. What were they singing? Marching songs. Sherman and his men were taken prisoner on the 15th of May. They left behind a large amount of weapons, ammunition, and equipment in the woods surrounding Mittenorf. Did the boys from the village find anything besides that? Any gold?

I don't think they even found an ounce of gold back there where those units were in the Hintterbag Valley. plenty of other things, but certainly no gold.

It seems like SS units did manage to spirit away some gold like Otto Scorseni and his men. When I left Scotseni in Rajtat, he said to me, "Let's go into the next compartment to KL." That was his agitant. and he wanted to give me something. A couple of days earlier, three conveys had arrived. I was told they contained the treasure of the main security office. And when I went into Kado's compartment, he had lots of little jute bags on the table. And he said, Take something. You'll need something for bribes. The jute bags contained gold rings, gold cigarette cases, bracelets, and so on, diamonds.

Well, this stuff later was buried in the mountains. Indian. It is possible that this stash was some of the gold looted in Hungary. According to an bent, only three men knew where it was buried. Scotseni was one of them. The plan was to recover the gold after the war.

Three men later set off for Austria with forged papers, but when they got up there, the ground was soft and everything had gone. Vick

again. The treasures of the land turned out to be particularly elusive. The gold from the Kerry Villa had trickled away, just like the valuables from refugees or fleeing Nazi collaborators. And finally, the stashes from highranking SS members men like Adolf Ikeman, the organizer of the Holocaust. At the end of April 1945, Ikeman appeared in Altouse to meet the head of the Reich main security office, Ans Kton Bruner. Both men had a cash of gold to ease their journey. Iman was accompanied by almost 20 other SS men. According to an eyewitness, their lries were loaded with food, weapons, clothing, office supplies, cognac, foreign currency, and gold coins.

Iikman wanted to organize armed resistance in the region and to continue fighting the Americans. Wilhelm Hurle from the German intelligence service put Aishman in contact with Kenbrunner.

Iceman wanted to discuss his plans with him in great detail. But Kenba said make sure that you disappear. They're looking for you. You're at the top of the wanted list. Kenba told his agitant to give Aishman something for the journeyman. And I saw how he gave him a box with gold coins.

What else there was, I don't know. road in leading to the blah Alm. He was standing there with his walking stick and he was boiling with rage because his people couldn't get through. There was still so much snow there. And then he spent a couple of days at the inn on the blah. To the great delight of the old inkeeper, he paid with the gold coins he had with him. And that was the start of all these stories about Aishman's treasure. I was also believed to have a treasure of my own. There were a lot of rumors around. People are still hunting for Aishman's treasure on the blah just as they are hunting for the treasure in Lake Topitz.

It's funny that people are still so keen on treasure hunting. Treasures are supposed to be everywhere.

The tale of Iman's gold took on legendary proportions thanks to a transcription error. An eyewitness reported that Iman's accountant was sitting at a table stacked half a meter high with foreign currency and also gold coins. Over the years, it became a table that was stacked with half a meter of gold. The years passed by. The gold had long since been shared out, the fairy tales almost forgotten. Austrian President Adolf Chev visited the Aolan region in 1959.

Stereo was commemorating the centinery of the death of its local hero, the muchloved arch duke Yan, and was reflecting on its own Austrian history and traditions. While the president did his rounds 10 kilometers away on Lake Toplez, a world sensation was about to break that would revive all the legends of the lost Nazi treasure. The German magazine Stan had launched a massive search and recovery operation, sending a team of divers equipped with echo sounders, metal detectors, and underwater cameras. Their task was to trace the mysterious boxes that had been dumped in the lake 14 years earlier.

They found remains of the naval testing station, ignition cables, steel ropes, an underwater missile, an aerial bomb, and quantities of small arms ammunition. But on the 26th of July, they discovered boxes full of money. forged British pound notes, part of the biggest counterfeiting operation in history. Hitler had wanted to destabilize the British economy by circulating fake£5 bank notes. Then suddenly the search operation was abandoned, unleashing a flood of speculation. Suddenly, rumors were circulating that there were political reasons involved.

