'Safehaven' was an Allied operation designed to capture fleeing members of the German leadership and to seize German assets held abroad (December 1944/1948).

'Safehaven' was directed largely against a perceived post-war German problem and, with the decline of Nazi influence and a major thaw in Allied attitudes toward Germany in the period after the end of the war, was focused on a search for German assets secreted abroad during the war and on efforts to persuade or force neutral countries to surrender these assets to the USA, UK and suitable humanitarian organisations.

The US Department of the Treasury’s Foreign Funds Control Division and key officials were the prime sponsors of 'Safehaven'. Some of the US discussions and debates about it were shaped by familiar polarities, such as Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau’s 'plan' to reduce if not actually eliminate German industrial potential, and the Department of State’s opposition to it. The wartime Foreign Economic Administration and even the Office of Strategic Services also championed strong measures. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was sympathetic to those advocating determined action. An inter-departmental committee in Washington never functioned adequately, and interagency relationships in key field stations such as Stockholm were little better.

At the Potsdam Conference of July and August 1945, 'Safehaven' programmes became a critical part of a grand bargain whereby the USSR gained approval of most of its shorter-term demands for reparations, including Germany’s external assets in the Far East. The Western powers contented themselves with shares of Germany’s external assets in Western Europe and the USA. Legal issues were smoothed by making the Allied Control Council the legal successor to the German government, a step that did not forestall West German objections after 1949. The failure and ultimate dissolution of the Allied Control Council late in the 1940s and during the 1950s did not change the bargain.

The long, slow process of negotiating with neutral countries was marked by different views of what was really German, different conceptions of what was appropriate behaviour during the war, and different standards about international law. In the end, the Western Allies received only a share of what they claimed, and neutral governments and private interests there earned some benefits.