The Elephant in the Room: Explorations in the Development and Implications of American Corporate Power

Jack Beatty, Colossus: How the Corporation Changed America (New York: Broadway Books, 2001)

Adolf A. Berle and Gardiner C. Means, The Modern Corporation and Private Property (New York: Harcourt, 1968)

Alfred Chandler, Jr., and Mark Mazlish. Leviathans: Multinational Corporations and the New Global History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005)

Sanford M. Jacoby, Modern Manors: Welfare Capitalism Since the New Deal (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1997)

Kenneth Lipartito and David B. Sicilia, Constructing Corporate America: History Politics, Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004)

Charles Perrow, Organizing America: Wealth, Power, and the Origins of Corporate Capitalism (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2002)

Harland Prechel, Big Business and the State: Historical Transitions and Corporate Transformation, 1880s-1990s (Albany: SUNY Press, 2000)

Warren J. Samuels and Arthur S. Miller, Corporations and Society: Power and Responsibility (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987)

Understanding the history of corporate development in the United States is a tricky business. Due to the sprawling and interconnected nature of these organizations, studying their history necessarily requires a large scale approach that encompasses many facets of modern life: economics, politics, law, labor, organizational structures, and culture. Evidence of the influence of corporations is present in many of the well-known histories of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, when corporate power began to seriously compete, and some cases eclipse, other forms of power within the U.S. Matthew Josephson gave a face and a name to the apprehension people felt about these new sprawling behemoths in The Robber Barons (1934). Likewise, Gabriel Kolko wrote in The Triumph of Conservatism (1963) that by the turn of the twentieth century, it was the corporate leaders, not the reformers, who advocated and pushed through policies of federal intervention and regulation to serve their profit-seeking ends in the Progressive Era. Subsequently, Historian Robert Wiebe noted that by the 1920s, transformations that had been occurring since the Reconstruction era had made America into an unrecognizable, new type of society – driven by the rise of rationalized bureaucratic structures that populations hoped would bring order and stability.[1] Behind all of these histories, the rise of corporate power plays an essential role.

While these and many other histories touch upon this influential, albeit confusing, phenomenon, much of this scholarship takes place from outside these institutions. Business history itself requires advanced knowledge of economic, organizational and legal structures that create challenges in explaining clearly what actually occurs within these businesses and how they operate. Thankfully, many business historians have risen to the task to help us understand the complex dynamics involved. In this paper, I will present a handful of texts that are representative to this field in an attempt to evaluate their usefulness in understanding the growth and activities of American corporations.

Before we turn to more recent endeavors, it makes sense to look at work that has created a foundation for this scholarship. Thus, a fitting book to start with is Adolf A. Berle and Gardiner C. Means, The Modern Corporation and Private Property (1968). Berle and Means have produced a now classic repository of statistical data, which situates the corporation at the center of modern U.S. business activity, focusing specifically on property law. The authors argue that industry has become increasingly concentrated and that the ownership of these organizations has been separated from their management structures, creating unique problems in discerning the motivations and development of corporate structures. Beyond this, Berle and Means do not ignore the growing imbalance of corporate power relative to the rest of society. Along with several other of the authors reviewed here, they recommend constitutional checks and controls on corporate power.

To that end, the volume is divided into four books; book one showcases the authors’ argument in demonstrating the divergence between corporate ownership and management structures. Book two provides a history of the evolution of the modern corporate structure both from the perspective of financial markets and in the development of American contract law. Book three expands upon the dynamics of the modern stock exchange and book four returns to the tension between corporate power and society. In each section, Berle and Means marshal statistical data to build a socio-economic framework for their arguments.

The Modern Corporation and Private Property is rightly considered an important work. The authors demonstrate the unequivocal tendency for corporations to strive toward increasingly larger scales of capital consolidation. That being said, the Berle and Means also concede that there is incontrovertible proof of the growing participation of smaller investors, which helps to stave off any overtly Marxist interpretation. The deluge of statistical data creates a substantial learning curve in teasing out the authors’ arguments, yet the argument that the traditional linkage between investing, making decisions, and reaping profits has been dissolved is clear, compelling and powerful.

Next, we turn to Alfred Chandler, Jr., and Mark Mazlish’s Leviathans: Multinational Corporations and the New Global History (2005). Chandler’s participation is noteworthy due to the continuing influence of his landmark book, The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (1977), in which he provides a highly detailed history of the development of corporate models of mass production and the associated development of modern management structures.[2] In the collection of essays that constitute Leviathans, we fast-forward to corporate development in the latter half of the twentieth century, in which predominantly American corporations have become multinational. The authors concede that the global balance of power has decidedly tilted toward multinational corporations; however, they reject the notion that globalization entails an inevitable de-emphasis of the state. The editors, Chandler and Mazlish, take the opportunity to emphasize the need for further research to illuminate the ways these institutions both undermine, as well as support, the sovereignty and power of states.

The text is separated into nine essays divided into two sections; the first on the growth and scope of multinationals and the second on their socio-cultural effects. The essays themselves consider three interrelated themes: descriptive accounts of corporate development in the twentieth century, generalized discussions of the social and cultural implications of their global dominance, and challenges related to their regulation and governance. The initial chapter by the editors and two later ones by Bruce Mazlish and Elliott Morss, and Stephen Kobrin respectively, concerning the rise of global elites and anti-globalization movements stand out among the others.

The text is not without significant shortcomings. Like several other books reviewed here, it is a collection of essays; while this is not necessarily a problem in and of itself, the challenge of adhering to an overriding theme is where Leviathans falls short. Likewise, the essays exhibit an overridingly relativistic tone about the more negative effects of globalized corporate activity such as worker exploitation, environmental damage, and the domination of public spaces. While these problems are acknowledged in the essays, analysis of these subjects are given only passing treatment or purposefully avoided.

In another collection of essays, Constructing Corporate America: History Politics, Culture (2004), Kenneth Lipartito and David B. Sicilia also seek to explain the development of the corporation as America’s predominant form of business organization. The editors show their colors in their critical approach; they question the rationality of managerial decision making, the focus on efficiency and profits, and the purported distance between the corporate world and the political. The bias of Lipartito and Sicilia aside, the collective aim is to offer a more complex alternative to the narrative of American corporate development.

Within the context of each other, the essays are quite good due to their diverse orientations. Colleen Dunlavy provides an interesting sketch of the corporation as a plutocratic democracy with its “one share one vote” rule. Naomi Lamoreaux explores the legal interpretation of the corporation and argues that the corporate form, far from being inevitable, rests on historically contingent legal phenomena. In other legal perspectives, Gerald Berk explains the relationship between Justice Louis Brandeis’ support for scientifically managed bureaucracy and market regulation. David Hart also adds an important contribution on the relationship between the U.S. government and corporate development, arguing that business history tends to take an overwhelmingly internalist approach, which ignores the enormous effect of corporate activity upon society.

Like Leviathans, Constructing Corporate America has similar problems with continuity. To be fair, most of the essays strike a revisionist approach, intent on moving beyond the Chandlerian business history paradigm; however, the results are mixed. The later chapters on corporate identity politics seem out of place and undeveloped. Additionally, the functionalist approach championed by Chandler, which the authors purport to call into question, is still readily apparent.

In order to further address the inward-looking nature of business history and its functionalist roots, it is worth looking at text that exemplifies these qualities. Such is Sanford M. Jacoby’s Modern Manors: Welfare Capitalism Since the New Deal (1997). Jacoby looks specifically at American corporate-styled welfare capitalism as a historically and geographically specific phenomenon. Reading from more of the positivist school of thought, Jacoby sees corporate projections of power to be an impressive if imperfect system, one whose notions of order, community, and paternal responsibility recalled the preindustrial household economy. Jacoby contends that the firms pursuing welfare capitalism were, in effect, industrial manors.

The author utilizes three separate case studies of corporate firms to illustrate a wider picture of the evolution of industrial and governmental relations throughout the twentieth century. Jacoby concedes that this type of corporate domination of the American workforce was not entirely positive, noting that workers have increasingly been split between the affluent and the poor. The most interesting portion of the text deals with how major industries united to exert the greatest possible influence on labor policy in the 1920s and 1930s. Under the Special Conference Committee (SCC), executives from ten of America’s leading companies formed a committee to coordinate labor relations and responses to changes in legislation in order to maintain continual growth and maintenance of profit.

The success of Jacoby’s text is mixed; it fits well within a functionalist framework and provides a detailed snapshot of the internal calculus of managers in dealing with labor. That said, his primary source analysis only extends to the early 1960s making his examination of corporate welfare into the later part of the twentieth century limited in its usefulness. More problematically, Jacoby falls victim to the relativistic tunnel-vision of many other business histories; he fails to acknowledge the underlying imbalance of power between management and workers, or corporations’ role in exacerbating this problem due to increasingly extreme drives toward capital consolidation. Jacoby notes that this has led to the weakening of unions, but provides little insight on how the situation might be remedied beyond tepid calls for “market individualism.”[3]

Drawing inspiration from Chandler, Harland Prechel also seeks to explain corporate development in America in Big Business and the State: Historical Transitions and Corporate Transformation, 1880s-1990s (2000). Prechel, however, is more critical of this trajectory than his predecessor. His main argument is that, over time, corporations’ ability to influence the state has grown considerably. Prechel employs what he calls “capital dependence” theory to explain this phenomenon. Prechel argues, via this theory, that corporations were impelled to transform from trusts to holding companies in the nineteenth century, to multidivisional, multilayered subsidiary forms in the twentieth century in order to maintain their abilities to consolidate capital. The author explains that it was the influence of top corporate managers, rather than bureaucratic processes, in reshaping corporate forms in order maintain liquidity of capital.

Structurally, Prechel periodizes his text into three sections: In the first period, the 1870s through the 1890s, the author explains that business leaders utilized federalist legal arguments to secure legal protections for corporations, which ultimately led to the development of the holding company. In the second period, the 1920s and 1930s, rampant capital accumulation culminated in economic distress, which led corporations to reform their structures into multidivisional formations. In the final period, the 1970s to the 1990s, corporations developed multilayered subsidiary forms to globalize consolidation of capital and avoid labor and tax regulations.

A key deficiency in Prechel’s text is the absence of labor. Unlike Jacoby, Prechel ignores the influence of workers on the formulation of corporate policy in the eras he analyzes. As with other business history texts examined here, Prechel’s socio-economic approach utilizes methodology and models as a replacement for broad-based historical analysis. The resulting effect is akin to the other limited, functionalist approaches we have seen so far; Prechel is good at articulating policy out of large data sets (most notably the American steel industry in this case) but falters in making larger claims about the relationships between corporations and the historical environments in which they operate.

While larger-scoped studies are helpful in demonstrating historical change over time, it is also useful to more closely analyze key historical moments for corporate development. Likewise, in Organizing America: Wealth, Power, and the Origins of Corporate Capitalism (2002), Charles Perrow specifically traces the concentration of economic power in the U.S. in its crucial beginning stage in the nineteenth-century. Perrow lucidly notes that the ubiquity of bureaucracies has created a unique problem for historians and requires deeper analysis in order to expose their historical significance. Perrow argues that in many accounts of social change, wealth and power are “not associated with organizations; wealth is resident in an individual, a family or a class, and power is resident in persons or ideologies.”[4] Thus, Perrow states, organizations are at best unproblematic resources for other expressions of wealth and power.

Perrow’s main contention is that the development of the corporate form was neither necessary nor inevitable, but rather, influenced by small groups of capitalists interested in greater organizational flexibility. In order to support his argument, Perrow divides his study into two parts: the first examining the American textile industry, and the second focused on railroads. The author utilizes a comparative framework, first contrasting the Philadelphia and New England textile industries, and then evaluating the American railroad industry against its French and British counterparts. In both sections, Perrow stresses the historically contingent nature of American corporate development, demonstrating that alternatives could be just as efficient, and with more regulatory oversight, than they turned out to be.

As with many other texts we have seen, the sociological method plays a primary role in explaining the phenomena discussed. The synthetic, over-reliance on secondary works to build methodological models lends itself to an often confusing and convoluted narrative. Perrow would have done well to ground this work by referencing more broad historical studies to provide context. Nevertheless, his contention that the rise of corporate power was due to a purposeful effort pushed by capitalists and investment houses, is compelling and important. Likewise, Perrow exposes that the trajectory of these corporate leaders push for capital consolidation often included corrupt financial dealings rife with bribery, flagrant violations of regulatory statutes, and deceptive financial dealings, which provide an important historical lesson.

Continuing down the path in the study of historically critical moments for corporate development, the work by Warren J. Samuels and Arthur S. Miller in Corporations and Society: Power and Responsibility (1987) has special significance. These authors specifically take on the phenomenon known as “corporate personhood,” which developed out of a particular interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment in the case Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad.[5] In yet another collection of essays by legal historians Martin J. Sklar, Morton Horwitz, Aviam Soifer, Samuel Loescher, and others, the balance of the formulation and development of this concept is juxtaposed with an exploration of its moral implications.

Following a dedication to Berle and Means, the thirteen essays that constitute Corporations and Society are broken up into four themes: the doctrinal origins of corporate personhood, development of legal precedents relative to social control and economic planning, policy consequences, and the tension between democracy and corporate power. The Santa Clara case looms large in the text, directly referenced in nine of the essays. Morton Horwitz’s first and longest chapter stands out in tying this legal precedent to the accelerated capital consolidation by corporations in the late nineteenth century and beyond. Martin Sklar expands this theme by demonstrating how the Sherman Anti-trust Act was basically a failure due to the legal protections for corporations already in place. Martin Benjamin and Daniel Bronstein cut through technical ambiguities, arguing that corporations are entirely goal-oriented and incapable of understanding the moral consequences of their actions, which creates a serious problem in their legal designation – as only natural persons can be incarcerated for criminal violations of the law. In sum, the threat of corporations to democracy is an overriding motif of the text.

There is little to criticize here. The editors have done a better job than most in keeping the essays in conversation with one another. Additionally, each piece is well argued and has prodigious documentation. To be sure, the authors are fixated on the concept of corporate personhood, and it is worth noting that other developments, such as the holding company, play at least as important a role in corporate gigantism.[6] This text is also the most revisionist of the works reviewed in this paper thus far; business historians used to a more relativistic tone may be taken aback by the frank assertions the authors make about American-styled oligarchy and the subversion of democracy.

Indeed, staunch revisionism of corporate power is much more common outside the realm of business history. In order to emphasize this feature, the final book reviewed here is Colossus: How the Corporation Changed America (2001) by Jack Beatty. Beatty is not a business historian; he is a journalist and editor for the Atlantic magazine. It is clear from his introduction, however, that he is familiar with the territory explored in this essay. He drops references to Chandler, Berle and Means, and John Kenneth Galbraith, who also shares Beatty’s critical attitudes toward a corporate dominated society.[7]

Despite a difference in methodology, which we will deal with in a moment, Beatty’s argument is similar to many of the other authors reviewed here: that constitutional power must be exerted to check the power of corporations, who have subverted democracy both in the U.S.and elsewhere. To support this claim, Beatty breaks up his text thematically and along vague chronological lines, dealing with diverse issues of production, consumption, legal precedents, labor, and culture. The author picks out various corporations for case studies, such as Standard Oil and AT&T. Beatty also brings in literary voices such as John Steinbeck, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Joseph Heller to add cultural context.

While entertaining and clearly meant for a general audience, this scattershot approach has grave problems. First of all, Colossus does not contain an index, almost immediately excluding it as a useful academic source. The footnoting is quite limited, as is its bibliography. While the iconoclastic tone is likely to garner a sympathetic readership, the narrative is disjointed and is seriously lacking in continuity. The textbook-styled case studies that interrupt the main body of the chapters are distracting and unnecessary. One reviewer suggested the work be utilized by college students.[8] I strenuously disagree; the tone of the book is mismatched by its lack of academic rigor and provides a misleading example of literature on the topic. There is no doubt that Beatty’s claims have merit, but his methodology is severely lacking.

Collectively, the texts reviewed here present a conundrum: books that offer deep technical analyses tend to present a formalist, relativistic stance that ignores the social consequences of corporate power. Alternatively, there are plenty of books like Beatty’s Colossus that address these consequences, but lack a disciplined, empirical approach needed to more fully address the topic. Samuels and Miller’s Corporations and Society strikes a good balance here, yet a high learning curve is still required in the arenas of business and legal history to fully understand the empirical data being presented. This creates a barrier – not only between historians and this valuable information, but also effectively keeps the public out of the conversation as well.

A more comprehensive approach is likely needed. While it is clear that many of the editors took this idea to heart by cobbling together diverse groups of essays, what is more accurately required is historical context. As noted earlier, the inward-looking nature of business history is quite good at producing texts that supply enormous amounts of technical information and discerning the organizational trajectories of individual firms; however without being situated in their environment, these books are limited in their usefulness to both historians and the public. Given that there is widespread consensus regarding the importance in understanding the corporation’s place within society, business historians have an important responsibility to fulfill. This task would be best accomplished with more historical representation and sensitivity toward the individuals, populations, states, and environments that are affected, often adversely, by corporate activity. This proposed approach does not necessarily have to be revisionist; it is quite likely that there are some scholars who feel that corporate consolidation of political power and capital is a good thing, however, such a task must be done openly, clearly, and independent of corporate influence.

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[1] Robert Wiebe, The Search for Order, 1877-1920 (New York: Hill & Wang, 1967).

[2] Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977). Unlike Berle and Means, critiques of the socio-political effects of this activity are almost completely absent in the text.

[3] Sanford M. Jacoby, Modern Manors: Welfare Capitalism Since the New Deal (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997) 263.

[4] Charles Perrow, Organizing America: Wealth, Power, and the Origins of Corporate Capitalism (New Jersey:PrincetonUniversity Press, 2002) 10.

[5] Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific R.R. (118US 394). This case involved a tax dispute between the railroad andSan Mateo county, which wanted to prevent the corporation from deducting its debts from its tax obligations. The case was appealed up to the Supreme Court, which unanimously held that the corporation had the right to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment – just the same as a natural person. Chief Justice Morrison Waite stated in this fateful ruling, “The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does.”

[6] Jason Weixelbaum, “Harnessing the Growth of Corporate Capitalism: Sullivan & Cromwell and its influence on late nineteenth-century American business.” http://jasonweixelbaum.wordpress.com/2010/12/25/harnessing-the-growth-of-corporate-capitalism-sullivan-cromwell-and-its-influence-on-late-nineteenth-century-american-business/

[7] John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958). Essentially Galbraith saw the problem of “conspicuous consumption” vigorously promoted by corporations plaguing American society in its overproduction of luxury goods without providing for society’s basic needs.

[8] Roger L. Adkins, Reviewed work(s): Colossus: How the Corporation Changed America  by Jack Beatty, American Journal of Business Vol. 16, No. 2 (Fall, 2001): 63.

Collaboration in Context: New Historiographical Approaches to Alleged American/Nazi Business Ties

The contentious issue of corporate collaboration between Nazi Germany and businesses in the United States has been fermenting ever since the end of World War II. Although historical analysis of this phenomenon has continued ever since, in recent years there has been significant growth of scholarship that deals with this subject. This has been due in part to revelations that have emerged in lawsuits from the former victims of the Nazi regime against American corporations, which has also produced correspondent histories sponsored by the organizations to defend, legitimize, or obscure their activities.[1] Additionally, particularly since the end of the Cold War, there has been a steady declassification of documentation that exposes this activity both in the U.S. and elsewhere, which has provided fresh source material for new historical investigations.

The study of this subject matter is challenging for several reasons. First, the field itself is quite diverse. Historical investigations have involved a multitude of different types of organizations, from automotive firms to financial institutions. Second, primary source materials often reside behind the closed doors of large corporations and law firms. Privileged access to this documentation and corporate funding of historical studies further complicates this already controversial issue. Third, national narratives from the World War II period tend to obscure, rather than illuminate the highly complex transnational phenomena of cross-border corporate activity, capital flows, and wartime industrial development.

In the face of these difficulties, the implications of this field of research are profound. Several major narratives could be called into question. For Americans, the notion of the “Good War,” in which the U.S.plays the incorruptible good guy in a Manichean struggle against Nazi Germany is still used as a moral standard for U.S. foreign policy, which often intimately affects the rest of the world. For Europeans, particularly German historians, the inclusion of outside actors in the culpability of the horrors of the Holocaust and Nazi militarism further complicate an already expansive, diverse, and deeply emotional subject matter. Finally, in the realm of research on globalization, transnational history, and international diplomacy in the twentieth century, this field presents a challenge, not only for the study of the relationships between multinational corporations and international relations, but also for the study of the Cold War, which naturally involves all of these aspects.

It is not surprising then, given all of these complicating factors, that the emerging standpoints in this study of American business collaboration with Nazi Germany have engaged in a “dialog of the deaf,” writing past each other in an effort to seize hold of the narrative. For lack of better terms, I have labeled these two dominant groups the “collaborationists” and the “corporatists.” For their part, the corporatists argue that business relationships between American corporations and the Hitler regime were sparse, small scale, uncoordinated, and had no relationship with U.S.policymakers. Furthermore, this group contends that American parent companies lost control of their European subsidiaries when these businesses were seized by the Nazis and retooled for war. The collaborationists argue the opposite: that these business interactions were widespread, large scale, coordinated, and had connections to influential American personalities.

If there is insight to be gained from this historiographical controversy, a more accurate portrayal of these events lies between these two camps. Despite unknown amounts of corporate funding and avid public interest in the subject, neither side has taken into account the infinitely large volumes of historical research that can help provide context for American businesses’ alleged Nazi ties. Thus, the goal of this paper is to evaluate the representative literature on both sides of this debate and then explore the larger history of economics across social boundaries during World War II by bringing into context historical works in multiple fields in order to approach a more nuanced and solid foundation for future research.

The Collaborationists

There are not many defining features of this group of literature other than the notion that, as mentioned earlier, many of the writers argue that corporate collaboration between American firms and the Nazis was more widespread and more coordinated than originally thought, and control of German subsidiaries were actually retained by their U.S. based parent companies through the use of lawyers, intermediaries, and managers loyal to the organizations. Additionally, many of the texts in this group involve single businesses or industries rather than the topic of business collaboration as a whole. Problematically, sensationalism also tends to be a common theme that undermines their empirical value. With titles like America’s Nazi Secret by John Loftus and American Swastika by Charles Higham, these books are specifically marketed to the conspiracy crowd. Finally, one problematic feature of this collection is that many, but not all, of the works have been produced by journalists rather than academics, which has caused this field of research to be glossed over or dismissed by specialists.

It is worth noting that this field has deep roots going back to World War II itself. For instance, formal inquiries into U.S.business collaboration with both Japan and Germany started near the war’s end with a congressional committee established by U.S. Senator Harley Kilgore to oversee war production efforts and investigate the relationship of monopolies and international chemical cartels. This committee reported that patent agreements, specifically between American and German firms to produce materials essential to building armaments such as synthetic rubber, beryllium, tungsten carbide, optical glass and plastics, were monopolistic in nature and designed to keep all competitors out of the market. The revelations of the Kilgore committee prompted writers Joseph Borkin, Charles A. Welsh, Richard Sasuly, and Josiah DuBois to argue that these business relationships were essential to Nazi war production both before and after the U.S.and Germany were at war.[2]

Moving forward several decades, one of the more comprehensive books on the subject of corporate collaboration with Nazi Germany is Charles Higham’s Trading with the Enemy (1983). Oddly enough, Higham is an author who writes tabloid-style accounts of Hollywood personalities.[3] In Trading with the Enemy Higham identifies a group he calls “the Fraternity,” a collection of prominent and wealthy Americans who lent their fortunes and their businesses to the Nazi cause. Of all the individuals he discusses, Higham pays special attention to German lawyer Gerhard Westrick, who helped companies like International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT) keep their subsidiaries in American hands both before and after a state of war existed between Germany and the U.S. Another innovative aspect to his study is Higham’s treatment of the activities of American banker Thomas H. McKittrick, who utilized his presidency at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) to launder stolen gold for the Nazis.[4]

Because it is written in a highly dramatic and colorful style with very little documentation other than a selected bibliography, scholars have mostly ignored this text; however, Higham states that he was responsible for taking out the initial Freedom of Information Act requests to get information in the book released – including particular documents related to the BIS, other banks (including Chase Bank and JP Morgan), and Gerhard Westrick. My own inspection of his archive at the University of Southern California demonstrates that the author did collect copious documentation from the National Archives to support his claims.[5] These sources include detailed, declassified investigations of Chase Bank, JP Morgan, and the BIS by the offices of U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau. Higham’s documentation also includes postwar interrogations by Allied intelligence agents of Gerhard Westrick and Baron Kurt Freiherr von Shröder, who acted as intermediaries for several of the businesses named above. It is unfortunate that his overwrought writing style and lack of references do not serve his cause.

Higham’s work draws inspiration from another more comprehensive book, Anthony Sutton’s Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler (1976). Sutton argues that multiple financial organizations in the U.S., many of which already had global reach, helped provide finances to the Nazis throughout the twelve-year Reich. Sutton’s argument closely resembles Higham’s, except with more references to primary source documentation. Sutton’s work also suffers from a dramatic retelling of the events and has been subsequently reposted in many places on internet conspiracy websites. Like Higham, Sutton pays particular attention to the BIS, Ford Motor Company, ITT, and Standard Oil. This work has also been ignored by the academic community for its overly conspiratorial overtones, even though later works have established the veracity of a few of his claims. Unfortunately for Sutton, no comprehensive analysis of his work and sources has occurred as of yet; his text remains unreliable for future research until such a review has been done.

One of the books that lend credence to the claims of Sutton and Higham’s work is Working for the Enemy (2004). The argument of this text, encapsulated in a series of essays by historians Reinhold Billstein, Karola Fings, Anita Kugler, and Nicholas Levis, revolves around the premise that Ford and General Motors (GM) controlled a majority of Third Reich armaments industries through their subsidiaries, Ford-Werke & Adam Opel AG, and maintained in contact and control of them throughout the war via managers loyal to the companies. The text also contains oral histories from former forced laborers who worked at the Opel and Ford-Werke plants. These testimonies, including those by Elsa Iwanowa, were published in tandem with Holocaust restitution lawsuits that were brought against both Ford and GM during this period. This text is much more copiously sourced and the language is considerably more measured than the aforementioned books; however, the writers admit that the documentation regarding GM’s German subsidiary is particularly thin, given that their main plant Russelheim was bombed repeatedly by the Allies toward the end of the war.

In the category of “collaborationists” author Edwin Black stands out as one of the most significant contributors. Black has also written similar material about Ford and GM for his book Internal Combustion (2006), a conspiratorially-toned text about the American auto industry’s resistance to the development of the electric car. His main contributions to the study of collaboration with the Nazis are The Transfer Agreement (1986), War Against the Weak (2003), and IBM and the Holocaust (2001) – the latter being the most well known. He also produced an anthology, Nazi Nexus (2009), which contains excerpts from all of these works. The Transfer Agreement, Black’s first book and the one that earned him the most notoriety, involves backroom deals between German Zionists and Nazi officials, who agreed to allow Jews to escape Germany and emigrate to Palestine in exchange for assistance in stymieing Jewish-led boycotts. War Against the Weak describes the work of American eugenicists who both influenced, financed, and worked for Nazi eugenics programs.

IBM and the Holocaust deserves closer scrutiny. Like Working for the Enemy the book was intended for release at the same time as Holocaust era lawsuits were being brought against International Business Machines (IBM). Black argues that the corporation’s biggest client was Germany during the 1930s and 40s and forcefully maintained control of its subsidiary, Dehomag, through the use of lawyers, loyal managers, and Swiss holding companies. Furthermore, Black argues that IBM’s information services were critical to perpetrating the Holocaust by seeking out Jews and organizing their detainment, forced labor, and execution. As a secondary argument, Black also notes that IBM’s organizational services were greatly useful for German war production. Black assembled a large team of researchers to assemble the prodigious source material for the book. He also had it reviewed in its preproduction stage by a few specialists, including Robert Wolfe, a key consultant for the Nazi War Crimes Interagency Working Group (IWG) at the U.S. National Archives, adding credibility to the project.

Black’s sensationalist tone pervades the text, which elicited criticisms in the academic press. Although some made claims of shoddy footnoting, his critics have not elaborated on specific problems. The IBM case itself was dropped, with the insistence of the U.S. State Department, in part due to its late timing with other Holocaust restitution cases that were about to be settled. IBM remained silent on the allegations and agreed to open its archives to historians at a future, undetermined date.[6] Like the other books in the “collaborationist” set, future historians will have to check up on the author’s sources to verify their veracity. Regardless, IBM and the Holocaust remains the most well known text on the subject due to its popularity.

In a positive development, historical commissions designed to address Nazi war crimes are also useful in expanding the scope of the field of research on alleged American/Nazi business ties. One such text to come out of these commissions is Richard Breitman’s U.S. Intelligence and the Nazis (2005). The book itself is the work of four independent historians, Richard Breitman, Norman Goda, Timothy Naftali, and Robert Wolfe, all consultants to the IWG, who actually did the declassification work. What has resulted is a commentary and sampling from some of the eight million declassified pages organized around three basic questions: What did American intelligence agencies know about the Holocaust? Did American corporations benefit from Nazi activities? And finally, which American agencies used former Nazis during the Cold War? The authors make several general conclusions in their survey of this collection of documents: There was a war on, and the Final Solution and its components were known by Allied intelligence agencies but never actively studied. Additionally, they add credence to the collaborationist school by noting that some American corporations did benefit from Nazi activities. Finally, the authors note that substantial numbers of Nazi intelligence and policy officials remade their reputations late in the war or immediately thereafter and worked for western intelligence agencies during the Cold War. Brief mentions are made of IBM, Chase and JP Morgan bank, although the emphasis is on intelligence agents and their Nazi counterparts, rather than corporate collaboration.

As a final addition to this survey of the so-called collaborationist historiography, The Myth of the Good War (2003) by Jacques Pauwels may represent a future direction for the field. Pauwels argues that despite the view espoused by American popular history, media, and politicians, U.S. corporate involvement in World War II was primarily for materialistic rather than ideological aims. Drawing influences from the revisionist school of U.S foreign policy that grew up around the questioning America’s motives in the Cold War, Pauwels demonstrates that the major concern of U.S. business leadership during World War II were markets for their products and political leverage over as much territory as could be gained. Pauwels selectively integrates material from Working for the Enemy and Edwin Black’s books to show how various corporations acted in concert, rather than separately, in order to support the funneling of profits from neutral Switzerland back to the U.S. Although this final claim is tenuous, Pauwels backs up this argument with numerous references to secondary literature. Unlike Black, Higham, and Sutton, Pauwels tempers his argument with a more measured and careful tenor.

Despite the revelations that have come out of this body of research, there are significant shortcomings worth addressing. Many of the works presented here are dramatically toned and not academically rigorous, making the job of separating fact from conjecture challenging. While some claims have been identified as factual, many others still require close and careful scrutiny. Scrupulous sourcing also continues to be problematic and primary source documentation needs be clearly identified. Finally, few of the books engage the larger context of scholarship that has been done on the Holocaust, Nazi Germany, or World War II in general. This tendency isolates the field from other scholars and academia more generally, where more scrutiny could strengthen their claims.

The Corporatists

Like the collaborationists, the corporatists are a diverse group; however, their work also shares a handful of common themes worth mentioning. First, several of the monographs have either been commissioned directly by corporations indicted in Holocaust-era business exploitation, or have provided funds directly to the historian to produce the works in this category. Second, many of the authors in this group argue that the businesses they study lost managerial control to the Nazis. Third, some of the works suggest that only individuals can be guilty of genocide, not institutions. Whether or not this is a convenient argument for businesses accused of collaboration with the Nazis remains to be seen; suffice it to say that it is a common contention among the works reviewed here.

Regarding commissions, Gerald Feldman was hired by the Allianz insurance company to look into its own role in Nazi Germany while it was being sued by Holocaust victim groups. Because of the company’s historic ties other insurance agencies, particularly within the U.S., this work is worth looking closely at. The result of Feldman’s commission was Allianz and the German Insurance Business (2001). As with other histories in this section, the author contends that companies do not commit crimes; their directors do. Feldman also argues that the insurance company’s managers did their best to honor their policyholders’ contracts while adhering to Nazi policies. He notes that Allianz insured Nazi military hardware, expropriated assets in occupied territories, and underwrote concentration camp-related machinery. Feldman focuses on the psychology of survival of the managers in their business dealings with the Nazis. In the process, he affirms a more general thesis about group behavior, particularly within businesses, stating that they are heavily affected by the external institutional incentives in which these groups operate, and that these incentives are to a great degree the product of political processes. Thus, whether or not the narrowly rational pursuit by businesses and their material interests lead to a socially beneficial or destructive outcome, they are contingent on the environment in which they operate.

