Welcome to the WWII Forums! Log in or Sign up to interact with the community.

Nazi gold, and the plundering of Europe...

Discussion in 'WWII General' started by Schwartzvogel, Mar 21, 2008.

  1. Schwartzvogel

    Schwartzvogel Member

    Joined:
    Mar 21, 2008
    Messages:
    67
    Likes Received:
    3
    Hi Guys,

    I`m also really interested in the Nazis plundering of Europes gold reserves. Anyone else share an interest in this?

    SV
     
    macrusk likes this.
  2. Schwartzvogel

    Schwartzvogel Member

    Joined:
    Mar 21, 2008
    Messages:
    67
    Likes Received:
    3
    Maybe this will whet your appetite....

    SNB, tried to launder their gold for want of a better word, by making it into coins. By the end of the war, and just after, they had minted more L1935B coins, than gold that they had in their reservers prior to the war starting.

    They claimed to use L1935B as a mint mark, as they stated that the gold used was from this period. However if this was the case, then all the gold they had they turned into coins, and yet still had tonnes & tonnes left over.

    It is also claimed that they in fact minted more coins than they had gold so must have used Nazi gold in order to produce so many. There also appears to be some Russian gold in there to.
     
  3. Schwartzvogel

    Schwartzvogel Member

    Joined:
    Mar 21, 2008
    Messages:
    67
    Likes Received:
    3
    Soon after the out break of the war the German national gold reserves, already substantially increased by the acquisition of Austrian gold holdings following the Auchluss, were significantly augmented by forcible acquisitions from abroad. The Nazi’s took $2,596,608 of gold from the gold reserves of the Czech National Bank and £32,200,000 from the National Bank of Hungary. They looted part of the gold reserves of Albania, Holland the USSR and other countries overrun of the victorious Wehrmacht, and after the conquest of France they stole $225,900,000 worth of gold, comprising part of the Belgian national gold reserves, which was deposited in the Banque de France for safekeeping, by the Belgian government. The Belgian gold was taken to the Reichsbank in Berlin and resmelted. Each bar was stamped with the letters RB for Reichsbank, the German eagle, the retrospective date 1938, and its weight to three points of the decimal.

    Later, when the Germans were forced to withdraw from Southern Italy in the face of the advancing Anglo-American forces, they took with them $100,000,000 in Italian gold, which also ended up in the Reichsbank`s reserves.

    At the height of the Nazi conquest of Europe the gold reserves held by the Reichsbank were estimated to total as much as $772,636,253. By today’s values the equivalent of $6,490,144,525 much of it looted from subject nations of Europe.

    Following US air raids on Berlin in early Feb 1945, over $200,000,000 worth of gold reserves, were moved from Berlin, to the Kaiseroda Mine. Weighing around 100 tons, it needed 13 railway flat cars to transport it and took 72 hours to unload and transfer them to twenty 10 ton trucks.
     
  4. Schwartzvogel

    Schwartzvogel Member

    Joined:
    Mar 21, 2008
    Messages:
    67
    Likes Received:
    3
    On May 6 1945, at the request of the Allies, Portugal seized all German government buildings. Included in the seizure was 5000 gold sovereign, found in the German Legation in Lisbon.

    Additionally, there was a significant amount of gold smuggled into Portugal. German Commercial Attaché in Madrid admitted to smuggling almost $1 million in English gold sovereigns from Berlin to the German embassy in Lisbon. The coins had been sent in diplomatic pouches during 1943 and 1944. Another report indicated that $360,000 of gold was flown to Portugal in June and July of 1944 and deposited in the Bank of Portugal under the name of the ambassador. The bank director admitted several other dignitaries had special accounts.
     
  5. Za Rodinu

    Za Rodinu Aquila non capit muscas

    Joined:
    May 12, 2003
    Messages:
    8,809
    Likes Received:
    372
    Location:
    Portugal
    Keep them coming! What about general effects of occupation, plundering, moving of industries, raw materials pilfering (ores, etc), dedication of exports at low price to the Reich, for instance? ;)
     
  6. macrusk

    macrusk Proud Daughter of a Canadian WWII Veteran

    Joined:
    Oct 14, 2007
    Messages:
    2,804
    Likes Received:
    563
    Location:
    Saskatoon
    I look forward to more posts. I would be interested in what other transfers were made, to where , and how. I recall a Robert Ludlum fiction novel that suggested movement by submarine to South America...

