Monday, Jul 24, 2006
Latter-Day Czech Treasure Hunters Seek to Uncover Castle's Deep Secret
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Every week a specially selected team abseils into the bowels of a medieval Czech castle in search of an unknown water course, secret passage or, even better, the Nazi treasure said to lurk there.
 An aerial view shows Zbiroh Castle
© AFP Vadim Kramer"We will see what we find," smiled businessman and latter-day treasure hunter, Jaroslav Pacha, who bought the ruined Zbiroh castle situated around 40 kilometres (25 miles) from Prague in 2001 and turned it into a conference centre.
Pacha's eyes light up at the prospect of what the painstaking excavations of one of the deepest wells in Europe might reveal.
He has hired a private security company, specialized in commando raids and normally used for bodyguard operations, to plunge the depths of the well dug for the original castle in the XIIth century.
"It is hard and dangerous work, no one else would want to do it," said Martin Drhovsky, Zbiroh's foreman who oversees the excavation in a small room in the castle's basement.
The experts from SCSA Security have hauled up thousands of buckets of earth and rubble over the last two years. Around 60 metres (200 feet) down they discovered a stock of ancient weapons and Nazi documents without any great value, probably dumped there by the SS which occupied the castle between 1943 and the defeat of the Third Reich.
A persistent local rumour has it that the castle still hides Nazi treasure left there in the last days of the regime as Russian and US troops closed in from East and West.
"We know from witnesses that a Nazi aircraft landed at the nearby airport a few days before they left, that large cases were unloaded and taken to the castle," Pacha explained.
 An aerial view Zbiroh Castle
© AFP Vadim Kramer"We know as well that the last SS fled on foot without their uniforms and without taking anything. Since then, no one has found any trace of the cases and no one knows what was in them," he added.
While Pacha presents himself as a realist - he made a personal fortune from his Prague-based luxury catering service - the 46-year-old becomes animated at the thought of uncovering the ultimate Nazi treasure trove.
The patron of the Gastro Zofin restaurant - a top notch Prague establishment used to wining and dining visiting heads of state and celebrities - dreams that the famous "amber room" - sometimes described as the Eighth Wonder of the World - could be stashed somewhere in Zbiroh's labyrinth.
The amber room, made from precious 18th century panels, was stolen by the Nazis from Saint Petersburg and disappeared without trace during the last gasps of the WWII in 1945.
In addition to the well, Zbiroh castle, which sits atop a hill, has a series of tunnels, hiding places and secret passages constructed over the centuries but closed off behind metres of cement by the Nazis. Pacha is certain "the Nazi cases are somewhere."
In the meantime, Pacha is banking on a more certain earner -- tourism -- to recuperate the 200 million koruna ( around 7 million euros, 8.9 million dollars) investment in buying and restoring the castle.
For that price-tag, everything has been renovated and repainted, even the two massive lions which guard the entrance to the castle and the salon decorated by the famous Czech art-nouveau painter, Alphons Mucha.
Mucha spent several years at the castle when it was owned by a rich family who liked to patronise the arts.
In Nazi hands, the castle's main mission was as a radio signals tracking station. The Czechoslovak Communist army put Zbiroh to similar use for its Soviet-bloc masters. The castle and its special units, including the radar detection centre, SIGINT, was wiped from maps in a bid to keep its mission secret.
The centre was closed down in 1994, five years after the Communist regime was swept away by the Velvet Revolution.
Around a decade later, at the end of a complex administrative process, the castle, in a dilapidated state following the ravages of the Communist era and several years of neglect, was handed over to Zbiroh town hall. Faced with the heavy costs of restoration and upkeep, it sought a buyer.
"Everything was in ruins," Pacha recounts with a smile. Two years of work have given Zbiroh the feel of a plush international hotel, though some of the historical aura of other Czech castles has been lost in the process.
The castle opened its doors to visitors last Summer. Guests are attracted for seminars, marketing events and no expense spared marriages.
The excavations are kept away from the public with work continuing behind closed doors and out of sight of the curious.
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