Oct 4, 2026
The Russian Defense Ministry is now warning that Zelensky “bears FULL responsibility” for Russia’s escalated strikes across Ukraine, after the Ukrainian leader announced plans to increase attempted strikes on Russian oil refineries.
Russia has also launched attacks on the North and South bridges connecting Kiev over the Dnieper River, threatening a shutdown of the vital passageway that would cause a logistical nightmare for Ukraine.
The Russian Defense Ministry is now warning that Zelensky “bears FULL responsibility” for Russia’s escalated strikes across Ukraine, after the Ukrainian leader announced plans to increase attempted strikes on Russian oil refineries.
Russia has also launched attacks on the North and South bridges connecting Kiev over the Dnieper River, threatening a shutdown of the vital passageway that would cause a logistical nightmare for Ukraine.
Ghostbusters / Thriller - Les Fo'Plafonds
https://www.facebook.com/lesfoplafonds/videos/673194173631990/?fs=e
Très fiers de vous présenter notre nouveau clip ! Un grand merci à Judicaël OLIVIER WARM - Productions pour son excellent travail encore une fois !
39 comments:
The fucking UN security council was set up after 1945. It suspended any real sovereignty to the bulk of member nations on the planet except for Five. The UN (bankers) created it this way! It was bankers - international bankers think - BIS. So while I often appreciate Bolson's views There needs to be will coming from the people to change this structure. We do not even know who we are for fuck sake! Most people do not understand they are debt slaves and not considered men! We are all considered salvaged vessels, dead entities that create energy for this same class! Mo amount of USA bashing is going to change the fact that we are not men any longer. Well gave up our birth right for a mess of pottage, For fuck sake wake up!
Political PERSONS will not fix this, real men need to fix this. Bolsons rhetoric is meaningless. The Earth is enslaved! get it? People will not believe they are slaves. Even in the face of what they are experiencing! We might be getting close to having a consensus that we are free range chicken LOL That would be a start!
Read this, Everyone needs to where we were, we we are and where we are heading. Its a fictional world a game to steal your energy.
Here is the link
https://lonang.com/library/reference/vattel-law-of-nations/vatt-215/
The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law (1758)
Emmerich de Vattel
BOOK 2, CHAPTER 15
Of the Faith of Treaties
No one talks about the Swiss. Nobody bothers/bombs the Swiss. LOL Fascinating! Check out this guy's channel.
G.I.U.R.E.H., run by Dr. Sean Hross
https://www.youtube.com/@Giureh--G.I.U.R.E.H.
I speed up the playback a bit for his videos -1.25 LOL
How did a small state sitting almost dead-centre in the European theatre avoid foreign invasion for more than two centuries—including two world wars—while simultaneously developing into one of the world's important financial centres?
Was Switzerland left intact because everybody respected its neutralityor because an intact Switzerland performed jobs that were useful to powers on both sides? What would the belligerents have lost if Switzerland ceased to be neutral? Germany could get Swiss francs by selling gold to the Swiss National Bank. Those francs were convertible and could theb purchase materials from countries that didn't particularly want Reichsmarks or German gold. Germany obtained Swiss industrial production and electricity.
Meanwhile, the Allies had an extraordinary intelligene listening post sitting practically inside middle Europe. intelligence could meet German sources in Switzerland , receive sensitive documents and eventually conduct surrender negotiations through Switzerland.
And of course Basel - Bank for International Settlements, whose board and banking relationships crossed the belligerent divide, guys like Hjalmar Schacht- and Montagu Norman. Switzerland's neutrality was great for the warpigs because Switzerland could do things that belligerent countries could no longerdo with one another easily .
How Society Stays the Same: Network (1976)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9_DL1-u5kY
Mark Passio - Why We're Losing: 7 Reasons The Freedom Movement Is Failing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-c7fv_Ei1w
1. Switzerland was economically useful to Germany
After France fell in 1940, Switzerland was largely surrounded by Axis-controlled territory. Swiss trade consequently became heavily oriented toward Germany and Italy.
The Swiss government-backed clearing system was important. Switzerland ultimately extended about CHF 1.121 billion in clearing credit. The Bergier Commission concluded that these arrangements allowed German and Italian purchases—including armaments purchases—to continue despite the Reich's shortage of foreign exchange. UEK
The Commission calculated that between 1940 and 1944 Swiss industry exported approximately:
- CHF 633 million of arms and ammunition to Axis countries;
- another CHF 177 million of detonator fuses to Germany alone;
- while comparable arms/ammunition exports to countries that were or became Allied amounted to roughly CHF 57.5 million. UEK
That sounds enormous, although perspective matters: Switzerland wasn't remotely supplying the majority of Germany's weapons.
The financial function was potentially more important.
2. The Swiss franc was extraordinarily useful to the Reich
This is one of the most important findings I've encountered.
Germany had lots of Reichsmarks.
The problem was that foreigners increasingly didn't want them.
Germany nevertheless desperately needed things such as Portuguese and Spanish tungsten and other strategic materials.
What Germany needed was a currency somebody else would accept.
That was the Swiss franc.
The Bergier Commission found that after 1941 the franc occupied a unique position as a freely convertible European currency. German Reichsbank officials themselves described Swiss gold/currency transactions as being of “vital importance to the war.” UEK
Now watch the mechanism.
Reichsbank gold
↓
Swiss National Bank
↓
Swiss francs
↓
Germany
↓
Spain / Portugal / Romania etc.
↓
strategic materials
The SNB's own historical study says explicitly that German gold sales generated Swiss francs that Germany could use to pay countries unwilling to accept German gold, particularly Portugal, Spain and Romania. SNB
That is much more interesting than merely saying:
“Swiss banks dealt with Hitler.”
Switzerland provided something Nazi Germany had increasing difficulty obtaining elsewhere:
internationally usable purchasing power.
3. And a substantial amount of the gold was stolen
This isn't controversial anymore.
Between 1940 and 1945 the Reichsbank transferred approximately CHF 1.655 billion worth of gold to Bern.
The SNB purchased roughly CHF 1.224 billion of it. SNB
And the SNB's own modern historical assessment acknowledges the fundamental problem: as the war continued, the origin of the Reichsbank gold became increasingly questionable. Its historians concluded that by 1943 the SNB had enough room to reduce these transactions substantially without jeopardizing its principal monetary objectives. SNB
So the argument:
“Switzerland had no alternative because it was surrounded”
becomes progressively less convincing after 1942–43.
4. Switzerland effectively converted some German gold into international liquidity
This is the really important distinction.
Germany wasn't merely storing wealth in Switzerland.
Switzerland helped make German wealth spendable internationally.
For example, during 1939–45 the SNB sold approximately:
CHF 507m gold → Portugal
CHF 185m → Spain
CHF 112m → Romania. SNB
Portugal and Spain were important because Germany needed strategic materials, including tungsten.
Consequently the Bergier Commission concluded that Switzerland's capital market and convertible currency had greater importance for Germany than many categories of Swiss manufactured exports. UEK
That's a major finding.
5. Now add the BIS in Basel
Bank for International Settlements is another extraordinary part of this story.
The BIS was established in Basel in 1930.
Its board before WWII included representatives of:
Bank of England
Bank of France
German Reichsbank
Bank of Italy
Swiss National Bank
Belgian National Bank
Netherlands Bank
Swedish Riksbank
Bank of Japan. Bank for International Settlements
Then those countries started killing one another.
Yet the institution survived.
The BIS declared itself neutral and continued limited banking operations.
Even more remarkably, during the war the BIS continued receiving payments from the German Reichsbank on its German investments.
Frequently in gold. Bank for International Settlements
After the war investigators determined that some Reichsbank gold received by the BIS had been stolen from occupied countries.
The BIS ultimately returned approximately 3.7 tonnes of looted Belgian and Dutch gold. Bank for International Settlements
6. Bretton Woods actually voted to abolish the BIS
This surprised me.
At Bretton Woods in July 1944, the conference passed a resolution calling for the BIS to be liquidated “at the earliest possible moment.”
American and British authorities had become suspicious of its continued dealings with Germany.
European central bankers resisted.
The liquidation ultimately never happened. Bank for International Settlements
And there's an interesting postwar sequence:
1944: Bretton Woods calls for BIS abolition.
1948: BIS returns 3.7 tonnes of looted gold.
The United States then unblocks BIS assets and effectively abandons the liquidation resolution. Bank for International Settlements
The institution remains in Basel today.
That part of the story deserves its own investigation.
7. Switzerland was also physically useful to the Axis
Money wasn't the only utility.
Look at a map.
Germany
↓
SWITZERLAND
↓
Italy
The Gotthard and Simplon rail routes were extremely important.
The Bergier Commission's dedicated study of Swiss rail transit found that wartime transit volumes became more than three times their prewar levels.
More than 40% of Italy's coal supply passed through Switzerland during the war.
By 1944, more than 60% of Italy's fuel supply travelled across the Gotthard and Simplon routes. Chronos Verlag
The study says German officials considered Swiss transit one of the four major services Switzerland provided Germany.
