Looted gold

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As looted gold or Nazi gold value and assets are referred to by the Nazis before and during World War II were stolen. So we don't just mean items made of gold . The looted gold comes mainly from the “ Aryanized ” possessions of people who were deported or locked up in concentration camps , where most of them were murdered. The whereabouts of the looted gold after the Second World War is still largely unclear. Around two thirds of the stolen gold reserves could be returned to the countries of origin by the Tripartite Gold Commission commissioned with it by 1996 .

Speculation

Towards the end of the Second World War and afterwards, the Allies began their search for looted art and other hidden values. In the spring of 1945, the 3rd US Army under George S. Patton probably secured most of the gold in the Reichsbank : some 100 tons of gold initially in walled tunnels in the potash mine in Merkers / Thuringia, later also in hiding places in Bavaria and in various branches of the Reichsbank. Around six tons of gold from funds of the Foreign Office , which were initially amassed at Schloss Fuschl in Austria , were hidden in Bad Gastein and Hintersee towards the end of the war and apparently also found by Americans. However, many Americans did not try to return seized Nazi loot to the original owners, but instead enriched themselves in a manner similar to that of some treasure hiding places and random witnesses. In June 1948, for example, an auction of the valuables from Hungarian government property from the “ gold train ”, which the US armed forces had confiscated in the Tauern tunnel in May 1945, brought in only 1.8 million dollars for the benefit of Jewish refugees. The train is said to have loaded valuables (including looted gold) worth around $ 206 million prior to being looted by guards and the population. The illegal gold trade flourished in Austria. Even the whereabouts of the values ​​found in Merkers has not been fully clarified. Such events, which had not been published for a long time, favored the creation of legends. Speculations begin with the Reichsbank's secret gold reserves as early as the beginning of the war and indicate that the last withdrawals in April 1945 were not properly booked. If, despite all surveillance, a truck had really branched off between the potash mine in Merkers and the Federal Exchange Deposit (FED) in Frankfurt, that could be proven. Later responsibility lay with OMGUS , Treasury and Tripartite .

After Argentina looted gold to have been brought with submarines themselves. In fact, two German submarines fled towards Argentina in early May 1945 and arrived there in July and August, respectively. Prominent National Socialists or gold were probably not on board. Nevertheless, many fled to Argentina in 1945 and had large sums of money there. For example Ante Pavelić , the Croatian Nazi darling, or the SS man Johannes Bernhardt . In contrast to these two, Hubert von Blücher , in whose garden in Garmisch-Partenkirchen money from the Reichsbank was buried, had nothing in Argentina and, unlike Adolf Eichmann, could not donate anything to Horst Carlos Fuldner's aid organization. The notorious impostor von Blücher had nothing to counter to rumors of gold in the garden and wealth abroad than a photocopy of a receipt for seized 404,840 dollars and 405 pounds sterling.

Until the last months of the war, the Reichsbank sold looted gold, for example to the Swiss National Bank . (Compare the article Bergier report ) Despite an international boycott, Belgian gold, remelted in the Reichsbank and backdated to 1938, came to Spain and Portugal as Swiss gold.

Terminology of the Swiss Expert Commission (1997)

The Independent Expert Commission Switzerland - Second World War (named shortly after Jean-François Bergier Bergier Commission ) used a more comprehensive definition for “looted gold”, namely “general and comprehensive for the gold that the Nazi regime acquired through the Nazi regime. Property confiscations based on racial laws and since the onset of military expansion in large parts of Europe ”. She also suggested the following “gold categories” and used them in her reports:

  • 1. Gold that came under the control of the Reichsbank with state coercion. In the Third Reich, a number of organizations and administrative bodies were dedicated to the collection, appropriation and extortion of gold. The measures ranged from tax laws and foreign exchange regulations to coercive economic measures. Previous owners could therefore be Germans of Jewish and non-Jewish origin as well as other persons, groups or institutions dispossessed in Germany.
  • 2. Confiscated and looted gold: This includes, on the one hand, the assets that have been collected from the Jewish population in Germany and Austria (gold, jewelry and other precious metals) under the Nazi racial legislation since 1938, and on the other hand, the robbery of residents and citizens of the incorporated and occupied territories through arbitrary state acts or individual looting. The looted gold was either transferred to the reserves of the Reichsbank, exploited via black markets or hoarded.
  • 3. Sacrificial gold: This is a collective term for the designation of gold assets that the regime stole from murdered or surviving victims of the concentration and extermination camps. “Concentration and extermination camps” is to be understood as a collective term, meaning that sacrificial gold includes assets from various camps and ghettos in Eastern Europe. ... Here, too, the question of embezzlement and looting by people involved in the extermination process must be asked.
  • 4. Gold from the currency reserves of central banks : Even before the war, the Third Reich was able to acquire gold reserves from other states through territorial expansion. During the Blitzkrieg phase in spring / summer 1940, large gold stocks came under the rule of the Nazi state. This influx of gold from the currency reserves of European central banks at the Reichsbank continued in the following years of occupation by the German Wehrmacht.
    • The last three categories (2, 3, 4) are referred to here as “looted gold”. A distinction must be made between a category of non-stolen gold:
  • 5. Gold from holdings that came into the possession of the Reichsbank before 1933 or that were acquired in ordinary transactions before the outbreak of war.

