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Bank of England helped Nazi move and sell gold looted from Czechoslovakia in 1939

The role the Bank of England (BoE) played in moving and selling gold looted by the Nazis has been revealed in a previously unpublished file.

A record from the bank’s archive shows it transferred £5.6m of gold from Czechoslovakia on behalf of Germany’s Reichsbank, following the Nazi invasion in 1939.

The gold was moved from the National Bank of Czechoslovakia’s account at the central Bank for International Settlements (BIS) to an account managed on behalf of the Reichsbank.

Some of the gold was later sold in London.

The 10-page document, published on the BoE’s website, was produced following the Second World War amid fears the bank’s position had “never been thoroughly appreciated” and that “their action at the time was widely misunderstood.”

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