| U.S. and Allied Efforts To Recover and Restore Gold and Other Assets Stolen or Hidden by Germany During World War II |
Preface
The report presented here, together with the accompanying inventory of records at the National Archives and Records Administration and a selection of more than 200 important documents, are the product of nearly 7 months of intensive research by historians, archivists, and experts representing 11 federal agencies. It was coordinated and edited by the State Department’s Office of the Historian under the direction of Stuart E. Eizenstat, Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade.
This is a preliminary report¾ a provisional road map¾ through more than 15 million pages of documentation in the National Archives and Records Administration. Of course, the study raises more questions than could be answered in this initial review of mostly U.S. documents. Definitive answers await further investigation by experts and the release of other countries’ records. Moreover, many of the issues at stake are subject to varying interpretations and thus deserve separate detailed studies. These qualifications notwithstanding, the report reaches significant conclusions and outlines the major unresolved issues with respect to restitution or reparation of property looted during World War II. It also identifies systematically the official records needed to undertake more detailed examinations of specific outstanding issues.
Beginning in January 1995 in his role as Special Envoy for Property Restitution in Central and Eastern Europe that he first undertook while serving as Ambassador to the European Union, Ambassador Eizenstat has led the U.S. effort to encourage European governments to compensate victims of Nazism who also suffered under Communist governments in the region. It is also in this role that Ambassador Eizenstat was charged by President Clinton with the responsibility of preparing this report.
This report focuses on what U.S. officials knew about Nazi looting of gold and other assets, when they found out about German actions or the actions of neutrals or non-belligerent nations, and how the United States attempted¾ alone or in concert with its wartime Allies¾ to trace the movement of looted gold and other assets into neutral and non-belligerent nations,* and to recover the assets from these nations as well as from occupied Europe. It is a narrative account of the major events and issues in the formulation of policy within the U.S. Government and with its Allies, and of the key negotiations with the neutral nations. The broader context of U.S. relations with these countries is described only to the extent necessary to illuminate the issues addressed by the report. The report does not present the record of U.S. official reactions to, and policy toward, the fate of the millions of victims of the death camps, the enormity of which overshadows the events presented here and deserves its own separate detailed report.
This report and the accompanying collection of documents highlight these key issues and events in particular:
This report has been conceived, researched, and written as an independent historical study following generally accepted standards of scholarship and objectivity. This is not a policy report by government agencies, nor a policy study prepared at the direction of government agencies; rather it is a report produced by historians and researchers employed by government agencies. When those involved in the preparation of the report have at times differed on the inclusion or interpretation of certain information, Under Secretary Eizenstat and the leadership of the Department of State and other agencies have insisted on leaving final judgments to me and to those with whom I have worked.
Methodology for Preparing the Report
The preparation of this report proceeded simultaneously with parallel investigations by other researchers working on behalf of Congress, non-governmental organizations, private legal inquiries, foreign countries, and the media. While the research objectives pursued and the conclusions reached by these individuals and groups are not necessarily consistent with those reflected in this report, our effort has nonetheless been materially assisted by their efforts. Unfortunately, our time constraints precluded a complete comparison of and collation with their work. Additional research and new analysis of existing research will undoubtedly result in a more complete record and a deeper understanding of these issues.
The extent of knowledge on the part of U.S. officials about the quantity of looted monetary gold and non-monetary gold¾ including valuables stolen from Holocaust victims, and the overall body of German external assets in the neutral nations¾ is of critical importance in all aspects of this report. Every effort has been made to identify those key documents, estimates, analyses, and descriptions available to or used by American policy-makers and negotiators. For the purpose of producing an understandable report, we have taken two steps to clarify the data:
The report cannot claim completeness on these matters. In many cases, it has not been possible to confirm which particular estimates individual policy-makers and negotiators were relying upon at any given time. The estimates cited in the chronological narrative of negotiations and decision-making presented in this report vary not only according to their source, but also as a result of adjustments made by officials over time. The report has generally avoided speculating on why particular officials used specific estimates of the amount of looted monetary gold and German external assets. The report therefore seeks to present a workable outline of the key negotiations, but it leaves to further research a more complete understanding of the motives and responsibilities of the participants in the events described here.
