'Give Goering's chalice back'

March 26, 2002

The victim of a blackmail plot involving a boxer dog and a Nazi chalice says the treasure should now be given to Hermann Goering’s daughter.

The woman's pet was held to ransom by Derick Smith in a bid to reclaim the silver tankard, which was once owned by Hitler's henchman Goering.

Last week, Smith was jailed for nine months for his part in the plot and a legal battle has started to determine the true owner of the £2m Nazi treasure.

Smith, 51, previously pledged to fight for the chalice, which was given to him by a British soldier who snatched it from a castle at the end of the Second World War.

But Goering's daughter, Edda, is likely to have a claim - and her case has been backed by the victim at the centre of the bizarre plot.

The real thing

The woman - who cannot be named for legal reasons - said: ‘I would like to see it given back to the family, because Hermann Goering's daughter has nothing belonging to her father.

‘The Allies didn't even allow her to keep her father's medals. Goering may have been a Nazi, but he was still her dad,’ she said.

Northumbria Police are trying to trace Goering's daughter, who was last known to have been living in Munich in the 1990s.

The chalice was said to have been crafted in 1936, to mark the Nazi takeover of the Rhineland and bears the inscription: ‘In memory of the great time 7.3.36’.

The history of the treasure has never been authenticated, but the blackmail victim said: ‘I have no doubt that the chalice is the real thing. But it was made much earlier than 1936 and the inscription was added later.

‘I researched the history and the chalice was a gift to Hermann Goering.’ The chalice is currently in the care of Northumbria Police.

It was taken from Goering's Karin Hall lodge in 1945, by Wearside soldier George Armstrong, who was among the British troops who stormed the holiday home.

Stuffed in backpack

He wrapped it in a blue curtain and stuffed it in his backpack before returning home to Springwell Village.

Of the treasure, the victim of the plot said: ‘I think it is beautiful and it is a piece of history. The whole shady affair takes nothing away from that.’

The blackmail victim took the chalice from Smith in 1999, as security on a £40,000 loan.

She met the blackmailer ten years ago when he lodged at her Sunderland home for two years and they began a ‘brief fling’.

But today she said: ‘I rue the day I ever let that man into my home. He has made my life hell for ten years.’

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Germans are drawn into wrangle over Nazi chalice

March 15, 2002

The German government has been drawn into a bizarre legal wrangle over a £2m Nazi treasure discovered in a North-East loft.

The authorities are searching for Herman Goering's relatives so they can make a claim for the Nazi chalice.

The treasure was discovered in a house in Sunderland where it had lain after being smuggled out of Germany by an enterprising squaddie at the end of the Second World War.

The chalice was at the centre of a blackmail plot involving a kidnapped dog last year, and has been kept in police custody ever since.

The chalice was given to its present owner as payment for a gambling debt.

Rhineland invasion

But, when detectives found it had been smuggled out of Germany in the last few weeks of the Second World War, they confiscated the treasure.

Northumbria Police last night confirmed that the German Consulate had offered to help find the Nazi henchman's relatives.

The foot-high silver trophy is believed to have been made for the Luftwaffe chief to mark the German invasion of the Rhineland in 1936.

It bears the inscription: ‘In memory of the great time. 7.3.36.’

It was believed lost for more than 50 years, until it re-appeared when it became the focal point of a blackmail trial.

Derick Smith, 51, held his middle-aged victim's dog to ransom in a bid to force her to hand over the chalice, which is valued at £2m.

The chalice is being kept by police at an unspecified secure location as efforts are made to trace Goering's daughter, Edda, or any other surviving family members.

Smuggled out

A police spokesman said: ‘We want to play this by the book and want to establish who is the correct owner.

‘Goering's relatives may have a claim to the chalice.’ Attempts have already been made to contact Edda, who was known to be alive in Munich in the mid-1990s and who may now be living in South Africa.

Smith, of Tuscan Road, Sunderland, admitted blackmail when he appeared at Newcastle Crown Court last year. He is due to be sentenced today.

The chalice is believed to have been smuggled out of Germany from Goering's country home at the end of the war.

Smith claims the chalice was passed to him and was among items the blackmail victim was looking after for him while he was in hospital.

The blackmail plot was uncovered after the woman alleged Smith had stolen her boxer dog which had gone missing. The animal was later returned unharmed.

From The Northern Echo

Copyright (c) 2000-2002 Sue Kelly