80 years after Adolf Hitler died in Berlin and Nazi Germany was defeated, it might seem like we’ve learned everything there is to know about the leader and his followers from history books.
But new documents out of Switzerland and Argentina suggest there may be more to uncover.Â
A team of forensic accountants and historians are now examining thousands of recently discovered files of Swiss bank accounts belonging to Nazis and their supporters during the 1930s and 1940s.
Those working on the investigation informed the Daily Mail that their upcoming report will revolutionize our comprehension of this grim period in history, uncovering many more individuals who collaborated with the Nazis than we were previously aware of.
Their investigation will fill in gaps about how the Nazis plundered the wealth of millions of European Jews, and laundered it through businesses and accounts held at Credit Suisse, one of Switzerland’s biggest banks.
Even more sensationally, they say, it will reveal how those same funds later financed the so-called ratlines (escape routes) used by thousands of Nazis who fled after Germany’s 1945 defeat.
Neil Barofsky, an independent ombudsman, is heading the probe for UBS, which bought Credit Suisse in June 2023, having gained access to troves of previously hushed-up files in a Zurich archive.
The audit may lead to new multimillion dollar compensation payouts and turn previously anonymous actors into wartime villains.
Adolf Hitler with top officials in 1938. The Nazi system of theft, slave labor and money laundering is still not fully understood   Â
A coming report on wartime accounts with Credit Suisse, one of Switzerland’s biggest banks, is set to expose more Nazi profiteers
Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), has thrown his weight behind the inquiry and is coordinating with Barofsky and a Jewish human rights group called the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC), which takes its name from a famous Nazi hunter.
In an exclusive interview, Dr. Ariel Gelblung, who is based in Buenos Aires and heads SWC’s South America office, said the probe will ‘substantially change our understanding of that period of history’ when it comes out in March 2026.
‘We will see differently things before the war, during the war and after the war,’ said Dr. Gelblung.
The painstaking work continues in Zurich, as veteran groups mark the 80th anniversary of Hitler’s death in the Führerbunker on April 30 and Germany’s surrender to the Allies on May 7.
Barofsky, along with a team of 50 experts, is studying old microfilms and tens of thousands of documents – many of them original paper files – that occupy a staggering 300,000 meters of shelf space.
Among them is a recently uncovered trove marked ‘American blacklist’ – a designation for those trading with Nazi-affiliated entities – which Credit Suisse apparently hid during previous investigations.
Barofsky, a former US prosecutor, has flagged the names of hundreds of previously unknown Credit Suisse account holders suspected of helping the Nazis.
The list includes a German manufacturer who used concentration camp slave labor, and a banker who laundered stolen Jewish assets.
In a letter to US lawmakers late last year, Barofsky said these collaborators helped Nazis ‘hide gold, camouflage illicit transactions to purchase war materials, loot Jewish assets… and generally support the Nazi war economy.’
He has also identified some three dozen Credit Suisse account holders who helped Nazis flee Europe after the war – as many as 9,000 ex-Nazi officials reached South America while others went to the US, Canada, Australia, the Middle East and beyond.
Some Jewish women were forced to work in a factory in a Polish ghetto, part of Nazi Germany’s business empire
Independent investigator Neil Barofsky says Credit Suisse account holders helped the Nazis ‘hide gold, camouflage illicit transactions to purchase war materials, loot Jewish assets’Â
Barofsky’s team is studying tens of thousands of documents that occupy a staggering 300,000 meters of shelf spaceÂ
Some files were marked ‘American blacklist,’ a designation for those trading with Nazi-affiliated entities, which Credit Suisse apparently hid during previous investigations
American liberators found this crate full of rings confiscated from prisoners at the Nazi concentration camp in Buchenwald
Roughly 5,000 of them are said to have settled in Argentina, including Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele, the man known as Auschwitz’s ‘Angel of Death,’ who fled along a ratline in 1948 using a fake identity.
One widely-discredited theory even floats the idea that Hitler escaped: It suggests he did not actually die in his bunker, and instead faked his death and fled by plane and then U-boat to Argentina.
In February, Dr. Gelblung and his colleagues reached a deal with Argentina’s President Javier Milei to declassify government files in an effort to shed more light on the ratlines. Those papers are being sent directly to Barofsky’s team, he said.
An Argentinian official told DNEWS that they include banking and military records of Nazis who fled to Argentina and were ‘protected’ in the 1940s and ’50s under the presidency of Juan Perón, a Nazi sympathizer.
Pedro Filipuzzi, an Argentinian researcher, says Credit Suisse is being exposed as the primary banker for a Nazi-led consortium of dozens of German businesses, known as DWB, that used slave labor from concentration camps.
The coming report, he says, will lift the lid on all the ‘money that was stolen from Jews by the Nazis, laundered by Credit Suisse and ultimately financed the ratlines.’
‘When everything is released next year, we’ll have a much fuller understanding of this dark chapter of history, and the companies, bankers and individuals who prospered off the backs of the victims of the Third Reich,’ he told the Daily Mail.
‘The money trails lead to the comfortable lifestyles enjoyed by such Nazi fugitives as Adolf Eichmann, Josef Mengele and Erich Priebke as they evaded justice for decades in South America.’
Argentinian president Javier Milei said he would release the Nazi archives after meeting with officials from the Simon Wiesenthal Center and others in Buenos Aires, in FebruaryÂ
Workers inspect gold bars taken from Jews by the Nazis and stashed in a mine
Jewish men arrive for forced labor as demolition workers in Nazi-occupied Poland in the early 1940s
Holocaust mastermind Adolf Eichmann fled along a ratline to Argentina after the war, but was ultimately captured, tried and executedÂ
Senator Chuck Grassley, an Iowa republican, supports the investigation and is coordinating with Barofsky and the Simon Wiesenthal Center
The inmates of Ebensee concentration camp, seen here after being liberated by US forces, were forced to dig tunnels by their Nazi captorsÂ
Credit Suisse commissioned its probe after SWC levied allegations against the bank in 2020, but removed Barofsky as ombudsman in November 2022 once he located several Nazi-linked accounts that had not been disclosed in previous investigations.
In 2023, following UBS’s acquisition of Credit Suisse, Barofsky was reinstated under pressure from Grassley’s Senate Budget Committee, which oversees a compensation program for Holocaust victims.
Anita Greil, a UBS spokeswoman, said the new management is committed to a ‘fulsome review of the Credit Suisse archives concerning Nazi-linked legacy accounts previously held at predecessor banks.’
Since the acquisition, ‘we have made it a priority to ensure that the review is thorough and comprehensive and have reengaged Neil Barofsky as independent ombudsman accordingly,’ Greil said in an email.
‘We are providing all necessary assistance to facilitate his review of the Credit Suisse archives to continue to shed more light on this tragic period in history.’
