Biggest Robbery in History
Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht was Adolph Hitler’s moneyman,and for six crucial years he formulated the dictator’s economic program.At the time,Schacht was Germany’s most famous and respected financier because he had broken the country’s hyperinflation of 1923,one of history’s worst.At the height of that financial crisis,one American dollar was worth 4,210,500,000,000 German marks.Schacht in 1932 threw his immense reputation and economic skills behind Hitler and became both the president of the Nazi central bank and the finance minister.
Schacht got his unusual middle name from his father,who had immigrated to the U.S.in the hope of making a new life.He became a U.S.citizen in 1872,but eventually decided to return to Germany.One of Schacht’s father’s heroes was Horace Greeley,the editor of the New York Tribune who famously urged readers,“Go West,young man,and grow up with the country.”Schacht was conceived in the U.S.,but shortly before his birth in 1877 his parents returned to Germany.
The centerpiece of Schacht’s economic policy for Hitler was autarky,or total self-sufficiency.During World War I,the British blockade had starved the German people and eventually defeated them.Nearly a half million Germans died of starvation.That prompted Berlin in 1917 to resume submarine warfare in hopes of defeating the Allies before the Americans got into the war.The strategy failed.That blockade experience left the Germans with the post-war determination never again to depend on other countries for vital imports.
There was only one problem.Nature had not blessed Germany with all the vital products needed for the country’s war machine.Without them the Nazi army would be little more than toy soldiers.While Germany had plenty of low-grade iron ore to make weapons,it lacked the high-grade steel used in the manufacture of tanks and bombers.Low-grade iron ore,though,could be turned into a higher quality product with the help of a metal known as tungsten or wolfram.That could be bought from Spain and Portugal.
Germany was also short of oil to fuel tanks and bombers.The Germans began a successful crash program to make synthetic oil,but they could still not produce needed high grade oil.That they bought largely from Romania,which fueled the Nazi tanks that invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941.Chromium was another natural resource needed for warfare that Germany lacked.They bought that from Turkey.Sweden also supplied the Germans with ball bearings,another important material.
Those five supposedly neutral countries would not accept German Reichsmarks in payment for the war goods,but they would take gold.Part of the world’s bullion resides in private hands,but the vast majority of it is in central banks.Willy Sutton robbed banks because that’s where the money was.The Nazis robbed central banks because that’s where the gold was.Swiss bankers played a crucial role in the transactions by being the financial middlemen.
Austria was the first victim of Nazi aggression in the spring of 1938.Because of his close relations with the Bank for International Settlements,which he had helped start,Schacht knew that the Austrian central bank had about 100 tons of gold.That was almost four times as much as the Germans had at the time.When the Wehrmacht marched into Vienna on Saturday morning March 12,Wilhelm Keppler,a businessman and early Hitler backer,and two armed Nazi commandoes arrived at the Austrian Central Bank and took the Austrian gold to Berlin.The Germans forced the Austrian central bank to transfer an additional 5.7 tons that it had shipped to London for safekeeping.
The Nazis also demanded that Vienna’s large and wealthy Jewish community hand over to Berlin 14.3 tons of their private gold.Schacht immediately departed for Vienna to lead the Nazi takeover of the Austrian central bank.In a festive celebration at its headquarters,he led the staff in a pledge of allegiance to Hitler,asking them to join him in“a triple Sieg Heil to our Führer.”
The windfall arrived at a crucial time for the Nazis.By mid-1938,Berlin was almost out of foreign currency and gold largely because of its rearmament program and would have been forced to cut back their war buildup.On October 3,1938,Emil Puhl,who soon became vice-president of the Reichsbank,wrote in a memo,“The rapid implementation of rearmament was only possible because of the use of available gold,foreign exchange from the former Reich,and the immediate recovery of Austrian gold,foreign raw material,and valuable securities reserves.”
When the Germans later invaded other European countries,one of their first stops was always the local central bank.After quickly learning what had happened in Austria,foreign central bankers desperately tried to get the gold out of their countries.Usually the bullion was sent an ocean away to Canada and the United States,where it was stored temporarily at the New York Federal Reserve vaults in lower Manhattan but eventually went to Fort Knox.Even the Vatican secretly sent nearly eight tons of gold to New York.