While nearly all the books discussed here involve American parent companies, it is worth noting the work by Neil Forbes, Doing Business with the Nazis (2000) for comparison. Forbes sees Britain’s economic interconnections with Germany during the interwar period as a larger problem involving Britain’s soul searching as a declining imperial power intent on preserving the fidelity of its markets while simultaneously wrestling with the growing concern that these connections were contributing to grave external threats. The author’s main sources are parliamentary debates, the pronouncements of industry leaders, and major media responses. Forbes’ fairly terse explanation that British multinational corporations collaborating with German armaments industry was that they were “largely left to decide for themselves whether to exercise self-restraint.”[7] Thus, the author’s text is remarkably free of judgment. Forbes also does not explain the activities of the corporations he explores, such as Dunlop, after the war begins. Although Forbes does not note any ancillary connection to the corporations he discusses, his uncritical assessment of Unilever belies a fairly pronounced pro-business standpoint.[8] As with the other corporations he looks at, Forbes is convinced it was self-interest and political naiveté, rather than capriciousness, which drove British corporations to operate against their home country’s self-interest.

Another exemplary work in the corporatist category is Peter Hayes’ Industry and Ideology (1987). In this case the company under investigation is IG Farben, which constructed the notorious Auschwitz concentration camp. Although this was primarily a German company, the organization shared a cartel with other large American chemical producers, managed American subsidiaries, and retained the legal advice of American corporate lawyer and policymaker, John Foster Dulles. For his part, Hayes argues that throughout the twelve years of Hitler’s rule, IG attempted to influence German state policy on multiple levels. Hayes demonstrates that these endeavors basically failed; however, the corporation benefited greatly from its relationship with the Nazis: it enjoyed low labor overhead, courtesy of “leased” slave labor, monopolistic protection, huge government contracts, and opportunities to expand into conquered nations.

Hayes concedes that the managers of IG Farben were hardly innocent. He notes that after the war, several directors were tried for war crimes, albeit most served short prison sentences. Nevertheless, Hayes demonstrates that Nazi society was structured so that individuals within organizations could perpetrate heinous acts without particularly malevolent motives. Such was the case of IG Farben. Likewise, much of the book is dedicated to revealing the political impotence of the corporation’s managers. Hayes concedes that the company did prosper significantly under the Nazi regime, which stretches the credulity of its supposedly passive role; however, with a reasonable amount of qualification, this is the type of argument that Hayes makes. Jay Weinstein, another scholar reviewing Hayes work noted, “One can imagine that another analyst, given the same material, might successfully ‘prove’ that the Nazi’s were a bit more inclined to follow the lead of IG, and that IG played a more important policymaking role than the book would lead us to believe.”[9] Thus, more research may be required to determine IG Farben’s precise role within Nazi Germany, not to mention its relationship to American companies like DuPont, who shared a cartel arrangement with the German company.

The defining factor of this work may be in the acknowledgements. Hayes states that he received undefined “ancillary support” from IG Farben to produce the text.[10] This fact raises questions about the conclusions Hayes comes to in this work. Although respected historian Hans Mommsen has supported the objectivity of Hayes research, author Edwin Black has drawn similarities between Hayes and other authors that have been hired by corporations specifically to produce histories that could be used as plausible legal defenses against further Holocaust restitution lawsuits.[11] Whatever the case may be, Industry and Ideology, represents an openly pro-business orientation.

This orientation may be due to Hayes’ mentor, the late Henry Ashby Turner, who presided over Hayes’ doctoral studies at Yale. Turner produced two books worth mentioning here: German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler (1987) and General Motors and the Nazis (2005). Turner argues that businesses played a minor part of Hitler’s ascension compared to the sway of right-wing ideology. Furthermore, he contends that business executives only came on board and subscribed to the Nazis’ political agenda once it was clear that they would become the dominant political force in Germany. Turner contends that businessmen initially took Nazi anticapitalist rhetoric seriously, a view opposed by several later historians.[12] Rather than analyze business activity within Germany once the Nazis took power, Turner takes the opportunity to promote Knut Borchardt’s controversial thesis that the preceding Weimar Republic’s excessively generous welfare policies were the main cause of Germany’s economic problems.

While German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler stakes out Turner’s pro-business standpoint, General Motors and the Nazis is more controversial. Turner claims that GM’s German subsidiary, Opel, was drawn into the German armaments industry against the wishes of the parent company’s managers and efforts were made to pull American board members back to camouflage its involvement. The author argues that there was no real alternative for American managers but to allow this collaboration to continue. Turner notes that Opel was designated as enemy property even though it was not confiscated by the Nazis.

At the end of his career, Turner may have softened a bit – conceding that Opel was liable for compensation of surviving victims of forced labor. That being said, his methods and conclusions raise questions worth further consideration. GM provided Turner exclusive access to their archives in order to produce the text. When author Edwin Black tried to access the same material, which was moved to the Yale University Sterling library, he claims he was denied access and was forced to threaten to sue in order to obtain it.[13] Subsequently, he found the material in an unusable computer database that none of the Yale librarians knew how to operate. Furthermore, Turners’ conclusions of GM’s misgivings are contradicted by overseas manager James Mooney’s own memoirs, which praised the partnership.[14] Finally, and most controversially, Turner clearly and unequivocally states at the beginning of General Motors and the Nazis that he was not sponsored by GM in any way to produce the book.[15] When Turner died three years later, it came out that he had been hired by the company to do exactly that.[16] Despite these shocking revelations, his former student, Hayes, has asserted that Turner was not commissioned by GM to produce his last work in an obituary on the American Historical Association website.[17]

Another book that does not strictly deal with World War II business but is worth mention here is Michael Salter’s Nazi War Crimes, US Intelligence and Selective Prosecution at Nuremberg (2007). Salter offers a detailed examination in his study of the role played by United States Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor of today’s CIA, in the pursuit of Nazi war criminals. A central figure in Salter’s investigation is SS General Karl Wolff, a notorious Nazi who oversaw the murder of thousands of Jews. Salter argues that Wolff and his associates surrendered to Allen Dulles, a high level OSS agent, who sheltered them in order to gain intelligence that could shorten the war and limit Allied casualties. The first part of the book focuses on Dulles’ violation of Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunals as well as treaties made with the Soviets by granting Wolff immunity from prosecution. In the second half, Salter presents a defense of the OSS and Dulles’ actions. Salter makes a blanket argument that the rule of law is often subverted by pragmatic, geo-political considerations; however the legal normality which Salter grounds much of his analysis of the Wolff/Dulles bargain is more problematic than the author expresses in the text. Salter concludes that we should “discard the mainstream reaction of one-sided and partisan outrage at the existence of such deals.”[18] Likewise, Salter’s relativism puts him more into the orbit of the corporatist camp. Critically, Salter fails to mention that Dulles and his older brother were also the corporate lawyers for Chase, JP Morgan, Ford, GM, IG Farben, the BIS, Standard Oil, IBM, and ITT – all companies that had alleged ties to the Nazis.

As this group of representative works demonstrates, there is a significant divide in opinion about the implications of transnational business activity during World War II. Although it is quite likely that the historians featured here had a pro-business orientations prior to producing the works in question, the influence of corporate money and privileged access to sources casts a shadow over their scholarship. Allowing access to their source materials for further investigation would help allay some of these concerns. Like the collaborationists, the corporatists tend to be myopic in their focus and ignore the wider scope of the transnational business activities in question. While the selection of books reviewed here is quite limited, many historians share a dismissive attitude toward further research in this field. For instance, Richard Evans concludes in the final pages of his extensive trilogy on the Third Reich, “…the businesses and companies that profited from the Nazi regime and its policies have opened their archives and admitted their complicity.”[19] Such an unequivocal statement denies the complexity of the issue.

Contextualizing the Field

In order to widen the scope of alleged American business collaboration with Nazi Germany, it is worth looking at a few selected works outside the realm of these two fields. In the interest of providing empirical insights, it is important to note that direct connections to collaborative business relationships are not explored by these works; the purpose of this section is to highlight other historical contexts that are missing from the aforementioned schools of thought in order to provide a more holistic perspective to the field.

One useful place to look is at the historiography of Holocaust restitution, where many of the businesses in question are also discussed. This literature also necessarily involves some aspects of American business ties to the Nazis as individuals have brought suit against these organizations for multiple reasons, including forced labor, appropriated bank accounts, and unfulfilled insurance claims. Additionally, these books be can be useful in exposing the way information on the topic is presented in legal frameworks, political action groups, and corporate public relations.

In Some Measure of Justice (2009) by Michael Marrus and William Schabas, there are some similarities to the corporatist school. For his part, Marrus is critical of the restitution cases, and worries that “monetizing justice” has more negative outcomes than positive ones. Thus, the book promotes an overriding ambivalence to the possibility of justice for the crimes of the Holocaust. One distinctive element of his argument is his dismissal that corporations should be included in the list of perpetrators. As observed earlier with the corporatists, Marrus argues that only people can be guilty of perpetrating genocide. This argument stands in direct opposition to much of the litigation against banks and industrial concerns, verging on reproducing their own legal defenses. Problematically, Marrus announces in his acknowledgement that he was funded in part by the Ford Foundation, a charitable organization linked to a corporation that has been subject to a Holocaust reparation lawsuit in the forced labor case of Iwanowa v. Ford Motor Company. Whether or not this represents a conflict of interest for the authors, this work demonstrates that scholars are still formulating policy positions relative to the topic.

More useful historical context is found in the collection of essays edited by Roger P. Alford and Michael Bazyler in the book Holocaust Restitution (2007). Bazyler, who specializes in the history of Holocaust restitution, argues that the legal actions against corporations were justified and that most businesses involved received fairly light penalties in the amount of restitution they were forced to pay in comparison with their crimes. Many in Europe considered Holocaust restitution blackmail, and in response Bazyler produces balanced indictments for the individual companies’ behavior. Elsewhere, Bazyler has noted, in a somewhat bitter fashion, that claimants attorneys were often shut out of restitution agreements between corporations and governments.[20]

Peter Hayes also has contributed an essay for Holocaust Restitution. Hayes argues that Holocaust restitution groups have a “fixation” on corporate profits and that penalizing corporations after the fact is simply “collateral damage.” Hayes contends that corporate profits derived by the Nazis had been consumed by the war effort and the destruction that followed. Hayes comes to this conclusion by citing his own research on the company Degussa – which manufactured the poison Zyklon B, used in the Nazi gas chambers. This reasoning is questionable, as Hayes characterizes all companies that collaborated with Nazis like Degussa, when in fact, many corporations’ parent companies were overseas and were not only free from war damage, but were able to repatriate profits after the war.

Oliver Rathkolb’s Revisiting the National Socialist Legacy (2004) is also worth looking at for insight in the realm of Holocaust restitution. This collection of essays is derived from the 2001 conference hosted by the Bruno Kreisky Archives Foundation on Holocaust-Era Assets. Edited by Rathkolb, the essays provide a thorough and scholarly discussion on the role and limits of national historical commissions, in both their political and social compositions, which form a kind of contemporary debate over the Nazi Past. These discussions are highlighted by the tensions described between historical scholarship, media coverage and politics surrounding the resolution of Holocaust restitution suits. One interesting feature of the text is the essay by Jean-Francoise Bergier, for whom the commission to investigate the activities of Swiss banks was named.[21] Bergier has reservations about the contradictory nature of the word “neutrality” and how it was used by Switzerland and other places during World War II. Although he does not specifically name American corporations, the commission concludes that there is more to be learned from the declassification of American intelligence documents related to the topic.  In his essay, Bergier also laments the public perception of historians as the ultimate arbiters of historical judgment for Holocaust-related crimes, exposing a frustration with irreconcilable scholarship that has, in part, been explored in this paper.

Business histories can also be useful in filling out the picture in this contentious field of research. The learning curve for this material can be steep in understanding the legal and financial terminology as well as making sense of the large volumes of statistical data, but some of the findings related to the context of studies involved in this paper can help provide a foundation for further scholarship. Business history is also useful in describing how multinational corporations operate, which can help educate future researchers attempting to provide a clearer picture of cross border capital movements during the World War II era.

Visions of Modernity (1994) by Mary Nolan endeavors to explore how the discourses of efficacy in American corporate models shaped economic and social transformations in Germany. Furthermore, she describes how the process of economic restructuring and related political struggles subverted both the assumptions and expectations regarding their results. Nolan demonstrates that at the beginning of the Weimar era, there was great interest in Germany for American economic models. German industrialists traveled to America to investigate rationalized business methods and created lasting ties with U.S. corporate leaders. Likewise, many American corporations expanded their operations in German markets. Nolan describes that German business rationalization efforts did not keep up with political reforms and ended up exacerbating wage, consumption, and unemployment problems. The Depression did not destroy the belief in rationalization, but severely limited its ideological appeal. Elements of American-styled business rationalization were kept into the Nazi era, but crucially, were divorced from their political implications.

Another recent text that addresses Nazi era business is The Wages of Destruction (2006) by Adam Tooze. According to Tooze, Hitler considered his real enemy to be the “Jewish-dominated” United States, a large nation that Germany could only compete with if it acquired a comparable amount of farmland or “living space.” Tooze also contends, as Nolan does, that Hitler wanted Germany to adopt Americanized advanced production methods to develop a bigger consumer economy. Most importantly, the author argues that every major policy initiative of the Nazis reflected Hitler’s efforts to improve economic competitiveness – from the invasion of Poland and the Soviet Union, to the mass murder of Jews. While Tooze ignores the American corporate presence in Germany and tends to fixate on military statistics, his emphasis on economic concerns as a primary driving force behind Nazi expansionism helps to explain the Nazi desire for collaborative interaction between U.S. business leaders and German policymakers.

A significant book that helps tie together some of the disparate studies that have been reviewed so far is Nancy Lisagor and Frank Lipsius’ The Untold Story of Sullivan & Cromwell (1988). Lisagor and Lipsius demonstrate that the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell was centrally involved in helping American corporate leaders consolidate economic and political power in the late nineteenth century.[22] They then explain that under the direction of John Foster Dulles from the early 1920s through the end of World War II, the firm helped create a network of holding companies, corporate managers, and lawyers, to facilitate corporate development within Germany.

Although Lisagor and Lipsius meant to simply produce a history of the firm from its inception to the 1980s, this work inadvertently presents a significant challenge to historians who would argue that American corporate cooperation with the Third Reich was uncoordinated and small scale. The authors demonstrate that Sullivan & Cromwell specialized in both maintaining managerial control and obscuring overseas corporate operations in providing legal representation for nearly all the businesses discussed here: Ford, GM, IBM, the BIS, IG Farben, ITT, Chase Bank, JP Morgan, and Standard Oil. Additionally, the authors show that influential policymakers, John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles on the American side, and Heinrich Albert and Gerhard Westrick on the German side, were intimately involved in these business relationships – dispelling the notion that their respective governments were completely uninvolved in these collaborative activities. Lisagor and Lipsius have called attention to a crucially important organization involved in these events, exposing the need for more research into the role they played in facilitating Nazi war aims.

Finally, some selected works from U.S. diplomatic history can also help provide some tentative context to the landscape of U.S.business relations with Germany during the World War II era. Because some of these works deal with the cross-over between American corporate leaders and policymakers, this body of literature has the advantage of exposing the complex linkage between U.S. business activity and its foreign policy.

In order to study the phenomenon of corporative collaboration more closely, American historian Michael J. Hogan founded a school of thought aptly named “corporatism.”[23] In describing this methodology, Hogan emphasizes the importance of examining the role of non-state actors, not only in shaping policy, but also the part they play in creating the international environment in which policy is operated. Hogan notes, as he does in his book The Marshall Plan, that American leaders have tried to build a world order along lines comparable to the economic order domestically. Hogan also contends that a corporatist perspective is useful when doing comparative and transnational history. Referencing Akira Iriye’s work on transnational economics and culture, Hogan stresses that the corporatist approach adds a needed dimension to any study rooted in the relationship between American business and politics.[24]

Eschewing the most controversial implications that American policymakers may have purposefully promoted business with the Nazis for geopolitical reasons, Hogan’s school of thought does allow room for some interesting insights. If, in fact, some policymakers were involved in corporate activity with the Nazis, this may help to explain why many businesses did not have their activities exposed until decades later. For instance, Joseph Borkin notes in his book, The Crime and Punishment of IG Farben, that future Secretary of State John Foster Dulles’ principle expertise was obscuring American subsidiaries in European holding companies in order to avoid regulatory oversight.[25] In another example, Bradford Snell, an attorney hired by the U.S. Senate in 1974 to inquire into anti-competitive practices of Ford and General Motors, lamented that policymakers’ relationship with the automotive corporations were exacerbating the problem.[26] As a surprise to his congressional colleagues, Snell’s report also contained detailed evidence that both of these businesses had also been an integral part of Nazi military production, monopolizing the manufacture of the Third Reich’s planes, tanks, and trucks. Snell’s research was later used as a foundation for scholarship in Working for the Enemy, which was reviewed earlier. Although there were plenty of American policy makers who were staunchly anti-Nazi, further study of individuals like John Foster Dulles may be helpful in illuminating the nature of the relationship between policymakers and corporate managers as is applies to the study of American/Nazi business ties.

Conclusion

So what have we learned here after this long procession of diverse and detailed texts? For one thing, many histories outside the realm of alleged corporate collaboration with the Nazis underscore the historical importance of business institutions and markets. The allusion to the growing importance of non-state actors, particularly in the twentieth century, is a recurring theme. These actors, primarily represented by transnational corporations, have yet to be clearly nailed down in an interpretive framework. Many authors introduce the issue and underscore its importance, but avoid engaging it directly. For this reason, it is perhaps unsurprising that the so-called corporatists and the collaborationists cannot find common ground on which to debate their differing interpretations of American business activity in Europe during World War II.

Given the work that remains to be done, the field of corporate collaboration between American businesses and Germany under the Nazis prior to and during World War II is only just beginning. As noted earlier, neither the corporatists nor the collaborationists have made significant efforts to contextualize their research in other historiographies. Authors who avoid this scholarship are likely to extend the “dialog of the deaf” into the future.

Partially, this is a problem of marketing. For their part, the collaborationists benefit from emphasizing the drama and sensationalism of their accounts, which sell books in the already crowded field of popular World War II histories. On the other side, corporatist historians are supported by a more conservative audience that encourages a skeptical, relativistic, and even reactionary approach to the controversy.

Regardless, most of the works presented here miss the opportunity to shed light on instrumental actors that have yet to receive thorough historical treatment. A good example of this is the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell. Here we find a nexus of many industrial and financial concerns with significant reach into European economics: Ford, GM, IBM, ITT, Chase Bank, JP Morgan, Standard Oil, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), and IG Farben. Their principle contacts were the Dulles brothers, who, as mentioned earlier both played significant political roles during the war and after. It is imperative that more research be done on institutions like this one in order to break the stalemate between scholars and reach a more detailed understanding of exactly what occurred behind the closed doors of powerful corporate interests.

In another respect, the work of understanding the historical dynamics of this business activity is likely to continue. This current period now represents a “first wave” of history writing since the aftermath of restitution lawsuits that occurred in the late 1990s and early 2000s. An opportunity now exists to further analyze and evaluate past studies and break new ground on sources that have been languishing for decades. Future historical analysis of recently compiled archival sources, such as those catalogued by the Nazi War Crimes Interagency Working Group (IWG) at the National Archives in Washington D.C., The Independent Commission of Experts on Swiss Banks (also known as the Bergier Commission), and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Bad Arolsen files, which is in the process of digitizing more than forty-six million documents currently archived in Germany, has the potential to reveal new and interesting insights. Allegations of corporate collusion with Nazis are a not to be taken lightly, particularly for businesses that continue to be patronized today. If evidence of war crimes do emerge, they deserve to be scrutinized carefully both in the academic and public spheres. It is imperative that researchers examine past forays into this topic critically and incorporate their most useful elements in future research.

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[1] Barry Meier, “Chroniclers of Collaboration; Historians Are in Demand to Study Corporate Ties to Nazis,” The New York Times, Feb 18, 1999, C1. In the late 1990s many corporations ramped up their legal and historical defenses against accusations, creating a market for researchers willing to work with these institutions.

[2] Richard Sasuly, IG Farben (New York: Boni & Gaer Press, 1947). Joseph Borkin and Charles A. Welsh, Germany’s Master Plan: The Story of the Industrial Offensive (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1943), Josiah E. DuBois, The Devil’s Chemists (Boston: The Beacon Press, 1952).

[3] Some representative works include Charles Higham, The Films of Orson Welles (California: University of Berkley Press, 1973), Errol Flynn: The Untold Story (New York: Dell Publications, 1984), and Howard Hughes: The Secret Life (New York: St. Martins, 2004). Higham claims he became interested in sympathy for the Nazis originating in theUnited States when studying Errol Flynn’s alleged Nazi ties.

[4] In the process of verifying and analyzing Higham’s sources and interpolating them with McKittrick’s papers at the Harvard Business School and Morgenthau’s diaries at the FDR Library in Poughkeepsie, New York, I have produced two articles on the subject of American financial firms and the Nazis. See Jason Weixelbaum, “Following the Money: An Exploration of the Relationship between American Finance and Nazi Germany” and “The Contradiction of Neutrality and International Finance: The Presidency of Thomas H. McKittrick at the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland 1940-46.” http://jasonweixelbaum.wordpress.com/ [accessed May 16, 2011]

[5] I have reviewed Higham’s book and documentation in more detail here: Jason Weixelbaum “Jason Weixelbaum: A Review of the Shocking Revelations of U.S. Corporate Collaboration with Nazi Germany” History News Network, July 9, 2009.  http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/98124.html [accessed May 15, 2011]. This is an excerpt of the original article posted here: http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php?article=11392&pageid=23&pagename=Arts [accessed May 16, 2011]

[6] Department of State, Richard Boucher, “IBM Suit and Legal Peace for German Companies,” Feb. 21, 2001. http://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2001/664.htm

[7] Neil Forbes, Doing Business with the Nazis: Britain’s Economic and Financial Relations with Germany 1931-1939 (London: Frank Cass Publishers, 2000) 163.

[8] Neil Forbes, “Multinational enterprise, ‘Corporate Responsibility’ and the Nazi Dictatorship: The Case of Unilever and Germany in the 1930s,” Contemporary European History, Vol. 16, No. 2 (2007), 166-7.

Earlier interactions with the Nazis have added fuel for contemporary critics of the corporation in the light of various lawsuits against Unilever inBrazil,China, andWestern Europefor massive pollution and misrepresenting the genetically modified content of their products. In the context Unilever’s interwar activities, Forbes gives his opinion on the present moral orientation of the company: “Many profitable businesses espouse philanthropic causes…Unilever itself has always exemplified this tradition.”

[9] Jay Weinstein, “Review: Industry and Ideology: IG Farben in the Nazi Era by Peter Hayes,” The Canadian Journal of Sociology / Cahiers Canadiens de Sociologie, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Spring, 2002), 275-277.

[10] Peter Hayes, Industry and Ideology: IG Farben in the Nazi Era (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987), xx.

[11] The conflict between Hayes and Black is discussed in Michael Allen’s critical review of IBM and the Holocaust, “Stranger than Science Fiction: Edwin Black, IBM, and the Holocaust,” Technology and Culture, Vol. 43, No.1 (Jan., 2002), 153.

[12] See the historiography section in Eberhard Kolb, The Weimar Republic. (New York: Routledge, 2005), 203-224.

[13] Edwin Black, “GM and the Nazis—Part Four: How will history remember General Motor’s collaboration with the Nazis?” The Cutting Edge News, June 30, 2008.

[14] Reinhold Billstein, et al., Working for the Enemy: Ford, General Motors and Forced Labor in Germany During the Second World War, (New York: Berghahn Books, 2000) 37. Documentation of Mooney’s attitude is recounted clearly here.

[15] Henry Ashby Turner, Jr., General Motors and the Nazis: The Struggle for Control of Opel, Europe’s Biggest Carmaker (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005). In the introduction on page viii, Turner states, “This book was not commissioned by General Motors. It was written after the documentation project was completed and without any financial support from GM.”

[16] William Grimes, “Henry Turner, 76, Historian and Author, is dead,” New York Times, Jan. 19, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/books/19turner.html?_r=1&ref=obituaries

[17] Peter Hayes, “Henry Ashby Turner, Jr.: German historian: Designed history major at Yale.” American Historical Association, Perpectives May 2009.  If, in fact, the findings of the New York Times turn out to be baseless, both Hayes and Turner’s family have a responsibility to address the comments of the periodical directly.

http://www.historians.org/perspectives/issues/2009/0905/0905mem7.cfm.

[18] Michael Salter, Nazi War Crimes, US Intelligence and Selective Prosecution at Nuremberg: Controversies Regarding the Role of the Office of Strategic Services (Abingdon,U.K.: Routledge-Cavendish, 2007), 446.

[19] Richard Evans, The Third Reich at War (New York: Penguin, 2009) 763.

[20] Michael Bazyler, Holocaust Justice: The Battle for Restitution in America’s Courts (New York: New York University Press, 2003).

[21] Independent Commission of Experts Switzerland – Second World War (Zürich: Pendo Verlag GmbH 2002).

[22] See also Jason Weixelbaum, “Harnessing the Growth of Corporate Capitalism: Sullivan & Cromwell and its influence on late nineteenth century American business.” http://jasonweixelbaum.wordpress.com/ [accessed May 16, 2011].

[23] Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations (1991). [complete citation] See also Jason Weixelbaum “The Corporatist Approach and the History of U.S. Foreign Policy” http://jasonweixelbaum.wordpress.com/ [accessed May 16, 2011].

[24] Akira Iriye, The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations. Vol. 3, Globalizing

of America, 1913-1945 (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, 2008).

[25] Joseph Borkin, The Crime and Punishment of IG Farben (New York: Free Press, 1978) 164-197.

[26] Bradford Snell, U.S. Congress Senate Committee on the Judiciary, American Ground Transport (1974).

The Contradiction of Neutrality and International Finance: The Presidency of Thomas H. McKittrick at the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland 1940-46

What makes World War II a “World War?” To address such a deceptively simple question, an engagement with the growing field of transnational historiography, which questions the traditional role of national histories to complement our increasingly globalized world, is both useful and necessary.  As the boundaries of historical exploration progress beyond the borders of the nation-state, new threads of inquiry have emerged in thoroughly-researched realms where national histories have once dominated, exposing highly complex transnational phenomena.[1] Such is the case of international finance during World War II.

What can be learned from the intricate and convoluted state of transnational capital flows during these turbulent years is that neutrality takes on a completely different meaning from the way it is typically understood in a national framework. Likewise, this new dimension adds a transnational perspective to studies that are based on the national histories of the war, opening up the traditionally understood orientation of the belligerents to reevaluation. Examining national neutrality in the context of international finance is highly complex due to the circuitous nature of transnational capital; yet the question remains: Can capital itself be neutral in a wartime environment and outside the realm of national policy? In order to address this question, a different methodology is required than that of studying national histories. Such a method requires an orientation in the realm of non-state actors, such as banks, law firms, and investment companies. The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) in Basle, Switzerland and particularly the presidency of Thomas Harrington McKittrick during the critical war years of 1940-46 is an excellent lens for studying the relationship between international capital movements and the war.

The BIS was set up in 1930 to facilitate large scale transnational financial activity and to encourage nonpolitical interactions between the central bankers of various nations much like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank today. Originally meant to serve as a conduit for German reparations payments following the First World War, the BIS was intimately connected to the economies of Europe and the United States.[2] The BIS continued to do business with its member countries in the lead up and during World War II, and persists as a meeting place for international bankers into the present.

McKittrick’s vantage point as president of the BIS during World War II can be utilized to analyze the rapid economic and political changes that took place during this period. Additionally, as an American with many influential connections to individuals in the U.S. economic and diplomatic spheres, McKittrick’s actions expose the irony of his and the BIS’s expressed neutrality, as his work at the bank played a critical role in helping Germany finance the war against his home country. But this is not the whole story; the larger narrative of how capital transcended national boundaries during World War II is yet to be fully explored. By interrogating the global linkages, a more nuanced understanding of the complex underlying dynamics of the war may be approached. The goal of this paper is to shed more light on McKittrick himself, to examine his contacts, viewpoints, and most importantly, the transnational mechanisms that the BIS employed under his supervision in order to unravel the components of wartime international finance.

In order to orient McKittrick’s actions at the BIS (and their approval in U.S. diplomatic circles) among other non-state actors, the research presented here references a body of work involving U.S. wartime corporate interactions, cooperation, and collaboration with Germany. This literature is highly varied and has contributors from many different fields, including journalists, lawyers, and professional historians. Examination of this topic has been growing steadily since the war’s end, particularly in the last three decades due to expanding bodies of declassified archival sources in the U.S. and elsewhere. This work can be grouped into four interrelated categories delineating military, political, ideological, and economic support, with some overlap considering the extensive scope of some of the organizations involved.^[3] The essential argument underpinning this research is that U.S. businesses that cooperated with the Third Reich did so purposefully, and despite their excuses of the loss of control of various European subsidiaries to Nazi officials, manufacturing, financial transactions, and business services were invariably managed by Americans or those loyal to the American parent companies. In reaction to this indictment, a fifth “category” of historiography has more recently emerged, commissioned by some of the organizations accused of collaboration – such as Ford and General Motors – in order to defend their past business practices.

Military aid is perhaps the most concrete category to begin a discussion of the historiography relevant to this topic. Research on this topic detailed the cooperation of U.S. corporations with German war production in the form of building tanks, warplanes, munitions, poison gas, and research and development of new military technology.^[4] Another thread of inquiry related to this subject matter regards the business activity of the sprawling chemical company, I.G. Farben, which was critical to the Nazi war effort and built the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp.^[5] As more information became available during and directly after the war’s end, a handful of historians investigated this corporation’s connections to American firms.^[6] A third line of inquiry into the topic of military collaboration between U.S. and German institutions involves the role that information technology played in harnessing the power of the Third Reich’s military and industrial capacity.^[7]

Researchers in the category of American political support for the Nazis have noted that the leaders of many corporations held various amounts of power and influence, which they utilized to provide political cover for their activities and for their control over the lucrative German market.^[8] Several historians have argued that prominent corporate managers pressed for peaceful relations with Germany, despite its aggressive posture.^[9] Other studies have involved Americans who worked with the Nazi party in its beginning stages.^[10]

Differing from the other categories of collaboration listed above, research on ideological support is situated more widely within the context of American culture. Many historians have explored the currents of racist thought, which were present in many circles of American life in the 1930s.^[11] Additionally, the role of American eugenics pseudo-scientists in the development and implementation of Nazi genocidal goals has been well documented.^[12] Documentation on ideological sympathy for the Nazis also includes prominent industrialists such as Henry Ford, who harnessed the significant resources at his disposal to publish his pro-Nazi views widely.^[13]

More recently, several corporations have responded to indictments of collaboration with Germany by publishing histories of their own. This literature differs from the other categories detailed above in that it involves research directly sponsored by the companies accused of dealing with the Nazis.^[14] Each organization exhibited a different response to the various accusations against them. For instance, Ford was fairly candid about its involvement, opening its archives to a team of researchers and publishing the findings on their website.^[15] GM, on the other hand, hired the business historian, Henry Ashby Turner, who wrote several defenses of U.S. subsidiaries in Germany, including the widely cited German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler.^[16] According to journalist Edwin Black, Turner was given exclusive access to GM archives, which he then restricted in his own collection at Yale.^[17] I.G. Farben also retained a historian, Peter Hayes, who was paid directly by the corporation to produce an argument that the company’s American managers lost control to Nazi officials, which directly contradicts the previous research detailed above.^[18]

Access to archival sources is a central problem for the economic historiography on this topic. Because financial institutions tend to be more protective of their information, there are still spaces to be filled in the story of their role in Nazi Germany.^[19] Contemporary research has revolved around Holocaust restitution, which focuses almost solely on looted Jewish assets.^[20] Much of the work that has attempted to reach beyond this subject into a more broad view of economic collaboration with the Nazis has drawn upon Anthony Sutton’s book, Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler. Sutton argues that many U.S. corporations “…aided Nazism wherever possible (and profitable) – with full knowledge that the probable outcome would be war involving Europe and the United States.”^[21] Charles Higham drew similar conclusions in Trading with the Enemy, in which he contends that several American financial institutions were responsible for financing various war production activities. Higham’s work is controversial due to its relationship with its archival sources, which are not referenced within his text.^[22] However, it has since been established that Higham was responsible for declassifying a large number of archival materials on U.S. firms and individuals collaborating with the Third Reich.^[23] These documents, which mainly involve internal investigations by the U.S. Department of Treasury, can provide a starting point for further historical investigation. Although Higham and Sutton have been cited elsewhere, there has been sparse recent academic analysis of their sources. Therefore, the job of detailing exactly what constituted the relationship between some U.S. financial institutions and the Nazis remains an unfinished task.^[24]

Other researchers have provided some specific hindsight to the study of Swiss banks that this paper centers on. The Independent Commission of Experts Switzerland (ICE) was mandated to investigate gold and currency transfers facilitated by various Swiss financial institutions for the benefit of the Nazis. Completing their work in 2002, researchers involved with ICE concluded that “Switzerland had acted as a hub for all kinds of dubious business transactions…Precisely where the gold deliveries from the German Reichsbank are concerned, it is apparent that the stolen bullion came into the country with the knowledge of individuals at the highest level, even though it came in via a secret route.” ^[25] Most importantly, the report noted that the BIS was intimately involved in such transactions, but more information was still required to understand the exact dimensions of the relationship to the Third Reich’s financial apparatus.

