Introduction

The Second World War is one of the most important periods of (modern) human history. That war showed how humans can be cruel to each other and helped us understand that evil is unfortunately an integral part of our nature, with limits well beyond the ones we imagined. Despite the depth and complexity of the World War II true causes, many people have unfortunately a very simple picture for WWII: Hitler was the bad guy and all the others were the good guys trying to stop him. Could that be true?

Unfortunately things are not so simple even in fairy tales. The truth is much more complicated. In fact, many industrialists from all over the world, especially from countries that were at war with the Third Reich (e.g. USA), helped Germany and Adolf Hitler both prior and during (!) the War. The biggest companies in USA were willing to give more to Germany than to their own country during the war! And the greatest German industrialists were practically left untouchable after the war despite of being found guilty by court of laws for crimes. Money does not care if you are German or American, money is money…

Neutral countries trading with Adolf Hitler

Many countries that labeled themselves as “neutral” were actually helping the Third Reich in a number of ways. The two more striking examples were Sweden and Switzerland.

Sweden helped Hitler get money when no one would give him, by granting him loans. What is more, many times Sweden has played a key role in helping the Third Reich conduct economical transactions that would be impossible to conduct via the normal international channels of banking, since all those channels were closed for Germany at the time [1] [2]. There are many examples of how Sweden was a rich post-war country partly due to its wartime actions. Sweden’s “neutral” role included transit shipments of German troops through Sweden to Norway and Finland, iron ore exports to Germany, Swedish censorship and other examples showing that Swedish neutrality amounted to support for the Germans [3] [9].

In the same manner, Switzerland played a more than vital role in the exploitation of Nazi economic assets. Much of the Hitler’s regime money and wealth were moved to Swiss banks so as to be used in monetary transactions all over the world, even with US companies that are to be discussed in the next chapter. Bibliography also mentions the transfer of Nazi money from Swiss banks to the Vatican bank – the only bank that cannot be audited – and from there to South America [4] [5].

During the WWII no one of these so called “neutral” countries bother to protest against the crimes committed by Germany in Europe, out of fear not to lose their economic ally. And now, after the last remaining people who have lived during WWII have passed away, these countries present themselfs as “models” of governance…”No comments” is the best choice of words…

Unfortunately there are more than enough resources to back up such statements as the ones mentioned above. I cannot be the judge for all these claims in favor or against countries or churches, I just try to present here the data (along with sources) and leave the burden of drawing a final conclusion to the reader.

US industrialists support the Third Reich

Many great American companies were doing business with the Third Reich not only before but also during the Second World War and while their country was attacked by the Reich. These companies were not just some small companies trying to make profit, but the largest corporations in America. A small summary of these corporations include IBM, GM, Ford, Alcoa, Du Pont and Standard Oil.

The well known software company IBM was the company which provided Hitler with the technical means to catalogue Jews population and organize the “Final Solution”, i.e. the killing of millions of people [http://news.cnet.com/2009-1082-269157.html] [6]. Why Allies claimed complete ignorance on what happened to the millions of Jews in Europe during the War, or why they were “astounded” to discover the death camps after the war was over is a “mystery” never to be solved… One can read more on that in the book “IBM and the Holocauast” by writer Edwin Black. [ref. 9]

The GM and Ford companies had subsidiaries and conducted business with the Third Reich well before the Second World War started. Nothing weird…except when one finds out that they continued doing very profitable business with the Fuhrer even during the war…In fact US motor companies had factories in German soil and utilized forced labor to produce vehicles that they were sold to Nazi army [7]. GM’s participation in Germany’s preparation for war began in 1935 (note: GM was owned by Du Pont at the time). That year its Opel subsidiary cooperated with the Reich in locating a new heavy truck facility at Brandenburg, which military officials advised would be less vulnerable to enemy air attacks. During the succeeding years, GM supplied the Wehrmact with Opel “Blitz” trucks from the Brandenburg complex. For these and other contributions to [the Nazis] wartime preparations, GM’s chief executive for overseas operations [James Mooney] was awarded the Order of the German Eagle (first class) by Adolf Hitler [8]. It seems that hard work pays off after all…

Alcoa on the other hand, also did business with the Reich at a grand scale. “Thurman Arnold, as assistant district attorney of the United States, his assistant, Norman Littell, and several Congressional investigations, have produced incontrovertible evidence that some of our biggest monopolies entered into secret agreements with the Nazi cartels and divided the world up among them,” states Seldes in his book, “Facts and Fascism,” published in 1943. “Most notorious of all was Alcoa, the Mellon-Davis-Duke monopoly which is largely responsible for the fact America did not have the aluminum with which to build airplanes before and after Pearl Harbor, while Germany had an unlimited supply.” [13].

