Has the Eagle Landed part 6: Did the 3rd Reich ever fall?

So far in this series I have examined the emergence of authoritarian empires throughout history, analysed the characteristics and common behaviour displayed by the regimes and examined the evidence that the Trump administration is displaying many of these classic traits.

Part five traced the history of empires from the Akkadanians to the rise of the military industrial complex (MIC) and in part six I will show how the corporate giants of the west happily provided safe havens for some of Hitlers most trusted industrialists and scientists.

Before looking at the aftermath of the 2nd World War, let's look how these same corporate oligarchs not only enabled the rise of the 3rd Reich’s military dominance but also how, without the funding and expertise of key western companies, the 2nd World War could never have occurred.

When looking at the rise to power of Adlof Hitler, many historians point to the contribution made by German tycoon Fritz Thyssen.

Thyssen was an early supporter of the Nazi party and of Hitler in particular and was instrumental in persuading the Association of German Industrialists to donate three million Reichsmarks to the Nazi Party for the March 1933 Reichstag election.

As a leading figure in German’s pre war steel industry, Thyssen advocated for the suppression of trade unions, socialists and supported the anti-Jewish legislation of pre war Germany that excluded Jews from business and professional life, showing his support by dismissing all of his Jewish employees. Postwar investigators found that he had donated 650,000 ℛ︁ℳ︁ to right-wing parties, mostly to the Nazis.

Thyssen though, was a staunch Catholic and wrote to Hitler arguing against the persecution of Christians in Nazi Germany, he also spoke out vehemently against the violent events of Kristallnacht and by 1939 was a vocal opponent of Nazi economic policies. He specifically opposed  the intense focus on rearming and preparation for war.

His opposition was such that In 1941, Thyssen fled Germany, but he was arrested by Vichy France in a hotel in Nice and sent back to Germany, where he was confined, first in a sanatorium near Berlin, then from 1943 in Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

In February 1945, Thyssen was sent to Dachau concentration camp. He was comparatively well-treated and transferred to Tyrol in late-April 1945 together with other prominent inmates.

Clearly then Thyssen was not the industrial and financial driver of Hitlers war machine that he is painted out to be.

When we dig a little deeper, the true financial backers of the 3rd Reich become apparent.

Thyssen’s international banking was handled by Brown Brothers Harriman and Co, America's oldest private investment bank!

Once in power, Hitler relied on banks such as the Bank for International Settlements, Chase and Morgan, and Union Banking Corporation to facilitate German financial operations worldwide. Now upon first examination, the Bank for International Settlements sounds like an international organisation. That idea is soon dispelled when you realise that the bank was first planned at a meeting in early July 1927 of Montagu Norman, governor of the bank of England, his friend Benjamin Strong, head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York,  Reichsbank president Hjalmar Schacht, and Bank of France vice governor Charles Rist.

The four main combatants of WW2 were responsible for means of financing the war!

The bank was incorporated under Swiss law. Neutrality is a useful means of serving both sides! Interestingly, Japanese diplomats were also present at the incorporation.

It wasn't just the US banking giants who ensured that Germany achieved its industrial and military dominance. In March 1939, just 6 months before Britain entered WWII, the Bank of England surrendered to Germany 5.6 million pounds worth of gold that belonged to the National Bank of Czechoslovakia.

Both the Bank of Canada and the US Federal Reserve Bank helped to launder Nazi gold by transferring it from a Swiss account to one held by neutral Portugal. A single transaction in June 1942 by the Canadian bank moved 4.02 metric tons of gold.

Switzerland’s role in laundering hundreds of millions of dollars in gold stolen from the central banks of European countries on behalf of the Nazis is well known.

It is clear that the financial resources Germany needed to build their formidable military, were made available by the financial institutions of the countries who would be most affected by war! 

Germany  had the funds and now looked for the industrial and engineering giants it needed to help modernise its military and it is in this sphere that the US took centre stage.

Fortunately for Germany, the eagerness to profit from the deaths of millions wasn't confined to the financial sector!

General Motors was far more important to the Nazi war machine than any other company.

