Walraven van Hall was born into a centuries-old Amsterdam banking family.
It is translated and annotated with more than 750 new endnotes that explain Dutch terms and historical references..
The full story is told here for the first time, for a non-Dutch English-speaking audience.
But the Nazis never figured out how Walraven raised a billion dollars in 2024 money.
Walraven was betrayed, caught by his Nazi Sicherheitsdienst pursuer for something else, and executed.
It was the biggest bank fraud in Dutch history.
His largest source of income was from forging Dutch Treasury bills, which were exchanged for real ones in the Dutch State Bank vaults, Under Nazi noses.
He collected money, then borrowed money, and finally, in desperation, he stole money from the Dutch State Bank, which was Under Nazi Occupation control.
When that was banned, he joined the Resistance.
When Hitler invaded the neutral Netherlands in 1940, Walraven joined the anti-Nazi party.
Walraven van Hall was born into a centuries-old Amsterdam banking family
