Germany gives up plan to repatriate gold from US

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

The question is, why is Washington blackmailing Berlin? What is Washington threatening to do if Berlin insists on getting back Germany's gold? It must be something serious. And what is Washington afraid of, if the gold is sent to Frankfurt? Again, it must be something serious.


This is an uncomplicated request to return or reallocate an item which belongs to the entity asking for the item. The gold belongs to Germany. Does Washington fear the collapse of the international monetary system as we know it? Has the US Federal Reserve Bank in New York hypothecated the German gold for some purpose? Or cannot account for all of it?

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http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_06_24/Germany-gives-up-its-gold-repatriation-plan-7743/


Germany gives up plan to repatriate gold from US



The saga of German gold repatriation started in the aftermath of the European debt crisis, when a grassroots campaign began pressuring the government in Berlin to bring the gold home from New York and London. After a long and difficult media campaign, Bundesbank overcame its initial reluctance and demanded a full repatriation of the Germany's entire $141 billion gold reserve.

The Fed's reaction was extremely irritated and the issue of "German gold" became one of the most difficult diplomatic problems in the US-German relations. Every delay and every excuse cooked up by the US Federal Reserve made the campaign for repatriation even stronger, leading to an even deeper mistrust between the parties involved in the conflict.

Finally, Bundesbank was told that it will get its gold back in seven years, clearly showing that the US central banking cartel did something nefarious with the metal it has been entrusted to safeguard. Most likely, the gold has either been sold long ago or "hypothecated" to American banks trading in gold derivatives. According to Bloomberg  after repatriating just 5 tons of gold, Germany gave up.

Bloomberg quotes Norbert Barthle, the budget spokesman for Merkel's Christian Democratic bloc in parliament, who said that "the Americans are taking good care of our gold. Objectively, there's absolutely no reason for mistrust." Critics point out that there are a number of objective reasons for mistrust.

One of such reasons is that there never was a German or an independent audit of the German gold store in New York or London. Moreover, the Bundesbank was never able to provide a reason for the lack of audits, claiming that it stores gold "only at central banks of the highest international reputation" and therefore an independent audit is not required.

The decision to halt the repatriation attempts bear the hallmarks of a political concession to Washington. It is very likely that in the long war Berlin will regret this decision because its chances of ever regaining control of its gold are now close to zero. However, there is still some hope left for the German gold.

Hours after Bloomberg ran the story about Germany giving up its repatriation attempts, Peter Boehringer, the leader of the "Repatriate our gold" campaign, issued a statement, calling the Bloomberg piece "a 'non-news' article with a wrong headline, strange interviewees, old news, and with a clearly apologetic ideological approach.” He also said that the fight to bring the German gold back will continue.