And it continued until February 1945. Chronos Verlag
That is significant.
8. Switzerland supplied Germany electricity too
U.S. archival records show Switzerland exported roughly 500 million kWh annually to Germany.
Those records estimated this represented around 40% of southern Germany's electricity supply.
Swiss hydroelectric power also supported production of about 16,000 tons annually of aluminium and aluminium products for Germany. National Archives
Again:
finance + currency + gold + rail transit + electricity + precision manufacturing.
We're beginning to see an ecosystem.
9. But now the story turns around: the Allies also benefited
This is essential.
If Switzerland were simply a covert Nazi ally, we would expect its usefulness to run primarily in one direction.
It didn't.
The United States and Britain also traded with Switzerland.
U.S. archival material specifically notes that America obtained strategically useful Swiss products, particularly:
watches and jewel bearings. National Archives
And there's an even bigger Allied benefit.
10. Switzerland was an extraordinary intelligence platform
Allen Dulles ran one of America's most productive wartime intelligence stations from Bern.
CIA's own historical account says Dulles developed a network reaching directly into Germany.
One of his sources was Fritz Kolbe, a German Foreign Office official who smuggled German diplomatic documents into Switzerland.
CIA describes Kolbe as perhaps the Western Allies' best human source on German plans and intentions. CIA
Dulles also received intelligence concerning:
V-1 and V-2 programs
German military planning
German intelligence
German resistance networks. CIA
None of that works nearly as effectively if Switzerland becomes occupied Nazi territory.
11. And Switzerland became a back-channel negotiating room
In 1945 Dulles secretly negotiated with SS General Karl Wolff concerning surrender of German forces in northern Italy.
The negotiations—Operation Sunrise—occurred through Switzerland.
American diplomatic records explicitly contemplated bringing German representatives to Bern and conducting negotiations at the British or American legations. Office of the Historian
The negotiations contributed to the surrender of German forces in Italy before Germany's overall capitulation.
Remarkably, Japanese representatives later tried to use the same Swiss channel to explore surrender possibilities. Office of the Historian
So Switzerland was simultaneously:
German financial interface
and
Allied intelligence window into Germany.
That's fascinating.
12. The Allies knew what Switzerland was doing
This wasn't some secret discovered in 1997.
Washington and London were putting increasing pressure on Switzerland during the war.
By late 1943 the Allies had negotiated restrictions on Swiss exports to Germany.
In 1944 restrictions increased.
By early 1945 the Allies were demanding:
German assets frozen
German trade curtailed
gold purchases stopped
German-Italian transit restricted
looted assets identified. National Archives
The March 1945 agreement explicitly prohibited certain German-Italian transit through Switzerland, including coal, iron, scrap and steel. Avalon Project
So Allied governments understood Switzerland's economic importance perfectly well.
13. After the war came the reckoning
In the 1946 Washington Agreement, Switzerland agreed to provide the Allies CHF 250 million in gold.
In exchange, the Allies waived further claims against Switzerland and the SNB regarding German gold acquired during the war.
The United States also agreed to unblock Swiss assets, and Allied blacklists against Swiss businesses were terminated. Office of the Historian
That's not a conspiracy theory.
That's the actual diplomatic settlement.
Why wasn't this place invaded and bombed to shit when everybody around it was?
We can't demonstrate from these documents that Hitler, Churchill or Roosevelt made a decision saying:
Don't invade Switzerland because we need its financial system.
But we can establish something considerably more interesting than “because neutrality.”
By WWII, an intact Switzerland simultaneously provided valuable functions to multiple opposing powers:
Germany received: convertible Swiss francs, gold conversion, credit, industrial products, electricity, transit and commercial access.
Italy received: a crucial trans-Alpine supply route, particularly for coal.
The Allies received: precision goods, intelligence access, diplomatic channels, German resistance contacts and ultimately surrender negotiations.
International finance received: a functioning neutral central-bank nexus in Basel.
And Switzerland itself obtained what it desperately needed:
coal + food + raw materials + trade + employment + national survival.
That starts looking less like passive neutrality and more like something I'd call functional neutrality—not a moral judgment, but a description of the mechanism.
Switzerland was useful precisely because it remained Switzerland.
Destroying or occupying it would potentially destroy some of the functions from which belligerents themselves benefited.
And here is where Hross gets interesting again
Remember what Hross repeatedly says:
Switzerland isn't really neutral; neutrality is the camouflage protecting the function.
His latest video expresses essentially that idea when he describes neutrality as protecting wealth and providing a “safe haven.” Pasted text
I would not say we've proven Hross's proposition.
But after reading the Bergier Commission, SNB records, BIS records and U.S. diplomatic documents, I wouldn't dismiss the underlying question either.
In fact, the Bergier Commission gives us a particularly striking contemporary German statement: Swiss gold and currency transactions were “of vital importance to the war.” UEK
That's considerably stronger evidence than symbolism or coincidence.
The next layer I would investigate is 1914–1933. That's where this gets potentially much more revealing: Switzerland survives WWI intact → BIS is deliberately placed in Basel in 1930 → German reparations and international capital flows run through it → German rearmament begins → Hitler takes power in 1933.
And the Bergier Commission itself drops a rather extraordinary clue: it says Switzerland and other European countries had facilitated aspects of covert German rearmament before 1933. UEK
That gives us a documentary bridge before Hitler, which is exactly what we'd want to test if we're evaluating Hross's claim that the system is older than Nazism.
Now reconsider “neutrality”
Neutrality starts looking less like a binary:
WAR / NOT WAR
and more like an economic and diplomatic technology.
Switzerland provided a jurisdiction through which otherwise incompatible systems could interact.
Germany ↔ Switzerland ↔ Portugal
Germany ↔ Switzerland ↔ international currency
Germany ↔ Switzerland ↔ Italy
Germany ↔ Switzerland ↔ gold markets
Allies ↔ Switzerland ↔ German intelligence sources
Allies ↔ Switzerland ↔ German resistance
Allies ↔ Switzerland ↔ surrender negotiations
Belligerent central banks ↔ BIS Basel ↔ belligerent central banks
That middle position had enormous potential value.
And now something else becomes apparent.
Switzerland wasn't outside the war.
It was inside the economic architecture of the war while remaining outside its formal military architecture.
Those are very different things.
That's also why the Swiss historical record can contain things that initially appear contradictory:
Switzerland mobilized hundreds of thousands of soldiers to deter invasion.
Switzerland traded extensively with Germany.
Switzerland exported armaments to Axis countries.
Switzerland bought Reichsbank gold, some of it looted.
Switzerland gave refuge to some people while turning others away.
Switzerland allowed Allied intelligence operations.
Switzerland represented belligerent countries diplomatically.
Switzerland gradually complied with Allied economic pressure as Germany began losing.
None of those facts requires the others to be false.
They make sense if the overriding objective was:
Keep Switzerland functioning.
The channel is Giureh – G.I.U.R.E.H., run by Dr. Sean Hross. That is almost certainly the guy you're remembering. His work includes a large series portraying Switzerland and its institutions as an organized criminal/oligarchic structure, including material under titles such as “The Swiss Beast – Home of the Devil.”
But Hross appears to be asking a better question than simply:
“Did Switzerland violate neutrality?”
His question is closer to:
What function has the institution called Swiss neutrality historically performed, and who benefited from that function?
That's much more interesting.
And there's a way of testing it.
If the conventional explanation is sufficient, we should find Swiss neutrality largely functioning as nonparticipation.
If Hross's functional interpretation contains something important, we'd expect repeatedly to discover Switzerland acting as an interface:
money
gold
credit
banking
trade
intelligence
diplomacy
transit
asset custody
negotiation
between powers that couldn't openly perform those functions themselves.
During WWII, that's exactly what we're finding.
But WWII by itself can't tell us whether this was merely extraordinary wartime pragmatism or something structural and much older.
And that's why I mentioned 1914–1933.
Because now we can perform a much stronger experiment.
Take Hitler completely out of the picture.
1914–1918: WWI
Does Switzerland perform the same intermediary function between belligerents?
Then:
1919–1929: Versailles/reparations
Does Switzerland become an intermediary for German capital, international banking and reconstruction?
Then:
1930: BIS established in Basel
Why Basel?
Who selected it?
Who owned it?
Who sat on its board?
What immunities did it receive?
What transactions was it intended to facilitate?
And here's an especially interesting question:
Why create an international bank whose whole purpose was to allow central banks of potentially hostile sovereign states to cooperate—and locate it in permanently neutral Switzerland?
The BIS itself says it was established in 1930 principally to handle German reparations under the Young Plan and promote central-bank cooperation.
That's almost a laboratory demonstration of the interface function we're talking about.
Then we continue backward.
1930 → 1919 → 1914 → 1870 → 1815.
And only then do we tackle Hross's really enormous proposition:
1815 → early Swiss banking → medieval Confederacy → 1291 → Templars.
If the same functional pattern keeps appearing before the BIS, before Hitler, before WWI and before modern Swiss banking, then Hross's historical inference becomes considerably more interesting.