The Interwar Business Environment

Before discussing directly McKittrick’s presidency at the BIS, historical context is needed to describe how the BIS was created and the business environment it operated in leading up to World War II. Although the interwar period was chaotic politically, socially, and economically, international bankers found many innovative ways to take advantage of this period and expand their transnational business networks.

In the years following World War I, the Allied Reparations Committee commissioned a group of experts chaired by American banker Charles Dawes to formulate a plan to deal with the economic impact of the war’s devastation in Europe. Basically, these were agreements among Allied central bankers to reorganize the financial system of Germany to facilitate reparations payments and increase foreign investment.^[26] This plan led to the strengthening of ties between the American and German business world primarily because of a confluence of needs; Germany needed new investment capital while the American economy required a substantial export of capital.

Unresolved political issues in Europe such as those between France and Germany over resources in the Ruhr valley, as well as German dependency on American investment, caused the Allied Reparations Committee to rethink its overall strategy of restructuring Germany’s economy at the beginning of the 1930s. The committee hired American lawyer and banker Owen D. Young to formulate a new plan for German economic stability. Among other pressing needs, including the cancellation of a portion of German war debts, the Young Plan called for the creation of an international bank to handle reparations payments. This recommendation led directly to an agreement among Allied finance ministers to create the BIS in 1930. In short, the BIS was designed to collect, administer, and distribute reparations payments between Germany and the Allied powers. The secondary purpose of the BIS was to promote cooperation between central bankers, and assist in large cross-border capital flows, such as international currency trades and large scale international investment.^[27] Gates McGarrah, who had the impressive resume of holding the presidency of Chase Bank and the chairmanship of the New York Federal Reserve Bank before becoming the first president of the BIS, expressed satisfaction with the new institution as a profitable and innovative way for large scale financial institutions from all over the world to communicate and cooperate on a global scale.^[28]

The BIS grew in tandem with other large transnational banking networks. Schrobanco was one such network that was poised to profit from the worldwide financial recovery that led up to the war and take advantage of a linkage between growing markets in Latin America, Britain, Germany and the U.S. Schrobanco was the American subsidiary of Schroders, which Richard Roberts states in the official commissioned history of the bank, one of the City of London’s “oldest and most important merchant banks.”^[29] When the Schroder Bank’s US subsidiary opened in October of 1923, senior management convinced the influential future BIS president Gates McGarrah to become the chairman.^[30] Following this pattern of pulling in important personalities with transnational experience, Schrobanco also employed the legal representation of the prestigious firm Sullivan & Cromwell through its management’s relationship with John Foster Dulles, who had participated in Allied reparations agreements at the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919.^[31]

With the help and experience of these well-connected businessmen and diplomats, Schrobanco aggressively advanced into a leading position as an agent in processing Dawes and Young loans for German economic development facilitated by the BIS. Roberts notes that while other firms were fearful of the risks of political exposure, Schroders’ partners had “intimate knowledge of German firms and German affairs, which minimized commercial risk, [making] high rates of return which could be earned on German financing very attractive.”^[32] Additionally, in order to exploit their expertise profitably, the partners of Schroders created the Continental and Industrial Trust Limited (CONTI). Using the access to financial networks created by the BIS, CONTI went on to invest deeply in German firms that would ultimately become very profitable during the World War II due to their indispensability to the Nazis, such as Siemens, Deutsche Bank, and IG Farben.^[33]

Another highly profitable venture was Schrobanco’s relationship with the J.H. Stein Bank, managed by Baron Kurt Freiherr von Schröder, who was on the German side of the Schroder banking family and another board member of the BIS. Directly after World War I, Schrobanco made efforts to renew ties to the firm which was then owned and managed by the family of the partner of the Schroder bank, Baron Bruno Schröder.^[34] Later this bank would be used as a slush fund for the Nazi SS, via Heinrich Himmler and Karl Wolff’s direction, making a large amount of capital available for further investment.^[35]

In the years leading up to World War II, the Schroder banking empire was able to profit off German ventures before any of its competitors, in part with the help of Thomas McKittrick. The most dramatic example of this was its facilitation of the sale of bonds for Germany’s (and the world’s largest) fertilizer and soil concern, the German Potash syndicate. The first postwar German corporate bond issue in London was made for the German Potash Syndicate in 1925. Problematically, this deal was not able to be closed in the US due to legal advice that the “monopolistic nature of the undertaking might fall foul of US anti-trust legislation.” Luckily for Schroders, the firm McKittrick managed in London, Higginson & Co. stepped in as a partner to proceed with the arrangement yielding fantastic profits for both organizations. This deal was so successful that it was hailed by the British Quarterly Review as “an event of outstanding importance.”^[36]

As demonstrated by the Potash deal, McKittrick’s firm Higginson & Co. was a good example of highly profitable international financial organizations of the time.^[37] Consequently, McKittrick gained an extraordinary amount of valuable contacts and experience with the nature of transnational financial business. For instance, following the lead of other Wall Street firms, Higginson & Co. stepped in to lend the German government short term financing. This allowed McKittrick to expand his relationship with the Dulles brothers, who had extensive business and diplomatic contacts through their law firm, Sullivan & Cromwell.^[38] Other contacts were not as positive. A significant problem for Higginson & Co. occurred in 1931 when McKittrick’s contact, Ivar Kreuger, was found to have been running a large scale Ponzi scheme as an agent selling bonds for many companies, including the International Match Company, which Higginson & Co. which provided a significant amount of financial backing.^[39] Unfortunately, Kreuger turned up dead before he could be questioned about his involvement.^[40] Pressure from several different investors came upon Higginson & Co., which caused them to liquidate the foreign sales portion of their business.^[41]

Luckily for McKittrick, new opportunities in international finance presented themselves, even as the parent company of his employer, Lee, Higginson & Co., was reeling from the fallout of the Kreuger debacle.  In part because of his company’s enormous investment in Germany, and McKittrick’s experience in these matters, he was appointed as the Vice-Chairman of the Arbitration Committee of the German Credit Agreement (also known as the Standstill Agreement) to oversee German investment matters on behalf of the BIS.^[42] These investments were large short-term loans, many of which were of the kind made to German governmental agencies by Schroder Bank and its subsidiaries. Between 1931-39 the agreement was renewed every year as banks primarily in the US and Britain continued to lend even as they saw the Nazis rise to power.^[43] McKittrick put a positive spin on Nazi aggression, noting that Germany had quickened its pace in liquidating its past debts after the annexation of Austria.^[44] It was in this environment that the current president of the BIS, Jan Beyen, notified McKittrick that the BIS board of directors had nominated him to be the new president.

On the Eve of McKittrick’s Appointment

 

The chain of events that sparked World War II in Europe were already developing rapidly by the time McKittrick prepared to depart to Basle in late 1939. The BIS was already involved with the financial problems of Austria, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, who were seeing a major restructuring of their central banking operations in the face of German occupation. Additionally, Basle became host to a whole cast of both Allied and Axis personalities. Although BIS board meetings were cancelled due to hostilities, several prominent Nazi financial managers were appointed to the board such as Baron Kurt Freiherr von Shröder, Walther Funk, Hjalmar Schacht, and Emil Phul, all of whom made frequent visits to the city.[45] In addition to private bankers, the U.S. Treasury and State department also sent representatives to Basle, whose function was to report back to Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Secretary of Treasury Henry Morgenthau regular updates on the BIS.[46] Problematically for Morgenthau, who worried that the BIS was becoming an Axis controlled financial institution, these representatives gave positive reports on their Nazi counterparts even as Hitler annexed various European territories and looted gold from their central banks.[47]

Switzerland also became a haven for intelligence agents, including McKittrick’s friend, Allen Dulles, who was stationed in Bern as the regional Office of Strategic Services (OSS) Intelligence coordinator.[48] Dulles was a wealth of information for McKittrick, in contact with the top authorities in Washington, as well as the business contacts he shared with his brother through Sullivan & Cromwell, where he was also a partner.[49] Dulles also used his privilege as a high level diplomatic official to give right-of-passage to McKittrick so he was able to travel unrestricted on the war torn European mainland.[50] Dulles and McKittrick traveled in similar circles, as Dulles was on the board of Schroder bank as part of his duties associated with his law firm.[51]

When McKittrick moved into his new offices in Basle in January of 1940, he was immediately beset by the major challenges of managing the bank with some semblance of neutrality as the war heated up. While it cannot be known for certain what went on inside McKittrick’s mind, his collection of papers do provide a glimpse of his possible motivations during his tenure as president of the BIS. For his part, McKittrick’s public statements consistently revolved around the importance of neutrality in dealing with an international organization like the BIS during wartime. A Time article published in 1943 about McKittrick remarked:

While in the U.S. he did not comment on the fact that the Nazis refrain from using the Axis majority on the board of directors for unneutral undertakings. To all such queries he replied: “Remember, I’m neutral.” Once he amplified this: “The policy of the bank can only be to remain outside all matters of politics.”^[52]

McKittrick’s documents provide a picture that is far more complicated. An examination of the body of literature on McKittrick, both public relations materials designed to exemplify his character, as well as texts that deal with banking and the Third Reich which may hint at a darker side, will demonstrate that neither of these groups get at McKittrick’s motivations. For instance, none of this literature references the fact a significant wing of McKittrick’s family was German. During the war, McKittrick had numerous friendly correspondences with his cousin, Otto Knauth, who served in the Luftwaffe.^[53]

It is unfair, of course, to suggest that the presence of German family members was enough to motivate McKittrick to facilitate Nazi financial goals. However, if there were an additional presence of other documents suggesting that McKittrick had an admiration for Germany under Hitler, there is a more compelling case to be made for where McKittrick’s sympathies lay. Indeed, there are several instances of this. In a discussion with the pro-Nazi Swiss foreign minister, Marcel Pilet-Golanz, about the death of FDR and his legacy, McKittrick stated, “History will not judge him highly. He did not seem to have a practical grasp of industrial and financial questions and that to my mind goes far to explain why the United States were still struggling ineffectually with unemployment in 1939 when the rest of the world had left that problem well behind.”^[54] Although McKittrick does not mention Germany here, the inference is fairly clear. Throughout the 1930s, McKittrick had been an opponent of FDR’s New Deal policies, labeling it a “mismanagement of public finances,” compared to that of German economic policy.^[55]

In issues of politics leading up to the war, in early 1940 McKittrick complained that there was an “unjustified hostility” and a “suspicion of German policy” in the American press.^[56] While Poland was being decimated by the Germans in 1939, McKittrick noted that the war “…seems here to be more diplomatic than military.”^[57] With access to high level German diplomats and finance ministers, in 1939 McKittrick proclaimed, “…my opinion is there will be no war and I have said so everywhere. Nobody wants war, particularly Germany…”^[58] Although McKittrick may have been misled or naïve about Hitler, how would world events play on his viewpoints after the war had started and he occupied a leading position in an institution that would be prove to be critical for the Nazis? To answer this question, McKittrick’s actions at the BIS must be examined.

Mechanisms of Transnational Finance and the Third Reich

McKittrick’s main duties as president of the BIS were to continue the bank’s operations, provide information at regular intervals regarding the state of the bank, and facilitate dividend payments to its shareholders. Operationally, the BIS continued to function as it had during the previous decade – its main business involving the exchange of currency from one central bank to another, facilitating the trade of commodities (primarily gold), and investing in various industries. McKittrick’s primary challenge was how to handle politically sensitive business functions, such as the transfer of gold from Nazi occupied countries into German accounts. German financial ministers, such as Walther Funk and Emil Puhl, relied heavily on the BIS in order to exchange German currency and gold into foreign currency, such as Swiss francs, that could be used to buy raw materials for war industries.[59]

In the eyes of individuals like U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, these operations constituted a direct threat to America and its Allies. McKittrick responded by treading a very fine line, avoiding publicity as much as possible while continuing to facilitate the bank’s business. An example of this policy can be demonstrated with McKittrick’s dealings with the Swedish central bank, which had a significant stake in German business exporting wood, iron, and ball bearings, which were essential for building planes, tanks, and trucks. Soon after taking office in March 1940, McKittrick confirmed an arrangement in which gold transfers from Germany in exchange for Swedish crowns in order for Germany to purchase these essential imports would not be questioned under his administration of the bank. McKittrick stated that the BIS:

…shall be permitted to buy foreign exchange for such banks as, e.g. the Deutsche Reichsbank will be permitted to transfer to our account. Since the exemption which has been granted to the BIS, in, as I gather, of general character, it will in fact apply also to balances held by us in Swedish crowns and gold earmarked for our account…May we take for granted in cases when we are informed that a transfer of balances or gold is to be made to us from an account with your institution that you are fully informed and that if we get no information to the contrary such transfer is made with your consent?^[60]

By reducing the paper trail and quietly facilitating these transnational capital transfers, this activity ensured a steady stream of imports to aid Germany’s war efforts. The source of the gold Germany was using for these transactions came from several locations. The Nazis had been seizing Jewish assets since Hitler came to power in 1933. Much of the gold that was taken was melted down prior to being shipped to Switzerland to hide its origin.[61] Additionally, gold was seized from the central banks of countries occupied by the Axis, such as Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Belgium, and the Baltic States. Much of this gold could simply be transferred to Switzerland under the auspices of central bank cooperation between the various occupied countries’ central banks and the BIS, which McKittrick promoted in his communications to BIS board members; but in reality, this meant that the gold was available in the German BIS account to be traded for more currency that could be used for war production.[62]

The BIS would only become more essential to Germany as the war continued. By the spring of McKittrick’s first year as president of the BIS, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands were overrun by the Nazis, triggering the U.S. to block accounts from Germany and these countries.[63] This update of the “Trading with the Enemy Act” in the U.S. not only meant that business between America and Europe was effectively frozen, but also that institutions like the BIS would have trouble paying out dividends to their American investors, which was of primary concern to McKittrick. The US Treasury Department had been aware at least since 1939 that there was a “remarkably close relationship” between the BIS and Nazi Germany. In preparing their justifications for blocking such dividend transactions that McKittrick was attempting to process, the Treasury department stated:

The Reichsbank’s sacrifice of foreign exchange and gold during the war for continuation of interest payments and for more repayment of principle on BIS investments in Germany is partially explained by the action of the BIS continuing throughout the war to declare dividends and to deliver such dividend payments… ^[64]

Essentially, the Treasury Department saw the BIS being used, via the neutrality of Switzerland, to Germany’s advantage by moving looted capital beyond its shores. The Treasury Department’s view that the BIS was a Nazi controlled institution was primarily based on the issue of voting rights of the BIS board. For every country that was occupied by Germany, the management of the central bank was forced into complicity with Nazi financial goals, which meant that these representatives could be counted as a pro-Nazi voting bloc on the BIS board. This can be illustrated by the experience of the Polish representative to the BIS, Léon Baranski, who tried to keep the management of the bank’s assets with the BIS in the hands of the Polish government in exile after his country’s occupation. McKittrick responded by recognizing Poland as a “protectorate” of Germany, which had forfeited its national sovereignty. Likewise, McKittrick attempted to silence Baranski, stating that he should refrain from speaking about it either publicly or privately lest “unforeseeable future consequences” occur.^[65] Privately, McKittrick admitted to Leon Fraser, a previous president of the BIS, that he was aware that Germany had a “probable command of a majority of the Board,” but trusted Nazi finance ministers that they would not exercise their voting rights aggressively, as it would “destroy the international character of the Bank and therewith its future usefulness.”[66]

McKittrick became frustrated with U.S. Treasury’s moves to block trade between Europe and the U.S. Confiding in his Reichsbank counterpart, Paul Hechler, McKittrick stated, “It is irrational to think that it was the intention [of the BIS board] to pay dividends in a currency which shareholders are unable to use…it has been necessary to adopt a variety of expedients according to circumstances existing in different countries…it must not be allowed to create a precedent for the payment of future dividends.”^[67] Several times during 1940, McKittrick complained to George Harrison, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, that he felt the BIS was being discriminated against unfairly.^[68]

Throughout the next three years, McKittrick would reach out many influential bankers and businessmen in order to get dividends paid out in the US. Beginning with canvassing the American legation and the U.S. Treasury department directly, one group McKittrick approached was Schroder banking corporation, a company that he was familiar with through his earlier days managing the German Standstill agreement.^[69] All efforts turned out to be unsuccessful. Frustrated, McKittrick turned to Leon Fraser, who as was noted earlier, a previous president of the BIS, with a possible friendly bank, The First National Bank of New York that could process the dividend payments. Through Fraser, McKittrick also sought out the legal services of John Foster Dulles at Sullivan & Cromwell, who as also noted earlier, was an expert on Swiss banking law from his experience representing the firm IG Farben’s Swiss subsidiaries.^[70] J.F. Dulles ended up taking the case, and advised that McKittrick should personally visit the US to beseech the Treasury department directly on behalf of individual shareholders.^[71] McKittrick made such a visit in December of 1942, and after a concerted lobbying effort, was able to get Treasury to grant a license for 3 million Swiss francs to be paid to individual shareholders out of Leon Fraser’s bank.^[72] Thus, McKittrick was able to successfully move assets out of Switzerland even in the face of stiff resistance by regulators who were aware of the value of the BIS to Germany’s financial system.

On April 1^st, 1943, Congressman Horace Jeremiah Voorhis introduced a resolution to the U.S. House of Representatives calling for an investigation into the BIS. He demanded to know “…why an American retains the position as president of the bank…[and] whether or not there exists the possibility of this bank being used to further the designs and purposes of Axis Powers.”^[73] Although the BIS had been engaged in assisting German finance ministers free up capital for investment in war industries for years, lawmakers like Voorhis became aware of the BIS due to the increasing stream of negative press the BIS started to receive in tandem with the U.S. entering the war in late 1942. One of the most dramatic stories published was the BIS complicity in gold plunder is that of Czechoslovakia. Although this act was concluded in 1939 prior to McKittrick taking office, his handling of the gold once it was in BIS possession demonstrates an interesting personal twist to the nature of transnational gold transfer that Germany depended upon throughout the war. Originally, the Czech government had cleverly requested the BIS to transfer its gold reserves to England to keep them safe from the Nazis just before the country was occupied by Germany; conversely, these funds were then transferred back to Switzerland by BIS officials and made available to Germany.^[74]

Josef Malik, who was the head of the Czech national bank, visited the previous president of the BIS in October of 1939, accompanied by Paul Hechler, who was a representative of the Reichsbank.[75] Under duress due to being escorted by a Nazi official, Malik was forced to retract his protest regarding his country’s gold being shipped back to the BIS and acceded all rights to it.^[76] Once Malik was able to escape to England, however, his story changed significantly. Working with financial columnist, Paul Einzig, several articles were printed in the English Financial Times about the Czech gold seizure, enflaming public viewpoints against the BIS.^[77] In 1945, Malik wrote to McKittrick, stating that he was removed from his job, beaten, and his family threatened so that he would not protest what was happening at his bank. McKittrick paradoxically responded to Malik that the BIS, “was not in the same position as a neutral Government,” and he was unable to take any action that did not include an agreement between Germany and the occupied governments, which McKittrick viewed as Nazi protectorates.^[78]

Diplomatically, the situation in Switzerland was becoming more difficult for McKittrick to negotiate after the U.S. entered the war. McKittrick confided with his friend Allen Dulles and the head of the American legation in Switzerland, Leland Harrison, in order to figure out where the U.S. government officially stood on his actions as head of the BIS. Surprisingly, the State Department responded that there was no illegality relative to his leadership of the bank, and that he should continue his work.^[79] In response to critics like Morgenthau and Voorhis, McKittrick went on the offensive. McKittrick defended this activity by stating that the BIS was a neutral organization and operated on trust between himself and the Nazi bankers.[80] McKittrick argued to Treasury officials that all transferred gold was “carefully segregated and documented so that any of it that may have been looted could be readily identified…and let the Germans keep it for other uses.”[81] McKittrick also noted that after the war he intended to “throw open the books,” and that the United Nations and the U.S. “would appreciate and approve of the role he and the BIS had played during the war.”[82] In defending his actions to private businessmen at a party thrown for him by Leon Fraser during his brief visit to the U.S. in the winter of 1942-43, McKittrick’s argument took on a remarkably different tenor.[83] He assured his fellow businessmen not to become distracted by Nazi aggression. He reassured his audience that Nazi Germany was stable; there had been no revolutions or instability under Hitler. McKittrick moved to inform them that “weak spots” in Germany’s defenses were being strengthened. In other words, Germany was still worth investing in.^[84]

Debate over the role of the BIS emerged again during the Bretton Woods financial conference in the summer of 1944, as the Allied finance ministers and politicians gathered to do determine the economic fate of postwar Europe as it became clear that the defeat of Germany was imminent. Treasury Secretary Morgenthau saw his chance to make the BIS a central issue: “I am going to stop the whole Conference until this whole BIS thing is settled… There aren’t going to be any two ways about it.” He continued, “…here are fourteen directors [of the BIS], twelve of which of these directors are Nazi or Nazi-controlled. Now this is up before forty-four United Nations and we have just got to grab this thing and meet it head-on.”[85] Morgenthau’s wishes to have the BIS liquidated and shut down were quickly sidelined by the other finance ministers, who were in favor of a settlement with the bank. Even with heavy lobbying by Morgenthau of delegations whose nations had suffered at the hands of the Nazis, such as the Czech group, they were unwilling to take an official stand against the bank. Behind the scenes McKittrick pressured the more influential delegates, such as the French and English finance ministers, to resist calls for an end to the BIS and vote against the measures. Despite assertions by McKittrick of transparency, the delegates eventually agreed to have the BIS return a fixed amount of Nazi plundered gold in exchange for keeping their books secret.[86]

McKittrick’s Legacy and Avenues for Further Research

 

McKittrick’s brand of neutrality would be more properly described as loyalty to the BIS itself. Despite the enormous risk of continuing his job as World War II raged around him, McKittrick felt that his presence in Basle was indispensable to the survival of the organization. McKittrick quipped to the American ambassador, “Many people in the central banks business are willing to say that the bank cannot survive without me…the responsibility rests, now that the board of directors no longer meets, so largely on my shoulders.”^[87] As important as he believed he was, however, McKittrick also made two important caveats: First, he would resign and return to America if the U.S. State Department, and by extension, lawmakers in Washington, believed what he was doing was illegal.^[88] Second, he stated that he would resign if his neutrality was compromised in any way.^[89]

McKittrick’s actions speak much louder than his words. By providing the Nazis with the financial resources they needed during the crucial war years, utilizing the transnational mechanisms described in this paper, McKittrick finds himself as a possible leading perpetrator in Nazi geopolitical goals. While McKittrick may have been able to turn a blind eye to brazen plunder and even genocide, the obvious questions are: Why didn’t he resign? Was the survival of the BIS that important to McKittrick? A more compelling answer beyond profit may be what did not happen during his tenure – he was never asked to leave by the U.S. authorities. Neither the American ambassador Leland Harrison nor the OSS station chief Allen Dulles ever decided to remove McKittrick from his post. When communicating with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, every effort was made to help McKittrick. He was honored by Thomas Watson, the American head of the International Chamber of Commerce. Why would all of these Americans provide support to an individual that was so crucial to their nation’s enemy?

The answer again may be more than profit. The underside to America’s role in World War II shows an extraordinary amount of corporate involvement. Ford and General Motors monopolized the production of engines inside Germany. ITT fuses were in every German bomb. IBM catalogued the location and means of execution of nearly every Jew in the death camps across Europe. Chase and JP Morgan handled millions of dollars worth of transactions in Nazi controlled banks. The Dulles brother’s law firm, Sullivan & Cromwell, handled legal services for all of these institutions. Where were the loyalties of the management? These are inquiries that require future research.^[90]

The question of whether the collective actions of a nation’s businesses can constitute a country’s foreign policy is beyond the scope of this paper. What can be surmised, though, are the factors that may lead toward a more definitive answer. If the BIS was truly neutral, did they provide similar financial services to the Soviet Union as they did to Germany? The BIS did not. From the outset of McKittrick’s presidency, he prevented gold and currency transfers to Russia, hiring legal experts to protect the BIS from any claims of favoritism.^[91] When the Baltic States fell to the Nazis, McKittrick rushed to have their assets transferred to Switzerland over the protests of the Soviet Union.^[92] Given the extraordinary imbalance between the BIS treatment of its German and Russian financial partners, the idea that the BIS was a neutral institution during the war becomes much more difficult to maintain.

McKittrick left Basle to return and live in the U.S. in relative obscurity for the rest of his life. Nevertheless, his management of the BIS left an undeniable mark on World War II, and by extension, the latter half of the 20^th century. The issue of BIS complicity with Nazi plunder would not be revisited again until the late 1990s when the Bergier commission was set up to investigate the stolen assets of European Jews in Swiss Banks.^[93] The tandem ICE commission found that more research on the BIS was needed to surmise its role during World War II. The report concluded:

It is therefore imperative that a future phase seek to achieve supranational coordination of fresh discoveries in terms of both inner-state workings and international relations, and of newly emerged facts concerning the economic, political and moral dimensions of developments in individual countries during the era of National Socialism, the Second World War, and the Holocaust. [94]

In concurrence with the ICE Report, further efforts must be made to understand how the implements of destruction found their way into the hands of one of the most brutal regimes of the 20^th Century. Otherwise, humanity may be doomed to repeat these mistakes. In the words of the International Commission of Experts Switzerland, “Let us remember and take heed.”

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[1] Deborah Cohen and Maura O’Connor, Comparison and History: Europe in Cross-National Perspective (New York: Routledge, 2004), p. ix.

[2] Although Japan also had a small account with the BIS during the interwar and World War II years, very little activity took place between the BIS and the Japanese central bank. This subject, while outside the scope of this paper, is worth further consideration in future historical analyses of transnational capital flows between Allied and Axis countries.

[3] Sociologist and historian Michael Mann has used these categories to describe power dynamics within societies. This model was first propagated in the opening volume of his series of texts, A History of Power from the Beginning to A.D. 1760, vol. 1 of The Sources of Social Power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). More recently, he extended this model to a specific study of Nazis and other groups in his book, Fascists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). One of the focuses of Mann’s categories of power are the networks that “contain” them. This idea is elucidated well in the introductory piece, An Anatomy of Power: the Social Theory of Michael Mann, edited by John Hall and Ralph Shroeder. In essence, Mann’s model expresses the idea that all power can only be carried as far as the reach of the networks that they exist within. Therefore, the study of banks appears to be a starting point for a discussion on transnational economic power in relation to the Nazi state, which can then facilitate further business activity, such as the building of weapons, transport, communication, etc. In a conversation I had with Mann on October 13, 2009, he noted that this model is an appropriate construction for this topic.

[4] Bradford Snell, U.S. Congress Senate Committee on the Judiciary, American Ground Transport (1974), A-22. Much of the research done thus far on this topic has been recent, though its beginnings originate with work done by Bradford Snell, an attorney hired by the U.S. Senate in 1974, to inquire into anti-competitive practices of Ford and General Motors (GM). Surprisingly, this report contained new evidence that both of these organizations had also been an integral part of Nazi military production, in the lead up to and during the war, building a majority of the Third Reich’s planes, tanks, and trucks. Snell’s research was expanded upon by the team of researchers, Reinhold Billstein, Karola Fings, Anita Kugler, and Nicholas Levis Working for the Enemy: Ford, General Motors and Forced Labor in Germany During the Second World War (New York: Berghahn, 2000). The argument of this text revolves around the premise that Ford and GM controlled a majority of Third Reich War industries through their subsidiaries, Ford-Werke & Opel, and maintained in contact and control with them throughout the war via managers loyal to the company. For example, Ford produced 48% of all the 2-3 ton trucks in Nazi Germany, and an additional 90,000 civilian trucks were used by Nazi troops in occupied Europe, which were crucial to Nazi supply lines (115). Ford-Werke also helped develop the V-2 rocket for the Nazis through a separate company, Arendt GmbH, to obscure its involvement. (115-116) GM Opel owned a much larger market share in the Third Reich and also built engines for all types of military vehicles. One popular model with the Wehrmacht, or German military, was the “Blitz Truck” which was developed specifically for the Blitzkrieg in 1936 (21-24). Opel also took special pride in building armor for the Panzer tank model (82).

[5] Theodore J. Kreps. “The Political Economy of International Cartels: Cartels, A Phase of Business Haute Politique,” The American Economic Review, 35,  No. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the Fifty-seventh Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association (May, 1945), 297-311. This article demonstrates that many American institutions involved in Nazi war production, including Standard Oil of New Jersey, DuPont, Ford, and General Motors, had a substantial interest in I.G. Farben. All had members on I.G. Farben’s board of directors. Kreps describes that formal inquiry into the organization started near the war’s end with a congressional investigation into the relationship of monopolies and international chemical cartels under a committee established by U.S. Senator Harley Kilgore to oversee war production efforts. This committee reported that patent agreements between American and German firms to produce materials essential to building armaments such as synthetic rubber, beryllium, tungsten carbide, optical glass and plastics were monopolistic in nature and designed to keep all competitors out of the market.

[6] The revelations of the Kilgore committee prompted the historians Joseph Borkin, Charles A. Welsh, Richard Sasuly, and Josiah DuBois to argue that these business relationships were essential to Nazi war production both before and after the U.S. and Germany were at war. Richard Sasuly, IG Farben (New York: Boni & Gaer Press, 1947). Joseph Borkin and Charles A. Welsh, Germany’s Master Plan: The Story of the Industrial Offensive (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1943), Josiah E. DuBois, The Devil’s Chemists (Boston: The Beacon Press, 1952).

[7] Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance between Nazi Germany and America’s Most Powerful Corporation (New York: Crown Publishing, 2001) Edwin Black argued in his exhaustively sourced monograph that International Business Machines (IBM) played a crucial role in Nazi war production by organizing inventories, production schedules, combat records, and census data – specifically for concentration camp slave labor and genocide. Additionally, Charles Higham argued that International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT) also assisted Nazi information needs by supplying phones, radios, and telegraph technology, in Trading with the Enemy: An Expose of the Nazi-American Money Plot 1933-1949. (New York: Delacorte Press 1983, 2007). Higham contends that ITT was not only a willing participant in Nazi military goals, but that the CEO Col. Sosthenes Behn, utilizing his freedom of movement as a high ranking U.S. military officer, personally flew to Europe to renegotiate conditions of his company’s contract with the Nazis while America was at war with Germany.

[8] Black, IBM and the Holocaust 37, 41-42, 148,333. Thomas J. Watson of IBM was one of the most influential CEO’s of his generation. According to Edwin Black, “Watson had cultivated a loyal following of employees throughout the IBM empire, as well as a nation of admiring executives, a fascinated American public, and enamored officials throughout the U.S. government.” Watson was elected chairman of the American Section of the International Chamber of Commerce in 1935. In many capacities, this role made him the official representative of all U.S. business abroad. Two years later, Watson personally traveled to Germany to receive a medal from Hitler himself for his efforts in organizing Nazi aims.

[9] Snell. American Ground Transport. A-22, Pauwels. Profit Über Alles 17, Billstein et. al. Working for the Enemy 37-44, Higham. Trading with the Enemy. 166. These historians focus on James Mooney of GM as a case study, who also received the same medal from Hitler as well, and was known in American diplomatic circles as a strong supporter of the Nazi regime.

[10] Stephen H. Norwood, “Legitimating Nazism: Harvard University and the Hitler Regime,

1933-1937,” American Jewish History, Vol. 92, no. 2 (June, 2004), 193-199. Some personalities to exert political influence such as Ernst Hanfstaengl were less well known; but as historian Stephen Norwood argued, their influence was crucial to shoring up political support for the Hitler regime early on. Norwood explains some political connections of this figure, “…Scion of a wealthy Munich family, Hanfstaengl had been one of Hitler’s earliest backers, joining his Nazi movement in 1922 largely because he shared Hitler’s virulent anti-Semitism. After the abortive beer hall putsch in 1923, Hitler had taken refuge at Hanfstaengl’s country villa outside Munich, where he was arrested. Hanfstaengl provided important financial assistance to the Nazi party when it was first establishing itself in the early 1920s.”

[11] Donald Warren, Radio Priest: Charles Coughlin, The Father of Hate Radio. (New York: The Free Press/Simon & Schuster, 1996), 1-2, 115. 129-160. Donald Warren argued that the American radio evangelist Charles Coughlin purposefully fanned the flames of racial hatred over the airwaves. Aligning himself with the Nazi cause, he often praised German actions and is alleged to have received translated propaganda from Nazi officials to read on the radio.

[12] Edwin Black,  War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a

Master Race (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003). Black argues that Nazi eugenics programs received funding and advisors from their American counterparts. One of the chief institutional supporters of this program was the Carnegie corporation, which Black contends provided operational guidance, as well as millions of dollars in financial support. Black also includes Ford’s influence on Nazi ideology, demonstrating that his publication was not only a direct inspiration to Hitler, but was actually plagiarized and reproduced in Mein Kampf.