    The post war effects of the plundering of gold reserves and the post-war indebtedness of many occupied countries must be inter-related? Allied countries which eventually forgave all or part of debts were also affected. It will be interesting to read you future posts! Thanks.
     
  7. bigfun

    bigfun Ace

    Joined:
    Oct 2, 2007
    Messages:
    3,851
    Likes Received:
    217
    Location:
    Karlsruhe, Baden-Wurtemburg, Germany
    I read, I think in A Man Called Intrepid, about how the Allied forces guarded a place that contained millions in gold. They were attempting to keep the germans from getting at it. I might be wrong here? Not sure! Anyway, the germans did not get the gold!
     
  8. Schwartzvogel

    Schwartzvogel Member

    Joined:
    Mar 21, 2008
    Messages:
    67
    Likes Received:
    3

    Is this the place you where thinking of?In a salt mine in Merkers, Germany in 1945, the 90th Division, U.S. Third Army, discovered Reichsbank wealth, SS loot, and paintings from Berlin


    When the Americans discovered the Merkers mine treasure in 1945, a partial inventory revealed:

    8,198 bars of gold bullion
    55 boxes of crated gold bullion
    hundreds of bags of gold items
    over 1,300 bags of gold Reichsmarks, British gold pounds, and French gold francs
    711 bags of American twenty-dollar gold pieces
    hundreds of bags of gold and silver coins
    hundreds of bags of foreign currency
    9 bags of valuable coins
    2,380 bags and 1,300 boxes of Reichsmarks (2.76 billion Reichsmarks)
    20 silver bars
    40 bags containing silver bars
    63 boxes and 55 bags of silver plate
    1 bag containing six platinum bars
    110 bags from various countries
     
  9. Schwartzvogel

    Schwartzvogel Member

    Joined:
    Mar 21, 2008
    Messages:
    67
    Likes Received:
    3
    Gold in the Kaiseroda mine

    8,527 gold bars, valued at $112,000,000. Minted gold coins, valued at $126,000,000, included a million Swiss Francs, a billion French Francs and 711 bags of US $20 gold pieces.
    250 tons of gold in total.

    Reichsbank in Berlin, liberated by the Russians.

    90 gold bars worth $1,278,000 and over four and a half million gold coins (dollars, sovereigns, guilders & Francs) worth $,156,625

    Some gold also unexpectedly turned up in the former German embassy in Madrid Spain, in May 1945. Estimated at one ton, with a value of $1,250,000. It consisted entirely of gold coins, mostly British gold sovereigns. It was flown by plane back to Frankfurt in 1946.
     
  10. Schwartzvogel

    Schwartzvogel Member

    Joined:
    Mar 21, 2008
    Messages:
    67
    Likes Received:
    3
    Not only the Nazis mind....

    "Moscow gold", ''el oro de Moscú" in Spanish, was a term applied to Spanish gold reserves transferred to the Soviet Union and to Soviet-controlled banks by the Spanish Republican government in 1937 to purchase arms and military equipment during the Spanish Civil War. At the time, Spain had held the world's fourth largest gold reserves, worth more than US$750 million. More than US$500 million worth of these reserves were transferred to the Soviet Union, the only nation to supply significant quantities of arms and equipment to the Spanish Republic during the war. The director of the Bank of Spain stated his opposition in the secret meeting that approved it. When the Nationalists learned of this, Francoist press stated that this gold was a property of all the Spanish people, not the Spanish government.

    Spanish historians have contended in years since that much of the Soviet hardware sold to the Republic was of marginal quality and was sold at deliberately inflated prices and that the Republican government of Juan Negrín López failed to respond to and may have been complicit in this malfeasance, contributing to the Republican defeat in the Civil War. The issue of "Moscow gold" was raised as a critique of the reemergence of the PSOE party during the Spanish transition to democracy.
     
  11. Schwartzvogel

    Schwartzvogel Member

    Joined:
    Mar 21, 2008
    Messages:
    67
    Likes Received:
    3
    The Gold
    The twist in the tragic tale of the Edinburgh is that, at the time of her sinking, she was carrying a 4.5 ton consignment of gold bullion, which formed part of Stalin's payment for the supplies that the Allies were shipping to the USSR. The 465 gold ingots, carried in ninety-three wooden boxes, were being transported in the armoured bomb-rooms situated on the starboard side of the vessel, not far from the original torpedo's impact point. At the time, the estimated worth of the bullion was somewhere in the region of £1,547,080 sterling.