In the darkest days of the Blitz in May 1940,the Bank of England shipped 2,000 tons across the Uboat infested Atlantic.That included not only Britain’s gold but also large stashes held for other countries.Amazingly,not a single ship was sunk.The British nicknamed the secret cargo margarine.After the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941,Stalin’s Politburo voted to send by train their three most valuable properties 900 miles to the Eastern side of the Ural Mountains to keep them out of Hitler’s hands.The three:Lenin’s embalmed body,the art works of Leningrad’s Hermitage Museum,and 2,800 tons of gold.
The Nazis eventually captured some $600 million worth of gold,which today would be worth $19 billion.That kept Hitler’s war machine going for five years.At the end of World War II in 1945,the Reichsbank still had nearly 300 tons on hand,which was more than it had at the beginning of the conflict.Without the stolen central bank gold,Adolph Hitler would have been an insignificant player in world history.
(Source:http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/historys-biggest-robbery-nazis-stole-europesgold/)
Task 1:Reading Comprehension Questions
The following questions are asked based on the above article.Please go back to the article and find the answers.
1.Why was Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht regarded as a famous financier?
2.How did Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht get his middle name?
3.Why did Hjalmar Schacht devise an autarky economic policy for Hitler?
4.What problems did Germany encounter due to a lack of natural resources?How did the Germans solve the problems?
5.Where was the world’s gold kept before the Nazis’invasion?
6.Why did Austria become the first victim of the Nazi’s robbery?
7.What was the approximate amount of gold that Germany held in the 1930s?
8.What was the total amount of gold that the Nazis robbed from Austria?
9.Why did the Nazis always target the central bank first when they invaded a European country?
10.What did the invaded countries do with their gold bullion?
Task 2:Paraphrasing
Explain in English the underlined words and expressions in the context of the above article.
1.Schacht was Germany’s most famous and respected financier because he had broken the country’s hyperinflation of 1923.
2.Schacht in 1932 threw his immense reputation and economic skills behind Hitler and became both the president of the Nazi central bank and the finance minister.
3.Schacht was conceived in the U.S.,but shortly before his birth in 1877 his parents returned to Germany.
4.Nature had not blessed Germany with all the vital products needed for the country’s war machine.
5.The Germans began a successful crash program to make synthetic oil,but they could still not produce needed high-grade oil.
6.Schacht immediately departed for Vienna to lead the Nazi takeover of the Austrian central bank.In a festive celebration at its headquarters,he led the staff in a pledge of allegiance to Hitler.
7.The windfall arrived at a crucial time for the Nazis.By mid-1938,Berlin was almost out of foreign currency and gold largely because of its rearmament program and would have been forced to cut back their war buildup.
8.The rapid implementation of rearmament was only possible because of the use of available gold,foreign exchange from the former Reich,and the immediate recovery of Austrian gold,foreign raw material,and valuable securities reserves.
9.In the darkest days of the Blitz in May 1940,the Bank of England shipped 2,000 tons across the U-boat infested Atlantic.That included not only Britain’s gold but also large stashes held for other countries.
10.After the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941,Stalin’s Politburo voted to send by train their three most valuable properties 900 miles to the Eastern side of the Ural Mountains to keep them out of Hitler’s hands.The three:Lenin’s embalmed body,the art works of Leningrad’s Hermitage Museum,and 2,800 tons of gold.
Task 3:Translation
Read the article again and translate it into Chinese.
