Events

Nazi gold through Swiss banks (1939–1945)

Documented · occurred Handling What these labels mean →

The US interagency Eizenstat Report (1997; 11 agencies, 15M+ pages reviewed, ~1M newly declassified) found that gold looted from occupied states and victims was smelted into bars and converted, mostly through the Swiss National Bank, into currency the Reich used to buy war materiel from neutral countries. Switzerland's own Bergier Commission (1998 gold report), working from Swiss National Bank and private-bank ledgers, estimated the SNB received $440M of Nazi gold. Eizenstat noted there's no evidence the SNB knew some of it came from Holocaust victims. It's one of the few cases where two governments' archives corroborate each other.

Ties

ToRoleYearsVerdictSource
Allen DullesOSS Bern station chief during the Swiss gold flows1942–1945Documented · occurreden.wikipedia.org
Suppression patterncase: bank records closed ~50 years; opened under 1990s pressure1945–1998Documented · occurred Handlingen.wikipedia.org
Nazi gold - Vatican and Ustasha treasurythe Rome channel; thinner evidence1945–1946Concept

Tied from

FromRoleYearsVerdictSource
Banks behind fascists, mafia and cartels (1933-2012)wartime finance of the Reich1939–1945Documented · occurred
BCCI - Bank of Crooks and Criminals (1972-1991)pattern: secrecy-jurisdiction banking serving states and criminals1940s/1980sConcept
Crypto AG - Operation Rubicon (1970-2018)Swiss neutrality as cover, a second case1940s/1970sConcept
Nazi gold - Vatican and Ustasha treasuryparallel channel; stronger evidence1945Concept
Sheehan on Danny Jones (2024)Yamashita gold / BBH Geneva trust claim1945—youtube.com

Links

Notes

Item Record Tag
Looted gold converted via the SNB into hard currency Eizenstat (1997) US report
SNB received $440M of Nazi gold Bergier Commission (1998) Swiss report
No evidence the SNB knew about the victim-origin gold (smelted into bars) Eizenstat knowledge caveat

How it was handled

Method What happened Tag
DELAY Archives closed until 1990s lawsuits and US pressure ~50-year delay