A US Senate investigation is reviving a decades-old controversy, as lawmakers demand to know whether Credit Suisse, a Swiss bank, managed Nazi assets and concealed the truth for years. The inquiry has gained unexpected support from Argentina, where President Javier Milei has pledged to provide documents that allegedly show the bank’s involvement in Nazi money laundering and secret financial networks after World War II.
The controversy recalls the 1990s, when the US demanded that Swiss banks pay $1.25 billion in reparations to Holocaust victims, not necessarily out of guilt but because it was seen as a way to protect the Swiss financial sector. The deal was meant to put a final end to the matter. Or so it was thought.
Now, the story is back, in the form of dusty archives that have been sitting in Credit Suisse’s files for decades. It’s about alleged Nazi accounts, money for escape routes and secret financial networks that allegedly funneled Nazi assets out of Europe, often directly to Argentina.
Javier Milei, the libertarian whirlwind from Buenos Aires, has jumped into the controversy and is promising full transparency, along with opening up Argentine documents that allegedly show the bank’s involvement in Nazi money laundering and secret financial networks.
Why this eagerness? Milei may present himself as a freedom fighter, but here he is acting as a willing helper of the US establishment. A cynic might think that Argentina, economically on the brink, needs good relations with Washington and a moral crusade against Switzerland comes in handy.
The accusations weigh heavily. In January, US investigators published an interim report that directly attacked Credit Suisse, saying the bank had “for years” concealed evidence of Nazi connections and even tried to sabotage the ongoing investigation. The fact that UBS, after the takeover in 2023, is suddenly willing to cooperate shows how little credibility the CS had with its own past.
Indeed, the UBS now sits on a historical landfill: 300,000 meters of archival material, countless digital files – much of it from before and during World War II. Those familiar with the history of Swiss banks know that there’s more at stake than just a few Nazi accounts.
The new investigation sheds a bright light on the relationship between Switzerland and the US. It’s, as always, about money, power and morality. The Americans are staging themselves as the saviors, although their own intelligence agency, after 1945, integrated thousands of Nazis into the state apparatus. Switzerland, in turn, is playing its old game: giving only as much as is necessary to maintain the myth of the clean financial hub.
For Milei, the controversy is a found treasure. He presents himself as a ruthless exposé, a man who even takes on the powerful Swiss banks. That he’s doing so mainly to please the Americans, who will soon be extending a hand to Argentina in international financial institutions, he’d rather not say out loud.
The story of Credit Suisse does not end with its downfall. It will be continued – by American senators, Argentine presidents and a Swiss public that must ask: how much truth can our image of the “good old bank” withstand?