[13] Victoria S. Woeste, “Insecure Equality: Louis Marshall, Henry Ford, and the Problem of Defamatory Antisemitism, 1920-1929,” The Journal of American History, Vol. 91, No. 3 (Dec., 2004): 905. Woeste argues that Ford was able to use his enormous political influence to both project his racist opinions and shield himself from lawsuits generated by it. Woeste surmises that, “[Henry] Ford gained as much fame for his anti-Semitic views as his cars. His Dearborn Independent, published dozens of articles between 1920 and 1925…the accusations in the Dearborn Independent, represented the broadest, most sustained published attack on individual Jews and Jews as a group in the nation’s history.” In War Against the Weak, Black demonstrates that these articles were reprinted widely in Germany. See also Black, Nazi Nexus, 2-15.

[14] Barry Meier, “Chroniclers of Collaboration; Historians Are in Demand to Study Corporate Ties to Nazis,” The New York Times, Feb 18, 1999, C1. In the late 1990s many corporations ramped up their legal and historical defenses against accusations, creating a market for researchers willing to work with these institutions.

[15] Ford Motor Company, Research Findings About Ford-Werke Under the Nazi Regime (Dearborn, MI: Ford Motor Company, 2001) Section 2 Historical Background of Ford Motor Company and Ford-Werke, 2. This source is made possible due to the first group of slave labor related lawsuits, starting with Iwanowa vs. Ford, which is still in appeal. Although Ford claims it lost control of its German plant, its own report seems to contradict this by showing that the corporation installed loyal managers as caretakers of the subsidiary to safeguard assets until after the war.

[16]Henry A. Turner, “German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler,” The American Historical Review, Vol. 75, No. 1 (Oct., 1969): 56-70. Turner argues that most businesses lost their autonomy and were under complete control of Nazi authorities. Turner came to focus on GM in particular to illustrate this thesis.

[17] Black, Nazi Nexus 123-25. Black recounts the story of how Turner used his access to GM’s files to restrict their right of use by other historians, Black in particular, who was also researching GM’s involvement with Nazis at the time for his book Internal Combustion (Washington D.C.: Dialog Press 2006). In a phone conversation with Edwin Black on September 26, 2009, Black stated he had to threaten to sue to get access to Turner’s archives. For more details on the conflict between Turner and Black over GM’s archives, see http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php?article=113&pageid=22&pagename=Investigation (accessed February 16, 2010)

[18] Peter Hayes, Industry and Ideology, IG Farben in the Nazi era (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), xxx. In the acknowledgements Hayes states plainly that he received financial support from I.G. Farben to produce the book. The text itself resembles a legal defense for its American business partners.

[19] See Sébastien Guex, “The Origins of the Swiss Banking Secrecy Law and Its Repercussions for Swiss Federal Policy,” The Business History Review, Vol. 74, No. 2. (Summer, 2000): 237-266. Guex states that Swiss banking secrecy law was promoted and fiercely defended as a method of attracting foreign capital. This capital, Guex contends, was often precisely for illegal, immoral, and illicit purposes precisely because of the enforced opacity by Swiss financial institutions. Guex argues that this was the rule for large banks such as the Bank of International Settlements, as well as smaller financial institutions.

[20] Michael J. Bazyler and Roger Alford, ed., Holocaust Restitution: Perspectives on the Litigation and Its Legacy (New York: New York University, 2006).

[21] Anthony C. Sutton, Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler. (Los Angeles: ’76 Press, 1976).

[22]Jason Weixelbaum, “Trading with the Enemy: A Review of the Shocking Revelations of U.S. Corporate Collaboration with Nazi Germany,”  History News Network (July 9, 2009) http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/98124.html (accessed February 16, 2010) and The Cutting Edge News (June 15, 2009) http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php?article=11392&pageid=&pagename (accessed November 30, 2009). My determination at the time of this article’s publication was that although there were a lack of footnotes, a limited bibliography, and tabloid writing style; however, some allegations, such as those regarding Ford and GM, had been provided further credibility by more academically written sources. Thus, Higham’s work was difficult to classify.

[23] Given the breadth of these sources, they are given limited treatment by Higham and have potential to yield further details.

[24] One of the most detailed documents to date is the Bergier Commission, also known as the Independent Commission of Experts Switzerland – Second World War (Zürich: Pendo Verlag GmbH 2002), whose task, mandated by the Swiss government, was  to investigate Nazi era confiscated and stolen assets that were transferred through, or deposited in Swiss banks. In the report’s conclusion, (523) it states that analysis of declassified material in the U.S. and other places –  precisely like the documentation Higham located – is needed to further the development of this research. http://www.uek.ch/en/schlussbericht/synthesis/ueke.pdf

(accessed February 16, 2010).

[25] Independent Commission of Experts, Switzerland, Switzerland, National Socialism and the Second World War (Zürich: Pendo Verlag GmbH, 2002), p. 520.

[26] Eberhard Kolb, The Weimar Republic. (New York: Routledge, 2005), 60-62. Kolb explains that the Dawes plan possessed some decisive economic advantages over previous reparations settlements including: replacing extremely high annuities in the short term to ease tensions between Germany and the Allies, immediate 800 million mark loan to give Germany “breathing space” before payments were due, and a more detailed and safe control system for what resources German reparations payments could be secured from – such as taxes, customs, etc.

[27] The BIS continues to act as a forum for international bankers to discuss global monetary issues. A short history written by the organization can be found at http://www.bis.org/about/history.htm. For a useful overview of the BIS see Gianni Toniolo, Central Bank Cooperation at the Bank for International Settlements (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). One of the central features of Toniolo’s thesis is that the English central banker, Montagu Norman, along with his American counterpart, Gates McGarrah, desired a smooth functioning international central bank to handle the transfer of transnational capital in the wake of early 20^th century international financial confrontations, particularly over various central banks adherence to (and rejection of) the gold standard. Norman, who was known for his close friendship with Reichsbank president Hjalmar Schacht, was said to have supported a pro-German banking policy even when it went against his own national interests. See Neil Forbes, Doing Business with Hitler: Britain’s Economic and Financial Relations with Germany 1931-1939 (London: Frank Cass Publishers, 2000), 72, 90-91.

[28] Gates W. McGarrah, “The First Six Months of the Bank for International Settlements,” Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, Vol. 14, No. 2, (Jan., 1931), 25-36. McGarrah states the main function of the BIS should be matched to that of U.S. central banks: “An examination is being made of the possibilities of the organization of a system of international clearing through the B.I.S., so that central banks may have facilities for clearing international movements of capital, just as in the United States…”

[29] Richard Roberts, Schroders: Merchants and Bankers (London: Macmillan, 1992), xvii. Roberts states that the most significant themes in the history of the bank are the role of the founding family, its international connections – particularly in the interwar years, and its conservative style of business. While Roberts writes volumes on the latter aspect, he only lightly touches the first two categories, especially as it relates to Schroders’ connection to financing the Third Reich’s political and military ambitions. Ironically, Roberts notes that his commission to write a history for the bank was a difficult undertaking because “very little is known about the historical development of the firm and virtually nothing published on the subject.” Even more problematic, Roberts states that there is an absence of sources during the war years. He states that there was an “absence of other records in the results of a zealous response to the government’s appeal for paper during the Second World War which led to the pulping of the letter books and many other papers.” (p. 520)

[30] Roberts, 220. Roberts states, “Thus began Schrobanco’s long and important business association with the Chase Bank and the Rockefeller family.”

[31] Roberts, 225.

[32] Roberts, 193.

[33] Roberts, 194.

[34] Roberts, 157, 295-6. Roberts does not illuminate Kurt Schröder’s connection to the bank whatsoever, only getting a scant mention on two pages of this substantial 500+ page history of the bank. Roberts only mentions Kurt Schröder in the context of noting that many journalists during the lead up to and during the war questioned his involvement to the far flung financial empire. Furthermore, Roberts states that criticisms of Schröder’s connection to the firm were really focused at John Foster Dulles, who was in the midst of the 1944 US electoral cycle as a candidate for Secretary of State for the Republican party. Thus, Roberts completely misses an opportunity to illuminate the relationship between Kurt Schröder and American business interests that has been speculated upon since the end of the war in texts such as Trading with the Enemy and Profit Über Alles. To his credit, Roberts may not be aware of this literature – however, he incorrectly states, “there were no further [political] attacks after polling day.” (p. 296)

[35] Interrogation of Kurt Freiherr von Schroeder on Monday, 3 December 1945, from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., by Foster Adams and Emil Lang, Box 3, Folder 6, Charles Higham “Trading With the Enemy” Collection, USC Cinematic Library, Los Angeles, CA.

[36] Roberts, 195. This event enabled Schroder bank in London to be designated a “Receiving Bank” which meant it was able to receive and process profits even when the owners of other German corporate bonds were only receiving partial payment in the later 1930s.

[37] Memorandum of Conversation which Mr. McKittrick had with Mr. August Diehn, General manger of the German Potash Syndicate, August 15, 1928. Series 2, Carton 6, Folder 8, Reel 10, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers, Harvard Business School Baker Library, Allston, MA.

McKittrick expanded Higginson & Co.’s relationship with the German Potash syndicate to include a collaboration in chemical trade with IG Farben to create what would then be “unquestionably the strongest single factor in the Potash industry in the world.”

[38] Higginson & Co. Paris Office, Copies of Cable & Telegraphic Correspondence – German Gov’t Short Term Financing, September 19, 1930. Series 2, Carton 6, Folder 13, Reel 10, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers.

The confidential telegraph states, “we are seriously considering throwing some legal work to Sullivan and Cromwell in order to get the benefit of Dulles services in many directions.”

[39] “I.T.&T. CHALLENGED KREUGER’S HONESTY :Told Lee, Higginson, 3 Weeks Before Suicide, of False Balance Sheet He Gave. BANKERS’ FAITH UNSHAKEN Found Him Disturbed and III, One Testifies, and Accepted His Word That Charge Was a Mistake.. ” New York Times (1923-Current file) 14  May 1932, ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 – 2006), ProQuest. Web.  10 Apr. 2010. See also Frank Partnoy,  The Match King: Ivar Kreuger, The Financial Genius Behind a Century of Wall Street Scandals (New York: Public Affairs, 2009).

[40] Ibid. Although it had been deemed a suicide, Kreuger’s brother Torsten believed he was killed and published several books on the subject, Sanningen om Ivar Kreuger (Ivar Kreuger: The Truth at Last), Därför mördades Ivar Kreuger (The Reason for the Murder of Ivar Kreuger), and Kreuger-Mordet: En utredning med nya fakta (The Kreuger Murder: An Investigation with New Facts).

[41] “$1,500,000 OFFERED IN KREUGER SUITS :Trustee Proposes to Settle $150,000,000 Actions in International Match Case. BANKS ALSO SUBMIT PLAN $500,000 for Three Concerns Suggested to Wipe Out Claims on Institutions.. ” New York Times (1923-Current file) 26  May 1936, ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 – 2006), ProQuest. Web.  10 Apr. 2010. See also “LEE, HIGGINSON & CO. PLAN WIDE CHANGES :Banking Firm to Drop the Securities Business and Eventually Liquidate. WILL FORM CORPORATION New Organization to Confine Offices to New York, Chicago and Boston. AGENTS OF IVAR KREUGER Total of the Securities Handled Over Many Years Put at $1,000,000,000.. ” New York Times (1923-Current file) 15  Jun 1932, ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 – 2006), ProQuest. Web.  10 Apr. 2010.

[42] BIS, Press Comunique, March 5, 1934. Series 2, Carton 10, Folder 12, Reel 19, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers. For Higginson & Co.’s investments by country see Lee, Higginson & Co., Foreign indebtedness to Lee, Higginson & Co., Higginson & Co., Lee, Higginson et Cie, September 30, 1930. Series 2, Carton 6, Folder 9-10, Reel 10, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers.

[43] Neil Forbes, London Banks, the German Standstill Agreements, and ‘Economic Appeasement’ in the 1930s, The Economic History Review, New Series, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Nov., 1987) p. 571-587. Forbes concludes that even though London financiers became more concerned as Nazi aggression became more obvious, but were unable to relinquish their investments and stop the flow of money into Germany. Forbes states, “The London banks had to choose between reducing their credit lines at a considerable cost, or trusting that eventually the politico-economic situation in Germany would improve. They chose the latter course, largely because of the special financial relationships which they believed existed between the two countries.”

[44] McKittrick, Interoffice memo, Offices of F.L. Higginson Esq., April 11, 1938. Series 2, Carton 6, Folder 16, Reel 11, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers. It is important to note McKittrick’s personal views on the Anschluss: “Personally I am less downright and bitter in my condemnation than most people. If we bear in mind that Austria definitely declared through its legislature for annexation to Germany as far back as 1921 the incident loses the character of an unjustifiable military adventure and my impression is that Austria as a whole was about as ready to accept Hitlerism as Germany was when he seized power there in January 1933.”

[45] Bank of International Settlements – Board of Directors – 1933 to 1940. Box 3, Folder 6, Charles Higham “Trading With the Enemy” Collection. Kurt von Shröder was president of the J.H. Stein Bank, Walter Funk, Hjalmar Schact, and Emil Phul were all former presidents of the Reichsbank, Germany’s central bank.

[46] Telegram No. 890, May 5, 1939 and Telegram No. 907, May 9, 1939, Bullitt to Morgenthau. Box 3, Folder 6, Charles Higham “Trading With the Enemy” Collection. In the aftermath of the Anschluss, or annexation of Austria, Treasury Sec. Moganthau was aware that the Nazis had transferred the gold reserves of the Austrian central bank. Instead of addressing such allegations, Bullitt obscured the Nazi theft by stating, “…an alignment of axis and anti-axis powers was completely absurd.” Bullitt goes on to state that “There was an entirely cordial atmosphere at Basle; most of the central bankers have known each other for many years and these reunions are enjoyable and profitable to them.” Bullitt noted that Walther Funk, then president of the Reichsbank, had convinced him that “…he did not want the Reichsbank to have any more voting BIS rights than any one of the other founding banks had.” Bullitt acknowledged that Germany had taken over the Austrian banking system but never addressed the stolen gold directly. Technically, in the case of annexation, it could be construed that the gold was not actually stolen, however the U.S. Treasury Department did not share this view.

[47] Telegram No. 907, May 9, 1939, Bullitt to Morgenthau. Box 3, Folder 6, Charles Higham “Trading With the Enemy” Collection.

[48] Dulles was a family friend of the McKittrick’s meeting with his wife Marjorie and his children. See telegram Marjorie McKittrick to Thomas McKittrick, September 25, 1945. Series 1, Carton 5, Folder 2, Reel 6, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers.

See also Eduard Watjeh to McKittrick, April 20, 1946. Series 2, Carton 6, Folder 6, Reel 10, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers.

[49] Allen Dulles to McKittrick, Prof. V.F. Wagner, December 30, 1943. Series 2, Carton 6, Folder 6, Reel 10, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers. As an example, McKittrick and Dulles corresponded about various political/economic studies of central Europe. This one in particular was about the development of industry along the Danube River.

[50] Colonel Edward W. Gamble, Jr., OSS European Theater of Operations U.S. Army dispatch, June 15, 1945. Series 2, Carton 7, Folder 8, Reel 18, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers.

[51] Nancy Lisagor, A Law Unto Itself: The Untold Story of Sullivan & Cromwell (New York: William & Morrow, 1988), p. 139.

[52] “BANKING: Mr. McKittrick of Basel,” Time, July 7, 1943.

[53] Gabriele Knauth to McKittrick, November 12, 142. Series 2, Carton 8, Folder 19, Reel 18, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers.

[54] McKittrick to Marcel Pilet-Golanz, April, 1945. Series 2, Carton 9, Folder 3, Reel 18, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers.

[55] McKittrick to Walter McKittrick, September  21, 1937. Series 2, Carton 5, Folder 17, Reel 8, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers.

[56] McKittrick to Leland Harrison, February 15, 1940. Series 2, Carton 5, Folder 23, Reel 8, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers.

[57] McKittrick to Charley McKittrick, October 23, 1939. Series 2, Carton 5, Folder 21, Reel 8, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers.

[58] McKittrick to Lt. Col. George Akers-Douglas, August 29, 1939. Series 2, Carton 5, Folder 18, Reel 8, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers.

[59] Toniolo, p. 228-29

[60] McKittrick to Ivar Rooth, March 2, 1940. Series 2, Carton 6, Folder 20, Reel 11, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers.

[61] Roger Alford and Michael Bazyler, Holocaust Restitution: Perspectives on the Litigation and Its Legacy (New York: NYU Press, 2005) p. 45, 84, 104.

[62] A good example of this phenomenon was the case of Belgium, in which the entire central bank’s gold holdings were transferred and melted down at the Prussian mint and deposited in the Swiss National Bank in the BIS’s account. This gold was then able to be transferred into Swiss francs that could be used to purchase raw materials. See BIS, Memorandum of the management of the BIS on the gold identified as part of the gold from the national bank of Belgium, June 21, 1946. Series 2, Carton 10, Folder 15, Reel 19, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers.

[63] United States Treasury, Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA) http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/legal/statutes/twea.pdf. (accessed on November. 30, 2009). An unofficial compilation of laws specific to banking in TWEA is available through the Cornell Law School at http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/pdf/uscode12/lii_usc_TI_12_CH_2_SC_IV_SE_95a.pdf. (accessed on Nov. 30, 2009). TWEA was first enacted in 1917 to outlaw any business transaction with a country in which the U.S. was at war. It was updated several times between 1940-41 to include several European countries. For the purposes of this paper, implementation of TWEA occurred for France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg on June 17, 1940, Hungary on March 13, 1941, and Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Sweden, and Poland on June 14, 1941.

[64] TWX Conversation between Washington and Berlin, Col. Bernstein, Miss Mayer, Mr. Ritchin and Mr. Nixon and Thorson, Capt. Zap: Investigation by Bernstein’s associates, Donald W. Curtis and William V. Dunkel of the External Assets Census Branch December 5, 1945. Box 3, Folder 6, Charles Higham “Trading With the Enemy” Collection. Though this report declares that use of dividend payments applied primarily to Nazi occupied countries, Germany was utilizing this method in any way it could to free up capital to continue their geopolitical agenda.

[65] McKittrick to Baranski, May 1, 1940. Series 2, Carton 6, Folder 21, Reel 11, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers.

To be fair, a portion of Bank Polski’s securities were eventually deposited in England in 1943, but German authorities in Warsaw and Cracow attempted to circumvent this action, which the BIS did not make any attempt to stop. See London to BIS Managers, November 20, 1942. Series 2, Carton 8, Folder 14, Reel 17, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers.

[66] Communication for US Diplomatic Pouch, McKittrick to Fraser, American Legation, May 13, 1941. Series 2, Carton 9, Folder 19, Reel 18, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers.

[67] McKittrick to Hechler, July 31, 1940. Series 2, Carton 6, Folder 21, Reel 11, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers.

[68] Extract of Letter dated September 20, 1940. McKittrick to Harrison. Series 2, Carton 10, Folder 18-21, Reel 19, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers. McKittrick stated, “I have been trying to form some clear idea of what the apprehensions and purposes back of the whole matter are so far as it concerns the BIS” See also McKittrick to Federal Reserve Bank of New York, July 19, 1940 and McKittrick to Harrison, December 20, 1940. Series 2, Carton 10, Folder 18-21, Reel 19, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers.

[69] For communications with the American Legation, see Confidential memo, Foreign Service of the United States, January 20, 1941. Series 2, Carton 10, Folder 1-3, Reel 19, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers.

For communications with Treasury, see Memorandum of Telephone conversation with Mr. Fox of the Treasury, February 2, 1943. Series 2, Carton 8, Folder 18, Reel 17, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers. For communications with Schroders see McKittrick to BIS board, January 13, 1942. Series 2, Carton 8, Folder 18, Reel 17, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers. One way McKittrick thought to process payments into the US was in the form of acceptances (credits).

[70] Telegram Fraser to McKittrick, June 10, 1942. For more detail on Sullivan & Cromwell’s legal opinion, see Fraser to McKittrick, October 6, 1942. Series 2, Carton 8, Folder 18, Reel 18, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers. Fraser noted to McKittrick that Dulles was happy to help in these matters and considered it “a matter of international courtesy.” For information on the relationship between JF Dulles and IG Farben, see Borkin, The Crime and Punishment of IG Farben, 165-199.

[71] Sullivan & Cromwell to BIS, Memo No. 13-04415, October 1, 1942. Series 2, Carton 8, Folder 18, Reel 18, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers. Sullivan & Cromwell to the Office of Secretary of State, December 1, 1943. 9.11. JF Dulles was also granted Power of Attorney to act on behalf of the BIS. See also Fraser to Jules Roose, Esq., January 8, 1943. Series 2, Carton 8, Folder 18, Reel 17, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers. This letter is an example of individual shareholders that were in contact with Fraser, pressing for action on dividend payments. See also Incoming Cablegram – Serial No. 186, Federal Reserve Bank of New York to McKittrick, January 23, 1943. Series 2, Carton 8, Folder 18, Reel 17, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers.

[72] List of Papers for BIS Registry, President’s journey to USA 1942-43, December 1942. Series 2, Carton 8, Folder 21, Reel 17, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers. This is a long list of dignitaries McKittrick visited while in the US in connection with processing the BIS dividend payment.

[73] House Resolution 188, April 1, 1943. Henry Morgenthau Diaries, Reel 181, Diary 623, p. 94. FDR Library.

[74] BIS, Memo on the Position of the banks immediately after the annexation of Czechoslovakia on 14/15 March 1939, Report dated April 9, 1944. Series 2, Carton 10, Folder 17, Reel 19, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers.

[75] McKittrick was concerned about how his interactions with Hechler, as a high-level Nazi official would be viewed by others. When Hechler was killed late in the war, McKittrick noted, “Hechler’s death raises a serious administration problem, while solving a political one.” See McKittrick to Auboin, January 22, 1946. Series 2, Carton 8, Folder 4, Reel 17, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers.

[76] Jan Beyen, Note on Mr. Malik’s activities as regards the Czech gold,  October 19, 1939. Series 2, Carton 10, Folder 17, Reel 19, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers. See also McKittrick Memorandum of conversation with President Weber at Swiss National bank, Bern, June 7, 1940. Series 2, Carton 6, Folder 21, Reel 11, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers. McKittrick states lucidly, “I asked him [Weber, president of the Swiss National Bank] not to tell me where the where the gold would go and he did not do so.”

[77] BIS, Transfer of Czech Gold 1939, July 8, 1944. Series 2, Carton 9, Folder 2, Reel 17, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers. This memo is a catalogue of Financial Times articles critical of the Czech gold transfer.

[78] McKittrick to Malik June 1946. Series 2, Carton 9, Folder 2, Reel 17, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers. This memo is a reiteration of McKittrick’s original response to Malik. For McKittrick’s views on Czechoslovakia as a “Nazi protectorate” see Einzig, “The BIS and Foreign Exchange Legislation” Financial Times, June 1943.

[79] McKittrick to Leland Harrison, December 17, 1941. 9.8. See also U.S. Foreign Service, American Legation, Bern, Switzerland, January 9, 1942. Series 2, Carton 9, Folder 25-26, Reel 19, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers.

[80] Treasury Department memorandum, Conversation between Mr. McKittrick and Orvis Schmidt, March 23, 1945.

[81] Ibid., 4.

[82] Ibid., 5.

[83] Although there is a lack of evidence in McKittrick’s collection of papers, which include numerous friendly correspondences between he and Fraser, McKittrick must have been disturbed to learn that Fraser abruptly killed himself on April 8, 1945, a year before McKittrick was due to return to the U.S. See Leon Fraser of Banking Fame Takes Own Life,” The Evening Independent, April 9, 1945. p. 2.

[84] Handwritten notes for McKittrick speech at Fraser luncheon. Undated. Series 2, Carton 8, Folder 19, Reel 17, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers.

[85] Bretton Woods July 20 1944 9:15 am Liquidation of BIS Commission. Note: Morgenthau made a mistake with number of board members. There were actually 16 individuals on the board of the BIS, including the chairman. There were also five executive officers, including McKittrick as president.

[86] McKittrick contacted other delegates on the BIS liquidation commission and convinced them to agree to a settlement. See Bretton Woods, July 18, 1944, 3:30pm, Conference on BIS Looted Property, attachments J-L, letters from Rene Pleven, John Anderson, and Arthur Souza de Costa. A decent summation of the situation is captured by journalist Heinz Pol in his article, “Nazis Run World Bank – But we pick up the crumbs,” May 11, 1944, published in The New York World-Telegram, 45. Essentially, the Swiss delegation was intractable in protecting the BIS’ secrecy. Their offer was to remit some looted gold in exchange for an end to any further investigation of the BIS. When Morgenthau pressed the issue, the Swiss diplomats threatened to leave the conference. Morgenthau was forced to relent.

[87] McKittrick to Leland Harrison, December 17, 1941. Series 2, Carton 10, Folder 11, Reel 19, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers.

[88] Ibid. See also U.S. Foreign Service, American Legation, Bern, Switzerland, January 9, 1942. Series 2, Carton 9, Folder 25-26, Reel 19, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers.

[89] Telegram McKittrick to Barings Brothers, October 10, 1940. Series 2, Carton 5, Folder 25, Reel 9, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers.

[90] For summaries of these business activities see Charles Higham, Trading with the Enemy, Jacques Pauwels, “Profit Über Alles!”, and Edwin Black, Nazi Nexus.

[91] Memorandum of Conversation with Dr. Jurgis Saulya and Edouard Turauskas  Envoys of Lithuania, July 29, 1940. 6.29. See also BIS Report on Operations of the Bank from January 1^st to 31^st, 1942. Series 2, Carton 10, Folder 4-10, Reel 22, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers.

[92] McKittrick to Montagu Norman, August 28, 1940. Series 2, Carton 6, Folder 21, Reel 11, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers.

[93] Bazyler and Alford, Holocaust Restitution, 103-6, 115-32.

[94] Independent Commission of Experts Switzerland, p. 524.

Spring 2010 Research Proposal

World War II continues to be perceived as one of the most pivotal geopolitical events of the twentieth century. In a myriad of ways, this global upheaval has shaped the current state of the world we live in. Thus, historians have placed special emphasis on studying all aspects of this event. In order to provide a more nuanced view, a new realm of historiography has recently emerged to address the role of transnational corporations in both supplying and providing funding to the various belligerents involved. This field of study is often contentious and has spawned controversy, and in some cases, lawsuits as more information has surfaced.[1] In the case of Nazi Germany, a significant amount of historical analysis has been placed on the business activity of corporations, particularly German subsidiaries with parent companies within the United States. This information offers the opportunity not only for a reevaluation of the relationship between Germany and the U.S. during this period, but also provides a case study of how transnational business institutions can play a central role in military confrontations. My goal for this research project is to pinpoint specific individuals and events that were indispensable to the facilitation of such business activity. Because access to financial and political resources are essential to negotiating large scale cross-border business transactions, this inquiry will center on the role of officials with ties to both financial organizations and governments.

Due to an expanding body of archival documentation, research on this topic has been growing steadily since the war’s end, particularly in the last three decades. The historiography of corporate complicity and collaboration with the Nazis could be grouped into four interrelated categories delineating military, political, ideological, and economic support, with some overlap considering the extensive scope of some of the organizations involved.[2] The essential argument underpinning this research is that U.S. businesses that cooperated with the Third Reich did so purposefully, and despite their excuses of the loss of control of various European subsidiaries to Nazi officials, manufacturing, financial transactions, and business services were invariably managed by Americans or those loyal to the American parent companies. Secondary sources on this topic have been produced by a variety of historians and journalists such as Edwin Black, Jacques Pauwels, and Rheinhold Billstein, among others.[3] In reaction to this indictment, a fifth “category” of historiography has also recently appeared, commissioned by some of the organizations accused of collaboration in order to defend their past business practices.[4]

By its nature, the business activities of the corporations detailed above are transnational. They involve the transfer of money, raw materials, manufactured products, patents, and people across national borders. Therefore, the mechanisms that each organization employed must be analyzed in depth to determine exactly how these processes occurred and to what effect. Each type of organization utilized different methods to facilitate their various businesses. Financial corporations, for instance, were able to use large international organizations, such as the Bank of International Settlements, to shift large sums of capital between various central banks and businesses that could then be made available to military industries. A detailed view of how these transfers were negotiated is essential to understanding how these apparatus work on a global scale and completes a far more interrelated picture than a traditional, national history.

I have identified three individuals as key actors within this field, whose papers may provide further insight into how these transnational connections worked. The first individual is Thomas McKittrick, who was president of the Bank of International Settlements from 1941-46. Having extensive interactions with government officials and central bankers in the U.S., Europe, and Japan during the war, his business activities have significant potential to reveal details about such transnational relationships. A collection of his business papers are located at Harvard University’s Baker library. Another key individual is Allen Dulles, who also had extensive connections in both the business world and within governments. As the intelligence bureau chief for the Allied Office of Strategic Services in Switzerland, as well as chairman of the Shroder bank utilized by the Nazi Schutzstaffel secret police, Dulles was also in a unique position to play a vital part in these transnational interactions.[5] According to various secondary sources, Dulles and McKittrick were associates as well, which may be worth investigating. Allen Dulles’ papers are located in a collection at Princeton University, which is also accessible. Finally, a third perspective can be utilized to balance Dulles and McKittrick. Henry Morgenthau, who was Treasury Secretary under Franklin Roosevelt, managed several investigations of these transnational interactions. Morgenthau’s papers are located at the Franklin Roosevelt Memorial Library in Hyde Park, New York, which is also close enough to visit. I have already collected some primary source material from Morgenthau’s Treasury investigations at another archive, and have some specific ideas of where further investigation could yield new information.

My plan for the anatomy of this paper will have a central focus on the transnational mechanisms that allowed for the exchange of capital and materials originating in the U.S. to be utilized by the Nazi regime to make war on its neighbors. At each archive, I plan to collect data on these interactions and then assemble them with this focus in mind, rather than produce case studies on each individual. As with earlier papers I have produced on this topic, I will separate any details I discover between the period of time when such business interactions were legal – before Germany and United States were officially at war, and the period time after formal hostilities commenced. This way I can separate the amoral from potentially treasonous activities. However, given my specific time frame for examining the activities of McKittrick and Dulles, many business interactions I will be investigating occurred after said declaration of war.

The schedule I have arranged to date has me in the McKittrick archives for the next two to three weeks in order lay groundwork for further inquiry in the other two collections. I plan to travel to New Jersey and New York toward the end of February or possibly during spring break when my schedule will be bit less restrictive. I plan to have most of the primary source material I need to produce this paper mid-March, returning to the McKittrick archive during the intervening weeks if necessary. My ultimate goal, if this historical research goes well, is to lay the foundation for new Freedom of Information Act document requests to fill in any gaps (including some that I have already identified) to provide a more complete picture of the tumultuous events that occurred during this crucial period.

---

[1] For an overview of many cases surrounding corporate complicity with the Nazi Germany, see Michael J. Bazyler and Roger Alford, ed., Holocaust Restitution: Perspectives on the Litigation and Its Legacy (New York: New York University, 2006).

[2] Sociologist and historian Michael Mann has used these categories to describe power dynamics within societies. This model was first propagated in the opening volume of his series of texts, A History of Power from the Beginning to A.D. 1760, vol. 1 of The Sources of Social Power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). More recently, he extended this model to a specific study of Nazis and other groups in his book, Fascists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). One of the focuses of Mann’s categories of power are the networks that “contain” them. In essence, Mann’s model expresses the idea that all power can only be carried as far as the reach of the networks that they exist within. Therefore, the study of banks appears to be a starting point for a discussion on transnational economic power in relation to the Nazi state, which can then facilitate further business activity, such as the building of weapons, transport, communication, etc. In a conversation I had with Mann on October 13, 2009, he noted that this model is an appropriate construction for this topic.

[3] For a broad overviews of this topic see Edwin Black, Nazi Nexus (Washington D.C.: Dialog Press 2009), and Jacques R Pauwels, “Profits uber Alles! American Corporations and Hitler,” Labour/Le Trevail Vol. 51 (2003): 4-6. Accessed Nov. 14 2009. See also Charles Higham’s Trading with the Enemy (New York: Delacorte Press, 1983, 2007) and Reinhold Billstein, et. al. Working for the Enemy (New York: Berghahn, 2000).

[4] See Barry Meier, “Chroniclers of Collaboration; Historians Are in Demand to Study Corporate Ties to Nazis,” The New York Times, Feb 18, 1999, C1. In the late 1990s many corporations ramped up their legal and historical defenses against accusations, creating a market for researchers willing to work with these institutions.

[5] For a detailed discussion on Dulles’ financial connection to the Nazis see my paper Following the Money, located at jasonweixelbaum.wordpress.com.

Following the Money: An Exploration of the Relationship between American Finance and Nazi Germany

[Authors Note: I would like to extend a special thanks specifically to Ned Comstock, Michael Mann, Edwin Black, and Jack Pauwels for their help with this project - you have all been indispensable and your assistance and insight is greatly appreciated.]

