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This is not the first time the U.S. has sought to account for all the gold bars the Nazis looted from occupied countries, the Jewish assets seized, the jewelry, gold dental fillings and wedding rings wrenched from concentration-camp victims. As early as 1943, when Washington launched Project Safehaven to locate the Nazi plunder and find out where it was going, the U.S. knew most of it was entering Switzerland. That year, spymaster Dulles warned the Swiss government that much of the 100 tons of gold bullion the Reichsbank was selling for Swiss francs was stolen. Eventually, Safehaven agents concluded that some $6 billion in Nazi assets had been transferred into Switzerland from 1938 to 1945 under cover of bank-secrecy laws.
Now that the paperwork from Project Safehaven has finally been unsealed, memos among the nearly two tons of documents provide damning evidence of how long, how closely and how lucratively Swiss banks collaborated with the Nazis.
--Dec. 10, 1941. The British embassy in Washington warns the U.S. Treasury Department that "every leading member of the governing groups in all the Axis countries have funds in Switzerland. Some have fortunes."
--An undated document identifies an account held for Hitler in Switzerland for royalties from Mein Kampf.
--An undated paper cites the 300,000-franc Swiss account of Hitler's tailor.
--July 10, 1944. President Franklin Roosevelt gets a classified report from William Donovan, chief of the Office of Strategic Services, calling his attention to the personal friendship between senior Swiss and Nazi central-bank officials and a deal they had arranged. Each month, Switzerland promised to purchase 6,000 kg of German gold, which the Reich was using to buy Swiss ball bearings. Roosevelt's reply: "We ought to block the Swiss participation in saving the skins of rich or prominent Germans." But Roosevelt took no action.
--An undated paper records the debriefing of a certain Dr. Landwehr, who had directed the Nazi foreign-exchange department. "Dr. Landwehr estimates that all in all, the sum of German assets which passed into Switzerland amounted to at least 15 billion reichsmarks," said the report. "Landwehr dismissed with an ironic smile the Swiss estimate of 1 billion reichsmarks."
Nevertheless, in 1946, the tripartite gold treaty accepted a total of only $60 million in gold as Switzerland's payment in full of Nazi loot. Britain, France and the U.S. further decided the money would be given back only to German-occupied countries, not to individual claimants.
Israel Singer packed his briefcase with Safehaven documents when he and Bronfman flew to Bern in September 1995. One by one, he laid them on the table before officials of the Swiss Bankers Association, charting a trail of the banks' complicity. Singer and Bronfman insisted the bankers come clean about their role, restoring Jewish funds to Holocaust survivors. But, recalls Singer, "they stonewalled us," offering merely the $32 million found in 774 dormant accounts.