61340 Vorabseiten_e - Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz

owners. In cases where the company’s owner was able to take legal action in
Switzerland, the requests made by the provisional administrators were rejected
by the judges and the blocked assets were deposited with the court. 38
Assets of subsequent Nazi victims were also included in the flow of capital from
France into Switzerland, in particular after the Popular Front’s election victory
in 1936. The assets held by the main Swiss banks (excluding the private banks)
on behalf of French customers thus rose from 241.6 million francs to
520.4 million francs between 31 December 1935 and 31 December 1937.
While assets were later transferred back to France or invested in the UK or the
USA, many French customers deposited their assets in bank safes, invested them
in Swiss property, or handed them over to be managed by lawyers and trustees.
The flow of capital from Hungary into Switzerland also increased dramatically.
The total capital held in Switzerland on behalf of Hungarian banks and
individuals, also including subsequent victims of Nazi extermination policy,
rose from 15.5 million francs in 1937 to 37.7 million francs in 1943, a year
before Hungarian Jews started being deported to Auschwitz.
Poland was another country from which large sums belonging to later Nazi
victims were transferred to Switzerland. After overrunning Poland in
September 1939, the new ruling power endeavoured to acquire Polish assets
deposited in Switzerland. As early as 20 November 1939, the Polish bank Lodzer
Industrieller GmbH asked Credit Suisse to transfer assets deposited with it to an
account at the German Reichsbank in Berlin. The bank saw a fundamental
problem in this procedure and asked its legal affairs department to examine the
matter. The latter recommended not complying with the request since the
customer’s signature had most likely been obtained under duress by the
occupying authorities. A further reason for refusing the request was that it had
come from Berlin and contained incorrect information about the amount
deposited with Credit Suisse. The legal affairs department also pointed out that
for Poland, German foreign exchange regulations represented a war measure
taken by an occupying force and that Switzerland had not yet recognised the new
political situation. Managing Director Peter Vieli subsequently discussed the
issue with Rudolf Speich, his counterpart at the Swiss Bank Corporation. The
latter contacted the Reichsbank, which agreed that in view of the unclear constitutional
situation in Poland, Swiss banks were not obliged to comply with
requests from German administrators (Reichskommissäre). Nevertheless, according
to a file note «the directors of the Reichsbank and Dr. Speich were of the opinion
that duly signed requests from customers for their assets held in Switzerland to
be transferred to an account with the Reichsbank must be executed since
absolutely no justification could be found for not doing so». 39 Although there
were legal and moral objections to transferring the funds, the consideration that
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