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The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), a sovereign financial institution in Basel, Switzerland, was created after WWI to manage German war reparations. Founded by central bankers like Montagu Norman of the Bank of England and Hjalmar Schacht of the German Reichsbank, the BIS was granted unprecedented legal immunities via the 1930 Hague Convention, making it exempt from taxes and its assets immune from seizure, even in wartime. After the Great Depression rendered its original purpose moot, it became a secretive club for central bankers.