In The Washington Post’s 1988 scrutiny of the role of US businesses in the German war machine, Michael Dobbs wrote, "The Nazis could have invaded Poland and Russia without Switzerland. They could not have done so without GM. 

Numerous other major US corporations such as IBM, IT&T, Kodak, Gillette and Coca Cola all had major investments in Germany when the US entered the war in 1941.

So who were the key US corporations that benefitted most from WW2?

The first and most obvious beneficiary is General Motors. In 1934, the company’s in house publication General Motors World featured a multi-page cover story that effectively eulogised the Nazi Party and Hitler specifically. The article covered the May Day celebrations in Germany and focussed on Hitler’s family values.

The following day, on May 2, 1934, James D. Mooney, president of the General Motors Overseas Corporation and other senior executives from GM and its German subsidiary Adam Opel A.G., met with Hitler at the Chancellery.

GM executives, including Alfred P. Sloan, viewed the industrial success in Germany, similar to in the US, as a wealth-creating venture, knowingly operating in alignment with the Hitler regime despite the ongoing international, anti-Nazi boycotts. 

The benefits to GM from their cooperation with Nazi Germany were extensive, they made massive profits from Rearmament. Opel became the largest automobile manufacturer in Germany, and with the rise of the Nazi regime, it shifted focus to military production. Sales to the Nazi army yielded up to 40% higher profits than civilian sales. Under Nazi rule, Opel grew to command a 40% market share by 1934 and doubled its value by the end of 1939. GM brought American production techniques ("Fordism") to Germany, which were heavily supported by Nazi policies.

GM's German plants produced key components for the Nazi war machine, including Opel "Blitz" trucks (the backbone of the German army), engines for the Junkers JU-88 bomber, and components for Messerschmitt Me-262 jet fighters.

Despite the US entering the war, GM's investment in Opel was preserved by a Nazi-appointed custodian. The company maintained 100% stock ownership, and profits were used to acquire other properties within Germany, strengthening its asset base!

Even after the war, GM received more than $33 million in reparations and tax benefits from the U.S. government for damages caused by Allied bombing of their German factories!

GM officially stated that it lost control of its German operations after 1939 but historical evidence suggests that American management was aware of the conversion to military production and that the plants remained a vital part of the global corporation. 

Charles Erwin Wilson was the President and CEO of General Motors immediately following World War II, serving from 1941 to 1953. He led the company through its postwar reconversion and expansion before leaving to become U.S. Secretary of Defense.

From Nazi collaborateurs, to the MIC, to the government. Specifically, to the department of defence.

It wasn't only GM who assisted the German war machine.

Delving into the Smithsonian Library archives turned up  Max Wallace's The

American axis : Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, and the rise of the Third Reich. In it Wallace presents verifiable evidence of the paper that proves the Ford Motor Corporation subsidised Hitler’s rise to power.

Henry Ford was a known admirer of Hitler and was awarded The Grand Cross of the German Eagle, the highest Nazi medal for a foreigner. Ford's German subsidiary, Ford-Werke, produced military trucks and other war materiel for the German army and utilized forced and slave labor from concentration camps.

Ford was mentioned in Hitler’s Mein Kampf and the German leader kept a portrait of him in his office!

For his part, Ford praised the Nazi party's use of assembly line production and exported the concept to his US factories as Fordism.

In 1946 the Ford successfully sued the allies for damage to their Cologne factory, even though it was well known that the factory utilised forced labour to produce vehicles for the Nazi war machine. Later that year a group of ex US Army Air Force officers, known collectively as The Whizz Kids, the group was part of a management science operation within the Army Air Force known as Statistical Control, organized to coordinate all the operational and logistical information required to wage war.

One of the members, Robert S McManara, became president of the Ford motor group. He went on to become the US secretary of defence and president of the world bank.

From Nazi collaborators to the MIC and the US government. Again, specifically the Dept’ of Defence. 

Perhaps the most insidious example of collaboration between the US and prominent Nazis was Operation Paperclip. Described on the CIA’s own website as ‘the secret intelligence operation to bring Nazi scientists to America’, this initiative saw at least 1600 Nazi scientists and engineers brought to the US to work on rocketry and Dept’ of defence projects.

