Where German Gold Is Stored and How to Bring It Back to the Country

The process of repatriation is already underway. In early 2017, it was reported that Germany's Bundesbank had repatriated almost half its gold reserves from abroad.

"Strictly speaking, we are talking not about the repatriation," the founder of the private initiative "Bring Our Gold Back to Our Homeland!" Peter Boehringer said in an interview with Sputnik Germany. "After all, the gold reserves of the German state have never been in Germany. That's why we call it a campaign to bring it back home. "

During the post-war economic recovery, Germany achieved a significant trade surplus and partially converted the new windfall into gold. However, as a stipulation of the rules that the allied powers applied to Germany following its defeat in World War II, Germany was not allowed to keep its own gold reserves on its territory.

Since that time, the German gold stock has been kept in the central banks of the United States, Britain and France for security reasons. This fact has been criticized recently by many economic experts.

According to Volker Hellmeyer, chief economist with the Bremer Landesbank, German gold is stored in a "US financial system that is sick with cancer." Since 2001, the expert has been warning of a crisis trend in the gold market.

"At that time I said that […] the Western financial system is sick with cancer. The Western financial system is American-centric. And since Germany with its more than 3,300 tons of gold has the world's second largest gold reserve, it is important that the state exercises physical control over this gold within its borders, and doesn't just hand it over to third parties," Hellmeyer said.

The expert also noted that the US financial system is characterized by structural weakness, adding that the international community is experiencing a transformation of the global economic and financial systems.

"Today, China and Russia are clearly playing a decisive role, and given the relative weakness of the US, they, in fact, set the clock of the global economy," the analyst stated.

Gold market expert Dimitri Speck also supports the idea of returning the German gold reserve to German territory. He was one of the first to sign the initiative.

According to Speck, his decision was prompted by his research into the prices for gold.

"Since August 1993, large central banks have manipulated international gold prices to reduce inflation expectations," he explained, adding that this later contributed to the emergence of a "financial bubble."

According to Speck, the location of Germany's gold reserves is an issue of great importance, given the ongoing gold price manipulations.

"Gold is an ideal reserve, and therefore it must be constantly stored inside the country and be available at any time," the expert concluded.