Switzerland and Gold Transactions in the Second World War

Interim Report on Gold 32 Chapter 1
«Ultimately, it was the central economic department that was responsible for registering
money and valuables that T4 couriers brought to Berlin, and in at least one instance, that the
defendant himself brought to Berlin from extermination camps in the East. The defendant
stated the value of this ‹booty› was approximately 180,000 Reichsmarks in 1942 and
consisted mostly of dental gold, but also included coins and jewelry. He therefore brought
objects to the Criminal Technical Institute where the dental gold was resmelted and
subsequently sold to Degussa ...». 48
It is not known whether T4 gold ended up in the possession of the Reichsbank.
Immediately after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, 49 mobile killing units
conducted mass executions. Thereupon, ghettos were created where Jews selected for work
and later for elimination were brought. These ghettos were later «cleaned up», and the persons
who had been imprisoned in them were either murdered at once or deported elsewhere.
From the start of the German occupation until 1942, Jewish communities as well as other
groups of the local population became victims of extortion. Extremely high contributions,
usually calculated in precious metals, were demanded by the German administration. The
confiscation of Jewish property was the task of military economic offices in the areas under
military administration, and under civil offices, i.e., the regional commissars, in the so-called
Reich Commissariats of the Eastern Territories (hereafter Ostland) and the Ukraine. The
security police frequently attempted to seize the most valuable objects. Whether they were
successful in doing so depended on local power arrangements.
The victim gold was shipped to Berlin in the form of jewelry, such as rings or watches, gold
coins, and also in the form of dental gold. The civil administration kept accounts with a
relevant designation 50 and apparently credited the Reichsbank directly. Jewelry went to the
Municipal Pawnshop in Berlin, which either appraised the objects, or if they could not be sold,
had them resmelted under the supervision of the Reich Office for Precious Metals. Military
offices (field commands) transferred the gold to the Reich Main Accounting Office where the
shipments were duly entered into the «Russia Booty Ledger». 51 Incidentally, the procedure
described here was applied in exactly the same way for gold seized from non-Jewish
inhabitants.
48
49
50
51
Frankfurt State court, judgement and sentence Hans-Joachim Becker and Friedrich Robert Lorent, Ks 1/69 (GStA), 27
May 1970, p. 115. Other trials containing information about looting of victims and the resmelting of gold crowns into
gold bars are: State Attorney Düsseldorf, trial of Albert Widmann, 8 Ks 1/61 (8 Js 7212/59), Interrogation Widmann 15
January 1960, p. 5 as well as State Attorney Stuttgart, trial of Albert Widmann, Ks 19/62 (19 Js 328/60), testimony of
the witness Klara Mattmüller in the T4 Economic Department in Berlin (Freiburg, 17 February 1966, StA Frankfurt Js
7/63 and Js 15/63 GStA). These two documents, as well as those cited in note 47, are found in the Zentrale Stelle der
Landesjustizverwaltungen in Ludwigsburg [Central Office of the State Justice Administrations].
For material about the conditions in the Soviet Union, we thank Christoph Dieckmann, Frankfurt am Main, and
Christian Gerlach, Berlin.
There were «J» accounts or «funds» under the supervision of the Reich Office for Precious Metals, as well as «J»
accounts and similarly designated accounts at the Trusteeship and Finance Departments of the occupied Soviet regions,
which transferred the amounts they took in over to the Reichsbank.
BAB, R 2104/84–88. Gold coins confiscated by the military also arrived from other occupied areas (Poland, France,
etc.) and was registered in such booty books.