Banking giant Credit Suisse had dealings with and held accounts linked to Nazis from World War II until as recently as 2020, according to reports the U.S. Senate Budget Committee reports released on Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The reports released on Tuesday document an internal investigation conducted by a forensic research firm the Zurich-based bank hired in response to Nazi Asset findings made by investigators for the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
The aim of Deutsche Wirtschaftsbetriebe (“German Economic Enterprises”), organized and managed by the Allgemeine SS, was to profit from concentration camp inmates’ slave labor.
While the sentenced commander’s account stayed open until 2002, the bank has yet to provide asset information from it and 80 other identified accounts.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center released a statement expressing disappointment in Credit Suisse’s decision to remove the independent ombudsperson and independent adviser initially put in place to investigate relevant facts and information, and said the actions taken by the U.S. Senate Committee on the Budget “shines a light on a dark and troubling past that has remained outside the historical record.”