Hidden Nazi Train, Forgotten World Underground World

Copyright Marvel Sega

The following article concerning a Nazi train secret from WWII has been researched in connection with the epic mystery thriller fiction series The Elements. If you like this article and want to notified of giveaways and the forthcoming series sign up for The Elements newsletter.

Disclaimer

The following has been researched and compiled from all available sources on the Net. Where sources are known, credits have been provided to the sources and copyright holders. None of the images in this article are by the author or does the article represent original research. However, as of publication date it is in the authors opinion that this article is the most comprehensive treatment of the subject currently available on the Net. Author Mark David.   Version 19.11.15

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Nazi Train Secret, Ksiaz Castle Poland

It’s not everyday an underground complex on the size of the largest becomes part of a past linking ancient grand castles with the end games of a war gone mad, carnage, defeat on the doorstep, crimes committed, gold and loot to be hidden and perhaps even more yet to be revealed. Such was the discovery made on August 28, 2015 in Walbrzych, Poland.

Armoured Train Discovery

It could be one of the great discoveries of the war. Some historians believe up to three trains laden with arms, art, gold and archives vanished in a 18 sq mile area near the present Czech border as the Red Army advanced in 1945. The strategic area includes Hitler’s command post at the grandiose Ksiaz Castle (formerly known as Fürstenstein) and Project Riese, a suspected secret weapons programme.

MBV-2 ARMOURED TRAIN, KRAKOW. FOTO TOMASZ WIECH / AGENCJA GAZETA

This has recently been confirmed with the news that a witness confessed the trains existence of at least one train as told by one of the men (treasure hunters Szpakowski, Koper and Richter) claiming they have found the train using radar scanning equipment. The witness is said to be one of those who helped hide the train in the tunnel complex called Riese, making a sketch of its location. Local media have broadcast images of digging equipment now at the site.

IMAGE COURTESY OF THE POLISH MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Background

Riese (German for ‘giant’) – is the name of the largest mining and construction project of the second world war conducted by the Nazis, located in the Owl Mountains (Góry Sowie, Poland) below the castle of Książ, built 1943-1945. The existence of a Nazi gold train, its whereabouts and its cargo – possibly stolen valuables and artworks – remained one of the great unsolved mysteries of the second world war. The tunnel complex hit the headlines in August 2015 as the treasure hunters claimed they had identified a legendary Nazi train packed with weapons, gold, money, and archives hidden in a long-forgotten tunnel in the Polish mountains.

A number of trains are believed to have been used by the Nazis in the 1940s to transport goods stolen from people in eastern Europe back to Berlin. While some might have made it to the German capital, others are believed to have been left behind as Soviet troops advanced in 1945.

IMAGE COURTESY OF THE POLISH MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Discovery Confirmed

The local Walbrzych District Council has said that it has received notification on the location of a “railway tunnel with a multi-level complex of underground corridors from the days of World War II.” The statement tallies with a report in the local Gazeta Wroclawska newspaper which claimed that a “great” tunnel had been found that could be longer than 2 kilometers. The newspaper also confirmed the tunnel had been found by the treasure hunters who had begun their effort to locate the train in August 2015, apparently aided not only by the sketch by the now deceased witness but also by a map drawn up in 1926.

© 2015 XYZ SPÓŁKA CYWILNA PIOTR KOPER & ANDREAS RICHTER

The Tunnel Complex called Riese

Riese means ‘giant’ in German, and this was where Hitler’s Wunderwaffe (magic weapons) were supposedly under development. It is unclear to what extent the underground mega city and arms factory actually functioned and how much of what we know is simply surviving propaganda. Some tunnels are flooded but in others are German machine guns and prisoner-of-war graffiti.

What we do know is that the finished concrete tunnels stretch almost 3,200 square meters. There are claims of a hidden laboratory where German scientist Hubertus Strughold conducted rocket research.

IMAGE COURTESY OF THE POLISH MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Already in 1942 the Ksiaz brought workers from Italy, followed by 400 miners of Donbass. Damages in 1943 by the Allied air forces to the German rocket research center on the island of Usedom, forced the Reich to relocate their Experimental Center to Ksiaz Castle. In 1944, there were over 3,000 forced laborers and prisoners working beneath the Castle. Huge quantities of building materials – reinforced concrete, steel, cement and sand were transported to the nearby town of Walbrzych.

IMAGE COURTESY OF THE POLISH MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Intensive works continued until 10 May, despite the fact that Hitler had already committed suicide, Festung Breslau capitulated, and the command of the German capitulation was signed the day before. According to documents from the Archives in Koblenz, Ksiaz Castle was to become a repository of documents from the SS and the Reich Security Main Office. The action was code-named Brabant Joseph I.

IMAGE COURTESY OF THE POLISH MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Details

The Polish Ministry has since confirmed the location of the train using ground-penetrating radar and engineers will begin surveying the site to determine how the armoured and possibly booby-trapped train can be retrieved. Poland’s Culture Ministry announced that the location of the Nazi train was revealed to Piotr Koper of Poland and Andreas Richter of Germany, through a deathbed confession. “On the death-bed, this person communicated the information together with a sketch, where this might possibly be.”

IMAGE COURTESY OF THE POLISH MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

The treasure-hunters found the 100-meter-long armoured train using ground-penetrating radar equipment, confirming what they believe to be a train more than 100 meters (330 feet), since confirmed by the Polish Deputy Culture Minister Piotr Zuchowski quoted as saying “I am over 99 percent sure that such a train exists.” Koper and Richter immediately submitted a claim to the Polish government – under Polish law those who find treasure findings can keep 10 per cent of the value of their find.

