NAZI GERMANY - WORLD WAR II BY INTERNATIONAL DESIGN
THE ECONOMY AND FOREIGN INVESTORS
Global Financial Crisis 2009: Mr Paul Moore held a senior post at the UK HBOS bank between 2002 and 2005, said “Anyone 'Not Blinded By Money, Power And Pride' Knew There Was Something Wrong”. Revenge of the Whistleblower: Sacked and Gagged for Warning of Disaster - Daily Mail - 11 Feb 2009
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There are nine posts in this series on Nazi Germany. Each post touches briefly on the subject given that there are already numerous research papers, articles and books, covering each topic in depth. Many links are included in each post. For the reasoning behind writing these posts, read the Introduction HERE.THE ECONOMY AND FOREIGN INVESTORS
Global Financial Crisis 2009: Mr Paul Moore held a senior post at the UK HBOS bank between 2002 and 2005, said “Anyone 'Not Blinded By Money, Power And Pride' Knew There Was Something Wrong”. Revenge of the Whistleblower: Sacked and Gagged for Warning of Disaster - Daily Mail - 11 Feb 2009
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0 INTRODUCTION - Why this Series of Posts?
1 UN CHARTER & UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS - Why WWII Drove The Creation Of The UDHR.
2 EUGENICS, RACIAL PURITY AND PERSECUTION - The US Influenced Nazi Germany's Eugenics Program. A Snapshot of the Diverse Groups Persecuted and Imprisoned in Concentration Camps. The Nuremberg Trial, Which Dealt With Racial Purity - RuSHA (USA vs. Ulrich Greifelt et al).3 FORCED AND SLAVE LABOUR - Without Forced and Slave Labour the Nazi War Machine would have Collapsed and Brought the War to an Abrupt End. A Brief History of Forced and Slave Labour Before, During and After World War II. Details of The Nuremberg Trials for German Industrialists - Flick, Krupp and IG Farben.
4 FORCED PROSTITUTION, SEXUAL VIOLENCE AND RAPE - Sexual Crimes Were Not Tried at Nuremberg even though There Were Established Laws Condemning These Crimes. Information About Nazi Military Brothels and Concentration Camp Brothels. Evidence and Testimonies from Witnesses. Both Axis and Allied Forces were Guilty of Sexual Violence and Rape.
5 NAZI DOCTORS EXPERIMENTS AND TRIALS - The Nazi Doctors' Nuremberg Trial and Details of Their Experiments. Names of Nazi Doctors who Escaped Prosecution. Information about Post War Unethical Experiments Without Informed Consent, in the USA, Russia, South Africa and Israel.
6 STERILIZATION AND EUTHANASIA PROGRAMS - Life “Unworthy of Life” A Brief History of the Sterilization and the Euthanasia Programs and German Public Opposition. Using Cost Benefits Analysis in Nazi Medicine to Educate Children.7 WORLD WAR II BY DESIGN – THE ECONOMY AND FOREIGN INVESTORS - An Important Component of Nazi Germany's War Infrastructure. Brief History of the German Economy and Hermann Goering's Four Year Plan. Role of Jewish Public Protests and their Boycott of German Goods in 1933 and Germany's Retaliatory Actions. The Real Role of Neutral Countries During the War. Post War Looting of German Patents, Cover Up of German Research on Tobacco and Cancer and the Removal/Kidnap of Nazi Experts to Allied Countries. The Role of Foreign Subsidiaries/Investors before and during World War II in Germany.
8 UNWCC (UNITED NATIONS WAR CRIMES COMMISSION) LAW REPORTS - The UNWCC prepared and published a 15 volume set of law reports covering 89 War Crimes Trials From World War II. This post contains links to all of these law reports and a list of the cases in each volume. Some information on CROWCASS (Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects).
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NAZI GERMANY - WWII BY INTERNATIONAL DESIGN
- THE ECONOMY AND FOREIGN INVESTORS
BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO THE ECONOMY OF NAZI GERMANY
On 30 January 1933 Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg in the aftermath of the Great Depression and at a time when Germany had an unemployment rate of close to 30%.
On the night of 27 February 1933 the Reichstag building was set on fire and a Dutch council communist Marinus van der Lubbe was found inside the building. He was arrested and charged with starting the blaze.
The Reichstag Fire Decree is the common name of the Order issued by the German President, in direct response to the Reichstag fire. The decree nullified many of the key civil liberties of German citizens. It was used as the legal grounds for the imprisonment of anyone considered to be opponents of the Nazis including the German Communist Party (KPD). Publications unfriendly to the Nazis cause were also suppressed.
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WHY DID NAZI GERMANY BOYCOTT JEWISH GOODS AND SERVICES IN 1933?
Those opposing Hitler's policies in the United States, the United Kingdom and other places worldwide, organized a boycott of German Goods and public protests to encourage Nazi Germany to end the regime's anti-Jewish practices, shortly after the Reichstag Fire Decree.
On 12 March 1933 the American Jewish Congress decided to hold a massive protest at Madison Square Gardens, New York City on 27 March 1933.
At an emergency meeting on 20 March 1933 in the Hotel Astor in New York City, the American Jewish Congress told 1,500 representatives of various Jewish organizations, of their intention to hold a protest meeting on 27 March.
