Part 1: Stolen Czech Gold & The British Banker, Footnote 1, page 415

In Footnote 1, page 415:

Straka’s phrasing here is no accident; though the characters have a map to the Vévoda estate, they still must view the location through the fog. As the essayist Norman Bergen discussed in the third volume of his Spinning Compass series, there is a powerful human need to locate evil—that is, to contain it by assigning it a specific, bounded place (in some cases, a particular person)—even though this is impossible. The boundaries of evil, Bergen argued, are blurry and porous, if they can be said to exist at all.

The direct actions of one man may have increased the length of a World War by years.  It stems from his direct involvement in the disposition of Czech gold that physically resided in accounts in the United Kingdom in 1939.

This man wasn't a general, prime minister or spy; he was Montagu Norman (the Norman in "Norman Bergen"), the Governor of the Bank of England.  Norman was a known eccentric, his temper tantrums were legend, he was known for dodging journalists, and had a penchant for long cruises under the name Professor Clarence Walker.  Quirks and all, in 1939, he was one of the most powerful men in the world, having been one of a handful who had rewritten monetary policy after the first world war and created a system of central banks.  And through him I was able to link items in the footnote above to events, places, and players during World War 2.

Directors from the Czech national bank had transferred the country's gold to the Bank of England via the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) in the 1930s before Germany's successful invasion in 1939.  The Germans, having completed a successful invasion and anxious to use the gold to fuel their war machine ordered the directors to transfer the money back with two transfer requests.

Montagu Norman, Governor of the Bank of England since 1920, honored the first order and transferred over five million pounds sterling from the BIS Czech account to a BIS Reichsbank account held at the Bank of England.  After news of the transfer was leaked, Norman told the British government that the Bank could not have possibly known who the owners were due to the international banking protocols followed by the BIS.  This was a lie, as the governor of the French national bank had personally asked Norman to join with France in refusing any transfer of Czech gold to the Nazis until the next BIS board meeting as a protest to current BIS leadership.  If the French were reasonably certain as to the ownership of the BIS accounts, Norman probably was, too.  The call from the French came the same day the transfer was requested and subsequently completed by Norman. The second request, which asked for the transfer of gold held in accounts directly owned by the national bank of Czechoslovakia at the Bank of England to a BIS gold account appeared to have been attempted by Norman.  Because the originating account was not affiliated with the BIS, the British government could successfully block the attempted transfer from taking place.  The Chancellor of the Exchequer had issued an order effectively blocking the transfer of all Czechoslovakia assets.

I realize it might be a bit confusing how the British could block one transfer from occurring, but not both. It's because the BIS is a unique and independent financial institution protected by international treaties.
The BIS was founded in 1930, initially to facilitate the war reparations owed by Germany and in successive years become an international organization and bank for central banks.  As such, the BIS was and is subject to different rules, which allowed Norman to complete transfers between BIS managed accounts.  In fact, it is this justification that the Bank of England gives in its official history of this period.

...comments by the chancellor to the House of Commons in June 1939, when he stated that Law Officers had advised him that the British government was precluded by protocols from preventing the BoE from obeying instructions given to it by the BIS to transfer the gold.

 Even more unfortunate, the very international treaties protecting the BIS and its neutrality probably made it an attractive target for the Germans.  Between 1933 and 1945, powerful Germans were on the board; Nazi Party members, industrialists and bankers, all of them movers and shakers.

During the war the BIS proclaimed that it was neutral, a view supported by the Bank of England. In fact the BIS was so entwined with the Nazi economy that it helped keep the Third Reich in business. It carried out foreign exchange deals for the Reichsbank; it accepted looted Nazi gold; it recognised the puppet regimes installed in occupied countries, which, together with the Third Reich, soon controlled the majority of the bank’s shares.

...Indeed, the BIS was so useful for the Nazis that Emil Puhl, the vice-president of the Reichsbank and BIS director, referred to the BIS as the Reichsbank’s only “foreign branch.

Despite the uproar caused by the original transfer, Norman again transferred gold worth 860,000 pounds sterling to the Nazis in June of 1939 and sold about half that gold on behalf of the German government.  No wonder allegations of BIS complicity in Nazi looting occurred after the war.  After the war the decision was made to liquidate BIS, but the order was rescinded in 1948 as the BIS became one of the tools necessary to rebuild a Europe devastated by the war.

