Gold Run: The Rescue of Norway’s Gold Bullion from the Nazis, 1940

by Pearson, Robert

  …it was like seeing a drama unfolding itself before us and at the same time participating in it. At short intervals, the telephone went on ringing and bringing news from all parts of Norway.

  Meanwhile, King Haakon was working late into the night in his study when during the early hours of the 9th his adjutant presented him with a message from Koht that the forts were engaging enemy warships.32 The King received the message and then carried on working by candlelight as the lights went out all over Oslo. Various officials, military and civilian, began to hurry about their business. The situation was now dire and although confusion reigned supreme at Victoria Terrasse in Oslo, it was also in the ascendancy at the War Office in Britain. Reports flooded in of German warships penetrating deep in to Norwegian fjords and by the early hours of the 9th it was clear that Norway was being invaded.

  Foreign Secretary Koht telephoned the British Minister, Sir Cecil Dormer just after 02:00 to inform him of events. Koht advised Dormer that he was confident that the defences at Oslo would hold off the invaders, but clearly stated to Dormer ‘now we are at war.’ Telegrams were sent to London informing the various British authorities that Norway was under attack.33

  Later, Koht telephoned Dormer again to further advise him that German warships were now approaching Trondheim. Koht was aware that the British Legation was in possession of a Wireless Telegraphy set (W/T) and that an up to date report would get through to Britain describing Norway’s predicament.

  Hampering matters further was the call to mobilisation of Norwegian forces. The procedures laid down were clear, but the politicians either were not aware of those procedures or had failed to understand them; once again confusion reigned. (The uncertainty, disorder and misunderstanding of the mobilisation on April 9th continue to this day and therefore do not fall within the auspices of this book to debate further).

  As the German cruiser Blücher advanced her way slowly up Oslofjord, the German Minister for Norway, Dr Bräuer, had sought an audience with Koht.34 Unbeknown to Koht, Herr Bräuer had been unaware of the intention to invade Norway, but nonetheless, and despite being taken by complete surprise, Bräuer had been ordered by his superiors to deliver the German ultimatum at exactly 04:15 hours having been assured by the same superiors that German forces would have landed shortly after in Oslo. For unexplained reasons, Dr Bräuer was five minutes late arriving at Koht’s Office at Victoria Terrasse: Koht later stated:35

  After three hours of strained tension, the German Minister in Oslo was announced, asking to see me…I received the minister in one of the library rooms just outside [his office].

  Photo credit: author

  In a darkened room, lit only by two small candles, Bräuer presented Koht with a 19-page ultimatum, which he proceeded to read out. Bräuer’s tone, according to Koht, was cold but with polite firmness. Koht struggled to keep quiet whilst Bräuer proceeded with his diplomatic rant and his mind worked overtime as it placed in order the many possible outcomes of Bräuer’s ultimatum as well as the likely response of the British. Koht expected Britain would come to Norway’s aid as Sir Cecil Dormer had stated to Koht that an attack on Norway would be regarded as an attack on Britain. He was also in no doubt that his government would reject the ultimatum, but he informed Bräuer that he would consult and respond to him directly. What Bräuer did not know at that time was that Blücher had been hit and was in the process of sinking. The fortunes of war, at least momentarily, had swung the way of the Norwegian Government.

  After consultation, Koht replied to Bräuer: it was a complete rejection of the ultimatum. Koht later stated:36

  I think it was not yet half-past five when I brought their answer to the German Minister. The day was just beginning to dawn, and in the grey morning light we could talk without candlelight. “We cannot see that Germany is in any way justified in taking such measures of force as she now intends, or rather has begun, to carry out against the Norwegian nation…

  Dr Bräuer was taken by surprise, as it was a reaction he had not expected; Norway to take on the might of the German war machine? Brauer snapped at Koht. “Then there will be fighting and nothing can save you.” Koht retorted quickly. “The fight is already in progress.” A chastened and dismayed Bräuer hastily returned to his Embassy. Essentially the plan was to employ a pre-determined code, using numbers, but this procedure was not used and instead the following message was sent:

