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Germany Decides to Bring Gold Stored in U.S. & France Back Home

Jan. 16, 2013 8:13am Billy Hallowell

Deutsche Bundesbank, Germany’s central bank, is set to bring back home some $36 billion worth of gold stored in the United States and France.

The Bundesbank said in a statement Wednesday that it will repatriate all 374 tons of gold it had stored in Paris by 2020. An additional 300 tons — equivalent to 8 percent of the Bundesbank’s total reserves worth about $183 billion — will also be shipped from New York to Frankfurt.

The gold’s presence in the U.S. and France was part of a Cold War-era plan to protect Germany’s national treasure. Under the Bretton Woods agreement that Germany entered into in 1952, Reuters reports that the country was able to turn dollar claims into gold. At that time, in the post-war era, economic expansion came readily to Germany, as the nation’s exports to the U.S. were rapidly growing.

Germany Decides to Bring Gold Stored in the U.S. & France Back Home

Photo Credit: AP

But with tides changing, the current sociopolitical landscape apparently no longer calls for Germany to continue housing so much of its gold abroad. Reuters provides more:

As the Cold War set in, Germany kept its gold reserves put, keeping them out of reach of the Soviet empire. But government officials have grown uneasy about the storage set-up and have called for the Bundesbank to inspect the bars.

The Bundesbank now wants to change the arrangement too, even though it has said it does not see a need to count the bars or check their gold content itself and considers written assurances from the other central banks as sufficient.

With the end of the Cold War it was no longer necessary to keep Germany’s gold reserves “as far to the west and as far from the Iron Curtain as possible”, Bundesbank board member Carl-Ludwig Thiele told reporters on Wednesday.

While the U.S. and London will maintain some of Germany’s gold, France, as stated, will not. With the introduction of the euro, Germany no longer needs to hold reserves at the Banque de France for exchange purposes.

These moves follow criticism from Germany’s independent Federal Auditors’ Office last year bemoaning the central bank’s oversight of gold reserves abroad. In October, the German Federal Court of Auditors, a body that oversees the country’s financial management, pushed for an official inspection of the gold being stored at foreign central banks. The motivation for this, of course, was the fact that such an inspection had never been undertaken.

Bundesbank, which also has more space to store gold in its vaults following the switch from the deutschmark to the euro, was tight-lipped regarding how it plans to transport the gold and how much the process will cost.

Frankfurt will hold half of Germany’s 3,400 tons of gold by 2020, with New York retaining 37 percent and London storing 13 percent. Bundesbank has been on a path toward moving some of its gold out of foreign nations for quite some time now. As Reuters notes, in 2000, Germany’s central bank transferred 931 tonnes from the Bank of England to Germany.

(H/T: Reuters)

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Comments (71)

Netsurfer2
Posted on January 17, 2013 at 8:52pm
Germany needs it in order to stable their economy, since they have borrowed to all the European countries! IMF just paid 4.3 Billion to Greece and there is not much more that anyone will loan there! China won’t continue to loan the US and with Oblamy, you can bet the deficit will continue to spiral out of control. Welcome to the underworld folks! People will eventually start bartering under the table and the underground will flourish! Not like the highly wealthy will ever stop their loop holes from being taken away! After all, we have many in congress and even the white house who would never tax themselves! I say we should cut their pay to the average wage here in America. Bet you wouldn’t see them wanting to take a job in the government!

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RamonPreston
Posted on January 17, 2013 at 6:54pm
Read the hand writing on the wall, folks.

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Tom70
Posted on January 17, 2013 at 12:04pm
I wouldn’t trust Hussien Obama with my money ether. What he gets from me is extorted in the legal for of taxes.

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TX_45_ACP
Posted on January 16, 2013 at 9:51pm
Just wait until they open the safe and find … poof … it’s gone.

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sndrman
Posted on January 16, 2013 at 5:27pm
the end of the rainbow used to be AMERICA but that’s ending now huh?

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blazingaway
Posted on January 16, 2013 at 4:35pm
The winds of war are blowing …
These gold reserves held by other countries served as a hedge against nations acting against other nations … those days are ending

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Mr Sanders
Posted on January 16, 2013 at 4:25pm
Good move on Germany’s part – can’t use what you don’t have in hand – or make solvent a currency when others confiscate because they didn’t have the foresight to see [want to see] the impending disaster.