In a meeting held on 21 March by the Jewish War Veterans, USA, former congressman William W. Cohen advocated a strict boycott of German goods, stating that "Any Jew Buying One Penny's Worth of Merchandise Made in Germany is a Traitor to his People."
On 24 March 1933 the Daily Express Newspaper (UK) printed this front page story:
JUDEA DECLARES WAR ON GERMANYJews of all the World Unite
BOYCOTT OF GERMAN GOODS
MASS DEMONSTRATION IN MANY DISTRICTS
On 27 March 1933 the American Jewish Congress and its allies convened simultaneous protest rallies at Madison Square Garden in New York, in Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland and 70 other locations. The AJCongress president, the American Federation of Labor president and Senator Robert F. Wagner, former New York governor Al Smith and several Christian clergy called for an immediate cessation of the brutal treatment being inflicted on German Jewry. The Madison Square rally was broadcast Worldwide.
On 28 March Hitler responded to the Jewish boycott and the threats in a speech - after the Jewish Declaration of War and Protest Rallies - saying:
“Now that the domestic enemies of the nation have been eliminated by the Volk itself, what we have long been waiting for will not come to pass.
The Communist and Marxist criminals and their Jewish-intellectual instigators, who, having made off with their capital stocks across the border in the nick of time, are now unfolding an unscrupulous, treasonous campaign of agitation against the German Volk as a whole from there....
Lies and slander of positively hair-raising perversity are being launched about Germany. Horror stories of dismembered Jewish corpses, gouged out eyes and hacked off hands are circulating for the purpose of defaming the German Volk in the world for the second time, just as they had succeeded in doing once before in 1914.”
The Nazi Counter-Boycott
Nazi officials countered the protests as slanders against the Nazis perpetrated by "Jews of German origin". The Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels proclaimed that a series of "sharp countermeasures" would be taken against the Jews of Germany in response to the protests of American Jews. Goebbels announced a one-day boycott of his own to commence on 1 April 1933 that would be aimed by Aryan Germans against Jewish-owned businesses. The boycott would be lifted if anti-Nazi protests were suspended.
The Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses started with Brown Shirts of the SA standing menacingly in front of Jewish-owned department stores, retail establishments and professional offices. Placards stating "Don't Buy from Jews" and "The Jews Are Our Misfortune" were posted.
The attacks on Germany did not cease. An International Jewish Boycott Conference was held in Amsterdam in July 1933 to coordinate the ongoing boycott campaign. It was held under the auspices of the self-styled World Jewish Economic Federation. Samuel Untermyer was their elected president. The conference adopted a resolution that called for a boycott by world Jewry of German goods and services.
Untermyer returned to New York and in an appeal on WABC radio, which was also broadcast by the Columbia network, he identified the boycott as a "holy war in the cause of humanity."
LINKS TO JUDEA DECLARES WAR ON GERMANY
The Jewish Declaration of War on Nazi Germany - The Economic Boycott of 1933 - The Barnes Review (USA)
The Transfer Agreement
Edwin Black's compelling, award-winning story of a negotiated arrangement in 1933 between Zionist organizations and the Nazis to transfer some 50,000 Jews, and $100 million of their assets, to Jewish Palestine in exchange for stopping the worldwide Jewish-led boycott threatening to topple the Hitler regime in its first year.
"Hitler's Bitterest Foe": Samuel Untermyer and the Boycott of Nazi Germany, 1933-1938
Book: The "Hitler Myth": Image and Reality in the Third Reich By Ian Kershaw
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The Enabling Act was passed by Germany's Reichstag and signed by the President on 23 March 1933. It was the second major step, after the Reichstag Fire Decree, through which Chancellor Adolf Hitler legally obtained plenary powers and became Führer. The Act granted the Cabinet the authority to enact laws without the participation of the Reichstag for four years.
Following the introduction of the Enabling Act, trade unions and political parties were all “brought into line”. On 2nd May 1933 Nazis broke into trade unions offices and arrested thousands of union officials. The unions were then merged into the ‘German Labour Front’, which had a Nazi leader and to which all workers had to belong. Trade unions were abolished along with collective bargaining and the right to strike.
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The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Clearly States:
Article 23 4. - Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
Article 23 4. - Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
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The right to quit also disappeared: Labour books were introduced in 1935 and Germans required the consent of their current employer before being hired for another job.
The Night of the Long Knives or "Operation Hummingbird", was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany between 30 June and 2 July 1934, when the Nazi regime carried out a series of political executions. Most of those killed were members of the Sturmabteilung (SA), a Nazi paramilitary organization. Adolf Hitler viewed the SA and its leader, Ernst Röhm, as a direct threat to his power, because of their independence and the penchant of its members for street violence.
THE ECONOMY
Hitler appointed Hjalmar Schacht, a non-nazi and former member of the German Democratic Party, as Chairman of the Reichsbank in 1933 and Minister of Economics in 1934. Schacht was one of the few finance ministers to take advantage of the freedom provided by the end of the gold standard to keep interest rates low and government budget deficits high, with massive public works funded by the large budget deficits. The consequence was the fastest decline in unemployment, in any country during the Great Depression. Eventually this economic policy was supplemented by the boost to provide rearmament with a swelling increase in military spending.Throughout the 1930s, German businesses were encouraged to form cartels, monopolies and oligopolies, whose interests were then protected by the state.