    Salvaging The Bullion
    In 1954, the British Government offered the salvage rights to the Edinburgh to Risdon Beazley Ltd., a salvage company operating out of the UK, but the project was put on hold, due to strained political relations between the West and the Soviet Union. In 1957, the wreck was designated as a war grave, which complicated any salvage attempts still further.

    In the late 1970s, interest in the Edinburgh was reawakened, and the British Government was becoming increasingly anxious to recover the gold. This was not only because would it provide further valuable revenue for the Exchequer, but because there was also a growing fear of the wreck being pirated by unscrupulous salvagers, or, worse, salvaged by the Soviet Union, in whose waters it lay.

    In the early 1980s, a company called Jessop Marine, run by seasoned diver Keith Jessop, won the contract for the salvage rights to the wreck of the Edinburgh. Jessop won the contract because his methods, involving complex cutting machinery and divers, were deemed more appropriate for a war grave, compared to the explosives-oriented methods of other companies.

    In April 1981, the survey ship Dammtor began searching for the wreck in the Barents Sea, on behalf of Jessop Marine. After only ten days, they discovered the ship's final resting place at an approximate position of 72.00°N, 35.00°E, at a depth of 245 metres (800 feet). Using specialist camera equipment, the Dammtor took detailed film of the wreck, which allowed Jessop and his divers to carefully plan the salvage operation.

    Later that year, on 30 August, the dive-support vessel Stephaniturm journeyed to the site, and salvage operations began in earnest. Several divers were injured during the operation, but on 15 September 1981, a diver finally penetrated the bomb room and recovered a bar of gold. On 7 October, bad weather finally forced the suspension of diving operations, but by that time, 431 of 465 ingots had been recovered, now worth in excess of £43,000,000 sterling.
     
  12. Schwartzvogel

    Schwartzvogel Member

    Joined:
    Mar 21, 2008
    Messages:
    67
    Likes Received:
    3
    Nazis in Greece...

    1941
    February
    Secret transportation of the Bank's gold reserves to its branch in Herakleion, aboard the destroyers "Vasilissa Olga" and "Vasilefs Georgios".

    22 April
    King George II, the Prime Minister Emm. Tsouderos, and the Governor and Deputy Governor of the Bank of Greece, ?. Varvaressos and G. Mantzavinos respectively, flee Athens heading for Crete.

    27 April
    The Germans occupy Athens.

    May
    Amendment of the Bank's Statute, stipulating that the Bank will be considered as based at the headquarters of the official Greek Government abroad.

    23 May
    The fall of Crete marks the country's total occupation by German, Italian and Bulgarian troops. Each of the three occupation forces circulates its own currency unit: the Reichsmark, the Mediterranean Drachma and the Bulgarian Lev. Adventurous efforts to transport the gold reserves to a safe country. Flight of the country's leaders to Alexandria.

    June
    Relocation of the Bank's Administration and gold to Cairo.

    July - August
    The gold is transported to Pretoria.

    1 August
    Reinstatement of the drachma as legal tender.

    19 September
    The Governments of Italy and Germany appoint commissioners at the Bank empowered with the exclusive right to conduct the monetary and exchange rate policies. Requisitions, appropriations of the national product and mandatory offer to the occupation forces for purchase in inflationary money.

    22 September
    The Bank's Administration and the Greek Government arrive in London.

    November
    Starvation of the civilian population. The situation is aggravated further during the winter of 1941-42. The daily death toll from starvation exceeds 100.

    December
    Advances amount to 3.5 billion drachmas per month. Uncontrollable inflationary pressures. On the initiative of the British Government, an ad hoc inter-alliance committee is set up, to record war damages and post-war needs. Greece is represented by K. Varvaressos.

    1942
    January
    Occupation expenses amount to 6-7 billion drachmas per month.

    June
    Occupation expenses rise to 200 billion drachmas per month.

    July
    A German financial committee, headed by Hermann Neubacher, arrives in Athens to solve the monetary problem.

    1 December
    Compulsory use of securities in all transactions, aimed at limiting currency in circulation.

    1943
    November
    Emergence of hyperinflation. Transactions based on barter. Occupation authorities funnel English gold pounds and French gold twenty-franc coins into the Athens money market. Conference in Atlantic City, USA, for the founding of an inter-alliance organisation, the UNRRA.

