Bundesarchiv Bild 183-H29132, Begutachtung eines Entwurfes für Geldscheine

Emil Johann Rudolf Puhl (28 August 1889 in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

– 30 March 1962 in

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

) was a

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...

and banking official during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Career

A Nazi, Puhl was director and vice-president of

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

Reichsbank The ''Reichsbank'' (; 'Bank of the Reich, Bank of the Realm') was the central bank of the German Reich from 1876 until 1945. History until 1933 The Reichsbank was founded on 1 January 1876, shortly after the establishment of the German Empi ...

during

and also served as a director for the

Bank for International Settlements The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) is an international financial institution owned by central banks that "fosters international monetary and financial cooperation and serves as a bank for central banks". The BIS carries out its work thr ...

(BIS) at

Basel , french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese , neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS ...

(Switzerland).

Nazi gold

He was instrumental in moving

Nazi gold Nazi gold (german: Raubgold, "stolen gold") is gold possessed by Nazi Germany. Much of the focus of the discussion is about how much of this was transferred by Germany to overseas banks during World War II; the ruling Nazi party executed a policy o ...

during the war. Some of the gold had been looted from countries occupied by the Nazis, and some also stolen from their victims incarcerated in

Nazi concentration camp From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentration camps are distinguished from other types of Nazi camps such as forced-labor camps, as well as concen ...

s. Much came from the victims of

Operation Reinhard or ''Einsatz Reinhard'' , location = Occupied Poland , date = October 1941 – November 1943 , incident_type = Mass deportations to extermination camps , perpetrators = Odilo Globočnik, Hermann Höfle, Richard Thomalla, Erwin L ...

Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

Majdanek Majdanek (or Lublin) was a Nazi concentration and extermination camp built and operated by the SS on the outskirts of the city of Lublin during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. It had seven gas chambers, two wooden gallows, a ...

Treblinka Treblinka () was an extermination camp, built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the village of Treblinka in what is now the Masovian Voivodeship. The camp ...

, Bełżec,

Chełmno Chełmno (; older en, Culm; formerly ) is a town in northern Poland near the Vistula river with 18,915 inhabitants as of December 2021. It is the seat of the Chełmno County in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship. Due to its regional importan ...

and

Sobibór Sobibor (, Polish: ) was an extermination camp built and operated by Nazi Germany as part of Operation Reinhard. It was located in the forest near the village of Żłobek Duży in the General Government region of German-occupied Poland. As ...

where mass murder involved mainly gassing the prisoners with

Zyklon B Zyklon B (; translated Cyclone B) was the trade name of a cyanide-based pesticide invented in Germany in the early 1920s. It consisted of hydrogen cyanide (prussic acid), as well as a cautionary eye irritant and one of several adsorbents such ...

or from engine fumes, the toxic component being

carbon monoxide Carbon monoxide (chemical formula CO) is a colorless, poisonous, odorless, tasteless, flammable gas that is slightly less dense than air. Carbon monoxide consists of one carbon atom and one oxygen atom connected by a triple bond. It is the simple ...

. All their property was removed before they passed into the "showers" (which were, in fact, gas chambers, where they died). Even after death, their corpses were carefully examined for any concealed items such as

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...

jewelry Jewellery ( UK) or jewelry (U.S.) consists of decorative items worn for personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, pendants, bracelets, and cufflinks. Jewellery may be attached to the body or the clothes. From a western ...

as well as

gold teeth A gold crown Gold teeth are a form of dental prosthesis where the visible part of a tooth is replaced or capped with a prosthetic molded from gold. History The academic paper titled "Gold Work, Filing and Blackened Teeth: Dental Modifications i ...

, which had to be removed forcibly before being passed on to the

Nuremberg Trials

At the

Ministries Trial __NOTOC__ The Ministries Trial (or, officially, the ''United States of America vs. Ernst von Weizsäcker, et al.'') was the eleventh of the twelve trials for war crimes the U.S. authorities held in their occupation zone in Germany in Nuremberg af ...

, one of the last of the twelve

Nuremberg trials The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies of World War II, Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany, for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries, and other crimes, in World War II. Between 1939 and 1945 ...

held between 6 January 1948 and 13 April 1949, he was convicted of war crimes and sentenced to five years' imprisonment. He was released from prison 21 December 1949, several months early due to good conduct.

References

External links

Victim gold before and after World War IINuremberg Trial Proceedings Vol. 13 ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTIETH DAY Wednesday, 15 May 1946 Morning Session Emil Puhl
1889 births 1962 deaths Officials of Nazi Germany Nazi Party officials Förderndes Mitglied der SS People convicted by the United States Nuremberg Military Tribunals {{Germany-business-bio-stub German people convicted of crimes against humanity

Career

Nazi gold

Nuremberg Trials

See also

References

External links