In June 1933, the "Reinhardt Program" was introduced. It was an ambitious project for the development of the country's infrastructure; it combined indirect incentives, such as tax reductions, with direct public investment in waterways, railroads and highways. In 1933 only 666,000 Germans worked in construction; by 1936 the number had gone up to 2,000,000. Road construction was expanded at a very rapid pace.
The Reinhardt Program of 1933 was followed by other similar initiatives resulting in great expansion of the German construction industry between 1933 and 1936. Germany needed a state-of-the-art highway system in order to be able to move troops and materials quickly. Cars and other forms of motorized transport became increasingly attractive to the population.
ARMAMENTS AND MILITARY EXPENDITURE
An important component of the new German economy was massive rearmament, with the goal being to expand the 100,000-strong German Army into a force of millions. In 1936, military spending in Germany exceeded 10% of GNP (higher than any other European country at the time). Military investment also exceeded civilian investment from 1936 onwards. Armaments dominated government expenditures on goods and services.
Refer to A. Tooze, Wages of Destruction (London, 2006)
Arming the Reich: Quantifying Armaments Production in the Third Reich 1933-1945' (June 2006).
Arming the Reich Data – Data and Charts are in an Excel File.
THE FOUR YEAR PLAN
Hjalmar Schacht began to lose favour with Hitler when he opposed increasing military expenditures. In 1937 he resigned and Hitler's trusted lieutenant, Hermann Goering took over complete control of the economy including the private sector. Goering introduced the four year plan with the main aim of making Germany self-sufficient to fight a war within four years.
Under Goering imports were slashed. Wages and prices were controlled--under penalty of being sent to a concentration camp. Dividends were restricted to six percent on book capital. Various strategic goals were declared (similar to Soviet planning): the construction of synthetic rubber plants, more steel plants and automatic textile factories. Germany began building refineries, aluminium plants, factories for the development of synthetic-materials and further developed the Autobahn system.
The plan also placed an emphasis on building up the nation's military defenses, which was a direct violation of the terms set up by the Allies of World War I at the Treaty of Versailles, which stated:
The German army was to be restricted to 100,000 men, there was to be no conscription, no tanks or heavy artillery and no general staff. The German navy was restricted to 15,000 men and no submarines while the fleet was limited to six battleships (of less than 10,000 tonnes), six cruisers and 12 destroyers. Germany was not permitted an air force. Finally, Germany was explicitly required to retain all enlisted men for 12 years and all officers for 25 years, so that only a limited number of men would have military training.
The Four Year Plan technically expired in 1940, but the "Office of the Four Year Plan" had become such a power base that the Four year plan was extended indefinitely. Much of the Four Year Plan's goals relating to economic production were accomplished between 1941 and 1944.
The Nazi Four Year Plan - Axis History Forum
EMPLOYMENT AND WAGES
Unemployment was in rapid decline under Hitler.
- 4.8 million in 1933
- 2.7 million in 1934
- 2.2 million in 1935
- 1.6 million in 1936
- 0.9 million in 1937
- 0.4 million in 1938
- 0.1 million by 1939.
Source: V.R.Berghahn: Modern Germany, p. 284, table 18.
- 4.8 million in 1933
- 2.7 million in 1934
- 2.2 million in 1935
- 1.6 million in 1936
- 0.9 million in 1937
- 0.4 million in 1938
- 0.1 million by 1939.
Source: V.R.Berghahn: Modern Germany, p. 284, table 18.
While strict state intervention into the economy and the massive rearmament policy almost led to full employment during the 1930s (statistics didn't include non-citizens or women), real wages in Germany dropped by roughly 25% between 1933 and 1938.
PROFITS AND TAXATION
In place of ordinary profit incentives to guide investment, investment was guided through regulation to meet the needs of the State. Heavy taxes on profits limited self-financing of firms. The largest firms were mostly exempt from taxes on profits, however government control of these were extensive enough to leave "only the shell of private ownership."
FOREIGN TRADE / IMPORTS AND EXPORTS
The Nazi government tried to limit the number of its trade partners and when possible, only trade with countries within the German sphere of influence. A number of bilateral trade agreements were signed between Germany and other European countries (mostly countries located in Southern and South-Eastern Europe) during the 1930s. The German government strongly encouraged trade with these countries but strongly discouraged trade with any others.
By the late 1930s, the aims of German trade policy were to use economic and political power to make the countries of Southern Europe and the Balkans dependent on Germany. The German economy would draw its raw materials from that region, and the countries in question would receive German manufactured goods in exchange. In 1938, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Greece transacted 50% of all their foreign trade with Germany.
In 1938 there were three German companies with large foreign subsidiaries: Siemens with 11.2% of the workforce employed abroad, Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft with less than 20% and Mannesmann with 10%.