    December
    Gold becomes the only medium of exchange and store of value.

    1944
    1-22 July
    At the international conference in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, 44 nations agree to establish the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Greece is represented by K. Varvaressos.

    18 October
    The expatriated Government returns to Greece. Speech by Prime Minister G. Papandreou at Syntagma Square, Athens, celebrating the country's liberation.

    3-9 November
    The Greek Government, the Bank of Greece and British experts agree on an economic stabilisation programme.

    10 November
    The country's fiscal and monetary system collapses. Inflationary bulge at full blast.

    11 November
    Launch of the new drachma, equivalent to 50 billion old drachmas.

    1945
    8 January
    Failure of the stabilisation programme. Resignation of the Bank's Co-Governor and reinstitution of the rank of Deputy Governor.

    1 April
    UNRRA aid to Greece.

    8 May
    End of the war in Europe. Germany surrenders to the Allies.

    4 June
    Second stabilisation attempt: the Varvaressos Programme.

    31 July
    President Truman signs the Bretton Woods Agreement Treaty.

    August
    Confrontation between K. Varvaressos and private sector agents.

    2 September
    K. Varvaressos resigns from his position as Vice-President of the Government. Abandonment of all stabilisation efforts. September marks the beginning of a period of monetary anarchy, mass strikes, social upheaval and intense political crisis, which lasts until December.

    December
    Conference of the victors in Paris to determine war reparations. Greece is granted only 152.7 million US dollars (in kind) as compensation, instead of the 15.7 billion US dollars it had claimed.
     
  13. Schwartzvogel

    Schwartzvogel Member

    Joined:
    Mar 21, 2008
    Messages:
    67
    Likes Received:
    3
    The Japanese....

    Yamashita's Gold - Eyewitness
    Reveals Truth Of Fabulous
    WWII Hidden Treasure
    By Sterling and Peggy Seagrave

