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Press TV has conducted an interview with Chris Bambery, political commentator from London, about the claim that the Bank of England helped the Nazis sell gold stolen from Czechoslovakia during WWII. Bank records were revealed just two days ago.

- Well, I guess better late than never. It just took, what, a couple of decades a bit more than that actually, for this revelation. Tell us the significance?

- The significance is actually very, very important because in March 1939, the Nazis, Adolf Hitler marched into what remained of the Czech state and seized it, annexed it.

So he was attempting to take it over by force - something that the British had opposed and was committed in opposing, but did nothing about.

It not only did nothing to stand by its pact with the Czech Republic, but it then as we’ve discovered, sold off its gold despite the fact that actually Britain was supposed to be protecting the gold and economic assets of the Czech Republic.

What I think the wider importance of this is, is that this wasn’t just some maverick decision by the governor of the Bank of England at the time. This reflected - and the British historians and the British ruling class want to forget this desperately - that up until September 1939 the main policy of the British ruling class was to appease Adolf Hitler by any means necessary including handing over large chunks of European territory - Austria, Czechoslovakia etc, to the Germans.

And the British government under the prime minister then Neville Chamberlain, a Tory prime minister, went out of his way of pursuing a policy appeasing Adolf Hitler in the hope that Adolf Hitler would go to war with Russia rather than direct its fire against Britain.

And that was the overwhelming policy of the British ruling class so much so that Neville Chamberlain was fated and … eventually during the second world war in May 1940 when Neville Chamberlain had to stand down because he basically refused to fight the Germans and Winston Churchill was appointed Prime Minster in the coalition government - a majority of the Tory Party, the dominant party in the House of Parliament, refused to support Churchill and continued to support a policy of appeasement.

And many Tories even in May of 1940 when German tanks were facing the white cliffs of Dover from northern France, wanted peace with Adolf Hitler. All this of course has been forgotten in the rhetoric of Britain’s finest hour; that we all stood together against fascism.

So it’s an embarrassment to the British ruling class about how deep and how heavy the policy of appeasing Adolf Hitler was in the late 1930s. And all sections of the British ruling class from the King and Queen down supported that policy.

It was only a minority of people, the Tory maverick Winston Churchill and some others who opposed it. So, yes it is very embarrassing.

And this was the Bank of England selling stolen gold essentially.