Others speculated that the search was called off because they had found the gold or that they had found codes for German government bank accounts in Switzerland which were sunk there. It was all pretty feeble and pretty absurd too if you think about it. If you have a list of codes and names that will fill a few sheets of paper, it can be buried in a beer bottle beneath the next tree. Why would you sink a few papers 70 or 80 m deep in lake toplets and use giant crates? adventurers, fortune seekers, old Nazis, and modern storytellers. They all flocked to Lake Topitz.

Then on the 6th of October 1963, tragedy struck. Shortly after midnight, five Germans appeared on the shores of the lake. Among them, a 19-year-old from Munich, Alfred Egggner. They launched a rubber dingy and Edgar lowered himself into the icy depths of the water secured by a safety line. 20 minutes later, there was no response from him. His companions tried to pull him back to the surface, but with no success. After 2 hours, they gave up and fled. It was not until the next evening that they informed Edgar's parents and the police. The authorities decided to recover Edgar's body and finally succeeded 3 weeks later.

The Ministry of the Interior now ordered that the search of the lake was to be continued to clear it out and put an end to the incessant rumors and legends. A search operation on an unprecedented scale began. The most experienced professional divers in the country were hired and Alrech Gisfinkler appeared on the scene again. By now he was a manager at the regional health service and the chairman of the lake toplets research group. I believe it's time to put an end to all the goings on in this wonderful area and secondly to put a stop once and for all to all those adventurers who keep on showing up here.

The area around the lake was now sealed off by more than 100 police officers. The reporters all jostled for the best position, clamoring for a scoop. The divers found more relics from the naval testing station, shrapnel, more crates with forge banknotes, and the printing press used to make them. They did not find secret Nazi lists or gold. Back then, Johan Vavra was the chief diver at the Austrian Army's mine clearance service. What kind of idiot dumps gold bars in a 100 me deep lake where they could never get it out again when they could just bury it beneath the nearest tree and then come back again and collect it later. We are often asked whether we found any gold bars.

I tell everyone if I had found any gold bars, I'd have written to them from Brazil next time. But we didn't find any.

During these years, Lake Toppllets became world famous. The non-existent gold was even featured in the James Bond movie named Goldfinger. In the years to come, the only treasures in the land region were its nature, wildlife, and stunning landscape.

20 years of peace and tranquility. until in 1983 a yellow submarine arrived. It was lowered into Lake Topplits, triggering an unprecedented media frenzy. The submarine had been hired by the German magazine Guo to investigate organisms in the inhospitable depths of the lake. They were looking for life forms similar to those found in the hydrothermal vents in the deepest layer of the ocean. The commander of the underwater capsule was the biologist Hans Fri. He immediately aroused suspicion. No one seemed to believe in the scientific nature of his mission.

It was obvious even to non-experts that no one conducts such a diving operation in Lake Topitz just to do underwater biology. There had to be another reason.

He had no credibility. Everyone said there's definitely something not right about his research. That's just a pretext, nothing more. In 1983, 1984, and on several subsequent occasions, Fri went on hundreds of underwater expeditions in Lake Topitz, spending the equivalent of 1 month underwater. He and his team discovered yet more junk from the naval testing station. cables, boys, explosives, and a wooden missile launch ramp now on display in the Museum of Military History in Vienna.

And then, as was to be expected, he salvaged several more boxes of fake currency. But on the faded paper, Fri identified a single-sellled organism that is able to live without oxygen. To the scientist, it was an important find.

Now, what about the supposed treasure hidden in the lake? Were you able to find any of it?

We didn't see the treasure. The treasure of this lake is its phone or nothing else.

No trace of gold? Certainly not. These reports are just rubbish. Later, when it was rumored that objects were being illegally removed from the lake without being reported, we received orders to monitor the dives and to verify what was removed from the lake. After one dive, he shut himself away in the house where he was living. And people saw that and gossiped about it. What has he taken out? There was so much secrecy about it all.

