Nazi Gold: The Sensational Story of the World's Greatest Robbery – and the Greatest Criminal Cover-Up

Douglas Botting · IAN SAYER

Jan 2012 · Random House

About this ebook

In 1945, as Allied bombers continued their final pounding of Berlin, the panicking Nazis began moving the assets of the Reichsbank south for safekeeping. Vast trainloads of gold and currency were evacuated from the doomed capital of Hitler's 'Thousand-year Reich'.

Nazi Gold is the real-life story of the theft of that fabulous treasure - worth some 2,500,000,000 at the time of the original investigation. It is also the story of a mystery and attempted whitewash in an American scandal that pre-dated Watergate by nearly 30 years. Investigators were impeded at every step as they struggled to uncover the truth and were left fearing for their lives.

The authors' quest led them to a murky, dangerous post-war world of racketeering, corruption and gang warfare. Their brilliant reporting, matching eyewitness testimony with declassified Top Secret documents from the US Archives, lays bare this monumental crime in a narrative which throngs with SS desperadoes, a red-headed queen of crime and American military governors living like Kings. Also revealed is the authors' discovery of some of the missing treasure in the Bank of England.

Ratings and reviews

Great read, informative and eye opening.

Informed and wanting to know more.

About the author

Ian Sayer is a transport executive and one-time truck driver and insurance clerk. His interest in Nazi gold was first aroused by the Guinness Book of Records' account of the greatest robbery of all time. He began his extensive search for this book back in 1974.

Douglas Botting is a writer whose previous books reflect his interest in travel, exploration and twentieth century war. These include Aftermath in Europe, In the Ruins of the Reich and Gavin Maxwell: A Life.