Ban on opening new Swiss wartime numbered deposit accounts

The Ban on opening new Swiss wartime numbered deposit accounts stopped the creation of new accounts after the war, but did not extinguish accounts already opened. That distinction is central to the novel’s account of wartime wealth: a mechanism designed to keep banks outside the transfer of assets could preserve access across years, borders, and changes in ownership, even after the practice that created it had been prohibited.

Background and Creation

Before the war, Swiss banks regarded business with German citizens as too risky and cumbersome. Communications with account holders were nearly impossible, many owners abandoned their accounts, and respectable banks were reluctant to take part in transactions that could bring damaging publicity. By 1939, the once-profitable German numbered-account business had collapsed.

War reversed that decline. After 1939, the demand for Swiss accounts rose as people sought to move property out of Germany. Banks such as Zaugg responded with a different arrangement: for a fee of 200 francs, a customer received a box and number, together with a key and a letter of authorization. The account’s operation depended on presenting those credentials, rather than on the bank conducting ordinary communication with the depositor.

Operation and Risks

The arrangement separated access from the account holder’s continued presence. A person with the letter and key could claim the box without answering questions; multiple keys and authorization letters could be purchased for the same account. The example given is a depositor who leaves savings behind and a son who, years later, presents the credentials to claim an inheritance.

That transferability also created an obvious risk. If the Gestapo obtained the letter and key, it could claim the contents without the bank’s public involvement or, as the discussion puts it, a breach of banking secrecy. The mechanism thus offered continuity and discretion, but the same features could serve heirs, intermediaries, or authorities able to acquire the credentials.

The Ban and Its Afterlife

The Swiss government banned the accounts at the end of the war under pressure from Berlin, and no new ones were permitted thereafter. The prohibition did not cancel existing agreements: their original terms had to be honored, so the old accounts remained in existence. They became valuable in their own right and could be sold from one holder to another; Henry Nightingale’s account of the system identifies Zaugg as having developed a specialty in them.

The rule therefore produced an uneven ending. New accounts were closed off, but old ones survived as transferable claims on assets whose contents could remain unknown. The account is not merely a relic of wartime banking: its continued validity makes the past materially available in the present, while leaving unresolved who may ultimately possess what is stored away.