- Title: USA-Switzerland-Germany: Claims Of Swiss Collusion With Nazis Over Gold Loot
- Date: 12th January 1997
- Summary: A US Senate committee accused Switzerland of not only storing Nazi gold looted in the 1930's and 1940's, but actively helping Nazis to dispose of their booty. The potentially embarrassing claims of Swiss collusion with Nazi Germany were made by Senator Alfonse D'Amato, head of a US senate inquiry into financial dealing between Switzerland and Germany, at a media conference in New York on January 12.D'Amato claimed that recently uncovered documents show the Swiss National Bank sent 280 truckloads of looted Nazi gold to Spain and Portugal in vehicles bearing neutral Switzerland's national emblem at the height of the Second World War. "For the first time since our inquiry began we have a document confirming that the Swiss were actively involved in shipping gold for the Nazis. This document proves that the Swiss claim of neutrality (in the war) was pure nonsense," D'Amato said. The document is allegedly a 1946 memo to the head of the US Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), from an agent in Bern. The memo claims a high-level, but unnamed Swiss had uncovered a trail of 280 truckloads of gold that the Swiss had shipped to Spain and Portugal, worth up to 2 billion Swiss francs (500 million US dollars) during the war. The Allies had warned Spain and Portugal that they would not tolerate Germany dumping plundered gold plundered into the two neutral Iberian nations, thus creating a role for neutral Switzerland to act as a conduit for such shipments. D'Amato said he presented his findings on January 10 to the Swiss ambassador to the USA and was giving his government time to respond. But D'Amato said he was confident Switzerland had documentary evidence which would tell more about who profited from the gold-shipping operations.
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- Location: USA NEW YORK CITY
- Reuters ID: LDL0012621QV3
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