Following the Money: An Exploration of the Relationship between American Finance and Nazi Germany

“Human memory is a marvelous but fallacious instrument. The memories which lie within us are not carved in stone; not only do they tend to become erased as the years go by, but often they change, or even increase by incorporating extraneous features.”
– Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved

Although many writers, historians, and politicians generally commend the United States as an instrumental force behind the undoing of Hitler’s Nazi regime, many prominent American companies and citizens knowingly aided the Third Reich. Scholars have exposed numerous instances of collaboration between institutions and individuals in the two countries.[1] Nevertheless, the dualistic narrative of the United States vs. Nazi Germany portrayed as Good vs. Evil is still frequently espoused by U.S. politicians and reflected in American popular culture. Thus, the purpose of this essay is to continue to flesh out this countervailing story and fill in the gaps on a central, yet underdeveloped topic of economic collaboration between U.S. and Nazi financial institutions. It will argue that that these activities included facilitating financial transactions for the purposes of paying for war material, transferring capital out of blocked Nazi accounts, including large amounts of looted gold from European central banks and Jewish citizens, making loans for the Nazi military, and funneling money raised in the U.S. to the Nazi party directly. Through the brief case studies of four major financial institutions, the Chase Bank, J.P. Morgan & Co., Union Banking Corporation, and the Bank of International Settlements, this essay will demonstrate that the organizations involved maintained American managerial control of their foreign subsidiaries, attempted to obfuscate their collaboration with the Nazis, and continued to do business after formal hostilities commenced between the U.S. and Germany.[2] The purpose of this essay is not meant to address the motivations of these corporations and individuals; however, it is written with the understanding that such a question is a natural outgrowth of this field of inquiry and is worth further consideration.

Due to an expanding body of archival documentation, research on this topic has been growing steadily since the war’s end, particularly in the last three decades. The historiography of corporate complicity and collaboration with the Nazis could be grouped into four interrelated categories delineating military, political, ideological, and economic support, with some overlap considering the extensive scope of some of the organizations involved.[3] The essential argument underpinning this research is that U.S. businesses that cooperated with the Third Reich did so purposefully, and despite their excuses of the loss of control of various European subsidiaries to Nazi officials, manufacturing, financial transactions, and business services were invariably managed by Americans or those loyal to the American parent companies. In reaction to this indictment, a fifth “category” of historiography has more recently emerged, commissioned by some of the organizations accused of collaboration in order to defend their past business practices.

Military aid is perhaps the most concrete category to begin a discussion of the historiography relevant to this topic. Research on this topic detailed the cooperation of U.S. corporations with German war production in the form of building tanks, warplanes, munitions, poison gas, and research and development of new military technology.[4] Another thread of inquiry related to this subject matter regards the business activity of the sprawling chemical company, I.G. Farben, which was critical to the Nazi war effort and built the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp.[5] As more information became available during and directly after the war’s end, a handful of historians investigated this corporation’s connections to American firms.[6] A third line of inquiry into the topic of military collaboration between U.S. and German institutions involves the role that information technology played in harnessing the power of the Third Reich’s military and industrial capacity.[7]

Researchers in the category of American political support for the Nazis have noted that the leaders of many corporations held various amounts of power and influence, which they utilized to provide political cover for their activities and for their control over the lucrative German market.[8] Several historians have argued that prominent corporate managers pressed for peaceful relations with Germany, despite its aggressive posture.[9] Other studies have involved Americans who worked with the Nazi party in its beginning stages.[10]

Differing from the other categories of collaboration listed above, research on ideological support is situated more widely within the context of American culture. Many historians have explored the currents of racist thought, which were present in many circles of American life in the 1930s.[11] Additionally, the role of American eugenics pseudo-scientists in the development and implementation of Nazi genocidal goals has been well documented.[12] Documentation on ideological sympathy for the Nazis would not be complete with out including Henry Ford, who was virulently anti-Semitic, and harnessed the significant resources at his disposal to publish his views widely.[13]

Before turning to a background in the study of economic support for the Third Reich originating in America, it is important to consider how businesses responded to indictments of collaboration. This literature differs from the other categories detailed above in that it involves research directly sponsored by the companies accused of dealing with the Nazis.[14] Each organization exhibited a different response to the various accusations against them. For instance, Ford was fairly candid about its involvement, opening its archives to a team of researchers and publishing the findings on their website.[15] GM, on the other hand, hired the business historian, Henry Ashby Turner, who wrote several defenses of U.S. subsidiaries in Germany, including the widely cited German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler.[16] According to journalist Edwin Black, Turner was given exclusive access to GM archives, which he then restricted in his own collection at Yale.[17] I.G. Farben also retained a historian, Peter Hayes, who was paid directly by the corporation to argue that the company’s American managers lost control to Nazi officials, which directly contradicts the previous research detailed above.[18]

Access to archival sources is a central problem for the economic historiography on this topic. Because financial institutions tend to be more protective of their information, there are still spaces to be filled in the story of their role in Nazi Germany.[19] Contemporary research has revolved around Holocaust restitution, which focuses almost solely on looted Jewish assets.[20] Much of the work that has attempted to reach beyond this subject into a more broad view of economic collaboration with the Nazis has drawn upon Anthony Sutton’s book, Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler. Sutton argues that many U.S. corporations “…aided Nazism wherever possible (and profitable) – with full knowledge that the probable outcome would be war involving Europe and the United States.”[21] Charles Higham drew similar conclusions in Trading with the Enemy, in which he contends that several American financial institutions were responsible for financing various war production activities. Higham’s work is controversial due to its relationship with its archival sources, which are not referenced within his text.[22] However, I have established after an inspection of his sources, which Higham was responsible, as he states in his book, for declassifying a large number of archival materials on U.S. firms and individuals collaborating with the Third Reich.[23] These documents, which mainly involve internal investigations by the U.S. Department of Treasury, provide the bulk of the source material for this essay. Although Higham and Sutton have been cited elsewhere, there has been sparse recent academic analysis of their sources. Therefore, the job of detailing exactly what constituted the relationship between some U.S. financial institutions and the Nazis remains an unfinished task.[24]

It is important to note that prior to Germany declaring war on the U.S. and the subsequent American implementation of the Trading with the Enemy Act, business with the Third Reich was considered morally reprehensible, but not illegal.[25] Therefore, the group of case studies detailed here is divided into two sections: Business conducted between U.S. and Nazi financial institutions before Germany and the U.S. were officially at war, and the business activities afterwards. Each case will present evidence that the banks in question retained U.S. managerial direction and control over their foreign subsidiaries, made attempts to hide their involvement with the Nazis, provided financial services that helped the Third Reich pay for war materials and avoid blocked accounts, and in some cases, helped transfer political donations directly to the Nazi party.

A snapshot of four banks during the early Nazi regime 1933-1941

This study begins with the intersection between U.S. financial institutions and the Third Reich within the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) in Basel, Switzerland. In the years following World War I, the Allied Reparations Committee commissioned lawyer and diplomat Owen D. Young to formulate a plan to deal with the economic impact of the war’s devastation in Europe. Basically, these were agreements among Allied central bankers to reorganize the financial system of Germany to facilitate reparations payments and increase foreign investment.[26] Among other things, the Young Plan called for the creation of an international bank to handle such transactions. This recommendation led directly to an agreement among Allied finance ministers to create the BIS in 1930.[27] In short, the BIS was designed to collect, administer, and distribute reparations payments between Germany and the Allied powers. The secondary purpose of the BIS was to promote cooperation between central bankers, and assist in large cross-border capital flows, such as international currency trades and large scale investment.

The BIS presidency was occupied primarily by Americans through the 1930s and 40s beginning with Gates McGarrah, who was the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.[28] During this time, several prominent Nazi financial managers also held positions on the board of directors of the BIS, such as Kurt von Shröder, Walther Funk, Hjalmar Schacht, and Emil Phul.[29] In addition to private bankers, the U.S. Treasury and State department also sent representatives to Basel, in the form of Merle Cochran and William Bullitt, whose function was to report back to Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Secretary of Treasury Henry Morgenthau regular updates on the BIS.[30] Problematically, these representatives showed themselves to be less than neutral, giving positive reports on their Nazi counterparts even as Hitler annexed various European territories and looted gold from their central banks.[31] When questioned by the Morgenthau on this situation Bullitt responded, “There was an entirely cordial atmosphere at Basel; most of the central bankers have known each other for many years and these reunions are enjoyable and profitable to them.”[32] Essentially, while Nazi officials lied to or won over the trust of the likes of Bullitt and Cochran, they utilized the opacity of BIS capital transfers, which were not subject to oversight by U.S. authorities. This became a chief mechanism to keep these activities secret and safe from outside intervention.[33]

The obscuring of gold theft from European banks continued as the Third Reich annexed more territory.[34] To assist with this process, BIS board members elected American lawyer Thomas McKittrick, who allowed this process to continue.[35] While hiding the transfer of gold, top Nazi financial managers, such as Emil Puhl, utilized their privilege as BIS board members to keep this money available for the Third Reich, even as Allied authorities attempted to block accounts to stop them.[36] Once the Nazis had capital safely protected in Switzerland, they were able to use this money to purchase war materials for Hitler’s crash rearmament program from 1936-40.[37] For example, IBM, which was in the indispensable position of organizing everything from train schedules – including those sending prisoners to concentration camps – to raw materials inventory for the Third Reich, set up offices in Geneva not long after this process of capital accumulation in Switzerland began.[38] Ford and GM also used this mechanism throughout the 1930s to secure payment for the military vehicles it was building for the Nazis and sent corporate officers from their home offices to the country to reinvest in their plants and communicate with local managers.[39] Although Morgenthau had more than an inkling of what was happening in Switzerland, he was powerless to do anything. Even when war broke out, and the Trading with the Enemy Act was firmly in place for all Axis controlled territories in 1941, a U.S. ambassador reported, “The business affairs of the bank, which are run on a greatly reduced scale, virtually rest in the hands of Mr. McKittrick, the President of the Bank.”[40]

The BIS was not the only large financial institution to both facilitate and obscure financial transactions for the Third Reich. The Chase Bank was also a participant in Nazi banking activity. Due to the removal of banking regulation blocking the opening of international branches, Chase Bank opened and acquired many branches around the world, and it was the largest bank by assets and deposits at the beginning of the 1930s.[41] Chase’s main European hub at this time was its Paris branch, which was not a major institution, but had the advantage of being connected to the parent company’s worldwide network.[42] When the Nazis rode triumphantly into Paris they found that Chase Bank was prepared to open their doors to a substantial new business partner. According to the corporate analysis unit of the U.S. Treasury, which investigated the role of Chase in the overall Nazi financial structure:

Investigations conducted at the Paris Branch and at the Home Office in New York of Chase Bank disclosed that the bank operated in Paris throughout German occupation and engaged in sundry activities indicate an over-riding desire to continue operating even though this required a close collaboration with the German authorities. There is evidence that the Home Office in New York was fully informed of these activities, at least until late in 1942, but took no steps to discourage them, at the same time withholding pertinent information from United States Governmental authorities.[43]

Chase, like a few other financial institutions, opened up a branch in unoccupied France within months after the Nazi occupation began. This allowed the Chase headquarters to more easily remain in contact and also to obscure direct cooperation with Nazi officials through an implied separation with its main branch in Paris.[44] Just prior to the Nazi victory, French officials had ordered all bank branches to shut down and liquidate, or sell all available assets, so that currency, gold, and other property could be transferred and protected abroad.[45] However, Carlos Niedermann, the manager of Chase’s French branches, ignored this order and instead only adjusted his balance sheets to make it appear that business was being reduced.[46] In reality, accounts were set up at the new branch in Vichy France specifically for use by the Reichsbank to convert German Reichmarks into U.S. dollars to pay for the services of other corporations. Many of these business shared accounts and legal representation with Chase, such as Standard Oil of New Jersey, ITT, General Analine and Film, and Sterling Products.[47] Additionally, Niedermann also assisted Nazi authorities in blocking Jewish deposits, confiscating Jewish accounts, and transferring the funds to the newly created Nazi accounts.[48]

The importance of American bank branches in France to the Nazis cannot be fully understood without a treatment of J.P. Morgan & Co.’s Morgan & Cie Bank, which was also located in Paris.[49] As with Chase, J.P. Morgan opened a branch in the unoccupied area of France, in this case to Chatel-Guyon, and moved most of its main operations there.[50] Meanwhile, J.P. Morgan left the Paris branch in legal limbo, so that it could maintain its foreign currency accounts used by its business partners in unblocked accounts in Vichy France.[51] French central banking authorities had also ordered the liquidation of all their accounts, as they had done with Chase, so the Nazis would not be able to utilize them. However, the U.S. Treasury investigation of Morgan & Cie determined that this branch took orders exclusively from its parent company J.P. Morgan & Co. The report states:

The primary loyalty of the Morgan partners was not to the US or France, but to the firm. Regardless of national considerations, they invariably acted in what they deemed to be the best interests of Morgan et Cie. Thus, when the Germans were approaching Paris in 1940, the Morgan officials failed to destroy their stocks of banknotes on hand despite the requests of the Governor of the Bank of France that they do so. This failure to obey instructions placed Morgan et Cie in the enviable position of being able to supply its ‘best clients’ with small amounts of cash immediately after the occupation at a time when the majority of other Paris banks which had complied with the Bank of France’s orders, including Chase, were apparently unable to do so.[52]

Through Morgan & Cie’s policies, the corporation clearly sent a message to the Nazis that it wanted to preserve their business without putting any capital, particularly in America, at risk. Both in practice and ideologically speaking, J.P. Morgan’s French managers aligned themselves with Third Reich; thus, when top manager, M. Pesson-Didion met with Hans J. Caesar, the Reichsbank director put in charge of French banks, he stated proudly, “Following in that the traditions of his father, Mr. Morgan has never accepted Jews as partners or associates.”[53]

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Morgan & Cie helped to assist the substantial Nazi military manufacturing quotas. In early 1941, through the lobbying of J.P. Morgan’s American partners and the New York Banking Department, Morgan & Cie was granted permission to facilitate payments from Nazi accounts directly to the U.S European subsidiaries that were building armaments for Nazis.[54] This was perfect timing for GM’s German subsidiary, Opel, which was struggling with money problems due to a shortage of workers, a highly ambitious production schedule for the JU-88, the workhorse of the German Luftwaffe, and investment problems due to funds trapped in blocked accounts.[55] American legal counsel for Morgan & Cie cabled their French managers on June 6, 1941:

I think you and the rest of the staff should know that we are constantly receiving compliments on this side over the way Morgan et Cie has looked after the interests of their clients, commercial and private, during the past year. These reports came to us from most unexpected places, and encourage us to wish to carry on the business as long as conditions will permit us to do so. The office at Chatel-Guyon has proven to be of great practical utility; without it we could not have carried on any business with the outside world. I hope the staff there realize how much we appreciate their untiring and devoted efforts.[56]

The final financial institution to be discussed in this section is the Union Banking Corporation (UBC). Although its market share was significantly smaller than the other banks in this series of case studies, its utility to the Nazi party was significant, particularly in its early years. The UBC was set up by the large finance and investment organization, Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH), as a holding company for all the shares in a bank in the Netherlands, called the Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart, N.V. [57] This bank was founded by the Thyssen family, who invested in heavy industry, particularly in Germany’s Ruhr valley. According to Fritz Thyssen, who was chairman of the Bank voor Handel, said he became interested in Hitler’s fledgling Nazi party after being introduced to him by General Erich von Ludendorf and agreed to credit the party 250,000 marks.[58]

There is no doubt that Thyssen’s bank was well positioned in terms of capitalization and legal protection. It was represented by the same firm that provided legal services to Chase and J.P. Morgan, Sullivan & Cromwell.[59] The financial connections between this bank and others were also in the process of being investigated by the U.S. Treasury department when war broke out. For instance, the Division of Monetary research reported in December of 1941 that the Worms bank of Paris had invested over 1 million dollars in the UBC.[60] Ostensibly, this capitalization allowed the UBC via Thyssen’s Bank vor Handel to donate money to Hitler’s 1933 election campaign, by which time donations to the Nazi party exceeded over 1 million marks.[61]

Business cooperation with Nazis after the U.S. and Germany were at war 1942-1945

After Japan’s attack on the U.S. at Pearl Harbor, Hitler made the reluctant decision on December 11^th, 1941 to declare war on the U.S., as promised in Germany’s military agreement with Japan.[62] This allowed the U.S. Treasury department to block and/or seize the assets of any entity it found to be doing business with Germany via the Trading with the Enemy Act.[63] Despite the passage of this legislation, all four entities discussed in this brief set of case studies continued their collaborative financial operations. According to U.S. Treasury investigations of these institutions, each bank sought to avoid detection, continue their business, provide financial services that specifically facilitated the Nazi military, and avoid prosecution when the war ended.

Chase Bank attempted to hide its involvement with the Nazis in France through accounting fraud. Essentially, they falsified their balance sheets to reflect that business was shrinking, when it was actually growing drastically.[64] Although Chase headquarters sent responses to requests for further instructions that it could no longer direct the branch after February 1942, it took no steps to stop any transactions from occurring.[65] U.S. Treasury officials contacted the Chase home office to find out why these business transactions were continuing to occur. According to assistant Treasury director Harry White, in his communications with Chase Bank directors Joseph Larkin and Winthrop Aldrich, claimed that they were attempting to remove French managers who were collaborating with the Nazis, but were having difficulty maintaining control over their French operations.[66] Chase managers claimed they were dealing, “not with a theory, but a situation.”[67] White eventually determined that there was no evidence that instructions to block these business transactions were ever issued, and that Chase headquarters in New York was kept informed of all business transactions at least through May of 1942.[68] In fact, White and his team discovered that in that month, instructions had been issued that all French operations “…are at your [Hans Caesar’s] disposal to continue to undertake the execution of banking affairs in France.”[69]

Chase banking business continued throughout the war. Deposits in accounts set up for German business virtually doubled.[70] While Chase France was acting as a “drop” for German banks, providing access to capital for military operations, Chase was also facilitating funds transfers to South America where other businesses, such as Standard Oil of New Jersey, had set up subsidiaries specifically to secretly trade badly needed fuel to the Nazis.[71] In the end, Chase Bank operations continued throughout the war and its headquarters in New York failed to provide the U.S. Treasury department with information regarding its French activities.[72] A case was brought against Chase by U.S. Attorney John McGohey in the spring of 1945 for Trading with the Enemy Act violations, but no substantive effort was made to prosecute the organization for any of the activities that are explained in this essay. This was due to what became the narrow focus of the court proceedings: the prosecution of one diamond smuggler, Leonard Smit, who had no connection to any of the other business transactions detailed above.[73] McGohey, for his part, was attempting to use Smit as an example to prove that Chase had disobeyed orders to freeze overseas accounts subject to Nazi seizure; however, this quickly became a moot point as Chase was cleared of all charges less than a month later.[74] There is relative silence from all the banks covered in this essay on the culpability of their actions, although Chase representatives did provide some defense for their actions. In his summation, John Cahill, legal representative for the bank, said that Chase’s oversight was, “…a mistake of the head and not of the heart.”[75] Chase was silent on the issue; however, the New York Times produced its own defense for the bank four days later:

Now, as witnesses for the Chase Bank pointed out, it would not have been difficult for an “enemy” account here and there to slip by…As every effort would naturally be made to conceal the real ownership of the funds ordered to be frozen, it would be no simple task for any bank to be sure that it had achieved a 100 per cent record…It was on its face incredible that a great institution like the Chase Bank would with the knowledge of its officers connive in a conspiracy of this sort.[76]

Chase was sued in 1998 by Holocaust survivors requesting the funds left in blocked accounts from this era. Chase opted to settle the class action lawsuit. It issued a brief statement saying that it was disappointed that the suit had been filed and, “We understand the seriousness of the issue and certainly look into these allegations with care,” but contended that it was “…an unnecessary lawsuit.”[77]

J.P. Morgan, in turn, was also able to successfully continue its business operations in France after Germany and the U.S. were at war. Mathew Marks, the U.S. Treasury investigator assigned to the case, noted that despite direct orders to sever communications and freeze accounts with Morgan & Cie, documents he discovered showed that this order had been violated, and business activity continued.[78] For example, an internal communication from Morgan & Cie noted,

…the parent concern [is] requesting that we be contacted in connection with the investment in the unoccupied zone of ten million francs in securities, particularly of industrial securities. If I understand correctly, the parent concern places complete reliance on us…Please send us as soon as possible your [JP Morgan headquarters] suggestions regarding investment of the money…I think we shall have to contact the parent concern through the intermediary of our New York friends in order to handle the deal satisfactorily.[79]

What the U.S. Treasury department eventually determined was that U.S. citizens were able to make free withdrawals from the Morgan & Cie branch network, while payments into the network would be allowed only in the form of patent royalties, or money for sales or usage of an asset, in order to obscure the actual volume of money changing hands.[80] With a total value of 1 billion dollars worth of assets in blocked accounts, 87 percent of which were in U.S. dollars, this was an effective method of transferring payment to and from various American industrial concerns within Nazi occupied countries.[81]

J.P. Morgan was not prosecuted during the aftermath of World War II for the activities of Morgan & Cie, despite the detailed reports showing clear collaboration with the Nazis. Further litigation against J.P. Morgan was not revisited until 1998-2001, when the institution was sued by Jewish customers who had lost their accounts to the French Morgan et Cie subsidiary.[82]

Compared to Chase and J.P. Morgan, the Union Banking Corporation was less immune to prosecution, though it also made efforts both to continue and to conceal its business after war broke out. During interrogations with Nazi banker Kurt von Shröder, who was captured in Germany at the end of the war, he explained the process in which the bank’s Dutch subsidiary, Bank voor Handel en Scheepvart, hid its participation in Nazi banking networks:

…for show purposes they [Bank voor Handel and a few other Dutch banks, such as Dutchmen van Vlissingen, and von Schaik] were separated, but for practical purposes the management worked together as before, except that no more meetings of the board were held…As I remember, there was a big agreement between the German and the Dutch group. After this agreement the members of the boards from both companies should be returned to their position at the end of the war. That in the meantime the collaboration between the companies should go forward as far as possible, in the same way as before.[83]

For its part, the UBC continued to hold shares and currency reserves for Bank voor Handel so that it could be used by the Nazi war apparatus.[84] The UBC’s investment in United Steel Works Inc., in Dusseldorf, Germany, (Vereinigte Stahlwerke A.G.) was particularly critical to Third Reich military production.[85]

The UBC came under the investigation of the U.S. Treasury department after investigative journalist M.J. Recunin published an article about the institution entitled, “Hitler’s Angel Has 3 Millions in N.Y. Bank” in the summer of 1941.[86] This prompted the Alien Property Commission to examine, and then seize all the shares of the UBC in October of 1941. Thus, its wartime activity in Germany was cut short compared to the other banks detailed in this study. However, just like the other institutions in this case study, no other criminal proceedings occurred due to the corporation’s collaborative relationship with the Nazis.[87]

Like the other institutions in this essay, the Bank of International Settlements also continued to offer financial services to the Third Reich after December of 1941. It is important to note that while this organization was technically considered a Swiss bank, Thomas McKittrick, an American, presided over it until the end of the war. During this period, the board of the BIS contained several Nazis who favored McKittrick’s supportive stance toward Germany. When the bank’s documents were finally seized and several BIS board members, including Reichsbank director Emil Puhl, were interrogated, Morgenthau’s team concluded:

It is clear both from correspondence and from testimony that the management of the B.I.S during the war was ‘in the hand of the Administration Council, in which the Axis representatives have an authoritative influence’, and that in 1942 the Germans favored the reelection of President McKittrick whose ‘personal opinions’ they characterized as ‘safely known.’[88]

In an even more egregious allegation, Puhl also noted that McKittrick was allegedly providing economic intelligence to the other Nazi BIS board members.[89]

Ultimately, the BIS was situated in the center of the Nazi financial structure. A majority of all gold looted during Nazi conquests of Belgium, France, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia ended up in the BIS vaults.[90] This transfer of capital allowed the Nazis access to money that would have been trapped in blocked accounts, as the Trading with the Enemy act applied to all Nazi occupied countries after December, 1941. After the Nazis were defeated, the U.S. Treasury investigators examining this structure in Germany noted, “…looted gold accepted by the B.I.S from the Reichsbank is dependent upon access to the Swiss national Bank’s records concerning the Reichsbank’s gold depot which was maintained there and through which nearly all these gold shipments were washed.”[91]

Within the group of individuals that managed finance capital for Third Reich military production was the Baron Kurt Freiherr von Schröder, who was in a core position for the Nazis, straddling the world of international banking and Hitler’s inner circle. Long before Hitler took power, Schröder was a respected name in the major banking industries of London, New York, and Berlin.[92] Schröder positioned himself as an indispensable part of the Nazi political machine first by brokering the political deal that led directly to Hitler’s chancellorship, and then rising to a high position within the Schutzstaffel, or SS, the feared and highly influential police unit within the Nazi government.[93] Utilizing his exclusive access to the Nazi party and international business, Schröder was able to set up highly profitable arrangements as a board member of organizations intimately involved with Third Reich military production, such as I.G. Farben and Krupp.[94] Schröder noted that during the course of his interrogations after being captured by Allied officials in 1945, he was given these and other responsibilities, “I represented one of the leading private banks formed on a partnership basis, and because I was considered politically reliable.”[95]

It was through these connections that Schröder was able to utilize his board position on the BIS to gain access to enormous amounts of capital for his business interests. McKittrick defended this activity by stating that the BIS was a neutral organization and operated on trust between himself and the Nazi bankers.[96] McKittrick went on to state that all transferred gold was “…carefully segregated and documented so that any of it that may have been looted could be readily identified…and let the Germans keep it for other uses.”[97] Although McKittrick is vague, the research presented here suggests available capital could be utilized to finance military enterprises. McKittrick noted that after the war he intended to “…throw open the books,” and that the United Nations and the U.S. “…would appreciate and approve of the role he and the BIS had played during the war.”[98]

As the war drew to a close, it became obvious that full disclosure was not on the agenda for the BIS. Knowing that this organization was at the apex of the Nazi finance structure, Treasury Secretary Morgenthau threatened to hold up the Bretton Woods Conference, an Allied meeting critical to deciding the postwar financial order, until the BIS collaboration issue was addressed.[99] Morgenthau’s wishes were sidelined in favor of a settlement with the BIS – they would trade a fixed amount of gold in exchange to keep their books secret.[100] This issue was revisited in 1996, when Holocaust victims sued several Swiss banks that were depositories for the BIS.[101] A few of the cases were successfully settled, and the resulting creation of the Bergier commission to investigate Swiss-Nazi business collaboration was a welcome development; however, further restitution cases have been blocked by American judges and the U.S. Department of Justice.[102]

A call for further research

Considering the volume of evidence relative to the collaboration between the financial institutions featured here and the Third Reich, the lack of criminal proceedings against any of the firms or their directors is suspect. A significant possible reason for this was the destruction of Harry White’s career during the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) in 1946-48, when he was accused of being a Communist sympathizer and Soviet spy.[103] Because White had been in charge of all the investigations detailed in this essay, his involvement with HUAC (along with his sudden heart attack and death during the proceedings) halted his work. Coupled with the accelerating anti-communist hysteria of HUAC, White’s boss, Henry Morgenthau, held an increasingly punitive stance toward Germany, which put him at odds with the Truman administration. [104] This caused his direction of the U.S. Department of Treasury to be cast in an unfavorable light, decisively ending many of its pending investigations.[105]

Beyond what has been elucidated from the wartime research of the Treasury Department, other avenues of research have emerged that should be further developed. For instance, the law office of Sullivan & Cromwell provided legal representation for all the banks in this group of case studies. The business activities of the major personalities involved, Gerhard Westrick and Heinrich Albert in Berlin and John Foster and Allen Dulles in New York, deserve further historical analysis. Some details on Heinrich Albert have emerged in more contemporary work.[106] Westrick, on the other hand, needs to be studied more. The exception is Higham’s research, who obtained a number of classified documents on the individual.[107] According to the documentation Higham uncovered, Westrick was at the center of a significant portion of all the business activity detailed in this essay. Aside from his assertions of being close friends with Allen Dulles, Westrick noted some of the other American managers he worked with during the war years:

I saw the people of Sullivan & Cromwell, the people of ITT, people of other bankers like Brown Brothers, Harriman, Speyer. I saw some lawyers besides Sullivan & Cromwell, from White & Case, Davis-Polk and some special lawyers like Henry Uterhart, Fred Downey. I saw the people of Underwood-Fisher-Elliott, of the Ford Company, of the Kodak Company; Mr. Sloane-Colt’s president, Mr. Eric Archdeacon and a few others. I saw Mr. Addinsell from the Chase Bank, George Murmane, Capt. Rieber from the Texas Company, Bill Donovan and Joe Grazier..[also McKittrick] with International Bank Settlement and Schroeder Bank.[108]

Given what has been developed thus far on Albert, historical examination of the business relationships of Westrick should shed more light on the entire field.

Further research into the business relationships of the Dulles brothers is difficult, not only due to their extensive nature, as is the case with Westrick, but also particularly due to their governmental connections. Allen Dulles was a significant figure in the U.S intelligence community, becoming head of the CIA while his brother became Secretary of State.[109] The younger Allen Dulles was in Switzerland as the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) station chief throughout the war. Anything truly revealing may be difficult to come by, but it is worth noting that the Dulles brothers published many of their opinions themselves, which shed light on their motivations. For instance, Allen Dulles argued for peace with Germany and wanted an unrestrained regulatory environment for U.S. businesses with subsidiaries abroad; this makes perfect sense for a man who represented many such businesses.[110]

One vexing issue regarding Allen Dulles’ activity in Switzerland is that most information available came directly from him. What remains challenging about his generally self-aggrandizing reports is that he analyzed his own gathered intelligence, undermining the reliability of the information he presents.[111] According to a group of German historians studying resistance groups within the Third Reich, they determined that Dulles was surprised by the major coup attempt against the Nazis of July 20, 1944, that he takes credit for, calling into question what actual involvement he had in anti-Nazi activities.[112] Dulles has also received criticism for his direct intervention in pardoning Karl Wolff, a high ranking official in the SS responsible for numerous mass killings.[113] It is notable that Thomas McKittrick mirrored this type of “insider” support for resistance groups, which yielded little in substantive help in comparison to his potentially widespread collaboration with the Nazis.[114] More information needs to be uncovered about Dulles in particular to determine if his so-called “support” of anti-Nazi groups was a front, as it appears have been in the case of McKittrick. Further research on McKittrick would also be useful, as no biography yet exists to shed light on the personal opinion of this individual throughout the war years. An examination of the collection of his archival materials at Harvard University’s Baker Library may yield more information.

As evidenced by Westrick’s extensive contacts, there are many more business persons worth investigating for their alleged roles in the economic realm of the Third Reich. For instance, Montagu Norman, who was a significant personality in the interwar British government, and head of the British central bank, was also on the board of directors of the BIS throughout the war years. Higham notes that Norman was close with the Reichsbank minister Hjalmar Schacht, which should be examined further.[115] Also, extensive fundraising for U.S. groups sympathetic to the Nazis was occurring throughout the war years. Bringing this work, such as that by Donald Strong, into the context of the research presented here may provide a clearer picture of how U.S. based political donations made it to the Hitler regime.[116]

It is not surprising that corporations acted in their own best interests – which translated into a desire for profit above all things. The business activities reported here are not meant to be construed with official U.S. foreign policy, before or during the military conflict with Germany. The historian Hans Mommsen describes the Hitler regime as a chaotic mess of competing bureaucracies, which may be a useful explanation for the phenomenon of innocuous yet extensive penetration by U.S. corporations seeking profits within Nazi Germany.[117] Whatever the case may be, the purpose of this essay is not to argue that collaborative activities were meant to purposefully take advantage of this situation (though further investigation may reveal this), but to address the currently unanswerable question: Where does this information fit within the broader historical narrative of U.S. involvement in World War II?

This research, coupled with the revelations of Nazi era business with several other iconic American corporations, such as IBM, Ford, and GM, makes it more difficult to sustain the claim that instances of collaboration were isolated, small-scale affairs.

If the Dulles brothers’ names are beneath the redacted lines in the U.S. Department of Treasury investigative reports, or the names of any other well connected U.S. government officials, then the assertion that there was no favorable economic policy (unofficial or otherwise) toward the Hitler regime becomes more problematic. Therefore, it is imperative that clean copies of these documents be reviewed by historians to dispel any claims of U.S. government involvement with these collaborative activities. The banks, in turn, would also have a stronger argument for their innocence if they were to open up their own archives, so that independent historians can compare their records to the growing volume of declassified U.S. government documents about them.[118] Paying a small number of Holocaust survivors is not the same as coming clean, nor does it address other loss of life and property as the result of such actions.

Despite the existence of successful Holocaust restitution settlements, should these organizations be historically absolved for their cooperation with one of the most brutal regimes of the 20^th century? In order to truly bring justice for the unimaginable losses, destruction, and sorrow caused by the Nazis, further research into exactly how these corporations assisted such a regime must be allowed to continue until its full dimensions are known, so that the mistakes of the past are never again repeated.

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[1] For a broad overviews of this topic see Edwin Black, Nazi Nexus (Washington D.C.: Dialog Press 2009), and Jacques R Pauwels, “Profits uber Alles! American Corporations and Hitler,” Labour/Le Trevail Vol. 51 (2003): 4-6. Accessed Nov. 14 2009. http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/llt/51/pauwels.html.