Alcoa sabotage of American war production had already cost the U.S. “10,000 fighters or 1,665 bombers,” according to Congressman Pierce of Oregon speaking in May 1941, because of “the effort to protect Alcoa’s monopolistic position. . .” [13]. “If America loses this war,” said Secretary of the Interior [Harold] Ickes, June 26, 1941, “it can thank the Aluminum Corporation of America”.

“By its cartel agreement with I.G. Farben, controlled by Hitler,” writes Seldes, “Alcoa sabotaged the aluminum program of the U.S. air force. The Truman Committee [on National Defense, chaired by then-Senator Harry S. Truman in 1942] heard testimony that Alcoa’s representative, A.H. Bunker, $1-a-year head of the aluminum section of O.P.M., prevented work on our $600,000,000 aluminum expansion program.” [8] [13].

Du Pont-GM Nazi collaboration included the participation of Standard Oil of New Jersey [now Exxon] in one, very important arrangement. GM and Standard Oil of New Jersey formed a joint subsidiary with the giant Nazi chemical cartel, I.G. Farben, named Ethyl G.m.b.H. [now Ethyl, Inc.] which provided the mechanized German armies with synthetic tetraethyl fuel [leaded gas]. During 1936-39, at the urgent request of Nazi officials who realized that Germany’s scarce petroleum reserves would not satisfy war demands, GM and Exxon joined with German chemical interests in the erection of the lead-tetraethyl plants. According to captured German records, these facilities contributed substantially to the German war effort: “The fact that since the beginning of the war we could produce lead-tetraethyl is entirely due to the circumstances that, shortly before, the Americans [Du Pont, GM, Standard Oil] had presented us with the production plants complete with experimental knowledge. Without lead-tetraethyl the present method of warfare would be unthinkable.” [12] [13]. Research for a good cause pays off…Who cared if US was at war with Germany?

The plot to create a “Hitler” in USA

At about the same time the Du Ponts were serving the Nazi cause in Germany, they were involved in a Fascist plot to overthrow the United States government.

“Along with friends of the Morgan Bank and General Motors,” in early 1934, writes Higham, “certain Du Pont backers financed a coup d’etat that would overthrow the President with the aid of a $3 million-funded army of terrorists”. The object was to force Roosevelt “to take orders from businessmen as part of a fascist government or face the alternative of imprisonment and execution”.
Higham reports that “Du Pont men allegedly held an urgent series of meetings with the Morgans,” to choose who would lead this “bizarre conspiracy.” “They finally settled on one of the most popular soldiers in America, General Smedly Butler of Pennsylvania.” Butler was approached by “fascist attorney” Gerald MacGuire (an official of the American Legion), who attempted to recruit Butler into the role of an American Hitler.

“Butler was horrified,” but played along with MacGuire until, a short time later, he notified the White House of the plot. Roosevelt considered having “the leaders of the houses of Morgan and Du Pont” arrested, but feared that “it would create an unthinkable national crisis in the midst of a depression and perhaps another Wall Street crash”. Roosevelt decided the best way to defuse the plot was to expose it, and leaked the story to the press. “The newspapers ran the story of the attempted coup on the front page, but generally ridiculed it as absurd and preposterous.” But an investigation by the Congressional Committee on Un-American Activities – 74th Congress, first session, House of Representatives, Investigation of Nazi and other propaganda – was begun later that same year.
“It was four years,” continues Higham, “before the committee dared to publish its report in a white paper that was marked for ‘restricted circulation’. They were forced to admit that ‘certain persons made an attempt to establish a fascist organization in this country . . . [The] committee was able to verify all the pertinent statements made by General Butler.’ This admission that the entire plan was deadly in intent was not accompanied by the imprisonment of anybody. Further investigations disclosed that over a million people had been guaranteed to join the scheme and that the arms and munitions necessary would have been supplied by Remington, a Du Pont subsidiary.”

The names of important individuals and groups involved in the conspiracy were suppressed by the committee, but later revealed by Seldes, Philadelphia Record reporter Paul French, and Jules Archer, author of the book, “The Plot to Seize the White House”. Included were John W. Davis (attorney for the J.P. Morgan banking group), Robert Sterling Clark (Wall Street broker and heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune), William Doyle (American Legion official), and the American Liberty League (backed by executives from J.P. Morgan and Co., Rockefeller interests, E.F. Hutton, and Du Pontcontrolled General Motors).  [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

The BBC online precis for their documentary program The Whitehouse Coup, says “The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression”.

