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Friday September 13, 1996

Swiss bank held Hitler's book profits

JENNI FRAZER
London Jewish Chronicle

LONDON (JTA) -- Adolf Hitler deposited the royalties from his book "Mein Kampf" into secret Swiss bank accounts, newly declassified U.S. intelligence documents show.

The documents, revealed last week, show that a German official handled Hitler's accounts at Bern's Union Bank of Switzerland, one of the country's largest.

The discovery of the "Hitler accounts" by the World Jewish Congress was seen as underlining the importance of Switzerland as a banking haven for the Nazis.

World Jewish Congress researchers recently have been examining World War II documents in the U.S. National Archives as part of an effort to locate the assets of Holocaust victims.

A six-member commission set up by the World Jewish Restitution Organization, the World Jewish Congress and the Swiss Bankers Association is now seeking to determine the whereabouts of money deposited in Switzerland by Jews during the World War II era.

Max Ammann, described in the documents as "a close collaborator of Hitler," oversaw the accounts. In 1925, Ammann published "Mein Kampf," Hitler's notorious manifesto that spells out Germany's need to re-arm, suppress communism and exterminate the Jews.

After Hitler came into power in 1933, "Mein Kampf" became a school text. By 1940, the book sold 6 million copies. The authors of the October 1944 reports believed the Swiss bank held "foreign exchange revenues of the Nazi Party abroad" in addition to foreign exchange revenues from Hitler's book.

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