IMAGE COURTESY OF THE POLISH MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

The radar image they released almost certainly shows a Nazi train located in an underground tunnel constructed by the Nazis along a 4km stretch of track branching off the Wroclaw-Walbryzch railway line. News is scarce however, as the authorities are keeping the exact location hidden, thought to be a sideline removed from the railway after the train had been driven into the underground tunnel complex to be buried for ever.

© 2015 XYZ SPÓŁKA CYWILNA PIOTR KOPER & ANDREAS RICHTER

The BBC’s Adam Easton in Warsaw says no documents have ever been discovered confirming the existence of the train even though local legend says a Nazi train filled with arms, art, gold and archives went missing near the city in 1945. No risks are being taken as the train could also be rigged with explosives requiring investigation through a carefully coordinated operation between the Polish Army, Police and Fire Brigade.

The Train

The train is probably one of the versatile and well-equipped armoured panserzug (youtube) trains produced by Nazis with heavy steel plating and armament, including rail cars which housed anti-aircraft guns and gun turrets, or designed to load and unload tanks and rail cars which had complete armour protection with a large concealed gun/howitzer. Germany also had fully armoured locomotives which could possible remain with the rest of the train underground.

MBV-2 ARMOURED TRAIN

It is believed three trains vanished in a 18 sq mile area near the present Czech border as the Red Army advanced in 1945, into the Project Riese network of underground tunnels and chambers dug out beneath the Owl Mountains by an estimated 30,000 prisoners of war and concentration camp prisoners.

“Four years ago, we were given information by a witness who was in Walbrzych at the time the train disappeared in April 1945. Radar technology has become affordable so we were able to check the information,” said Koper, who would not reveal if he knew anything about the hiding places of the other two supposed trains. “The Nazis dug out the embankment, created a junction and laid track to divert the train off to the side. Then they parked the train, which is 90 metres long, removed the rails and put back the soil.”

Since August, the Polish military has cleared vegetation from an area the size of a football pitch. Soldiers have swept for mines and analysed the ground for the presence of poison gas. During the holocaust, Zyklon B – for use in gas chambers – is believed to have been transported on the line. The treasure hunters’ images show only the outline of what appears to be a train. “We do not know what is inside, only that it is armoured, which suggests a precious cargo,” said Koper.

IMAGE COURTESY OF THE POLISH MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

As of yet, no one knows of the condition of the tunnels, some of which are flooded in the lower levels requiring exploration by boat. Of the others, the myriad of levels, stairs and unfinished excavations make the site at Ksiaz probably the most captivating of the entire second world war.

The Książ castle, Poland: ‘Fürstenstein’

Ksiaz Castle near the Polish Czech border is one of the biggest castles in Europe. It’s the third biggest castle in Poland and the biggest one in South Silesia – the perfect setting for a wartime complex outdoing anything even Hollywood could have come up with. Built on a hilltop location with 360 degree views in all directions, Ksiaz was to be Hitler’s new fortress, the last bastion of Nazidom as the German forces battled it out against impossible on the Eastern Front.

History

RITTERBURG ZU FÜRSTENSTEIN

The “Pearl of Silesia” was built between 1288-1292 under Bolko I the Strict situated on a high rocky tip on a bend of Pełcznica River, and for centuries belonged to the powerful Hochberg family. After numerous modifications and reconstructions it has now over 400 rooms and is an unusual mix of different styles. For centuries belonged to the powerful family of Hochberg. During this time the castle was visited by the most prosperous people in the world: prince couples, magnates, throne successors, but also John Quincy Adams, the future president of the United States and Tsar Nicholas I.

The family descended from the lineage of Hochberg residing the castle and employing nine thousands of persons fell into debt thus prince was forced to make the castle accessible for tourists – already then mansion was annually visited by over 80 thousand persons.

In 1939, because of the debts, Ksiaz with the entire surrounding area was took over by the treasury. Then, in 1941, the castle was confiscated by Nazi authorities. The paramilitary organization group Todt took over the castle in order to convert it into Hitler’s headquarters. Rooms located in the basement of the castle were built by the Nazis after the war and have never been opened. Beneath the castle, Germans dug huge tunnels (using the Gross Rosen concentration camp prisoners), in which trucks could freely move.

The castle’s last owner, evicted by the Nazis, was Wales-born Mary Theresa Olivia Cornwallis-West, first wife of Prince Hans Heinrich XV. Bearing the title of the Princess of Pless, but popularly known as Daisy, she was a great beauty, a socialite, and related by marriage to Winston Churchill. Her brother George was the second husband of Churchill’s mother, Jennie. The princess died in 1943 and was buried in the Hochberg Mausoleum near the castle, but her servants moved the body a number of times to protect the grave from plunder by Soviet troops, who occupied the area from May 1945 until the end of 1946.

Princess Daisy’s resting place remains unknown to this day.

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Events similar to those portrayed are being developed for an epic fiction series The Elements. If you liked this article and want to notified of giveaways and the forthcoming epic fiction series sign up for The Elements newsletter.

Thanks for reading. Mark David

Palace Hotel Heliopolis, Cairo 1917

The grand Heliopolis Palace Hotel was built in 1910, refuted to be the most luxurious hotel of the time in Africa and the Middle East. With its architectural emminence the Heliopolis Palace Hotel became a travel destination for many, including foreign royals and international business tycoons.