  Have presented the Foreign Minister at 05:20 German time with our demands in firm, insisting manner and explained the reasons for them as well as handed the memorandum to him. The Minister withdrew for consultations with the Government […] After a few minutes he returned with the answer: We do not willingly give in; the war has already started.37

  Meanwhile, in Britain Sir John Colville scribbled a few lines in his diary. His words succinctly define the situation.38

  ‘The Germans have scored a considerable success by seizing the Norwegian ports despite our command of the sea, and we, who started the whole business, seem to have lost the initiative…’

  Colville, perhaps hinting at the Altmark affair and the laying of mines, was not wrong.39

  The President of the Storting, Carl Johan Hambro, having risen from his bed now took a firm hand on matters. Hambro knew that if the King and government were captured early on then Norway would be lost in a matter of hours. Hambro rightly considered it a matter of urgency to evacuate the King and the government away from Oslo and sought to get procedures in place as soon as possible. The fight could continue away from the capital. Hamar seemed the best choice and so a train was made ready: the Norwegians moved quickly and just before 07:30 the train departed with King Haakon, various ministers, Members of Parliament and assorted officials on board. ‘Dies irae’ – ‘The Day of Wrath’ had truly arrived.

  Dormer urgently despatched a second telegram, which was received in London during the late afternoon of April 9th. The wording, dramatic and to the point, must have seriously worried the recipients in London.

  Meanwhile, in Oslo the usual measures of destroying documents and important papers and codebooks began in earnest. Officials at the British Embassy were also taking similar measures. When all was done the building was locked up and the keys to the Embassy handed over to the Americans. The scribbled note (left) from the Americans gives some indication about the hurried nature of the affair.

  Author archive

  In London, the Foreign Office replied quickly to Dormer’s early telegram: Author archive

  The sinking of the Blücher had bought valuable time and now the flight from Oslo of the Royal Family, government, officials and gold bullion began in earnest. To facilitate the escape and for various officials, military and civilian to communicate with each other without alerting the enemy a very simplistic code was drawn up:

  King Haakon – ‘The Boss’; Crown Prince Olav – ‘Assistant Boss’ and both collectively known as ‘The Office’. The Norwegian Government – ‘The Co-op’; Prime Minister Nygaardsvold – ‘The Old Man’; Halvdan Koht – ‘Philosopher’; Colonel Ljunberg – ‘No 63’; Frihagen – ‘The Bank’; Finance Minister Torp – ‘Oscar’ and Trygve Lie – ‘Dannemann’.

  Author archive

  It would seem that the code was not the most imaginative, but under the circumstances that prevailed it appears to have been successful.40

  With the King, his entourage and leading members of the government having secretly fled, widespread panic began to emerge amongst some of the city dwellers of Oslo. The British reporter, W. F. Hartin, of The Daily Mail, had only hours earlier crossed the border into Norway from Sweden sensing that something was going to happen. He was right. Hartin later filed the following report, which was published in a weekly war journal.41

  With German bombers wheeling overhead like birds of prey, the rattle of machine-gun fire on the outskirts of the town, and the heavy thud of bombs echoing down the fjord, I stood in one of the main streets of Oslo on April 9 with the capital’s bewildered crowds, who were shelt
ering in the doorways and flattening themselves against the walls

  With a piercing crescendo of noise a great four-engined machine dived right over the housetops and streaked skywards again, her tail gun covering the length of the street.

  I had crossed the frontier from Sweden only 20 hours previously on my way to Oslo. It was then that I got the first hint of what was happening.

  The Norwegian guard came to me saying: “Had you not better leave the train, sir?’

