Devil's Dustbin
From the October, 2008 issue of Scuba Diving Magazine. Artifact hunting in the Austrian Alps.
By February 1945, the Nazi war machine was in a tailspin and retreating fast. The Salzkammergut region of inner Austria, a picturesque slice of the central Alps comprising some 70 mountain lakes, was one of its last holdouts, and in the final days of the war, crate after crate of secret cargo was dumped into the lakes, earning this area its nickname, "Devil's Dustbin." Much has been recovered over the years, but rumors of stolen art, sealed Swiss bank account information and millions in gold bullion keep divers coming back for more.
Gerhard Zauner, a barrel-chested Austrian with a rusty-gray beard, has run a dive shop here since 1974. He has written a book (in German) about diving the Salzkammergut, and he maintains a modest museum in his family's guesthouse that showcases a medley of his finds from the lakes: soldiers' helmets, gas masks, SS medals, a stamp from the German naval academy dated Feb. 7, 1945, grenades he defused himself and a metal bust of Hitler--to name just a few.
The most popular spot for artifact hunters is Lake Hallstatt, 35 miles southeast of Salzburg. Other popular lakes include Lake Grundle, Lake Atter and Lake Altaurseer. Given the area's history, looking for Nazi artifacts can make some of the locals uncomfortable. Selling these pieces is illegal, but keeping them and transporting them abroad is not. And the Nazis weren't the only people to leave pieces of their history here. There are artifacts in these lakes that date back thousands of years, all the way back to the Celts.
Q&A: Norman Scott
Later this year a major search of Lake Toplitz, in the Salzkammergut, will be conducted by Florida-based Global Explorations, which has a three-year permit from the Austrian government to explore the 300-foot-deep mountain lake. Norman Scott heads up the search, and he feels confident new technology will help him find what others have missed.
Q: How did you get involved in this project?
NS: We had been working in Europe on several projects in the 1990s when we heard about Lake Toplitz. Only two groups had worked there before: Stern Magazine, a German publication that searched there in 1959 and came up with a lot of artifacts, and 60 Minutes II, which led a recovery project for a television show in 2000 that uncovered several boxes of British pound sterling notes, all counterfeit. In 1943, the Germans planned to destroy the British and American economies by getting a group of expert engravers to counterfeit British pound sterling notes to the tune of $7 billion. They used this money to buy spies, equipment and ultimately planned to flood the British economy so the pound would be worthless.
Q: Do you expect to find more counterfeit notes? What else might be down there?
NS: Yes, I think we're going to find a multitude of counterfeit money. Collectors will pay 10 percent of face value for them. We also hope to find Otto Skorzeny's rumored stash of gold--his reward money for rescuing Benito Mussolini after the Italians captured him. And the late Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal told me that the Germans also put numbered bank accounts into watertight sealed capsules before throwing them into this lake.
Q: Will you use divers to bring up the treasure?
NS: Yes, but the lake is 300 feet deep, so the first phase of the operation will involve high-tech equipment such as sub-bottom profilers, magnetometers, side-scan sonar and 3-D sonar. This will give us the location of possible targets. Remotely operated vehicles will then take pictures of the various anomalies at the bottom of the lake. Once we have a positive location, divers will go down and bring up the items. The danger of the lake's depth is compounded by the maze of fallen trees at the bottom of the lake. One diver died here years ago because he got stuck in the trees.
InDepth
Year-round, unless the lakes freeze in winter.
From the low 30s to mid 50s depending on the lake and the depth.
From 5 to 50 feet.
Accommodations, pension-hallberg.at.tf; Dive Operators, tauchstation.at, nautilus.at, tauch-mobil.at.
The mud contains little oxygen, so buried artifacts are often perfectly preserved. Artifact hunters say to stick your arms in and work by feel.
This Luger pistol was found in Lake Toplitz, in perfect working order.