 

[2] This essay will focus primarily on American corporations, though there are connections between the four case studies and financial institutions in other countries, principally in England and France. Additionally, it should be noted that while the BIS was not an American bank in origin, U.S. citizens were instrumental in its creation and management during the war years.

[3] Sociologist and historian Michael Mann has used these categories to describe power dynamics within societies. This model was first propagated in the opening volume of his series of texts, A History of Power from the Beginning to A.D. 1760, vol. 1 of The Sources of Social Power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). More recently, he extended this model to a specific study of Nazis and other groups in his book, Fascists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). One of the focuses of Mann’s categories of power are the networks that “contain” them. This idea is elucidated well in the introductory piece, An Anatomy of Power: the Social Teory of Michael Mann, edited by John Hall and Ralph Shroeder. In essence, Mann’s model expresses the idea that all power can only be carried as far as the reach of the networks that they exist within. Therefore, the study of banks appears to be a starting point for a discussion on transnational economic power in relation to the Nazi state, which can then facilitate further business activity, such as the building of weapons, transport, communication, etc. In a conversation I had with Mann on October 13, 2009, he noted that this model is an appropriate construction for this topic.

[4] Bradford Snell, U.S. Congress Senate Committee on the Judiciary, American Ground Transport (1974), A-22. Much of the research done thus far on this topic has been recent, though its beginnings originate with work done by Bradford Snell, an attorney hired by the U.S. Senate in 1974, to inquire into anti-competitive practices of Ford and General Motors (GM). Surprisingly, this report contained new evidence that both of these organizations had also been an integral part of Nazi military production, in the lead up to and during the war, building a majority of the Third Reich’s planes, tanks, and trucks. Snell’s research was expanded upon by the team of researchers, Reinhold Billstein, Karola Fings, Anita Kugler, and Nicholas Levis Working for the Enemy: Ford, General Motors and Forced Labor in Germany During the Second World War (New York: Berghahn, 2000). The argument of this text revolves around the premise that Ford and GM controlled a majority of Third Reich War industries through their subsidiaries, Ford-Werke & Opel, and maintained in contact and control with them throughout the war via managers loyal to the company. For example, Ford produced 48% of all the 2-3 ton trucks in Nazi Germany, and an additional 90,000 civilian trucks were used by Nazi troops in occupied Europe, which were crucial to Nazi supply lines (115). Ford-Werke also helped develop the V-2 rocket for the Nazis through a separate company, Arendt GmbH, to obscure its involvement. (115-116) GM Opel owned a much larger market share in the Third Reich and also built engines for all types of military vehicles. One popular model with the Wehrmacht, or German military, was the “Blitz Truck” which was developed specifically for the Blitzkrieg in 1936 (21-24). Opel also took special pride in building armor for the Panzer tank model (82).

[5] Theodore J. Kreps. “The Political Economy of International Cartels: Cartels, A Phase of Business Haute Politique,” The American Economic Review, 35,  No. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the Fifty-seventh Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association (May, 1945), 297-311. This article demonstrates that many American institutions involved in Nazi war production, including Standard Oil of New Jersey, DuPont, Ford, and General Motors, had a substantial interest in I.G. Farben. All had members on I.G. Farben’s board of directors. Kreps describes that formal inquiry into the organization started near the war’s end with a congressional investigation into the relationship of monopolies and international chemical cartels under a committee established by U.S. Senator Harley Kilgore to oversee war production efforts. This committee reported that patent agreements between American and German firms to produce materials essential to building armaments such as synthetic rubber, beryllium, tungsten carbide, optical glass and plastics were monopolistic in nature and designed to keep all competitors out of the market.

[6] The revelations of the Kilgore committee prompted the historians Joseph Borkin, Charles A. Welsh, Richard Sasuly, and Josiah DuBois to argue that these business relationships were essential to Nazi war production both before and after the U.S. and Germany were at war. Richard Sasuly, IG Farben (New York: Boni & Gaer Press, 1947). Joseph Borkin and Charles A. Welsh, Germany’s Master Plan: The Story of the Industrial Offensive (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1943), Josiah E. DuBois, The Devil’s Chemists (Boston: The Beacon Press, 1952).

[7] Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance between Nazi Germany and America’s Most Powerful Corporation (New York: Crown Publishing, 2001) Edwin Black argued in his exhaustively sourced monograph that International Business Machines (IBM) played a crucial role in Nazi war production by organizing inventories, production schedules, combat records, and census data – specifically for concentration camp slave labor and genocide. Additionally, Charles Higham argued that International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT) also assisted Nazi information needs by supplying phones, radios, and telegraph technology, in Trading with the Enemy: An Expose of the Nazi-American Money Plot 1933-1949. (New York: Delacorte Press 1983, 2007). Higham contends that ITT was not only a willing participant in Nazi military goals, but that the CEO Col. Sosthenes Behn, utilizing his freedom of movement as a high ranking U.S. military officer, personally flew to Europe to renegotiate conditions of his company’s contract with the Nazis while America was at war with Germany.

[8] Black, IBM and the Holocaust 37, 41-42, 148,333. Thomas J. Watson of IBM was one of the most influential CEO’s of his generation. According to Edwin Black, “Watson had cultivated a loyal following of employees throughout the IBM empire, as well as a nation of admiring executives, a fascinated American public, and enamored officials throughout the U.S. government.” Watson was elected chairman of the American Section of the International Chamber of Commerce in 1935. In many capacities, this role made him the official representative of all U.S. business abroad. Two years later, Watson personally traveled to Germany to receive a medal from Hitler himself for his efforts in organizing Nazi aims.

[9] Snell. American Ground Transport. A-22, Pauwels. Profit Über Alles 17, Billstein et. al. Working for the Enemy 37-44, Higham. Trading with the Enemy. 166. These historians focus on James Mooney of GM as a case study, who also received the same medal from Hitler as well, and was known in American diplomatic circles as a strong supporter of the Nazi regime.

[10] Stephen H. Norwood, “Legitimating Nazism: Harvard University and the Hitler Regime,

1933-1937,” American Jewish History, Vol. 92, no. 2 (June, 2004), 193-199. Some personalities to exert political influence such as Ernst Hanfstaengl were less well known; but as historian Stephen Norwood argued, their influence was crucial to shoring up political support for the Hitler regime early on. Norwood explains some political connections of this figure, “…Scion of a wealthy Munich family, Hanfstaengl had been one of Hitler’s earliest backers, joining his Nazi movement in 1922 largely because he shared Hitler’s virulent anti-Semitism. After the abortive beer hall putsch in 1923, Hitler had taken refuge at Hanfstaengl’s country villa outside Munich, where he was arrested. Hanfstaengl provided important financial assistance to the Nazi party when it was first establishing itself in the early 1920s.”

[11] Donald Warren, Radio Priest: Charles Coughlin, The Father of Hate Radio. (New York: The Free Press/Simon & Schuster, 1996), 1-2, 115. 129-160. Donald Warren argued that the American radio evangelist Charles Coughlin purposefully fanned the flames of racial hatred over the airwaves. Aligning himself with the Nazi cause, he often praised German actions and is alleged to have received translated propaganda from Nazi officials to read on the radio.

[12] Edwin Black,  War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a

Master Race (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003). Black argues that Nazi eugenics programs received funding and advisors from their American counterparts. One of the chief institutional supporters of this program was the Carnegie corporation, which Black contends provided operational guidance, as well as millions of dollars in financial support. Black also includes Ford’s influence on Nazi ideology, demonstrating that his publication was not only a direct inspiration to Hitler, but was actually plagiarized and reproduced in Mein Kampf.

[13] Victoria S. Woeste, “Insecure Equality: Louis Marshall, Henry Ford, and the Problem of Defamatory Antisemitism, 1920-1929,” The Journal of American History, Vol. 91, No. 3 (Dec., 2004): 905. Woeste argues that Ford was able to use his enormous political influence to both project his racist opinions and shield himself from lawsuits generated by it. Woeste surmises that, “[Henry] Ford gained as much fame for his anti-Semitic views as his cars. His Dearborn Independent, published dozens of articles between 1920 and 1925…the accusations in the Dearborn Independent, represented the broadest, most sustained published attack on individual Jews and Jews as a group in the nation’s history.” In War Against the Weak, Black demonstrates that these articles were reprinted widely in Germany. See also Black, Nazi Nexus, 2-15.

[14] Barry Meier, “Chroniclers of Collaboration; Historians Are in Demand to Study Corporate Ties to Nazis,” The New York Times, Feb 18, 1999, C1. In the late 1990s many corporations ramped up their legal and historical defenses against accusations, creating a market for researchers willing to work with these institutions.

[15] Ford Motor Company, Research Findings About Ford-Werke Under the Nazi Regime (Dearborn, MI: Ford Motor Company, 2001) Section 2 Historical Background of Ford Motor Company and Ford-Werke, 2. This source is made possible due to the first group of slave labor related lawsuits, starting with Iwanowa vs. Ford, which is still in appeal. Although Ford claims it lost control of its German plant, its own report seems to contradict this by showing that the corporation installed loyal managers as caretakers of the subsidiary to safeguard assets until after the war.

[16]Henry A. Turner, “German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler,” The American Historical Review, Vol. 75, No. 1 (Oct., 1969): 56-70. Turner argues that most businesses lost their autonomy and were under complete control of Nazi authorities. Turner came to focus on GM in particular to illustrate this thesis.

[17] Black, Nazi Nexus 123-25. Black recounts the story of how Turner used his access to GM’s files to restrict their right of use by other historians, Black in particular, who was also researching GM’s involvement with Nazis at the time for his book Internal Combustion (Washington D.C.: Dialog Press 2006). In a phone conversation with Edwin Black on September 26, 2009, Black stated he had to threaten to sue to get access to Turner’s archives.

[18] Peter Hayes, Industry and Ideology, IG Farben in the Nazi era (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), xxx. In the acknowledgements Hayes states plainly that he received financial support from I.G. Farben to produce the book. The text itself resembles a legal defense for its American business partners.

[19] See Sébastien Guex, “The Origins of the Swiss Banking Secrecy Law and Its Repercussions for Swiss Federal Policy,” The Business History Review, Vol. 74, No. 2. (Summer, 2000): 237-266. Guex states that Swiss banking secrecy law was promoted and fiercely defended as a method of attracting foreign capital. This capital, Guex contends, was often precisely for illegal, immoral, and illicit purposes precisely because of the enforced opacity by Swiss financial institutions. Guex argues that this was the rule for large banks such as the Bank of International Settlements, as well as smaller financial institutions.

[20] Michael J. Bazyler and Roger Alford, ed., Holocaust Restitution: Perspectives on the Litigation and Its Legacy (New York: New York University, 2006).

[21] Anthony C. Sutton, Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler. (Los Angeles: ’76 Press, 1976).

[22]Jason Weixelbaum, “Trading with the Enemy: A Review of the Shocking Revelations of U.S. Corporate Collaboration with Nazi Germany,”  History News Network (July 9, 2009) http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/98124.html (accessed November 30, 2009) and The Cutting Edge News (June 15, 2009) http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php?article=11392&pageid=&pagename (accessed November 30, 2009). My determination at the time of this article’s publication was that although there were a lack of footnotes, a limited bibliography, and tabloid writing style; however, some allegations, such as those regarding Ford and GM, had been provided further credibility by more academically written sources. Thus, Higham’s work was difficult to classify.

[23]Given the breadth of these sources, they are given limited treatment by Higham and have potential to yield further details.

[24] One of the most detailed documents to date is the Bergier Commission, also known as the Independent Commission of Experts Switzerland – Second World War (Zürich: Pendo Verlag GmbH 2002), whose task, mandated by the Swiss government, was  to investigate Nazi era confiscated and stolen assets that were transferred through, or deposited in Swiss banks. In the report’s conclusion, (523) it states that analysis of declassified material in the U.S. and other places –  precisely like the documentation Higham located – is needed to further the development of this research. http://www.uek.ch/en/schlussbericht/synthesis/ueke.pdf

(accessed November, 30 2009).

[25] United States Treasury, Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA) http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/legal/statutes/twea.pdf. (accessed on November. 30, 2009). An unofficial compilation of laws specific to banking in TWEA is available through the Cornell Law School at http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/pdf/uscode12/lii_usc_TI_12_CH_2_SC_IV_SE_95a.pdf. (accessed on Nov. 30, 2009). TWEA was first enacted in 1917 to outlaw any business transaction with a country in which the U.S. was at war. It was updated several times between 1940-41 to include several European countries. For the purposes of this paper, implementation of TWEA occurred for France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg on June 17, 1940, Hungary on March 13, 1941, and Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Sweden, and Poland on June 14, 1941.

[26] Eberhard Kolb, The Weimar Republic. (New York: Routledge, 2005), 60-62. The Young plan built on the earlier Dawes Plan, named after Vice President Charles G. Dawes, which was set up for the same reasons, but was unsuccessful due to severe financial and political problems in Germany. The Young Plan scaled back reparations payments significantly, in order to provide some stability for the German economy.

[27] The BIS continues to act as a forum for international bankers to discuss global monetary issues. A short history written by the organization can be found at http://www.bis.org/about/history.htm. For a useful overview of the BIS see Gianni Toniolo, Central Bank Cooperation at the Bank for International Settlements (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). One of the central features of Toniolo’s thesis is that the English central banker, Montagu Norman, along with his American counterpart, Gates McGarrah, desired a smooth functioning international central bank to handle the transfer of transnational capital in the wake of early 20^th century international financial confrontations, particularly over various central banks adherence to (and rejection of) the gold standard. Norman, who was known for his close friendship with Reichsbank president Hjalmar Schacht, was said to have supported a pro-German banking policy even when it went against his own national interests. See Neil Forbes, Doing Business with Hitler: Britain’s Economic and Financial Relations with Germany 1931-1939 (London: Frank Cass Publishers, 2000), 72, 90-91.

[28] Gates W. McGarrah, “The First Six Months of the Bank for International Settlements,” Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, Vol. 14, No. 2, (Jan., 1931), 25-36. McGarrah states the main function of the BIS should be matched to that of U.S. central banks: “An examination is being made of the possibilities of the organization of a system of international clearing through the B.I.S., so that central banks may have facilities for clearing international movements of capital, just as in the United States…”  Additionally, a chronology of presidents of the BIS following McGarrah can be found on the BIS website at http://www.bis.org/about/chronology/1929-1939.htm (accessed November 30, 2009). These Americans include Leon Fraser of the First National Bank of New York, and Thomas McKittrick of Chase Bank, who represented three out of the five presidents of the BIS in the period spanning 1930-1950. The other two presidents, Leonardus Trip and William Beyen oversaw the BIS from 1935-39.

[29] Bank of International Settlements – Board of Directors – 1933 to 1940. Kurt von Shröder was president of the J.H. Stein Bank, Walter Funk, Hjalmar Schact, and Emil Phul were all former presidents of the Reichsbank, Germany’s central bank.

[30] Higham, Trading with the Enemy, 4. Higham’s sources are several telegrams between Cochran, Bullitt, Hull, and Morgenthau in May of 1939.

[31] Telegram No. 890, May 5, 1939 and Telegram No. 907, May 9, 1939, Bullitt to Morgenthau. In the aftermath of the Anschluss, or annexation of Austria, Treasury Sec. Moganthau was aware that the Nazis had transferred the gold reserves of the Austrian central bank. Instead of addressing such allegations, Bullitt obscured the Nazi theft by stating, “…an alignment of axis and anti-axis powers was completely absurd.” Bullitt goes on to state that Walther Funk, then president of the Reichsbank, had convinced him that “…he did not want the Reichsbank to have any more voting BIS rights than any one of the other founding banks had.” Bullitt acknowledged that Germany had taken over the Austrian banking system but never addressed the stolen gold directly. Technically, in the case of annexation, it could be construed that the gold was not actually stolen, however the U.S. Treasury Department did not share this view.

[32] Telegram No. 907, May 9, 1939, Bullitt to Morgenthau.

[33] Toniolo, Central Bank Cooperation, 203-4. In order for Allied Central Bankers to finalize negotiations on forming the BIS, Swiss authorities were vehement in insisting that the bank be subject to Swiss banking secrecy laws – which continues to be a central tenet of Swiss financial policy. To be fair about the situation in Switzerland, Toniolo argues that it was not only Switzerland’s desire for secrecy in its financial sector that motivated them to promote a policy that hid Nazi financial crimes, but later the pressure to be “neutral” on the side of the Hitler built as their country became surrounded on all sides by the Axis.

[34] A significant amount of information on the Nazi theft of gold comes from the investigation and subsequent reports by Colonel Bernstein, who was Morgenthau’s operative in liberated Europe in 1945.  One such report, “Preliminary Survey of the War-Time Activities of the Bank for International Settlements.” TWX Conversation between Washington and Berlin, Col. Bernstein, Miss Mayer, Mr. Ritchin and Mr. Nixon and Thorson, Capt. Zap: Investigation by Bernstein’s associates, Donald W. Curtis and William V. Dunkel of the External Assets Census Branch December 5, 1945. Charles Higham “Trading with the Enemy” Collection. Box 1, Folder 1. University of Southern California Cinematic Arts Library. The report states,  “Substantial quantities of gold looted by the B.IS. either after processing of such gold in Berlin by the Reichsbank or, in one case by direct delivery from the country from which it was looted.” It should be noted that the copy of this declassified document received by Higham from the U.S. National Archives is moderately redacted, with many names, and sometimes whole passages, blacked out.

[35] The BIS “Preliminary Survey” report continues: “The B.I.S. continued to accept this gold when President McKittrick and Webber, as Chairman of the Administrative Council, were fully aware that German gold shipments to Switzerland during the war had far exceeded the Reichsbank’s published reserves of legitimately acquired gold; the records show that such shipments to the [emphasis added] Swiss National Bank during the period from March 1940 to the end of the war alone totaled $378 million worth of gold compared with the Reichsbank’s published gold reserves of 29 million.” The report goes on to detail the looting of gold in, Czech, Lithuanian, Estonian, and Latvian banks. The report indicates that the Nazis were aware McKittrick was sympathetic to their national goals.

[36] For the BIS “Preliminary Survey” report, Bernstein also interviewed Emil Puhl who was captured by the Allies. Bernstein reports, “Puhl has explained in some detail how the facilities of the B.I.S were used to withdraw Reichsbank assets from various neutral countries just prior to blocking in those countries, by book transfer balances in the B.I.S and that the B.I.S in many cases was the party with whom the Germans were able to dispose of the balances so withdrawn.”

[37] For the conclusion of the BIS “Preliminary Survey” report, Col. Bernstein’s associates, Curtis and Dunkel stated that “…evidence of the Reichsbank’s remarkably close and solicitous relationship with the Bank for International Settlements throughout the war, which raised strong suspicion of sill unrevealed war-time advantages to the Reichsbank and to the German Reich in general from their relationship with the B.I.S.” 3.

[38] Black, IBM and the Holocaust, 391-97.

[39] Billstein, et. al., Working for the Enemy, 39-40, 118, 141.

[40] American Embassy telegram July 10, 1941 9pm no. 2939, U.S. Ambassador to the Britain John Winant to Secretary of State Cordell Hull. According to Higham, this communication was made because of a lack of information regarding the position of British central bankers on the BIS. Morgenthau was reported to be frustrated by the fact that Montagu Norman was continuing to support BIS policy. See Higham, Trading with the Enemy, 8.

[41] J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., “The History of JP Morgan Chase & Co.: 200 Years of Leadership in Banking.” http://www.jpmorgan.com/pdfdoc/jpmc/about/history/shorthistory.pdf (accessed November 30, 2009). J.P. Morgan and Chase Bank combined in 2000. Chase was then known as Chase Manhattan bank at that time, as it had merged with the Bank of Manhattan Co. in 1955.

[42] Paul Gewirts, U.S. Department of Treasury, Corporate Analysis Unit, “Report on the Activities of The Chase Bank Branches in France,” April 3, 1945, 1. Charles Higham “Trading with the Enemy” Collection. Box 1, Folder 3. University of  Southern California Cinematic Arts Library. The report argues that Nazi authorities were interested in this institution after their conquest of France in the spring of 1940. It states, “The Chase Bank, like the other American banks in France, operated on a relatively small scale. The attitude of the Germans, however, when they came into France, indicates that they looked beyond the activities in France, and were more interested in the international character of an organization like Chase with its established branches throughout the world and its history in international banking which included a friendly intercourse with the Germans.”

[43] Ibid., Summary.

[44] Ibid., Adjustment of Chase to situation created by German Occupation, 1-5. The branch in question was opened in Chateauneuf.

[45] Treasury Department interoffice communication, Assistant to Treasury Sec. Harry White to Morgenthau, Feb 12, 1945. Charles Higham “Trading with the Enemy” Collection. Box 1, Folder 3. University of  Southern California Cinematic Arts Library. White, who was investigating Chase in New York for Morgenthau, noted that in June of 1940, Chase France was run by a man named S.P. Bailey who attempted to comply with the French government demand to liquidate banks to keep assets out of Nazi hands. However, he was summarily dismissed from his post after the Chase home office discovered his activities.

[46] Gewirts, “Report on the Activities of The Chase Bank Branches in France,” Niedermann’s loyalty to Chase, Process of liquidation under Niedermann, 10-12. . Charles Higham “Trading with the Enemy” Collection. Box 1, Folder 3. University of  Southern California Cinematic Arts Library. Also Morgenthau Papers. Central Files of the Office of the Secretary of Treasury (Entry 193). Box 60, France. Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library at Hyde Park, New York. U.S. National Archives. The report states, “Through all of Niedermann’s activities related above there appears to be an underlying desire to further the interests of Chase at any cost.” Another central feature of the report is Niedermann’s collaboration with Reichsbank director Hans Caesar, who was in charge of administering the French banking system during the occupation.

[47] Ibid., “Period between occupation of Paris and Pearl Harbor,” 7-13. See also Higham, 20. Chase legal representation was facilitated through the law firm Sullivan and Cromwell, managed by John Foster and Allen Dulles in America and their branch office of Heinrich Albert and Gerhard Westrick in Berlin. See Nancy Lisagor and Frank Lipsius, A Law Unto Itself: The Untold Story of the Law Firm of Sullivan and Cromwell (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1988), 111, 132-6, 139. The sources on the Dulles brothers for this text are the archives of the two men, respectively. These documents are located at the John Foster Dulles and Allen Welsh Dulles archives at Princeton University. John Foster Dulles was personally involved with Chase during this period, helping to develop the corporation’s investment banking wing. J.F. Dulles was also personally representing General Ainiline and Film, the U.S. subsidiary of I.G. Farben, at this time. Additionally, Allen Dulles sat on the board of the Shröder bank, whose CEO Kurt Shröder, was a top Nazi official who was a director of the BIS and the Reichsbank.

[48] Gewirts, “Report on the Activities of The Chase Bank Branches in France,” Indications to Home Office of Niedermann’s attitude toward the Germans and German Policies, 9-10. The report shows that Niedermann went so far as to threaten local customers who rented to Jews that they would be reported to Nazi authorities if they released Jewish property.

[49] Matthew J. Marks, Memorandum for Mr. Ball, U.S. Department of Treasury, “Investigation of Morgan et Cie,” April 26, 1945, 5-6. The report opens with a brief background of the bank noting that only one of all the directors was actually French. The rest were American, including two ambassadors, John Ridgley Carter and Joseph Kennedy.

[50] Ibid., 11-12. J.P. Morgan also had the same legal counsel, that of John Foster Dulles at the Offices of Sullivan and Cromwell. See Lisagor pp. 34. In the Treasury investigation of Chase, any time legal counsel is mentioned, the names are redacted. However, Lisagor’s research establishes that Chase’s primary legal counsel is Sullivan and Cromwell. Here is a quote from such legal counsel relative in the Morgan report relative to their move to Chatel-Guyon on July 5, 1940, Quoted source redacted, “All [partners] expressed the desire to reestablish their services in Paris at the earliest possible date on a broad scale and to collaborate with the German authorities.”

[51] Ibid., 12-17. Letter from legal counsel to French banking authorities on July 23, 1940, “I haven’t been able to tell them the idea of two separate categories of accounts – Paris and Chatel-Guyon. [redacted – legal counsel] thinks it’s too soon to make such a distinction officially…we should try to ‘kiss along’ the present indeterminate situation until we see things clearer, with an attempt to keep our books mutually in closer contact…” An example of a business account to be maintained by the separate branch of Morgan et Cie in Chatel-Guyon cited in the report (in order to have access to unblocked foreign capital) is the Fadil company, owned by Joseph Kennedy. Fadil made brake linings for, private, commercial, and military vehicles. The report notes that after a brief closure due to the invasion of France by Germany, by August 1940 the plant was ready to take out new orders for Nazi vehicles.

[52] Ibid., 2.

[53] Ibid., 3. Pesson-Didion would make several statements about the anti-Semitic orientation of J.P. Morgan and Morgan et Cie. Although this report does not make mention of confiscated Jewish property, J.P. Morgan did eventually settle in a Holocaust restitution lawsuit in 2002. See Bazyler, Holocaust Justice,  187-88.

[54] Ibid., 19-20. Cable dated February 5, 1941 to [redacted – legal counsel] in New York, “giving amounts owed by the bank’s three principal debtors and requesting Morgan in New York to obtain satisfaction from the American principals of the debtors, as French subsidiaries were in no position to make payment.” The debtors in question were General Motors, France, Ingersoll Rand, and Frigidaire. Ingersoll Rand is yet unresearched company that specialized in building engines for submarines.

[55] Billstein et al., Working for the Enemy, chart 4, 52-4.  The timing of the release of funds from J.P. Morgan is fortuitous, as GM was preparing to declare its subsidiary Opel “lost” to the Nazis, which meant that further funds would be have to be held in escrow or reinvested in Nazi plants in Germany and occupied countries instead of remitted to GM headquarters in America. Thus, GM was able to continue to amass profits while masking the parent company’s involvement. The release of funds in France also coincided with the mass hiring of French workers for Opel’s main plant in Russelheim.

[56] Marks, Investigation of Morgan et Cie, 21, 23. [redacted – legal counsel] in New York to Arragon. There is no doubt U.S. managers were pleased to see that profits had nearly tripled from the previous year reaching over 25 million francs by the end of 1941.

[57] Sutton, Wall Street and Hitler, 76-78. See also Ben Aris and Duncan Campbell, “How Bush’s grandfather helped Hitler’s rise to power.” The Gaurdian Unlimited, Sept 25, 2004, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar. (accessed November 30, 2009)

While much has been made of Prescott Bush, (father to president George H.W. Bush and grandfather to president George W. Bush) the important aspect of this point is that nearly all shares were owned by U.S. citizens.

[58] Fritz Thyssen, I Paid Hitler (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc.) 158-9. Thyssen, like many industrialists of the Ruhr, were unhappy with the politically fragmented Weimar era governments in Germany and drifted toward right wing organizations such as the Nazis. This book is controversial in that Thyssen denied writing it after he fell out of favor with and was detained by the Nazis; however, he was unable to give an updated appraisal of the work after he was freed because he died shortly after the war ended in 1951. See also Kolb, The Weimar Republic, 114-115.

[59] Lisagor, A Law Unto Itself, 35,130-1.

[60] Harry White to Henry Morgenthau, Treasury Department Interoffice communication, December 29, 1941. A report on the UBC’s connections to other financial organizations was also reported under the Kilgore Commission, Report before Congress, Elimination of German Resources, p. 728-30.

[61] Thyssen, I Paid Hitler, 159.

[62] Jackson J. Spielvogel, Hitler and Nazi Germany: A History, fifth ed. (New Jersey: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2005), 222, 230. Spielvogel argued that Hitler had hoped for peace with U.S., even to the end when he committed suicide.

[63] United States Treasury, Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA). Title 12, Section 95a.

[64] Letter, Albert Bertrand to Hans Caesar, August 3, 1942. This letter, included with U.S. Treasury investigative report on Chase, shows that Bertrand, Chase French legal counsel, provided Hans Caesar with “special” balance sheets to show business contraction and a denial of Caesar, as a Reichsbank director, having involvement with its business operations.

[65] U.S. Treasury interoffice communication, White to Morgenthau, Feb 12, 1945.

[66] For a chronology of these communications, see U.S. Treasury Interim Report on the Chase Paris Branch, July 2, 1945. This report is a condensed version of the much longer report on Chase dated April 3, 1945 by Paul Gewirts. The assertions of both Larkin and Aldrich appear to be contradictory as they simultaneously claim to have possessed and lost managerial control of their subsidiary during the same period of time in 1942.

[67] Ibid., 2.

[68] Ibid., 3.

[69] Ibid., 3.

[70] Ibid., chart 3.

[71] Gewirts, 34. Also White to Morgenthau July 2, 1945. See also Higham, 39-62. Standard Oil of New Jersey skirted U.S. trade embargoes and shipped petroleum products to neutral countries, such as Sweden and Switzerland from South America.

[72] White to Morgenthau, Interim Report on the Chase Paris Branch, July 2, 1945.

[73] “Chase Bank Trial is Open Here,” New York Times, April 17, 1945, 25.

[74] “Chase Bank Acquitted -  Federal Jury Finds Verdict in Trading with Enemy Case,” New York Times, May 5, 1945, 4. James Healy Jr., vice president of Chase bank defended his institution’s actions stating that Chase had obeyed the order to freeze all accounts in Axis occupied areas. The jury deliberated for 12 hours before handing Judge Simon H. Rifkind a verdict of not guilty. The institution was cleared of all counts.

[75] “Chase Bank Cleared in Frozen Funds Case,” New York Times, May 6, 1945, 39.

[76] “The Chase Bank Acquitted,” New York Times, May 9, 1945, 22.

[77] Joseph Fried, “Chase and Morgan Sued Over Jewish Assets,” New York Times, Dec. 24, 1998, C16.

[78] Marks, Investigation of Morgan et Cie, April 28, 1945, 40.

[79] Ibid., 40. It is worth noting that this is one of the most heavily redacted sections of the report.

[80] Ibid., 27-28.

[81] Ibid., 27-28. Black describes in detail a similar method used by IBM’s subsidiary, Dehomag, to protect profits and reinvest funds in plants where it was desired by Nazi officials. See IBM and the Holocaust, 375-426.

[82] Bazyler, Holocaust Justice, 187-88. J.P. Morgan settled with claimants for approximately $2.75 million. Because Chase and J.P. Morgan had merged, they collectively paid out one settlement. In reference to banks in countries other than the U.S., Barclays of the U.K. was also named in the suit and also chose to enter into a separate settlement with the plaintiffs.

[83] Interrogation, Foster Adams and Baron Kurt von Schröder, December 15, 1945. Continued American management is also verified from the interrogation of Gerhard Westrick on October 16, 1945, legal representative of the Brown Brothers, Harriman, the parent company of the UBC.

[84] John Pehle, Esq., Assistant to Secretary of Treasury to Treasury Department, Report on Union Banking Corporation, Fritz Thyssen, etc. September 16, 1941, 1, 6-9.

[85] Records of the United States Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, United States of America v. Friedrich Flick, et. al., Case V, March 3, 1947 to December 22, 1947. The report states that Vereinigte Stahlwerke A.G engaged in the “…manufacture of such finished products as ammunition, armorplate, gun carriages, armored cars and trucks, and other Panzer materials; airplanes and airplane parts; and railroad cars, parts, and locomotives.”

[86] Pehle, Report on Union Banking Corporation, September 15, 1941, 1. See also Aris and Campbell.

[87] The one case in which Brown Brothers Harriman was mentioned was Julius Goldstein and Peter Gingold v. United States of America and The American Jewish Committee, claiming that BBH and other corporations pressured U.S. government officials into failing “to undertake a humanitarian Auschwitz intervention during World War II.”  This case was thrown out by Judge Collyer, claiming that it was outside the court’s jurisdiction. See also Aris and Campbell.

[88] Col. Bernstein to Messers. Ritchen, Nixon, Thorson, and Capt. Zap, December 5, 1945, 2.

[89] Ibid., 3.

[90] Ibid., 1.

[91] Ibid., 3.

[92] For a detailed history on the Schröder banking empire, see Schroder: Merchants and Bankers (London: Macmillan Press, 1992), by Richard Roberts. Through its subsidiary commercial banks of the J.H. Schroder Banking Corporation in London and New York, Baron Kurt Schröder had well established ties other major banking houses such as J.P. Morgan & Chase (217-8) Additionally, in the interrogation of Schröder by Saul Kagan, Bill Lang, and Jules Schlezinger on Nov. 28, 1945, Schröder gives a detailed list of all the interests his banking network had in financial institutions in Nazi-occupied Europe.

[93] Treffen zwischen Hitler und von Papen im Haus des Bankiers Kurt Freiherr von Schröder in Köln (Auszug), Eidesstattliche Erklärung des Freiherrn Kurt von Schröder, Köln, 21. Juli 1947 Hauptarchiv Berlin-Dahlem (HAB) 335, 10, Nr. 173, Beweis-Dokument NI 7990. This source is an excerpt from a meeting between Fritz von Papen and Hitler on January 4, 1933 to assume the chancellorship, with the help of Schröder, who was a confidant of President Hindenburg.  This document can be found at the NS archive online at http://www.ns-archiv.de/krieg/1933/04-01-1933.php (accessed November 28, 2009).

