Switzerland and Gold Transactions in the Second World War

Interim Report on Gold 38 Chapter 1
1.3 Gold Transactions of the Reichsbank
A note on the sources: In Merkers/Thuringia, US army units seized not only the larger part of
the gold reserves of the Reichsbank, but also the accounting records of the Office for Precious
Metals. The documents were brought to the headquarters of the Foreign Exchange Depository
(FED) in Frankfurt am Main and served as the basis for attributions of the various gold
holdings which had been seized. In 1948, the FED made copies of the most important
documents and sent the microfilms to the United States Department of the Treasury in
Washington. The original documents were handed over to the Bank Deutscher Länder in
Frankfurt am Main. During research for the «Eizenstat Report», the microfilm copies were
found in the US National Archives, College Park, as part of the records belonging to the
Department of the Treasury. 71 The Commission evaluated these documents for the working
paper which it published at the end of 1997. It has re-examined and updated the compilations
for the present interim report. In doing so, there have been several changes, including those
which relate to shipments from the Reichsbank to the major Swiss banks. In comparison to the
figures reported in December 1997, they are slightly lower. But they are nevertheless higher
than assumed until now. For more detailed information, we refer to the corresponding sections
in the following report.
Information on the origin of gold which the Reichsbank already owned or was able to bring
under its control appears in the left column of Table I. Its use can be seen in the right column.
Both columns refer to the same period, extending from 1 September 1939 until 30 June 1945.
The following equations are valid for this overview:
Holdings prior to the outbreak of war
+ acceptances, or theft, of central bank gold
+ gold confiscated from private persons or looted
gold (incl. victim gold)
+ gold purchased from foreign central banks/transit
transactions
=
Holdings which the Allies secured in spring
1945
+ gold shipments abroad (central banks and other)
+ sales to the private sector at home
+ sales to official agencies
71
They have been there available to the public since spring of 1997 under the call number RG 56 (Records of the
Department of the Treasury), Entry 66-A-816, Box 3; of the total 78 rolls of microfilm which make up this archival
source, the following have been the main object of evaluation by the Commission: roll 5 (gold purchase inventory
control); roll 12 (main ledger miscellaneous gold bars), roll 13 (controll ledgers miscellaneous gold bars), roll 25 (vault
work book of vault A); rolls 29 (weight control and stores); rolls 49 to 53 (bag ledgers); roll 62 (lists of dispatched gold
shipments). Furtheron quoted as Reichsbank Ledgers, US National Archives.