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Tower of Basel: The Inside Story of the Central Bankers' Secret Bank

Adam LeBor

3.77 · Rating details · 388 ratings · 58 reviews

Tower of Basel is the first investigative history of the world's most secretive global financial institution. Based on extensive archival research in Switzerland, Britain, and the United States, and in-depth interviews with key decision-makers--including Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve; Sir Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England; and forme Tower of Basel is the first investigative history of the world's most secretive global financial institution. Based on extensive archival research in Switzerland, Britain, and the United States, and in-depth interviews with key decision-makers--including Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve; Sir Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England; and former senior Bank for International Settlements managers and officials--Tower of Basel tells the inside story of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS): the central bankers' own bank. Created by the governors of the Bank of England and the Reichsbank in 1930, and protected by an international treaty, the BIS and its assets are legally beyond the reach of any government or jurisdiction. The bank is untouchable. Swiss authorities have no jurisdiction over the bank or its premises. The BIS has just 140 customers but made tax-free profits of $1.17 billion in 2011--2012. Since its creation, the bank has been at the heart of global events but has often gone unnoticed. Under Thomas McKittrick, the bank's American president from 1940--1946, the BIS was open for business throughout the Second World War. The BIS accepted looted Nazi gold, conducted foreign exchange deals for the Reichsbank, and was used by both the Allies and the Axis powers as a secret contact point to keep the channels of international finance open. After 1945 the BIS--still behind the scenes--for decades provided the necessary technical and administrative support for the trans-European currency project, from the first attempts to harmonize exchange rates in the late 1940s to the launch of the Euro in 2002. It now stands at the center of efforts to build a new global financial and regulatory architecture, once again proving that it has the power to shape the financial rules of our world. Yet despite its pivotal role in the financial and political history of the last century and during the economic current crisis, the BIS has remained largely unknown--until now. ...more

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Hardcover, 336 pages

Published May 7th 2013 by PublicAffairs (first published January 1st 2013)

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Feb 26, 2014 Pfauzgrot S rated it it was ok

What a huge disappointment. The only explanation I have for the great reviews in the WSJ or the Times is that they didn't read the whole thing. Its littered with typo's, spelling errors, and even grammar mistakes (no, Belgian and Belgium are not the same, and Alfred Krupp is not spelled Alfried).
What is much worse is the content. As a general rule it has been proven useful to stay clear of books about conspiracy theories if you want real information. Same applies here. The author sees conspirac ...more

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Oct 18, 2018 Mehrsa rated it liked it

I really wanted a good book about Basel and the BIS, but this book is just about the Nazi infiltration of the bank, which was terrible, but this is hardly a story of the bank. I agree with the thesis that we need more transparency about the BIS and Basel meetings. It's undemocratic and when they are wrong (like with Basel I and Basel II), there's no democratic accountabiliy. They are public servants not bankers, but they are unelected. All of this would be fine if they did not have so much power ...more

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Jul 12, 2013 Breakingviews rated it really liked it

By Dominic Elliott

“The shadowy history of the secret bank that runs the world”, the subtitle of Adam LeBor’s new book, may sound sensationalist. But “Tower of Basel” is an absorbing and thorough examination of one of the world’s most important yet opaque institutions: the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

The book’s publication is timely: revelations of Big Brother-style snooping by the U.S. government and the increasing influence of central bankers are troubling examples of what appears By Dominic Elliott

“The shadowy history of the secret bank that runs the world”, the subtitle of Adam LeBor’s new book, may sound sensationalist. But “Tower of Basel” is an absorbing and thorough examination of one of the world’s most important yet opaque institutions: the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

The book’s publication is timely: revelations of Big Brother-style snooping by the U.S. government and the increasing influence of central bankers are troubling examples of what appears to be a power grab by the ruling elite. “Tower of Basel” shows how concentrated and opaque that control is in finance.

The BIS is often considered geek-central. It is the home of the immensely complicated Basel III rules for bank capital. Its reputation among financial types was enhanced by its regular warnings about excess leverage - starting well before the 2008 crisis. The BIS was chosen as the natural host for the Financial Stability Board, the group of global leaders that has coordinated the response to the crisis.

LeBor devotes little time to these issues, however. His concern is the bank’s lack of transparency and accountability. Despite being taxpayer-funded, the BIS is a club that operates with no democratic oversight. The bank is solidly profitable: it made $1.2 billion in tax-free profit in its last calendar year from the fees and commission it charges central banks for short-term liquidity and credit, gold swaps and other investments. That much, at least, is in the public domain.

But the BIS only makes ad hoc donations in the event of natural catastrophes: it has no set programme of philanthropy, according to LeBor. It also preciously guards the content of the discussions held at its offices.

