Lost to the World: Remarkable Story of a Buried Wartime Treasure

by Alexander Lynar (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  1998

  $3.25

  When Count Alexander Lynar retrieved the treasure trove of silver and porcelain that he had hidden at the end of the Second World War the story made headlines around the world. In this work, Alexander Lynar recalls his privileged childhood in pre-war and wartime Germany on the family's two vast estates. He describes a way of life lost for ever and a childhood spent under the increasing dominance of the Nazis. As the war drew to a close, the Russians were poised to overrun the family estate at Gorlsdorf. On 20 April 1945, Hitler's birthday, 16-year-old Alexander, at home on sick leave before joining the navy, took charge of burying what valuables he could. With the help of their coachman, gamekeeper and an estate worker, 15 cases were buried and a map made recording the precise location of the treasure. Thanks to the loyalty of those who remained the secret was never disclosed. The author and his mother, Princess Victoria, escaped to the West on a trailer drawn by an old tractor and taking as many people as they could with them. A few hours later the Russians reached Gorlsdorf. The Red Army looted and destroyed the castle and the grounds later became a hunting reserve for party bosses - among them Erich Mielke, head of Stasi. Fifty years later, after a life travelling the world and following the reunification of Germany, Alexander Lynar was at last able to return to claim the treasure.