In that documentary, conspiracy theorist John Buchanan said, “The investigations mysteriously turned to vapor when it comes time to call them to testify. FDR’s main interest was getting the New Deal passed, and so he struck a deal in which it was agreed that the plotters would walk free if Wall Street would back off of their opposition to the New Deal and let FDR do what he wanted”. [6]

German companies during and after WWII

A number of German chemical companies joined together during World War I; in 1925 these companies merged into a single corporation known as I.G. Farben. The corporation lined up with Hitler when he became chancellor, and although I.G.’s head Carl Bosch, a vocal anti-Nazi, pushed the industrial need for Jewish scientists before his death in 1940, I.G. led the industrial preparation for war. During the war, I.G.’s industrial complex built at Auschwitz, to exploit the supply of death camp labor for the production of synthethic rubber and oil, was so enormous that the complex used as much electricity as the city of Berlin. I.G. also made money from the sale of Zyklon B used in the gas chambers [10]. The Nuremberg trial of industrial war criminals held by the Americans in May 1947, ended in May 1948. Twenty-four I.G. executives were indicted and charged with five counts including “slavery and mass murder”. Although the court did convict the defendants most directly involved in the Aushwitz labor camp, Josiah E. DuBois, chief of the prosecution staff for the I.G. case, vowed to write a book about the Farben cartel when the court passed down sentences “light enough to please a chicken thief”. [11].

A special point must be noted here. There is nothing wrong with the fact that all major German companies produced materials to be used during war from the Third Reich army. That is not something to be criticized, since it is more than natural to sell goods and get money in return. That is what companies do all over the world! Things however get a little bit more complicated when we understand that these companies produced goods they knew that they would be used in criminal actions (e.g. the killing of prisoners in death camps) or when they used slave labor in their factories.

That is why these companies were held to trial after the war ended. The most well known of these trials include the “Krupp trial” and the “I.G. Farben trial”. In the Krupp Trial, twelve former directors of the Krupp Group were accused of having enabled the armament of the German military forces and thus having actively participated in the Nazis’ preparations for an aggressive war, and also for having used slave laborers in their companies. The main defendant was Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, CEO of the Krupp Holding since 1943 and son of Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach who had been a defendant in the main Trial of the Major War Criminals before the IMT (where he was considered medically unfit for trial). Indeed the Krupp holding did flourish under the Nazi regime. According to conservative estimates, the Krupp enterprises used nearly 100,000 persons in the forced labor program, about 23,000 (23%) of these were prisoners of war [14].

All eleven defendants found guilty were convicted on the forced labor charge (count 3), and of the ten charged on count 2 (economic spoliation), six were convicted. On January 31, 1951, i.e. two and a half years after the sentences, ten-with the exception of Löser-were released from prison.

What is of great interest though is the fate of the Krupp corporation. Even though any company could buy the Krupp Holding after the convictions, no one was ever found! In other words: No US or European corporation would like to do harm to their “friend” and “true ally” Krupp by taking over of his company. Since no buyer for the Krupp Holding had been found, Alfried Krupp resumed control of the firm in 1953. As simple as that…

Interesting note: The 80% of houses in Germany were destroyed by bombings. But factory production was reduced only by 20% (and this mainly due to problems in transportation so as to get raw materials)… In the wrecked Berlin, the Allies chose as their headquarters the I.G. Farben factory, which was left unharmed by the bombardments. (source)

The new Reich was planned?

It could be scenario for a good film, but it is more than that. It is reality… The US Military Intelligence report EW-Pa 128 is as chilling now as the day it was written in November 1944. The document, also known as the “Red House Report”, is a detailed account of a secret meeting at the Maison Rouge Hotel in Strasbourg on August 10, 1944. There, Nazi officials ordered an elite group of German industrialists to plan for Germany’s post-war recovery, prepare for the Nazis’ return to power and work for a ‘strong German empire’. In other words: the Fourth Reich. The decharacterized classified document is shown below [15].

