Heinz Kurschildgen

Heinz Kurschildgen with a diagram of his radium-making machine in a 1920s press photograph.

Heinrich "Heinz" Kurschildgen, called the "goldmaker of Hilden", was a charlatan in pre-World War II Germany. He fooled numerous people, including Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler, into believing that he was able to make valuable resources such as gold, radium or petrol out of base materials.