ABSTRACT
During the Second World War, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) remitted Swiss francs to the Reichsbank in exchange for sales of gold, a large part of which had been seized by German forces from central bank reserves in occupied countries. The overall amounts involved are known: the SNB transferred CHF 1.2 billion to the Reichsbank, to which should be added, as confirmed by the Allies themselves at the end of the conflict, CHF 86 million supplied by Swiss private banks to the Reichsbank, making about CHF 1.3 billion in all. Of this - as far as was known at the time of writing - about CHF 780 million represented looted gold: CHF 400 million in gold from the Netherlands and CHF 378 million in Belgian gold. Paralleling this, the Swiss National Bank also supplied Swiss francs to the Allied governments for gold or foreign exchange (dollars); this was for gold or foreign exchange in blocked accounts to which Switzerland had no access. Figures on these transactions are harder to ascertain. Going by various documents in the Swiss Federal Archive and the archives of the Swiss National Bank, the total is somewhere between CHF 2.2 billion and CHF 2.6 billion, including CHF 1.2-1.6 billion ascribed to the SNB and a little more than CHF 1 billion to the Swiss Confederation.!
