I was astonished by the Gold Confiscation in Shanghai by @Signal312 and forgot that I read already about this but during the WWII, this is my the continuation of that saga and the monster in this story is also the reason why bitcoin is important. So let's start with our story.
What/who is BIS?
The Bank of International Settlements is a Swiss-based bank was formed in 1930 with one objective: manage the reparation payment by Germany forged in the Versailles Treaty; at first, that was his only job but everything changes in when Thomas McKittrick comes as Chairman. Now, for a long time there were some hypothesis about the role of McKittrick and the nazis because on one hand the BIS declared itslef as a neutral bank, meaning they won't take parts during the conflicts. They took sides. We know that since the BIS declassified all his documents during the war we know now some of the following facts:
- Between the Reichsbank and the BIS, they transfered more 13.5 tons of stolen gold
- The nazis stole the gold not only from central banks of other countries defeated but also remelted gold from labor and prison camps. The BIS took all of it. No question asked.
- They said they were neutrals. Well, so neutrals that in the Board of Directors we had: Walther Funk, Emil Puhl, Herman Schmitz. Yes, they were all pro-nazis.
- Montagu Norman, Head of the Bank of England considered Hjalmar Schacht, president of the Reichsbank a close friend and helped him to transfer over 2.5 millions kg worth of gold to Hitler. Two things here: the gold belonged to Czechoslovakia and the movement was made 6 months before Great Britain went to war. Bonus is that Schacht considered the BIS as an allied. So, how in the hell did this happen? Well, remember BIS was a neutral bank so the Czechoslovaks believed that the BIS’s legal immunities would protect them. But they were wrong.
- When in 1944 the State Department had some suspicious hypothesis about the confabulation between BIS and the Reichsbank so the wanted to disband. In the official site of the BIS, you can read as follow:
In July 1944, a United Nations conference met at Bretton Woods in the United States to discuss the postwar international monetary system. The Bretton Woods Conference adopted a resolution calling for the abolition of the BIS "at the earliest possible moment", because it considered that the BIS would have no useful role to play once the newly created World Bank and International Monetary Fund were operational. European central bankers held a different opinion, and successfully lobbied for maintaining the BIS. By early 1948, the BIS liquidation resolution had been put aside. It was understood that henceforth the BIS would focus foremost on European monetary and financial matters.
European calling for maintain this? Well, not quite. Today, we know who was the wizard and his name: John Maynard Keynes, head of the British delegation during the Bretton Woods Conference voted against the abolition. When you ask about why they voted against, take a look in the photo above, that's the why.
So, if you stomach is starting to roar because what you're reading, I leave you two sources: The BIS and their documents during the war and The Tower of Basel: The Shadowy History of the Secret Bank that Runs the World. After you finish read those two sources, the conclusion will be -I think- the same as I came at that time: we need bitcoin.