    In the closing months of World War II, in the Philippines, several of Japan's highest ranking imperial princes hid tons of looted gold bullion and other stolen treasure in caves and tunnels, to recover later. This was the wealth of 12 Asian countries, accumulated over thousands of years.
    Expert teams accompanying Japan's armed forces had systematically emptied treasuries, banks, factories, private homes, pawn shops, art galleries, and stripped ordinary people, while Japan's top gangsters looted Asia's underworld and its black economy.
    There were 175 ''imperial'' treasure sites hidden throughout the Philippines. When American tanks were close, the chief engineers of those vaults were given a farewell party 67 metres underground in Tunnel 8 in the mountains of Luzon, stacked with row after row of gold bars. As the evening progressed, they drank great quantities of sake, sang patriotic songs and shouted banzai (long life).
    At midnight, General Yamashita Tomoyuki and the princes slipped out, and dynamite charges were set off in the access tunnels, entombing the engineers. Their vaults would remain secret. The princes escaped to Tokyo by submarine, and three months later General Yamashita surrendered to American troops. Japan had lost the war militarily, but the princes made certain Japan did not lose financially.
    This grisly event has remained unknown until now, and the hidden treasure was brushed off as a fanciful legend of ''Yamashita's Gold''. But an eyewitness to the entombment has taken us there and given us his personal account. During the war, Ben Valmores was the young Filipino valet of a senior prince, who was in charge of closing all imperial treasure sites in the Philippines. A sometimes sentimental man, the prince spared Ben's life and led him out of Tunnel 8 just before the dynamite was detonated.
    Japan's looting of Asia was overseen by [then-emperor] Hirohito's brother Prince Chichibu. His organisation was codenamed kin no yuri (Golden Lily), the title of one of the emperor's poems. Other princes headed different parts of Golden Lily across the conquered territories. Eventually, Japanese sources told us that Ben's wartime master was prince Takeda Tsuneyoshi, first cousin of Hirohito and grandson of emperor Meiji.
    In 1998, we tested Ben with 1930s photographs of many princes, all the names removed, and he instantly identified prince Takeda, Hirohito's brother prince Chichibu and other princes.
    Ben said he had spent time with each of them, bringing them food, tea and cigarettes while they inventoried each treasure site. When he saw our photo of Prince Takeda, Ben froze, then began softly crooning the Japanese folk song Sakura, Sakura (Cherry Blossoms), which he said Takeda often sang to himself.
    In the final stages of work on a biography of Japan's imperial family titled The Yamato Dynasty, we were told that in October 1945, American intelligence agents learned where some of the Japanese loot was hidden in the Philippines, and quietly recovered billions of dollars worth of gold bullion, platinum, and loose diamonds. This information, if true, revealed the existence of an extraordinary state secret, something the United States Government kept from its own citizens for more than half a century. There was no time to include this in the biography. It had to be investigated separately. Here is some of what we have since learned:
    After surrendering on September 2, 1945, General Yamashita was charged with war crimes over gruesome atrocities committed in Manila under the order of an admiral, while Yamashita had ordered withdrawing troops to leave the city unharmed. During his trial, there was no mention of plundered treasure, or of looting during the war.
    But we now know there was a hidden agenda. Because it was not possible to torture General Yamashita physically without this becoming evident to his lawyers, members of his staff were tortured. His driver, Major Kojima Kashii, was given special attention. In charge of the torture of Major Kojima was a Filipino-American intelligence officer named Severino Garcia Santa Romana, whose friends called him Santy. He wanted the major to reveal each place where he had taken Yamashita, where bullion and other treasure was hidden for recovery after the war. Supervising Santy during the torture was Captain Edward Lansdale, later one of America's best known ''Cold Warriors''.
    Early that October, Kojima broke and led Lansdale and Santy to more than a dozen Golden Lily treasure vaults in the rugged country north of Manila. What they found astounded everyone from General Douglas MacArthur all the way up to the White House. After discussions with his cabinet, President Harry Truman decided to keep the recovery a state secret.
    Santy's ensuing recoveries greatly altered America's leverage during the Cold War. According to senior US government officials and high-ranking US Army officers, the Truman administration set this treasure aside along with Axis loot recovered in Europe, as a secret political action fund to fight communism in the Cold War.
    Crudely put, it would be used to bribe statesmen and military officers, and to buy elections for anti-communist political parties. The idea for a global political action fund based on war loot had originated with US secretary of war, Henry Stimson. During the war, Stimson had a brain-trust thinking hard about recovered Axis plunder, and how it should be handled after the war. Their solution was to set up what is informally called the ''Black Eagle Trust'', after the black eagle emblem of Hitler's Reichsbank in Berlin.
    The Black Eagle Trust was first discussed in secret during July 1944, when 44 nations met at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to plan the post-war economy. This was confirmed to us by a number of high-level sources, including former CIA deputy director Ray Cline, who knew about Santy's recoveries in 1945, and continued to be involved in attempts in the 1980s and 1990s to hide blocks of Japanese war loot still said to be in the vaults of banks in New York.
    In November 1945, General MacArthur strolled down row after row of gold bars stacked two metres tall during a tour of vaults opened by Santy. >From what was seen in these vaults alone, it was evident that over a period of years Japan had looted billions of dollars in treasure from all over Asia.Much of this plunder had reached Japan overland earlier, from China through Korea, but the rest was hidden in the Philippines, unable to be shipped to Japan by sea because of the successful US submarine blockade.
    According to Ray Cline and others, between 1945 and 1947 the gold bullion recovered by Santy and Lansdale was moved discreetly to 172 accounts at banks in 42 countries.
    There were important reasons for all this secrecy. If the recovery of this huge mass of stolen gold was known only to a trusted few, the countries and individuals that had been plundered could not lay claim to it. Truman recognised that the very existence of so much black gold, if it became public knowledge, would cause the metal's fixed price to collapse. But as long as the gold was kept hidden, prices could be maintained and currencies pegged to gold would be stable. Meanwhile, the black gold would serve as a reserve asset, bolstering the prime banks in each country, and strengthening the anti-communist governments of those nations.
    To hide the existence of all this treasure, Washington had to tell a number of lies. Especially lies about Japan, which had stolen most of the gold. America wanted Japan to become its anti-communist bastion in Asia, where the mainland was being overrun by communists. If American conservatives and Japanese conservatives were to ally effectively against communism, they had to begin by enlarging their financial resources for the Cold War.
    Above all, the source of much of this hidden wealth must never be acknowledged. Washington had to insist, starting in 1945, that Japan never stole anything, and was flat broke and bankrupt when the war ended. Here was the beginning of many terrible secrets.
    Because they remained ''off the books'', these enormous political action funds got into the wrong hands, where they remain to this day. We can reveal that in 1960, then vice-president Richard Nixon ''gave'' one of the biggest of these political action funds, the US$35-billion (about HK$272 billion) M-Fund, to leading members of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). In return, he is believed to have sought their support for his presidential campaign that year.
    The M-Fund, now said to be worth more than US$500 billion, is still controlled by members of the LDP.
    Officially, we are told that Japan's wartime elite the imperial family, the zaibatsu (large industrial business conglomerates), the yakuza (Japanese mafia) and the ''good'' bureaucrats ended the war as impoverished victims of a handful of ''bad'' military zealots. We are told that Japan was badly damaged and impoverished, barely able to feed itself at war's end.
    In fact, Japan emerged from the war far richer than before, and with remarkably little damage, except to the homes of millions of ordinary Japanese who did not count, at least in the view of their overlords.
    Evidence of Golden Lily loot comes also from straightforward legal actions in America. Such simple things as the probating of the will of Santa Romana (Santy), verification of his tax records, and legal evidence of his fortune deposited in the US, Switzerland, Hong Kong and elsewhere, provide hard proof that the world is awash with clandestine bank accounts growing out of Golden Lily.
    Other lawsuits in the US prove that Golden Lily war loot was indeed hidden in the Philippines. Rogelio Roxas, a Filipino locksmith, found a one-tonne solid-gold Buddha and thousands of gold bars hidden in a cave near Baguio only to have it stolen from him by President Ferdinand Marcos. Roxas was subsequently tortured and died in suspicious circumstances. Some believe he was murdered. In 1996, a US Federal Court awarded his heirs a judgment of US$22 billion against the Marcos estate.
    As the 1951 Peace Treaty was skewed by secret deals, thousands of Japan's victims have been deprived of any compensation for their suffering. According to Article 14 of the Treaty: ''It is recognised that Japan should pay reparations to the Allied Powers for the damage and suffering caused by it during the war. Nevertheless it is also recognised that the resources of Japan are not presently sufficient.'' To reinforce the claim that Japan was broke, Article 14 noted that ''the Allied Powers waive all reparations claims of the Allied Powers and their nationals arising out of any actions taken by Japan...'' By signing the Treaty, Allied countries concurred that Japan's plunder had vanished down a rabbit hole, and all Japan's victims were out of luck. In return for going along with the Treaty, the Allies received portions of the gold bullion recovered by Santy.
    We have evidence from former CIA deputy director Cline that the gold bullion Santy and Lansdale recovered was secretly moved to national treasuries and prime banks in more than 42 countries, including Great Britain. We also have evidence from British archives confirming this.
    More than half a century later, the last battle of the Pacific War is being waged in courts in the US and Japan where surviving prisoners of war, slave labourers, comfort women and civilian victims of Japan have filed billion-dollar lawsuits to win compensation so mysteriously denied them after the war. In 1995, it was estimated that there were 700,000 victims of the war who had still received no compensation.
    Today, their numbers are dwindling rapidly because of age and illness. Backing them is an extraordinary coalition, including international law firms with years of experience, fighting for compensation from German industries and Swiss banks, for crimes committed and money looted during the Nazi Holocaust.
     
