The Greatest Bank Heist in History - Nazi Gold

The Greatest Bank Heist in History

SS Troops, Nazi Gold & The Lost Billions

During the final days of WWII, a group of SS troops robbed Nazi Germany’s Reichsbank, escaping with over $130 million—making it the largest bank robbery in history.

Though Nazi Germany was on the brink of collapse, the Reichsbank still held an enormous cache of treasure from across Europe—estimated at $3.4 billion in today’s money.

In February 1945, the bank was severely damaged during a bombing raid by Allied forces. Miraculously, 5,000 employees survived in underground bunkers while the upper floors were obliterated.

Hitler then ordered the Reichsbank’s assets—gold, jewels, currency—to be hidden in various sites, most notably the Merkers salt mine, where over 100 tons of gold and valuables were stored.

The value of the gold stored at Merkers mine was $520 million at the time (around $8 billion today), including thousands of gold bars, foreign currencies, coins, and personal loot taken by the SS.

When Berlin fell to the Red Army on May 2, 1945, the city’s defenders were remnants of the Wehrmacht and youth militia, while Soviet forces numbered in the millions. The Soviets seized anything left in the bank.

But on April 22, 1945, SS Colonel Josef Spacil led a raid on the Reichsbank. His unit took diamonds, paper currency, and bonds—but left the gold due to its weight. They escaped by air to Austria.

Once in Austria, the SS scattered the loot around Saltzburg and joined forces with Otto Skorzeny, Hitler’s famous commando. While some of the stolen treasure was recovered, over $123 million went missing.

Skorzeny never revealed the treasure’s location and later resurfaced in Spain, living in luxury. Today, around $6 billion from the Reichsbank is still unaccounted for.