  He told me that the Germans had landed at Moss, 20 miles from Oslo on the east side of the fjord, and that their ships were in the fjord and that their ‘planes had bombed the airport. Everyone in the train was awake. “That cannot be true,” they all said, “where are the British?”

  At Fetsund, 20 miles from Oslo, there was no more doubt about it. The train was halted. As we stepped on to the little wayside platform we could see the German bombers wheeling over the long wooded ridge, diving behind it.

  Black puffs of anti-aircraft fire pitted the sky for the whole length of the ridge. The thud of bombs, the rattle of machine-guns echoed back to us from far away.

  They were bombing Kjeller, the Norwegian military air base. Suddenly, her engines screaming, a Dornier “Flying Pencil” whisked just over the station to have a good look at us.

  Everyone instinctively scattered. Only the perplexed guard of the train kept on at his task of trying to find out why we were unable to move.

  The minutes dragged into hours. He came back from the telegraph office looking like a man who had heard himself sentenced to death.

  “Oslo is being evacuated,” he said. “General mobilization has been ordered. The Germans are marching on the town. They have captured some outer batteries on the fjord, but fighting is still going on near the city.”

  We ran down to the little wayside petrol station and questioned every car driver who came tearing out of Oslo down the long, winding hill.

  From these people we learned that the Government and the Royal Family had moved to Hamar, that the Bank of Norway had hurriedly evacuated their gold to the interior, and that all the Government departments were leaving the capital.

  It was in this atmosphere, with German bombers never out of sight that we pulled out of Fetsund.

  As we approached Oslo train after train crammed with women and children passed us going the other way.

  On some of the hills outside the town we could see the anti-aircraft guns, searchlights, and sound detection apparatus being hurriedly mounted.

  Hastily commandeered lorries were racing crazily to the capital packed with Norwegian troops and equipment.

  Oslo central station was like Victoria or Waterloo in the first days of September. But now I seem to have seen so many crowds and crying children with the red-eyed mothers clutching pathetic bundles of belongings that I am incapable of receiving further impressions. There they were, the inevitable flotsam of human misery, urged hither and thither on a remorseless tide of war.

  With Desmond Tighe, of Reuters, we pushed through this crowd and hurried to our hotel in the centre of the town.

  There everything was in the same turmoil. People were hurriedly packing their bags and clearing out. Everyone was advising us “Get out while you can. The Germans are not three miles away.”

  We learned that the British Legation had early that morning burned their papers and left for Hamar.

  British nationals were cared for by the American Legation. We had heard that the Germans were already in the suburb where the legations are situated, but Tighe and I decided to make our way there on foot.

  By the quieter streets we finally came on to one of the main roads leading out of town. Huge crowds lined it – sullen, laughterless crowds of young Norwegian men and girls.

  Where they began to thin out we suddenly halted. Headed by four Norwegian policemen in steel helmets, a column of field-grey troops were trampling along the cobbles.

  As they marched not a yard from where I stood I had every chance of examining them.

  Their general physique was anything but good. Their equipment was formidable. Every fifth man carried a machine gun, every third man a sub-machine gun.

  Others were bent double with the exhaustion of carrying heavy batteries for portable filed radios. Others sweated under precision instruments in big leather cases. Rank upon rank trudged by until I judged at least 1,000 had passed me.

  As we walked the sky was still filled with German bombers, some wheeling only just over the housetops. Others were patrolling further out along the line of the fjord.

  At the United States Legation about dusk they wished Tighe and myself well, and we got back to the town by bus.

  There at the entrance to the station were the same tired-looking youngsters in their field-grey. Two guarded the entrance, two others stood beside a machine-gun in the hall. As we stood interminably for the train in a queue with men and women, many of whom had infants in their arms, a section of these troops marched through on to the platform.

  They were getting ready to search the trains, or, as they put it euphemistically, “to exercise military control.” Fortunately for us, their organisation was not yet equal to dealing with every train in and out of Oslo, and we got under way without any visit from them.

