BERLIN: Germany’s central bank, the Bundesbank, has opened an exhibition of its hefty gold reserves after recalling half of its bullion from foreign vaults.
Worth €117 billion and weighing in at 3,400 tonnes, Germany’s stockpile is the world’s second largest after the US, and some of it is now on display at the Money Museum in Frankfurt, the country’s financial hub.
The exhibition is the first time the public have had a chance to sneak a peek of its mighty gold stash, and features gold ingots and historical coins.
To keep its gold out of Soviet hands in case of a possible invasion during the Cold War, as well as for other historical reasons, bars of the yellow metal were stored in the treasuries of central banks in New York, London and Paris.
During the Cold War, the West German government shipped off 98 percent of its precious metal.
In 2012, a secret report from the Federal Audit Office was made public, in which bank officials were criticised for not carrying out regular spot checks on the stash.
