Bergier Commission - Reparations and Restitution

Reparations and Restitution

Even before the end of the war the Allies were critical of the role Switzerland played with respect to looted assets of the Nazis. The London Declaration of January 1943 "warned of transfers or dealings regardless of whether they 'have taken the form of open looting or plunder, or of transactions apparently legal in form, even when they purport to be voluntarily effected'" At the Bretton Woods Conference, July 1944, Resolution VI stated"that accepting looted gold and concealing enemy assets would not go unpunished." In March 1945, after intensive negotiation with the allied Currie mission, an agreement was signed by the Swiss which, "provided for the restitution of all assets looted under the Nazi regime and moved to neutral territory." The Paris Conference on Reparations of December 1945 stated that German assets held in neutral countries such as Switzerland were to be transferred to "the Inter-Governmental Committee on Refugees (IGCR) for the rehabilitation and settling of victims of German actions who could not be repatriated" as quickly as possible. Finally, the Swiss under the Washington Agreement of 1946 paid 250 million Swiss Francs as in response to Allied pressure relating to looted gold held by the Swiss. The sum represented about one-fifth of all gold transactions estimated to have been made during the war.