Nazi Gold by Ian Sayer Book PDF Summary
A rather breathless account, first published in 1984 and updated for this edition, of what happened to the 'Nazi gold' (and gold currency bonds, bank notes of various countries, coins, jewelry, paintings, and other goodies) that disappeared in the last days of the Third Reich. The immediate cause of its dispersal lay in a raid on Berlin on February 3, 1945 by nearly a thousand Flying Fortress bombers. The Reichsbank took 21 direct hits, and shortly thereafter the bulk of the gold reserves, weighing around 100 tons and requiring thirteen railway flat cars to transport them, were stored in a deep mine at Merkers, 200 miles southwest of Berlin. On April 4, this site was overrun by Patton's Third Army, which captured gold and currency worth some $315 million at 1945 prices, in addition to 400 tons of paintings, the 3,000-year-old Egyptian statuette of Queen Nefertiti, and two million books. Sayer and Botting (Hitler's Last General, not reviewed, etc.) deal with what remained. They estimate the overall total of funds missing or stolen at $433 million, worth nearly $4 billion today. That figure includes $3.6 billion in gold currency bonds seized by Red Army Intelligence, and quietly and efficiently marketed in later years (an intriguing episode unfortunately neglected here), and seven tons of gold from the German Foreign Office which the authors located in the Bank of England. A colorful crew of characters circle around or disappear with the remainder, but often Sayer and Botting get bogged down tracing two bars of gold here or voicing dark suspicions about what is being covered up by the US Occupation authorities there. Indeed, much of the latter part of their story deals less with Nazi gold than with the high living of occupation troops in Germany. Vivid investigative reporting is obscured by dust and cobwebs. (16 pages b&w photos); 384 pg.-