Jim Marrs - The Rise of the Fourth Reich

THE WRITING ON THE WALL

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Swiss officials claim that their policies toward the Allied and Axis powers were those of balanced neutrality, but the scales were heavily tipped in favor of the Nazis, at least on economic matters. “Declassified intelligence reports reveal that Swiss banks, particularly the Swiss National Bank, accepted gold looted from the national treasuries of Nazioccupied countries and from dead Jews alike, gold they either bought outright or laundered for the Nazis before sending it on to other neutral countries,” wrote Adam LeBor, author of Hitler’s Secret Bankers: The Myth of Swiss Neutrality During the Holocaust. According to LeBor, “Swiss banks supplied the foreign currency that the Third Reich needed to buy vital war material. Swiss banks were the vital financial conduit that allowed Nazi economic officials to channel their loot to a safe haven in Switzerland. Swiss banks financed Nazi foreign intelligence operations by providing funds for German front companies in Spain and Portugal.”

Bormann had a personal account at the Reichsbank under the fictitious name “Max Heiliger,” into which he siphoned a substantial portion of the Reich’s wealth. Utilizing both gold and “treasure,” Bormann, through his chief of economics, Dr. Helmut von Hummel, sent these riches out of the country for later use.

Abs presents a classic example of the survivability of high-level bankers.

He not only survived the war but was instrumental in Germany’s postwar revival, becoming a financial adviser to West Germany’s first chancellor, Konrad Adenauer. He maintained his positions on the boards of Deutsche Bank, Daimler-Benz, and Siemens. In 1978, Abs headed a West German consortium that managed to buy and return nearly $20 million worth of artwork taken from Germany in the 1930s by the Jewish Baron Robert von Hirsch. Later that same year, Abs addressed American business leaders at a meeting chaired by fellow banker John J. McCloy, onetime chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank, the Ford Foundation, and the Council on Foreign Relations. McCloy served as a member of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Warren Commission and was a legal adviser to the Rockefeller family.

It was Abs who had prevented two American banks in France—Morgan et Cie and Chase of New York—from being closed or controlled by the German occupation authorities. According to U.S. Treasury reports cited