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Summary
I.
General Remarks
- The Independent Commission of Experts:
Switzerland - Second World War has been entrusted with the mandate of
conducting an investigation into the fate and the volume of assets,
including gold, which reached Switzerland as a result of the National-Socialist
regime. This work is to represent a contribution to shedding light on
a difficult phase of Switzerland's history.
- The present report is a contribution to
the Conference on Nazi Gold held in London from 2 to 4 December 1997.
The Commission will deal with other significant aspects in a detailed
interim report scheduled for publication in early 1998.
II.
The most important results
- The usual distinction between monetary
and non-monetary gold as found in the literature, tends to reproduce
an approach which is fixed on states and central banks. The Commission
proposes a new approach with five categories of German gold: gold which
was collected through duress of the state, confiscated and plundered
gold, victim gold, gold from the currency reserves of central banks,
and gold from holdings which came into the possession of the Reichsbank
before 1933 or were acquired through regular transactions before the
outbreak of the War.
- The flow model developed by the Commission
shows that the gold which was confiscated or plundered from private
persons and subsequently delivered to the Reichsbank amounts to a sum
of $146 million.
- The most important recipients of gold
shipments from the German Reichsbank were the Swiss National Bank (SNB)
($389.2 million), Swiss commercial banks ($61.2 million), the Romanian
National Bank ($54.2 million), branch offices of the German Reichsbank
($51.5 million), and the German banking and commercial enterprises Dresdner
Bank, Deutsche Bank, Sponholz & Co., and Degussa ($14.2 million).
- At a figure of $61.2 million, the German
Reichsbank's shipments to Swiss commercial banks are significantly greater
than what has been supposed to date. The point remains open as to how
much of this was acquired on their own accounts.
- The largest recipients of the German Reichsbank's
shipments to major Swiss banks were the Swiss Bank Corporation ($36.6
million), the Bank Leu & Co. ($12.0 million), the Union Bank of
Switzerland ($8.5 million), the Basler Handelsbank ($2.2 million), the
Credit Suisse ($1.8 million) and the Eidgenössische Bank ($0.03
million).
III.
Open questions
- The policy of the Tripartite Commission
for the Restitution of Monetary Gold (TCG).
- The role of the central banks of countries
like Portugal, Spain, and Romania.
- Gold transactions between Russia, Germany,
and Switzerland in the years 1939 to 1941, and those before December
1941 between the USA, Germany, and Switzerland.
- The significance of the role played by
the black market with respect to national and international gold trade.
- The question of the use of Swiss francs
exchanged for gold by the states waging the War.
ICE, December 1997
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