[94] Peter Padfield’s book, Himmler: Reichsfuhrer SS (New York: Sterling, 2001), provides a fairly comprehensive account of Schroder’s role within the SS and Nazi Party. See pages 115-17 for specific links to Nazi war industries. See also Sutton, Wall Street and Hitler, 123-28.

[95] Interrogation of Kurt Freiherr von Schröder by Foster Adams, Saul Kagan, and Emil Lang, Nov. 30, 1945.

[96] Treasury Department memorandum, Conversation between Mr. McKittrick and Orvis Schmidt, March 23, 1945.

[97] Ibid., 4.

[98] Ibid., 5.

[99] Bretton Woods July 20 1944 9:15 am Liquidation of BIS Commission. Morgenthau states, “…I am going to stop the whole Conference until this whole BIS thing is settled and settled the way I want it settled. I am going to stop the whole Conference. There aren’t going to be any two ways about it.” He continues, “…here are fourteen directors [of the BIS], twelve of which of these directors are Nazi or Nazi-controlled. Now this is up before forty-four United Nations and we have just got to grab this thing and meet it head-on.”

[100] McKittrick contacted other delegates on the BIS liquidation commission and convinced them to agree to a settlement. See Bretton Woods, July 18, 1944, 3:30pm, Conference on BIS Looted Property, attachments J-L, letters from Rene Pleven, John Anderson, and Arthur Souza de Costa. A decent summation of the situation is captured by journalist Heinz Pol in his article, “Nazis Run World Bank – But we pick up the crumbs,” May 11, 1944, published in The New York World-Telegram, 45. Essentially, the Swiss delegation was intractable in protecting the BIS’ secrecy. Their offer was to remit some looted gold in exchange for an end to any further investigation of the BIS. When Morgenthau pressed the issue, the Swiss diplomats threatened to leave the conference. Morgenthau was forced to relent.

[101] Bazyler and Alford, Holocaust Restitution, 103-6, 115-32.

[102] Ibid., 347-54. See Weisshaus v. Swiss Bankers Ass’n and Friedman v. Union Bank of Switzerland.

[103] Historians have disagreed on White’s alleged role in the Soviet espionage charges leveled by the HUAC. A contemporary, and generally well-received defense of White can be found in Bruce Craig’s Treasonable Doubt: The Harry Dexter White Spy Case (Kansas: Kansas University Press, 2004), 254.

[104] Morgenthau formulated what would be called the “Morgenthau Plan” for Germany, a postwar economic directive that would strip the country of all its industry and render it an agrarian economy. Truman and many of his advisors saw this plan as directly opposed to their own preparations to turn West Germany into a bulwark against the Soviet Union, by specifically building up industry and infrastructure in the region.

[105] Michael Beschloss, The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler’s Germany, 1941-1945 (Simon & Schuster, 2002) 140-2, 249-50. Morgenthau was effectively ousted by Truman once his friend FDR died and he assumed the presidency, forcing Morgenthau to resign in mid 1945. Beschloss describes anti-Semitism and negative press in the business community as reasons for Morgenthau’s increasingly negative reputation.

[106] The legal assistance of Albert in securing corporate profits for his clients and cooperating with the Nazi regime appears in Black’s IBM and the Holocaust, 232-5, 251, 281-3, 418, as well as Billstein and Kugler’s Working for the Enemy, 106, 112, 120, 272. For the history of Albert’s work with Sullivan & Cromwell, see Lisagor, A Law Unto Itself, 95, 127, 133, 141.

[107] See Higham, Trading with the Enemy, 93-99,154-58, 215-216. Higham’s sources, which are the U.S. Counsel for the Prosecution of Axis Criminality, March 28, 1946 and Interrogations by Mr. Pajus of Westrick from October 9^th to the 16^th, 1945, show that Westrick provided legal representation for Chase, Ford, GM, IBM, ITT, Standard Oil, and numerous other companies, all while retaining his status as a senior official within the Nazi party. Westrick’s main function, according to the documents, was to facilitate cooperation between these corporations and the Nazi regime. His interrogations suggest an extensive business relationship with Col. Behn, who utilized his U.S. military rank to his advantage as the director of ITT. This partnership is Higham’s main focus on Westrick.

[108] Interrogation of Gerhard Westrick by Mr. Pajus, October 16, 1945, 62.

[109] For details on the life of Allen Dulles, see Peter Grose, Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles (Boston: University of Massachusetts, 1996). Lisagor’s A Law Unto Itself , in turn, provides a detailed profile of John Foster Dulles’ political activity, particularly as it relates to his role as director of Sullivan & Cromwell.

[110] Allen Welch Dulles, “Economic Implications of American Neutrality Policy,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 186, The Attainment and Maintenance of World Peace (Jul., 1936), 41-47. Dulles states, “Until we have a clearer conception of how we wish to use our economic power in international relations, let us keep our hands free. It is a weak excuse for any self-respecting nation to make that because we might abuse our powers we will therefore deprive ourselves of them.”

[111] See Allen Welch Dulles, The Secret Surrender (New York: Harper & Row, 1966). Dulles attempted to broker a peace deal with the Nazis directly, a situation that caused significant suspicion on the part of the USSR.

[112] Jurgen Heideking and Christof Mauch, American Intelligence Warfare against Germany: Subversion, Propaganda, and Political Planning by the Office of Strategic Services during the Second World War (Götingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993).

[113] Michael Salter, Nazi War Crimes, US Intelligence and Selective Prosecution at Nuremberg: Controversies Regarding the Role of the Office of Strategic Services (Abingdon, U.K.: Routledge-Cavendish, 2007), 166-78. Interestingly, Salter argues that we should “discard the mainstream reaction of one-sided and partisan outrage at the existence of such deals.” 446.

[114] Treasury Department memorandum, Conversation between Mr. McKittrick and Orvis Schmidt, March 23, 1945, 2-3. McKittrick spoke vaguely about his influence in stopping the theft of gold and assisting resistance groups when both his actions and historical evidence of looted gold under his administration at the BIS are starkly contrary to his assertions.

[115] Higham, Trading with the Enemy, 182.

[116] Donald Strong, American Council on Public Affairs. Organized Anti-Semitism in America; The Rise of Group Prejudice During the Decade 1930-1940 (Washington DC: American Council on Public Affairs, 1941).

[117] Hans Mommsen, translated by Phillip O’Connor, From Weimar to Auschwitz (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1991), For a concise explanation see also Michael Marrus, The Holocaust In History (Toronto: Key Porter, 2000), 42. It is worth noting that Mommsen has come under fire from both sides of the historiographical debate over the origins of the Holocaust. Mommsen has attempted to synthesize two schools of thought: The functionalists, represented by historians like Götz Aly, believe that Hitler was a distant leader who was not in control of the day to perpetration of the Holocaust and left the job to subordinates, who jockeyed for power, taking more and more extreme interpretations of anti-Semitic policy, and the intentionalists, represented by Daniel Goldhagen, contend that Hitler and his inner circle were explicit in their intentions for mass murder of Jewish populations. Goldhagen, for his part, was forceful in his criticism of Mommsen, stating it was impossible to deemphasize the role of anti-Semitism within the Nazi state. See Fred Kautz, The German Historians Hitler’s Willing Executioners and Daniel Goldhagen (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 2003), 49. In any case, the research presented here has the potential to add a new dimension to Mommsen’s work, as well as the two opposing historiographical schools.

[118] Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group (IWG), Final Report to the United States Congress, April 2007. http://www.archives.gov/iwg/reports/final-report-2007.pdf. (Accessed November 30, 2009). This report states that over 1.2 million documents have now been made public for review.

A brief historiography of imperial overstretch and its relationship to American hegemony

Imperial Overstretch: American hegemony and the historiography of empires in decline

The idea of imperial overstretch is not new to modern history. Perhaps the most famous of all texts in this vein is Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which attributes the collapse of Rome to the outsource of its security forces and the accompanying decline of cohesive civic virtue among its citizenry.

Indeed, the fascination of with the decline of major empires, according to British historian Joel Mokyr, is a “slightly sadistic intellectual schadenfreude.”[1]

Aside from the sheer complexity of explaining the constant flux of global power dynamics, any discussion of this subject is made more challenging due to the problematic nature of what empire actually means. Historian Charles Maier struggled with the definition even as he attempted to explain their relative rise or decline in his work, Among Empires. Maier argued that the term was so polarizing, it led to an oversimplification of the varied experiences great powers could have on the world stage.[2]

The other major issue in any exploration of the historiography of imperial overstretch is the methodology various authors have employed to describe it. For many historians, a broad narrative incorporating many countries was appropriate. The problem with this approach is that these histories are open to criticism that they are too vague, and are subject to a kind of historical shorthand that misses the nuances of large dynamic shifts. This is not a new challenge to the study of international history, which naturally includes the interstate interactions inherent to the examination of all empires. The other approach is less comparative; this leads to a concentration on a particular country’s imperial experience, which then can run the risk of becoming myopic. Both methods can be useful, as this essay will demonstrate, in explaining the reasons behind imperial decline.

Imperial overstretch was more recently popularized in part by Paul Kennedy’s The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, which signified a successful attempt to explain the imperial experience of western powers since 1500. Like Alexis de Tocqueville, who Kennedy could claim as a predecessor, he saw an emergent bipolar world, dominated by Russia and the United States.[3] Both Kennedy and Tocqueville explain that this paradigm had its seeds in the 19^th century, in the form of laying claim to vast continental territory with the potential for massive industrial capacity.

Kennedy, for his part, was astutely aware that the bipolar world of the post war era could only last so long. His analysis of earlier imperial experiences in the previous four centuries led him to conclude that “unusually rapid shifts in the centers of world production during the past two or three decades cannot avoid having repercussions upon the grand-strategical future of today’s leading Powers…” [4] The encapsulation of this argument is that economic hegemony, which precedes military and political dominance, can change quickly and unpredictably leading to shifts in the global balance of power.

As an aside from Kennedy’s detailed analysis of how international affairs led to the bipolar geopolitical situation of the mid 1980s when The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers was published, Kennedy’s predictions of the inevitable decline of large political/territorial blocs, particularly the Soviet and American empire, due to ever increasing military expenditure, would become the legacy of his work.

Kennedy saw an increasingly fractured world, in which smaller political units would emerge within the vacuum of such a decline. This analysis rests on Kennedy’s observation of what he perceives as the seeds of a multi-polar global environment, which began with leaders such as Tito, Nasser, and Nehru, who symbolized the refusal to align themselves with either the U.S. or U.S.S.R. This, along with the Sino-Soviet split, demonstrated that the monolithic power arrangements that had been solidified in the years following World War II up into the 1980s would not remained fixed.

This assertion rests on Kennedy’s thesis that no state has ever had a long term monopoly on power, be it the Habsburg’s “bid for mastery” in the 17^th century, the equilibrium of imperial powers after Napoleon in the 18^th century, nor Victorian England in the 19^th century. Essentially, his only consolation for the American audience of his work, being the inheritors of global hegemony, is that the Soviet Union appeared to be in much worse shape – which was validated by its collapse only two years after Rise and Fall’s publication.

A major opponent of this view was Walt Whitman Rostow, who argued against the inevitability of this change in power dynamics. Rostow, responding to Kennedy’s work at the time of its publication, (which was still before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and long before the U.S. military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan) argued for a steadiness and continuity of American policy, rather than the classic expansiveness normally associated with empire that Kennedy alludes to. Paradoxically, Rostow wanted to avoid an American geopolitical retraction, which he warned would mirror Britain’s alleged failure to maintain its own hegemony after World War II. This, of course, could translate as the continuance of exactly the type of imperial dominance that Kennedy is warning about. Rostow embeds this type of policy in the language of partnership (particularly with Europe) and balance of power rather than hegemony, avoiding the subtext of American dominance in such a relationship. [5]

This problem of maintaining a balance of power from an imperial perspective is elucidated well by Michael Doyle’s Empires, which defines this concept as a battle of relative weight. Essentially, Doyle defines an empire’s failure to grow as evidence of its decline.[6] He asserts that changes in the relative balance of power between large nations can be indicative of future geopolitical developments.

Doyle, like Maier, also found the definition of empire challenging, and produced his own explanation to describe it. He states that empire is “…a relationship, formal or informal, in which one state controls the effective political sovereignty of another.”[7] Employing a comparative method of incorporating many different empires into his narrative, as Kennedy does, Doyle describes the relative dominance of the various hegemonic powers as dependent on the characteristics of the peripheral territory they are trying to control. Essentially, his explanation is that the relative strength of these territories determines the depth of multi-polar competition for these areas, as well as whether or not they would be subject to direct rule by an imperial power.[8]

Vaclav Smil has also elaborated on the unpredictability of international power dynamics, demonstrating the stark differences between the geoeconomic experiences of Russia and China in the last four decades. Smil points out that perceptions in the West as well as within Russia and China themselves, ran counter to projections of how economies would develop in the Communist world. In this case, Smil states that the rapid ascendancy of China was a surprise to policymakers.

Smil predicts that even though the U.S. may be aware of growing trends of imperial overstretch and changing geopolitical and macroeconomic dynamics, they may be powerless to shape these movements to their advantage. Smil states, “In the West, our wealth, the extent of our scientific knowledge, and major areas of our lives where we have successfully asserted our control over the environment mislead us into believing that we are (or ought to be) more in charge of history than we can ever be.”[9]

David Kaiser’s alludes to imperial overstretch in American Tragedy, which chronicles American involvement in the Vietnam War. Kaiser’s main point is that the decision to escalate in Vietnam was based on the conviction that the U.S. could support further projections of its hegemony abroad based on its past experience. Kaiser states, “The Vietnam War was the logical, but not essential consequence of the previous thirty years of American History.”[10] Kaiser appears to be in line with Kennedy in suggesting that America’s faith in its hegemony blinded it from the obvious risks of overstretching its power in an unwinnable war.

Two Hegemonies: Britain 1846-1914 and the United States 1941-2001 by Patrick Karl O’Brien & Armand Clesse argue with Kennedy’s main assumption about the British Empire, stating that it was overstretched after World War I as opposed to before it. The main point of the O’Brien and Clesse text, however, is not to lament the waning of British hegemonic power, but to celebrate the ascendance of the United States. The text contains many comparisons of Britain at its heights to the U.S.; however, the authors argue that the U.S. is a far more dominant hegemony than Britain ever was.[11]

The obvious title worth mentioning in this discussion is Imperial Overstretch by Roger Burbach and Jim Tarbell. This text matches Kennedy’s postulation that as an empire grows, its natural inclination is to expand its economic base to fund the military administration of the territory under its influence.[12] Burbach and Tarbell argue that decline begins when its economy can no longer meet the needs of its administrative costs. The authors’ criticism of the use of imperial power is particularly withering in the case of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, which they contend are unsustainable and evidence the inevitable decline of American hegemony.

Hannes Adomeit has also written about this concept, as is apparent in his similarly titled work, Imperial Overstretch: Germany in Soviet Policy from Stalin to Gorbachev. Adomeit’s principal thrust is that Soviet Russia became overstretched when it chose to occupy Eastern Germany, which he characterizes as unplanned, but followed the imperial logic of a need for peripheral territory as a buffer against rivals. Nevertheless, this resulted in grave political liabilities that eventually contributed to the collapse of the Soviet system.[13] Adomeit’s most forceful analysis comes toward the end of his text, where he demonstrates that the U.S.S.R. under Gorbachev was unable to divorce itself from its responsibilities as a hegemonic power despite the understanding of a need for comprehensive reform.

Contrary to Kennedy, Niall Ferguson argues in The Cash Nexus: Money and Power in the Modern World 1700-2000, that both Britain of the 19^th century and the United States in the present time are experiencing imperial “understretch” as a result of their own uneven and discriminating style of engagement with the rest of the world.[14] Ferguson contends that this problem is derived from a lack of understanding in the U.S. that economic progress does not always lead to democratic reform. The author laments that the U.S. lacks the political will to see beyond its own democratic orthodoxy and use its economic power to generally improve the world financial system. Ferguson’s opinion is that the under-regulation of world financial markets acts as a hazard to international growth because of their contagion effect in financial panics, which has obvious echoes to the current global financial crisis.

Addressing Ferguson’s desire for the U.S. to take control of its destiny, the book Empires, Systems and States by Michael Cox, Tim Dunne and Ken Booth demonstrate that Western nations have little choice in altering the current geopolitical and macroeconomic policies at the current time. As Giovanni Arrighi and Beverly J. Silver point out in the text, “The fall is likely because the leading states of the West are prisoners of the developmental paths that have made their fortunes, both political and economic. The paths are yielding decreasing returns…but they cannot be abandoned in favour of the more dynamic path without causing social strains so unbearable that they would result in chaos rather than ‘competitiveness.’”[15] The authors note that although the hegemony of the U.S. is of a magnitude never before seen in world history, the maintenance of such power has actually been undermined by the removal of the bipolar paradigm in the collapse of the Soviet Union. Arrighi and Silver note that the conclusion of U.S. and Russian rivalries of the post war era has actually created a less stable geopolitical system, which is now more turbulent and uncertain.[16]

Other assessments of the potential U.S. imperial role during the last several decades are more critical. Historian Odd Arne Westad noted that the Cold War experience of the Third World, which contain some of the emergent economies of today, witnessed “…results of America’s interventions [which] are truly dismal. Instead of being a force for good-which they were no doubt intended to be-these incursions have devastated many societies and left them more vulnerable to further disasters of their own making.”[17] Westad goes on to argue that the U.S. was at least partially responsible for isolating non-aligned Third World countries, and attempting to suppress their political and social development.[18]

Other works also occupy the space of American hegemony within the historiography of the Cold War. The Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present by Christopher Layne also deals with the U.S. hegemony, arguing that current U.S. foreign policy must be understood within its Wilsonian, liberal “open door” roots. Layne argues that this policy included not only suppressing the influence of the Soviet Union where it could, but also ensuring the preponderance of American influence. Because of this policy, Layne contends that the U.S. now faces the problem of political, economic, and military overstretch due to its history of restraining Third World powers that could have helped with regional stability in areas the U.S. must now expend resources to maintain.[19]

The current major issue in a discussion of American hegemony is the ongoing global economic crisis. Both the twin fiscal and account deficits of the United States as well as the costs of its open ended military commitments abroad, have resemblances to other overstretched empires of the past. Nouriel Roubini, a well known economist and academic, recently commented that because over half of all US Treasury bonds were owned by non residents, America faced the real possibility of losing its hegemonic dominance to its competitors, who would use this situation to their advantage.[20]

The parallels between America and other collapsed empires have also been explored by political scientist Jack Snyder, who noted similarities between the recent U.S. preemptive military actions and those of the British, Japanese, and German empires of the past. Snyder notes, “…imperial rulers feared that unchecked defiance on the periphery might cascade toward the imperial core. Repeatedly they tried the strategy of preventive attack to nip challenges in the bud and prevent their spread.”[21]

It is now clear that the resultant U.S. triumphalist view in the wake of Soviet collapse drowned out voices like Kennedy’s, who argued that neither empire could shoulder the military and economic costs of maintaining their sphere of influence indefinitely. Thus, a new historiography will likely come into view that reflects the current shift in global power, in which the U.S. is just one of many actors in an emergent multi-polar world.

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[1] Joel Mokyr, “Review: On the (Alleged) Failures of Victorian Britain,”  The Journal of British Studies, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Jan., 1989), pp. 89-95. In this article, Mokyr argues that it was the challenge of  implementing technological innovation on a national scale, akin to Joseph Schumpter’s Creative Destruction that caused British decline during the Victorian era.

[2] Charles S. Maier, Among Empires: American Ascendancy and Its Predecessors (Boston: Harvard University Press, 2006), pp. 3, 106, 115.

[3] Alexis de Tocquville, Democracy in America (First published in 1835 – New York: Random House, 2004)  “Of Discipline in Democratic Armies,” Vol. 2, Book 3, Chp. XXV, pp. 820.

[4] Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (New York: Random House, 1987), pp. 437.

[5] Walt Whitman Rostow, “Book Review Essay: Beware of Historians Bearing False Analogies,” Foreign Affairs Vol. 66 (Spring, 1988), pp. 863-68.

[6] Michael W. Doyle, Empires (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), pp. 27.

[7] Ibid., pp. 45.

[8] Ibid., pp. 130. Doyle’s description of the nature of imperial domination of peripheral states is situated within a larger discussion of three conditions the author states are necessary for the maintenance of empire. They are: A highly integrated central metropole, a periphery that is fractured enough not to provide any reasonable competition, and a common interest (religious, military, political) that can integrate the periphery with the metropole.

[9] Vaclav Smil, “The Next 50 Years: Unfolding Trends,” Population and Development Review, Vol. 31, No. 4 (Dec., 2005), pp. 605-643.

[10] David Kaiser, American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson, and the Origins of the Vietnam War (Boston: Belknap/Harvard University Press, 2000), pp. 9. See also Kaiser’s blog, “History Unfolding” for further discussions on American empire. http://historyunfolding.blogspot.com/2008/04/britain-united-states-and-middle-east.html (accessed December 13, 2009)

[11] Patrick Karl O’Brien and Armand Clesse, Two Hegemonies: Britain 1846-1914 and the United States 1941-2001 (Surrey: Ashgate & Aldershot, 2002). See also Andrew Bacevich, American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy (Boston: Harvard University Press, 2002), pp. 15, 138, 242.

[12] Roger Burbach and Jim Tarbell, Imperial Overstretch: George W. Bush and the Hubris of Empire (Canada: Fernwood Publishing, 2004).

[13] Hannes Adomeit, Imperial Overstretch: Germany in Soviet Policy from Stalin to Gorbachev An Analysis Based on New Archival Evidence, Memoirs, and Interviews (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 1998).

[14] Niall Ferguson, The Cash Nexus: Money and Power in the Modern World 1700-2000 (New York: Basic Books, 2001).

[15] Michael Cox, Tim Dunne and Ken Booth, Empires, Systems and States: Great Transformations in International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 278.

[16] Ibid.,  pp. 240, 293.

[17] Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 404.

[18] Ibid., pp. 394. Westad argues that this is particularly true within the context of U.S. interactions with Africa.

[19] Christopher Layne, The Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006).

[20] Noriel Roubini, “The Decline of the American Empire,” Roubini Global Economics, August 13, 2008.  http://www.rgemonitor.com/roubini-monitor/253323/the_decline_of_the_american_empire (accessed December 13, 2009). See also Macro Market Musings, “The End of American Hegemony?” August 17, 2008. http://macromarketmusings.blogspot.com/2008/08/end-of-american-hegemony.html (accessed December 13, 2009).

[21] Jack Snyder, “Imperial Temptations,” The National Interest, (Spring, 2003), pp. 29-30.

Alchemy in Early Modern Europe

Alchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire by Tara E. Nummedal. Chicago University Press, 2007. 256 pages.

Distilling Knowledge: Alchemy, Chemistry, and the Scientific Revolution by Bruce T. Moran. Cambridge University Press, 2005. 199 pages.

There is an embarrassment of riches within the treasury of the historiography of alchemy. Situated inside the broader context of early modern scientific development, the history of alchemy has experienced considerable growth in recent years, as judged by the substantial number of texts on the subject published within the last decade. Two significant recent works, Alchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire by Tara Nummedal and Distilling Knowledge: Alchemy, Chemistry, and the Scientific Revolution by Bruce Moran provide an up close look at the lives of alchemists within the larger story of scientific progress in early modern Europe.

Alchemy itself is an interesting field due to the massive degree of overlap it has with other disciplines. As much as it contained the budding seeds of modern scientific development, with its inherent penchant for experimentation and observation, there was also the incorporation of the supernatural, which provided its critics ample ammunition to discredit the field. Alchemists are probably most well known for outlandish claims of turning lead into gold; however, they also engaged in medicinal and mechanical pursuits. Both Moran and Nummedal demonstrate that particular kernels of chemical knowledge, such as the concepts of distillation and transmutation, provide a bridge between the world of the alchemist and modern science.

Nummedal, for her part, focuses on a theme significant to early modern scientific development, that of authority. Alchemists in early modern Europe wished to establish legitimacy for their profession in the face of scorn from many writers such as Thomas Erastus, Geoffrey Chaucer, and Francesco Petrarch, who labeled them as charlatans and frauds. However, Nummedal demonstrates that many royal patrons of the alchemists were more influenced by the writings of this collection of individuals themselves, whose claims of transmuting cheap metals into gold and increasing mining production tantalized them.

Thus, the tension between alchemists’ ability to deliver on their promises and their patrons’ images led to a “high-risk, high-reward game,” that could either promise quick riches, or more often, a brutal untimely end. (4) Nummedal’s sources come primarily from court proceedings against the alchemists in the latter category, demonstrating the common fate of these enterprising folk. However, the danger of such documentation, as Nummedal points out, is that the ideological battle over the authority of opinion causes the reliability of such sources to be problematic. To create a nuanced view into the lives of alchemists, Nummedal has also collected an array of contracts and supply orders, to demonstrate how they actually built their workshops and practiced their art.

The alchemist brought a variety of skills which were in demand in early modern Europe. Their skills in mining, metallurgy, and medicine derived prodigious support in some royal circles, provided they could deliver on their promises. Though times were never easy, Nummedal explains that the 16^th century was a difficult time for the alchemists, as their art differed from the practitioners of other early modern scientific disciplines; there where no guilds or supporting institutions, only their own entrepreneurial spirit.

The other side of Nummedal’s story involves the critics of the alchemists, such as those like Leonhard Thurneisser who were also trying to establish their own authoritative voice by railing against both real and perceived falsehoods of the alchemists. (68) Unfortunately for the alchemists, there was credence given to the writings of skeptics like Thurneisser as Nummedal points out in the case of Hans Nüschler, who appears to have genuinely wanted to experiment in order to achieve the famed alchemical chrysopoia, or transmutation, but turned to fraud when the desired results were not achieved. (158)

Nummedal stresses that despite the bad press, many alchemists were genuinely interested in experimentation rather than defrauding their clients. Her observations of attempts to legitimize the work of proto-scientific alchemical practitioners, “begins to disappear when one’s focus shifts from texts to practices.” (86) Essentially, this manifested itself in the demands of their royal patrons, who desired the same concrete results from their resident alchemists as they did from their miners, metallurgists, apothecaries, etc.

The rub for the alchemists were the written contracts that came into use with their royal employers. Because they were specific about what the alchemist was to produce, the contracts made their existence far more tenuous, not only because these documents gave fuel to those that wished to discredit them, but also created a situation where the alchemist was doomed to fail. Nummedal uncovers scenarios in which alchemists were faced with the unhappy situation of discovering that their beliefs did not match naturally occurring processes, and paid with their lives for it. As a result, scientific authority resided indirectly with the patrons of alchemy, who evaluated the utility of practical knowledge produced. Thus, the intersection of early modern scientific progress and the alchemists were the courts where an alchemist could live or die by the results of their experimentations.

Problematically, there was no central definition as to what an alchemist actually was. Nummedal notes that a cynical observer “…will find the [the alchemist’s] primary transmutation to be of himself: a goldsmith becomes a goldmaker, an apothecary a chemical physician, a barber a Paracelsian, on who wastes his own patrimony turns into one who spends the gold and goods of others.” (18) As CalTech historian Nicholas Popper noted on Nummedal’s work, “each alchemist constituted their authority and identity by adopting and synthesizing attributes of the scholar, the artisan and the prophet.” [1] Highly publicized fraud cases against alchemists prompted other alchemical practitioners such as Count Michael Maier to argue that alchemy should be a private art outside of the public sphere. However, these contentions themselves play into the struggle over who could claim ownership over various techniques. Thus, accusations of who was a Betrüger, or fraudster, could come from within the ranks of the alchemists themselves. (172)

Nummedal’s primary study is on metallurgical practices, rather than medicinal or mechanical, narrowing the scope of different alchemical practices she explores. However, the effectiveness of Nummedal’s central argument of demonstrating the rise of the authoritative voice as a legitimizing (or de-legitimizing) force is undiminished by her focus. Through the sensationalized and often gruesome trials of early modern alchemists who failed to fulfill their contractual obligations, Nummedal provides a glimpse into the interplay between alchemists, their critics, and royalty, all attempting to assert their authority over how the world should be perceived.

The theme of the struggle for a particular version of scientific reality continues in Bruce Moran’s Distilling Knowledge. Moran’s work occupies a different space than Nummedal’s, in that he eschews the failures of alchemical prospects in favor of instances of successful contribution to the scientific revolution. He argues, “chemistry itself did not so much replace alchemy as subsume it.” (184) To display this evolution, Moran utilizes a large amount of written material from early modern scientific practitioners themselves – bringing together a diversity of work from the 16^th century metallurgical writing of Georgius Agricola to the 17^th century medical observations of Thomas Willis.

Moran advises that the historiography of alchemy has faced a bit of historical transmutation itself. Moran evokes the treatment of Roger Bacon, an early modern physical scientist, whose internalized alchemical concepts evident in his work are downplayed by his admirers in favor of “striking proof of his scientific discernment.” (23) To help legitimize the early modern scientific process, which now appears somewhat convoluted when infused with alchemical mysticism, 16^th century scientist Andreas Libavius, stripped the growing field of early modern chemistry of its alchemical vocabulary. Moran chronicles this development, along with an infusion of Aristotelian rationality, which forced the recognition of underlying alchemical concepts of transmutation within the halls of academia.  Ironically, the influence of alchemy on Libavius’ chemical work was significant and admits, “If chemistry was about the mixtures of the material world, then what is appropriate about chemistry and what should count as chemical knowledge had to be found entirely in the physical stuff of the earth.” (105) Moran contends that by the time of the revered scientist Robert Boyle in the mid 17th century, “chemistry was no longer an intruder at the table of philosophic discussion, but an invited guest.” (144)

Another early modern natural philosopher, Paracelsus, looms large in Moran’s study, embodying an intermediary between the world of the alchemist and scientist. Paracelsus is known for emphasizing observation in natural processes, particularly those having to do with the human body. His springboard for this idea came from earlier concepts of transmutation, which caused controversy 16^th century France when scholars Johannes Guinther of Andernach and Peter Severinus of the University of Paris, wrote about the practical application of Parcelsus’ observations. (84) Parcelsus’ work on medical remedies was disseminated widely by Oswald Croll, whose book Royal Chemistry, Moran demonstrates, directly influenced the development of distillation laboratories in the court of the Spanish king, Phillip II. (103)

Moran concludes that early modern chemists were conscious of the portrayal of their work and sought authoritative legitimacy during this crucial transition from alchemy to chemistry. Moran contends, “…the utility that came as a result of collecting chemical procedures and knew that the processes of separation and combination disclosed the letters out of which compounds, or words, of nature were formed.” (188)

As stated earlier, the common theme, not only between Distilling Knowledge and Alchemy and Authority, but also within the historiography of early modern scientific development, is the notion of authoritative voice. Alchemy has been recognized as occupying a central role in this epoch; its contribution to the creation of knowledge networks was essential. The central concept of trust (or distrust) of an individual attempting to propagate a scientific fact is evident in many histories of the Scientific Revolution. One text that relates fairly closely to this concept is A Social History of Truth by Steven Shapin. He argues that despite demonstrable results, the acceptance of scientific discovery in the early modern era was invariably political and dependent on individual trust. This, of course, is why the assertion of authority was indispensable to alchemical practitioners. Shapin states, “…science is a system of knowledge by virtue of it being a system of trusting persons. I have sought to show the ineradicable role of trust in the constitution of empirical forms of scientific knowledge, where resort to trust has seemed most unlikely.” (417)

As with Shapin, Moran described the role of gentlemanly trust networks and forming a consensus (or authority) within the context of early modern historical development. For Moran, the struggle for authoritative voice among alchemists that Nummedal describes is also crucial in the development of epistemology itself. [2]

Moran echoes Shapin in Distilling Knowledge stating, “Objective certainty…follows a willingness to believe in something. The same rule applies regardless of whether one’s willingness to embrace doctrines of religion, the principles of alchemy, or the precepts of the scientific method.” (4) Moran extrapolates Shapin’s argument even further, contending that those who study the history of science are willing to believe in the authority of the triumph of human reason over mysticism. Thus, Moran would have us believe that the historiography of science itself is influenced by a network of trust in academic authority.

Other historians, such as Jole Shackleford also wrote about the more acrimonious side of this exchange by dealing with the common sub-theme of attacks on the adopters of Paracelsus’ work.[3] The relationship that emerges, such as in the case of theologian Thomas Erastus’ critiques of the chemical philosopher Severinus, is a dialog that is religious in nature and Manichean at its core; however, the struggle for authority remains the key theme.  Consequently, the polemics against alchemical experimentation coming from the church had a genuine effect. A common idea in Nummedal’s work is that this tension influenced and motivated those involved in the Parcelsian movement. As is demonstrated in Urszula Szulakowska’s  The Sacrificial Body and the Day of Doom: Alchemy and Apocalyptic Discourse in the Protestant Reformation, this dynamic led alchemists-turned medical-practitioners to internalize alchemical traditions and mix medical, alchemical and Christian images.[4] Lawrence Principe, has also joined the cause of describing the tension between various scientific authorities. Principe contends that despite Boyle’s public skepticism of some alchemical practices, his acceptance of the concepts of distillation and transmutation makes him an excellent example of the continuity from alchemy to chemistry during the early modern period of scientific development.

