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.
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 January 2000 against the Vatican Bank, the Franciscan Order and other defendents.
That the Nazi regime maintained a policy of looting the assets of its victims to finance its war, collecting the looted assets in central depositories, and that it occasionally transferred gold to banks outside the Third Reich in return for currency, have been well documented since the 1950s. The identity of individual collaborative institutions and the precise extent of transactions is more open to denial, however.
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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 January 2000 against the Vatican Bank, the Franciscan Order and other defendants.[3]
The Swiss National Bank, the largest gold distribution centre in continental Europe before the war, was the logical avenue by which Nazi Germany could dispose of its gold.[4] During the war, the SNB received $440m of gold, of which $316m is estimated to have been looted.[5]
[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 21 October 1946, U.S. Army Intelligence memo from treasury agent Emerson Bigelow[6] The Bigelow memo asserted that at the time of the collapse of the Ustasha in 1945, 150 million Swiss francs had been impounded by British authorities at the Austro-Swiss border and the balance was held in one of the Vatican’s numbered Swiss bank accounts. The intelligence reports also suggest that more than 200 million Swiss francs were eventually transferred to Vatican City and the IOR with the assistance of Roman Catholic clergy and the Franciscan Order. Such claims are denied by the Vatican Bank.
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ Medlicott, William (1978). The Economic Blockade, Revised edition, London: HMSO, pp. 25-36.
- ^ a b c d UK Treasury correspondence, T 236/931.
- ^ Text of the Civil Action of January 21, 2000: Factual Allegations, nos. 25 – 38.
- ^ 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 (1.18 MiB). Bergier Commission, May 1998. Retrieved on 5 July 2006.
- ^ CNN: "Vatican drawn into scandal over Nazi-era gold" 22 July 1997 Correlated documents establish that Bigelow received reliable information on the matter from the American Overseas Special Services. The document was declassified 31 December 1996.
[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.
[edit] External links
- Text of the Civil Action of January 21, 2000: Factual Allegations, nos. 25 – 38.
- Nazi Gold and Art -- from Hitler's Third Reich and World War II in the News
- Swiss gold holdings and transactions during WW2
- PBS Frontline: Nazi Gold
- Report of the Swiss Bergier Commission
- Nazi Gold Report (Stuart Eizenstat, Under Secretary for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs, on-the-record briefing upon release of U.S. and Allied Wartime and Postwar Relations and Negotiations With Argentina, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey on Looted Gold and German External Assets and U.S. Concerns About the Fate of the Wartime Ustasha Treasury, Washington, DC, June 2, 1998)
- (US News and World Report) "A vow of silence. Did gold stolen by Croatian fascists reach the Vatican?" 30n March 1998