So was Norman a Nazi sympathizer or a man trying to create a scenario in which central banks ran the world?  From the information available online, I suspect the truth is a little more complex.

(image from the Bank of England archives)

In 2013, the Bank of England made the unpublished bank history for World War 2 available online, although Norman's role in the theft had been long suspected.  According to the history, Norman was primarily concerned with maintaining the neutrality accorded to BIS.

The bank [led by Montagu Norman] was wedded to a view of international finance and central bank co-operation. It was too concerned about maintaining London's status as an international financial centre – and clung to the need to maintain sterling's convertibility long after it was wise to continue with this policy.

Initially the whole purpose of the BIS was to facilitate war reparation payments owed by Germany under the Treaty of Versailles (which was registered on October 21, 1919 by the way).  Germany's seizure of the Czechoslovakian gold to fund a war machine ran contrary to the original intent of the BIS.

Norman continued to emphasize the neutrality of the BIS to British officials, but the documents online in the Bank of England archive make it very clear the bank was reasonably certain as to the ownership of the accounts involved in the Czech gold theft.   It is clear that Norman felt he had done nothing wrong and even cited the 1930 Hague Rules and the 1936 Brussels Protocols to British officials as he fought  for transactions relating to the BIS.

But it isn't clear if member banks through the BIS had any obligation to fulfill German requests as Germany had clearly broken international law; Germany had violated the 1938 Treaty of Munich by invading the remaining portion of Czechoslovakia and previously violated the Treaty of Versailles through rearmament in 1935.

Norman was equally contemptuous of British attempts to block BIS transactions involving Germany.  Later in 1939, he attempted two more transfers, after the U.K. had declared war with Germany, both of which were successfully blocked by the British authorities.

Norman's Nazi sympathies are a little more tenuous.  His primary exposure to Germany was through his friend and colleague to Hjalmar Schacht, former president of the Reichsbank, and initial Hitler supporter, who was the architect of the German economy under Hitler.  Early in Hitler's rise, Norman had even made enthusiatic comments about his friend and Hitler, calling them both "bulwarks" of Germany.  But Schacht quickly broke with Hitler over Nazi plans for rearmament and violence against Jews, by 1937 all his influence was gone.  In January 1939, Norman had come to Germany for the christening of Schacht's grandson, who was also to become Norman's godson.  That same month, Schacht was dismissed from the Reichsbank by Hitler.  Schacht was already involved in the fringes of the German Resistance, he'd been in contact with various individuals since 1934.  In 1941, Schacht was imprisoned, and was eventually sent to Dachau and Tyrol.  Of the five (yes, I said five) Germans involved with the BIS and/or the Reichsbank, he was the only one acquitted at Nuremberg.

It also possible that Norman's motives were a little more prosaic and his actions were an attempt to shore up the British banking system.

Monty Norman and the leading merchant banks in the City were up to their necks in helping to prop up the German financial system. The Germans owed a lot of money to British banks.

By giving to gold to the Nazis, Norman had ensured that Germany would continue to fulfill its debt obligations to the British banks at least for a time.  It also possible that Norman, in continuing to transact business for Germany, was trying to hedge his bets in the event of a German invasion of England.  I find it highly likely he was playing odds with several scenarios to ensure his continued influence within the central banks and the BIS regardless of outcomes of the war.

One of the most powerful men of the early 20th century has faded into obscurity.  He retired from the Bank of England in 1944 and died in 1950.  Although known to British authorities, his possible involvement in shady dealings with the Germans did not come to light publicly until later in the last century.  The BIS, in response to questions of Nazi activities involving the BIS, opened the majority of its archives to researchers in 1998, but it was not until the Bank of England release of documents that his true role in events became known in 2013.

Significantly, shortly before the revelations of Norman's involvement with the stolen gold came to light, his portrait had already been removed from the Bank of England's boardroom.  What is clear, that in his tunnel vision to maintain the important influence of the central banks and the BIS, he played a direct part in prolonging a war that contributed to the suffering and deaths of millions.