Germany sees the writing on the wall – why can’t we??????!!!!!!!

Let me quote someone who has [or maybe not] great talent in ignoring the times he lives in…..

“We Don’t have a SPENDING Problem?”

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klg1956
Posted on January 16, 2013 at 3:23pm
Hey Germany, hope your gold doesn’t turn into the “Last Chance Gold”.

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suedstate
Posted on January 16, 2013 at 2:16pm
Germany knows what is going to happen, France with its newly elected Socialist President and the USA with its Socialist President it’s only a matter of time til France and the USA will join Greece, Spain, Portugal and now England.
To bad the English didn’t listen to Maggie Thatcher when she said the problem with Socialism/Communisim is sooner or later you run our of other peoples money.
When you have 51% takers (Obama voters)and 49% givers(The Taxpayers) just do the math.
Good for Germany just make sure it isn’t just gold plated since the Federal Reserve has been stealing from the American people since Woodrow Wilson put them in power.

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PK_SEA
Posted on January 16, 2013 at 1:45pm
Dear Germany,
We can’t find your gold. Our bad.
Sincerely,
US Gov’t.

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1FreeVoice
Posted on January 16, 2013 at 1:20pm
Smart guys. I also don’t blame them for keeping tight on their plans for shipping that much gold.

They should disguise the shipment to look like the sort of high security cargo NO ONE would want…. how about nuclear waste? Certainly no one wants to steal, or even open it, it’s heavy and well secured.

The foreign gold would probably have been safe here, but Americans should start remembering that our government once demanded that people holding private gold stocks sell them to the national government below market price… Think things will get that bad again?

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LBJDIDIT1963
Posted on January 16, 2013 at 1:07pm
My bad, I only though 15 tons here in NY, but much more and France, wow!

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LBJDIDIT1963
Posted on January 16, 2013 at 1:04pm
This really concerns me, we all should be concerned. The end of the U.S. Dollar as the Global Standard may be near. What motivated this action? That’s $806,400,000.00 in gold going home to Genrmany, Japan devaluing it’s dollar 2%….hmmm

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Detroit paperboy
Posted on January 16, 2013 at 1:02pm
If I were them I would drill holes in each and every one of those gold bars, I trust this government about as much as I trust a welfare grubbin Crackhead………..

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B-Neil
Posted on January 16, 2013 at 12:34pm
No! No! Don’t tell me those Germans are starting to get that urge again.

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txannie
Posted on January 16, 2013 at 12:15pm
Texas is bringing it’s gold owned by Texas back to Texas, too. Smart people make smart moves. It’s not hard to see the handwriting on the wall. Right now… watching O on his live news on gun control….full of baloney and standing on children who know only what they have been told. He’s trampling on America’s rights in the name of protecting children, which cannot be done the way he will do it. He will make it easier for the lawless to do what they want is all he will accomplish.

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michael from Ga.
Posted on January 16, 2013 at 12:08pm
The dollar bubble is about to burst.

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Grand design
Posted on January 16, 2013 at 11:56am
A good idea before Obama claims it as his own and spends it on his political supporters! Make sure you count them before signing off on their delivery!

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tckid17
Posted on January 16, 2013 at 11:20am
Come on! Drink the progressive cool aid and move to Guyanna. I am buying me some Rev. Jones style sunglasses.

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scrapadapolis
Posted on January 16, 2013 at 10:27am
Whats Obumma gonna say to Germany?We need to talk um I mean,why?What Im trying to say is well you’ll,no wait the muslims don’t have it.Theres NO gold here.That was BEFORE me.Ask JFK.No wait ya cant do that either.

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Xiccarph
Posted on January 16, 2013 at 10:21am
We probably don’t have any gold to speak of. All those alleged photos of the US gold holdings were probably all foreign owned.

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SacredHonor1776
Posted on January 16, 2013 at 10:18am
Wonders what happens when Germany discovers there is no gold? ;)

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ChiefGeorge
Posted on January 16, 2013 at 10:15am
Is Germany rising again?

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VetMike
Posted on January 16, 2013 at 10:11am
One step closer to the cliff. Store food, water, seeds, ammo and reloading supplies because it is coming.

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Gladileftcalifornia
Posted on January 16, 2013 at 9:54am
Smart move.

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