Nazi Gold: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

{{quote|''"We'll all be rich, rich as Nazis!"''|'''Private Burns''', ''[[The Simpsons]]'', [[Overly Long Title|"Raging Abe Simpson and His Grumbling Grandson in 'The Curse of the Flying Hellfish'"]]}}

Half-[[Truth in Television]]. While discoveries are not unheard of, ''finders'' does not mean ''keepers''. The gold still has legal owners somewhere (and considering how the Nazis got some of those valuables, you'd probably be considered one of the ultimate dicks in the universe for not returning it to its pre-Nazi owners or their descendants). On the other hand, there is the possibility that the owners might give you a small reward for doing so (this is rare, but hardly unheard-of, particularly if you went to particular trouble to get it).

 

{{examples}}

 

* ''[[Three Kings]]'' uses the Kelly's Heroes idea, but applies it Saddam Hussein and gold stolen from the Sheiks who ran Iraq before he came to power.

* The 1970s film ''Brass Target'' tells the (hypothetical) story of how a group of corrupt U.S. Army officers hired an assassin to kill [[Patton]] and make it look like an accident, to cover up their theft of a shipment of recovered Nazi gold.

* In ''[[Hellboy (film)|Hellboy]]'' Haupstein pays a guide to the site where Rasputin could be resurrected with a bar of gold stamped with a swastika, then kills him.

 

 

== Live Action TV ==

* Guy Secretan of ''[[Green Wing]]'' is Swiss, and is often insulted for his heritage, including references to Nazi gold. One hurricane of stereotypes runs:

{{quote|'''Guy:''' "Shut your eyes, think of Switzerland - what do you see?"

 

== Real Life ==

* On the other side of the Axis, Imperial Japan too was known to have looted quite a bit from much of Eastern Asia and there are occasional stories of finding hidden caches of Imperial Gold. This was the basis for part of the plot in ''[[Cryptonomicon]]''.

** Better yet are the missing Swords. So at the end of World War 2, after the Japanese surrendered, all arms had to be turned in, this was interpreted to include swords, and cultural treasures were not spared. American servicemen tended to look for souvenirs and grab the nicest swords they could. Swords worth millions are still lost. Honjo Masamune is the equivalent of the Mona Lisa of swords and still missing.