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Replica of A Nazi Reichsbank Goldbar From The Third Reich Era

Hitler's ability to wage World War II across Europe, in parts of Africa and in the Atlantic Ocean was, as is always the case in war, entirely dependent on his ability to finance it.

By acquiring the gold reserves of conquered countries with Reichsmarks that could only be spent to buy German goods and services, the Nazis took control of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of monetary gold that was convertible in "neutral" countries like France, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, Portugal and Turkey.

Soldiers of General George S. Patton's US Third Army removing Reichsbank gold from the Kaiseroda potassium mine at Merkers, Bad Salzungen,

When the country of Belgium refused to sell its monetary gold, the German government confiscated it with the help of the government of France, and began resmelting it in 1942 at the Prussian State Mint in Berlin. The new gold bars that left the Nazi mint were then German monetary gold that could be used to buy French trucks, Rumanian oil, Swedish steel, Swiss tools, Spanish leather goods, Portuguese food and Turkish tobacco. Without the ability to buy from the "neutral" countries with gold, Nazi Germany could not have waged war beyond 1943.

Fortunately for Hitler and the Nazis, the French, Swiss, Swedes and others were perfectly content to accept any quantity of Nazi gold in exchange for exporting their natural resources and the finished goods that made them rich by war's end. They did not care to know where or how Hitler got his gold.