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3,401 Tonnes of Gold:
Picture the Gold Treasure of the Germans in New York
By Ralf Schuler
BILD, Berlin
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
http://www.bild.de/geld/wirtschaft/edelmetalle-gold/bild-beim-gold-schat...
NEW YORK -- It's the most valuable treasure we
Germans have: 3,401 tonnes of pure gold -- about
1,800 euros for each of us. Absolutely disaster-proof, divided between
high-security vaults in Frankfurt, Paris, London, and New York. And the
German Federal Bank (Bundesbank) isn't looking
after it!
The incredible gold scandal! On the 19th of November
2011, BILD magazine reported that the German Federal Bank last looked at our
gold reserves in New York in 2007, and has thereby even alarmed the Federal
Audit Office. (Inquiries are ongoing.)
A clear breach of the law, leading accountancy
lawyer Prof. Jorg Baetge
told BILD. "A tally of the ingots has to be made at least every three
years." The
Federal Bank hasn't done that.
Sloppiness with tangible consequences: The gold reserves (currently worth
about 147 billion euros) make up the "considerable" portion (says Baetge) of more than 17 percent of the Federal
Bank’s annual accounts. Are the Federal Bank's annual accounts for
recent years therefore wrong?
Alarmed by the BILD report, the Christian Democratic
Union (CDU) member of parliament and expert on international politics Philipp
Missfelder wanted to know more.
Involved in talks at the United Nations in New York,
Missfelder wants to check the part of the German
gold reserves stored there at the Federal Reserve Bank.
According to the BILD report, he is demanding the
list of gold ingots from the president of the German Federal Bank, Jens Weidmann.
Missfelder told BILD: "I was shocked. First they said there is no list.
Then there were lists, but they were secret. Then they told me that inquiries
endanger the trust between the German Federal Bank and the U.S. Federal
Reserve."
When the German Federal Bank found out about the
BILD investigation into German state gold, its head of communications,
Michael Best even tried to block the journalist's visit and the coverage in
BILD: "Against this background I ask you to understand that the German
Federal Bank cannot further support your request for a visit."
What does the Federal Bank want to hide?
... BILD on site
Number 33 Liberty St., Downtown Manhattan. It goes
down five floors below ground. "E-level." Plain floors, humming
ventilation, gigantic steel doors. And 7,000 tonnes
of gold! More than in the legendary Fort Knox. It is the largest gold storage
vault in the world.
But where is the German gold?
Jack Gutt of the staff of
the vice president of the U.S. Federal Reserve, said: "It is in some of
these 122 steel-lattice compartments. I cannot say more than that."
How many ingots? Everything is secret. No photos!
Only this much: the German gold is somewhere in the
latticed chambers here in the New York vault. BILD
wants to see it: no way! It will only be shown to the German Federal Bank.
These site inspections are your job, Mr. German
Federal Bank Chief! How does one recognise the
German gold?
Jack Gutt to BILD:
"There are lists of all the ingots. Each ingot has a number, a stamp
indicating the purity of the gold and a seal. The German gold reserves can
therefore be counted according to law."
In the German parliament the pressure is growing. Missfelder told BILD: "It cannot be the case that
for German gold assets the accounting laws are obvioulsy
being violated. I
demand a transparent stock check."
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