The BIS’s history, described vividly by LeBor, suggests that opacity is troubling. The bank was founded in 1930 as a vehicle to funnel German reparations under the Young Plan after World War One. But it quickly adapted to become instrumental in keeping finance flowing during World War Two. Subsequently it oversaw the breakdown of the gold standard at Bretton Woods and the birth of the euro and the European Central Bank.

The BIS, then, has been a master of reinvention. But, as LeBor explains, it’s hard to dissolve an institution founded under international treaty with fixed statutes. Senior managers at the bank enjoy privileges akin to diplomats: their papers are inviolable and their actions at the bank are immune for life under Swiss law.

What’s more, this cosy club has a mixed moral record. Belgian and Czech gold stolen by the Nazis during World War Two found its way to vaults in the Reichsbank via the BIS. The bank was also alleged to have protected looted Nigerian money following the death of dictator Sani Abacha in 1998. In the 1930s, rumours abounded that BIS officials were using their informational advantages to speculate against the Swiss franc.

One of LeBor’s most telling anecdotes relates to the bank’s origins. Montagu Norman, then Bank of England governor, asked Walter Layton, editor of the Economist, to draw up the BIS’s constitution. Layton concluded that it couldn’t be done. ...more

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Jun 25, 2013 Russ rated it liked it

Disappointing. I purchased this book after reading a favorable review in the Wall Street Journal. The book did not provide any additional information beyond that in the WSJ review. The Bank for International Settlements was founded to deal with Germany's reparation payments after World War I. According to the author, it was founded by and for Nazis to escape the reparations, fund World War II and the Holocaust. It seemed like more than three quarters of the book concerned Nazis. It could have ei ...more

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Aug 28, 2013 Void lon iXaarii rated it it was ok

I was so incredibly excited about this book, the subject promised to be so very interesting: I was expecting great analysis and big picture views but unfortunately the book seems to have more of a socialist jealousy and moralistic perspective, focusing much more on what the author thinks others should do as opposed to what they did and why they did it. A lot of pages were (from my point of view) wasted on casting blame on individual actors and characters, personal histories and the like (dirty i ...more

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May 05, 2014 Frank Kelly rated it it was ok

Shelves: finance-economics, 2014

Was rather disappointed with this book. I did not learn much from this book beyond what I read in several reviews (how bad is that when you can learn all a book has to offer in 15 column inches??). The coverage of how the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) actually handled the recent global financial meltdown was thin. It reads at times - many times - like a breathless expose' instead of a history book. Not very helpful, I'm sorry to say, and not much of a contribution to better understand ...more

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Jun 15, 2020 Tyler rated it really liked it · review of another edition

An interesting look at an obscure and unique financial institution. Also a surprising look at the financial side of World War 2.

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May 04, 2017 David rated it really liked it

yes, to the majority who do not know that American, British have been dealing business and close communication with NASDAP (Hitler) during the rise of Hitler. And BIS was known to be a secret business channel between Hitler and the West even during the landing of Normandy..the irony of this reflects the greater directions and thoughts for us to think about this secret institution. My questions are the same, but in a lesser doubts than the author himself: i) yes, if BIS wants the other countries ...more

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Jan 23, 2014 J.W. Wexford rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: political-nonfiction, one-world-government

Great book. If you want to understand how the world's money is controlled today, you better read this. ...more

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May 11, 2014 Jiri Kram rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Brilliant evidence of super power that really rules the world. This is not a conspiracy theory.

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Mar 23, 2017 Stephen Frank rated it liked it

Sheds light on an opaque but powerful institution

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Feb 08, 2020 Colin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction-history, read-in-2016

Despite the rather sensational blurb, Tower of Basel manages to be a somewhat clear-headed expose of the somewhat obscure but highly influential Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

The BIS is one of those unknown international institutions that no one seems to really know about. Yet, it has played a subtly significant role in shaping the international financial and regulatory landscape of the post WWII world. It is a bank owned by central banks, that performs financial services for these ba Despite the rather sensational blurb, Tower of Basel manages to be a somewhat clear-headed expose of the somewhat obscure but highly influential Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

The BIS is one of those unknown international institutions that no one seems to really know about. Yet, it has played a subtly significant role in shaping the international financial and regulatory landscape of the post WWII world. It is a bank owned by central banks, that performs financial services for these banks. It is a forum where central bankers the world over meet for sumptuous dinners, play golf with each other, and swap stories, all in the utmost discretion.

In the book, Lebor lays out the surprisingly engaging history of the BIS, from its origins as an institution for facilitating German reparations after WWI, to the pivotal role it played in European integration and monetary union and its growth into a global financial institution and a hub of research and analysis.