The landmark hotel was designed by Belgian architect Ernest Jaspar. He introduced the local Heliopolis style of architecture, a synthesis of Persian, Moorish Revival, Islamic, and European Neoclassical architecture. It was built by the contracting firms Leon Rolin & Co. and Padova, Dentamaro & Ferro, the two largest civil contractors in Egypt then. Siemens & Schuepert of Berlin fitted the hotel’s web of electric cables and installations. The utilities were to the most modern standards of their day. The hotel operations were under French administered management.

The Heliopolis architectural style, responsible for many wonderful original buildings in Heliopolis, was exceptionally expressed in the Heliopolis Palace Hotel’s exterior and interior design. The hotel had 400 rooms, including 55 private apartments. Beyond the Moorish Revival reception hall two public rooms were lavishly decorated. Beyond those was the Central Hall, the primary public dining space with a classic symmetrical and elegant beauty.

The Central Hall’s dome, awe inspiring to guests, measured 55 metres (180 ft) from floor to ceiling. The 589 square metres (6,340 sq ft) hall’s architectural interior was designed by Alexander Marcel of the French Institute, and decorated by Georges-Louis Claude. Twenty-two Italian marble columns circled the parquet floor up to the elaborate ceilings. The hall was carpeted with fine Persian carpets and had large mirrored wall panels and a substantial marble fireplace. To one side of the Central Hal was the Grillroom seating 150 guests, and to the other was the billiards hall, with two full-sized British Thurston billiard tables and a ‘priceless’ French one. The private banquet halls were quite large and elaborate.

The mahogany furniture was ordered from Maple’s of London. Damascus-made ‘East Orient style’ lamps, lanterns, and chandeliers hung throughout, suspended like stalactite pendants. The upper gallery contained oak-paneled reading and card rooms furnished by Krieger of Paris. The basement and staff areas were so large that a narrow gauge railway was installed running the length of the hotel, passing by offices, kitchens, pantries, refrigerators, storerooms and the staff mess.

Echoes of the War: A Base Hospital

The First Australian General Hospital is installed in the magnificent premises of the Heliopolis Palace Hotel. The building is said to be the most gorgeous hotel building in the whole world, but to day it is filled with the manifold activities of a great general hospital. The figures themselves are large, accommodation for 1,000 sick, but when you pass along corridor after corridor, every door opening on the neat white beds in every room, when you find the grand dining-hall converted into a great convalescent ward with 100 beds, then you begin to understand something of this great institution, filled alas, to-day with the flotsam of youth being prepared for war. For there are no wounded in our 600 sick, only the toll being paid to pneumonia, rheumatism, influenza, and the obscure diseases of this Eastern land. No, it is not a hotel to-day, for grey-robed nursing sisters from Australia move quietly around, cheerfully doing heroic service, and khaki-clad orderlies carrying stretchers or filling their multitudinous duties, pass along the halls and passages. Truly motors constantly come and go, at the front entrance, but they are painted white or grey with the big red cross on sides and top, and their passengers more frequently than not are carried up the marble steps into the spacious entrance hall. And sometimes, alas, the slow march of troops is heard, and the tramp of horses’ feet, the grinding of the wheels of the gun-carriage, for a party of men have come to take away, and pay last honours to the comrade who has died. Within these walls great fights have been, are being fought, medical skill and attention beyond all praise, nursing that fails not, day or night, against the disease that would destroy. Great victories have been won. A haggard man will tell you that he has lost a month of memory. A few months will fill again the wasted cheeks, and build again the muscular limbs, but that lost month of his was spent by nurses and medical officer in an apparently hopeless war against pneumonia and typhoid combined. Again and again defeat seemed inevitable, but the Australian nurses nursed to the last, and victory was snatched, out of apparent defeat. Peace hath victories more wonderful than war. But there are sad things here — too sad for words. Let all who in the Homeland are mourning their dead lying in Egyptian graves know this — that nothing can surpass the tenderness and care with which our Australian women ease the last moments of our boys who die here.

1915 ‘Echoes of the War.’, Spectator and Methodist Chronicle (Melbourne, Vic. : 1914 – 1918), 18 June, p. 882, viewed 13 September, 2014, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article154169500

The unit left Australia as a General Hospital of 520 beds. In Egypt, during 1916, the establishment was increased to 750 beds and later, in France, in 1916, it was increased to 1040 beds.

The staff and equipment embarked on board the S. S. “Kyarra” along with four other Medical Units of the A. I. F. viz : N° 2 Australian General Hospital, N°s 1 & 2 Aust. Stationary Hospitals and N° 1 Australian Casualty Clearing Station, and sailed for Egypt on 2ist November 1914.

Arriving in Egypt on January 14th 1915, the 1st A. G. H. wns accomodated in a building and tents at Heliopolis, a suburb of Cairo. The building was very large and palatial, and is well known as the Heliopolis Palace Hotel. On January 24th 1915 the Hospital was opened for the reception of patients. The patients received consisted of all ranks of the A.I.F., and all classes of cases were treated. After a short period, and owing to circumstances, the hospital took over other additional premises for the treatment of different classes of cases. Amongst such were Aerodrome; The Luna Park; The Atelier; The Sporting Club buildings and grounds at Heliopolis, and The Artillery Barracks at Abbassia Depots, and they were attached to and within the command of the 1st A. G. H. Subsequently, however, all of these Auxiliaries, with the exception of the Aerodrome which was closed in April 1915, were made into separate A. A. M. C., A. I. F. units, each with its own personnel and equipment. They became respectively the N° 1, N° 2, N° 3 and N° 4. Australian Auxiliary Hospitals in Egypt, each of which has a history of its own.

