Empire of Thieves

In April 1945, Himmler's SS robbed Germany's National Depository, the Reichsbank. As well as the tons of gold bullion, millions in currency, jewels and other valuables, the Nazis already had billions of dollars' worth of art, stolen from doomed Jewish families, hidden away in the mountains of Bavaria and Austria. 70 years later, Kurt Kohler, art hunter and researcher, travels the world looking for works to retrieve and return to their owners' descendants. But when an old farmer tries to sell a batch of ancient gold coins, Kohler is called in and the hidden history of one of the most feared organisations of the 20th century is revealed. Kohler's investigations raise a question: what if Reichsfuhrer-SS, Heinrich Himmler, who supposedly committed suicide with a cyanide capsule at Luneberg, Germany in May 1945 was not Himmler at all, but his terrified double? The official Himmler file at the UK's National Archives is embargoed until 2045. But Kurt Kohler unearths the truth ... and much more besides.