If the chain breaks, we'll know approximately where it breaks.
That's the investigation I'd much rather do than hunt for Templar crosses. Follow the transactions backward through time and see whether the architecture survives.
Yes—and following the transactions backward produces a much stronger historical pattern than I expected.
The key discovery is that the WWII mechanism was not created by Hitler. What changes over time is the machinery; the underlying Swiss function—an intact jurisdiction through which capital can cross political boundaries—appears much earlier.
1939–45 → 1930: the BIS was not an accident of geography
We already established Switzerland's WWII role in gold, convertible francs, trade, transit, intelligence and diplomacy.
Now go back nine years.
The BIS says explicitly that it was created under the Young Plan to administer German reparations, act as trustee for the Dawes and Young international loans, and promote cooperation among central banks. Part of the Young Loan proceeds was actually reinvested in German bonds. Bank for International Settlements
And Basel was deliberately selected as its home.
This wasn't merely a Swiss bank. The founding convention put Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Britain on one side and Switzerland as host on the other. The BIS received international status and special privileges and immunities. Bank for International Settlements
Then reparations collapsed in 1931–32.
Yet the institution remained.
Its purpose migrated from:
Germany → reparations → Allies
toward:
central bank ↔ BIS ↔ central bank
with foreign exchange, gold deposits, swaps, reserve management and monthly meetings of the central bankers themselves. Bank for International Settlements
That's our interface again.
And there's a number worth remembering: on the eve of WWII, the BIS still had 294 million Swiss gold francs invested in Germany, more than half its total assets. Bank for International Settlements
So WWII didn't create that financial connection either.
1919–30: now we find the safe-haven mechanism
Move backward through WWI.
Something very important happens to the Swiss financial centre.
The Historical Dictionary of Switzerland says that before 1914 Switzerland was already a major exporter of capital, but its international financial-centre role was still relatively modest.
Then WWI happens.
Because Switzerland remains neutral:
“all the belligerents” turned to neutral Switzerland
Also the Swiss franc increasingly became a safe-haven currency. hls-dhs-dss.ch
There's our pattern.
Not:
Switzerland isolated from the war.
Rather:
belligerent A → Switzerland ← belligerent B
while Switzerland itself stays outside the shooting war.
The Swiss Federal Archives themselves say Switzerland was dragged deeply into the belligerents' economic warfare, and its export industry initially benefited from European war production. Federal Archives of Switzerland
So already in WWI we're seeing essentially the phenomenon we saw in WWII.
And after WWI, the capital stays—or more arrives
Here's another important transition.
The monetary disorder following WWI produced large foreign capital inflows into Switzerland. Swiss bank deposits increased 15.6% between 1918 and 1922, despite Switzerland's own difficult postwar economy. Cambridge University Press
By 1929 the SNB estimated foreign deposits at CHF 1–1.3 billion.
They represented only around 5–7% of deposits across Switzerland as a whole—but 13–17% of deposits at the big banks, where foreign money concentrated. hls-dhs-dss.ch
Then look at international securities.
Between 1924 and 1934, more than CHF 3.9 billion in foreign securities were issued through Switzerland.
Roughly half concerned:
France
Germany
United States.
And Swiss banks simultaneously held large foreign assets and liabilities—perhaps CHF 1–2 billion by the late 1920s.
Much of that consisted of short-term loans to Germany. hls-dhs-dss.ch
So now our chain becomes:
WWI neutrality
↓
safe-haven franc
↓
foreign capital
↓
international lending
↓
German short-term finance
↓
Dawes/Young international loans
↓
BIS Basel 1930
↓
central-bank interface
↓
WWII
That's a genuine documentary continuity.
Now go backward before WWI
This is where I expected the pattern to weaken.
It doesn't disappear.
Immediately before WWI, Switzerland was, according to the Historical Dictionary, the world's largest foreign investor per capita. hls-dhs-dss.ch
That doesn't mean Switzerland was the world's dominant financial centre—London, Paris and Berlin were considerably larger.
But Switzerland had accumulated more foreign investment relative to its population than anybody else.
And its banking institutions were already deeply international.
For example, the institution that became Swiss Bank Corporation originated in Basel private banking. In 1872, the Basler Bankverein was formed with assistance from German and Austrian capital; it subsequently absorbed institutions across Switzerland and opened a London branch in 1898. hls-dhs-dss.ch
Credit Suisse had been created in 1856 principally to finance industrial development and railroads. hls-dhs-dss.ch
So the international banking infrastructure predates WWI substantially.
1815–1914: here's the really interesting result
Now we're beyond both World Wars.
Remember the exact language used by the European powers in 1815.
They didn't merely acknowledge Switzerland's desire to remain neutral.
The Swiss government's own historical report records the Great Powers declaring that:
“the neutrality and integrity of Switzerland and her independence from any foreign influence are in the interest of European politics as a whole.” Federal Office of Energy
That's quite a sentence.
Russia, Britain, Prussia, Austria and France ultimately guaranteed Switzerland's perpetual neutrality and territorial inviolability. Federal Office of Energy
Notice the conception:
Switzerland's neutrality serves a wider European interest.
That's already much closer to our functional-neutrality model than the popular conception of Switzerland simply asking everyone to leave it alone.
But we're not yet entitled to say that the function in 1815 was specifically banking. The documents we've examined don't establish that.
That's an important boundary.
But the financial architecture actually predates 1815
And this is where it gets genuinely interesting.
Swiss international capital movements didn't begin after the Congress of Vienna.
They didn't begin after Napoleon.
They didn't begin with the Rothschild era.
They didn't even begin in the eighteenth century.
The Historical Dictionary traces Basel's emergence as an important international capital and financial centre back into the sixteenth century. hls-dhs-dss.ch
There was already an important financial corridor:
Lyon → Geneva → Basel → Strasbourg → Frankfurt.
Money moved internationally through it.
Then something happens during the Thirty Years' War—1618–1648.
Switzerland stays largely outside that devastating European conflict.
And the direction of capital changes.
Before approximately 1600, the dominant investment flow had been:
Germany → Switzerland.
During the seventeenth century—particularly following the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War—it reverses:
Switzerland → Europe.
Why?
Because an “enormous capital surplus” accumulated inside the Confederation.
Interest rates consequently fell from around 5% toward 3%, forcing Swiss capital to seek investment opportunities elsewhere. hls-dhs-dss.ch
Now we're getting somewhere.
By the 1700s Switzerland already has an international banking network
By the eighteenth century, Protestant private and merchant bankers in Basel and Geneva, together with their European partners, were transferring private and institutional Swiss capital from places including Bern, Solothurn and Zürich into:
France
England
Germany
Austria
Scandinavia
and bringing the interest and principal back into Switzerland. hls-dhs-dss.ch
That's astonishingly close to the structural phenomenon we've been tracking.
Not the same institutions.
Not the same laws.
Not the same monetary system.
But the same broad position:
European conflict/economic instability
↓
Swiss territory remains comparatively intact
↓
capital accumulates
↓
Swiss intermediaries invest across political boundaries
↓
income returns to Switzerland
↓
financial capacity increases
next crisis enhances Switzerland's relative position
That is starting to look less like a twentieth-century accident.
There's even an early institutional example
Bank Leu was founded in Zürich in 1755.
Its original purpose was specifically to invest the large state and private fortunes of Zürich abroad. hls-dhs-dss.ch
Read that again in context.
More than half a century before Switzerland's permanent neutrality was internationally guaranteed, Zürich already possessed sufficient accumulated capital that an institution was created specifically to place Swiss fortunes overseas.
So:
Swiss international finance did not result from the 1815 neutrality settlement.
It existed before it.
That's important for our investigation.
Now put the timeline together
We're beginning to see several distinct stages:
1618–1648 — Thirty Years' War
Switzerland largely escapes Europe's catastrophic war.
Large Swiss capital surplus develops.
International investment expands. hls-dhs-dss.ch
↓
1700s
Basel/Geneva merchant-bank networks move capital across Europe. hls-dhs-dss.ch
↓
1755
Bank Leu specifically created to invest Zürich fortunes abroad. hls-dhs-dss.ch
↓
1798
French invasion breaks the system violently.
↓
1815
European Great Powers guarantee Switzerland's permanent neutrality because they explicitly regard it as being in Europe's collective political interest. Federal Office of Energy
↓
19th century
Capital exports resume strongly after the 1820s; industrialization and modern Swiss banking expand. hls-dhs-dss.ch
↓
Pre-1914
Switzerland becomes world's largest foreign investor per capita. hls-dhs-dss.ch
↓
1914–18
Switzerland remains outside war.
All belligerents use the neutral Swiss financial centre; franc becomes increasingly a safe-haven currency. hls-dhs-dss.ch
↓
1920s
Foreign money pours into Switzerland.
Swiss banks lend internationally, including heavily to Germany. hls-dhs-dss.ch
↓
1930
BIS established in Basel specifically to intermediate international financial settlements and central-bank cooperation. Bank for International Settlements
↓
1939–45
Swiss francs/gold/clearing/transit/diplomacy/intelligence again provide interfaces between belligerent systems.
