Switzerland and Gold Transactions in the Second World War

Interim Report on Gold 28 Chapter 1
wartime it was responsible for «an especially economical use of expensive raw materials
dependent on foreign exchange» 32 and for the supervision of the gold refineries.
Gold transactions were also undertaken by private firms. In this respect, the German Gold and
Silver Refinery [Deutsche Gold- und Silberscheidenanstalt, or Degussa] should be mentioned
first of all, as well as the Deutsche Bank, the Dresdner Bank, and the Bankhaus Sponholz &
Co. There is little knowledge at present about the gold dealings of these companies. Apart
from certain comments in the investigations by the Allied occupation authorities which were
carried out immediately after the war, 33 no further details have become available.
In the middle of 1942, the Reich Office for Precious Metals also took over management of
industrial diamonds and the means of payment necessary for their import. Although this subject
is outside the scope of this interim report, the acquisition of industrial diamonds sheds light on
the overlapping jurisdictions which was typical of the Third Reich. The Office of the
Plenipotentiary of the Four-Year Plan (Göring), the Trading company for Raw Materials
(Roges), and the Reich Ministry of Armaments, and War Production (Speer) bought diamonds
on the black market, particularly in France and in Switzerland. Neither the Reich Office for
Precious Metals nor the Reichsbank had specific knowledge of these transactions.
The examples demonstrate that an analysis of gold transactions in the Nazi state should not be
limited to the Reichsbank alone. The polycratic structure of the Third Reich is reflected
especially in the gold trade. The complexity of the facts must be taken into account, resulting
in distinctions in conceptual terms between the various forms of using gold.
1.2 Terminology and Presentation
The literature often distinguishes between «monetary» and «non-monetary» gold. The former
was at the disposal of central banks. It served as a national currency reserve and was an
integral part of monetary systems based on a gold or a gold-foreign exchange standard. The
term «non-monetary» relates to a less differentiated residual category in which all other gold,
obtained or traded from private persons or companies, is subsumed. The distinction also
formed the basis after the war for the restitution efforts of the Tripartite Commission for the
Restitution of Monetary Gold (TGC).
Focusing on the central banks’ gold demonstrates that the entire problem of restitution, raised
by the Third Reich’s economic system of looting, was primarily defined by states which were
above all concerned with war costs and the return of stolen national property. The victims, the
dispossessed, have had to take second place behind official reparation claims and the formation
32
33
From the Reich Office to dealers and smelters, 20 July 1939; BAB R 8 X/253.
OMGUS 1985; OMGUS 1986. Both of the commercial banks, as well as Degussa, have in the meantime initiated
research projects in which gold transactions will also be examined. See first meeting of the working group of the
«Gesellschaft für Unternehmensgeschichte» on the role of enterprises and industrialists in national socialism, Munich,
6–7 February 1998.