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Our Guest today is George M tabber author of chasing gold George thank you so much for joining us today very happy
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to be here so you've written four books about wine I think yes and after that
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for the first time you've written a book about how the Nazis sold Europe's gold
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how did that come about well it's a topic that's been a hobby of mine for
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more years than I would like to admit would you believe 50 years I I have been interested in the topic
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um and um I thought that it was the more I got into it the more I realized nobody
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had actually written the kind of book about Nazi gold that I wanted to write which was to try to put it in the
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context of how this fed in with the whole Nazi war strategy and so I thought um it was I thought somebody had to do
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it and why not me so was it is it true that it was one of your former editors who put you onto the story first yes it
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was uh about 50 years ago I was a young freelance writer reporter we call them stringers in those days uh for time and
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I was in Brussels and he was in Paris and one day I got a call from him this was in the N mid 1960s at which time
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gold was really a big topic of conversation politically because deal was trying to get the the world to go
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back onto a gold standard the United States was fighting it and so there was a nice all the fun of a Franco American
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fight um and what the boss told me he said uh he he said I I picked up this story down here in Paris um I don't know
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if it's true or not that during World War II the belgians gave their gold to
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the French for safekeeping but then the French turned around and gave their gold
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gave that gold to the Nazis after they had invaded and he said boy that would really make the French look bad once you
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he said why don't you check into and see if it's true well I checked into it and
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actually it is true that is exactly what happened uh the the I mean you have to have a Little Bit of Sympathy for the
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for the French because they were under heavy pressure from the Nazis who had occupied their country and you know we
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were running everything and so you know they they weren't totally free at some
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level this seems like such a huge story uh covering the whole of Europe and over
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such a long period of Time how did you go about reporting the book well I spent an awful lot of time in National
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Archives I spent uh literally weeks I had four trips to the German archives I went to the Belgian archives
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the French archives the British archives uh and in all those places I I usually stayed a week uh going through documents
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and some of them were just fantastic uh I mean I one of the things when I I I saw the various documents in the British
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archives I just couldn't believe what they I this because what I found was hand these handwritten letters uh by the
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British cabinet in which they were taking the decisions to ship all their gold this was in June of 1940 so the
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invasion you know they thought they were going to be invaded and they thought they had to get all of their
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gold across the Atlantic and so they're setting up a plan that was going to basically and it ended up they they they
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shipped out 3,000 tons of gold gold which was more than Ian it wasn't just British gold they also were holding gold
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for a lot of uh independent countries uh you know who would had sent their gold to to Britain in hopes that it would be
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protected and then now they lost you know now they got fearful that the BR that the French were that the the
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British were going to be run over by the Nazis as well so they're can lose it so
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they wanted their gold moved with this the British gold one of the things I found so
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fascinating about your book is that it has these Incredible characters there's
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one person who I may mispronounce his name was Helmer hor horis gy shacked who exactly was he and what was his role oh
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he was crucial he was the he was a a national hero in Germany because he was the central Banker who broke the
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inflation that had taken place in in in Germany in the 1920s it is consider considered by by the experts to either
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be the number one or the number two worst inflations in world history the the the Reich Reich the mark as it was
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called at that point totally collapsed and you know the inflation was just crazy and you then what people don't I
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think properly appreciate is the way when you when you the money that you have in society has no value anymore the
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societ itself tends to crumble there's nothing of value anymore there's nothing
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that and and that's what exactly what happened in Germany and literally at at
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that time the the Germans had to take a wheelbarrow full of of paper currency not just one or two pieces a wheelbarrow
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of paper currency to to a a shop to buy a loaf of bread and you know and the the
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German um uh government was printing uh new you know new currency so fast that they didn't even put uh any anything on
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the back side of the currency they only printed on the front side of it because they they had to you know get get them
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running out that fast well he shocked broke that and so he was very very important when he threw in his lot with
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with Hitler and and became Hitler's uh top Finance guy and he also came up with
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the the strategy of how they were going to pay for the war and it was he called it a policy of autarchy we would call it
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self self-reliance you you didn't you weren't going to be reliant on any
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foreign country you wanted to have everything that you're going to need for the war made in Germany but there were a
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few products that Germans just could not make I I wonder what drove the German hunger for gold is was there any other
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way that they could have financed World War II there's absolutely no other way I
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mean they would have because their currency couldn't be used I mean obviously the United States wasn't going
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to uh be sending them uh you know tanks or oil or any kind of product that that they needed uh the the only way that the
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Germans could get these half dozen wartime products that were so crucial for their war effort was to pay for them
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in gold or a currency like the the Swiss frank which the Germans then you know bought from Switzerland in exchange for