But an institution like the BIS is no stranger to skeletons in the closet. Lebor goes into quite some detail about how the BIS became a tool for the Nazi-controlled Reichsbank. It authorised the transfer of BIS' holdings of Czechoslovakia's gold reserves to the Nazi coffers after the former's annexation by the latter. During the war, it accepted looted gold from the Nazis as a form of payment for the latter's debt obligations under the Young Plan.

After the war, the Bretton Woods Conference recommended that BIS be liquidated, but it survived this existential crisis and went on to shape itself to the needs of the postwar financial world. Over the ensuing decades, it built up a name and reputation for itself as a respected nexus for financial regulators and played a part in setting international financial regulations, all in the name of monetary stability. The BIS pushed strongly for European integration and the formation of a monetary union under a single currency. During the Eurozone crisis, the BIS holds partial responsibility for coordinating the tough austerity measures that some argue have made the crisis worse.

As an institution, the BIS is simultaneously a private bank and an outsized influence on financial systems and regulatory frameworks. This opens up manifold opportunities for conflicts of interest between its two roles - as a profit maximizer and as a regulator. Protected by a swathe of legal immunities and enjoying the patronage of powerful central banks, the BIS has considerable regulatory fiat, unencumbered by democratic accountability.

These are the qualities with which Lebor takes issue. From Lebor's perspective, the BIS' non-transparent, anti-democratic, and elitist nature has no place in the 21st century. After the 2008 financial crisis, with calls to break up large unwieldy banks with too much buying power, the BIS' looming presence seems even more of an anachronism, vesting disproportionate amounts of influence on global markets in the hands of a few powerful and well-fed men.

In making this case, Lebor points to the various indiscretions that the BIS perpetrated with respect to its actions in World War 2, which were in part made possible by its legally protected, supranational nature. He also points to the tottering European integration project, spearheaded by the BIS, as emblematic of the split incentives of the bank - that the bank, influenced by certain factions within it, would push for financial regulatory arrangements in the Eurozone that would favor certain countries over others.

An interesting perspective that is introduced in the book is the notion of Nazi leadership continuity in the German financial sphere following the war, exemplified by the likes of Karl Blessing and Herman Abs, former Nazi party members who took up influential leadership positions in Germany after the war. Lebor's implication that the essential German realpolitik imperatives have not really changed with respect to Europe, and that it pushed, through the BIS, the notion of European integration at least partly for self-serving ends - the creation of a large European market to service German exports.

I don't know enough about the historical literature to make comments about the positioning of Lebor's allegations on European integration and the role of the BIS in the post-war regime. But I can say that Lebor has written here an intriguing and perhaps contentious tract, one that makes substantive comments about a secretive and unaccountable institution, but in doing so, does not descend into polemics. If anything, reading it has been an edifying introduction into a little-known part of the international network of institutions.

I give this work: 4 out of 5 gold standards ...more

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Aug 12, 2017 Carlos rated it it was ok

Shelves: non-fiction, history

Reading this book was a little frustrating. LeBor has two main arguments against the Bank of International Settlements (BIS): their cooperation with, and wealth gained through, Nazi Germany during WWII, and the current secrecy of its operation. While the first argument makes for a more serious moral criticism, it is also irrelevant and weakens the criticism of the BIS of our times. So while I would have prefer he stick to his second argument and flesh out the problems with the secrecy of a bank ...more

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Mar 03, 2021 Julian Douglass rated it liked it

Shelves: history

When I saw the book, I was interested in it because I never heard of the BIS. Maybe this was a weird bank that operates in the shadows with no regulations. Maybe this was a secret bank that propped up the Nazi regime. Maybe this bank had a role in the 2007-08 financial crisis.

It turns out that one of the things is slightly true. While I feel that there needs to be more transparency about the BIS, this is hardly a sinister bank. Mr. LeBor tries to get people worked up even before reading the boo ...more

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May 08, 2018 Sean Reeves rated it did not like it

I've marked this book as read but in fact I only made it about half-way through. Adam LeBor may be a much lauded British author, novelist and journalist but he makes no attempt to understand the deeper forces at work in international finance which the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) oversees. The book may purport be an an "inside story" of BIS but it is not. LeBor is clearly a darling of the establishment and is careful not to step on the toes of those who coddle him and who could kick ...more

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Mar 24, 2020 Derkaisermike rated it really liked it · review of another edition

The history of a bank I had never heard of.

High finance, intrigue, and nazis: this book tells the story of a bank that has successfully played both sides since its inception in 1930 and the impact it has had on our world today.

Part history, part damning critique, Tower of Basel is a must read for anyone seeking to understand how the global financial system got to be how it is.

