Authored by Louis Cammarosano via Smaulgld.com,

Deutsche Bundesbank gold reserves shrink 45 tons over the past ten years.

German Central Bank holdings fall From 3,420.6 tons at the end of Q2 2007 to 3375.6 tons, a drop of 1,446,783 ounces.

German gold reserves have decreased 1.3% over ten years.

Bring the Gold Home & Sell Some

Deutsche Bundesbank, the central bank of Germany, has gained a high profile for its insistence on repatriating a good portion of its gold from vaults at the New York Fed, the Bank of England of London and the Bank of France in Paris. We have been covering the German gold repatriation story since they made their request in 2013 here, here, here and here.

The German repatriation requests aimed to rebalance the Deutsche Bundesbank’s gold holdings from nearly 70% held abroad to 50% held within Germany’s borders. The German Central Bank announced earlier this year that it has nearly completed its plan to repatriate its gold.

Jens Weidman, President of the Deutsche Bundesbank once famously said:

“Indeed, the fact that central banks can create money out of thin air, so to speak, is something that many observers are likely to find surprising and strange, perhaps mystical and dreamlike, too – or even nightmarish.”

In this video from the Deutsche Bundesbank, German nationals, Deutsche Bundesbank representatives and Herr Weidman explain the importance of gold to Germany.

Given the Deutsche Bundesbank’s statements and the accelerated German gold repatriation schedule, we are surprised to see that the Deutsche Bundesbank has been a steady seller of its gold over the past ten years.

German Gold Reserves 2007 – 2017



The Duetsche Bundesbank gold reserves fell 45 tons from June 30 2007 to May 31, 2017.

The Central Bank of Germany holds the second largest gold reserves of any central bank.

Currently, with the People’s Bank of China halting its gold purchases since October 2016, only the Central Banks of Russia, Kazakhstan and recently Turkey are steady buyers of gold.

Update July 9, 2017 – In the companion video to this blog post, I noted that I would contact the Deutsche Bundesbank to determine why they have been steadily selling gold. I received a twitter notice from @BullionBaron with an excerpt from the 2016 DB annual report indicating that DB sold 3,045 kg or 0.1 million oz of gold to the Federal Government at market prices for the purpose of minting gold coins. I reviewed DB annual reports for the period covered by this blog post (2007-2016) and there is a note in each one indicating the sale of gold each year between 100,000 -200,000 ounces for the purpose of minting gold coins.

DB noted in its 2012 annual report: “As part of its management of gold reserves, the Bundesbank has, since 2002, been selling small amounts each year to the Federal Office for Central Services and Unsettled Property Issues to mint gold coins. In 2012, it sold around 4.9 tonnes of gold in total for the minting of the €100 gold coin “UNESCO World Heritage– Aachen Cathedral” and the €20 gold coin “German forest – spruce”. The sales took place under the extended gold agreement between the central banks of the Eurosystem, Switzerland and Sweden in August 2009.” A similar note appeared in the 2011 DB annual report, indicating a sale of around 4.7 tonnes for the purpose of minting the €100 gold coin “UNESCO World Heritage– Aachen Cathedral” and the €20 gold coin “German forest – spruce”.