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gold so gold throughout history has always been a medium of of of finance that would always be acceptable because
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there's so little gold around the world and has such a high value I mean I say
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so little gold you know the all the gold that has ever been mined in the world would fill up three Olympic siiz
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swimming pools only three because you can so you can imagine what and and yet everybody wants that gold
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so the price goes up so I believe the it was the Austrian Central Bank that was the first to be raid yes what was the
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impact of that gold on the course of the war great the Germans got a lot of gold
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out of Austria partly because nobody was expecting that kind of thing um they got
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something like 90 tons of of Central Bank gold and they got 15 Tons of private gold largely from from the
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Jewish citizens Vienna a large Jewish community that that held a lot of gold and diamonds and the Nazis got all of
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that the Germans war machine was almost out of out of money when they invaded Austria suddenly they had about 90 tons
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of new gold and that allowed them to to go on you know invading other countries Czechoslovakia Poland all of those some
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countries they got it sometimes they didn't in doing your research uh what were some of the most dramatic um
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episodes that stuck in your mind I think it was probably in the Norwegian story um Norway was a neutral
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uh but Hitler was you know running over neutrals countries pretty fast and so they were very worried that the the
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Norwegian Norway would be run over and it was in April of 1939 the Nazis invaded Denmark and
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Norway at this simultaneously and the the day of the invasion uh just shortly uh after
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midnight um the Germans the the the the Norwegians had pulled back a lot of their their retired officers and retired
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people and they had they weren't much of a military power to say the least they
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they were a neutral country and thought that the best thing that they could do is just hope that nobody would invade um
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but they had brought back some of the people from retirement and one of the guys they brought back from retirement
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was given in charge of of uh of protecting the entrance to Oslo which is the Oslo
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fiord and there was a fortress there that had been built in the 19th century and in that Fortress were some guns they
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were crup made guns by the the great German Munitions manufacturer uh were two giant um
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guns and just past midnight he looks out in the into the FI he looks out out into
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the fiord and he sees this giant ship coming towards him then he realizes it's
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a whole Convoy of ships there's several of them he has no idea what the nationality is because it could very
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easily have been a British ship because the British were also very active because they were trying to stop the
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Germans from from doing that but he looked out and all he could see was this giant ship coming he didn't realize it
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but it was a brand new Cruiser was on its maiden voyage and it got in it got about a half a mile from him and he
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looked out and he said to nobody except himself he said Tom tomorrow I'll be a
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national hero or I'll be Court Marshal fire and they fired and dead on they hit
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the the the ship and that the ship uh went down and actually sunk about hours later a lot of the ship soldiers had
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been able to to get off um but that that delayed The Invasion by just a day and in that one day of of Grace the the the
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Norwegians were able to get the cabinet the the the gold and the King up to uh the northern part of of ital of
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of of Norway you know bit bit bit by bit uh until they went over to Britain in the and what surprised you most in
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writing this book I I was surprised by the reluctance of the United States to get more
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involved I I know why they did I know after World War I the Americans were uh isolationists and they didn't want to
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get involved in in the world situation uh you know kind of feeling you know we we were isolated you know we
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had again we had the Ocean between us and Europe and let the let the the Europeans fight their own thing even
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though what the Nazis were doing was really outrageous I mean you know the and the fact that the United States you
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know it was only after Pearl Harbor that the United States got into World War II
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and by that time and the the first invasion of of Austria was in 1938 uh and the United States didn't get
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into the war until 42 so they had four years where the United States sat on their hand hands didn't do much they did
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some but not much uh were it not for this major gold robbery what do you think might have
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been Hitler's role in history well I don't think it probably would have been
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much at all because I think they would have run out of money and he would have his his armies could not have
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accomplished what they did um you know at a certain point you know if Hitler had had had quit say in 193 36
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or 37 uh he would probably have gone into history with as you know one of the great leaders because he you know he he
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stopped the he brought around the German economy which was was struggling and he
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he unified the country uh but he he didn't care about that I mean he was a fanatic who only cared about military
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power and you know he he he didn't know how to control himself and and that's why he he went headstrong
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and and after those first victories at the beginning the victory over France over Belgium after Australia Austria um
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Poland all those countries he was he had had been so he that he thought he could
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do anything that he made the Fatal mistake of invading the Soviet Union and that was the beginning of his downfall
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now since um you've written four books about wine before writing this one should we expect three more books about
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gold no I don't think there's going to be three more books about gold I'm
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kicking around some my other ideas and I I haven't actually decided uh what my
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next book is going to be and I'm kind of looking for a topic I I'm afraid I I
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don't think I'll probably ever find as good a topic as gold so I I'll have to
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to deal with second best George thank you so much for speaking with knowledge at Wharton thank you very much for
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having me [Music]