Nazism

Nazi leader Hermann Goering. Creator of the Luftwaffe and founder of concentration camps and the Gestapo, Goering was found guilty of war crimes at the Nuremberg trials but committed suicide rather than face execution.

Adolf Hitler, then German Chancellor, at the 11th Olympic Games in Berlin, Germany, in 1936. These Games were some of the most controversial in Olympic history, as they were used by Hitler as propaganda for Nazi ideology. This prompted several nations to call for a boycott, in protest against the anti-Semitic policies enacted by Hitler's National Socialist government.

Ideology based on racism, nationalism, and the supremacy of the state over the individual. The German Nazi party, the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers' Party), was formed from the German Workers' Party (founded in 1919) and led by Adolf Hitler from 1921 to 1945; see Germany: history 1919-49, emergence of the Nazis.

During the 1930s many similar parties were created throughout Europe and the USA, such as the British Union of Fascists (BUF) founded in the UK in 1932 by Oswald Mosley. However, only those of Austria, Hungary, and Sudeten were of major importance. These parties collaborated with the German occupation of Europe from 1939 to 1945. After the Nazi atrocities of World War II (see SS, concentration camp, Holocaust), the party was banned in Germany, but today parties with Nazi or neo-Nazi ideologies exist in many countries.

‘Nazi gold’ The UK and USA announced in September 1997 that their holdings of Nazi gold, worth up to £40 million, would be switched into a fund to help victims of the Holocaust. The agreement, reached between the UK, USA, and France, unlocked a 50-year-old post-war reparation deal that divided the gold between governments, specifically excluding all claims from individuals whose gold was stolen by the Nazi Reich. The deal was announced after a meeting of the Tripartite Gold Commission, which had kept tight control over the German gold holdings since it was set up in 1946. The Commission had already distributed more than £2 billion of the gold to the central banks of countries which were looted during the war. The 5.6 tonnes left in bank vaults in the UK and the USA was less than 2% of the gold recovered by the allies at the end of the war.

The London talks on Nazi gold, hosted by the UK foreign secretary Robin Cook, ended in early December 1997 with a pledge for a follow-up meeting. The US under secretary of state announced plans to examine the question of Nazi-looted art at a gathering in Washington, USA, in 1998. The London talks were attended by 240 delegates from 40 countries. Robin Cook pledged £1 million from the UK government to a new international fund. The USA offered $4 million, with a further $21 million to follow. Cook proposed that all 15 nations due to receive the last remaining gold recaptured from the Nazis should donate it to help Holocaust victims, and that other countries might wish to help.

Austria and Germany agreed to seek missing Reichsbank records, and Degussa, the company that smelted stolen goods for the Nazis, agreed to allow World Jewish Congress officials to gain access to its files. A government-commissioned report into the seizure of Jewish assets in Nazi-occupied France estimated in 2000 that goods worth FFr8.8 billion/£0.8 billion/$1.3 billion in today's money had been confiscated. The commission recommended compensation for the heirs of the victims, and that the French state and financial institutions should give FFr2.4 billion/£227 million/$400 million to a proposed foundation to promote understanding of the Holocaust in France.

Compensation Former Nazi prisoners used for slave labour sued 12 German and Austrian companies in August 1998. In December 1999, the German government and industrial groups agreed with Jewish groups to set up a DM10 billion/$5.2 billion/£3.2 billion compensation fund for those who were made to work as slave and forced labourers in Nazi Germany. In July 2000, Germany signed this compensation deal. However, it was criticized by Eastern Europeans who had been forced to work in Nazi camps, who said that they received in compensation a fraction of that which has been awarded to Jews.