Record £12m payout for woman betrayed by bank to Nazis

Independent
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
15 April 2005


The niece of an Austrian sugar tycoon whose wealth was handed to the Nazis by a Swiss bank is to get $21.8m (£11.6m) compensation, the largest settlement of its kind. Maria Altmann, 89, and other descendants, won the award in a case a New York court said was "a striking example of the wide-spread betrayal of Jewish clients by Swiss banks".

Before the Second World War, the refinery near Vienna owned by Mrs Altmann's extended family provided a fifth of Austria's sugar. It was used, among other things, to make the country's famous pastries.

But in 1938, amid growing evidence of what the Nazis had in store for Jewish families such as Mrs Altmann's, they turned to a respectable Swiss bank and set up a trust fund to protect their business. That Zurich-based bank utterly failed the family, the court ruled, because it swiftly sold the business to a Nazi sympathiser for a fraction of its value. Mrs Altmann's once wealthy family were forced to flee Austria.

Yesterday's ruling said: "Having marketed themselves to the Jews of Europe as a safe haven for their property, Swiss banks repeatedly turned Jewish-owned property over to the Nazis to curry favour with them."

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=629503

Or was it pretty much doing shit like this that made Swiss banks so rich and powerful?