  (The War Illustrated)

  Taking into account journalistic licence, Hartin’s description of events is a sobering one. Additionally, newsreels taken at the time of invasion in Oslo give the impression of people resigned to accepting their fate. Throngs of Norwegians gathered to line the streets mesmerized by the marching Germans and their military bands. Some continued with their day-to-day business whilst others stopped to chat and laugh with the Germans. Just hours later as rumours spread of an imminent British bombing attack on Oslo, people began to leave the city in droves.

  Desmond Tighe, Reuter’s special correspondent in Oslo, filed a similar report to Hartin, adding that the Germans had begun to bomb the city, witnessing an explosion a mere 200 yards from where he was standing.42

  3

  The Bank and the Bullion

  Meanwhile, as Hartin of the Daily Mail was witnessing events at first hand with the Germans marching up Karl Johans Gate, a nation’s wealth in gold bullion was being whisked away to safety. But for the vision of one man, Nicolai Rygg, Director of Norges Bank, the Germans may well have captured it, and it would have been more than enough to boost the German war machine. With commendable foresight Rygg and Minister of Finance, Oscar Torp, had jointly made arrangements prior to the invasion that if Norway should fall or a crisis erupt then an immediate evacuation of the gold reserves and valuables would begin. And when indeed the call came Rygg rose to the occasion.

  Norges Bank, from its establishment in 1816, had been placed directly under the auspices of the Storting (Norwegian parliament). But the Norwegian Government had no ultimate control or influence, and the bank’s leadership was free to act in what it considered to be the best fiscal interests of the country. In 1893, Karl Gether Bomhoff was appointed as the first chairman of Norges bank and during World War I he helped to steer the bank through difficult times whilst Norway remained neutral. But the war still affected Norway and with the country heavily reliant on foreign trade, the Norwegian merchant fleet became victims to submarine warfare. Losses also mounted up due to the mining of Norwegian waters and as a result of these catastrophic losses inflation rose sharply and the Norwegian monetary system suffered substantially. Economic deterioration had set in.

  Norges Bank, Oslo in 1922. Picture credit: Norges Bank

  In January 1916 Eric Hambro, of CJ Hambro & Son, was instructed to act as an agent for the British Government to purchase considerable sums of Krone. The figures involved ran into millions. Hambro’s reputation with the financial world, and particularly in Scandinavia, was considerable and therefore he was deemed as the natural choice by HM Government to secure Norwegian currency, with the proviso to be careful not to draw the attention of the markets to his actions. An account was s
et up with Norges Bank using the name of CJ Hambro & Son. Purchasing began soon after and on at least one occasion gold was purchased from Argentina and used to secure Krone. Britain also traded heavily with Norway purchasing fish and raw materials thus gaining favourable transacting conditions with the Norwegians and denying the Germans a valuable resource, although being neutral Norway naturally traded with Germany also. In 1917 the British Government changed tack and borrowed Kr. 140,000,000, deferring payment for two years with the option of paying back in currency or gold. It was a calculated gamble as the British Government were hoping for far more favourable conditions when payment was due. By the end of the war though, Norway, like many other countries, was heading for depression. The final paragraph in a letter sent from Hambros Bank to the Treasury in Whitehall and dated 23rd January 1918, gives a small insight on the prevailing conditions.43

  Meanwhile whole Norway is longing for an arrangement with London and New York. The country will be in a few days time in some respects be on more severe rations than the people in Germany. Norway is, however, keeping the Flag flying as best it can and we are not downhearted, even if we shall have to suffer severely.

  The involvement of a member of the Hambro family in the financial affairs of Norway was not the first, nor would it be the last. Bomhoff held the post of Chairman of Norges Bank until 1920 whereupon he resigned his duties. Unfortunately for the next incumbent a worldwide depression had started and Norway did not escape its grip. The next leader of the bank was Nicolai Theodorius Nilssen Rygg.44