Chapter 3

Elsa and I sat down in the living room one Saturday morning to discuss our upcoming trip to Switzerland. She had decided that it was time for me to learn more about the background of the financial empire I would be inheriting after her death. According to Elsa, Hans was the key to my understanding how they started their financial empires.

“By the time the war started in September of 1939, Hans was the equivalent of a Captain in the SS Officer Corp. Adolph Hitler established a small group of SS officers under the leadership of Hermann Goering to orchestrate the looting of the countries Germany conquered. In direct charge of this group was the party official that was Hans’ patron. His patron arranged for Hans to have a senior position within the group that handled the assets looted from Europe.

“Paul, like many Germans, Hans viewed the loss of their colonies and portions of Germany and the reparations Germany was forced to pay, as Europe looting Germany to punish it for losing a war that had been forced on them. The peace treaty required Germany and its allies to pay reparations, but in practice that requirement was only applied to Germany. Germany’s allies in the war were not damaged like Germany was. Hans and many Germans felt that Germany’s looting of Europe was nothing more than Germany recouping the financial loss inflicted on it by Europe’s use of the Treaty of Versailles to loot Germany.

“Hans’ main responsibility in this SS group was to maintain the inventory of all liberated valuables that were shipped back to Germany, and to arrange for the storage of the valuables.

“Goering handpicked the people he needed to create the organizations that were responsible for the actual liberation of the bullion, jewelry, art, and other valuables. When one of these organizations notified Hans of a shipment, he would see to it that the shipment was inventoried by his subordinates and he arranged for the valuables to be stored in a secure warehouse. Then he would create an inventory list of what had been placed in the warehouse.

“Hans and I became disillusioned with the Nazi Party. Late in 1942, we learned that the Gestapo had confiscated the factories and personal assets that our families owned in Germany and Austria. Our two families had been declared traitors and shipped to the concentration camps. All of their assets were forfeited to the Fatherland.

“Hans and I had been estranged from our families for a long time due to Hans’ choice of aligning himself with the Nazi Party. Hans’ last name was very common in Germany, so in the rush to conceal their actions, the Gestapo never associated a highly placed party member and his wife with the two families.

“When Hans and I learned of our families being sent to the concentration camps, Hans made some quiet inquiries. He learned that our families had been executed once they arrived at the concentration camps. This made Hans reevaluate his affiliation with the Nazi Party. We reached the decision that Hans had to desert the SS, and we had to go into hiding outside of Germany.

“Remember, Paul, Hans’ commanding officer was one of Goering’s close associates and a member of the group that planned to abscond with Germany’s wealth. Hans wasn’t. Goring and Hans’ superior made one major mistake, they misjudged Hans’ loyalty. Hans was fiercely loyal to Germany, but not to the Nazi Party and its leaders.

“During the final years of the war, the Nazi high command strongly suspected that they would lose the war within one or two years. The senior members of the Nazi Party began to prepare for their personal futures. They established new identities in foreign countries, and they decided to open numbered Swiss bank accounts. They also decided that they would move a portion of the valuables stored in the warehouses to caves in the mountainous areas of Germany and Austria.

“Goering was one of the key party members involve in these preparations, which had to be done without Hitler learning of their actions. Hitler would have had them executed for defeatism. Goering tasked Hans’ commanding officer with opening numbered Swiss bank accounts, for the key party officials; and with moving some of the valuables, stored in the warehouses to out-of-the-way caverns. Goering and Hans’ boss decided the first thing they would do was to relocate the valuables stored in the warehouses.

“Goering created a plan, which Hans’ boss executed.

“Hans’ boss selected an officer and tasked him with selecting a group of SS soldiers to undertake a special operation for Goering that had to be carried out in secret. Before starting the operation, Goring spoke with the officer and confirmed that the operation had approved by Hitler.

“The officer and a few of his group located caverns in remote areas of Austria and Germany. Once a suitable cavern was located, the remaining members of his group used concentration camp laborers to prepare the cavern for storing the valuables Goring was liberating from the Nazi Party. These laborers were guarded by a group of German soldiers who traveled with them from cavern-to-cavern and the soldiers remained at the caverns throughout the construction and storage period. Prior to sealing the cavern, the soldiers rigged booby traps that would kill anyone attempting to enter the cavern. The officer in charge of the group documented the cavern’s location on a map and took photos of the location. In addition to the information about the cavern’s location, the documentation described the measures taken to conceal and protect the cavern. He also described how to safely disable the booby traps.

“The officer in charge of this part of Goering’s plan exercised great care to ensure the laborers and the soldiers who guarded them did not know the locations of the caverns. However, the officer took two additional security measures. Once the valuables had been sealed in the last cavern, he had his soldiers execute the laborers. The German soldiers who had guarded the laborers were immediately sent to the Russian front, and they were assigned to the high-risk areas of combat. From what Hans heard, they all died in combat shortly after arriving at the Russian front. Goering arranged for the officer in charge of the detail, the soldiers who located the caves, and the soldiers who transported the valuables to the caves to die in accidents. The only people remaining who knew about Goering’s special operation were Goering and his group of senior party members, Hans’ boss, and Hans.

