How did more than $2.5 billion vanish?
This is a real-life story about the theft of a fabulous treasure the German national gold and foreign currency reserves worth some $2,500,000,000 at the time of the original investigation which disappeared in transit following the Nazi collapse in 1945.
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Nazi Gold
This is a real-life story about the theft of a fabulous treasure - the German national gold and foreign currency reserves worth some $2,500,000,000 at the time of the original investigation - which disappeared in transit following the Nazi collapse in 1945. Taking nine years to investigate it is also the story of a mystery and a cover-up which threatened to involve the US Army in Germany, the Pentagon and the Department of the Army in a scandal which predated Watergate by nearly 30 years.
Beginning in Berlin in the dying moments of Hitler's Third Reich, the trail shifts to the Nazis' Alpine Fortress in Bavaria, then spreads as far afield as Switzerland, South America and the USSR. At the heart of the robbery lies an unholy combination of former enemies - opportunist US army personnel and unscrupulous ex-Nazis - none of whom have ever been brought to trial.
The authors' quest led them to the murky, dangerous post-war world of racketeering, corruption and gang warfare. Their reporting, matching eyewitness testimony with recently declassified Top Secret documents from the US archives, sets out to lay bare this crime and American cover-up. The latest edition includes new evidence that throws further light on the crime, including the authors' discovery of the whereabouts of a portion of the missing gold.
As a test case Sayer and Botting persuaded the US State Department to initiate a 14-year-long investigation that culminated in the missing gold resurfacing in the Bank of England under mysterious circumstances in late 1996 .
The authors' quest led them to the murky, dangerous post-war world of racketeering, corruption and gang warfare. Their reporting, matching eyewitness testimony with recently declassified Top Secret documents from the US archives, sets out to lay bare this crime and American cover-up. The latest edition includes new evidence that throws further light on the crime, including the authors' discovery of the whereabouts of a portion of the missing gold.
As a test case Sayer and Botting persuaded the US State Department to initiate a 14-year-long investigation that culminated in the missing gold resurfacing in the Bank of England under mysterious circumstances in late 1996 .
"A riveting thriller-style account of what happened to the nazi gold hoard”
The Guardian - London
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October 20, 2016
The London Conference on Nazi Gold was an international conference held in London in December 1997. Representatives of 41 nations participated in the Conference, including France, the United Kingdom, the United States, the three countries from the World War Two Allies that fought Nazi Germany and the Axis powers that oversaw the post-War disposition of Nazi gold. The Conference addressed the disposition the remaining reserves of recovered Nazi gold held by the Tripartite Commission for the Restitution of Monetary Gold, a.k.a. the Tripartite Gold Commission. Nazi Germany looted approximately US$580 million of gold from the central banks of 15 countries (equivalent to approximately $7.62 billion in today’s funds).
October 20, 2016
When I first saw this story hit the media I allowed myself a wry smile. It had a familiar ring to it. The search for looted Nazi treasure has been going on for 70 years and a ‘find’ is always newsworthy. The latest discovery of the ‘Polish Gold Train’ apparently entombed in a tunnel complex three miles outside the town of Walbrzych has attracted the interest of the world’s media in just a few days.
REVIEWS
The Sayer-Botting archive is a fitting monument to their dedication and research. A tale worth retelling.
Reads like the sleazy world described in Graham Greene’s Third Man with several noughts added to the transactions
A riveting thriller-style account of what happened to the nazi gold hoard
Without doubt the best real-life whodunnit since All the President’s Men