In doing so, the commission first described the origin of the gold and only based on this the use of the precious metal. She didn't just fix it to the shape (coin, ingot, dental gold, etc.). Some of the five forms of Nazi gold mentioned had very different paths and functions in the Nazi system. For example, as a flow of gold when SS prisoners are ransomed or when the state purchases raw materials for weapons. With the broad term looted gold, it plays a role that from 1936 onwards only major National Socialist parties and authorities were allowed to own gold ( gold ban ). Gold was hardly suitable as a means of payment in the distress of the war and post-war years. All sorts of things could be exchanged for value on the black market.

But international norms and conventions restrict property law, so that later reimbursements are possible for questionable changes of ownership between January 30, 1933 and May 8, 1945. Such property is also called “tooth and other sacrificial gold”, unless the gold reserves redistributed by the Tripartite are meant, here looted gold.

Stolen property from the SS in the Reichsbank

Hall of the former main cash desk of the Reichsbank

The works of art, currencies, currency reserves , gold and money found in Merkers - the outsourced art treasures of Berlin museums, the official currency reserves of the German Reich , thousands of gold bars, hundreds of sacks of foreign currency from all countries and countless gold coins - also included SS loot with personal valuables many suitcases.

The Melmer gold deliveries of bars and coins to the Reichsbank, named after SS-Hauptsturmführer Bruno Melmer , amounted to at least 2.5 million dollars from May 1943 to April 1945. According to witness reports in the Nuremberg proceedings, Melmer is said to have personally monitored the delivery of the valuables. The value converted into Reichsmarks was credited to an account under the pseudonym "Max Heiliger" at the Reich Main Treasury of the Reich Ministry of Finance.

Other estimates put the equivalent of up to $ 4 million. The fact that it was not an SS deposit at the bank, but a current bank account, is legally relevant. After that, this gold was part of the Reichsbank's internal and international payment transactions, a large part (over 75%) of which was processed by the Swiss National Bank . The Reichsführung-SS was then to be credited with the value of the consignments. When and from whom and whether specifically these gold bars were given and taken in payment by the Reichsbank, that does not say.

SS gold transfers from the murderous campaign T4

Friedrich Lorent was the head of the main economic department of the central office T4 . At the turn of the year 1941/42, Brack caused him to switch from the non-profit foundation for institutional care - also a cover organization of the central office, but with a focus on personnel matters. Behind the central office T4 stood the Fuehrer's office , which, however, like the Reich Ministry of the Interior, which was also involved , wanted to be connected with the homicide program. In the central office he became the head of the main economic department and thus the successor to Fritz Schmiedel. The tasks of this department included finances and auditing, the remuneration of T4 staff and procurement, including gas and poisons (drugs such as morphine and luminal). The recovery of the jewelry and the gold teeth of the victims was part of the job.

Since after the end of the first phase of Aktion T4 in August 1941, a large part of the staff became vacant and were used in the context of Aktion Reinhard in the extermination of Polish Jews, Lorent's obligations also included collecting the victims' valuables such as jewelry , Foreign exchange, gold and especially dental gold. This was processed in the Forensic Institute of the Reich Security Main Office and then sold to Degussa .

Artistic reception

  • On December 16, 1992, Gunter Demnig initiated that small memorial plaques with their names were set in the pavement in front of the last freely chosen houses of the victims, his meanwhile around 50,000 stumbling blocks . The material brass is reminiscent of the color of looted gold. The aim is to bring the names of the victims back to the places of their lives.
  • Han van Meegeren skilfully painted Christ and the Adulteress in the monumental style of National Socialism with old materials , signed as Johannes Vermeer and was exhibited in Hermann Göring's Carinhall Castle before his forgery came to Dutch courts via the Altaussee salt mine and the Central Collecting Point Munich, where van Meegeren was condemned as a forger, but at the same time became a folk hero.

