Nazi Millionaires: The Allied Search for Hidden SS Gold

by Kenneth D. Alford, Theodore P. Savas

During the final days of World War II, German SS officers crammed trains, cars, and trucks full of gold, currency, and jewels, and headed for the mountains of Austria. Fearful of arrest and determined to keep the stolen loot out of Allied hands, they concealed their treasures and fled. Most of these men were eventually apprehended, but many managed to evade capture. The intensive postwar Allied investigation that followed recovered only a sliver of this mountain of gold. What happened to the rest of it, and what fate befell these men?

Authors Alford and Savas answer these questions and many more in this fast-paced and well-written new book. Their groundbreaking study is based upon thousands of pages of previously unpublished and recently declassified documents. The result is a fresh and absolutely original reading experience that offers insights into the minds and methods of these SS thieves, the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) within which they labored, how they achieved their positions of near-absolute power, the complex Allied investigation into their activities, and what happened to the vast sums of wealth they looted from Europe's Jews.

Nazi Millionaires deftly captures the high drama surrounding these men and women and the secrets they carried with them during the closing days of World War II - and in some cases, to the grave. It is a remarkable tale of greed, lust, fraud, deceit, treachery, and murder. And it is one you will long remember.

About the Kenneth D. Alford, of Richmond, Virginia, is the author of Great Treasure Stories of World War II and The Spoils of World War II. Theodore P. Savas has written or edited a dozen books, including Silent German U-Boat Commanders of World War II. He lives in El Dorado Hills, California.

Table of Contents

Preface / Acknowledgments
Dramatis Personae
The Rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany

Chapter 1: The Devil’s Heinrich Himmler and Ernst Röhm
Chapter 2: Hitler’s Reinhard Heydrich and Ernst Kaltenbrunner
Chapter 3: Franz The King of the Ghetto
Chapter 4: Playing God in The Kastner-Becher Faustian Bargain
Chapter 5: Fischhorn The Last SS Headquarters
Chapter 6: The Moneymakers
Chapter 7: A Bureaucrat and His Josef Spacil’s Final Days of World War II
Chapter 8: The Discovery of Josef Spacil
Chapter 9: Ghetto Konrad’s Hidden Wealth
Chapter 10: Walter Hirschfeld and the Search for Eva Braun’s Jewels
Chapter 11: Kurt The Only White Sheep in the Black SS?
Chapter 12: Fall From Walter Hirschfeld and the Counter Intelligence Corps
Chapter 13: Ernst Kaltenbrunner’s Missing Sacks of Gold
Chapter 14: Adolf Eichmann’s Blaa Alm Gold
Chapter 15: The Frau Iris Scheidler and Elfriede H_ttl
Chapter 16: The Gold Trade in Upper Austria
Chapter 17: The Bloody Red Cross? Walter Schellenberg’s “External Assets”

Loose Ends
Bibliography
Index

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World War II

320 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2002

Reviews

[Thaddeus A. Opiola · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book about NAZI Germany and the Austrians involved in stealing the wealth of nations. I didn't know that Henery Kissenger was in the intelligence group trying to find NAZI's on the run. Also high profile Isrealy involved in death for money. Politics indeed has strange bed fellows.

[Inquisitive Voyager · Rating 5 out of 5]

Erittäin hyvä. Vahvisti merkittävästi käsitystäni siitä, että suuri osa johtavista natseista koostui fanaattisten ideologian seuraajien sijasta opportunisteista, jotka hyödynsivät tilaisuutensa hankkia itselleen valtaa ja omaisuutta muiden elämän kustannuksella. Moni oli hyvinkin korkeasti koulutettuja, joilta ensimmäiseksi olisi olettanut kykyä nähdä natsismissa sen vaarat, mutta teos jälleen kerran osoitti sen, ettei natsismilta olla turvassa koskaan. Ideologia itsessään ei ole se kaikkein vaarallisin, vaan sen rinnalla tuodut lupaukset paremmasta tulevaisuudesta. Tulevaisuudesta, jota ei joko tule edes aidosti tapahtumaan tai sitten sellaisesta joka rakentuu valheisiin ja toisten tarkkaan organisoituun sortamiseen. Suosittelen kaikille, joita kiinnostaa kurkistaa johtavien sosiopaattinatsien psyykkeeseen.

[Long · Rating 3 out of 5]

Natsit (ja vähän muutkin) oli roistoja ja juutalaisten omaisuus katosi jäljettömiin. Tämä tosin taisi olla jo ennen tätä kirjaa tiedossa.

[Helga · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kirja, joka sisälsi minulle entuudestaan täysin tuntemattomia asiahaaroja, sekä tietoa natsien ja heidän lähipiirinsä liikkeistä.

[Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

Natsit (ja vähän muutkin) oli roistoja ja juutalaisten omaisuus katosi jäljettömiin. Tämä tosin taisi olla jo ennen tätä kirjaa tiedossa.