Tax dodger Hitler stashed £3.6billion in Swiss banks: Historians trace dictator's money after it vanished following his death

The dictator amassed hundreds of millions of pounds in today's money

He hid it from German people and presented himself as almost penniless

Historians have managed to trace the vanished money through documents



Hitler was a tax dodger who hid a vast fortune across several Swiss bank accounts, historians have discovered.

Documents have emerged showing the dictator amassed hundreds of millions of pounds in today’s money, which he concealed from the German people.

It appeared to vanish completely after his death, along with his substantial art collection.

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Hitler hid hundreds of millions of pounds across several Swiss banks, concealing his fortune from the German people

But historians have now managed to trace the money through tax documents and bank statements. They believe he was worth around 1.1billion Reichsmarks, the equivalent of £3.6billion today.

During his lifetime the Nazi leader insisted his public speeches only made him a small amount of money and that he did not even have a bank account.

But documentary The Hunt For Hitler’s Missing Millions, to be aired tomorrow on Channel 5, will explore how he secretly gained a huge fortune.

He refused to pay taxes, dodging £1.75million before passing a law that made him exempt.

The book he wrote in prison, Mein Kampf, generated one million Reichs-marks-per-year after Hitler decreed that a copy be given to every married couple – paid for by the government.

Experts also claim the dictator wrote a secret will on the morning of his death, hoping to trick the German people into believing his humble claims.

HITLER - THE SECRET MILLIONAIRE

Hitler was leader of the Third Reich in Nazi Germany and orchestrated the execution of more than 6,000,000 Jews during the Holocaust. His aggressive foreign policy is believed to be the primary cause of the Second World War.

He invaded Poland in September 1939, and it led to France and England declaring war. But he was finally defeated by the Allies in 1945, following which he ended his life. Hitler was a dictator. And his radical ideology sought to create an Aryan race of superior beings and he was responsible for mass genocide in his concentration camps. He killed himself on April 30 1945 to avoid capture, after giving his deputies strict instructions on what to do with his body so it wouldn’t be found and humiliated by his enemies. And he also told them what he wanted done with his various assets, some of which still remains a mystery.



In it he dedicated five pages to a political diatribe against the Jews and just three to his personal will.

He presented himself as almost penniless, writing: ‘What I own belongs, as so far as it is of any value at all, to the party.’

There was no further mention of his wealth, only that his relatives should be given enough ‘to sustain a simple middle-class life’.

It was to be administered by Hitler’s private secretary and fellow Nazi, Martin Bormann, who was witness to the will and named as Hitler’s sole executive.

However Bormann was shot dead not long after Hitler committed suicide. The will was intercepted by Allied forces as a suspected Nazi tried to smuggle it out of the country, hidden in the shoulder pad of his jacket.

Historian Dr Chris Whetton said: ‘He loved money. He just wasn’t prepared to do much for it.’

The Nazi leader also copyrighted his image, meaning he even earned royalties every time a post-age stamp with his face on it was sold.



Herman Rothman, a retired British Intelligence Officer was among those to discover and translate the will.

He said: ‘We were absolutely shocked by what we found. I think the private will was also for consump-tion by the German people. He wanted to show in his private will he had very little.

'I always felt he thought about it very, very clearly, he wanted to show the people he had no benefits, that his life was purely devoted entirely to the wealth of the German people.’