The account presented here is drawn overwhelmingly from those official U.S. records available to American policy-makers at the time. Documentary sources for all statements in the report are indicated in footnotes. All of the thousands of documents reviewed for this report and cited herein are unclassified. (Where absolutely necessary to explain events not accounted for in available documents, secondary sources have been cited). The great majority of the documents have been available at the National Archives and Records Administration for the past 10 years. Some files from the Department of the Treasury, the Federal Reserve Board, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency were made available at the National Archives and Records Administration and reviewed for declassification in connection with the preparation of this report. In the process of compiling this report, more than 800,000 pages of documents have been declassified.
A selection of more than 200 of the most important documents cited has been gathered as a separate compilation and will be available for those interested in a greater level of detail than offered by the report itself. The documents represent a very small sample of the approximately 15 million pages of records on this subject, which are open and available to any and all researchers at the National Archives. The National Archives has prepared a comprehensive annotated inventory of relevant records of the various government agencies now open to public review at the National Archives and Records Administration. Some published works, such as the Department of State’s documentary series Foreign Relations of the United States, have been referred to when they contain official documents or information that meets the standard of contemporaneity. Available published secondary works have been examined and helpful information and useful official documents bearing on the issues at hand have been obtained from other governments.
Acknowledgments
The report was prepared by a team in the Office of the Historian of the Department of State, which I led as Historian of the Department of State, with the close cooperation and extensive assistance of historians, archivists, and experts from 10 other agencies. Significant portions of this report were drawn from materials prepared for the Department of the Treasury on the basis of an intensive review of that agency’s records. The History Staff of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of the Army Center for Military History, the Office of Special Investigations of the Department of Justice, and the Research Institute of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum each researched aspects of the issues addressed here. The section of the report reviewing the background and activities of the Tripartite Gold Commission was prepared with assistance from the staff of the Federal Reserve. Documents and advice were provided by the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library, the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, and the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library. Advice and assistance were also provided by experts of the Department of Commerce, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the National Security Agency.
I wish to acknowledge the following personal contributions to the research, drafting, and editing of this report. At the Department of State: Rita Baker, Vicki Futscher, Karen Gatz, David Goldman, David Herschler, David Humphrey, Douglas Keene, Frank Kinnelly, Gerald Monroe, Sidney Ploss, Basil Scarlis, and Carolyn Yee; at the Department of the Treasury: Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, William McFadden, Francine Barbour, Abby Gilbert, David Joy, and Russell Munk; at the Department of Justice: Eli Rosenbaum, Elizabeth B. White, Edward Stutman, Steven Rogers, Michael MacQueen, William Kenety, and Robert Waite; at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum: Patricia Heberer and Sybil Milton; at the Defense Department’s Center for Military History: Jeffrey Clark, R. Cody Phillips, Clayton Laurie, Mary Haynes, and David C. Cole; at the Central Intelligence Agency: Donald P. Steury; at the Federal Reserve Board: Donald Adams and; at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York: James Hennessy; and Robert J. Hanyok at the National Security Agency. In addition, a number of other officials were helpful in a variety of ways in this process. At the National Security Council: Mary Ann Peters; at the Department of Commerce: Judith Barnett, Judy Liberson, Lisa Lubick, and Jim Desler; at the Department of State: Ruth van Heuven, Tony Wayne, Bennett Freeman, Elizabeth Pryor, Mary Thompson-Jones, and Catherine Sevcenko; at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Stan Turesky.
All of the research depended directly upon the unfailing support, assistance, and encouragement of the Archivist of the United States and the staff of the National Archives and Records Administration. Our work simply could not have been carried out without this assistance. This interagency project coincided with an unprecedented demand on the National Archives for access to its records and requests for assistance from the Congressional and private research teams and individuals also seeking to understand the issues commonly referred to in shorthand as "Nazi Gold." It is to the credit of the National Archives staff that the needs of all researchers¾ government and private, domestic and foreign¾ were met with unfailing courtesy and without disruption to research schedules. If readers of this report find that important relevant documentation at the National Archives has not been described or identified, the failure is entirely that of the authors who had, as does any researcher, complete access to all the holdings listed in the accompanying inventory of records.
William Z. Slany
The Historian
Department of State
May 1997