The 1st A.G.H. had a most useful career from fourteen to fifteen months in the land of the Pharoahs, having served there from January 1915 to March 1916. During that period the hospital attended to its full share of patients from A.I.F. troops serving in Egypt, also its share of. Australian sick and wounded soldiers who had served in the Gallipoli Expedition in 1915.

In March 1916, following upon the decision that the A.I.F. should serve in France, the various A.A.M.C. units were ordered to close and pack up, their patients being transferred to the Auxiliary and other Hospitals.

The 1st A.G.H., after a hurried departure from Heliopolis, with personnel and equipment for an establishment of 750 beds, embarked at Alexandria on 29th march 1916 upon H.M. Hospital Ship “Salta”. This vessel has since been sunk by enemy action.

Arriving at Marseilles on April 5th the unit disembarked, and after a few days waiting for orders, proceeded by rail and arrived at Rouen on April 13th 1916; and the hospital was opened for the reception of patients on April 29th 1916. The 1st A.G. H. has thus been receiving patients in France for considerably over two years. The patients received have been from all ranks (except officers) of the British Armies in France viz : English, Irish, Scotch. Welsh, South African, Canadian, New Zealand, and our own Australian soldiers, etc. No distinction are made. Recently some U.S.A. soldiers of the American Expeditionary Force have also been received. All the patients are treated equally conscientiously and well, and it is a privilege, an honour and a pleasure to be able to do anything to help them in the great cause in which we are all engaged.

Following the cessation of hostilities on Nov. 11, the hospital ceased to receive patients in France on Nov. 30 1918 preparatory to its transfer to reopen at Sutton Veney near Warminster, England.

The 1st A. G. H. is now in the fifth year of its Active Service and there are very few of the original members amongst its personnel at present. Many changes have taken place owing to the original members and many of their successors having been transferred to other A. A. M. C. units. Several have gone home. Some have been invalided to Australia, and some have “Gone west”.

J. A. D.

The Jackass, Christmas 1918

Links: Project Gutenberg  Through These Lines  Wikipedia

Gladio: Origins

By Mark David

 

Introduction

This is a no-holds barred examination of Gladio, NATO’s secret cold war armies, compiling years of research in a series of blogs in combination with the writing of The Elements. TE is a big-concept mystery-thriller series that in many ways is unique, more akin to a fantasy series such as Game of Thrones than anything existing in the genre. As in any epic series, there is not one antagonist, but a force of opposition. In The Elements, the force of opposition is not people, but time, and the events in time that combine across different to define the present for the protagonists. This works with the real world, portraying the force of opposition as a force of chaos arising from the ideologies of men.

The Elements is an epic of the 20^th century and rooted in the century, works with that century, in all its inglorious detail. Gladio represents just one force of opposition, there being much more than one force in the series, interrelating and intertwining the telling of the tale.

Part 1: Origins

STAY-BEHIND was essentially a CIA-MI6 initiative, to be carried out in Europe occurred during the Cold War in the western part of the then divided continent. The strategy behind Stay-Behind built on the British experiences of the SOE in setting ‘Europe Ablaze’ and very successful in creating difficult conditions in occupied countries as well as pave the way for invasion by the allied forces.

‘The strategic thinking behind the stay-behind networks rested on the experiences of the Second World War and particularly Adolf Hitler’s Blitzkrieg which had led to the rapid occupation of large parts of Europe. After the Second World War British and US military strategists feared an invasion and occupation of Western Europe by the Soviet Union, and decided that a secret guerrilla and resistance movement should be set up during peacetime. Within the CIA the covert action department Office of Policy Coordination under Frank Wisner was responsible for setting up the stay- behind network.’

The CIA in Western Europe and the Abuse of Human Rights. Daniele Ganser

GLADIO ALL started at the end of the last war. The codename was Gladio and it was the most ambitious and secret operation in Western Europe since the Second World War. Stay-Behind essentially continued and developed those operations set up during by WWII under the SOE, the British Special Operations Executive that trained and sent in agents in occupied countries, supported resistance cells with information, arms drops, smuggling of supplies, intelligence and not least, the organisation of the different separate cells that had to be kept isolated from each other and controlled from London. The success of the resistance and the SOE’s part in that is now of course, legendary.

Background

In 1939 and 1940 the German army had been able to overrun its European neighbours with supreme ease. Polish cavalry was no match for German tanks, the Dutch surrendered after Rotterdam had been destroyed from the air, Paris was taken without difficulty, scarcely a shot was fired as the Nazis conquered Denmark. The Channel Islands, the only British soil Hitler conquered, had already been deemed indefensible.

As the swastika flew everywhere in Europe, from Brittany to the Russian steppes, it was only with the greatest difficulty and sacrifice that resistance movements were established from Britain which were eventually to be capable of harrying and sabotaging the German army of occupation and finally to collaborate with the Allied forces of liberation.

Such a lack of foresight, it was agreed in Western capitals, was never to be permitted again in the face of Stalin’s threat, particularly after the Communist putsch in Prague in 1948. Under the aegis of Britain and the US, a secret network of recruits was to be set up all over the continent. They were to be provided with caches of radios, money and weapons.

Stay Behind was therefore set up in the late 1940s to counter Stalin’s consolidation of his political and military power in Eastern Europe. As Stalin promoted his version of totalitarianism where he could, the Western allies came together to prevent any recurrence of the debacles at the beginning of the Second World War.