The three pages of the document that came into light recently (end of 2009), describe how the Nazi industrialists would help Germany get back on its feet after the war was lost based on a vast network of industries all over the world.  The plan was to get money out of Germany via Switzerland and then utilize all affiliated companies around the world to invest them. The money would then be used to reconstruct Germany when the time was right. The industrialists included representatives of companies like Volkswagen, Krupp and Messerschmitt. Officials from the Navy and Ministry of Armaments were also at the meeting and, with incredible foresight, they decided together that the European Uni… errrr, I meant the Fourth German Reich, unlike its predecessor, would be an economic rather than a military empire – but not just German (!!!)…

Who knows, perhaps all those money that German companies managed to make during the war and keep after its loss, were used “wisely” after all…

Right?

Wrong?

Only time will tell…

And they lived happily ever after…

From all the above, it is more than clear that money is what drives the world around. All of the abovementioned companies continue flourishing as they were, under different names or as part of greater corporation groups: Krupp is now part of ThyssenKrupp, Standard Oil is now known as Exxon, Du Pont, GM, Ford, Alcoa and IBM are well known with the same name. The point is that when it comes down to money, no allies or enemies exist…Money is money… And the ethics clearly play no role in the way the world functions. Companies that once got rich by exploiting the death of millions of people, now stand as super-powers ruling the globe…

Related article: Why the Nazis actually won…

Bibliography – Sources

The following resources can be a good starting point for searching into the subject. I urge the reader to search more into these sources so as to reach clear conclusions on the subject.

1. Aalders, Gerard and Cees Wiebes. The art of cloaking ownership: the secret collaboration and protection of the German war industry by the neutrals: the case of Sweden. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press and the Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation, 1996. v, 210 pp.
2. Aalders, Gerard and Cees Wiebes. “Stockholms Enskilda Bank, German Bosch and IG Farben: a short history of cloaking”. Scandinavian Economic History Review 33, no.1(1985): 25-50.
3. Berggren, Henrik. “Suppressing the memory of recent events”. DN: Dagens Nyheter (Sweden)(October 21, 1997).
4. Bloomfield, Douglas M. “Switzerland: Hitler’s most valuable ally”. Penthouse 28, no.10(June 1997): 38-40, 45-48, 142. (Filed in the library at B5).
5. Aarons, Mark and John Loftus. Unholy trinity: the Vatican, the Nazis, and the Swiss banks. Revised ed. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1998. xviii, 392 pp.
6. Eisenstadt, Merry Madway. “High-tech Holocaust”. Washington Jewish Week 34, no.38 (September 17, 1998): 1, 22-25.
7. Dobbs, Michael. “Ford and GM scrutinized for alleged Nazi collaboration: firms deny researchers’ claims on aiding German war effort”. Washington Post(November 30, 1998): A1.
8. http://www.iahushua.com/WOI/us_nazis.htm
9. Aalders, Gerard and Cees Wiebes. “Stockholms Enskilda Bank, German Bosch and IG Farben: a short history of cloaking”. Scandinavian Economic History Review 33, no.1(1985): 25-50.
10. Borkin, Joseph. The crime and punishment of I.G. Farben. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1997. xi, 250 pp.
11. DuBois, Josiah E. The Devil’s chemists: 24 conspirators of the international Farben cartel who manufacture wars. Boston: Beacon Press, 1952. 374 pp.
12. Ibid., p. 166 and 262.
13. Facts and Fascism, George Seldes, 1943 [http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/George_Seldes/Facts_and_Fascism.html]
14. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krupp_Trial
15. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1179902/Revealed-The-secret-report-shows-Nazis-planned-Fourth-Reich–EU.html

References

1. The secret report that shows how the Nazis planned a Fourth Reich …in the EU
2. “Trading With the Enemy: An Expose of the Nazi-American Money Plot, 1933-1949”, Charles Higham, Doubleday publishing, 1982, ISBN-13: 978-0385290807.
3. “SHADOW OF THE SWASTIKA”, R. William Davis [source].
4. Business Plot
5. “The Plot to Seize the White House”, Jules Archer, 1973 (pub.2007), Skyhorse Publishing, ISBN 1-60239-036-3 [source].
6. “Maverick Marine: General Smedley D. Butler and the Contradictions of American Military History”, Hans Schmidt (1998), University Press of Kentucky, ISBN 0-8131-0957-4.
7. BBC Radio 4 Document “The White House Coup – Greenham’s Hidden Secret”
8. Times Person of the Year
9. IBM and the Holocauast, Edwin Black.

Continue your reading!

• Go to Navigate Harmonia page to see some how to find interesting posts!
• Browse the Articles List to see a list of the main articles.
• Go here to see the Facebook community of Harmonia Philosophica!