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