Treasure of Štěchovice

Born in 1934 in little town Kovářská near Chomutov, in the area of the former Sudeten.  He graduated from the Mining Engineering School in Jáchymov and Příbram.

In the 50s he worked as a miner in Jáchymov uranium mines. The period between 1961-62 he spent in prison Valdice, together with Emil Klein. After his release he left the country for Germany and later on for the United States. The owner of gold mines in South America (Bolivian company Gaensel Gold Mines), later owner of silver mines in Montana in the US. In the South America he looked for nazi officers and VIP, who retired there from Germany. In 1968 he published a book, “The Prague Connection” (Czech translation with the title Štěchovice Treasure, published in 1992 by Horizont publishing house). He married in 2003, his wife‘s name is Ladislava.

Helmut Gaensel stood as a candidate in the elections for the European Parliament, representing OFD (Civil Federal Democracy).

80 YEARS OLD HELMUT GAENSEL

This year Helmut Gaensel celebrated his amazing 80th birthday! And how else, but by other activities that are to lead him to the desired Štěchovice treasure. Actual snap took him together with the son of colonel Siegfried Klein during his stay in Štěchovice (more information see the News section).

Helmut Gaensel was born in Kovářská village in 1934. Kovářská township is situated on the ridge of Krušné hory in the valley of the stream Černá voda in Chomutov district in Ústí region. The picture shows Gaensel’s birth house. Both of hisparents had musical talent – although his father Franz earned his living as a Chamber decorator but at the same time he also actes as the conductor of the orchestra in Chomutov. There he met his future wife Marta, who sang mainly in various cabarets.

Most of the war years Helmut Gaensel spent in Prague with his mother only and he also followed her at the expulsion to the saxon village Neue Schleuse. From there, he secretly returned to his grandmother to Kovářská who was not affected by the transfer and after complicated peripeta he succeeded to stay with her forever.

In 1949 he began to work as a miner in Jáchymov uranium mines.

1954 – 1956: Military service with the 60th battalion PTP Mošnov near Ostrava.

In 1959 he was convicted of espionage against Czechoslovakia. But the judgment is fictional and the goal is to get Gaensel close to colonel Klein who is being held in Valdice prison. Gaensel promised Czechoslovak authorities to assist in obtaining information that would lead to finding Štěchovice treasure. After two years spent alongside Klein for several months, however, an explicit result is stil absent.

1964 - Colonel Klein was released from prison and deported to Germany.

1964 - 1968 Helmut Gaensel begins to live the life of an adventurer. In the service of the Czechoslovak authorities he is shuttling between East and West (works as a Prague link), helps with the return of German prisoners off Czechoslovakia and in exchange he receives all sorts of information.

1968 – The first major attempt was to be undertaken to unearth Štěchovice treasure. The date 21st of June was missed but it was shifted to September. After the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Army Gaensel rested in Germany where he currently acts. In the same year he goes to Brazil, where he co-operates with German war veterans and opens gold mines here. He established the company of Gaensel Gold Mines.

1977 – Witnin the context of the Persian carpet he helps the US CIA actions to defeat Iranian illegal trade with uranium. Those days US president Jimmy Carter gives him his thanks. In the coming years he co-operates particularly with American Republicans and receives many recognitions, for example from the president Ronald Reagan and the foreign minister Alexander Haig.

In the following years he is undertaking in the mining industry, particularly in developing mining in silver mines in the American Salt Lake City. He is also involved in the gold mines in Bolivia and silver mines in Montana and Colorado.

1990 – He returns to Czechoslovakia to continue the search for the Štěchovice treasure (more information in other sections).

2003 – He got married, his wife‘s name is Laďka Gaensel.

2014 – He continues in search of Štěchovice treasure and Amber Chamber, celebrating his 80th birthday, which some media also detected.

2019 – Helmut Gaensel, being almost 85 and in good shape, decided to resume the treasure hunt.

