Nazi hunters at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre have traced the Jewish money that has been stolen during the WWII, FT reports. Investigators have reportedly obtained an explosive list of undercover Nazi fans in Argentina who have founded the Credit Suisse using the bloody money from Europe.
As investigation report said, ‘many’ of the 12,000 German fascists named used Swiss bank’s predecessor to funnel the looted millions. The list was thought to have been destroyed in 1943, a year when a military junta sympathetic to Nazi Germany came to the power.
Nazi hunters said they have identified accounts at Credit Suisse used to funnel looted Jewish money to and from 12,000 German fascists living in Argentina. Many of them also used accounts at the Schweizerische Kreditanstalt.
In fact, the Schweizerische Kreditanstalt is the original name of Credit Suisse. Windows at the bank’s headquarters in Zurich are still emblazoned with SKA, its old acronym.
Nazis and Switzerland: a traumatic financial reckoning
Last century, Nazis used Switzerland, a neutral state, to help facilitate their international business affairs after other nations, including the UK and the USA. After WWII, an agreement with the allied powers provided for a full investigation of all accounts held by German citizens in the Alpine country.
However, the Swiss did not accede to demands for all German accounts to be liquidated and paid as reparations. This left hundreds of accounts dormant — including many owned by Jewish families killed by the Nazis, as well as Nazis themselves.
Following Nazi hunters’ announcement, Credit Suisse said it was not clear how many of the names on the new list might have been exposed in previous forensic work on its archives.
“From about 1997 to 1999, an independent committee chaired by Paul Volcker carried out an investigation of Credit Suisse and about 60 other Swiss banks, searching for accounts possibly or probably owned by victims of Nazi persecution and brought evidence of accounts held by Nazis to the attention of the Independent Committee of Experts [the Bergier Commission],” the Swiss bank said.
The Commission concluded that the investigation had “provided as full and complete accounting of the status of the accounts in Switzerland of victims of Nazi persecution as is now reasonably feasible,” the bank added.
Moreover, the bank has not yet received a copy of the list, or details of the accounts claimed to be used by those on it.
The Alpine state has had a traumatic reckoning with its relationship to Nazism during the period. But in 1998, it was a settlement, in which UBS and Credit Suisse paid $1.25bn to victims of the Holocaust and their heirs.
The prospect of 12,000 new, uninvestigated names coming to light “seems highly unlikely”, the bank official said.
