Large areas of a popular Czech recreation resort were turned into a military-like compounds, complete with barbwire fences, armed guards and watchdogs. Heavy mining and drilling equipment were brought to the scene. As the shafts grew deeper, a gold digging fever caught on all over the Czech Republic. Gaensel, "the true American," used to throw Thanksgiving bashes that were attended by scores of journalists and VIP´s, but also by the very envious competition.

By 1995, four years after his return to the Czech Republic and two years since he started his excavation, Gaensel had to admit that his initial expectations were "too optimistic" and that he was in for a long haul. Meanwhile, the Dutch investors came and left, soon to be replaced by others. One William "Big Bill" Turner and a self-proclaimed Florida investment banker, Graham Smith, took over and pumped some more badly needed capital into the venture. By then, the expedition cost was estimated to have reached approx. 1.8 million U.S. dollars.

The Czech government, exhausted by the constant flow of Gaensel´s requests and swamped by numerous complaints and appeals from peace movement activists, environmental groups and victims of the Holocaust, finally stepped aside and conveniently shifted responsibility for overseeing the operation down to a municipal level. Due to unverified reports that tons of "live" explosives guarded the access to Stechovice underground, Gaensel was forced to hire two pyro experts appointed by the city and he was often accosted with anonymous life threats if he continued.

In the Spring of 1996, while the men from Gaensel´s mining company were cleaning out the bottom of a 15 meter deep, old shaft called "Bingo", they discovered an entrance to a German-made tunnel, leading in the direction of Stechovice dam. Scattered on the floor were pieces of electrical cable, detonators, a torn SS-uniform jacket and small wooden cases partially filled with explosives. It wasn´t much for three-years of strenuous work, but it was enough for the municipal "watchdogs" to stop Gaensel from proceeding any further for another few months.

In the Fall, while still on "hiatus," Gaensel brought over to my house two older men whom he introduced as friends from his "Bolivian days". A Mr. Carlos Hernandez questioned me, with a heavy German accent, on possible production costs for a feature film that would be based on Gaensel´s life story, and on the amount of my screenwriter´s fee. Upon my meek suggestion that perhaps we should all wait until we know the outcome of the current expedition, they left never to return again.

Gaensel spent part of the winter vacationing in Israel with his three children. He returned to Stechovice in the Spring of 1997 with new hopes. After a German TV program aired a spot from his treasure hunting in the Czech Republic, three people called in stating that they lived in Stechovice at the end of WWII. One woman viewer said she saw German soldiers coating wooden boxes with creosote near the Schlemin Creek -- not far from one of Gaensel´s leased sites. When his crew followed up, they managed to dig out a stove that the soldiers apparently used for melting the water resistant material. Gaensel figured that the boxes had to be hidden nearby and shifted all his excavation efforts nearer to the creek. Again, he was stopped. This time because of ecological concerns. The dig site was the home of a rare flower called Dog´s Tooth. Gaensel and his lawyers argued their case against environmentalists until February of 1998.

On April 4, 1998, attention from the public suddenly shifted from Stechovice to an obscure village called St. Cathrine in the western part of the country. Peter Haustein, a Mayor of Deutscheburg -- a small German town located right across the border, presented the international press with several WWII. documents which recorded a thousand mile long journey of Russia´s historical treasure, the Chamber of Amber, from St. Petersburg to its final destination in the old mine at St. Catharine´s of St. Nicholas.

Helmut Gaensel wasted no time and struck-up an immediate deal with the village to start a salvage operation, as soon as possible. He is currently splitting his time between overseeing excavation work in Stechovice and conducting an initial geological survey at St. Cathrine´s.

Walking around his various excavation sites, Gaensel now looks more like a retired Florida businessman than a former prison inmate/secret police agent. But, while pursuing these treasures, he most probably double-crossed both KleinŐs Nazi connections and possibly that of the Czech Intelligence Service. He hasnŐt been without enemies, and rumors persist that he is a marked man.

THE UNCONQUERABLE CZECH: JOSEF MUZíK

Josef Muzík (50), a diminutive, wire-thin man with silver hair and a Chaplin-esque moustache, was long considered a long shot in the race to find the Stechovice treasures. Wearing U.S. military-styled combat fatigues, with a liberal dose of gold jewellry and appearing on a regular basis in the popular tabloids, he remains constant through all the hub-bub claiming that he, a Czech, will be the one to succeed.

In the early 1990´s, when he was limited only to scanning the Stechovice hills with metal detectors, Muzik methodically covered a 240-square-kilometer area trying to narrow his search. For starters, he assembled a formidable collection of German uniform medals and other trinkets and he has established several locations, he planned to explore.

Though underfinanced and relying mostly on information from old area residents, Muzik has put together a devoted team of volunteers and has displayed a great degree of resource fulness by obtaining some of the confidential documents compiled by the Ministry of Interior during its Stechovice searches in the 70´s and 80´s. He doesn`t deny continuing rumors that he himself worked at one point for KGB.

He used his inexhaustible energy to travel around the country and to interview a few survivors of the Stechovice concentration camp. Acting on a tip from a local man, who in May of 1945 witnessed a Nazi execution, he discovered a mass grave of 40 POW´s who were shot after finishing the construction of a nearby shaft.

