Officials seek owners of Nazi gold

Officials are trying to determine who owns a solid gold cauldron found in a German lake which is believed to have been made for the Nazis, a Bavarian Finance Ministry spokesman said today.

The cauldron, which weighs 10.5 kilograms and contains gold worth an estimated €100,000 was recovered last year by a diver from Bavaria’s Chiemsee lake.

Experts at an archaeology museum in Munich have been examining it since and German television plans to show a documentary tomorrow exploring its origins and how it got into the lake.

Bavarian officials are weighing whether the 50-centimetre cauldron is simply "discovered treasure" which would give the diver equal ownership rights with the state government, Finance Ministry spokesman Bernd Schreiber said.

However, the diver would have no claims if it can be established that it belonged to Hitler’s Nazis, because all such items are considered state property, he said.

The cauldron is decorated with Celtic figures, which ARD television said suggests it was made on the orders of top Nazi ideologist, Alfred Rosenberg, who drew inspiration from mythology.

Rosenberg outlined plans to build a special Nazi education centre near the lake after the Second World War and the cauldron may have been thrown into the waters to prevent it falling into the hands of advancing allied forces, the ARD station said in a preview of its program.