Chasing Gold: The Incredible Story of How the Nazis Stole Europe's Bullion (81 page)
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Authors: George M. Taber
BOOK: Chasing Gold: The Incredible Story of How the Nazis Stole Europe's Bullion
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Adolf Hitler liked to get away with close aides at his mountain retreat outside the village of Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps. From left to right: Hitler, Martin Bormann, who became his secretary, Hermann Göring, the head of the Luftwaffe, and Baldur von Schirach, the leader of the Hitler Youth organization.
Courtesy of the Bundesarchiv Berlin Photo Collection
.
Courtesy of the Bundesarchiv Berlin Photo Collection
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Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht considered himself a master of both economics and politics and mistakenly thought he could control Hitler. Schacht, the president of the Reichsbank, alone among the people around the Führer refused to wear the Nazi uniform.
Courtesy of the Bundesarchiv Berlin Photo Collection
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Courtesy of the Bundesarchiv Berlin Photo Collection
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The Reichsbank headquarters in the heart of Berlin was a showpiece building for the new Nazi regime. Hitler personally presided over its groundbreaking in 1933.
Courtesy of the Bundesarchiv Berlin Photo Collection
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Courtesy of the Bundesarchiv Berlin Photo Collection
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Hjalmar Schacht with two of his young protégés. In the center is Karl Blessing, and to the right Emil Puhl. Hitler fired Blessing in January 1939, but Puhl stayed on to the very end.
Courtesy of the Bundesarchiv Berlin Photo Collection
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Courtesy of the Bundesarchiv Berlin Photo Collection
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This internal Nazi document explained the capture of the Belgian gold. At the time Germany had almost run out of bullion because of its heavy military spending.
Courtesy of Bundesarchiv
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Courtesy of Bundesarchiv
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Joseph Goebbels, the Reich Minister of Propaganda, enthusiastically gloated over the gold captured in Nazi-occupied countries. Reichsbank President Walther Funk was at the right.
Courtesy of Bundesarchiv Freiburg, Belgium’s Contribution to the German War Economy, March 1, 1942
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Courtesy of Bundesarchiv Freiburg, Belgium’s Contribution to the German War Economy, March 1, 1942
.
Sailors loading gold onto ships in the convoy that took both King George VI and British bullion to Canada in the spring of 1939.
Courtesy of the Imperial War Museum Photo Collection
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Courtesy of the Imperial War Museum Photo Collection
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Royal Canadian Mounties protected the British gold that had arrived with the king and took it to the Bank of Canada.
Courtesy of the Imperial War Museum Photo Collection
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Courtesy of the Imperial War Museum Photo Collection
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Sailors inspecting a box of French gold that was about to be shipped across the Atlantic Ocean to safety at the New York Federal Reserve in lower Manhattan.
Courtesy of Banque de France, Keystone France
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Courtesy of Banque de France, Keystone France
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Holland’s Princess Juliana and her family, plus some of the Dutch gold, traveled in this central bank van from a palace in The Hague to a British ship waiting to evacuate them.
Courtesy of the Dutch National Bank Photo Collection
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Courtesy of the Dutch National Bank Photo Collection
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The Nazi cruiser Blücher was torpedoed as it arrived at the Oslo fjord, which set back German plans to capture the Norwegian central bank gold on the first day of the invasion.
Courtesy of the Norwegian Maritime Museum
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Courtesy of the Norwegian Maritime Museum
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The French shipped large amounts of gold to Halifax. Bullion was dropped off, and then those same ships turned around and took American war materiel back to Europe.
Courtesy of Banque de France Photo Collection
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Courtesy of Banque de France Photo Collection
.
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