Seven of the 100 largest German Companies were subsidiaries of foreign companies. The Seven Foreign-Controlled Companies were the subsidiaries of
1. Luxembourgish Arbed (STEEL - Felten & Guilleaume, Eschweiler Bergwerksverein and Burbacher Hütte)
2. American General Motors (VEHICLES - Adam Opel)
3. American International Telephone & Telegraph (ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING - Deutsche I.T.& T.-Gruppe)
4. American Singer Corporation (SEWING MACHINES- Singer Nähmaschinen)
5. French de Wendel group (MINING & STEEL -de Wendelsche Berg-und Hüttenwerke),
6. Belgian Solvay (CHEMICALS - Deutsche Solvay) and
7. Dutch-British Royal Dutch Shell (OIL - Rhenania Ossag Mineralölwerke).
The Ten Largest Germany Companies in 1938 were
1. Deutsche Reichsbahn - 703,546 employees - Railway
2. Deutsche Reichspost - 397,890 employees - Postal Administration
3. I.G. Farbenindustrie - 218,000 employees - Chemicals
4. Vereinigte Stahlwerke - 197,000 employees - Mining & Steel
5. Siemens (Siemens & Halske and Siemens-Schuckert) - 165,975 employees - Electrical Engineering
6. Friedrich Krupp - 123,408 employees - Mining and Steel
7. Gutehoffnungshütte - 75,781 employees - Mining and Steel
8. Vereinigte Elektrizitäts und Bergwerks Aktiengesellschaft - 72,345 employees - Mining and Utilities
9. Friedrich Flick KG - 71,408 employees - Steel
10. Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft - 65,000 employees - Electrical Engineering
WORLD WAR II
The war commenced in 1939 even though the Four-Year Plan would not technically expire until 1940. The “Four-Year Plan" office effectively controlled all German economic and production matters by this point in time. In 1942 the growing burdens of the war and the death of Todt saw the economy move to a full war economy under Albert Speer.
Hitler's policy of Lebensraum, detailed in his book Mein Kampf, strongly emphasized the conquest of new lands in the East and the exploitation of these lands to provide raw materials and cheap goods to Germany. The implementation of the Lebensraum concept began in 1939 with the occupation of Poland. In reality the intensity of the fighting on the Eastern Front and the Soviet scorched earth policy meant that the Germans found little they could use. On the other hand, a large quantity of goods flowed into Germany from conquered lands in the West. For example, two-thirds of all French trains in 1941 were used to carry goods to Germany. Norway lost 20% of its national income in 1940 and 40% in 1943.
The proportion of military spending in the German economy began growing rapidly after 1942, as the Nazi government was forced to dedicate more and more of the country's economic resources to fighting a losing war. Civilian factories were converted to military use and placed under military administration. By late 1944, almost the entire German economy was dedicated to military production. At the same time, Allied bombings were destroying German factories and cities at a rapid pace, leading to the final collapse of the German war economy in 1945.
LINKS
The Nazi Economy – Alternate History
BOOK LINKS
The Nazi Economic Recovery, 1932-1938:1932-1938 By R. J. Overy, Economic History Society 1996
The performance of the German economy under the Nazi regime has been the subject of intense academic debate. Originally published by Macmillan in 1982, this fully revised and updated edition of a highly regarded survey argues that the war preparation was ultimately incompatible with long-term economic recovery.
War and economy in the Third Reich By R. J. Overy, Oxford University Press, 1994
Business and Industry in Nazi Germany By Francis R. Nicosia, Jonathan Huener, University of Vermont Center for Holocaust Studies 2004
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THE ALLIED VICTORS – THE COVER UPS AND POST WAR OPPORTUNISM
Nazi Germany's Ethical Contribution to Health
Nazi Germany had arguably the most powerful anti-tobacco movement in the world. Anti-tobacco research received strong backing from the government, and German scientists proved that cigarette smoke could cause cancer. German pioneering research on experimental epidemiology led to the 1939 paper by Franz H. Müller, and the 1943 paper by Eberhard Schairer and Erich Schöniger which convincingly demonstrated that tobacco smoking was a main culprit in lung cancer. The government urged German doctors to counsel patients against tobacco use.
Nazi Medicine and Public Health Policy Article by Robert N. Proctor - The Anti-Defamation League's Braun Holocaust Institute
“The Nazi War on Cancer” Book by Robert N. Proctor
German research on the dangers of tobacco was silenced after the war, and the dangers of tobacco had to be rediscovered by American and English scientists in the early 1950s, with a medical consensus arising in the early 1960s. German scientists also proved that asbestos was a health hazard, and in 1943 — as the first nation in the world to offer such a benefit — Germany recognized the diseases caused by asbestos, e.g., lung cancer, as occupational illnesses eligible for compensation.
The German asbestos-cancer research was later used by American lawyers doing battle against the Johns-Manville Corporation. As part of the general public-health campaign in Nazi Germany, water supplies were cleaned up, lead and mercury were removed from consumer products, and women were urged to undergo regular screenings for breast cancer.
POST WAR LOOTING OF GERMAN PATENTS
The most creative period in world history may have been Germany between 1932 and 1945. Much of America's scientific lead came from looting German patents by the ton, both in World War I and far more so after World War II. From saccharin and aspirin to refrigeration, radio and space flight technology, the victorious Allies ensured their post-War scientific lead and prosperity by simply stealing German inventions - literally thousands of tons of patents. As one gloating Washington bureaucrat put it, it was "the first orderly exploitation of an entire country's brain power."
