Arya News - Almost 900 previously undisclosed accounts with potential Nazi links have been found at a Swiss bank, a US senator said.
Almost 900 previously undisclosed accounts with potential Nazi links have been found at a Swiss bank, a US senator said.
Holders of the 890 wartime accounts included the German foreign ministry, the SS paramilitary organisation and a German arms-manufacturing company, Chuck Grassley told reporters.
The organisations were part of the Nazi apparatus that enabled the Holocaust under Adolf Hitler.
The investigation is being conducted by Neil Barofsky, an American lawyer hired as an independent investigator by UBS, the Swiss bank that acquired Credit Suisse in an emergency takeover in 2023.
The inquiry aims to shine a light on what Mr Grassley said was the bank’s hidden role in Second World War crimes. The Republican senator gave no details on how much money might have been held in the accounts or their current status.
Chuck Grassley, a Republican senator for Iowa, leading the Senate judiciary committee - Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty
On Tuesday, Mr Barofsky told a hearing of the Senate judiciary committee, which Mr Grassley leads, that Credit Suisse was willing during the Nazi era to expropriate money from accounts held by Jews and transfer it to Nazi clients.
He said he had found that Credit Suisse ’s banking relationships with the SS were more extensive than previously known, and the economic arm of the SS maintained an account.
Details also emerged in the investigation of the bank’s connection to a scheme to help Nazis flee to Argentina to escape Allied justice, Mr Barofsky said.
Credit Suisse handled the financing of so-called ratlines, used by prominent Nazis to escape Europe after the war, investigators said.
Adolf Hitler reviewing troops at Nuremberg in 1935, accompanied by Heinrich Himmler - Print Collector/Getty
The Argentine authorities also used an account at the Swiss bank to facilitate bribes and other payments to European officials to keep the ratlines running, that would amount today to about 17m Swiss francs (£16m).
The panel also questioned officials from UBS over 150 or more important documents that Mr Barofsky said were being withheld from his investigation.
“What we’re talking about are documents that are relevant to the question of whether a Nazi had an account or didn’t have an account at Credit Suisse,” he said.
Mr Barofsky said he suspects the missing papers list German clients, looted art and valuables, and other matters that are “very, very core to the heart of our investigation”.
Neil Barofsky is an American lawyer appointed by UBS to lead an independent investigation into its Nazi links - Roberto Schmidt/AFP
US senators were highly critical of UBS for withholding of the documents. Mr Grassley said the conduct of UBS was “absurd and a historic shame that’ll outlive today’s hearing”.
John Kennedy, a Republican Senator from Louisiana, told Robert Karofsky, the head of UBS Americas: “That’s what this is all about, you don’t want to pay any more money... If you owe more money, then by God, pay it.”
UBS executives denied accusations that they were trying to silence Jewish groups, including the Simon Wiesenthal Centre (SWC), but said they would need assurances the bank would not be subject to lawsuits if it were to release the documents.
In 1999, UBS and Credit Suisse apologised and reached a global settlement on all Nazi-era claims, including any future claims. UBS said the current investigation was a voluntary initiative.
The investigation is set to conclude by early summer, according to Senate judiciary committee aides, and a final report is expected at the end of the year.
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