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), ...