  14. Schwartzvogel

    Schwartzvogel Member

    Joined:
    Mar 21, 2008
    Messages:
    67
    Likes Received:
    3
    The Dutch...

    Dutch banks and the Amsterdam Stock exchange have agreed to pay the Jewish community in the Netherlands about 135 million dollars in compensation for assets dating from the Second World War. The money will go to survivors of the Holocaust or to relatives of those who died. The preliminary deal ends protracted negotiations between the main Jewish organisation in the Netherlands, the CJO, and Dutch financial institutions. In the end, it took major pressure from US-based Jewish groups to force a breakthrough.

    The laborious negotiations between the Jewish community and the banks and the Amsterdam Stock Exchange have put the spotlight on the embarrassing attitude of the Dutch financial establishment during the years of Nazi occupation. The Nazis forced the Jews to give up their financial assets and to deposit them in a special bank, which later became known as the "Robber Bank". The Jewish securities were then traded on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, although Dutch banks trading in those assets could have known of their Jewish origins.

    After the war, most of the stolen property was restored to the Jewish survivors or their surviving relatives, but a number of claims were not settled. Representatives of the Jewish community claimed that some 12 million guilders worth of stolen Jewish property was not returned. They demanded repayment, taking into account interest and rising stock prices. They estimated this to be some 400 million guilders.

