Is there really any lost Nazi gold?

The answer to this question is, almost certainly, yes. But the chances are that no one will ever find it.

The Nazis were inveterate looters. Their hoarding of fine art from across Europe is well documented, but their looting of gold was arguably more extensive and more systematic. German territorial expansion went hand in hand with the forced “acquisition” of gold reserves, with those of Hungary, the Netherlands, Belgium, Yugoslavia and the USSR, among others, falling into their hands.

Add to that the large quantities of gold and gold coinage that were stolen from private deposits in occupied nations, as well as the gold recovered from the teeth of Holocaust victims, and one realises the scale of the problem. The total value of Germany’s wartime gold holdings is unknown, but has been estimated at more than $900bn, with an unknown figure “off the books”.

Yet, unlike fine art, gold can very easily be repurposed: melted down to hide its origins and sold via complicit or unwitting intermediaries. So it was that the vast majority of that ‘Nazi Gold’ was disposed of, with Switzerland being the most usual cashier. For the residue, there were a few spectacular finds, such as the 211 tonnes of gold discovered in a mine at Merkers in Thuringia in 1945. It is thought that just over 3 tonnes is still unaccounted for.

Unsurprisingly, the hunt for that remnant goes on, spurred by rumours swirling around Austrian lakes, Italian mines or buried Silesian trains. Only time will tell if it is ever found.

Roger Moorhouse, author of First to Fight (Bodley Head, 2019)

Wedding rings removed from the victims of the Third Reich. Much of the gold looted by the Nazis has never been recovered