History
The Chiemsee Cauldron was discovered in 2001 by two local divers at the bottom of Lake Chiemsee, about 200m from the shore near Arlaching, Chieming municipality. The divers passed their find along to Ludwig Wamser of the Bavarian State Archaeological Collection to be analyzed.
Based on the soldering technique used, Wamser identified it as a 20th-century forgery, possibly made during the Nazi era. This seemed to be confirmed by a witness; the senior director of the Munich jeweler's company Theodor Heiden stated that the company's goldsmith, Alfred Notz, before his death in the 1960s, had told him about a "golden cauldron weighing more than 10 kilograms, with a figurative ornament and manufactured by means of the paddle and anvil technique" which had been manufactured in Theodor Heiden's workshop between 1925 and 1939, commissioned by Albert Pietzsch, director of Elektrochemische Werke München. Pietzsch had been in personal contact with Hitler from 1920, and was known to have provided him with generous donations. He became a member of the Nazi party in 1927 and rose to the position of Military Economy Leader (Wehrwirtschaftsführer) and president of the Reich Chamber of Commerce (Reichswirtschaftskammer). He survived the war and died in 1957. Because of its association with the Nazi elite, the cauldron was dubbed "Hitler's bedpan" (Hitlers Nachttopf) by the media.
The Bavarian state and the finder agreed to sell the find on the open market and share the proceedings. The cauldron was bought by an investor for EUR 300,000, at the time about twice the market value of the gold. The buyer, a Swiss entrepreneur, tried to attract investors by claiming that the cauldron was a genuine antique, and that it had a market value of between €250 and €350 million. Investors from Kazakhstan, taken in by these claims, filed suit against the Swiss businessman in 2006. The cauldron was confiscated by the Zürich authorities in 2007, and a fraud trial began on 27 October 2010. As the trial opened, the defendant claimed to have found a new buyer for the cauldron who was prepared to pay 7 million Swiss francs, which would allow him to satisfy all claims against his firm.
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