“Hans’ part of the plan was to arrange for the valuables to be removed from the warehouses and turned over the officer and the squad of soldiers who transported the valuables to the caves. Hans also created an inventory list of the valuables turned over to the officer. Using the information the officer in charge of the special group provided, Hans created a documentation package for each cavern. The package included: a map showing the location of the cavern, pictures of the cavern’s sealed opening, pictures of the surrounding terrain, a description of how the cavern had been booby-trapped, a description of how to disarm the booby traps, and the inventory of the cavern’s contents. Hans stored the packages in an office safe that only Hans and his boss could access.

“When Hans learned of the accidents Goering’s arranged and about how the soldiers had been transferred to the Russian front, he suspected that Goering would eventually arrange for him to have an accident.

“Goring knew that a few trusted people had to know about his plans and Hans was trusted by both his boss and Goring. However, Hans did not trust Goring or his boss. His suspicions forced Hans to begin making his own plans.

“When the Allies started bombing German cities, Hitler and the other senior party members believed that the warehouses were no longer safe storage locations. They decided to move the valuables into mines and salt caverns for safekeeping. Hitler approved of this action, but what Hitler did not know was, Goering had already moved a portion of the valuables into his hidden caverns. Goering intended to use those valuables to rebuild Germany and the Nazi Party once the war was over.

“Hans’ boss unwittingly helped Hans with part of his plan. Once the valuables had been stored in the last cavern, his boss informed Hans that Hitler had tasked Goering with a clandestine operation in England and the United States that would begin during the coming year. The operatives required thirty numbered Swiss bank accounts to fund their activities. His boss tasked Hans with traveling to Switzerland and opening the numbered Swiss bank accounts. His boss told him that before each trip, Goering would provide Hans with travel documents that would permit him to enter Switzerland on Nazi Party business.

“His boss told Hans that opening all of the accounts at the same time might make the enemy suspicious. Therefore, Hans was to make six trips to Switzerland and open five accounts on each trip. After Hans returned from a trip and turned over the paperwork and pass codes for the accounts, this information would be conveyed to Goering. Once Goering received the account information, he would have German funds secretly transferred into each of those accounts for the operatives use.

“The secrecy surrounding the creation of the storage caverns and the story he had been told about Goering needing numbered accounts caused Hans to become suspicious of what Goering and his boss were doing. It took a few days for Hans to come to the realization that Goering and his boss were planning to flee Germany along with a number of their associates and in the process abscond with a large portion of Germany’s wealth.

“So while Goering, his boss, and the others were laying their plans and preparing to depart Germany, Hans created a plan for us to flee Germany and go into hiding in Switzerland. There were three main parts to Hans’ final plan.

The first part was, he would prepare false documentation packages for each of the caverns, and switch his false packages for the real packages. Hans thought this would probably be the most dangerous part of his plan for he would have to smuggle the fake packages into his office, switch the packages, and then smuggle the real packages out of the office.

The second part was, he would cooperate with his superiors’ plan to transfer funds from Germany to the Swiss bank. At the proper time, he would transfer the funds from the numbered accounts he had opened into numbered accounts that he would open and control. That would give him sole control of the funds Goering was stealing from Germany.

The third part was, he would create false identities for us as Swiss citizens.

“When Hans arrived in Switzerland on his first trip, he opened five numbered Swiss accounts. After opening the accounts, he went to a second bank and opened a regular bank account using the names that he and I decided to use once we fled Germany. We thought of the first bank as the Goering’s bank and the second bank as our personal bank.

“While in Switzerland, he visited a distant cousin that he trusted implicitly, who was a Swiss citizen. This cousin worked for the Swiss Government, and he was in a position to insert false information into the Government’s official citizenship records. Hans let his cousin know that we had to leave Germany, and wanted to hide from the Nazi Party in Switzerland as Swiss citizens. The cousin agreed to create false identities for Hans and me, so Hans provided his cousin with the names we wanted to use once we left Germany. If there was ever a question about our citizenship, a search of the Government’s records would show we had both been born in Switzerland and held Swiss citizenship.

“Before leaving the cousin’s home, Hans gave him a sealed envelope for safekeeping. It contained a sheet listing the account numbers of the five numbered accounts Hans had opened and their pass codes. During subsequent trips, Hans provided his cousin with additional sealed envelopes containing the account information of each batch of five numbered accounts he had opened.

“After handling the transfer of valuables to Goering’s caverns and opening ten numbered accounts, Hans was trusted totally by his boss and Goring. He took advantage of that trust and asked Goering to include me on the travel authorization to Switzerland, so he could take me with him on his fourth trip. On that trip, we visited his relatives in Switzerland. I didn’t know it at the time, but his Swiss relatives were the ones creating false identities for us.