Stay-Behinds: The official beginning

If the Red Army did overrun Western Europe and Western armies were defeated and forced to flee, there would be someone left with intimate local knowledge who could receive orders from abroad, send out information and go into action against the Soviet occupation forces. Their role was to be serious and totally clandestine, known as ‘stay-behinds’. This continent-wide operation, which became known as Gladio, also had the task of keeping an eye on what were considered domestic threats to Western democracies by agents of the Soviet Union. In the post-war years when Moscow-line Communist parties were strong, particularly in France and Italy, that task was challenging. It was to lead to particular abuses.

On 27 January 1949 Sir Stewart Menzies, head of MI6, set out the grand strategy in a top secret and personal letter to Paul-Henri Spaak, the Belgian Socialist Prime Minister who was later to become secretary-general of NATO. As the idea took shape, Sir Stewart wrote of Anglo-Belgian collaboration in particular:

The present object of this collaboration should be directed to two main aims:

a) The improvement of our information on the subject of Cominform and potential enemy activities in so far as they concern our two countries.

b) The preparation of appropriate intelligence and action organisations in the event of war.

At the same time the letter, a copy of which is in The Observer’s possession, throws light on what became an increasingly important factor in the Gladio operation – the rivalry between the British and the Americans.

Menzies continued:

I have always regarded American participation in the defence of Western Europe as a matter of capital importance. I am however, convinced that all effort, American not excluded, must be integrated into an harmonious whole. Should, therefore, the Americans wish to pursue with your Service certain preparations to meet the needs of war, I regard it as essential – and I understand I have your agreement – that these activities should be co-ordinated with my own. Such co-ordination, moreover, will prevent undesirable repercussions with the Western Union chiefs of Staff. I have already indicated to the Head of the American Service that I am ready to work out plans for detailed co-operation with him on this basis, and I therefore suggest that any projects formulated by them should be referred back to Washington for subsequent discussion between the British and American Services in London.

The correspondence should, Menzies suggested, be regarded as ‘highly secret’.

Early the following month Spaak wrote back to Menzies agreeing with his ideas but begging Britain and the US to get their act together.

I agree with you that it would be highly desirable that the three services (British, American and Belgian) should collaborate closely. If two of them, the American and the British, refuse that collaboration, the situation of the Belgian service would be extremely delicate and difficult.

Thus I feel it is indispensable that at the highest level there should be negotiations to settle this question…

From Stay Behind to ‘Gladio’

These independent Stay-Behind developments is known collectively as ‘Gladio’. In the next blog in this series, I’ll look at how the organisation utilised much of the intelligence resources of both sides of the second world war divide.

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Origins of a name: Military Intelligence Dept. 6

By Mark David

One of the ideas I started with re. The Elements, was to create a series that resided solidly within something looking and feeling like the real world, in all it’s guises – and not some pseudo-trumped up fakery the likes of which we see very entertainingly, admittedly, with James Bond. I wanted the antithesis to James Bond – and to portray the British MI6 or Secret Intelligence Service as it could really be. Well, all right, that was BS – I am going to spice it up a bit, in fact, I’m going to add so many spices a trip to India isn’t unlikely – even reality has it’s limits.

MI6 will become an increasingly central player in The Elements and I will attempt to convey some of it’s gentleman’s past – in the parallel historical timelines well underway.

So what is in a name?

I thought this might be interesting taken from MI6’s own homepage:

The origins of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) are to be found in the Foreign Section of the Secret Service Bureau, established by the Committee of Imperial Defence in October 1909. The Secret Service Bureau was soon abbreviated to ‘Secret Service’, ‘SS Bureau’ or even ‘SS’.

The First World War and MI1c

The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 brought a need for even closer cooperation with military intelligence organisations within the War Office. This led to the virtual integration of the Foreign Section within the Military Intelligence Directorate. Thus, for much of the war, Cumming’s organisation was known as MI1(c). This arrangement did not sit well with Cumming – a naval officer who was less than pleased at appearing under the auspices of the War Office.

A return to Foreign Office control

The debate over the future structure of British Intelligence continued at length after the end of hostilities but Cumming managed to engineer the return of the Service to Foreign Office control. At this time the organisation was known in Whitehall by a variety of titles including the ‘Foreign Intelligence Service’, the ‘Secret Service’, ‘MI1(c)’, the ‘Special Intelligence Service’ and even ‘C’s organisation‘.

SIS

Around 1920, the organisation began increasingly to be referred to as the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), a title that it has continued to use to the present day and which was enshrined in statute in the Intelligence Services Act 1994.

Why MI6?

See: https://www.sis.gov.uk/our-history/sis-or-mi6.html

‘MI6’ has become an almost interchangeable title for SIS, at least in the minds of those outside the Service. The origins of the use of this other title are to be found in the late 1930s when it was adopted as a flag of convenience for SIS. It was used extensively during the Second World War, especially if an organisational link needed to be made with MI5 (the Security Service). Although ‘MI6’ fell into official disuse years ago, many writers and journalists continue to use it to describe SIS.

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The Osireion, Abydos

by Mark David author's homepage  The Elements community on google+

Abydos has revealed itself to be one of the most important archaeological sites in Egypt. It is the site of the pre-dynastic royal graveyard, which has revealed some interesting links with Sumeria; and of the Osireion, an enigmatic underground chamber connected to the Nile called by the Greeks as the Memnonium.

The Osireion can be called an ‘anomaly’ – the scientific euphemism for “mystery.” Mainstream archaeologists usually deal with such anomalies by either ignoring them (because they don’t know how to explain them), or using inconclusive evidence to fit them into the accepted time framework.