The Great Patents Heist - Article Barnes Review
REMOVAL/KIDNAP OF GERMAN EXPERTS
Operation Paperclip/Project Paperclip was the code name for the 1945 Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency O.S.S. recruitment of scientists from Nazi Germany to the U.S. after Victory in Europe Day.
Project Paperclip: Dark Side Of The Moon - BBC (UK)
UK Government Archives – List of Documents Relating to the Removal and Employment of German Scientists and Technicians in Ally countries and The Denial Policy.
In 1947, the Ministry of Supply developed a policy for over 1500 scientists and technicians who were formally involved in wartime research in Germany. This policy dictated to forcibly remove 'whether they liked it or not' the scientists from Germany to lessen the risk of them falling into enemy hands. The ministry organized work permits to be issued for the scientists and their families to come to the UK, its colonies and the USA to work on similar projects.
The Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was the primary plan of the United States for rebuilding European Countries and creating a stronger foundation for the countries of Western Europe, and repelling communism after World War II.
The Marshall-Plan Hoax:
Marshall Plan vs. Robbery, Murder and Destruction? By Karl Baßler - Scriptorium
"The Marshall Plan was the American occupiers' noble and generous gesture to their defeated WW2 enemy, providing massive financial and material aid to help economic recovery. The Germans owe their American supporters a debt of eternal gratitude." So the story goes to this very day... but reality looked rather different! In this article, an academically accredited economist sheds an entirely new light on this financial-political affair which turns out to have been nothing more than grand-scale theft and destruction in humanitarian disguise!
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THE NUREMBERG TRIALS FOR GERMAN INDUSTRIALISTS
During the War, Siemens ran factories at Ravensbrück Concentration Camp and in the Auschwitz subcamp of Bobrek, among others, and the company supplied electrical parts to other concentration and death camps. In the camp factories, abysmal living and working conditions were ubiquitous: malnutrition and death were not uncommon. Despite German industry's repeated denials, these camp factories were created, run, and supplied by the SS in conjunction with company officials -- sometimes high-level employees.
Dozens of executives of three of wartime Germany's largest companies were prosecuted for war crimes and crimes against humanity. In the dock were directors of the Krupp and Flick (steel and coal) companies, both of which had built weapons of war and had employed forced labor, and also board members of I.G. Farben, the chemical and pharmaceutical giant that had run a synthetic rubber factory at Auschwitz.
Alfried Krupp von Bohlen and Halbach, the sole owner of Krupp, was found guilty of employing slave labor and plundering businesses in France and the Netherlands. Krupp was stripped of all his property and business holdings and sentenced to 12 years in prison.
The Flick Nuremburg Trial (19 April - 22 December 1947)
The IG Farben Nuremburg Trial (27 August 1947 - 30 July 1948)
The Krupp Nuremburg Trial (8 December 1947 - 31 July 1948)
The IG Farben Nuremburg Trial (27 August 1947 - 30 July 1948)
The Krupp Nuremburg Trial (8 December 1947 - 31 July 1948)
SLAVE AND FORCED LABOUR COMPENSATION
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Conference on Material Claims Against Germany, an organization representing Jewish Holocaust survivors, approached Germany's major companies -- Siemens, Krupp, Rheinmetall, and others -- and requested compensation for people they had abused during the war. Several years of acrimonious negotiations and corporate stubbornness eventually yielded meager payments for some Jewish victims.
Today, hundreds of thousands of Jewish and non-Jewish survivors of forced and slave labor -- many of them from former communist countries -- who were not covered by these earlier settlements, are seeking compensation. Some Germans have made anti-Semitic remarks about the plaintiffs in the lawsuits. They have also intimated that the plaintiffs' attorneys are greedy opportunists, who are seeking to make money off of the suffering of old and dying Holocaust survivors. Individual companies, like Volkswagen, have been quietly establishing their own foundations to pay former forced and slave laborers.
THE INDUSTRIALISTS AND THEIR MOTIVES
Research from scholarly inquiries indicated that German industrialists in the Thirties and Forties weren't, by and large, ideologues as much as OPPORTUNISTS; it was their eagerness for PROFITS that led them to participate in a number of HEINOUS ENDEAVORS: securing control of Jewish-owned companies, producing war matériel for the Wehrmacht, exploiting forced and slave laborers.
GREED drove all too many "apolitical businessmen" to engage in ODIOUS CONDUCT. This behavior, however, was not an exclusive function of capitalism. Undoubtedly, latent and overt anti-Semitism, anti-Slavic sentiments, and German nationalism also allowed some industrialists to work with the regime out of a sense of patriotism, and without ever reflecting upon the MORAL BOUNDARIES they were CROSSING.
Fear and the DESIRE FOR SELF-PROTECTION were also important factors motivating businessmen. Even within the context of a dictatorship that demanded high levels of production for war, industrialists made choices as individuals. They approached the SS for cheap labor; they decided whether to buy a Jewish company at a fraction of its value; they determined how forced and slave laborers would be treated in their factories.
