Toplitzsee

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Toplitzsee
Toplitzsee2.JPG
Aerial view of the Toplitzsee, looking east
Geographical location Styria , Austria
Tributaries Front and rear waterfalls as well as underground drainage of the Kammersee
Drain Toplitz in the Grundlsee, Traun
Data
Coordinates 47 ° 38 '41 "  N , 13 ° 55' 45"  E Coordinates: 47 ° 38 '41 "  N , 13 ° 55' 45"  E
Toplitzsee (Styria)
Toplitzsee
Altitude above sea level 718  m above sea level A.
surface 54 ha
length 1.9 km
width 400 m
volume 33,700,000 m³
Maximum depth 103 m
Middle deep 62 m

particularities

No oxygen from a depth of 20 m

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The Toplitzsee is a small lake in the Salzkammergut in Styria ( Austria ). It is located in the municipality of Grundlsee .

Geography and hydrology

The Toplitzsee lies between the Kammersee , which is surrounded by mountain walls and is also known as the origin of the Traun , and the larger Grundlsee . It can be reached from Bad Aussee , Liezen district . It is located on the south side of the Dead Mountains and belongs to the Styrian part of the Salzkammergut.

The lake is fed by two waterfalls and an underground inflow from the Kammersee. The two incoming waterfalls are known as the front and rear waterfalls. The water of the lake no longer contains oxygen from a depth of about 20 m, and the salt content is increased there ( haloclines ). At the transition from the optically denser medium (salt water) to the optically thinner medium (surface water with less salt), total reflection occurs to a large extent , reflected or scattered light rays remain “trapped” (as in a solar pond ), resulting in the “black water” of Lake Toplitzsee. The lake is drained by the Toplitz , which flows into the Grundlsee.

The western end of the lake can be reached on foot in around 20 minutes from the Gößl district . In this area, the Toplitz is fed via a drainage structure. In the immediate vicinity of this building there is a restaurant and a memorial stone that commemorates the first meeting between Archduke Johann of Austria and his future wife Anna Plochl .

Because you cannot walk around the lake due to the topography, a shipping company operates a liner service from the western end of the lake to the Kammersee with so-called plattens .

zoology

In 1983 the 23 cm long Toplitzsee worm ( Lumbricus cf. Polyphemus ) was found at a depth of 60 meters , which lives in the oxygen-free , hydrogen sulfide-containing deep water of the lake.

Treasure hunt

View over the Toplitzsee in west direction

Between 1943 and 1945, the German navy carried out numerous weapons tests on the lake ; here there was a branch of the TVA Eckernförde . At the end of the war, boxes with counterfeit British pound banknotes from Operation Bernhard were sunk in the lake, which should have been used to weaken the British economy.

Rumor has it that gold reserves of the Third Reich , notes for numbered accounts and art objects were sunk in the lake at the end of the war . Numerous dives, including with small submarines , for example by Hans Fricke and employees from Germany with the GEO submersible, have only found counterfeit money boxes and war relics as well as the aforementioned Toplitzseewurm.

In August 1959, on the initiative of the Stern journalist Wolfgang Loehde , divers brought the first boxes of counterfeit money (50 pound notes with a value of 380 million schillings at the time , which corresponds to a current value of around 183 million euros) to the light of day. Also in 1959 the film Der Schatz vom Toplitzsee was made with Gert Fröbe . The lake is also mentioned in the 1964 film Goldfinger with a reference to the treasure allegedly hidden there.

The many tree trunks that do not rot in the lake make diving extremely difficult and dangerous. On October 6, 1963, a diver drowned in the lake during an unauthorized treasure hunt. The diving company was run by a right-wing extremist former member of Wilhelm Canaris' intelligence service and had primarily political backgrounds . The lake was mapped during the four-week search for the diver's body and its recovery . Subsequent dives to salvage war material, commissioned by the Federal Ministry of the Interior , should have lasted until spring 1964, but were not resumed after the winter break for cost reasons. From then on, the lake was closed to all underwater activities by the responsible authorities. The diving ban was in effect until 1983. In 2000, another team (American diving company Oceaneering ) examined the lake bed for three weeks. The only result: a box full of crown corks (bottle tops) that five regulars' table brothers sunk in the lake in 1984. The Austrian Federal Forests, as administrators of the lake, allowed a US company to conduct a detailed search for the years 2005–2008. Another search operation, which was to be led by the American Norman Scott, was approved by the Austrian Federal Forests at the end of March 2009 . The lake would have been examined for any war relics, but before each find was recovered, the water experts in Scharfling should have carried out an environmental impact assessment. The project, postponed several times, was finally canceled by the diving team in 2009 .