Treasure in the media

HELMUT GAENSEL ON CZECH TELEVISION

For the end of World War II Czech Television has prepared a journalistic twenty-part series Spring 45 … when the war ended in our country. The series provides interesting insights and new perspectives on events that are not generally known or so far have not been talked about too much. In mapping the events that brought the war to the finals in Benešovsko, Czech TV staff recalled also the history of the quest for the Štěchovice treasure. The series was shot in Dušno ravine over Štěchovice dam and Jindřich Marek from the Military History Institute featured in the coverage, and of course, guru of all treasure seekers Helmut Gaensel. He again expressed his firm belief that the treasure exists. He again appealed to the testimony of people who in 1945 with their own eyes saw dozens of light-coloured boxes and were even present at their impregnating near a special impregnation kiln. He also reminded a pair of JU-52 aircrafts which at the end of the war landed with an unknown cargo near Hradištko and after unloading when they failed to get off due to sub irrigation of terrain, aeroplanes were disassembled overnight and their parts stored in an unknown place. Jindřich Marek detailed the circumstances of finding and picking of so-called Frank‘s archive by the Americans in 1946 and pointed out that the legend of Štěchovice treasure could have been born right here but according to him it could be only a legend. Although he would wish finding of other artefacts, with regard to the role of Emil Klein in the last days of the war he does not believe them too much. According to him Emil Klein was entrusted with a too dangerous task (more details – see chapter Wallenstein stretches to Prague), to which the bearer of fundamental secrets of the Third Reich would not get an order. Helmut Gaensel admitted with a smile that despite information he received from Emil Klein, despite plans he obtained in South America, although he used the most modern technologies of American scientists, NASA workers and dozens of other experts in his search, the quest of the treasure can be summed up easily: „Nothing yet.“ He still believes in finding and picking up the treasure and says: „70 years after the end of the war would be a nice symbol for finding the treasure. Maybe, I will fill it.“

In February 2021 Czech Television organized in the popular cycle of debates Historie.cs one episode dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the discovery of the so-called Štěchovice Archive (February 11, 1946). The discussion, moderated by Přemysl Čech, was attended by Jindřich Marek, the employee of the Military History Institute, historian Jaroslav V. Mareš, author of the book „Štěchovice Treasure - The End of Legends“, and Michal Sejk, head of the Benešov State Regional Archive. The authors of the show let Helmut Gaensel speak as well and he confirmed that next round of the search of the Štěchovice Treasure was being prepared in cooperation with American investors.

You can watch the whole episode here: https://www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/10150778447-historie -cs/221411058220007/

You can also find a chapter on the Štěchovice treasure in the book based on the television show The Wandering Camera. The book „Wandering Camera 32“ will take you, in the chapter about the Štěchovice treasure, to places that are connected to the legend of the most famous Czech treasure. It will guide you through the nature trail „Vystěhované Hradištko“ so you can go on your own to places that have been associated with the search for several decades. You will get acquainted with the only known facts connected to Štěchovice and these are the informations about excavating the so-called Frank´s Archive. You will go through the entire history of the treasure hunt which unfolds from this event and you will be cought by the contagious optimism of Helmut Gaensel, who reveals his newest intentions to bring the treasure to the light of the world for good. „The Wondering Camera 32“ book was published by freytagandberndt.

JUBILEE OF THE BIG DETECTOR

I doubted that more convoluted secrets and at the same time more than a story Štěchovice treasure would be found in the Czech Republic. Is there at all a well fed chimera? After all, looking almost continuously since 1946, luck around Stechovice tested perhaps hundreds of searchers, in some places the country is drilled like a swiss cheese. Common mattocs were used, but also drilling rigs, some shafts were of mine parameters, georadars and helicopters were used - and the result? One perfect but a great media seized NOTHING!

Most diligent searcher for all those decades was undoubtedly Helmut Gaensel. He was born in Kovářská village near Chomutov in 1934 in a German family and in these days he celebrated his eightieth birthday in full strength. We balance along with him.

All the madness began on February 11, 1946, when a group of American soldiers arrived to Štěchovice. Without the knowledge and permission of the Czechoslovak offices they opened until then unknown stole, they unearth here crates with a part of the K H Frank archives and shift them to Germany. At that time, the interior in their hands the Colonel Emil Klein, former commander of SS sappers school in Hradištko near Štěchovice.

Immediately he is interrogated and suggests that there in the underground around the village could be more. But he is not more presise. Defence minister Alexei Čepička creates the areas as of military training places and digging begins.

In subsequent years also the Ministry of Interior is digging here, the last works by the old regime were organized by an arms dealer still around November 1989 - foreign trade enterprise Omnipol. In the nineties enter Helmut Gaensel, Josef Mužík and a myriad of other searchers, including for instance the actor Ondřeje Vetchý, and some of them try this luck still today.

