on April . Göring’s troops had carried the most spectacular
items into a secret cavern walled into a tunnel beneath his staff
quarters on the Unsterstein Mountain. As the French Moroccan
troops invaded Berchtesgaden, Hofer and Göring’s secretary
Fräulein Limberger fled the train. “Jewel cases were opened,”
said Göring later, “and the gems taken, the settings were scat-
tered all around.”
After the French came the Americans, the famous st
Airborne Division. Questioning Göring’s household staff, Lieu-
tenant Raymond F. Newkirk heard the first rumors of the
walled-up cavern. The tunnel’s engineer was located, and he led
Newkirk to the second level of a series of underground tunnels.
A platoon of U.S. Army engineers broke into the hidden room.
It took four days to empty the cavern. It was very damp, and
the priceless contents were protected from the water dripping
from the ceiling only by costly tapestries that had been hastily
flung over them. The paintings were stacked up outside
works by Rubens, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Boucher, and Bot-
ticelli. There was the “Infanta Margareta” by Velázquez, which
Göring had bought from a seized Rothschild collection in ;
and there was a “Rembrandt” head of an old man with marvel-
ous nuances of gray, which Göring had bought from a Paris
dealer in .*
Göring never let his blue luggage out of his sight. Occa-
sionally he checked his magnificently crafted toilet case with all
the colognes, hand cream, and talcum powder to make sure that
nothing was missing.
“Where are your private jewels?” he was asked by one in-
terrogator.
“I would like to know that myself,” was his wan reply.
- The “Rembrandt” was a fake.