Entered from an underground passage, this simple complex of a central space with columns and carved chambers is fashioned from enormous blocks of granite the style of which is comparable only with that seen at the Valley temple, Giza. The temple of the Sixth Dynasty Seti I was later built over this site, which dates from an earlier time. Abydos has been called One of the holiest places in Egypt from the very earliest of times.

Construction

The area is constructed of ten central columns 4.2m high and perfectly-formed blocks up to 6m long. The walls surrounding the building are made of 5m thick, red sandstone with 17 cubicles surrounding the central area. The chamber is surrounded by a ‘moat’ with ‘cells’ coming off it, six to the east, six to the west, two to the south and three to the north. The whole structure was enclosed within an outer wall of limestone.

Description

Almost flush with the water table and therefore the Nile, it is likely the Osireion was always part filled with water, leaving a central plinth protruding like an island in the center. Submerged staircases in the temple floor descended into underwater chambers.

Inside, the Osireion is one of the only two examples in Egypt of monolithic granite architecture made from rose-colored Aswan granite (the other is the Valley Temple next to the Sphinx—another “anomaly”). The red granite blocks you see in the picture weigh up to 100 tons.

Both structures were made from large, unadorned and lintelled pillars. Two rows running along the length with five pillars in each, creating a central chamber. Both structures were covered over, and both were associated with the Nile. The Osireion has 17 chambers running along the walls while the Valley Temple has 17 sockets in the floor for statues. Naville, who excavated the site in 1913-14, immediately recognized the similarities between Khafre’s Valley Temple at Giza and the Osireion, and concluded that they were of the same Old Kingdom era.

Both Giza and the Osireion show the same specific masonry technique. The same ‘maneuvering protuberances’ were left on the otherwise finished blocks. These are the only two known examples of this technique in early dynastic structures.

Significance

The Osirion is the only temple known from Ancient Egypt to be built below ground level. With, perhaps, the exception of the Labyrinth at Hawara should excavations prove the theory that a hidden underground level that even Herodotus was forbidden on entering prove to be true. The Osireion is one of those places on earth where you stand in awe of history:

‘The other hypothesis was that this was the building for the special worship of Osiris and the celebration of the Mysteries, and this appears to me to be the true explanation, for many reasons. Each reason may not be convincing in itself, but the accumulation of evidence goes to prove the case. There is no tomb even among the Tombs of the Kings that is like it in plan, none having the side chamber leading off the Great Hall. Then, again, no tomb has ever been found attached to a temple; the converse is often the case, I mean a temple attached to a tomb; but this, as far as we can judge, is a kind of extra chapel, a “hidden shrine” as the mythological texts express it, belonging to the temple.

It is only to be expected that Osiris, one of the chief deities of Egypt, should have a special place of worship at Abydos, where he was identified with the local god. And that it should be a part of the temple dedicated to the worship of the dead, and which had special chambers set apart for the celebration of the Osirian mysteries is very natural likewise. The building lies immediately in the axis of the temple; a line drawn through the temple and the desert pylon to the Royal Tombs passes through the sloping passage and across the center of the Great Hall. This is not the result of an accident, the temple being older than the hypogeum, but shows that both were dedicated to the same worship.

The sculptures in the Great Hall are the Vivification of Osiris by Horus, and the offering of incense by Merenptah; between the two sculptures is inscribed chapter cxlii of the “Book of the Dead”, the “Chapter of knowing the Names of Osiris”. The other chapters of the “Book of the Dead” inscribed on the walls were pronounced by M. Maspero, when he saw them, to be the “Book of Osiris”. The books of “Gates” and of “Am Duat”, which are sculpted and painted on the north passage, were said by the ancient Egyptians to have had their origin in the decorations which Horus executed on the walls of the tomb of his father Osiris.’

Extract by Archaeologist Margaret Alice Murray

According to Schwaller de Lubitz, the French esotericist, alchemist, and Egyptologist, Egyptian civilization appeared complete at its beginning. There is no sign of a period of development; if anything, it only deteriorated from its outset. Sir Flinders Petrie, unlike modern archaeologists, was quite willing to accept the existence of an earlier, yet undiscovered civilization in Egypt.

Osiris was believed to have been a king in pre-historic, legendary times.

Ancient Egyptian documents refer to the period when Egypt was ruled by Shemsu Hor (the Followers of Horus), a group that transmitted knowledge to a primitive, Neolithic culture of the pre-Dynastic Egypt.

Annual Report from the Smithsonian Institute, 1914, pp. 579-585.

Excavations at Abydoss: Naville, Edouard. (Extract)

‘There is no longer any doubt, then, that we have discovered what Strabo calls  the well or the fountain of Abydos. He spoke of it as being near the temple, at a great depth, and remarkable for some corridors whose ceilings were formed of enormous monolithic blocks. That is exactly what we have found.

These cells were 17 in number, 6 on each of the long sides. There was one in the middle of the wall at the back; in passing through it one came in the rear to the large hall which was the tomb of Osiris. A careful study of the sculptures confirmed the opinion that this was a funeral hall where the remains of the god were expected to be found. But this hall did not form part of the original edifice. It must have been constructed underground when Seti I built the temple of the god. The tomb of Osiris was very near the great reservoir. Nothing revealed its presence; the entrance to it was exactly like that to all the other cells, the back of it being walled up after they had dug through it…

…We have as yet no certain indications of the date of the construction; but the style, the size of the materials, the complete absence of all ornamentation, all indicate very great antiquity. Up to present time what is called the temple of the Sphinx at Gizeh has always been considered one of the most ancient edifices of Egypt. It is contemporaneous with the pyramid of Chefren…

‘The reservoir of Abydos being of a similar composition, but of much larger materials, is of a still more archaic character, and i would not be surprised if this were the most ancient structure in Egypt’

Troy, Schliemann, Pinnochio and the Pushkin

by Mark David author's homepage  The Elements community on google+

At this time when the term ‘Cold War’ is back on the agenda as NATO reacts to Russia challenging conventions of international law in the Ukraine, it is interesting to note the Russian law passed by the Duma in 1998 – making all war-time works of art looted by the Russians to be legitimate.