When the Stechovice municipality finally issued Gaensel a construction permit to begin the excavation in 1994, Muzik and the members of his volunteer group didn´t want to fall too far behind, so they chipped-in to co-lease at least a few (of what they thought,) were the most promising locations.

A year later Muzik´s financial sources dried up and his camp in Stechovice woods was briefly deserted. However, four months later he came back, this time sufficiently funded by a Czech millionaire. He is presently renegotiating his excavation permits with the Stechovice municipality.

So far and despite the para-military appearance of the competing teams and the intense personal hatred reported between Gaensel and Muzík, each side has remained civil to the other. "You can´t underestimate Muzík," Gaensel says, "Muzík is determined and very intelligent. He has a lot of useful documents."

Each team now has specifically outlined and carefully guards their territorities. There have been no reports of trespassing or mutual interference by either Muzík or Gaensel. Aside from the pressures of this intense competition, the two teams -- searching for the treasures, face a deadline with the approaching holiday season. Because the Stechovice lake and its surrounding hills are a popular recreation area, excavation activities must cease once school vacation begins at the end of June and can be resumed only in the Fall.

Muzík and Gaensel may be just guessing about the nature of their potential find without realizing the kind of a high stakes game they have become, either consciously or unconsciously, embroiled in.

A TV PRODUCER´S DREAM: "LIVE FROM THE CZECH REPUBLIC..."

Returning to Prague, almost a year after our 1990 coffin expedition in Zakupy, I paid a visit to Mrs. Pavlikova, the art historian from the Ministry of Culture who rushed to meet us at the site of our find. She had filed a detailed discovery report and signed a release form which stripped me of any future responsibility so that no one could accuse me of pocketing any of the precious and semi-precious stones spread all over the crypt´s floor. A special clause stated that I was entitled to a 10% finder´s fee plus the expedition cost. But I was more curious about what happened to the coffins, which we left resting in the flooded crypt. Mrs. Pavlikova first mentioned some recent top level changes at the Ministry of Culture and then pointed the official "State of the Czech Economy Report" sitting on her desk.

I got the point. There was no money in the state treasury for a preservation of even the most precious of the Czech antiquities, let alone, (by law) "guaranteed" finder´s fee.

A couple of days later, I contacted my secret-agent-collaborators. We decided to put together our limited resources and to resume the search on at least a limited basis. At about the same time, I learned that the Stechovice treasure hunt was just about to begin.

Over the next eight years, whenever my working schedule permitted, I was also drilling holes; constructing shafts; using mine detectors; exploding Semtex detonators; learning about land mines and boobie traps and diving into the murky waters of a German lake...

Along the way, I met a number of interesting people from psychics to government ministers, from treasure hunters to members of counter intelligence groups, old communist hardliners and African fortune tellers.

I was lucky that a sudden tourist boom brought to the Czech Republic thousands of young American ex-pats.They brought with them their positive energy and taste for adventure. They never hesitated to volunteer -- picking up a shovel or a digger and joining me on my weekend searches.

Unfortunately, many times, we were forced to abandon promising leads and leave the exploration site due to either time constraint, lack of sophisticated equipment or insufficient funding... Inspite of that, we did manage to prove that the Stechovice region is just one of several locations in the Czech Republic that may be hiding what the intelligence services of at least five countries have been looking for since the end of WWII.

My co-operation with the two former agents, Mr. M.C. and Mr. Z.H. was and continues to be instrumental to making new discoveries. Their experience, knowledge and professional expertize helped us not only to find and establish various exploration sites in all corners of the Czech Republic, but it also stopped us from taking unnecessary risks during the excavation work.

I have received ocassional help and assistance from the Canadian geological survey "ZEBRA." Their state-of-the-art radar and sonar equipment is being used in a similar treasure hunt in the Philippines. The results of our cooperation were impressive and almost instant. Their digitalized detectors hooked to a computer helped us to discover in just 24-hours the vast underground of Zakupy church. It made us all wonder, how far we could go, if properly financed and equipped.

I have videotaped most of our "expeditions" for what I hope, will become one day a great TV special. But again, due to my `shoe-string` budgeting limitations, a lot of the recorded footage doesn´t have a professional broadcast quality. I used a wide variety of recording equipment - from Hi8 and Super VHS to a digital BETA cameras, often switching from PAL to NTSC. Short clips on BETA SP, which were sold to TV stations in the Czech Republic for local broadcast purposes only, can be bought back. I also gained direct access to footage and films by the Russian and Swedish Nazi treasure hunters. And last, but not least, I now can use some of the Czech police´s secret video recordings or films from the communist era.

Along the way, I have established a close working relationship with the two Stechovice rivals, Mr. Gaensel and Mr. Muzik. Therefore, my coverage includes not only our own independent activities, but it also covers the entire saga of the Stechovice hunt.

Both explorers realize that a unified approach in the matters of TV coverage and the sharing of information is a "must" if we want to produce an exciting TV show. They are prepared to halt their operations when they get close to a major breakthrough and wait until we set up necessary production logistics to cover it.

So, regardless of who is going to come out at the end as a winner of this olympic contest, and regardless of the nature of the ultimate find, we are all looking forward to a great spectacle -- the unveiling of one of the last remaining mysteries of WWII.

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Written by: Jaro Sveceny, 1999
Edited by: Garry Salvatore

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