Swiss banks were Tuesday night under mounting pressure to reveal the origins and status of gold acquired during the second world war after the UK government said Switzerland held $500 million of Nazi gold' at the end of hostilities.
Amid claims that much of the German gold shipped to Switzerland had been plundered by the Nazis, the Foreign Office said nearly 90 per cent of the hoard ""- now worth about $4 billion ""- could still be held by Swiss banks.
In a survey into the fate of Germany's gold reserves, based on government archives, the Foreign Office said Swiss authorities resisted calls by the Allies to redistribute Germany's gold reserves in 1945.
Instead, the Foreign Office said Switzerland ""- neutral throughout the war ""- handed over only $60 million worth of German gold to the US and UK in 1946. Some of the gold is still held at the Bank of England.
Tuesday's report came after pressure from MPs for the government to respond to information on Nazi gold dealings discovered in US archives.
Malcolm Rifkind, the British foreign secretary, will raise the issue next week with the Swiss government on a visit to Geneva.
He is expected to speak of the mounting concern in the UK that Nazi gold has not been returned to the families of Jews and other groups who died in the Holocaust.
Greville Janner, the Labour MP who originally asked Rifkind to conduct the inquiry, called on the Swiss authorities to publish details of gold reserves it had received from the Reichsbank.
Rivers of gold flowed out of Nazi Germany, Janner said.
Its banks were in Switzerland.
The Swiss foreign ministry was quick to counter the UK's claims, insisting it was very difficult to say whether the allegations were accurate.
It said the matter had been investigated at the time of the 1946 agreement between the Allies and Switzerland.
Nevertheless, the Swiss Government has become concerned about the adverse publicity generated by material from foreign archives concerning its financial involvement with the Nazis.
Following pressure from Jewish organisations, it agreed in May to pass legislation for a legal and historic investigation into the fate of assets deposited by Jews in Switzerland between 1933 and 1945.
The scope of the legislation has been widened to cover looted assets deposited with Swiss financial institutions.
The Foreign Office's report shows how, at the end of the war, the British government and the Bank of England estimated that at least $550 million of gold "" -now worth about $4.6 billion ""- had been looted by the Germans between 1939 and 1945.
The Foreign Office says that, at the end of the war, the Swiss authorities insisted they had never knowingly received looted gold.
The UK and US found it difficult to counter the claim because the Nazis had melted down the gold and marked it with the Reichsbank stamp.
A senior figure in the Swiss national bank, however, let slip during the negotiations that Swiss banks were holding $500 million of German gold.
