Nazi ties to Credit Suisse deeper than was known, hidden files reveal

Switzerland thought it came to terms with its Nazi-assisting past after harrowing probes in the 1990s led its two largest banks to pay more than $1 billion restitution to Holocaust victims.

- Margot Patrick

Documents unearthed in bank archives show it might have been at least in part a whitewash.

A cache of client files stamped "American blacklist," a designation for those financing or trading with Nazis or Axis partners, was recently found by independent investigators covered by the bank in the 1990s but never disclosed to investigators. They also turned up new details of an operational account controlled by high-ranking Nazi SS officers and a Swiss intermediary that was allegedly used to move and store looted assets.

The findings came to light in a probe overseen by an independent ombudsman, Neil Barofsky. The former U.S. prosecutor, who is a partner at law firm Jenner & Block, was hired by Credit Suisse in 2021 after the Simon Wiesenthal Center found information on possible Nazi clients that hadn't previously been disclosed.

Credit Suisse, one of Switzerland's biggest banks and now part of UBS. The investigators, who studied dusty ledgers and pored over microfilm that hadn't been part of earlier reviews into the dark chapter, found something else, too: signs of a coverup.

In the 1990s, two panels studied Swiss banks' World War II-era activities after anger erupted over Holocaust victims' unreleased funds.

But the investigators now taking a fresh look found Credit Suisse withheld crucial information.

They located several Nazi-linked accounts that were disclosed. The Senate Budget Committee got involved two years ago, when Credit Suisse fired Barofsky from the probe. Bank executives played down what he had found and felt he had overstepped lines it wanted around the investigation. The committee has jurisdiction over the State Department's Office of the Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues, which seeks to secure compensation for Nazi-era wrongs.