Lower Silesia – a key region of the Third Reich
With its mountainous terrain and location far beyond the reach of American and British aviation, Lower Silesia was considered a key region by German strategists in the final days of the global conflict. In addition to the tactical game of war, however, events took place here, many of which we are still unable to explain – witnesses and some participants were killed on the spot so that no outsiders would reveal secrets. And what secrets were involved? The Reich’s treasures were hidden in adits, former mine galleries and underground castles. And most likely, among them were not just gold, looted from Polish churches, museums and private art collections. As if that wasn’t enough, efforts were made to prevent secret ministry documents, technical documentation of new types of weapons, encryption machines or information on Nazi medical experiments from falling into the hands of American and Soviet counterintelligence agents.
Książ Castle and the mysterious Riese tunnels
The wartime history of Książ Castle near Walbrzych is closely related to the secret German operation known by the code name Riese. The Germans – with the hands of thousands of inmates of the Groß-Rosen camp – had been conducting mining and construction work in the Owl Mountains since 1943. The huge underground complex also included rooms and corridors located more than 50 meters below the chambers of the former Hochberg residence, with a hidden elevator leading to them from a floor designated exclusively for Hitler. What was the purpose of the mysterious tunnels, drilled in inaccessible mountainous areas of Lower Silesia? This is not entirely known, although rumors of ongoing work here on the Wunderwaffe, or miraculous weapons, German flying discs, which were to give the Nazis victory in the war, can be put between fairy tales.
Undiscovered secrets of Lower Silesia
Explaining the mystery of such places as Osowka, Walim and Włodarz, which are part of the aforementioned Riese complex, is not made easier by the lack of any documents explaining their purpose. The full structure of the underground network of tunnels remains unknown, moreover, both because we do not have maps, which must have existed in the case of an undertaking as complex as this, and because in the last days of the war, deliberate collapses of individual corridors and entrances to rooms were carried out on the orders of high-ranking SS officers. The Ksiaz Castle – according to the most likely hypothesis – was being prepared for the headquarters of Hitler’s military command, whose staff totaled several thousand people. But it is not impossible that the underground tunnels were also used by the Germans for other purposes – to hide treasures, collected over the years by troops of soldiers and intelligence officers specially assigned to this task.
Is the Amber Chamber hidden in Riese?
Just as it has not been possible to this day either to confirm the existence of some parts of the underground complex that was built until the end of the war, or even to find all the entrances to those shelters, mines and adits that have been found, it can be assumed that lost items of great value are still hidden in the Owl Mountains or elsewhere in Lower Silesia. And among them, who knows, perhaps the famous Amber Chamber, looted from the Tsarskoye Selo residence, which during the siege of Leningrad was first dismantled by the Nazis and later taken to Königsberg, from where it was said to have ended up in the Konrad Hall at Książ Castle?