    A Mere Gesture
    The Amsterdam Stock Exchange and the banks maintained that the outstanding claims had all been formally settled in 1953, but finally agreed to the exception of the 12 million. They disagreed about what those 12 million would then be worth today. They acknowledged that the wartime behaviour of the bourse and the banks had been less than honourable and offered official apologies. They also offered to make a gesture towards the Jewish community and to pay 8 million guilders.

    This offer was indignantly rejected as an insult by the group negotiating on behalf of the Jewish community. We don't want a gesture, we want the stolen money back, was the group's argument. Arduous negotiations followed. The banks raised the offer to 50 million, but this was also rejected. The impasse could have continued, but for the intervention of the American based World Jewish Congress.

    Pressure from the US
    The WJC threatened to block Dutch financial acquisitions on the US Market and in particular the ING Bank's attempt to buy up major US insurance firms. That threat was taken very seriously, and has played a decisive role in arriving at the current agreement, even if bank representatives had mixed feelings and one banker complained of blackmail by the WJC.

    The tough stand taken by the Central Jewish Council (CJO) negotiators has led to some misgivings inside the Dutch Jewish community. Some Jewish leaders feel that too much stress on the financial aspects distracts attention away from the deep suffering of the Holocaust which, they say, can never be repaired financially. They believe that it's more important that Dutch society comes to terms with its past. Because in spite of the proud history of the Dutch resistance against the Nazis and the famous February 1942 strike against the persecution of the Jews, most Dutch people looked the other way when their Jewish compatriots were deported during the war. The way Jewish assets were handled is only one aspect of this not too glorious past. Part of the current agreement is that the bourse and the banks will also fund an historical study into their wartime behaviour. That may be one of the most important elements of the settlement.
     
  15. Ceraphix

    Ceraphix Member

    Joined:
    Mar 14, 2008
    Messages:
    216
    Likes Received:
    14

    Partial inventory??:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:
     
  16. bigfun

    bigfun Ace

    Joined:
    Oct 2, 2007
    Messages:
    3,851
    Likes Received:
    217
    Location:
    Karlsruhe, Baden-Wurtemburg, Germany
    ^^^
    yeah that was my response too!

    Schwartz, I think that may have been it, honestly I forgot to get the book to look it up! Anyway, great details, thanks!
     
  17. skunk works

    skunk works Ace

    Joined:
    Nov 12, 2005
    Messages:
    2,156
    Likes Received:
    104
    No doubt the plundering happened, and what was recovered (written down) is no doubt a fraction of the big picture.

    The questions are:

    1. Who are the perpetrators?
    2. Who are all the victims?
    3. What are the (true) amounts?
    4. Is all of it someone else's?
    5. Some claims are legitimate, are all?
    6. Was this discovery distributed at the time?
    7. Who was/is immune to allegations of plunder? Winners-Losers-Civilians-Governments-Soldiers-Invaders-Neutrals-Refugees?
    Is victory/freedom/life/rebuilding considered a payment?

    More truth other than a list of what was left is needed.

    As I said there is no doubt it happened. What if anything can be done about it now?
     
  18. Schwartzvogel

    Schwartzvogel Member

    Joined:
    Mar 21, 2008
    Messages:
    67
    Likes Received:
    3


    Skunk, will try & answer some of your questions.

    1. The Wehrmacht & the SS, mostly....following order, from Hitler.
    2. Just about anyone who stood in the way (whole countries and individual persons, mostly the Jews).
    6. No a council was set up by the Yanks at the end of the war, its still being resolved today.

    Interestingly even after plundering Euros gold reserves they still managed to run up a Billion Franc debt with the Swiss, which I assume went unpaid.

    Also it might be of inerest to know that Hitler had a personal account with the Union Bank of Switzerland!!
     
  19. skunk works

    skunk works Ace

    Joined:
    Nov 12, 2005
    Messages:
    2,156
    Likes Received:
    104
    I guess the point I was trying to make was losing a 50 million (& up) dollar/peso/euro/franc/whatever in......
    Shipping
    Buildings
    food stuffs
    land
    oil reserves
    aircraft
    whatever
    is no more or less costly (to the people) than gold bars, only less dramatic and not as pretty.


    cost is cost, no matter what facade it wears, no?

    I see your point...do you see mine?
     
  20. Schwartzvogel

    Schwartzvogel Member

    Joined:
    Mar 21, 2008
    Messages:
    67
    Likes Received:
    3
    skunk works likes this.

Share This Page