Schliemann’s wife Sophia wearing ‘The Jewels of Helen’ – of an older date than the Trojan War.

This little story starts in present day Turkey and the excavations of German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann (1822-1890) in the then Ottoman Empire at the site of Classic Ilion, since proved to be the site of ancient Troy.

Wiki on Schliemann and the Trojan War:

Troy and the Trojan War were consigned to the realms of legend, waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans (Greeks) after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelausking of Sparta.

The war is one of the most important events in Greek mythology and has been narrated through many works of Greek literature, most notably through Homer‘s Iliad.

In 1871-73 and 1878–79, Schliemann excavated a hill called Hissarlik in the Ottoman Empire, near the town of Chanak (Çanakkale) in north-westernAnatolia. Here he discovered the ruins of a series of ancient cities, dating from the Bronze Age to the Roman period. Schliemann declared one of these cities—at first Troy I, later Troy II—to be the city of Troy, and this identification was widely accepted at that time.

The Burning of Troy (1759/62), by Johann Georg Trautmann

Discovery

The layer in which Priam’s Treasure was alleged to have been found was assigned to Troy II, whereas Priam would have been king of Troy VI (or VII – after the fire or battle that ravaged the city in about 1200 BC.), occupied hundreds of years later. Schliemann smuggled what came to be known as ‘Priam’s Treasure’ out of Anatolia. The officials were informed when his wife, Sophia, wore the jewels for the public.

The Ottoman official assigned to watch the excavation received a prison sentence. The Ottoman government revoked Schliemann’s permission to dig and sued him for its share of the gold. Schliemann went on to Mycenae. There, however, the Greek Archaeological Society sent an agent to monitor him.

Later Schliemann traded some treasure to the government of the Ottoman Empire in exchange for permission to dig at Troy again. It is located in the Istanbul Archaeology Museum. The rest was acquired in 1881 by the Royal Museums of Berlin (Königliche Museen zu Berlin), in whose hands it remained until 1945, when it disappeared from a protective bunker beneath the Berlin Zoo. In fact, the treasure had been secretly removed to the Soviet Union by the Red Army. During the Cold War, the government of the Soviet Union denied any knowledge of the fate of Priam’s Treasure.

The Pushkin Museum, Moscow

The tale of  how the Schliemann gold resurfaced half a century after its disappearance begins in October 1987, when the young curator of the Museum of Private Collections, a branch of the Pushkin Museum, stumbled across some papers in the basement of the Ministry of Culture. Grigorii Kozlov had gone in search of a photocopier – a rarity in the Soviet Union even in the late 1980s – at his former workplace. Instead, in a dusty, dimly lit room in the bowels of the ministry, he discovered a pile of documents, among them one titled “List of the Most Important Art Works Kept in the Special Depository of the Pushkin Museum,” and another, “Unique Objects from the ‘Large Trojan Treasure,’ Berlin, Ethnographic Museum,” dated 28 March 1957. Kozlov, trembling with excitement, realized he was looking at evidence that the Schliemann gold was stashed away in the Soviet Union.

The next day, Kozlov informed his former fellow student Konstantin Akinsha, a postgraduate at the Research Institute of Art History in Moscow, about his find. The two art historians immediately began to investigate the whereabouts of trophy art in the Soviet Union. In April 1991, they published an article in the American journal ARTnews, which listed some of the “missing” art works they knew were on Soviet territory, including the Schliemann gold.Initially, the government refused to comment. But two months after the attempted coup in August 1991, Minister of Culture Nikolai Gubenko finally admitted that Soviet museums had secret depositories filled with war booty.

this image courtesy of Silko Wikimedia Commons

He stressed that his government would return artworks to Germany only if it received in exchange objects of equivalent “artistic quality” removed from the Soviet Union by the Germans. Denying any knowledge of the Schliemann gold’s whereabouts, Gubenko implied that the Western Allies had gained possession of it at the end of the war.

Meanwhile, Kozlov had been visited by the KGB and interrogated by an outraged Irina Antonova, the director of the Pushkin Museum, who warned that if he continued publicizing the results of his investigations, the government might “return everything to the Germans free of charge!” Undaunted, both he and Akinsha carried on with their research into trophy art on Soviet territory, recruiting friends to sift through restitution documents in the Central Archive of Literature and Art. One friend found all the documents related to the transport of the Schliemann gold from Berlin as well as its arrival at the Pushkin Museum.It was not until fall 1994 – more than a year after Russia admitted to having the gold – that the museum allowed experts from abroad to view the treasure.

