Confusion, fire, and an army invasion: an important Nazi gold update

I bet you didn’t think the Nazi gold story could get any crazier, and that’d we have to take a break from the Nazi gold updates until the gold was, once and for all, found. Not so fast, my friend.

This story began with a fat bar of probable Nazi gold being found by a kid swimming in a lake and now centers around the possible discovery of a legendary missing train filled with Nazi gold in Poland.

This weekend brought twist after twist to the Nazi gold story, and now Poland appears to be in complete, utter chaos as the Nazi gold’s existence continues to be disputed.

And there are people maybe trying to light the train on fire.

And the Polish army is moving in.

You’ll remember last Friday’s update, when the deputy culture minister of Poland, Piotr Zuchowski, said that there’s a “99% chance” that the train exists. Now the Polish government appears to be backpedaling on their initial claims of near-absolute certainty as to the existence of the Nazi gold train. The Guardian reports Tomasz Smolarz, the regional governor of the area, “expressed serious doubts about the train’s existence”:

“It’s impossible to claim that such a find actually exists at the location indicated based on the documents that have been submitted,” Smolarz said, adding that he had set up a special unit including historians and geologists to scrutinise the alleged discovery.

But that hasn’t slowed the Nazi gold drama. The Telegraph reported the “suspected area of the armoured train and its cargo” went up in flames on Sunday night, though authorities are saying it wasn’t arson. (Sure.) The fire was, evidently, a big fire, taking five fire trucks to extinguish.

There’s enough funny business going on that the Polish government, the Telegraph reports, is planning on sending in the army to get to the bottom of this Nazi gold mystery. Radar technology, apparently, will be used in determining whether the Nazi gold is there, and troops from “several units” would be drawn to “check the alleged site.”

Just another crazy day riding the Nazi gold train.

The Nazi gold saga:

German teen finds a giant bar of possible Nazi gold (?) at the bottom of a lake

Did some treasure hunters find a boatload of Nazi gold?

Important Nazi gold update: The Nazi gold train exists and is probably filled with Nazi gold

Michael Rosen is a reporter for Fusion based out of Oakland.