Digging begins for Poland's mysterious Nazi gold train

WROCLAW , Poland, Aug. 16 (UPI) -- A team of 35 researchers began digging Tuesday in Poland for a long-rumored underground train which may or may not be laden with Nazi gold.

Trains carrying gold and other treasure crossed Poland to Germany at the end of World War II as the German military sought to keep the valuables from the advancing Soviet army. Not all trains arrived, and rumors have persisted since 1945 that a mysterious train of Nazi gold can be found in a tunnel on tracks under a hill between Wroclaw and Walbrzych in southwestern Poland.

After years of analysis, and an announcement of the project one year ago by project leaders Piotr Koper and Andreas Richter, digging begins Tuesday.

"We'll dig down six meters [20 feet] in three areas along a 100-meter [330-foot] stretch of the old railway tracks," project spokesman Andrzej Gaik said on Friday. "The excavation will give us a clear answer. Is it there or not?"

The Polish news website Wiadomosci Walbrzyskie reported that up to 300 tons of gold could be aboard the long-lost train, if it exists. It could also contain military equipment or any number of other items.

The town of Walbrzych was known as Waldenburg during the German occupation of the 1940s, and ethnic Germans were removed from the area after the war; there are few remaining residents who lived in the area in 1945.