Now here's where I think we have to be very disciplined
We have not established:
Templars → Switzerland → banking system.
We have not established:
1815 neutrality was created by bankers.
And we certainly haven't established:
European wars were deliberately created to enrich Switzerland.
Those would be enormous additional propositions.
But we have established something much more substantial than coincidence:
The Swiss intermediary-financial function considerably predates both World Wars and the BIS.
And there is an intriguing relationship between war and Swiss financial development. Switzerland's Federal Archives themselves state plainly that the financial centre acquired an important world-market position because of Swiss neutrality during the two world wars. Federal Archives of Switzerland
Even further back, the Thirty Years' War coincides with an enormous accumulation of Swiss capital and the reversal of capital flows from into Switzerland to out of Switzerland. hls-dhs-dss.ch
That gives us our first really significant historical boundary.
The trail currently survives back to approximately 1618.
And that makes the next jump extremely interesting.
We should now investigate 1618 → 1291, but not by looking for Templar symbols first.
We should follow exactly the same things we've followed successfully so far:
Who possessed the capital? → Where did it come from? → who were the Basel/Geneva merchant-bank families? → what financed the Swiss cantons before 1600? → mercenary revenues/pensions → Lombard and Italian banking connections → Church/Templar property after 1312 → and finally whether any identifiable assets, families or institutions actually cross the 1291–1312 boundary.
If Hross's Templar thesis has a documentary backbone, that's where it has to appear.
The trail gets more concrete as we enter the medieval period—and it also gives us our first serious problem for a simple “Templars created Switzerland in 1291” narrative.
1. There was already a financial network before Switzerland's 1291 pact
This is important.
Northern Italian Lombard bankers/moneylenders were operating across what is now Switzerland well before 1291. The Historical Dictionary documents them in:
Basel — 1253
Geneva — 1267–68
Bern — 1269
Sion — 1272
Schaffhausen — 1278
Saint-Maurice — 1285
Vevey — 1287
followed by Fribourg in 1295 and Lucerne in 1296. They purchased privileges allowing them to conduct pawnbroking and currency exchange and constructed a dense network of establishments, often controlled by related families. hls-dhs-dss.ch
So finance didn't suddenly appear in Switzerland after the Templars disappeared.
And notice the dates:
Basel banking presence: 1253
Bern: 1269
Templar suppression: 1312
2. Why was money already flowing through this region?
Here we find something remarkably familiar:
transit.
The Historical Dictionary directly connects the Lombard bankers' arrival to the opening of Alpine routes for international commerce. hls-dhs-dss.ch
The Gotthard becomes particularly interesting.
The Schöllenen route appears to have become passable around 1200. The first surviving description of a journey over the Gotthard dates from 1234, and regulations governing transporters south of the pass survive from 1237. hls-dhs-dss.ch
So before the Confederacy existed we already have:
Northern Europe
↕
Basel
↕
central Alpine valleys
↕
Gotthard
↕
Lombardy / northern Italy
Goods move.
Currencies have to be exchanged.
Credit becomes useful.
Tolls and transportation produce income.
Moneylenders appear.
That's a perfectly understandable economic mechanism without requiring a secret organization.
3. And now look at Uri
This is fascinating.
Uri—the central valley controlling the northern approach to the Gotthard—obtained imperial immediacy in 1231.
Schwyz received similar status in 1240. hls-dhs-dss.ch
Meaning, very roughly, that these communities obtained greater independence from intermediate feudal rulers and came more directly under imperial authority.
Emperor Frederick II had a reason for caring about this region.
The Historical Dictionary explicitly says his policy prevented excessive concentration of power at the northern exit of the Gotthard. hls-dhs-dss.ch
Now our timeline looks like this:
~1200 — Gotthard route opens
↓
1231 — Uri obtains imperial privilege
↓
1234 — documented Gotthard journey
↓
1237 — documented transporter organization
↓
1240 — Schwyz obtains imperial privilege
↓
1253 onward — Lombard financial network documented
↓
1291 — Uri/Schwyz/Unterwalden alliance
That chronology is extremely useful.
4. It changes what 1291 looks like
The popular story treats 1291 almost as Switzerland's equivalent of 1776.
Medieval evidence doesn't really support that.
The Historical Dictionary describes the alliance as comparable to numerous regional alliances elsewhere and says its immediate purposes were mutual military assistance and arbitration/internal peace. hls-dhs-dss.ch
Modern Swiss scholarship goes further: the 1291 pact is increasingly understood as a Landfrieden—a regional peace/security arrangement—not the deliberate creation of a modern sovereign state. There's even scholarly debate over whether the surviving document itself might reflect circumstances around 1309. hls-dhs-dss.ch
That's quite important for Hross.
Because:
1291 wasn't obviously the sudden creation of a financial state.
The economic geography and political autonomy were already developing decades beforehand.
5. Now bring the Templars into the picture
Here's our first hard documentary checkpoint.
The Historical Dictionary identifies only two Templar commanderies in present-day Switzerland:
La Chaux near Cossonay — documented from 1223
and
Geneva/Rive — documented from 1277.
There were several subordinate houses at Cologny, Bénex and Entremont.
And critically, these establishments weren't part of some identifiable Templar “Swiss province.”
They belonged to the Templar Burgundy bailiwick, itself part of the Province of France. hls-dhs-dss.ch
That substantially weakens a simple proposition that Switzerland itself was a major Templar headquarters.
6. Then we can actually follow their property after 1312
And this is where documentary evidence becomes extremely useful.
The Council of Vienne suppressed the Templars.
The papal disposition of 2 May 1312 transferred their houses, lands, revenues, rights and other property to the Hospitallers of St John, except for particular Iberian territories. Papal Encyclicals
And the Swiss historical record says that's precisely what happened locally.
La Chaux Templar commandery
↓
Hospitaller commandery
while
Geneva Templar property
↓
Hospitaller commandery at Compesières. hls-dhs-dss.ch
That's a traceable institutional transfer.
So we presently do not have evidence of Swiss Templar institutional wealth disappearing underground into the nascent Confederacy.
7. But that doesn't completely dispose of Hross's proposition
Because there are two different propositions:
A. Templar institutional property moved into Switzerland.
versus
B. Individual Templars / financial relationships / movable wealth / associated families migrated into Swiss networks.
The evidence we've found creates serious difficulty for A.
It doesn't automatically disprove B.
And B is precisely where we'd need genealogies, not symbols.
Who were the Templars at La Chaux and Geneva?
Who administered their estates?
Who were their creditors?
Who were their local patrons?
Who received movable property?
Where did individual brothers go after 1312?
Did any of those people appear subsequently among Swiss ruling/merchant families?
Those are answerable historical questions.
8. But another source of Swiss wealth appears very clearly
Move forward from 1291 toward 1500.
Swiss soldiers become enormously valuable commodities.
Swiss mercenary service existed already in the 13th century, expanded during the 14th, and exploded during the 15th. hls-dhs-dss.ch
Then foreign sovereigns begin paying Switzerland directly.
And this is where things get fascinating again.
Foreign powers paid pensions to:
cantonal governments
and
individual Swiss political elites
in return for political influence and access to Swiss mercenaries.
The Historical Dictionary explicitly says that foreign rulers used these payments to influence political decisions and secure recruiting rights. hls-dhs-dss.ch
This becomes an enormous revenue stream.
9. Some Swiss cantons were effectively financed by foreign powers
In Catholic cantons, foreign pensions at times constituted more than half of regular public revenue.
Read that carefully.
A Swiss canton could obtain:
>50% of regular government revenue
from foreign sovereigns seeking Swiss military manpower and political influence. hls-dhs-dss.ch
The money allowed cantons to accumulate financial reserves and sometimes reduce direct taxation.
And control of those payments helped particular families dominate cantonal politics for centuries.
The Historical Dictionary actually names them:
Zurlauben — Zug
Reding — Schwyz
Schmid — Uri. hls-dhs-dss.ch
Now that is something worth remembering when Hross starts talking about families.
Not because it proves his bloodline theory.
But because the documented Swiss political economy really did develop durable ruling families whose influence was connected to foreign money.
10. And Protestant cantons developed an equivalent mechanism
This part is almost funny in its consistency.
Some Protestant governments rejected foreign pensions.
Fine.
Foreign sovereigns simply compensated them differently:
profitable commercial privileges
and
salt concessions. hls-dhs-dss.ch
Same underlying transaction:
foreign power provides economic benefit ↔ Swiss political authority provides something the foreign power wants.
That is very close to the intermediary architecture we've been following.
11. France became extraordinarily embedded inside Switzerland
France established a permanent diplomatic presence following the 1521 alliance.
By 1530, the French ambassador was established at Solothurn.
One of his central responsibilities?
