Merkers Adventure Mine

Even General Eisenhower was there. At the end of the Second world War the American general confiscated the reserves of gold and currency which had been hidden here by the Reichsbank. The money has long since gone. The gold which can be seen here today is white: potassium salt. You can see it for yourself in the Merkers Adventure Mine in the central Werra valley. Visitors are kitted out with clothes, a helmet and a lamp and a cage takes them down 5000 metres beneath the surface. There platform lorries are standing ready to take them on a twenty kilometre underground journey. The temperature is 28 degrees, there are narrow curves and steep climbs and falls. And everywhere, salt. In the co-called „Gold Room“ you can watch an old newsreel film of Eisenhower on the big screen. In the same gallery there is a large bunker, the former interim storage room for the salt. This is now an exotic concert hall with the dimensions and acoustics of a cathedral and contains the world’s largest rotary bucket excavator below ground. More huge pieces of equipment are parked in other locations and nearby a roomy underground museum brings the old potassium mine back to life. The high point of the journey underground is the fairytale grotto full of huge salt crystals some of which are longer than one metre.

Merkers Adventure Mine
Zufahrtstraße 1
36460 Krayenberggemeinde
Wartburgkreis
Thuringia
Germany
+49 (0) 3695 - 614101
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