Vatican

World War II Vatican Money Facts

Following is a list of some of the ways the Vatican enriched itself during World War II.

Reichskonkordat - From 1933, the Third Reich had signed a pact, the Reichskondordat, with the Holy See agreeing to collect the 8 – 10% church tax through automatic payroll deductions of German Catholic workers,9 a substantial provision to the Vatican’s budget. The Reichskonkordat validated the Nazi’s rise to power and reigned in Catholic priests from voicing dissent against Hitler’s regime and effectively tied the church to Nazi Germany.

Vatican Bank - The Vatican realized economic benefits from exercising complacency toward Nazism’s anti-Semitic policies. In fact, the Vatican experienced such an economic boon during the war that it needed to create an efficient way of dealing with the inflow of profits. On June 27, 1942, the Vatican Bank, also known as Istituto per le Opere di Religione (IOR; Institute for Works of Religion) was formed. Because its only branch was inside the Vatican, it was “free of any wartime regulations.”10 It was free of independent audits. It had a policy of destroying all files after ten years.

Throughout the war, Vatican Bank executed “back-and-forth transfers of Swiss francs, lira, dollars, sterling, and even gold bullion, through a slew of holding companies in a dozen countries on several continents.”11 In the midst of the unparalleled upheavals of WWII, opportunistic business titans, recognizing in the war an unequalled money-making opportunity also saw that the Vatican Bank was the world’s best offshore bank.12

Theft of Victims’ Insurance Policies - In addition, as an investor in Italian insurance companies, the Vatican benefited from the wartime practice of escheating, or transferring Jewish life insurance policies. Investigators estimate that during the war more than $200 billion in illegally retained premiums and unpaid benefits was stolen from Europe’s Jews. 13

Theft of Victims’ Gold and Jewellery - The Vatican played an important role in moving gold from German-occupied countries during the war. For example, post-war investigators concluded that Krunoslav Draganovic, a Croatian Roman Catholic priest, deposited Croatian victims’ gold and jewelry in the Vatican Bank which accepted it as “a contribution from a religious organization.”14 The loot disappeared without a trace through the Vatican Bank’s money laundering process.

At the end of the war, victims’ loot undoubtedly funded the Vatican’s efforts to transport fleeing Nazi fugitives to safe havens.