The Gold That Disappeared After World War II

Nothing special. Just a short vid (8 mins 33 secs) I enjoyed. Didn't want to start a new thread but I had no idea where this would fit in.

The Gold That Disappeared After World War II​

Aug 16, 2025 The Financial History Files

Gold is supposed to be the ultimate safe asset — but after the Second World War, thousands of tons of it simply vanished. Governments lost it, central banks denied it, and private vaults hid it. Some was stolen by German and Imperial Japan, some traded through neutral countries like Switzerland and Portugal, and some may have been used to secretly fund Cold War operations. Billions of dollars in gold, gone without a trace.
In this episode of The Financial Historian, we uncover how the world’s most trusted form of money was seized, laundered, hidden, and absorbed into shadowy financial systems that shaped global power for decades. We’ll explore the economic history behind the missing gold, the financial mistakes nations made in trusting “safe” storage, and the enduring lesson about wealth in times of crisis.
This isn’t just about the past — the same tactics used to hide wartime gold are still used today. Understanding how money and power work in moments of global crisis is financial education you can’t afford to ignore. Real wealth isn’t just about what you own — it’s about how well you can protect it when the system starts to break.

8:33

All investment has risk. God knows I've worried about that. Financial instruments - such as stawks, or bon(e)ds...are liabilities or impediments to the operations they have claims on. Plus, the machinations of the Globalists - The Great Taking.

Bank accounts are based fully on TRUST. Through all history. Banks have failed regularly, because of moral failings that are constant in the human strain. And because those who want a career caring for other people's money, usually want to for nefarious reasons. Laws were put in place to make the government the guarantor; but more recent laws have limited the depositor's standing - from owners of the deposited money, into "unsecured lenders" to the bank.

Gold in vaults, likewise. With the added physical limitations - shared with banks, above. Electronic transfer/access is not likely in a crisis. And when chaos erupts, the banks will be the first to lock their doors.

Gold, vaulted, will be seized if a revolutionary force emerges. Vaulted elsewhere? In safe (maybe) law-respecting (NOT!) Switzerland?

Maybe, maybe not. Davos is in Switzerland. But even if the custodial institution abides by law, there is not likely a way to access your stores in a collapse. And quite likely not afterward. If it takes money to retrieve your gold, and communication is down...the vaulted gold becomes abandoned property.

So. Physical ownership. Until the zombie breaks through your patio glass door and starts pulling things apart. So, what? Bury it? What happens if Rule of Law collapses, and whatever Antifa government emerges in your county, puts you OFF the land for one of their claimants? Or just runs you out. Or, with some structure of law, holds a Sheriff's Sale.

Custody with a non-banking institution? Remember the raid on non-bank SD boxes in California? NO criminal evidence was found...and holders of those boxes, haven't found their money or PMs, yet, either.

The answer is, there is nothing certain. In the coming collapse, if I read it correctly, a lot of gold will disappear, along with a lot of people, owners of gold and otherwise.

searcher said:

Nothing special. Just a short vid (8 mins 33 secs) I enjoyed. Didn't want to start a new thread but I had no idea where this would fit in.

The Gold That Disappeared After World War II​

Aug 16, 2025 The Financial History Files

Gold is supposed to be the ultimate safe asset — but after the Second World War, thousands of tons of it simply vanished. Governments lost it, central banks denied it, and private vaults hid it. Some was stolen by German and Imperial Japan, some traded through neutral countries like Switzerland and Portugal, and some may have been used to secretly fund Cold War operations. Billions of dollars in gold, gone without a trace.
In this episode of The Financial Historian, we uncover how the world’s most trusted form of money was seized, laundered, hidden, and absorbed into shadowy financial systems that shaped global power for decades. We’ll explore the economic history behind the missing gold, the financial mistakes nations made in trusting “safe” storage, and the enduring lesson about wealth in times of crisis.
This isn’t just about the past — the same tactics used to hide wartime gold are still used today. Understanding how money and power work in moments of global crisis is financial education you can’t afford to ignore. Real wealth isn’t just about what you own — it’s about how well you can protect it when the system starts to break.

8:33

Click to expand...

Remember the 1970s movie, Kelly's Heroes? Clint Eastwood, Don Rickles, Donald Sutherland, Telly Savalas. The final push east against the Wermacht. A dysfunctional lieutenant, busted down to enlisted, accidentally learns of a Nazi store of gold near the retreating front. So he stages with his unit, a commando raid.

Except that he has to trust the untrustworthy. His armor unit is led by a guy with big plans, and has to opt in others, yet...until it becomes a complete circus redirecting a small army towards one insignificant French town.

Of course they get the gold, in the end. Getting it home, would be a problem for another day.

But, scanning this vid, I have to wonder how much was based on documentation and how much on speculation. I have zero doubts that the Swiss cooperated in large-scale gold theft - they got eighty years of high living SOMEHOW. Other assertions, seem perhaps more dubious.

Here's a book (PDF) on that subject for those of you who read.
Gold Warriors — America's Secret Recovery of Yamashita's Gold
Academia