阅读文章参考译文：
史上最大劫案
亚尔马·贺拉斯·格里莱·沙赫特是阿道夫·希特勒身边的银行家，在关键的六年中，为这位独裁者制定经济计划。1923年，德国发生了历史上最严重的恶性通货膨胀，沙赫特成功将之遏制，因此成为德国名望最高的金融家。在此次金融危机的高峰期，1美元可兑换42 105亿德国马克。1932年，沙赫特利用其显赫的名望和高超的经济才干，为希特勒站台，成为德国中央银行行长和财政部长。
沙赫特奇怪的中间名字是由其父所取。他父亲早期抱着打造新生活的梦想，移民到了美国，1872年成为美国公民，但是最终还是决定返回德国。在沙赫特父亲心目中，《纽约论坛报》的编辑贺拉斯·格里莱是一位英雄，他鼓励读者的名言是，“年轻人，到西部去！与祖国一同成长！”。沙赫特虽说是在美国怀上的，但是他父母在他1877年出生前的不久就已返回德国。
沙赫特为希特勒制定的经济政策的核心是，闭关自守，自给自足。在第一次世界大战期间，英国对德国实行海上封锁，造成德国饿殍遍野，并最终将其击败。当时，有近50万德国人死于饥饿。为此，柏林于1917年恢复实施潜艇战，希望在美国加入战争前战胜协约国，但是该战略以失败告终。当年封锁的遭遇使德国在战后痛下决心，对于重要的物资，绝不再依赖别国进口。
但问题是：大自然并没有赐予德国这部战争机器所需的所有关键物资。没有这些物资，纳粹兵比玩具兵强不了多少。德国虽然有大量的低质铁矿可用于制造武器，但却缺乏优质钢材用于制造坦克和轰炸机。不过，低质铁矿在加进金属钨之后，可炼制成优质钢材，而这种金属钨是可以从西班牙和葡萄牙买到的。
此外，德国还缺乏坦克和轰炸机所需的石油燃料。于是，德国采取应急措施，虽然成功制造出合成石油，但是始终生产不出所需的优质石油。为此，德国从罗马尼亚购进大量的优质石油，为纳粹坦克提供燃料，并于1941年6月入侵了苏联。德国还缺乏另一种战争必需的自然资源——铬，于是从土耳其购入。瑞典也向德国提供另一种重要物资——滚珠轴承。
五个理应中立的国家尽管不愿意接受德国马克用于战争物资的支付，但是他们接受黄金。世界上的部分黄金为私人所有，大部分则存放在各国的中央银行。当年威利·萨顿抢银行是因为那里有钱，如今纳粹抢中央银行是因为那里有黄金。瑞士的银行作为金融中介，在交易中起到了至关重要的作用。
1938年春，奥地利成为纳粹侵略的第一个受害者。沙赫特是国际清算银行的发起人之一，由于与该行关系密切，他知道奥地利中央银行存有大约100吨黄金，几乎是德国当时拥有量的四倍。3月12日周六的清晨，纳粹国防军长驱直入维也纳，早期支持希特勒的商人威廉·科普勒和两位持枪的纳粹突击队员，踏入奥地利中央银行，盗走黄金移至柏林。同时，德国还胁迫奥地利中央银行，将其早已运至伦敦保管的5.7吨黄金也转移到柏林。
此外，纳粹还要求维也纳大片富裕的犹太社区，将私人持有的黄金上交柏林，共计14.3吨。沙赫特也立即前往维也纳，带领纳粹党接管奥地利中央银行。在央行总部举行的欢庆会上，沙赫特带领银行职员向希特勒宣誓效忠，要求他们和自己一起三呼“胜利万岁”“元首万岁”。
在关键时刻，纳粹党得到了一笔意外之财。由于军备重整计划，到1938年年中，柏林的外汇和黄金基本耗尽，极有可能被迫削减军事建设。1938年10月3日，不久后担任德意志帝国银行副行长的埃米尔·普尔，在他的备忘录中写道：“只有运用现有的黄金，前德意志帝国留下的外汇，以及刚获取不久的奥地利黄金、外国原料和有价证券储备，才能尽快实施军备重整计划。”
随后，每当德军入侵欧洲其他国家时，首站目的地就是当地的中央银行。其他各国央行得知奥地利的遭遇后，开始拼命地将黄金转移出国，通常是漂洋过海运往加拿大和美国，暂时寄存在曼哈顿下城区的纽约联邦储备银行的保险库中，但最终都转移到诺克斯堡。甚至连梵蒂冈也悄悄地往纽约转移了近8吨黄金。
1940年5月，在伦敦大轰炸最黑暗的日子里，英格兰银行穿越德国U-型潜艇大量出没的大西洋，运输了2 000吨的物资。这批物资中不仅有英国储备的黄金，而且还有大量替别国保管的贮藏品。令人称奇的是，居然没有一艘船被德军击沉。英国人戏称这些秘密的货物为“人造黄油”。1941年6月，纳粹入侵苏联后，斯大林领导下的苏联政治局投票决定，用火车将该国三大贵重财产转移到距离乌拉尔山脉东部900英里外的地方，以摆脱希特勒的魔爪。这三件物品是：列宁的遗体，列宁格勒冬宫博物馆的艺术品，以及2 800吨黄金。
最终，纳粹共掠夺了价值6亿美元的黄金，相当于今天的190亿美元，使得希特勒的战争机器运转长达五年之久。1945年二战结束时，德意志帝国银行仍然有300吨黄金在手，远远超出战争初期的黄金储备量。如果没有盗取别国中央银行的黄金，那么，阿道夫·希特勒在世界历史上也许只是个无名之辈。