Organizing recruitment of Swiss mercenaries. hls-dhs-dss.ch
Solothurn became extraordinarily tied to France. Its ruling patricians depended upon officer positions and French pensions, and the Historical Dictionary says French ambassadors exerted substantial influence on the councils through official and private relationships, inducements and pressure. hls-dhs-dss.ch
This isn't Hross saying it.
It's Swiss institutional history.
12. Now something extraordinary happens
European rulers become dependent upon Swiss soldiers.
That creates an incentive not to destroy the source of those soldiers.
And Swiss historical scholarship actually says this explicitly.
Discussing Swiss defence during the Thirty Years' War, the Historical Dictionary says foreign military service contributed to Swiss security because European monarchs—especially the king of France—didn't want to endanger their recruitment of Swiss mercenaries. hls-dhs-dss.ch
That is extremely significant for our investigation.
Because it's the same mechanism we identified in WWII:
Switzerland possesses a useful function.
Therefore:
destroying/occupying Switzerland potentially destroys that function.
During WWII:
convertible francs / gold / transit / diplomacy / intelligence.
During the 1600s:
soldiers / recruitment / political access / transit / money.
Different commodity.
Same structural incentive.
13. Then comes 1618–48
The Thirty Years' War tears central Europe apart.
Switzerland largely avoids becoming a battlefield.
In 1638, the Diet formally decided the Confederacy should observe neutrality.
In 1647, the Defensionale of Wil established a federal defence force of about 40,200 men. hls-dhs-dss.ch
Meanwhile Swiss soldiers were serving foreign powers involved in these wars.
And foreign money was entering Swiss cantons.
And Swiss capital was accumulating.
And, as we established previously, the capital flow subsequently reverses:
Europe → Switzerland
becomes increasingly
Switzerland → Europe.
Now the architecture becomes much clearer.
The chain we can actually document
We're now down to the medieval foundations:
~1200
Gotthard becomes increasingly traversable.
↓
1223
Templars documented at La Chaux.
↓
1231
Uri receives imperial immediacy.
↓
1234–37
Gotthard travel/transport documented.
↓
1240
Schwyz receives imperial immediacy.
↓
1253 onward
Lombard bankers documented across what becomes Switzerland.
↓
1277
Templars documented at Geneva.
↓
1291
Uri/Schwyz/Unterwalden security alliance.
↓
1312
Templar order suppressed; documented Swiss Templar estates pass to Hospitallers.
↓
1300s–1400s
Swiss mercenary business expands.
↓
late 1400s
Foreign sovereigns begin paying Swiss cantons and political elites.
↓
1500s–1700s
Foreign pensions + mercenary contracts + commercial privileges become major components of Swiss political economy.
↓
1618–48
Switzerland remains substantially outside the Thirty Years' War.
↓
1638
Diet explicitly adopts neutrality.
↓
1600s onward
Swiss capital surplus expands and international investment grows.
↓
1815
Great Powers guarantee permanent neutrality.
↓
1914–18
Neutral financial intermediary/safe haven.
↓
1930
BIS Basel.
↓
1939–45
Gold/franc/trade/transit/intelligence interface.
And this changes my view of what we should test in Hross
There's clearly a real historical architecture here.
But the earliest evidence presently points not toward a Templar financial state appearing suddenly in 1291, but toward something more organic:
Alpine trade corridor → political autonomy around strategic passes → international credit networks → mercenary economy → foreign pensions → accumulated capital → neutrality → international financial intermediation.
And here's the fascinating thing:
That doesn't necessarily destroy Hross's larger argument.
It gives us something much better to compare it against.
If Hross has evidence that the Templars inserted themselves into that pre-existing corridor, transferred movable capital there, or became connected with families that subsequently controlled the mercenary/pension/financial system, that's the evidence we now need from his older work.
Because we've reached the precise point where his thesis either acquires a documentary bridge or makes a leap.
And I think our next move should actually be back to Hross himself: locate his oldest Pharaoh Show / Zürich Files material where he lays out the 1291–1312 bridge, extract every name, family, castle, commandery, bank, document and date he cites, and run those individually against the medieval record.
That will tell us whether he really has fifteen years of missing evidence behind that 20-second statement—or whether the documentary chain actually stops where ours currently does.
Dr Hross chain - and now we can identify exactly where his argument is strong, where it is intriguing, and—most importantly—where the missing documentary bridge lies.
What Hross actually claimed from the beginning
Surviving copies of The Pharaoh Show go back to 2011–2012. This isn't something he recently added to his theory. His original argument was essentially:
Acre falls 18 May 1291 → surviving Templars return west → early-August 1291 Swiss pact → Templar treasure hidden in Switzerland → treasure becomes foundation of Swiss banking → Templar network evolves into later secret societies/Freemasonry. Free Voice Amadon
So you were right about something important: he has been pursuing essentially the same thesis for about fifteen years.
But now that we've isolated his original proposition, something very interesting happens when we check the chronology.
Acre → the treasure really did leave
Acre really fell on 18 May 1291. Contemporary accounts describe the catastrophic evacuation by sea, overwhelmingly toward Cyprus. Internet History Sourcebooks
More importantly, later accounts identify a specific Templar officer:
Thibaud/Theobald Gaudin.
And they say something remarkably close to part of Hross's story.
Gaudin escaped the final Templar fortress carrying the Templar treasury.
But the documented route is:
Acre
↓
Sidon
↓
Cyprus
—not Switzerland. War History Online
That's our first enormous clue.
Hross isn't inventing the premise that Templar treasure escaped Acre.
The problem is the next geographical jump.
We need:
Cyprus → ? → Switzerland
and I haven't found Hross's documentary evidence for that transfer yet.
There's also a serious problem with “1 August 1291”
This one really matters.
Hross's argument emphasizes:
18 May 1291 — Acre falls
then approximately 2½ months later:
1 August 1291 — Switzerland founded.
But Switzerland's own government says something more nuanced.
The charter itself does not say 1 August.
It says:
“at the beginning of August 1291.”
And the idea that this document constituted the “founding of Switzerland” is much later.
The Swiss government says the 1291 charter received practically no attention for centuries, was rediscovered in 1758, and only in the late nineteenth century became treated officially as Switzerland's founding document.
Even 1 August as National Day was a modern construction associated with the 1891 anniversary. Swiss Government
That seriously weakens the neat:
Acre May 18 → horseback journey → Switzerland August 1
chronology.
Because the medieval people involved in the 1291 pact weren't necessarily thinking:
Today we're founding Switzerland.
The charter itself says they're renewing an older agreement. Swiss Government
That's important contrary evidence.
But here's the twist
There were Templars already in what is now Switzerland before 1291.
They didn't need to ride there from Acre to establish a presence.
The Swiss Historical Dictionary documents:
La Chaux — Templars by 1223
Geneva/Rive — Templars by 1277.
So a Templar presence in Swiss territory before the Federal Charter is factual. hls-dhs-dss.ch
That changes the question.
Instead of asking:
Did Templars flee Acre and suddenly establish themselves in Switzerland in summer 1291?
we should ask:
Did the existing western Templar network provide a route through which personnel or movable wealth from the eastern Templar headquarters could eventually reach houses in the region?
That's historically much more plausible as a research question.
But we still need evidence that it actually happened.
And La Chaux gives us an unexpected contrary clue
The Templar commandery at La Chaux apparently wasn't overflowing with treasure.
The TU Dresden research database reports that in 1277 La Chaux actually sold land to the Franciscans to pay debts. TU Dresden
That's a useful piece of evidence because it works against the simplistic version of the theory.
If La Chaux suddenly received the fabulous Acre treasury after 1291, we'd want to see something change:
land purchases,
new construction,
debt retirement,
expanded lending,
political influence,
large donations,
or unexplained accumulation.
That's searchable.
Then 1307–1312 gives us another test
Philip IV of France moved against the Templars in 1307.
The order was formally suppressed in 1312.
What happened to the Swiss Templar property?
We actually know.
The Swiss Historical Dictionary says:
La Chaux → Hospitallers
and
Geneva Templar holdings → Hospitaller commandery at Compesières.
The transfer was completed locally around 1315. hls-dhs-dss.ch
So the visible real estate didn't disappear.
It went exactly where the papal disposition said Templar property was supposed to go.
That's another constraint on Hross's thesis.
But movable treasure is different
And this is where I don't want to make the opposite mistake.
Real estate leaves records:
castle → field → church → vineyard → rents → commandery.
Gold doesn't.
A chest of coins can move.
Jewels can move.
Bills of exchange can move.
Relationships can move.
People can move.
Credit obligations can move.
So proving that La Chaux passed to the Hospitallers doesn't prove that all Templar movable wealth did.
That's why Gaudin becomes so important.
We have an identifiable person reportedly carrying the treasury:
Thibaud Gaudin
Acre
↓
Sidon
↓
Cyprus
↓
becomes Templar Grand Master
↓
dies around 1292/93
Then:
Jacques de Molay
↓
becomes Grand Master
↓
attempts rebuilding Templar position in eastern Mediterranean
↓
Templars suppressed beginning 1307.
That's the money trail we need.
Forget symbols temporarily.