“While Hans was making his trips to Switzerland, he and I prepared a false documentation package for each of the caves. It really wasn’t that difficult to do. Buy some maps and mark a remote, mountainous location on each map. Obtain random photos of mountainous terrain. Create phony descriptions of the areas in which the caverns where supposedly located that matched the map and photos he had for each package. We used copies of the actual inventory lists for the real caverns.

“As I said earlier, Hans was the one who was responsible for maintaining the inventory of the valuables the SS looted from Europe. He had several enlisted men and a few women assisting him. When a shipment was received, his people filled out inventory sheets to document what was in the shipment. Hans made an inventory list of the items on the sheets and filed the lists and inventory sheets in a file cabinet. He had over thirty file cabinets of inventory lists and inventory sheets documenting the warehouse in which the valuables had been stored.

“When his department started moving the assets stored in warehouses into the mines and salt caves, as approved by Hitler, Hans people created new inventory sheets to document what was transported to and stored in the mines and salt caves to include the warehouse where each valuable had come from. This meant Hans had to create new inventory lists for the mines and salt caves. He also had to update the inventory lists for the warehouses to reflect where the assets were now stored. Hans part in creating the new inventory lists and updating the old inventory lists was a major task.

“When it came time to smuggle the first documentation package out of the office, Hans had an idea. Instead of his original plan, Hans decided to ingratiate himself with his boss. Hans told his boss that he found an inventory list that indicated there were assets still in the warehouse where they had been stored, but the warehouse was empty. He said that he suspected that in the confusion and rush of moving the assets from the warehouses to the mines and salt caves, there may have been a few errors in the record keeping. He suggested that he be permitted to work on the weekends to determine the reason for this discrepancy and to correct the problem and any others that may arise. His boss agreed that the inventory lists had to be complete and accurate and approved his suggestion.

“The staff of Hans’ office did not normally work on the weekends unless a shipment was due to arrive. This meant Hans had the office to himself, and he could do whatever needed to be done without a danger of being caught swapping the documentation packages.

“Hans put all of our phony documentation packages into his briefcase and took them to the office the next Saturday. Hans carried his briefcase past the soldier guarding the office with no problem. The soldier was only there to ensure unauthorized people did not get into the office, so Hans wasn’t worried about being searched.

“There was no one in the office so Hans swapped the documentation packages putting the real packages into his briefcase. He selected an inventory list from one of the file cabinets and the inventory sheets from one of the salt caves and compared them. There were no discrepancies, but Hans spent most of the day cross-referencing the warehouse’s inventory list and the salt cave’s inventory sheets. On Monday, he would tell his boss that he had worked most of Saturday and he had found and fixed the problem. That afternoon, he made a point of stopping to talk with the soldier guarding the office and say goodbye before he carried his briefcase to his car.

“On Hans fifth trip to Switzerland, he opened another five numbered accounts. He also went to our bank and rented a safe deposit box. He put the real cavern documentation packages into the safe deposit box. Before returning to Germany, he gave his cousin another sealed envelope contain the account information and the safe deposit box key.

“On the sixth trip to Switzerland, Hans again took me with him on his trip to Geneva. His boss wanted him to open five more numbered accounts. Hans believed that if he returned from that trip, Goering would arrange for him to have an accident. He had us pack enough clothing for a week and we made our usual arrangements for one of Hans’ fellow officers to check on our apartment while we were gone.

“As we left Frankfurt, Hans told me he wanted to stop at his cousin’s place in Frauenfeld, which is northeast of Zurich. When we reached Karlsruhe we turned off of our usual route and headed toward Stuttgart. Instead of stopping at a hostel like we normally did, Hans drove on through the night until we reached Frauenfeld. We spent the rest of the day and the next night with his cousin. Hans had not told me until we reached Frauenfeld that we would not be returning to Germany.

“Once we arrived in Geneva, Hans did what his boss wanted him to do. He opened five numbered bank accounts, but in a third bank. He then transferred the funds from the twenty-five numbered accounts he had previously opened for Goering to his five new accounts. Hans believed there was no way for the German officials to learn what happened to the funds they had deposited in the first bank’s numbered accounts. But just in case, by using a third bank, we would not be linked to the funds that Goering had deposited into his accounts.

“Once Hans had the money where the Party officials could not access it, we relaxed. Our next task was to decide what we should receive as compensation for our losses, both business and personal. Remember, Paul, at the time, there was no court that we could appeal to for justice, so we decided to award ourselves with suitable compensation.

“We believed that the Nazi Party should compensate us for the confiscation of our families’ assets, loss of income, and for killing our families. We believed the value of the assets Hans had transferred to the third bank would be suitable compensation for our financial and personal losses.