Article: German Industry and the Third Reich: Fifty Years of Forgetting and Remembering By S. Jonathan Wiesen by Anti-Defamation League's Braun Holocaust Institute
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WHICH FOREIGN COMPANIES INVESTED IN NAZI GERMANY?
"It came as an unpleasant surprise to discover that the enemy was also driving trucks manufactured by Ford and Opel — a 100 percent GM-owned subsidiary ..."
It has been claimed that without the help from Foreign Industrialists, Hitler might never have been able to wage World War II.
AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY
The major U.S. automakers (including Chrysler) established multinational operations as early as the 1920s and 1930s, locating plants in Germany, eastern Europe and Japan. GM and Ford, through their subsidiaries, controlled 70 percent of the German automobile market when war broke out in 1939.
"The outbreak of war in September 1939 resulted inevitably in the full conversion by GM and Ford of their Axis plants to the production of military aircraft and trucks," according to a 1974 report printed by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.
"On the ground, GM and Ford subsidiaries built nearly 90 percent of the armored ‘mule’ 3-ton half-trucks and more than 70 percent of the Reich’s medium and heavy-duty trucks. These vehicles, according to American intelligence reports, served as ‘the backbone of the German Army transportation system.’"
GM and Ford were vital components of the Nazi war effort. GM’s plants built thousands of bomber and jet fighter propulsion systems for the LUFTWAFFE — while at the same time profiting from production of aircraft engines for the U.S. Army Air Corps.
GENERAL MOTORS
GM was controlled by the du Pont family during the 1930s and owned 80% of the stock of Opel AG, which made 30% of Germany's passenger cars. GM’s involvement in Germany began in 1935 with the opening of a truck factory near Berlin. Within a few years trucks produced by that factory would be part of German Army convoys rumbling through Poland, France and the Soviet Union.
Opel earned GM a hefty $36 million in the 10 years before war broke out, but because Hitler prohibited the export of capital, GM reinvested the profits in other German companies. At least $20 million was invested in companies owned or controlled by Nazi officials. 'The Nazis could not have invaded Poland and Russia without GM'
"General Motors was far more important to the Nazi war machine than Switzerland," says researcher Bradford Snell. "Switzerland was just a repository of looted funds, while GM was an integral part of the German war effort. The Nazis could have invaded Poland and Russia without Switzerland.
After the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939, GM Chairman Alfred P. Sloan commented that the Nazis’ behavior "should not be considered the business of the management of General Motors." The GM plant in Germany was highly profitable. "We have no right to shut down that plant," Sloan declared.
Article: GENERAL MOTORS & THE NAZIS - by Edwin Black
In a four-part, 10,000 word, special investigative series, Edwin Black chronicles General Motors extensive relationship with Nazi Germany. GM's Opel was the largest car and truck maker in the Third Reich. When Hitler came to power, his nation was still primarily a horse-drawn country. From the outset, GM consciously mass produced cars and truck for the German military, becoming a major and indispensable spear of Nazi rearmament. This included the Blitz truck which became the mainstay of the Blitzkrieg that conquered Europe. GM concealed its American control of Opel through special executives committees and board directorates. After the War, GM took all the profit, including that gained from slave labor. After a Congressional investigation, GM tried to obscure the facts and pressured Washington about a special report on the company's activities. To this day, the company frustrates research efforts into its protracted and profitable involvement in Nazi genocide.
FORD MOTOR COMPANY
Henry Ford, a notorious anti-Semite, formed a kind of mutual admiration society with Adolf Hitler. The German dictator enthusiastically applauded American mass-production techniques. "I regard Henry Ford as my inspiration," declared Hitler, who kept a life-size portrait of the American industrialist next to his desk. In 1938, Ford accepted the highest medal that Nazi Germany could award a foreigner, the Grand Cross of the German Eagle. Henry Ford was a major donor to the Nazi party.
U.S. Army Intelligence reported that the "real purpose" of the Ford truck assembly plant opened in Berlin in 1938 was to produce "troop transport-type vehicles for the Wehrmacht (German military).
Article: The Ford Motor Company and The Third Reich by Simon Reich by the Anti-Defamation League's Braun Holocaust Institute
Some aspects of Fordwerke's policies are largely undisputed: slave laborers were used at its Cologne plant between 1941 and 1945. Ford's German subsidiary felt so threatened by the hostility of the Third Reich that it consistently sought to ingratiate itself with the Nazi regime in order to keep the company viable. So were prisoners of war and foreign laborers, mostly from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, but also from France and Italy.
Who was in charge of Fordwerke when it used slave labor (it is now generally accepted that this occurred between 1941 and 1945)? By the time that slave labor was introduced, Fordwerke was clearly under the direct control of the Nazi government, though administered through the company headquarters in Cologne (albeit by Robert Schmidt). The meetings of the board of directors had already been suspended, and didn't resume until after the war. Although the American parent company desperately sought to retain control of their German assets, they failed to do so. Fordwerke became an instrument of the Nazi state.
Fordwerke received compensation from the Nazi government for bombing damage in 1941. But a 1942 German law denied such recompense to businesses whose majority ownership was held by foreigners from hostile nations.