I do observe their activitiesed as a journalist throughout those twenty-five years. The legend of the treasure has directly a luxury background: something – in the Frank‘s stole – relly there was someting found. During the war local inhabitants were evicted from there and a German military space was created here - none of us could know what was going on there. Indeed, something could be hidden here - the famous Amber Chamber and other things are still mising.

Engineers settled here, there are old mine works here, Štěchovice dam was finished during the war - ideal place to play hide and seek. And finally: Helmut Gaensel knew Colonel Klein for his incarceration here and in the subsequent contacts after Klein‘s departure to Germany. No one could concieve better arrangements for storage of this treasure. Over the years I crawled around Stechovice with various seekers crisscross, crawling underground, looking at historical pictures and most often still asking Helmut Gaensel the same question: „So when the reasure will be out?“ And in an imperfect Czech, I still received the same answer:“Just, just, Mr. Cech.“ The most famous seeker believes in Štěchovice treasure even in his eighties and still hopes that if someone finds it, it will be just him. But after all, he is opening a door in case the treasure was still a fiction: „And if I found it, so also the years of search were worth it,“ he says. And I believe him.

Author: Přemysl Čech
Talk show: The opinions and arguments | Station: Czech Radio Plus

PRESS RELEASE: ANOTHER ATTEMPT TO FIND THE ŠTĚCHOVICE TREASURE

Hradištko pod Medníkem Max 13, 2019. – Another stage in the search for Štěchovice treasure has been announced by an American named Bruce Mottl. He announced creation of the Dakota International Exploration Group based in South Dakota, which is about to collect the treasure. This company was founded by four individuals including Helmut Gaensel, a tireless treasure hunter. The legal service to the hunters in the Czech Republic is provided by a legal office rutland and partners led by JUDr. Monika Rutland.

Entrepreneur Bruce Mottl stated to his intentions: “I believe in success mainly because I and my friends have managed to obtain relevant documents recently released from archives of US secret services and sources from South American Paraguay. We dispose of such information that I think we will not be complicatedly looking for the treasure but rather we will pick it up“.

Helmut Gaensel, who will celebrate his 85th birthday this June, for the next stage of the Štěchovice treasure search said: “I have been convinced of the existence of the treasure since I met Colonel Emil Klein in the year 1964, who commanded the SS Engineer School in Hradištko during the war. I have devoted many years of my life and tens of millions of crowns to finding the right place. But this time I am convinced more than ever before that we have the right place“.

Seekers want to focus on three very specific places around Štěchovice, where the treasure shoul have been deposited since the end of World War II. Helmut Gaensel was looking for it in these places already in the second half of the 1960s, when he had to stop the work after the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Soviet troops. He began to look for it again back in the 1990s. The company of Bruce Mottl has a million dollars available for the first stage of work. If they succeed to obtain all necessary pertmits, they would like to dig the ground for the first time this fall.

It is estimated that the underground at Štěchovice can hide scientific knowledge, especially from the former Emperor Wilhelm‘s Institute. In addition valuables plundered by the Nazis throughout Europe, as well as works of art from Hermann Göring‘s collection and other objects can be hidden here. In view of the international overlap of this event., the seekers will work in coordination with the European Union‘s authorities and the Czech government.

Contact: Helmut Gaensel, mandat.sro@seznam.cz
Legal representation: monika.rutland@rutlands.cz

In the spring of 2014 the son of Colonel Siegfried Klein came to see Helmut Gaensel to Hradistko. Despite the fact that Siegfried Klein was born into a family of Commander Pionier Schule der Waffen SS Hradischko - the engineer school - in Hradištko of Emil Klein in 1943, he came up at this place again now. More details in the article.

WALL STREET JOURNAL ARTICLE ON HELMUT GAENSEL

The story of the hunt for the Amber Chamber by Helmut Gaensel has again been picked up by the international media. This time by the respected Wall Street Journal. Journalist Jennifer Saranow in an on-line article from November 9 on the page W1 has written about the captivating story of the lost treasures of the World. The Amber Chamber is among the lost treasures of the World including the Holy Grail, and the Spanish Galeon of gold sunk off South America. Included in the article is an inter-active map where it is possible to click on the symbols of the lost treasures and gain more information.