FTR#1300 The Collapse of Credit Suisse and the Shadows of Safehaven

Inter­na­tion­al finan­cial tur­moil sur­round­ing the col­lapse of sev­er­al major Amer­i­can banks and the absorp­tion of Cred­it Suisse by UBS has eclipsed a very impor­tant sto­ry about Cred­it Suis­se’s role in han­dling monies used by the post-World War II Nazi dias­po­ra.

After high­light­ing some of the Nazi accounts used at Cred­it Suisse and the fir­ing of U.S. inves­ti­ga­tor Neil Barof­sky by the bank, we dis­cuss Cred­it Suis­se’s role in the flight cap­i­tal pro­gram of the Third Reich and the unsuc­cess­ful attempts by U.S. offi­cials involved with Oper­a­tion Safe­haven to inter­dict the flight cap­i­tal.

Cred­it Suisse fig­ures promi­nent­ly in this account.

The pro­gram con­cludes with dis­cus­sion of the inter­dic­tion of Oper­a­tion Safe­haven, in part because of the indis­cre­tion of U.S. Vice Pres­i­dent Hen­ry Wal­lace.

Note that, had Safe­haven been suc­cess­ful, Ger­man indus­tri­al­ists and financiers in the defen­dants’ dock at Nurem­berg would have been asked to name their Amer­i­can co-con­spir­a­tors.

This would have placed some of the most promi­nent names in Amer­i­can indus­try and finance in the defen­dants’ dock, along with their Ger­man asso­ciates.