Where did Gaudin's treasury go?
And there's another important correction to Hross
Hross's presentation often sounds as though the Templars disappear immediately after Acre.
They didn't.
After Acre they still possessed major resources and bases.
They withdrew to Cyprus.
They retained Tortosa temporarily.
They retained Château Pèlerin until August 1291.
They later maintained the island fortress of Ruad/Arwad until 1302–03. War History Online
So:
1291 ≠ disappearance of the Templars.
There's another 16 years before Philip IV's arrests.
That matters enormously.
If their treasure secretly founded Switzerland in 1291, why was the Order still financing military operations, maintaining personnel and planning another crusading effort from Cyprus?
Not impossible.
But Hross's model has to account for it.
Now I can identify Hross's actual missing link
We've got:
DOCUMENTED
Acre falls
↓
Templar treasury escapes
↓
Gaudin carries it toward Sidon/Cyprus
↓
Templars continue operating from Cyprus
↓
Templars suppressed 1307–1312
↓
Swiss Templar real estate passes to Hospitallers
And independently:
DOCUMENTED
Templars in present Switzerland before 1291
↓
Alpine international trade already active
↓
Lombard banking network already present
↓
Uri/Schwyz political autonomy developing
↓
1291 alliance
↓
later Swiss mercenary/pension economy
↓
capital accumulation
↓
international Swiss banking
What we don't presently possess is:
MISSING
Acre/Cyprus treasury
↓
????
↓
Swiss financial network
That's it.
That's the bridge.
And I've looked specifically for the names
So far the surviving versions of Hross's early material I've located rely heavily on:
1291 chronology
Swiss/Templar flag resemblance
octagons
architecture
Templar/Freemason symbolic continuity
aristocratic/pharaonic genealogy
rather than presenting something like:
“Thibaud Gaudin transferred X marks of Templar silver to person Y at Basel in year Z.”
The surviving description of The Pharaoh Show actually makes the logical leap explicitly: Acre falls, the August pact follows, “so” the Templar treasure was hidden in Switzerland and used to found Swiss banks. Solok Mystic Traveler
That “so” is presently doing a huge amount of work.
But—and this is important—we still haven't watched/transcribed every surviving 90-minute/2-hour Hross presentation. So I am not concluding he never supplied further evidence.
One Hross avenue suddenly looks much more promising
Rather than Pharaohs, I would concentrate on his repeated word:
OCTOGON / OCTOGON
Because Hross doesn't seem to use “Octogon” merely to mean an eight-sided symbol.
He appears to use it as the name of an alleged network or organizational structure.
His old video archive contains titles specifically describing OCTOGON as ruling or operating through other organizations, and his later Swiss Beast material repeatedly returns to it. Google Sites
That suggests The Pharaoh Show may actually be the introductory symbolic argument, whereas his later Octogon material may contain the people/company/family trail we're looking for.
And there's a particularly tantalizing Hross thread involving Mallet / Mallet-Prévost that surfaced in searches, connecting his later research to Swiss families and Allen Dulles.
That's much closer to something we can test genealogically.
So we've made genuine progress
The research has now actually improved Hross's question while weakening one of his arguments.
The Templar presence in Switzerland before 1291 is real.
The Templar treasury escaping Acre is at least historically attested.
Swiss international finance eventually becomes extraordinarily important.
Swiss neutrality eventually becomes extraordinarily valuable.
But the famous 2½-month coincidence isn't nearly as strong as Hross presents it, because August 1 wasn't contemporaneously understood as Switzerland's “foundation day.” Swiss Government
So I wouldn't spend much more effort defending that date.
I'd pursue the money and people.
And the cleanest trail now is:
Gaudin → Cyprus Templar treasury → Jacques de Molay → suppression/assets 1307–1312 → Hospitallers/other recipients → Swiss commanderies/families → early Swiss banking families.
That is potentially answerable from records.
If we can get through that chain, we'll know whether there is actually a financial artery hiding underneath Hross's symbols—or whether the trail really does terminate in Cyprus.
Now we have something much better than the symbolic trail. Following the money itself produces a fairly coherent route—and so far it does not run through Switzerland.
1. Acre, 1291: there really was a Templar treasury
The underlying story is not folklore. The Templar tradition preserved in Les Gestes des Chiprois / Templar of Tyre identifies Thibaud Gaudin among the surviving senior officers, and later historical treatments describe him leaving Acre/Sidon with the Order's treasure or surviving valuables. The French National Archives places the fall of Acre in May 1291 and the Templar evacuation of Château-Pèlerin on 14 August. Archives nationales
The route we can presently substantiate is:
Acre → Sidon → Cyprus.
Not Acre → Switzerland.
And this makes chronological sense because the Order didn't cease operating in 1291. Cyprus became its operational centre, it retained personnel, estates, ships, weapons and supplies, and it continued planning military operations. Cultura
2. Gaudin dies—and the treasury remains inside a functioning Order
Gaudin dies in 1292. Jacques de Molay succeeds him.
This is crucial because Molay subsequently administers a substantial Templar establishment on Cyprus. The Order isn't behaving like an organization whose assets had secretly disappeared into a newly founded Switzerland.
It is still spending money.
It is trading.
It is provisioning.
It is acquiring property.
It is financing fortifications and military expeditions.
And Molay makes repeated trips into Europe seeking support for another eastern campaign. Cultura
So our working ledger currently says:
1291 Templar treasury
→ Gaudin
→ Cyprus
→ Templar organization under Molay
That part hangs together.
3. Then comes the really interesting transaction: 1306
This is the best thing I've found so far.
A scholarly study of the surviving Templar archives reports testimony given during the trials in June 1308 by the Templar priest Jean de Folliaco.
He said he had heard from another Templar, Guy Dauphin, that Jacques de Molay had taken from Cyprus in 1306:
150,000 gold florins
plus
ten pack-animal loads of gros tournois
and carried the money from Cyprus to France.
There was even an allegation that Molay subsequently divided money in Provence, possibly among relatives. Full Disclosure
Now—we have to put a large asterisk beside that.
The modern historians specifically warn that Jean de Folliaco was a renegade/informer and a highly dubious witness. So we absolutely cannot treat his allegation about what Molay ultimately did with the money as established fact. Full Disclosure
But the broad story that Molay brought an enormous treasury west is independently old and widespread.
An 1837 history gives:
60 knights + 150,000 gold florins + a large quantity of silver requiring twelve horses, carried from Cyprus to France. Project Gutenberg
The 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica likewise records Molay coming to France with 150,000 gold florins and ten horse-loads of silver. Wikisource
So there appears to be a historical tradition considerably stronger than Hross's Switzerland inference that a major Templar treasury actually moved:
Cyprus → France
around 1306–07.
4. And reportedly it goes to the Paris Temple
The traditional account becomes even more specific.
Molay arrives in France and deposits the treasure in the Temple in Paris. Project Gutenberg
That makes perfect institutional sense.
The Paris Temple wasn't some minor commandery.
It was already functioning as an enormous financial repository. Kings themselves used Templar facilities for treasury operations. The Templars extended loans to rulers and handled substantial deposits and transfers. Wikisource
So now compare the evidence:
Hross hypothesis
Acre treasure
→ Switzerland
→ Swiss banking
versus the trail we've actually found:
Documentary/historical trail
Acre
→ Sidon
→ Cyprus
→ Templar headquarters
→ Jacques de Molay
→ France
→ Paris Temple.
At present, the second chain is considerably better evidenced.
5. But then comes 13 October 1307
And now we reach the genuinely mysterious period.
Philip IV orders the Templars arrested.
The French National Archives gives the chronology very cleanly:
14 September 1307 — secret arrest order.
13 October 1307 — arrests throughout France.
1307–11 — interrogations/trials.
22 March 1312 — Vox in excelso suppresses the Order.
2 May 1312 — Ad providam assigns Templar property to the Hospitallers.
1314 — Molay executed. Archives nationales
This is the period where the legendary “missing Templar treasure” problem really belongs.
Not necessarily summer 1291.
The stronger question is:
What happened to all the movable Templar assets immediately before and during 1307–1312?
That's a much better historical problem.
6. Now look at Switzerland during precisely that period
Here's where our second ledger becomes extremely useful.
The Templar houses in present Switzerland weren't invisible.
The Swiss Historical Dictionary identifies them:
La Chaux
Geneva/Rive
plus subordinate properties including Cologny, Bénex and Entremont.
And importantly they belonged administratively to the Burgundy bailiwick within the Province of France. hls-dhs-dss.ch
So there is an institutional connection:
France/Burgundy Templar network
↕
Genevois / present Swiss territory
That's more interesting than merely saying “Templars existed in Switzerland.”
7. We can actually name one of the men
A charter from 1277 identifies:
Étienne de Montferrand
as preceptor of the Templar houses of Dôle and the Genevois.
That's exactly the kind of person we've been looking for.
