Today’s mystery spot is Lake Toplitz. In this case it is not a natural mystery like “Racetrack Playa” but it is one because of the history behind it.
Lake Toplitz is located in Austria, in a very remote hard to get place. You can only access the lake by a small road that ends there. It is secluded and surrounded by the mountains. It has a very harsh winter, with lots of snow that makes it even harder to get to. It is also a very deep lake like 350 foot deep (100m). The lake is 1 mile long (1.6km), so it is a small tiny deep lake in the middle of nowhere. And to top it off it has only one restaurant.
All that setting was perfect for Hitler to use it to test underwater missiles for use in submarines. It was also perfect to the following urban myth.
As the war was coming to an end, the SS supposedly dumped millions of dollars’ worth of stolen goods in wooden cases. The myth has been inspired by many expeditions, mysterious deaths and lots of books.
It is true that some Nazis retreated to the lake at the end of the war and dumped lots of wooden crates into the lake, but nobody knows the contents.
In 1947 right after the war a US Navy diver drowned when he was caught up with the many logs that are at the bottom of the lake.
In 1959 a team organized by the German magazine Stern found £72m in counterfeited currency and a printing press. That money was part of the Operation Bernhard (I recommend the movie “The Counterfeiters to learn more about that Operation).
The in 1963 the Austrian government imposed a ban on explorations because an SS officer led an illegal dive that lead to the death of the diver.
In 2005 a new expedition using high tech equipment went in to solve the mystery but nothing was found.
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