61340 Vorabseiten_e - Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz

their gold transactions and positive relations with Germany had prevented
Germany from seriously considering the option of military operations against
Switzerland. In other words, they argued that by providing financial services,
Switzerland had – in effect – bought its freedom from German attack. This
shifting of arguments retrospectively (for the purpose of self-justification) shows
how important it is to differentiate analytically between intention and effect. It
is quite possible that these economic relations and especially the provision of
financial services had a «security effect» for Switzerland – but the argument that
this outcome had been the chief motive for engaging in these transactions is
based on twisted logic. One might just as well claim that with its «business as
usual» approach, the SNB had effectively prevented Switzerland from using the
convertibility of its currency as a trump card in the economic negotiations with
Germany, thus neutralising the dissuasive potential. 14
The second set of problems relates to the legality of the transactions; it thus
concerns the Reichsbank’s dubious legal claim to a large part of the gold. The
Reichsbank claimed that it was using its pre-war reserves for its sales to
Switzerland, but the quantity of gold sold exceeded these holdings substantially.
The Reichsbank’s published figure for its reserves on the eve of the war
was just 124 million francs. However, informed observers pointed out that the
actual holdings were much higher. There was an additional 358 million francs
in «secret reserves» («stille Reserven»), and the Reichsbank had also acquired the
gold owned by the Austrian and Czech national banks either just before or in
the immediate aftermath of Germany’s annexation of these countries. A realistic
estimate of the amount of gold held by the Reichsbank in September 1939
(including the stocks of Austrian and Czech origin) is around 1,100 million
francs – in other words, less than the amount of 1.6 to 1.7 billion francs sold to
Switzerland. Germany also bought gold during the war (mostly from the Soviet
Union), but this was not the major source of supply. Based on simple arithmetic
and without any detailed investigation into the route taken by specific amounts
of the precious metal, it is clear that some of the gold sold by the Reichsbank
during the war could only have been acquired through the expropriation of
central bank reserves, especially from Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg
(totalling 1,582 million francs). The Reichsbank also boosted its stocks
of gold through looting and expropriation of individuals: the Four-Year Plan
authorities, who supervised the draconian exchange and currency controls,
acquired gold worth 311 million francs. Gold expropriated from Holocaust
victims in Eastern Europe and transferred to the Reichsbank in the 76 so-called
«Melmer» consignments totalled 2,577 kg fine weight (with a value of
12,549,442 francs).
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