And the surviving charter records him selling three parcels for 50 livres viennoises, with the money specifically intended to settle debts of the Templar house of La Chaux. Telma
So immediately before 1291:
named administrator: Montferrand
regional network: Dôle ↔ Genevois
transaction: land sale
cash: 50 livres
purpose: debt payment.
That's real transactional history.
And it does not depict La Chaux as some giant secret treasury.
Quite the opposite.
8. Then we can watch the Swiss property after suppression
The Hospitallers already had their own establishment at Compesières near Geneva from around 1270.
After suppression of the Templars, Compesières inherited Templar possessions throughout the Genevois and Pays de Vaud. hls-dhs-dss.ch
La Chaux likewise became Hospitaller property, apparently in 1315. La Chaux
So again:
Templar real estate
→ not missing
→ Hospitallers.
9. And this is even stronger than I initially realized
I found archival scholarship describing the mechanics of the transfer.
In November 1312, officials were ordered to surrender former Templar goods to Hospitaller authorities.
Then a 5 May 1313 instrument instructed commissioners responsible for former Templar property to deliver to the Hospitaller Grand Prior, against receipt:
titles
privileges
money
effects
that he required. E-Periodica
That's excellent evidence.
Because earlier we had wondered:
Maybe the land went to the Hospitallers but the movable wealth vanished.
At least in this regional transfer, the administrative order explicitly includes money and movable effects.
That doesn't prove every coin was delivered.
But it proves the official transfer machinery wasn't limited to dirt and buildings.
10. Now something else caught my attention
Look again at the alleged 1306 treasury movement.
Molay supposedly moves:
Cyprus → France
and allegedly reaches Provence before the money reaches or is dealt with in France. Full Disclosure
Now look geographically.
Southern France / Provence
↓
Savoy / Burgundy
↓
Genevois
↓
La Chaux
↓
Swiss Plateau.
There was a Templar institutional network capable of moving men, correspondence and resources through this general region.
So a movement into what becomes Switzerland isn't geographically absurd.
But geography isn't evidence.
We still need:
person + transaction + destination.
11. And there is an unexpected Spanish lead
The scholarly source on the Templar archives points somewhere else after 1291.
Beginning in 1294, the Templars spent heavily building the enormous castle at Peñíscola in Valencia and acquiring other property.
Molay himself was with King James II of Aragon in Lleida on 27 August 1294 arranging Templar rights and exchanges connected with these acquisitions. Scribd
That means part of the post-Acre capital may actually have been going:
Cyprus
→ Catalonia/Aragon
→ Peñíscola
rather than Switzerland.
Again, that's traceable spending.
And this is exactly why following transactions is superior to following symbols.
So let's freeze the evidence right here
We now have three different categories.
Proposition Current status
Templar treasury escaped Acre Strongly supported
Treasury went Acre → Sidon/Cyprus Strongly supported
Templars remained financially active after 1291 Established
Molay transported a very large treasury west c.1306–07 Substantial historical support; exact amount/source needs caution
Route was Cyprus → France Supported
Large post-Acre Templar investment occurred in Aragon/Valencia Documented
Templars had houses in present Switzerland Established
Swiss houses connected administratively with Burgundy/France Established
Swiss Templar property passed to Hospitallers Established
Transfer machinery included money/effects as well as titles/property Documented regionally
Acre treasury went to Switzerland in 1291 Not established
Templar treasure founded Swiss banking Not established
Individual Templars/movable assets escaped into Swiss networks after 1307 Still open
And that last line is now the one I want.
Because Hross may simply have the wrong date for the interesting event.
If there was a Templar flight into protected Alpine jurisdictions, the period I'd investigate hardest is no longer:
May → August 1291.
It's:
1306 → 1315
Molay brings a huge treasury west.
1307 arrests begin.
Templar assets and personnel scatter across jurisdictions.
1312 Order suppressed.
1312–15 assets redistributed.
And meanwhile the embryonic Swiss Confederacy is sitting immediately adjacent to Burgundy, Savoy, Habsburg territory and the Genevois.
That is where we should look for fugitives, unexplained transfers, family names and capital movements.
If Hross has a genuine bridge buried in his research, I increasingly suspect that's where it will be—not in the famous 1291 coincidence.
I concentrated on 1306–1315, and we can now tighten several things substantially.
The first correction: our “150,000 florins” isn't a fact yet
The underlying evidence is a June 1308 trial deposition by the Templar priest Jean de Folliaco. He said he had heard from another Templar, Guy Dauphin, that Jacques de Molay had taken 150,000 gold florins and ten pack-animal loads of gros tournois from Cyprus to France in 1306, and supposedly divided money after reaching Provence. Full Disclosure
That's therefore:
Guy Dauphin allegedly knows something
→ tells Jean de Folliaco
→ Folliaco testifies during the Templar prosecution.
That is hearsay contained in hostile judicial proceedings. It may contain genuine information, but we absolutely shouldn't upgrade it to “Molay definitely transported 150,000 florins.”
And the trial records themselves have serious evidentiary problems: coercion and violence are demonstrably involved in portions of the proceedings. ResearchGate
So freeze this as:
1306 Cyprus → France treasury movement: CONTEMPORARY ALLEGATION, NOT ESTABLISHED TRANSACTION.
That's already better than what I told you previously.
Now the Swiss side gets much stronger
We have a 1277 charter, not someone's theory.
On 6 June 1277, Étienne de Montferrand, identified as preceptor of the Templar houses of Dôle and the Genevois, sold three parcels belonging to the Geneva Temple house to the Franciscans.
Price:
50 livres viennoises cash + annual rent of 25 sous.
And the document says the 50 livres were being used particularly to pay the debts of the Templar house at La Chaux. Telma
Better still, the act identifies the regional Templar personnel:
Étienne de Montferrand — Dôle/Genevois
Pierre d'Orchans — Geneva
Guillaume — Cologny
Hugues de Chenchiz — Maconnay
Jean de Baugé — Entremont
Pierre de Besançon — La Chaux
Pierre de Villars — Venay. Digi-Archives
Now we're doing actual network analysis rather than looking at Maltese crosses.
And 1312–1315 gives us something excellent
In the territories surrounding Geneva, the post-suppression administrative documents survive.
On 5 November 1312, the judge of the land of Baugé, acting for the Count of Savoy, ordered former Templar property in the region handed to the Hospitaller commander of Épaisse.
Then comes the document I really like:
5 May 1313
Commissioners who had been placed:
in custody and government of the former goods of the Temple
were ordered to deliver, against receipt, to the Hospitaller Grand Prior of Auvergne the relevant:
titles
privileges
money
effects.
And the source specifically says the Genevois commandery depended upon that Grand Priory. E-Periodica
Then on 30 January 1314 there is another agreement between the Grand Priors of France and Auvergne concerning division of the former Templar houses. E-Periodica
This is starting to look like a paper trail.
And then we get an actual 1315 La Chaux document
This one is particularly useful because it's not someone writing centuries later that “La Chaux became Hospitaller.”
There's a surviving December 1315 act.
It identifies:
Frère Guillaume de Pierrafeux
as:
commander in the Pays de Vaud of the houses of the Order of St John of Jerusalem formerly of the Templars.
He's in a dispute with the inhabitants of La Chaux over agricultural labour obligations and transporting wine. Louis, lord of Cossonay, arbitrates it. Société d'histoire de la Suisse romande
That's beautiful evidence because it establishes directly:
Templar estate
→ suppression
→ Hospitaller administration
→ identifiable Hospitaller commander
→ continuing feudal revenue/obligations.
No historian needs to explain that transition to us. The document does it.
But here's the strange part
The transfer record in the Savoy/Genevois region says:
titles + privileges + money + effects
were to be surrendered against receipt. E-Periodica
That creates an obvious research question:
Where are the receipts?
Because if they survive, we potentially get an inventory.
And an inventory could tell us:
what cash existed
what debts existed
what movable property existed
what documents existed
what disappeared
what actually reached the Hospitallers.
That would be infinitely more useful than asking whether some Swiss church has an octagonal floor.
Another interesting result: apparently no bloodbath in Savoy
The archival study says:
no memory survives of executions or violence in Savoy
connected with the Templar suppression, and that the Hospitallers were invested with Templar possessions there in 1313. E-Periodica
That immediately raises another question.
What happened to the Templar brothers themselves?
Property transfer is one ledger.
Personnel is another.
If nobody massacred them locally, possibilities include:
arrest → release/penance
transfer into another religious order
secularization
flight
continued residence
absorption into Hospitaller structures.
That's where a hidden continuity, if there was one, becomes much more plausible than “the entire order vanished.”
And notice where this puts Hross
His 1291 connection is presently weak:
Acre falls → Switzerland founded → therefore treasure went there
doesn't have a transactional bridge.
But a modified proposition around 1307–1315 is considerably more interesting:
Templar regional network already exists
↓
Geneva / La Chaux / Dôle / Genevois connected
↓
French arrests begin 1307
↓
Templar order suppressed 1312
↓
Savoy/Genevois Templar property placed under custodial administration
↓
money, effects, titles and privileges ordered transferred
↓
Hospitallers administering former Templar houses by 1315
That is all documentable.
