History of Switzerland
Switzerland's most important exports during the war were precision machine tools, watches, jewel bearings (used in bombsights), electricity, and dairy products. During World War Two, the Swiss franc was the only remaining major freely convertible currency in the world, and both the Allies and the Germans sold large amounts of gold to the Swiss National Bank. Between 1940 and 1945, the German Reichsbank sold 1.3 billion francs worth of gold to Swiss Banks in exchange for Swiss francs and other foreign currency.
Swiss National Bank
The Nationalbank made an announcement on 6 September 2011, of its intention to address changes in the value of the Swiss Franc to the Euro. More specifically, that it wanted the value of the Franc to fall below 1.2 to the Euro. A cap was placed on exchange-rates in order to take measures to stem the development of a possible recession. The bank stated the 1.2 exchange value was defendable as the bank could potentially proceed to mint enough banknotes to control the rate sufficiently. The bank announced on January 15, 2015 the Euro currency arrangement would end as the Euro crisis had passed and the Europeans would be making financial policy changes.