As Europe edged toward World War II in 1939, Switzerland was faced with a dilemma that went far beyond defending the country's borders, with them needing to safeguard one of its most strategic assets, that is, the gold reserves. New historical research shows that the Swiss National Bank responded to this apprehension by moving large quantities of gold into fortified Alpine infrastructure, thus transforming a military ammunition depot carved into the Bernese Alps into a highly secured underground vault. A study published in the Journal of Contemporary History uncovered the previously undocumented details from the Swiss National Bank’s archives. These archives showed how wartime fears reshaped the country’s financial infrastructure, with them decentralising gold storage beneath solid mountain rocks instead of solely relying on urban vaults in Zurich and Bern. Notably, these underground vaults created networks that supported both national security and the country’s financial system during the war.
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