Holland held Czech gold for the nazis

The Dutch central bank held gold reserves on behalf of the German nazi party on the eve of World War II, the Volkskrant reports on Thursday.

The information is contained in archive material from 1950 released on Wednesday by the Bank of England.

The gold, worth £5.6m or €843m at current values, came from Czechoslovakia which had sent it to Britain for safe keeping for fear of a German invasion.

Transfer

On March 21 1939, six days after the Germans invaded Czechoslovakia but before Britain declared war, Germany requested the gold be transferred from the Czech national bank account to a Reichsbank account. Some £4m of the gold was transported to banks in the Netherlands and Belgium a week later.

The Dutch central bank has confirmed that it received the gold and held it for the nazi government, the Volkskrant says.

 

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