I told them all about I was doing, but it wasn't interesting enough for them. So, they always made something up. A worm and a bacterium are nothing to write home about. By now, the Austrian armed forces had become involved and the lake was cleared again.

In November 1984, Fri made his second biological discovery. And I can still see how he slowly surfaced with a capsule. The hatch opened and he yelled, "We've got it. We've got it." "Yes," I said, "What?" The worm. We saw it at a depth of 60 m and brought it to the surface and he's still living happily in my aquarium. And what is so special about it? The worm looks like an earthworm. What makes it so special is that it can survive under extreme conditions. It can live in a hydrogenous environment that is actually toxic for it.

Yes, if you go by where it was found, then it's certainly a sensation. Worms of this kind have never been found in this type of environment before according to scientific literature. The media called Frique's worm villi. News of his discovery went around the world. Friy later established that the worm was living in an environment containing high levels of hydrogen sulfide. But local biologist Fritz Seal changed his mind about vill's importance when he identified it as an ordinary Austrian earthworm common to the region.

For a short time, the worm from Lake Toplets seemed more sensational than the tales of Nazi gold. Seal remained unconvinced.

To put it very bluntly, Frier found a worm that had fallen into the lake a day earlier. So, it's obvious that it was still alive. Perhaps it had been in there a couple of days, perhaps a week, and had crawled through the mud with the very last of its strength. No, no, it had already adapted to the conditions. Of course, it had fallen into the lake from somewhere. That's obvious. Villy the worm proved to be as mysterious as the gold treasures. Was it an extraordinary survivor or an ordinary earthworm? Even today, no one really knows.

Hansfri went on to make several acclaimed television films. For him, the gold treasure never existed.

We really did look in every nook and cranny when we were searching for organisms. And if people can't grasp the fact that there's nothing down there, then that's their tough luck. and arms a fish.

But that didn't stop an American expedition from trying their luck in the year 2000. With a million dollar budget and the latest technology, they went in search of evidence of the Nazis rumored Swiss bank account details. They finally found a mysterious box. It turned out to be a hoax devised by some local practical jokers. Among discarded pig bones, it contained a huge amount of bottle tops. Not the kind of currency that divers had hoped for.

Over the decades, tales of gold treasures have resonated through the land region and beyond. Accounts of untold wealth brought both hope and obsession to this magical place. But gold could never replace what really mattered. Survival and the lessons learned from war. There was one thought. Never again. Never again. Today I'm old, but I really hope that my children and grandchildren will never have to experience anything like that again.

It was the best birthday present I ever had. The capitulation on the 8th, my birthday was on the 9th and it was the best one ever. Any undiscovered treasure is now part of our land folklore. Just like the clear lakes, the mountains, the tranquility, and the stonepine schnaps mystic,

the mystery will remain that won't go away.

Questions about this episode

What is discussed in "Is There Sunken Nazi Treasure At The Bottom Of Lake Toplitz?"?

In order: 0:00 Alpine Fortress, Lake Topitz, Adolf Ikeman, Otto Scotseni; 5:00 Nazi treasure, Lake Topitz, Victor Caroli, Alrech Suan; 10:00 Alrech Gisfinkler; 15:00 Victor Caroli, Alouse, Alrech Gisfinkler, Hans Matlas; 20:00 Hans Matlas, Villa Kerry; 25:00 Alouse; 30:00 Lake Topitz, Adolf Ikeman, Otto Scotseni; 35:00 Alrech Gisfinkler, Lake Topitz, Nazi treasure, Lake Toplelets; 40:00 Lake Topitz, Goldfinger.

What is mentioned in this Timeline - World History Documentaries episode?

18 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Lake Topitz, Nazi treasure, Alrech Gisfinkler, Victor Caroli, Alpine Fortress, Hans Matlas. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Is There Sunken Nazi Treasure At The Bottom Of Lake Toplitz?"?

The episode runs 50 min; the transcript is about 5,555 words in 81 timestamped sections.

More from Timeline - World History Documentaries

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.