Nazi gold train could contain ornate £250m

Journalist Tom Bower, who wrote Nazi Gold: the Full Story of the Fifty-Year Swiss-Nazi Conspiracy to Steal, has said he believes there is a high likelihood the hidden locomotive is filled with art and precious jewels, rather than bars of gold.

But what he really hopes to find in the train discovered abandoned in a tunnel underneath a Polish mountain is the Amber Room, stolen from the Catherine Palace, near St Petersburg, in about 1941.

Speaking to Sky News, Mr Bower said: 'If it is an art train, there will be paintings, there will be perhaps diamonds, there will be rubies and precious stones and also, the one thing that's always been missing, the Amber Room.  

'I think it is far more exciting to think perhaps that is in the train.'

The Nazis dismantled the room - thought to be worth about £250million - when they arrived at the Russian palace in October 1941.

The Russians had tried to conceal the grand room, a gift to Peter the Great by the King of Prussia in 1716, by covering it in wallpaper, but their plan was foiled.

The room was then taken by the Germans by rail to Koenigsberg Castle, in what was then East Prussia. Now, the castle is found in the city of Kaliningrad. 

But it disappeared In January 1945, after air raids and a savage ground assault on the city.

While some claimed it had been destroyed in the raids, others reported seeing 40 wagons moving away from the castle under a cloak of secrecy after the city fell to the Red Army.

Poland confirms existence of underground nazi gold train

To Mr Bower, it is entirely possible the train may have made the almost 400-mile journey across Poland to Walbrzych, on the border with the Czech Republic. 

'As the Russians advanced and the Allies came in from the west, there was a huge movement as the Germans sought to keep it for themselves,' he explained.

Initially taken with a grain of salt, the story has gained credibility after a culture ministry official said he saw a ground-penetrating radar image of the alleged train on which he could make out platforms and cannons.

'I'm more than 99 percent sure such a train exists, but the nature of its contents is unverifiable at the moment,' Deputy Culture Minister Piotr Zuchowski said Friday.

(dailymail.co.uk)