Photo Credit:CC BY-SA 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
Ilan Berkenwald
An investigation is shedding light on the unsavory role the South American country played in the aftermath of World War II.President Javier Milei has agreed to cooperate with an ongoing investigation into “previously undisclosed and unknown Nazi assets at Credit Suisse and its predecessor banks,” according to a February 18 letter from Rep. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. Argentina has long been linked to Nazi escape routes, known as ratlines. Milei’s involvement represents an opportunity to confront and resolve lingering consequences of WWII-era crimes.
Ratlines were established to help Nazis and Nazi sympathizers escape punishment for their crimes. South American politicians, U.S. and British intelligence, and a Vatican official allegedly helped Nazi war criminals flee Europe to numerous countries like Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and even the U.S. and Canada.
In an article dated April 18, 2023, The Wall Street Journal reported
the Senate investigation was prompted by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which in 2020 said it believed that there were accounts at Credit Suisse holding money looted from Jewish victims, based on a list it had of 12,000 Nazi party members and a Nazi-affiliated labor union in Argentina. [snip]
The Senate investigation reopens a painful chapter: Credit Suisse and other Swiss banks paid $1.25 billion two decades ago to settle claims and return money to families of Holocaust victims, as part of a period of soul searching in Switzerland that stirred up latent antisemitism and forced a around the country’s wartime behavior.
The Senate Budget Committee became involved in 2023, when it realized that lawyer Neil Barofsky had allegedly been sidelined by Credit Suisse while only partway through his investigation. Barofsky had been hired by Credit Suisse in 2021, but the bank stopped cooperating in the summer of 2022.
During his investigation, Barofsky reported that Credit Suisse began to demand that he exclude certain “subject areas” from his investigation. He refused to comply and was subsequently fired in December 2022, when the bank replaced its general counsel.
However, in December 2023, Credit Suisse’s acting general counsel reinstated Barofsky as independent ombudsman as a result of the committee’s investigation following UBS’s June 2023 takeover of Credit Suisse. In his ongoing investigation, Barofsky has uncovered evidence suggesting that Credit Suisse either concealed files or has not been entirely forthcoming about its connections to Nazi ratlines.
A press release from Sen. Grassley from January 4, 2025 confirmed Barofsky’s allegations of a Credit Suisse cover-up. In his press release, Grassley reassured the public that he and his colleagues would fully investigate the matter, affirming he would
leave no stone unturned in pursuit of justice for those wronged by Nazi atrocities. The investigation has revealed more than just stones — we’ve uncovered boulders. Credit Suisse hid additional evidence of Nazi ties for years, and even tried to conceal information from our congressional investigation.
However, Barofsky’s independent interim update, dated December 17, 2024, states that Credit Suisse is now fully cooperating with his investigation under the new UBS leadership. Barofsky says he now has more than 50 people working on his team, “including a team of consultants and forensic accountants.” Barofsky and his team have dusted off archival documents and microfiche records from the 1930s and ’40s, with historians working to study the “financial relationships between Nazi Germany and the Swiss banks.”
According to Barofsky, “The archives span approximately 300,000 linear meters of archival shelving.” For perspective, 300,000 meters equals about 186 miles, roughly the distance between New York City and Philadelphia. Barofsky has also identified about 3,600 boxes of physical documents and approximately 40,000 microfilms that came from the “research department at Credit Suisse known as the ‘Inf Department.’”
Many of the Inf Department files are key documents that had allegedly never been included in prior reviews. Barofsky shared that he had found “numerous client files marked with a stamp stating ‘Amerikanische schwarze Liste’ — meaning American Black List.” The Black List was maintained by the Allies and included “individuals and companies that were directly financed by, or were known to regularly trade with Axis powers.” Barofsky says he has not seen the same stamp in any other location during his investigation.
Referencing some of what he has found, Barofsky shares why the Black List–labeled material is so significant:
This is potentially an important marker for relevant accounts. One file bearing this stamp relates to an entity that was involved in selling looted Jewish assets. Although the Investigation previously had indicated that this entity held an account in the 1950s, the Inf Department documents demonstrate that the account was actually open during World War II, when assets were actively being looted. Another relevant example found in the Inf Department archives is a document that identifies a Credit Suisse client acting as a ‘front’ for certain Nazi financiers, at least one of whom, according to our research, escaped Europe after the war. It appears that neither of these documents were previously identified by Credit Suisse.
Barofsky later added that he and his team have already begun to identify “previously undiscovered connections and relationships between Credit Suisse and prominent Nazis through intermediaries.” He also revealed that some of the Nazi SS allegedly had a banking relationship with Credit Suisse. Documents describe
how this account was used to receive the funds of an Hungarian Jewish businessman, August Wild, and that the account holders were a combination of SS officers and a Swiss citizen named Alfred Kurzmeyer, an intermediary for Nazis during the war. … The funds in the account were obtained from Wild in exchange for sparing him from the gas chambers.
Some of those sensitive documents were destroyed, according to an investigation dating back to 2001. Barofsky has also found evidence that Credit Suisse may have “sanitized” certain information in response to earlier probes.
Barofsky shared that “Credit Suisse’s general approach to the outside investigations was to share only information that was specifically requested” and not to respond actively with offers of information. Barofsky provided one such example of this approach:
One example we were given is that if the outside researchers were in the Bank’s archives looking for something and a researcher knew where it was located, the researcher would not tell the outside investigator where to look unless specifically asked to do so. We were told a variety of reasons for this approach,” Barofsky continued, “including a desire to protect the Bank, a concern that the outside researchers were biased against the Bank, and a belief that outside researchers did not want assistance from Bank employees because the outside researchers wished to be strictly independent.
As of December 2024, more than three dozen individuals have been connected to the ratlines as a result of the Credit Suisse probe. Some allegedly operated from a base in Switzerland with funding that paid for “bribes, false identification documents, and transportation” of war criminals and Nazis.
Additionally, the investigation has yielded “several hundred alleged Nazi intermediaries who helped Nazis to hide gold, camouflage illicit transactions to purchase war materials, loot Jewish assets, including through the aryanization of Jewish businesses, and generally support[ed] the Nazi war economy.”
<img alt="CC BY-SA 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/" captext="Ilan Berkenwald” src=”https://conservativenewsbriefing.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/ratlines-argentina-milei-and-the-nazis.jpg”>
Image: Javier Milei. Credit: Ilan Berkenwald via Flickr, CC BY 2.0.