In 2012 the Austrian Federal Forests considered having the lake scientifically dived and mapped again.

gallery

  • The western end of the Toplitzsee

  • The lake is photographed towards the Kammersee

  • The “Fischerhütte” restaurant at the western end

  • At the fisherman's hut, newspaper clippings provide information about the treasure hunt in the lake

  • Memorial stone commemorating the meeting between Archduke Johann and Anna Plochl

  • Inscription:
    "1819 July 19th
    This is where
    Archduke Johann
    Anna Plochl met for the first time "

  • Outlet structure at the western end

  • An inscription on the outlet structure draws attention to the origin of the Traun

literature

  • Erich Gabriel: "War relics from the Toplitzsee". Austria's army divers are celebrating an anniversary. Catalog for the special exhibition ... from November 23, 1985 . Heeresgeschichtliches Museum (Military Science Institute), Vienna 1985, OBV .
  • Markus Köberl: The Toplitzsee, where history and legend meet . Österreichischer Bundesverlag, Vienna 1990, ISBN 3-215-07491-5 . (In parts from: Markus Köberl: Der Toplitzsee. A contribution to the contemporary history of the Ausseerland . Dissertation, University of Vienna, Vienna 1988, OBV ).
  • Werner Kopacka : Toplitzsee secret revealed . Steirische Verlagsgesellschaft, Graz 2001, ISBN 3-85489-041-9 .
  • Gerhard Zauner: Lost Treasures in the Salzkammergut. The search for the mysterious Nazi gold . Stocker, Graz (among others) 2003, ISBN 3-7020-0985-X .
  • Johannes Pichler: "The Toplitzsee Myth". A historical search for traces of the foundations of a legend . Diploma thesis, University of Salzburg, Salzburg 2003, OBV .
  • Markus Köberl: The Toplitzsee myth. In search of the hidden treasure . In: Thomas Hellmuth (Ed.): Visionaries move the world. A reading book through the Salzkammergut . Pustet, Salzburg (inter alia) 2005, ISBN 3-7025-0502-4 , pp. 113-118.
  • Hans W. Fricke : The Toplitzsee. My journey through time. The Toplitzsee myth, a dive into the past . Amalthea Signum, Vienna 2009, ISBN 978-3-85002-676-5 .

Web links

Commons : Toplitzsee  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Styrian Lake Report (2008) , Styrian Provincial Government, (PDF file)
  2. ↑ Diving trip in the Toplitzsee. The traces of the Nazis ( Memento of the original from December 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: zdf.de , September 2, 2003, accessed on September 11, 2013. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zdf.de
  3. ↑ Hans Fricke: Search for traces in the Toplitzsee ( memento of the original from December 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: zdf.de , September 2, 2003, accessed on September 11, 2013; War junk in the alpine lake. Trash cans of the Nazi empire ( Memento of the original from December 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: zdf.de , September 2, 2003, accessed on September 11, 2013. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zdf.de
     @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zdf.de
  4. ↑ Again pounds from the bottom of the lake . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna August 8, 1959, p. 3 , top right ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  5. ↑ Fake 50 pound notes from the Toplitzsee. The English had maintained until the very end that the Germans had only forged small pound notes . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna August 12, 1959, p. 3 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  6. ↑ Ingrid Hilbrand: The Toplitzsee myth - a journalist knows more!  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: arf.at , April 2, 2012, accessed on September 11, 2013.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.arf.at  
  7. ↑ Paul Uccusic: Schatztaucher drowned in Toplitzsee. Nineteen-year-old German was the first to die in the agent conflict over the sunk Nazi secrets . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna October 8, 1963, p. 1 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized). ;
    Death in the Toplitzsee. A mysterious diving accident ( memento of the original from December 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive )     Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: zdf.de , September 2, 2003, accessed on September 11, 2013. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zdf.de
  8. ↑ Paul Uccusic: In a few days: Diving after Egner's corpse . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna October 11, 1963, p. 5 ( Arbeiter-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  9. ↑ R. Jellinek, P (aul) Uccusic: Toplitzsee: corpse of the diver Egner on the screen of the television set . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna October 31, 1963, p. 1 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  10. ↑ Köberl: The Toplitzsee, where history and legend meet .
  11. ^ Luke Harding : Last dive for Lake Toplitz's Nazi gold . (English). In: guardian.co.uk , April 6, 2005, accessed June 9, 2011.
  12. ↑ No more dives in the Toplitzsee . In: ooe.orf.at , September 30, 2009, accessed June 10, 2011.
  13. ↑ Florian Horcicka: Red Bull looking for Nazi gold in the Toplitzsee . In: format.at , June 16, 2012, accessed on September 11, 2013;
    Diving trips in the Toplitzsee are a topic again . In: derstandard.at , June 18, 2012, accessed on September 11, 2013.

Remarks

  1. ↑ According to the Stern report , Heinrich Himmler's diaries and identity cards were retrieved from the lake on August 10, 1959 . - See: Himmler's diary brought from the Toplitzsee? In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna August 11, 1959, p. 5 , middle right ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  2. ↑ For the Toplitzsee research community founded in 1962 with chairman Heinz Riegel and exponents Otto Skorzeny and Wilhelm Höttl , see Andreas Förster: Treasure robbers: the Stasi's search for the gold of the Nazi era . Links, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-86153-204-2 , pp.  147-150, online . Riegel, a German citizen, the end of October 1963 in Bad Aussee one of Austrian authorities representatives attended Toplitz press conference held, was for a banishment bookmarked. - See: Pontoons for Toplitzsee diving ready . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna October 27, 1963, p.
     5 ( Arbeiter-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).