Theatre 5: 05/31/65, episode 216
Brought to you by the Old Time Radio Researchers, courtesy of The Theatre 5 Project
Author: Jim McGinn
Production number 216; produced on Monday, May 3, 1965
Director: Ted Bell; Producer: not announced
Plotline: An Austrian innkeeper swears that when she was a child during WWII she witnessed Nazis dumping a trunk full of gold into a nearby lake. Even though it’s almost certainly an urban legend, tourists continue to flock to the small Austrian town—with deadly consequences.
Cast: Vasek Simek, Lidia Prochnicka, Theo Goetz, Claus Jurgen, Renata Mannhardt
This was an Eastern European cast of actors that worked together in many ethnic theatrical productions as well as more mainstream productions. Lake Toplitz is a real lake in Austria, and over the decades a number of people have died searching for Nazi treasure that’s supposed to be hidden at the bottom of it. In October, 1963 a German tourist drowned while diving in the lake and local authorities then banned all diving in Lake Toplitz, which is probably the inspiration for this story; music by Ralph Hermann; issued by AFRTS as #200.