See also

literature

  • Kenneth Alford, Theodore Savas: Nazi Millionaires: The Allied Search for Hidden SS Gold. Casemate, Haverton, PA 2002, ISBN 0-9711709-6-7 (English).
  • Kenneth Angst (Ed.): The Second World War and Switzerland. Speeches and analysis. NZZ , Zurich 1998, ISBN 3-85823-729-9 .
  • Shadow of the Second World War. Nazi gold and Shoah money. Victim as accuser. Series: NZZ-Fokus, ibid. 1997
  • Douglas Botting, Ian Sayer: Nazi Gold. The Story of the World's Greatest Robbery - and its Aftermath. Panther, London 1984, ISBN 0-586-05594-0 (English).
  • Richard Z. Chesnoff Pack of Thieves: How Hitler and Europe Plundered the Jews and Committed the Greatest Theft in History 1999.
  • Stuart E. Eizenstat : Imperfect Justice. The dispute over compensation for victims of forced labor and expropriation. Translated from the English by Helmut Ettinger and Holger Fließbach. Preface by Elie Wiesel . C. Bertelsmann, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-570-00680-8 (Engl .: Imperfect Justice. Looted Assets, Slave Labor, and the Unfinished Business of World War II. PublicAffairs, Oxford 2003, ISBN 1-903985-41-2 ).
  • Harold James : Deutsche Bank and "Aryanization". Translated from the English by Karl Heinz Siber. CH Beck, Munich 2001. ISBN 3-406-47192-7 .
  • Geoffrey P. Megargee (ed.) The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945 , Volume II.
  • Jonathan Steinberg : Deutsche Bank and its gold transactions during the Second World War. Historians' Commission, co-editor Avraham Barkai u. a. Translator Karl Heinz Siber. Beck, Munich, 1999. ISBN 3 406 44551 9 (also online; report of the expert commission for the history of Deutsche Bank AG in the Nazi era, 1997).
  • Jan Surmann: Raubgold and the USA's restitution policy towards neutral Switzerland. In: Social.History. Journal of historical analysis of the 20th and 21st centuries. Vol. 20, Issue 1, 2005, ISSN  1660-2870 , pp. 57-76.
  • Gerhard Zauner: Lost Treasures in the Salzkammergut. The search for the mysterious Nazi gold. Leopold Stocker Verlag , Graz 2003, ISBN 3-7020-0985-X .
  • Jean Ziegler : Switzerland, gold and the dead. Goldmann, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-442-12783-1 ( Goldmann 12783).

Movie

  • Oliver Merz, director: Blutige Beute, TV documentary, Germany, 1998. (The film explores the question of what became of the gold that the Jews who were murdered in Auschwitz, for example, as dental gold or jewelry, as well as assets in general, On the way of the gold, compare the article about the SS banking specialist Bruno Melmer .)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Douglas Botting, Ian Sayer: Nazi Gold investigate the myth and truth of the rumors about the "greatest unsolved bank robbery" in the 1957 Guinness Book of Records . The Story of the World's Greatest Robbery - and its Aftermath Panther, London 1984; with even more recovered gold in the 2002 edition
  2. ↑ see the entry book of the FED Frankfurt 1945 Archived copy ( Memento from March 1, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (from Transport 1 from Merkers to Transport 77 from Madrid)
  3. ↑ Kenneth D. Alford, Theodore P. Savas: Nazi Millionaires: The Allied Search for Hidden SS Gold. 2002
  4. ↑ mdr . The safe in the mine ( Memento from April 4, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of February 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) first sheet (223882) top left
  6. ↑ Nazis on the run . Part 5: The Disappearance of the Nazis . In: Stern , 13/2005, accessed on October 15, 2012.
  7. ^ Neighbor Matthias Stinnes corrected his friend Stanley Moss in the appendix to his book "Gold is where you hide it" 1956, p. 142 ff
  8. ^ Independent Expert Commission Switzerland - Second World War . http://www.uek.ch/de/publikationen1997-2000/nazigold_kurzversion.pdf
  9. ↑ Werner Rings: Raubgold aus Deutschland 1985, p. 7.
  10. ^ Archived copy ( Memento from February 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) first sheet (223882) top right
  11. ↑ Independent Expert Commission Switzerland - Second World War: Switzerland and the Gold Transactions in the Second World War, Zurich 2002 (publications of the Independent Expert Commission Switzerland - Second World War, vol. 16), interim report 1998, p. 31.
  12. ↑ Independent Expert Commission Switzerland - Second World War (ed.), Jean-François Bergier u. a .: Gold transactions in World War II: annotated statistical overview. A contribution to the gold conference in London, 2-4. December 1997. online here (PDF; 147 kB). The following definitions pp. 2-3.
  13. ^ Andrej Angrick : "Aktion 1005" - removal of traces of Nazi mass crimes 1942–1945. Göttingen 2018, ISBN 978-3-8353-3268-3 , vol. 1, p. 233.
  14. ↑ 2nd edition of the focus from 1997, s. the following. 143 pages
  15. ↑ Key Dossier February; Collected articles of the NZZ to date, 76 pages; 5 article headings see web links
  16. ↑ Bloody prey. The SS looted gold and the missing files. ( Memento of the original from February 19, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.cine-holocaust.de archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 1998, Eric Friedler Production, Südwestrundfunk (SWR), Stuttgart, Baden-Baden.