The unresolved variable is:
THE PEOPLE
And this is precisely where I'd go next.
Not “where did the Templars go?” generically.
We now have names.
I'd take the seven men in that 1277 charter—particularly Montferrand, d'Orchans, Baugé, Besançon and Villars—and trace those surnames/families forward through 1307–1350.
At the same time, trace Guillaume de Pierrafeux, the Hospitaller who appears administering the former Templar houses in 1315.
The killer discovery would be something like:
1277 Templar officer/family X → 1315 Hospitaller/Swiss office → descendants/relatives in cantonal government → later merchant/banking family.
Or alternatively we'll find that the personnel completely changes.
Either result answers the question.
And this time I want to keep the peer-reviewed interpretation out of the driver's seat. We'll use the names in the actual charters as our search keys and build the genealogy outward from the documents.
Let's freeze the period we've been examining—roughly 1220–1315—and put Hross's claims directly beside what our documentary trail actually gives us. Importantly, “our data” below means evidence we've located; it does not mean I am declaring every secondary interpretation correct.
1. HROSS: The Templars had a connection to the territory that became Switzerland.
DATA: YES — ESTABLISHED. Templar commanderies existed at La Chaux by 1223 and Geneva/Rive by 1277, with dependent houses at Cologny, Bénex and Entremont. They belonged to the Burgundy bailiwick within the Templar Province of France. hls-dhs-dss.ch
Verdict: Supported, although this alone does not establish control of the Confederacy.
2. HROSS: The last Templar stronghold at Acre fell on 18 May 1291.
DATA: YES. This date is historically well established.
Verdict: Supported.
3. HROSS: Switzerland was founded on 1 August 1291.
DATA: PARTLY / IMPORTANT QUALIFICATION. The surviving charter says “at the beginning of August 1291,” not specifically 1 August. It also describes itself as confirming/renewing an older agreement. The modern treatment of this charter as Switzerland's founding instrument, and 1 August as National Day, arose centuries later. Swiss Government
Verdict: The chronological proximity is real; “Switzerland was founded August 1” is a later simplification.
4. HROSS: The approximately 2½ months between Acre and the Swiss pact represents the time required for Templars to return on horseback.
DATA: NO DOCUMENT FOUND ESTABLISHING THIS. Hross explicitly makes this argument in his early Pharaoh Show. Free Voice Amadon
Verdict: Inference, not demonstrated transaction.
5. HROSS: Templars fleeing Acre went to Switzerland.
DATA: NOT YET ESTABLISHED. The trail we've found for the eastern Templar organization goes initially Acre → Sidon/Cyprus, where the Order continued functioning.
Verdict: Possible proposition requiring evidence; no Acre → Switzerland document found.
6. HROSS: The Templar treasure was taken to/hid in Switzerland.
DATA: NOT ESTABLISHED. Hross explicitly says this. Rumble Our investigation found traditions/testimony concerning substantial Templar treasure movements, but so far the route points toward Cyprus and later France, not Switzerland.
Verdict: This is presently the major missing link.
7. HROSS: The Templar treasure founded Swiss banking.
DATA: NOT ESTABLISHED—and we have significant contrary chronology. Financial activity already existed in the region before 1291, including Lombard moneylenders/exchangers. More specifically, the local Templar evidence doesn't presently reveal sudden wealth after 1291.
Verdict: No documentary bridge yet between Templar treasury and Swiss banking.
8. HROSS: Switzerland was essentially a Templar base/home.
DATA: TOO STRONG based on what we've found. The documented Templar presence is real, but the Swiss Historical Dictionary identifies only two commanderies in present Swiss territory, subordinate to Burgundy/France. hls-dhs-dss.ch
Verdict: Templar presence: yes. Switzerland as central Templar headquarters: not demonstrated.
9. HROSS: There was an established Templar network in the region before 1291.
DATA: ABSOLUTELY. This is stronger than merely saying two buildings existed. The 1277 charter identifies Étienne de Montferrand as preceptor of the houses of Dôle and Genevois and records subordinate Templar officials participating in an actual property transaction. Telma
Verdict: Strongly supported.
10. HROSS: Templars were financially active in the Swiss/Genevois region.
DATA: YES. The 6 June 1277 charter records a sale of Templar land for 50 livres viennoises cash plus an annual 25-sous payment. Telma
Verdict: Supported.
11. But that same transaction shows the local Templars possessed enormous hidden capital.
DATA: ACTUALLY POINTS THE OTHER WAY. The charter says the 50 livres were to help settle debts of the Templar house at La Chaux. Telma
Verdict: Contrary evidence to an already-rich Swiss Templar treasury before 1291.
12. HROSS: Something important happened to Templar wealth following suppression.
DATA: YES, but the visible property didn't disappear. Following suppression in 1312, La Chaux became Hospitaller and Geneva's Templar possessions passed to the Hospitallers at Compesières. hls-dhs-dss.ch La Chaux is specifically recorded as passing to the Knights of St John in 1315. hls-dhs-dss.ch
Verdict: The institutional property trail is visible.
13. Possible hidden Templar assets escaped the official transfer.
DATA: OPEN QUESTION. The existence of an official property transfer does not establish that every coin, document, debt instrument or movable asset was actually surrendered. But neither have we found evidence showing such assets entering the Swiss Confederacy.
Verdict: Open—not proved either way.
14. HROSS: Templar personnel survived/reappeared under another structure.
DATA: POSSIBLE GENERALLY; SWISS CONTINUITY NOT YET SHOWN. We have institutional succession from Templar property → Hospitallers, but we haven't yet demonstrated that particular Swiss-region Templar brothers simply changed organizational identities.
Verdict: Needs individual personnel records.
15. HROSS: Templars became Freemasons.
DATA: NOT ESTABLISHED BY THIS PERIOD'S DOCUMENTS. Hross explicitly makes this claim. Free Voice Amadon Nothing we've found from 1220–1315 establishes Templar → Freemason institutional continuity.
Verdict: Later historical proposition; cannot be demonstrated from our current evidence.
16. HROSS: Swiss flag is essentially a simplified Templar flag.
DATA: SYMBOLIC COMPARISON, NOT TRANSACTIONAL EVIDENCE. Hross explicitly uses the colour/design resemblance as evidence. Rumble
Verdict: Observation/inference. It doesn't establish institutional descent by itself.
17. HROSS: Templar/elite continuity eventually develops into the system he calls “Octogon.”
DATA: NOT TESTED BY 1220–1315 MATERIAL. His later material explicitly calls Switzerland “Octogon” and describes a Templar foundation. Rumble
Verdict: Requires a much longer chain of evidence.
18. HROSS: Switzerland's later financial role is connected to this medieval foundation.
DATA: HALF OF THIS IS VERY INTERESTING. Our separate investigation has established a long-running Swiss intermediary architecture—foreign pensions, mercenary money, accumulating capital, international banking, neutrality, WWI safe-haven functions, BIS, WWII gold/franc/transit functions. What we have not established is the first connector:
Templar capital → that later Swiss architecture.
Verdict: Later architecture real; Templar origin not yet demonstrated.
19. OUR DATA: the economic geography predates both Hross's 1291 event and the Templar suppression.
Alpine transit, growing autonomy of Uri/Schwyz and international money-changing/lending were already developing in the thirteenth century.
Significance: There is an alternative mechanism for Switzerland's development that doesn't require Templar treasure.
20. OUR DATA: the Templar connection nevertheless cannot simply be dismissed as “there were never Templars in Switzerland.”
That would be factually wrong. They were there before 1291, owned property, conducted financial/property transactions and were organizationally connected through Burgundy to the Province of France. Telma
Significance: Hross begins with a genuine historical connection and then makes a much larger inference from it.
So the scorecard for 1220–1315
Hross is solid on: Templars existing in Swiss territory; Acre falling shortly before the 1291 charter; a real Templar regional network; Templar financial/property activity.
Our evidence actually strengthens him on: the Templar presence wasn't merely symbolic—there are named administrators, commanderies, land, debts, cash transactions and an organizational connection into Burgundy/France.
Our evidence weakens him on: treating 1 August 1291 as a literal contemporary “founding day”; assuming the Acre refugees immediately went to Switzerland; and assuming the local Swiss Templar establishments suddenly possessed the Acre treasury.
And the giant unresolved claim remains beautifully simple:
Acre/Cyprus Templar wealth → [MISSING DOCUMENTARY BRIDGE] → Swiss capital
That's the one we shouldn't allow either Hross or conventional historians to hand-wave. If we can fill that box, the entire picture changes. If we can't, then the Templar-origin portion of his model remains an inference sitting on top of a surprisingly real surrounding historical structure.
The AI is interesting but unfortunately this is murky history. I know from my own legal research into the true nature of Admiralty jurisdiction overlaid across the land, That AI lies constantly when you are over the target. So I'd highly recommend the G.I.U.R.E.H youtube channel., run by Dr. Sean Hross. He has done a lot of interesting research on scum in Switzerland.
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