THE CURTISS-WRIGHT AVIATION COMPANY
Some sources claim Employees of Curtiss-Wright taught dive-bombing to Hitler's Luftwaffe.
STANDARD OIL
The oil giant developed and financed Germany's synthetic fuel program in partnership with the German chemical giant, I.G. Farben. As late as 1934, Germany was forced to import as much as 85% of it's pertroleum from abroad. This meant that a worldwide fuel embargo could stop Hitler's army overnight. To get around this threat, Nazi Germany began converting domestic coal into synthetic fuel using processes developed jointly by Standard Oil and I.G. Farben. Standard taught I.G. Farben how to make tetraethyl-lead and add it to gasoline to make leaded gasoline. This information was priceless; leaded gas was essential for modern mechanized warfare.
ITT (INTERNATIONAL TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH)
IT&T owned substantial amounts of stock in several German armaments companies, including a 28% stake in Focke-Wolf, which built fighter aircraft for the German army. Unlike General Motors, IT&T was permitted to repatriate the profits it made in Germany, but it chose not to(?). Instead, the profits were reinvested in the German armaments industry.
According to Anthony Sutton, author of Wall Street and the Rise Of Hitler: "IT&T's purchase of substantial interest in Focke-Wolfe meant that IT&T was producing German planes used to kill Americans and their allies - and it made excellent profits out of the enterprise." IT&T also owned factories in the neutral countries of Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, and Sweden, which continued selling products to Axis countries.
CHASE NATIONAL BANK (later Chase Manhattan Bank)
Chase operated branches in Nazi-occupied Paris and handled accounts for the German embassy as well as German businesses operating in France. As late as 6 months before the start of World War II in Europe, Chase National Bank worked with the Nazis to raise money for Hitler from Nazi sympathizers in the U.S.
GE (GENERAL ELECTRIC)
Compared to Ford and General Motors, GE’s involvement appears less overt and extensive than that of the automakers. But it is nonetheless instructive, showing GE’s more complex relationship to the Third Reich. In its agreement with Krupp, GE agreed to sell tungsten carbide (also known as carboloy) only in the western hemisphere, and to pay royalties to Krupp. Gustav Krupp, owner of the company, was a major corporate backer of Adolf Hitler. Both before and after Hitler’s rise to power, GE’s royalties indirectly subsidized the Nazis. As late as August 1940, nearly a year after Hitler attacked Poland, GE was seeking renewal of its monopoly agreement with Krupp. But the GE-Krupp deal came to an end as a result of a lawsuit and an embargo. The U.S. government clamped down on shipments of money to the Nazis.
IBM
Refer to Edwin Black's website IBM and the Holocaust: the Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation. The stunning story of IBM's strategic alliance with Nazi Germany -beginning in 1933 in the first weeks that Hitler came to power and continuing well into World War II.
Article : IBM and Auschwitz By Edwin Black - The infamous Auschwitz tattoo began as an IBM number.
Article: IBM: And that’s How the Trains Ran on Time By Edwin Black – History News Network . When Hitler came to power, the world saw a menace to humanity. But IBM saw Nazi Germany as a lucrative trading partner.
Article: Hitler's Willing Business Partners - The Atlantic. A shocking account of IBM's complicity with the Nazis is a reminder that people bear moral responsibility for the actions of the corporation - a point that critics have failed to grasp.
SOME OTHER USEFUL LINKS
ARCHIVES AND ARTICLES
US Government Archives: TRADE WITH THE THIRD REICH Bibliography
Extracts From The Book: TRADING WITH THE ENEMY - American Money Plot 1933-1949 by Charles Higham
WALL STREET AND THE RISE OF HITLER By Antony C. Sutton
This is the final volume of a trilogy describing the role of the American corporate socialists, otherwise known as the Wall Street financial elite or the Eastern Liberal Establishment.
NAZI GERMANY'S OIL IMPORTS AND CONSUMPTION DURING WWII / THE ROLE OF SYNTHETIC FUEL IN WWII GERMANY – Air & Space Power Journal – Professional Journal of the US Air Force
NASTY BUSINESS Corporate Deals With Nazi Germany
THE COCA-COLA COMPANY UNDER THE NAZIS American Studies at the University of Virginia
"HELPING HITLER: NAZI SUPPORT FROM THE U.S."
While most Americans were appalled by the Nazis and the rearming of Germany in the 1930s, some of America's most powerful corporations were more concerned about making a buck from their German investments. Here are a few examples of how U.S. industrialists supported Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany.