The two most high profile ‘defectors’ were Werner von Braun and Author Rudolph, both of whom joined the Nazi party before the outbreak of war,  both of whom worked on the V2 bomber programme at facilities known to have utilised slave labour.

Von Braun became a key figure at NASA and Rudolph, who was initially transferred to the UK, became the  technical director for the Redstone missile and project manager for the Pershing missile. For which he received the Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service.

The two worked together in senior positions at NASA on programs such as the Saturn V rocket program and on  the development of the rocket that successfully launched the Apollo missions.

Again, the journey from Nazi to the MIC and US defence industry is clear to see.

The CIA and FBI also recruited former Nazi collaborators, such as Otto von Bolschwing, a Nazi officer who specialised in the expropriation of Jewish property and Aleksandras Lileikis, linked to massacres in Lithuania and described by Eli Rosenbaum of the Office of Special Investigations (OSI), part of the Department of Justice, as "a senior-level perpetrator of the Holocaust".

Apart from the Department of Defense and NASA, which has effectively become an extension of the military, several other US companies benefitted from collaboration with Nazi Germany, leveraging investments and supplying technology for economic gain before and during WWII. Major firms included ITT, Kodak, Standard Oil and Coca-Cola,  while IBM (via its subsidiary Dehomag) provided technology for organizing census data. and during WWII played a significant role in Nazi Germany by providing punched card technology to organize the Holocaust. This technology facilitated the tracking of Jewish populations, logistics, and concentration camp management. IBM’s involvement enabled the efficient identification of individuals for persecution and extermination. 

After the war, IBM’s experience in this technology allowed them to gain US Dept’ of Defence contracts that provided extensive Hollerith punch-card systems to the U.S. War Department for tracking, data management, and cryptographic work.

ITT Corporation had significant, documented involvement with Nazi Germany, with CEO Sosthenes Behn meeting Hitler in 1933.  ITT held stakes in aircraft manufacturer Focke-Wulf and produced military radar/transceivers for the Wehrmacht. ITT also reportedly made cash payments to SS leader Heinrich Himmler. 

ITT subsidiary Signalbau AG (Signalbau Huth) manufactured communication equipment for the German military and senior executives met with Adolf HIl=tler in 1933 to discuss operations.

While ITT subsidiaries were supporting the German war effort, their equipment was also used against Allied forces, even as they simultaneously provided technology that assisted the Allies. 

Despite this involvement, ITT received $27 million in the 1960s from the U.S. government for damage to its German assets during the war. 

ITT currently holds defence and aerospace with Boeing and is a key part of the UK’s military drone industry.

Standard Oil (now ExxonMobil and others) had a business relationship with the German chemical manufacturer I.G. Farben and supplied Nazi Germany with critical oil and technology for producing synthetic gasoline. Standard Oil tankers were re-registered under the Panamanian flag to evade the British naval blockade and deliver oil that eventually reached Germany.

Kodak continued to operate its German and French subsidiaries during the war, producing film, fuses, and triggers for the German war machine and employing slave labor. Kodak also continued to trade with Germany through neutral countries.

Like ITT and Standard oil, Kodak worked with the US military whilst at the same time supporting the Nazi war machine. After the war, Kodak received multiple Dept of Defence contracts including covert imaging and in 1955 the company was contracted by Lockheed Martin to provide the camera for the IKONOS satellite.

Lockheed Martin was a key employer of Nazi scientists and engineers in the US as part of Operation Paperclip.

There is no doubt that major US companies benefitted from aiding the military capability of both Germany and the Allies. Equally obvious is the fact that these companies benefitted not only from financial compensation for damage to factories that strengthened the Nazi war machine but that they were also more than happy to ignore the crimes of many top Nazi party engineers, scientists and industrialists and offer them a comfortable life in the US in exchange for their experience of military technology.

The link between Nazi war criminals, the MIlitary Industrial Complex and the US defence industry is unquestionable. 

Perhaps the most shocking fact is that some of the most senior Nazi supporting US industrialists, many of whom had personal links to Hitler, were welcomed into the highest echelons of the US government.