Nazi gold
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'Nazi gold' refers to the assets in gold transferred by Nazi Germany to overseas banks during the Second World War. The regime maintained a policy of looting the assets of its victims to finance the war, collecting the looted assets in central depositories. The occasional transfer of gold in return for currency took place in collusion with many individual collaborative institutions, whose identities and the precise extent of transactions have been unclear.
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[edit] Acquisition
The draining of Germany's gold and foreign exchange reserves would prevent the acquisition of war materiel, and the Nazi economy, focused on militarisation, could not afford to run dry of the means to procure foreign machinery and parts. Nonetheless, nearing the end of the 1930s, Germany's foreign reserves were unsustainably low; by 1939, Germany had defaulted upon its foreign loans and most of its trade relied upon command economy barter.[1]
However, this trend towards autarkic conservation of foreign reserves hides a trend of expanding official reserves, which occurred as a result of looting of assets in recently-occupied Austria and Czechoslovakia, and Nazi-governed Danzig.[2] It is thought that these three sources boosted German official gold reserves by US$71m between 1937 and 1939.[2] To mask the acquisition, the Reichsbank understated its official reserves (in 1939, by $40m relative to the Bank of England's estimate).[2]
During the war, Nazi Germany continued this practice, only on a larger scale. Germany expropriated $550m of gold from foreign governments, including $223m from Belgium and $193m from the Netherlands.[2] This does not include that stolen from private citizens or companies, which would necessarily inflate the figure.
[edit] Disposal
The present whereabouts of the Nazi gold that disappeared into European banking institutions in 1945 has been the subject of several books, conspiracy theories, and a civil suit brought in 2001 against the Vatican Bank, the Franciscan Order and other defendants.
The Swiss National Bank, the largest gold distribution centre in continental Europe even before the war, was the logical avenue by which Nazi Germany could dispose of its gold.[3] During the war, the SNB received $440m of gold, of which $316m is estimated to have been looted.[4]
[edit] Croatia
Among Nazi puppet regimes, the Ustaše-controlled Independent State of Croatia also maintained concentration camps and confiscated the assets of its victims in the campaign of ethnic cleansing to clear 'Greater Croatia' of Serbs, Roma, and Jews. Victims' assets were deposited in the Croatian treasury. In 1948, U.S. Army Intelligence reports confirmed that 2,400 kilograms of Croatian gold were moved from the Vatican City to one of the Vatican’s numbered Swiss bank accounts.[citation needed]
At the time of the collapse of the Independent State of Croatia in 1945, Ustaše agents were found at the British-occupied Austro-Swiss border with gold valued at 350 million Swiss Francs.[citation needed] Intelligence reports also suggest that more than 200 million Swiss francs were eventually transferred to Vatican City and the Istituto per le Opere di Religione (IOR) with the assistance of Roman Catholic clergy and the Franciscan Order.[citation needed] Such claims are denied by the IOR.
[edit] See also
- Bigelow Report
- Lake Toplitz
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Medlicott, William (1978). The Economic Blockade, Revised edition, London: HMSO, pp. 25-36.
- ^ a b c d UK Treasury correspondence, T 236/931.
- ^ Eizenstat Special Briefing on Nazi Gold. Stuart Eizenstat, US State Department, 2 June 1998. Retrieved on 5 July 2006.
- ^ "Switzerland and Gold Transactions in the Second World War"PDF. Bergier Commission, May 1998. Retrieved on 5 July 2006.
[edit] References
- Alford, Kenneth D., Savas, Theodore P. (2002). Nazi Millionaires: The Allied Search for Hidden SS Gold. Casemate Publishers and Book Distributors. ISBN 0-9711709-6-7.
