Bank of england helped sell nazi gold

This is according to historical documents released by the bank of england on wednesday. According to these calculations, the british government had frozen all czech assets held in london at the time. Yet the bank was involved in the sale of stolen gold bars for the reichsbank in 1939.

In the documents from 1950 an order from march 1939 is described. Gold worth 5.6 million pounds was to be transferred from the czech national bank's account at the bank for international settlements (BIS) to an account at the reichsbank, which also belonged to BIS. According to calculations by the "financial times," the value today is around 736.4 million pounds (845.3 million euros).

In june, there was another transaction of significantly lower value. The chancellor of the exchequer was informed and asked for advice, but as the answer was delayed, the bank simply made the transfer. The publication of the documents is part of a project to digitize the archives of the bank of England.