BOOKS (Search Google Books for More Information)
ALLIANCES OF ENEMIES: The Untold Story of the Secret American and German Collaboration to End World War II By Agostino Von Hassell, Sigrid MacRae, Sigrid von Hoyningen-Huene MacRae, Simone Ameskamp
TRADING WITH THE ENEMY: An Exposé of the Nazi-American Money Plot, 1933-1949 By Charles Higham
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS AND NATIONAL WAR INTERESTS – Unilever Between Reich and Empire 1939-45 By Ben Wubs
DOING BUSINESS WITH THE NAZIS – Britain's Economic and Financial Relations with Germany, 1931-1939 By Neil Forbes (2001)
'MANAGING RISK IN THE THIRD REICH: British Business With Germany In the 1930s’ in: European Business, Dictatorships and Political Risk 1920-1945 By Neil Forbes (2004)
'THE CITY, BRITISH POLICY AND THE RISE OF THE THIRD REICH 1931-1937’ in: The British Government and the City of London in the Twentieth Century By Neil Forbes (2004)
HITLER AND HIS SECRET PARTNERS: Contributions, Loot and Rewards, 1933-1945 By James Pool
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DO NEUTRAL COUNTRIES EXIST DURING WAR AND PEACE TIME?
Extracts From Co-Opting Nazi Germany: Neutrality in Europe During World War II By Jonathan Petropoulos
Extracts From Co-Opting Nazi Germany: Neutrality in Europe During World War II By Jonathan Petropoulos
SWITZERLAND
The Swiss bolstered the Nazi regime in many ways, ways that can be summarized by the following categories: border policies, opportunities for trade and financial transactions. The Swiss did establish a series of internment camps during the war to provide sanctuary for a precious few: 200,000 refugees of whom 20,000 were Jews. The Swiss Jewish community and other organizations were then charged a head tax to support them. Many others who were fleeing the Nazis were turned away by the Swiss -- 30,000 Jews in 1942 alone were denied entry. Very often, those who sought sanctuary were apprehended by Swiss authorities and then delivered either to the Germans themselves, or, in the case of refugees trying to enter Switzerland from France, to officials of the collaborationist Vichy government.
The Germans traded their coal for Swiss steel (among other products); Swiss armament producers, such as Oerlikon (known for multi-barrel antiaircraft guns), also sent their wares northward. Swiss rail officials cooperated completely with the Nazi government: Through the transalpine lifeline of Switzerland's St. Gotthard rail tunnel flowed supplies between the Axis partners Germany and Italy. As far as rail transport was concerned, Switzerland was effectively part of the Greater German Reich.
SWEDEN
Sweden, like Switzerland, was also deeply concerned about possible German aggression (especially after the occupation of Denmark and Norway, and Finland's entry into the war on the side of the Axis). Some of its policies toward the Reich are open to criticism, but the Swedes acted commendably by providing a safe haven for Danish Jews, and they gradually extricated themselves from Germany's political and economic network after 1943. The country supplied Germany with high-grade iron ore (30 percent of that used by the German armaments industry), as well as ball bearings, foodstuffs, wood, and many other raw materials. In matters of finance, the Swedes cooperated with Germany by providing credit, which allowed the delivery of vast quantities of military equipment to the Wehrmacht.
PORTUGAL
Salazar provided shipments of tungsten to the Third Reich that were important for the German armaments industry, and allowed both allied and axis espionage agents to operate in his country. (Portugal, in fact, like Switzerland, was a hive of spying during the Second World War.) Despite his ties to the Axis nations, Salazar also, at times, cooperated with the Allies. He leased bases in the Azores to the British, and he permitted many refugees who escaped the Nazis to travel through Lisbon, Portugal's capital.
SPAIN
In return for German arms, Franco eventually provided valuable mineral resources and other raw materials to the Reich. On December 22, 1939, Spain and Germany signed a treaty in which Franco "agreed to reserve the greater part of [his nation's] exports for Germany, in particular iron ore, zinc, lead, mercury, wolfram, wool, and hides." Spain, then, contributed significantly to the German war effort, at least up to the autumn of 1942.
POST WAR - SWITZERLAND AND HOLOCAUST ASSETS
Essential documents can be found HERE relating to the international dispute about the handling and recovering of the Holocaust assets includes The "Bergier Reports", The "Volcker Report", The "Eizenstat Reports".
U.S. and Allied Efforts To Recover and Restore Gold and Other Assets Stolen or Hidden by Germany During World War II - Eizenstat Preliminary Study (May 1997) Full Report HERE (PDF)
Supplement to Eizenstat Preliminary Study on U.S. and Allied Efforts To Recover and Restore Gold and other Assets, Stolen or Hidden by Germany During World War II (June 1998 )
Full Report HERE & Summary Report HERE
US Government Archives: NEUTRALITY WITH THE THIRD REICH Bibliography
Book: NAZI GERMANY AND NEUTRAL EUROPE DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR: SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL? By Christian Leitz.
Each of the following five neutral countries had something which was essential for the Nazi war effort: gold and banking services (Switzerland), wolfram (Spain and Portugal), chromite (Turkey) and iron ore (Sweden). All five neutrals shared one thing in common: a strong and distressingly persistent commitment to trade with the Nazi regime, without a trace of moral scruple.
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PREVIOUS POSTS TO JUSTICE WILL BE SERVED RELATED TO THIS THEME
Burma/Myanmar International Joint Ventures - UN Security Council Members and the Junta - CAPITALIZING On Grief, Death and Human Rights Violations
Go To This Post For Numerous UDHR Translations:
UDHR (Universal Declaration Of Human Rights) in Arabic, Czech, Chinese (Mandarin), English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian & Spanish - Also Includes links to 359 translations of the UDHR.
