Since the beginning of the year, a mystery donor in the German city of Braunschweig has given away several ‘miracle bags’ containing over 200,000 euros in cash to various charities.

The bags, each stuffed with banknotes worth between 20,000 and 100,000 euros, started appearing at the Braunschweiger Zeitung newspaper headquarters earlier this year, with specific instructions of which local charities the money should go to. The latest one, a bag containing 100,000 euros in two hundred €500 euro bills, was received last Monday along with instructions that it be donated to a local hospice, but other miracle bags have gone to churches, organizations helping crime victims, and several other causes.

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“To make it easier for seriously ill people to die is a sign of human warmth and earns respect and recognition,” a letter attached to the latest miracle bag read. Employees at the local hospice are obviously delighted to have received their largest donation ever, which will help them look after even more terminally ill patients.

What’s even more special about this mystery benefactor is that he seems to have been donating since 2011. That’s when local newspapers started receiving miracle bags along with instructions of where the money should go, but no one can say for sure if it’s the same person.

“We simply don’t know, and we don’t want to endanger the good deed,” said Braunschweig journalist David Mache, adding that the mystery man has contacted his newspaper several times recently to have money sent to various local causes.

 

Data shows that between 2011 and 2013, someone used the miracle bag method to donate over 250,000 euros to kindergartens, soup kitchens and social projects in the region. They used local newspapers as intermediaries and always included instructions of where the money should go.

Last year, a rival newspaper of the Braunschweiger Zeitung received a miracle bag containing 100,000 euros and instructions to have it passed on to a local charity towards building a new hospice.

The “miracle bag” phenomenon has come to be known as The Miracle of Braunschweig. No one knows if the same person has been donating bags stuffed with cash for the last eight years, or if it’s more than one now, but as long as good things are happening, no one really cares.