U.S. Report Castigates Role of Swiss in Financing Nazis

WASHINGTON — A comprehensive U.S. government study of the gold plundered by the Nazis during World War II--part of it from Holocaust victims--harshly criticizes Switzerland for accepting the bounty, and it faults the United States and its allies for failing to press for a proper redistribution of the loot.

The stolen gold--most of which came from the official reserves of occupied nations--was sold by the Nazis to finance their war machine.

The 212-page report, compiled by a team of officials headed by Commerce Undersecretary Stuart E. Eizenstat, blasted Swiss banks for accepting the gold and serving as Germany’s chief source of credit, thereby sustaining the Nazi war effort.

The report also said Switzerland supplied Germany with key war materials, such as arms, ammunition, aluminum, machinery and locomotives during the war.

“Neutrality collided with morality,” the report declared.

After the war, the gold was either retained by the Swiss or returned to successor governments of Nazi-occupied countries, the study released Wednesday concluded.

But the study also said that no evidence had been found that Swiss authorities knew during the war that they were receiving the gold of Holocaust victims. The study said the German Reichsbank tried to disguise victims’ gold by melting it down and mixing it with gold looted from the central banks of occupied countries before selling it to Switzerland.

Swiss officials were quick to highlight this point.

At a news conference in Washington, Thomas Borer, a senior Swiss diplomat, described the finding that victims’ gold was in Reichsbank ingots as “almost beyond comprehension.”

Conclusive evidence that gold from Holocaust victims either remained in Switzerland or ended up in the postwar treasuries of Western Europe was a key finding of the study, the most extensive undertaken so far into one of the darkest, most tangled chapters of the 20th century.

The finding is expected to provide an important boost to efforts by major Jewish organizations to win additional compensation for Holocaust survivors and the heirs of victims.

Eizenstat said that in light of the report, the U.S. will recommend that the $70 million in recovered Nazi loot that has not been redistributed be given to Holocaust survivors.

“It would help them live out their declining years in dignity,” he said, noting that such a move is particularly important for a group of 30,000 to 50,000 people who survived the Holocaust, only to be trapped behind the Iron Curtain for nearly half a century. He called this group “double victims.”

Israel Singer, a senior figure in the World Jewish Congress, praised the idea and called the report “an important step toward the real truth.”

Eizenstat said it had not been possible to determine how much of the estimated $580 million in plundered Nazi gold actually came from individual victims and how much was so-called monetary gold--gold taken from national treasuries.

“Perhaps with more records we’ll be able to find it, but it may be that we’ll never fully know the amount,” he said. “Certainly it was a considerable sum. Relative to the amount of monetary gold from central banks [$580 million], it was a relatively small amount. But for those from whom it was taken, it was obviously their life savings.”

Wednesday’s report also seemed to undercut allegations made by some Jewish organizations that as much as $7 billion worth of gold and other assets confiscated from Holocaust victims remains in Swiss hands.

A combination of the declassification of secret wartime documents, the end of the Cold War, pressure from aging Holocaust survivors and a younger generation demanding answers brought about the report more than 50 years after World War II’s end.

More enlightenment may come--the study called for an international conference at which historians and other experts can exchange knowledge about the flow of Nazi assets.

Wednesday’s document faults the U.S. and its allies for not putting more pressure on neutral countries to return more of the Nazi assets in their banks.

“Neither the U.S. nor the allies pressed . . . hard enough to fulfill their moral obligations to help Holocaust survivors,” Eizenstat said.

The harshest criticism was reserved for Switzerland, which by U.S. estimates held as much as $289 million in looted Nazi gold and between $250 million and $500 million in other German assets at the end of the war. After extremely tough negotiations, the Swiss government turned over only a fraction of this wealth to the Allies for redistribution.

The report is certain to add fuel to an already heated debate that began in earnest only last year.

It is a debate that has belatedly questioned the long-held Swiss self-image as a brave and plucky people whose steady neutrality during the war masked a quiet support for the Allied cause.

Another less flattering image of the tiny mountain country has emerged: that of a country that happily exploited its wartime neutrality to act as the Nazis’ international banker and money launderer, then steadfastly refused to give up much of the looted wealth after the war.

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Holocaust Gold

Sources and fate of Nazi gold, in 1946 dollars (multiply by 9.74 to obtain current value):

* Estimate of amount of gold that was looted by Germans: $580 million

* Estimate of looted gold traded by Germany to Switzerland: $185 million to $289 million

* Amount of gold Swiss agreed in 1946 to transfer to Allies: $58 million

Source: U.S. government