An active salt mine above Altaussee, worked since the 13th century, with underground chambers of genuine natural beauty. In April 1945, local miners removed explosives placed by Nazi authorities and saved over 6,500 looted masterworks hidden inside. The most historically charged mine experience in Austria.
The Story
The Altaussee mine has been producing salt since at least the 13th century. The subterranean landscape it contains is unusual: chambers of white and grey salt rock, brine pools, and cathedral-like caverns with a crystalline quality found at few other sites. On its own, it would rank as one of the more interesting mine tours in the region.
What sets it apart from every other mine in Austria is what happened here between 1943 and 1945. Nazi authorities, working through the ERR (Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg) and associated organisations, selected the mine for its stable, dry conditions and used it to store artworks looted across occupied Europe. By 1945, over 6,500 objects were inside the mountain, including Michelangelo's Madonna of Bruges, stolen from a church in Belgium; Jan van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece, one of the most important paintings in Western art; Vermeer's The Astronomer; and thousands of other paintings, sculptures, and cultural objects.
In April 1945, as German forces collapsed, orders arrived to detonate the mine and destroy everything inside. Local salt miners, members of a small Austrian resistance group, removed the wooden crates of explosives that had been brought into the mine and hid them. When Allied forces arrived, the artworks were intact. The recovery effort, led by the Allied Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives programme (the "Monuments Men"), returned the objects to their countries of origin over the following years.
The story was dramatised in the 2014 George Clooney film The Monuments Men. Exhibition panels throughout the current mine tour document the wartime episode in detail. The mine today is still an active working salt mine, which adds an unusual layer to the visit: the history happened in the same chambers where salt is still being extracted.
Visiting
Hours are typically Tuesday through Sunday, 10:00 to 17:00; check current hours locally as seasonal variations apply. Admission charged. Allow one to two hours. The mine is above Altaussee village in the Styrian Salzkammergut, a longer drive from Salzburg than Salzwelten Hallein or Salzwelten Hallstatt; roughly 90 minutes by car. Warm clothing required; mine temperature is consistently cool year-round.