My main criticism is, based on the condemnation piled on the BIS, the authors call for reform at the end of the book s ...more

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Sep 25, 2020 Mike Pinter rated it really liked it

This was a really eye-opening read, and I think it was fair and informative about matters most people don't realise happen behind closed doors, which matters affect their daily lives in ways more immediately important than what governments decide with such paint-dryingly slow speeds, usually just for their names to be written in History rather than to make life better for all. It would be great if we could know what the years since 2013 have brought. Here's hoping future editions can include mor ...more

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Jun 02, 2019 Randy Patterson rated it really liked it · review of another edition

For me the “Tower of Basel” provided more evidence and a brief history of one bank that illustrates how secrecy and operating beyond the law (legally done) most banks of this kind operate. For example the Federal Reserve of the United States operates in the similar ways even by its very name of Federal Reserve of the United States-giving the impression that it is run by government employees instead of private bankers.

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Feb 12, 2021 Albert Garcia rated it it was amazing

Adam LeBor confirms my 15 years of researching "who owns the world", by divulging that the globe's Central Banksters meet every other Sunday in Basel, Switzerland in Mount Everest type secrecy, to determine their next move to further annihilate the entire world's economy permanently.

It's all about their ultra narcissism and Satanic control of humankind.

I highly recommend this book to all non-conspiracy theory readers.

Albert Garcia ...more

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Mar 08, 2018 Mike rated it it was amazing

Very disturbing expose of the sort of power a few individual human beings have over the 7 plus billion on the planet. As of 2008, the actions of rogue bankers (and their cohorts in industry, business, military and politics) have generated catastrophic consequences for the vast majority of humans. This book focuses on the bank of banks: the bank of international settlements.

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Jul 03, 2019 Francis Cao rated it did not like it

That is the kind of book that you need to avoid reading. Full of out-of-focus tabloid stories which are far from entertaining. It is one of the available options one can use to test someone's knowledge of financial history who always claims to be an expert. If someone learns BIS from this book, then he or she is possibly a crook. Come one, even the conspiracy theory has its threshold. ...more

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Dec 07, 2019 Ezee Bean rated it really liked it

It is an amazing book of high politics and high finance. How a few persons managed to create an institution which became more powerful than nations. How the bankers defied the national interest of countries they represented . Though at the heart of it all is the conflict between national and maybe emotional interest and professional demand (?) or is it self interest(?).

Very informative for me.

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Jun 24, 2020 Ariel Burbaickij rated it liked it

biased (author writing in 2013 attempts to present it so as if it was not known for sure after Moynihan commision report from 1997 that Harry Dexter White, who pushed hard for liquidation of BIS, which author seems to be in favour of too, was a Soviet spy) but delivers some lesser known facts around WWII and squeeze-out of private shareholders.

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Feb 24, 2021 Audrey Sue Lavoie rated it liked it

Very interesting and well researched book. With a lot of information about events in the financial world during WW2. But the author has a very obvious slant against the BIS in its current iteration and some of the institutions that has emerged from it. In many ways I agreed with his opinion and in many ways not so much but I feel that the slant was far to pronounced for this type of book.

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May 29, 2018 Jake rated it liked it

I was worried the book would be too tinged with conspiracy, but it was balanced and well-researched. The war-time history of the BIS is interesting, though I would have benefitted more from an emphasis on recent history.

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Nov 15, 2019 Patricia Faloon added it · review of another edition

We Now Have the Truth

Could one ever imagine that a handful of men make the monetary decisions which affect the affairs of the world! Or that they were the driving force behind financing Hitler's third Reich! ...more

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Sep 21, 2020 Mirek Jasinski rated it really liked it

It's a good read, even though the title implies what the book doesn't deliver. There are no secrets revealed here, and there is not much of an inside story. Just an attempt to interpret recent history through the eyes of uberbankers. ...more

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Nov 21, 2017 Alessandro Speciale rated it it was ok · review of another edition

The euro is the continuation of a Nazi-era project. Yeah sure. Dan Brown on a bad day could have come up with something more credible

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Feb 09, 2019 Birgir rated it liked it

Interesting, but biased from start.

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Feb 16, 2019 Dinesh Perera rated it it was amazing

Interesting. Well researched. The ending chapter ties up the book nicely.

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About Adam LeBor

Adam LeBor

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Adam LeBor was born in London and read Arabic, international history and politics at Leeds University, graduating in 1983, and also studied Arabic at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He worked for several British newspapers before becoming a foreign correspondent in 1991. He has reported from thirty countries, including Israel and Palestine, and covered the Yugoslav wars for The Times of London ...more