Nazi gold (German: Raubgold, "stolen gold") is the gold transferred by Nazi Germany to overseas banks during the Second World War. The regime executed a policy of looting the assets of its victims to finance the war, collecting the looted assets in central depositories. The occasional transfer of gold in return for currency took place in collusion with many individual collaborative institutions. The precise identities of those institutions, as well as the exact extent of the transactions, remain unclear.
The present whereabouts of Nazi gold that disappeared into European banking institutions in 1945 has been the subject of several books, conspiracy theories, and a civil suit brought in January 2000 against the Vatican Bank, the Franciscan Order, and other defendants.
Read more about Nazi Gold: Acquisition, Disposal, Vatican, Portugal
Famous quotes containing the words nazi and/or gold:
“We’ll build a democracy here, even if it’s with Nazi bricks.”
—Samuel Fuller, U.S. screenwriter. Samuel Fuller. Captain Harvey, Verboten! American Military Government officer explaining the practicalities of de-Nazification (1959)
“I have seen a little of it. I know that it is very malleable, but not so malleable as wit. A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)