The return of items taken from museums has been arranged in a treaty with Germany but, as of January 2010, is being blocked by museum directors in Russia. They are keeping the looted art, they say, as compensation for the destruction of Russian cities and looting of Russian museums by Nazi Germany in World War II. A 1998 Russian law, the Federal Law on Cultural Valuables Displaced to the USSR as a Result of the Second World War and Located on the Territory of the Russian Federation, legalizes the looting in Germany as compensation and prevent Russian authorities from proceeding to restitutions.

this image courtesy of Silko Wikimedia Commons

Pinocchio’s Door

The 259 objects were removed from a safe located in a two-room depository in the basement, where they had been hidden for some 50 years. The only way to reach that depository was from the tour guides’ office through an iron door hidden behind a curtain. Museum staff called it “Pinocchio’s door,” because in the Russian version of the story, a magic door hidden by a painting of a fireplace leads to an enchanted paradise – “rather like the Communist ideal society,” as Akinsha and Kozlov jokingly remark.

There are doubts concerning the authenticity of the treasure.

By author Mark David 

Mark David author's homepage

Sources:

From Behind Pinocchio’s Door by Jan Cleave

Link to article in the New York Times

Wikipedia on Priam's Treasure

Reconstruction of Troy by University of Cincinnati

Djoser, The Northern Star and the Soul of the Dead

The oldest statue of a Pharaoh.

The Elements has, since the beginning of 2014 developed a new timeline beginning in 1917, concerning archaeologists caught in the tide of the First World War. In the Fayoum, the fertile bowl south of the Nile Delta, they make a discovery that will have repercussions for later dramatic and violent events near the end of the Cold War. This is an important change in the concept, adding depth and historical relativety that will become more and more apparent. This, the first in a series of blogs exploring some of the historical sources for The Elements epic, introduces the ideas and historical events that has and is being woven into this epic of the 20th century.

The above photograph shows the oldest statue of a Pharaoh. The Pharaoh Djoser’s Ka statue peers out through the hole in his serdab, ready to receive the soul of the deceased and any offerings presented to it. This is a copy of the original statue, the image taken from Wiki, processed by me to make it look old. The original statue, the oldest life-size statue in Egypt, is in the Egyptian museum, Cairo.

The beliefs of ancient Egypt are confusing for those entering the subject for the first time, it is helpful and insightful to appreciate how beliefs developed over time, time being one of the three main themes in The Elements (the 3 main themes are belief, fate and time).

Historical Background

Because Egyptians believed that the soul had to be maintained in order to continue to exist in the afterlife. These openings “were not meant for viewing the statue but rather for allowing the fragrance of burning incense, and possibly the spells spoken in rituals, to reach the statue”.

There is beauty, in life. Especially, in life, life eternal.

Djoser’s original name was Netjerykhet. Netjerykhet and Imhotep built a mortuary temple so it could face the northern star. The mortuary temple complex was the place where the rituals and offerings to the dead were performed, the center of a cult to the dead, so life could live on, eternally.

Ansley’s eyes shone with an inner light. ‘Find the ka statue… the life force, the ka, is embodied in the statue, that is why statue’s were carved, as containers, so they could gain power from the rituals, incantations of spells. It allowed the ka to live, witnessed by the eyes into ka…

Only later, did the cult of death and rebirth through the cult of the sun replace the old beliefs.

The actual burial chambers preserving the body were cut deeper until they passed the bed rock and were often lined with wood. A “serdab“, from the Persian word for “cellar”, down here was used to store anything that may have been considered as an essential such as beer, cereal, grain, clothes and other precious items that would be needed in the afterlife.

The first King of the Pyramids

Above in the mastaba, (to be the subject of a separate blog), a serdab was also the place housing the life-statue of the dead King Djoser, father of the pyramid builders (and his architect Imhotep), in the temple complex at Saqqara (The Step Pyramid of Djoser).

‘Look for the star… this is an old, old place. Look for the star…’ He looked up., around him. ‘See, see what we have created by the hand of man, see. Eternity.’

The above ground pre-pyramid building, the mastaba, housed a statue of the deceased that was hidden within the masonry for its protection. High up the walls of the serdab were small openings, because according to the ancient Egyptians, the ba could leave the body but it had to return to its body – or it would die.

These cults were in being in connection with a cult of the Northern Star, before the later cult of death and rebirth associated with Ra, the god of the sun. This is an important distinction, since the cult of Egyptian gods followed a path back to origins lost to us. A northern-orientation was thus preserved in the North-South axis of the later pyramids.

image processed from original by Charles J Sharp, Wiki Commons

Info

Because Egyptians believed that the soul had to be maintained in order to continue to exist in the afterlife. These openings “were not meant for viewing the statue but rather for allowing the fragrance of burning incense, and possibly the spells spoken in rituals, to reach the statue”.

The actual burial chambers preserving the body were cut deeper until they passed the bed rock and were often lined with wood. A “serdab“, from the Persian word for “cellar”, down here was used to store anything that may have been considered as an essential such as beer, cereal, grain, clothes and other precious items that would be needed in the afterlife.

Above in the mastaba, a serdab was also the place housing the life-statue of the dead King Djoser, father of the pyramid builders (and his architect Imhotep), in the temple complex at Saqqara (The Step Pyramid of Djoser).

The above ground pre-pyramid building, the mastaba, housed a statue of the deceased that was hidden within the masonry for its protection. High up the walls of the serdab were small openings, because according to the ancient Egyptians, the ba could leave the body but it had to return to its body – or it would die.

These cults were in being in connection with a cult of the Northern Star, before the later cult of death and rebirth associated with Ra, the god of the sun. This is an important distinction, since the cult of Egyptian gods followed a path back to origins lost to us. A northern-orientation was thus preserved in the North-South axis of the later pyramids.

Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ka_statue

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serdab

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_concept_of_the_soul

Trailer: He Who Favours Fire

Trailer for He Who Favours Fire, the first in The Elements series.