In 2013 author Adam Labor published a book called ‘The Tower of Basel‘ which analysed certain key figureheads behind the early years of the BIS. What Labor detailed is how many of them were integral members of the Nazi regime.
Hjalmar Schacht, who through his role as Reichsbank President from 1933 to 1939 was Hitler’s finance minister, was a BIS director. Schacht was tried and acquitted of war crimes following WWII.
Walther Funk, a former Nazi economics minister and Reichsbank President from 1939 to 1945, was also a BIS director. Funk was initially sent to prison for war crimes before being released in 1957. As Labor documented, Funk worked closely with Heinrich Himmler, who was chief of the SS (Schutzstaffel). Funk was also a pioneer of a 1940 paper called, ‘Economic Reorganisation of Europe‘, which was endorsed by the Nazi leadership and is stored in the BIS archive.
Emil Puhl, Funk’s deputy, was vice president of the Reichsbank during WWII and a BIS director. Like Funk, Puhl was convicted as a war criminal.
Kurt von Schroder, convicted of crimes against humanity after WWII, was a BIS director.
Then there is Karl Blessing, dubbed as Hjalmar Schacht’s protege, who worked at the BIS in the 1930s and eventually became President of the Bundesbank and a BIS director in 1958. Blessing was imprisoned following WWII but not charged with war crimes.
Labor made the observation that ‘the parallels between the plans of the Nazi leadership for a postwar European economy and the subsequent process of European monetary and economic integration were real‘. In other words, the objectives of post WWII internationalists mirrored those of the Nazi regime.
And as Labor pointed out, the BIS ‘runs like a thread through both‘.
Labor also rightfully stated that after 1945, it was former Nazi’s that took many of the key positions of power in the new Germany. Industrialists at the time saw this as a price worth paying in order to rebuild Germany’s economy.
Study the history of European monetary integration and you will find that the BIS have featured prominently to bring it about. One example is the 1989 Delors Report. Drafted at the BIS, it mapped out plans for a European Monetary Union. One of the leading men behind the report, by dint of his position on the Delors Committee, was the then BIS General Manager Alexandre Lamfalussy.
With the evidence at hand, it is undeniable that the BIS stand at the heart of the European integration project. The fact that they were exposed for accepting looted Nazi gold in the run up to WWII, and that their actions served to finance Hitler’s war machine, have largely been ignored.
"Never mind the Czech gold the Nazis stole...
The Bank for International Settlements actually financed Hitler’s war machine"
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