Inevitably, the question of where the study of alchemy in history is heading looms large over a discussion Nummedal and Moran. These authors appear to be going to an appropriate place that many different types of historiography have been leading for the last several decades – toward a socially oriented study of the field. Principe has contributed to this subject by fleshing out the lives of some individual alchemists in Chymists and Chymistry, Studies in the History of Alchemy and Early Chemistry. Other episodes have yet to be explored. For instance, what was the reception and circumstances surrounding the premier of The Alchemist play by Ben Johnson in 1610, which joined the critics of the alchemists in lampooning them? There is also little mention of women in the male dominated field of alchemists. Nummedal has chosen to address this problem in her forthcoming book, The Lion’s Blood: Alchemy, Apocalypse, and Gender in Reformation Europe, in which she explores the life of Anna Zieglerin, one of the few female alchemists that have been documented thus far.[5] Approaching the lives of individual alchemists is a decisive step forward in understanding the roots of the scientific revolution. In these interesting figures we can witness firsthand the vestiges of mysticism falling away to reveal the rationality of the scientific method that is now familiar to us. Despite the terrible end that some alchemists faced when their faith in the supernatural failed to produce results, the stories of failure are just as essential as the stories of success.

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[1] Nicholas Popper, Reviewed work(s): Alchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire by Tara Nummedal. Social History of Medicine, April, 2009: 288-89.

[2] Moran, Reading the Book of Nature, 79.

[3] Jole Shackleford, “Seeds with a Mechanical Purpose,” also in Debus and Walton’s Reading the Book of Nature, 21.

[4] This is Nummedal’s observation in her review of Szulakowska’s The Sacrificial Body and the Day of Doom: Alchemy and Apocalyptic Discourse in the Protestant Reformation in Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 60, No. 3, Fall 2007: 998-1000

[5] Nummedal has already written extensively on Zieglerin in the past on a project in 2001-02 called “Anna Zieglerin and the Lion’s Blood: A Female Alchemist’s Career in Reformation Europe,” funded by the Edelstein Center for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine at the Hebrew University (Jerusalem, Israel)

Research Proposal for Graduate European History Seminar

The historiography of corporate complicity with the Nazis can be separated in terms of Military, Political, Ideological, and Economic support, though there is some understandable overlap considering the extensive scope of some of the organizations involved. Additionally, a fifth ‘category’ has more recently emerged: that of corporate history, or work that was commissioned by some of the very companies accused of collaboration to whitewash their image.

Military aid is perhaps the most concrete place to begin this discussion. This type came in the form of building tanks, warplanes, munitions, poison gas, and most importantly, research and development of new military technology. Much of the research done thus far on this topic has been recent, though its beginnings originate with work done by Bradford Snell, a U.S. Senate staff attorney who was hired to inquire into anti-competitive practices of Ford and GM in 1974. What was surprising to both the Senate and the public was that the backdrop of this report contained new evidence, which Snell used to argue that both of these organizations also monopolized the Nazi war effort, building a majority of the Third Reich’s planes, tanks, and trucks.[1] This argument was expanded upon by the team of researchers, Reinhold Billstein, Karola Fings, Anita Kugler and Nicholas Levis, who published Working for the Enemy: Ford, General Motors and Forced Labor in Germany during the Second World War. Not only did they argue that Ford and GM were instrumental to the Nazi war effort building trucks, warships, tanks, and aircraft, but also helped in develop advanced munitions.[2]

By contrast, the research done on the chemical giant, I.G. Farben, has continued since the Allied victory. Writing not long after the war’s end, both Josiah Du Bois and Richard Sasuly argue that this organization was both critical to the building of Nazi armaments and well connected to American corporate entities.[3]

Information technology was also a major resource to Nazi war aims. According to historian Edwin Black in IBM and the Holocaust, Hitler was very interested in being a partner with this corporation because of the early version of its revolutionary new tool, the computer. With this, the Nazis could achieve its two main goals: organizing Germany’s rearmament and committing genocide.[4]

The line is blurred in surveying the historiography of political support for the Nazis. Many leaders of corporations discussed earlier, such as Henry & Edsel Ford, James Mooney of GM, and Thomas J. Watson of IBM all held U.S. government positions or at least had strong influence on domestic and international policy. These facts are included in the arguments of Black, Billstein and Kugler. Other figures, such as Ernst Hanfstaengl, were less well known; but as historian Stephen Norwood argued, equally crucial to shoring up political support for the Hitler regime early on.[5]

The historiography of ideological support for the Nazis in America not only has overlap with the previous topics, as political support does, but is also situated more widely within context of American culture. The currents of racist ideology were present in many circles of American life in that era. Therefore, there is a wide array of historical literature to draw upon, such as the work by Donald Warren, who argued that the American radio evangelist Charles Coughlin received briefings from Nazi officials as he purposefully fanned the flames of racial hatred over the airwaves.[6] Additionally in the book War Against the Weak, Edwin Black contends that American eugenics pseudo-scientists were not only a direct inspiration to Hitler, but actually assisted Nazi genocidal goals.[7]

Before turning to the historiography of economic support originating in America for the Third Reich, it is important to consider the corporate historiography of this field. While the core arguments of many of the previous texts noted here espouse the idea that these companies that had business relations with Nazis did so purposefully and took steps to retain their majority ownership and American management, this next group is decidedly different.[8] Each organization exhibited a different response to this research. For instance, Ford was fairly candid about their involvement, opening their archives to a team of researchers and publishing the findings on their website.[9] GM, on the other hand, hired the controversial business historian, Henry Ashby Turner, who wrote several books on the subject, including the widely cited Big Business and the Rise of Hitler.[10] According to Edwin Black, Turner was given exclusive access to GM archives, which he then restricted in his own collection at Yale.[11] I.G. Farben also retained a corporate historian, Peter Hayes, who was paid directly by the corporation to argue that the company lost control to Nazi officials.[12]

To manage my exploration into the growing field of research into the interactions of U.S. business entities and Nazi Germany, I have chosen economic aid as a specific topic to focus on. Because all other businesses, namely automotive, aeronautic, communications, and chemical industries were fully dependent on access to financial capital to operate, it is appropriate to isolate the financial industry as a critical component of all of these interactions. Therefore, in my seminar paper I plan to address the following lines of inquiry: Which American financial organizations did business in Nazi Germany and what mechanisms did they employ to do so? How do they interrelate to these other industries?

Some sources, which constitute what little there is of an economic historiography that addresses these particular questions, already exist: For instance, Charles Higham argues in his book, Trading with the Enemy: The Nazi-American Money Plot, that both Chase Bank and National City Bank were involved in financing various war production activities.[13] Higham also contends that Americans at the helm of the Bank of International Settlements in Switzerland facilitated vital Nazi financial transactions as well.[14] Additionally, the arguments of John Buchanan, Ben Aris, and Duncan Campbell all revolve around the deliberate financial collaboration of the Union Banking Corporation with Nazi organizations.[15] All of these works draw upon Anthony Sutton’s book, Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler, in which Sutton argues that all of these organizations “…aided Nazism wherever possible (and profitable) – with full knowledge that the probable outcome would be war involving Europe and the United States.”[16]

In the course of searching for primary sources regarding this topic, I compared two well known books on the subject: Charles Higham’s Trading with the Enemy and Edwin Black’s IBM and the Holocaust.[17] During this process, I located an archive of Higham’s source material with the help of the lawyer Michael Ravnitzky, who had requested the original documents Higham obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.[18] I have since made arrangements to examine this archive, located at the University of Southern California, on October 12-14^th. The sources contained within this archive have the potential to help answer the questions I have posed, considering Higham’s specific focus on financial corporations.

Research into the financial side of corporate dealings with the Nazis fleshes out the historiography on the topic as a whole. While there are many sources for military, political, and ideological support for Nazism in America, the work on economics has been lagging behind. Both Jacques Pauwels and Edwin Black have agreed and encouraged assertions on this matter.[19] However, Black has suggested that this particular part of the field may not be expandable to a great degree until businesses like Chase open their archives to historians; he believes that new insights may be gained from the sources I have located.[20]

There are theoretical concepts that can be applied to this field of research. In answering the question of how these business deals were negotiated, the work of Michael Mann on the nature of power within societies can be directly related to the widespread military, economic, political, and ideological collaboration between America and the Third Reich. In The Sources of Social Power, Mann utilizes these same categories to argue that “Societies are constituted of multiple overlapping and intersection sociospatial networks of power.”[21] He has expressed willingness to entertain the notion that it is possible to apply this framework to this particular topic.[22]

This line of inquiry is important for several reasons. On a broad scale, exploring the connections between American business and the Third Reich transforms the narrative of the World War II era. Whether for profit, anti-communist ideology, anti-Semitism, or all of the above, the relationship between Nazis and Americans takes on a new dynamic in this context. Additionally, this emerging work also changes the picture of how the U.S. became a superpower coming out of World War II, creating a potentially corrosive effect on its claim to moral authority throughout the world. This research also calls into question how both American and Israeli Jews perceive themselves within the framework of U.S. geopolitical strategy. Finally, the study of historical patterns in the relationship between Business and War may help prevent the reoccurrences of such activity in the future.

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[1] Bradford Snell, U.S. Congress Senate Committee on the Judiciary, American Ground Transport (1974) A-22. This prompted GM to write a rebuttal, which it successfully pressured the Senate (in an unprecedented move) into attaching to the report. It would take another three decades before researchers would come forward to contest GM’s argument.

[2] Reinhold Billstein, et al., Working for the Enemy: Ford, General Motors and Forced Labor in Germany During the Second World War, (New York: Berghahn Books, 2000)

[3] Richard Sasuly, IG Farben, (New York: Boni & Gaer Press, 1947) 8. Sasuly’s work joins the ranks of others such as Borkin and Welsh (Germany’s Master Plan) and Corwin Edwards, who focused their attention on I.G. Farben before the war actually ended. Edwards published a report for the Kilgore Committee, which was an effort on the part of the U.S. Senate to investigate the relationship of monopolies and cartels in the war effort. The overlapping interests in I.G. Farben exposed in this committee included Standard Oil, DuPont, GM & Ford, all of whom had members on I.G. Farben’s board of directors. Josiah E. Du Bois, The Devil’s Chemists (Boston: The Beacon Press, 1952) 357-63. Du Bois’ work also focuses on I.G. Farben, expanding upon the involvement of its former executives and technocrats in American business in the latter half of the book. Du Bois and his team of researchers argue that these individuals had a direct effect on U.S. ‘bulwark’ policy toward the Soviet Union which prescribed building up Nazi Germany militarily.

[4] Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance between Nazi Germany and America’s Most Powerful Corporation, (New York: Crown Publishing, 2001). This well sourced documentation of U.S. corporate collaboration with the Nazis provides yet another example of the pattern of deliberate and ruthless implementation of Nazi goals.

[5] Stephen H. Norwood, “Legitimating Nazism: Harvard University and the Hitler Regime,

1933-1937.” American Jewish History 92, no. 2 (June 2004). 193-199. Norwood explains some political connections of this figure who was “…Scion of a wealthy Munich family, Hanfstaengl had been one of Hitler’s earliest backers, joining his Nazi movement in 1922 largely because he shared Hitler’s virulent anti-Semitism. After the abortive beer hall putsch in 1923, Hitler had taken refuge at Hanfstaengl’s country villa outside Munich, where he was arrested. Hanfstaengl provided important financial assistance to the Nazi party when it was first establishing itself in the early 1920s. He also later claimed to have introduced the stiff-armed Nazi salute and Sieg Heil chant, modeled on a gesture and a shout he had used as a Harvard football cheerleader…Hitler considered Hanfstaengl valuable because his wealth, air of sophistication, and fluency in English helped legitimate the Nazi party in conservative, upper-class circles, both in Germany and abroad. Hanfstaengl was descended on his mother’s side from a prominent Back Bay family, the Sedgwicks, which facilitated his entry into influential Boston Brahmin circles.”

[6] Donald Warren, Radio Priest: Charles Coughlin, The Father of Hate Radio. (New York:

The Free Press/Simon & Schuster 1996), 1-2, 115. 129-160.

[7] Edwin Black,  War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a

Master Race. (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows 2003).

[8] Both Black and Billstein, et. al. frequently make the point that IBM, Ford, and GM all took steps to retain their management structures and protect assets.

[9] Ford Motor Company, Research Findings About Ford-Werke Under the Nazi Regime (Dearborn, MI: Ford Motor Company, 2001) Section 2 Historical Background of Ford Motor Company and Ford-Werke. This source is made possible due to the first group of slave labor related lawsuits, starting with Iwanowa vs. Ford, which is still in appeal. Although Ford states it lost control of its plant, its own report appears to contradict this claim.

[10] Henry A. Turner, “German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler,” The American Historical Review, 75.1 (1969): 56-70. Turner argues that most businesses lost their autonomy and were under complete control of Nazi authorities. This was particularly stark in the case of his work on GM. He also expanded the ideas in this article with his 1987 book, German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler.

[11] Edwin Black, Nazi Nexus (Washington D.C.: Dialog Press 2009), 123-25. This book is a collection of excerpts from the author’s work which includes sections from Black’s Internal Combustion (Washington D.C.: Dialog Press 2006), from which this particular argument is made. In a phone conversation with Edwin Black on September 26, 2009, Black stated he had to threaten to sue to get access to Turner’s archives.

[12] Peter Hayes, Industry and Ideology, IG Farben in the Nazi era (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), xxx. Right in the acknowledgements he states openly that he received financial support from I.G. Farben to produce the book.

[13] Charles Higham, Trading with the Enemy: An Expose of the Nazi-American Money Plot

1933-1949 (New York: Delacorte Press, 1983), 2-31.

[14] Ibid., 1-19, 131-32, 168-69.

[15] John Buchanan “’Bush – Nazi Dealings Continued Until 1951’ – Federal Documents,” The New Hampshire Gazette Nov. 2003. 1-2. Also: Ben Aris and Duncan Campbell, “How Bush’s Grandfather Helped Hitler’s Rise to Power,” Guardian Unlimited September 25, 2004. http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1312540,00.html (accessed October 28 2004 and October 4 2009).

[16] Anthony C. Sutton, Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler. (Los Angeles: 1976). http://www.reformation.org/wall-st-ch1.html (accessed October 4 2009)

[17] Jason Weixelbaum, “A Review of the Shocking Revelations of U.S. Corporate Collaboration with Nazi Germany,”  History News Network (July 9 2009), http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/98124.html (accessed October 4, 2009) and Jason Weixelbaum,  “IBM and The Holocaust Still Stuns Readers as Big Blue Remains Silent.” The Cutting Edge News (August 24 2009), http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php?article=11519&pageid=23&pagename=Arts (accessed October 4, 2009) The comparative review itself is located at http://jasonweixelbaum.wordpress.com/2008/11/28/comparative-book-review-of-ibm-and-the-holocaust-by-edwin-black-and-trading-with-the-enemy-by-charles-higham/ (accessed October 4, 2009)

[18] Michael Ravnitzky, email communications, June 3-6, 2009.

[19] Edwin Black, email and phone communications, June 1-7, 2009. Also: Jacques Pauwels, email conversations, September 2008-09.

[20] Edwin Black, email and phone conversations, September 20-27, 2009.

[21] Michael Mann, A History of Power from the Beginning to A.D. 1760, vol. 1 of The Sources of Social Power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 1-33. John A. Hall and Ralph Schroeder, eds., An Anatomy of Power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2006)

[22] Michael Mann, email conversation, October 4, 2009. I will be meeting in person with Dr. Mann at UCLA to discuss this matter further on October 13, 2009.

Comparative Book Review of “IBM and the Holocaust” by Edwin Black and “Trading with the Enemy” by Charles Higham

Author’s note: These are two sources I have used for my thesis, “Facilitating the Nazis.” This piece compares the structure, sources, and impact of the two books. All comments are welcome. Thank you.

Americans are unceasingly reminded of the shared memories of the self-titled “Greatest Generation” that beat back the Nazis and saved the world from fascism. Is there a nether side to this heroic narrative? Although historians generally commend the United States as an instrumental force behind the undoing of Hitler’s Nazi regime, many prominent American companies and citizens knowingly aided the inception and military efforts of Nazi Germany.

Two texts, Edwin Black’s IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance between Nazi Germany and America’s Most Powerful Corporation and Charles Higham’s Trading with the Enemy: An Expose of the Nazi-American Money Plot 1933-1949, give this subject a significant degree of depth. Both works are groundbreaking in the information they present. Both have spurred new public dialog and research among historians. Although they involve similar types of activity, the two books have markedly different approaches and methodology. These differences present a challenge to researchers and the public in gaining insight into the big picture of this sordid past. To that end, exploring each book within the context of the other is essential.

IBM and the Holocaust is a thoroughly detailed book about the history of International Business Machines’ (IBM) dealings with Nazi Germany. As densely packed with information as this text is, its thesis is simple: Directed from its worldwide headquarters in New York, IBM was a willing and decisive organizational force behind Nazi rearmament and genocide plans. The documentation supplied to support this thesis is both massive and well organized. The text is presented in a loose chronological arrangement which employs the activities of IBM managers, especially those of CEO Thomas J. Watson, as a common thread for its narrative. Edwin Black has also written other books on the subject which lay equally grave criticisms at the feet of those Americans who were involved with the Nazis. Ultimately, these arguments have been the basis for several lawsuits brought against companies that engaged in Holocaust era profiteering and exploitation.

The text is divided into three sections. It begins with the history of information technology and how this industry was developed in both the United States and Germany. The narrative then follows the rise of IBM and its dominant position in both countries. This section eventually plays itself out as a power struggle between IBM and its subsidiary, Dehomag, as Nazi authorities were reviewing a possible contract between themselves and the corporation. With IBM victorious, the following two sections deal with the most chilling aspect of the book: how IBM facilitated the organization of census data for the Nazis to perpetrate wholesale mass theft and murder of Germany’s Jewish population, and IBM’s role in organizing the logistics of Hitler’s military buildup.

The author presents a massive amount of technical data on precisely how IBM’s “solutions” oriented business made these two goals possible. He traces CEO Thomas J. Watson’s struggle to maintain control over its subsidiary to guarantee the immense profits to be gained from such a lucrative and extensive contract. As more pressure was brought to bear on both sides of the Atlantic to cover up the connection between IBM and Dehomag, Black details the arrangement of trusted Nazi officials to protect IBM’s profits and provide stewardship of the subsidiary and its property. After hostilities commenced, the text details not only the day to day struggles Watson engaged in to maintain control of IBM’s European operations, but also how IBM expanded and supplied Hitler’s forces to continue their agenda as they conquered the European continent.

The last third of IBM and the Holocaust details how IBM became essential to the war aims of both the Axis and the Allies as World War II unfolded. At this point there is an obvious dichotomy. Black weaves between the war activities of each side. The focus on the rapidly culminating “Final Solution” becomes the centerpiece of the book as it reaches its conclusion. The detailed treatment of organizational details behind Hitler’s genocidal aims as they were reaching full fruition provides an emotional locus for the entire text. The final section of the book closes on IBM’s aggressive moves to secure all profits and property after Germany was defeated, underscoring the answer to the question raised by Black’s thesis: Why would any individual or corporation become a willing participant in such horrifying endeavor? Black’s answer: The singular focus of IBM’s profit motive reigned supreme over all else.

Throughout the book, Edwin Black diverges from the organizational narrative to the activities and communications of the players involved, providing a human dimension to the discussion. The struggles between Watson and Dehomag’s original manager, Willy Heidegger, are particularly dramatic. Later, Black details the circumstances surrounding Watson’s receivership of a Nazi medal and direct communications with Hitler himself. The amicable nature of these interactions are both captivating and chilling. Speaking to the pragmatic approach that IBM had with its German business, the communications detailed between IBM representative Harold Chauncey and Nazi leader Karl Hummel are almost banal, considering the circumstances. This aspect of the book allows for some respite to the unrelenting details leading to what is inevitably a story about the mass execution of whole populations. In this way, Black portrays IBM as a company whose direction was both deliberate, and tightly controlled from the top down.

Due to the contentious nature of the subject, Edwin Black brings with him a mountain of data to back up his argument. The rational administration of IBM allowed for an extensively detailed account of IBM’s moves. To handle such a project, Black assembled a team of over one hundred researchers to wade through the copious amounts of available data existing in multiple countries and in multiple languages. The primary sources and endnotes are not only arranged in a simple and organized format, but the major repositories of information are also detailed, such as the location of various archives and other repositories of information situated throughout the world. What is perhaps most interesting, is Black’s detailing of requests for information from IBM itself. According to IBM and the Holocaust, the corporation made extensive efforts to block, hinder, and confuse investigation. When IBM realized the project already had extensive data to make its case, it attempted to whitewash its role issuing several public denials of its involvement.

IBM and the Holocaust made a considerable impact on both the reading public as well as historians when it came out in 2001. When it was released, the book ignited a flurry of media attention and became an immediate best seller. Simultaneously, a lawsuit was brought by scholars, Holocaust survivors and their families against IBM for the allegations presented in the text. As noted earlier, IBM repeatedly stated a simplistic argument that it lost control of its subsidiary and had no involvement with the Third Reich’s plans. What is problematic for IBM and its defenders is that no substantive rebuttals have yet to be made to any of the claims presented in the book. Although there are an overwhelming amount of details presented by IBM and the Holocaust, none have been actively contested. The larger stories that captured the imagination of the public, such as the communications between Hitler and Watson and receiving a Nazi Medal overwhelmed the tepid denials IBM and its historians made. Although the lawsuit brought against IBM was ended by the intervention of the US State Department in 2003, a concession was provided to have the corporation’s archives opened for further study. The US State Department has not yet released a date when this would occur. That same year, the research presented in Edwin Black’s book surfaced again in the widely acclaimed film, The Corporation, showing that public interest in corporate complicity with Nazi aims continues to grow.

Charles Higham’s book, Trading with the Enemy: An Expose of the Nazi-American Money Plot 1933-1949, has also cast a long shadow on the study of World War II era US corporate activity in Nazi Germany. Published nearly two decades before IBM and the Holocaust in 1983, the information presented in the text also has a continuing impact on the study of its subject matter. Like IBM and the Holocaust, Higham’s text also lays out an extensive array of details for the reader to digest. Higham’s thesis is also just as blunt: Many US financial and industrial figures knowingly aided Nazi war efforts. Higham supplies a selective bibliography to support his claims and provides copies of a few key primary sources at the end of the book. Trading with the Enemy is organized by business, exploring the activities of individuals and their related enterprises in each section chronologically. Higham closes the text by detailing how many of the accused Nazi collaborators covered up their activities at the war’s end. As an author who focuses mainly on the lives of famous personalities, such as Katharine Hepburn and Howard Hughes, it is unusual for such a detailed treatment of this topic to emerge from this catalogue. Higham states that he became interested in the subject of American collaboration with Nazis while researching Errol Flynn, who he also accuses of Nazi connections. Regardless of how it was formulated, the information presented in Trading with the Enemy has been the subject of historical discussion, and at least one lawsuit employed to bring more details to light.

As stated earlier, Higham details each business individually in his text. Trading with the Enemy begins with the Bank of International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland. Higham weaves a narrative of how the bank became controlled by confidants of Hitler and that its original purpose of disbursing reparations from Germany following World War I was subverted into a mechanism for funneling money into Nazi Germany, with the help of willing American counterparts. He continues this theme by exploring the financial connections between New York’s Chase bank and Nazis in Paris. Higham’s argument here is that Chase set up branches in Vichy France with the specific purpose of doing business with the Third Reich. It is important to note that as in the first section, Trading with the Enemy gives credit to American officials who became aware of such dealings and tried to stop them through their various offices, such as Treasury Secretary Henry Morganthau. However, each section invariably ends with the perpetrators escaping justice.

In the next several chapters, Trading with the Enemy tackles the involvement of heavy industry starting with Standard Oil of New Jersey and ending up with iconic American giants, General Motors (GM) and Ford Motor Company. Interspersed in this section, Higham also levels accusations against International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT) for its alleged dealings with the Nazis. Essentially, Trading with the Enemy accuses Standard Oil of New Jersey for supplying fuel to The Third Reich while Ford and GM were building military vehicles to advance the Nazi agenda of conquest. Higham blames ITT for supplying communication equipment, fuses for munitions, and involvement in research and development of rocket technology.

Contained in this central section of the book, Higham spends a great deal of time describing the interactions between the various CEOs of these corporations and their Nazi counterparts. The author takes special note to show that some US government officials were aware of their activities, but their investigations were inevitably eclipsed by the wealth and influence these would be collaborators had. This ultimately leads to Higham’s final third of the book, were he details the fate of the personalities involved and how they were able to obscure their activities and avoid prosecution.

Trading with the Enemy utilizes a selective bibliography and a few primary source documents at the end of the text to back up its claims. The book does not contain citations, though it does reference some of the bibliographic material within the narrative. The primary source documents have the common characteristic of generally implicating the corporations mentioned earlier. Many of them are memorandum from US Treasury Secretary Henry Morganthau, who as noted earlier, was a key figure in investigating American Nazi collaboration.

When it was released, Trading with the Enemy received little fanfare. In the intervening years since then, however, much more attention has been paid to the allegations presented in the text. In 1999, Michael Ravnitzky, an American lawyer that specializes in Freedom of Information Act cases, requested the source documents used for Higham’s book at the Nazi War Criminal Records Interagency Working Group. This action brought more attention to the text, which had been out of print. A new version has since been republished in 2007.

IBM and the Holocaust and Trading with Enemy diverge far more than they converge. However, it is important to note the similarities between each text. The most significant aspect each book shares with the other is tone. Though Trading with the Enemy takes far more liberties in narrative style, both authors give the reader the unmistakable impression that they are unsympathetic witnesses to such nefarious activity. Neither book gives a cold clinical impression; both remain firmly judgmental. Both texts are far more akin to appealing to the reader’s ire. Both works internalize the dominant historical narrative. The underlying theme of both Higham and Black’s work reference the polemical nature of the US vs. Nazi as Good vs. Evil and turn it on its head.

The differences between IBM and the Holocaust and Trading with the Enemy are stark. Edwin Black’s work reads as a well sourced piece of historical literature while Higham’s appeals to the tabloid style that is much more popular among conspiracy theory magazines and websites. To be fair to Higham, his work may have been meant for a different audience than Black’s. However, is it safe to assume that such a subject should be addressed without a foundation in rigorous scholarship? On the other side, Black’s work has been criticized for being too dense. This comparison draws out the problem inherent in much political literature: That consideration for an audience can come into direct conflict with the need for academic legitimacy.

Trading with the Enemy has a problematic relationship with its sources. Given its loose narrative style, it is sorely in need of endnotes, footnotes, or other reference to its supporting information. Additionally, the book only contains a selective bibliography, leaving the reader to wonder what was not included. As stated earlier, some copies of primary source documents are included at the end of the book, but they are far too general to constitute the forceful accusations in the text. Any serious researcher willing to verify or disprove Higham’s points faces the frustrating prospect of redoing his research in order to expose the facts.

In contrast, IBM and the Holocaust contains an overwhelming amount of source material. Even without much assistance from IBM, Black was able to put together an entire operational dossier of its European activities during the war years. Although his endnotes help in locating particular source documents, there is still a great deal of information to get through to verify each point. Whether or not this matters to the audience of this text is debatable. There is such a great deal of cross referencing in IBM and the Holocaust in respect to its sources that there is a diminished need to reestablish individual points, unless they are source of particular contention. This reality does not betray the weight Black’s thesis significantly.

Higham’s work is far more troubling, not just because of the difficulty in verifying the information in this work, but for the study of the subject as a whole. As stated earlier, American assistance to Nazi Germany is a contentious issue because it runs counter to the generally accepted story of World War II. Therefore, it remains important for all stories stemming from this countervailing historical narrative be as clear and well sourced as possible. Unfortunately, Higham’s work is not easy to classify here. Many of his points such as those on GM and Ford have been verified by newer and more academic texts, such as Working with the Enemy by Billstein, et. al. Additionally, his work has been cited in other academic journals on this subject. The only solutions to the problem presented by Trading with the Enemy appear to be clarifying each individual point, a haltingly cumbersome task, or requesting the author provide foot or endnotes. Neither of these options are palatable.

IBM and the Holocaust and Trading with the Enemy remain important books for several reasons. First, they are two of the most well known texts on the subject of American assistance to the Third Reich. As the study of this subject expands, these books loom large as a reference point for further research. In the case of IBM and the Holocaust, Black has provided an exemplary text for rebutting a well known historic myth: That US corporations have only American interests solely in mind. Trading with the Enemy, on the other hand, is one of the few books that engages the entire landscape of American interaction with the Nazis. This is a meaningful development. The entire field is in need of reappraisal to understand the intertwined nature of global business interactions, especially as they relate to large historical currents.

The numerous documentaries, cable channels, books, and magazines are a testament to the growing public interest in World War II. As more information becomes available on American involvement with the Nazis, it is imperative that it be done with clarity and academic rigor. Much of the popular media available in the US today still conveniently omits the stories explored here. Regardless, World War II remains a pivotal event that diminished some powers and elevated others, creating a new world order. We live in its remnants today. In order to understand our relationship to these events, they must be faced with the utmost clarity, even if these realities are heartbreaking, horrific, and contradictory.

Submission for PhD program at Harvard University

FACILITATING THE NAZIS:

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN

AMERICAN BUSINESS AND THE THIRD REICH

Author’s Note: The first section of this paper (roughly the first twelve pages) was presented as part of the 2008 New York State European History Association Conference at LeMoyne College in Syracuse, NY. A transcript of that section on its own, modified slightly for the purposes of the conference, may be found at jasonweixelbaum.wordpress.com. Thank you for your consideration.

World War II continues be to the most romanticized and analyzed period in American history outside of the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. This era offers us a rich tapestry of anecdotes framing the violent struggle between great powers. Ironically, these stories often expose something quite different from the current popular view. People are constantly immersed in the imagery and symbols of the dominant interpretation of the past, which may omit or ignore any facts that invalidate it. This can create a gulf of understanding between what is believed and what has actually transpired. The World War II era is one of those instances where this disparity presents itself. Americans are unceasingly reminded of the shared memories of the self-titled “Greatest Generation,” that beat back the Nazis and saved the world from fascism. Are their stories worthy of a unifying view of the past? Although historians generally commend the United States as an instrumental force behind the undoing of Hitler’s Nazi regime, many prominent American companies and citizens knowingly aided the inception and military efforts of Nazi Germany.

There are several problems inherent in this line of research. Both Nazism and America’s involvement in WW II are contentious issues. The strong emotional resonance of the topic has created both intense interest and bitter debate. Recently, due to increasing criticism of American foreign policy and access to more primary source material, the story of this relationship has taken on new dimensions. Nonetheless, the binary view of America vs. Nazis as Good vs. Evil is still frequently espoused by US politicians and in popular culture. The question then remains: When has enough evidence been supplied to change this form of thinking? A holistic view of the various studies on this subject is important to providing a complete picture. This paper will attempt to survey and analyze support for the Nazis originating in the U.S. in terms of Military, Financial, Political and Cultural.

Military aid is perhaps the least esoteric place to begin this discussion. This type came in the form of building tanks, warplanes, munitions, poison gas, and most importantly, research and development of new military technology. Not only were US companies involved in all of these aspects, each took steps to maintain control of management and assets.

Ford Motor Company and General Motors played an instrumental role in the Nazi military industry.[1] Awareness of this fact comes from government investigation, historical research, and more recently, from lawsuits brought by former forced laborers. Although many individual executives from both of these companies, such as Henry Ford and James Mooney, sympathized with Nazis ideologically, it is worth looking at the actions of these companies as a whole first.

Ford Motor Company first established its German subsidiary, Ford-Werke, in Berlin in January of 1925. By the following year, Ford trucks and Model-Ts were being rolled out for commercial and private consumption in Germany. In 1929, Henry Ford himself laid the cornerstone of a new manufacturing plant on a fresh 52-acre tract of land on the Rhine River in Cologne. Even though depression-related financial problems ravaged Germany and much of the rest of Europe, the Ford-Werke plant was completed and opened for business three years later in 1931. Ford-Werke was an Aktiengesellschaft corporation, meaning it was a publicly traded company. Despite this fact, except for a brief period in 1928, Ford’s main headquarters in Dearborn has retained majority ownership to the present.[2]

Ford-Werke increased production greatly the year that Hitler took power. Many initiatives were introduced to use native German resources and to increase cooperation with the new Nazi authorities. Additionally, sales increased briskly due to a tax exemption granted to passenger vehicles as part of Hitler’s plan to bring Germany out of the Depression by stimulating consumer spending on automobiles. Problems with the shortage of raw materials, such as oil and iron, were solved as Dearborn pledged to offer any materials necessary.[3] This was partly accomplished through partnership with IG Farben, the chemical combine that built Auschwitz, which will be detailed later. This increased support led to new expansive state orders and ultimately won Ford-Werke a major contract to supply the Wehrmacht, or German military, in 1938. By this time profits had already increased 400 percent.[4] There is little doubt these profits are due to the enormous production of military trucks, which were later vital to the Blitzkrieg.[5] Ford produced 48% of all the 2-3 ton trucks in Nazi Germany, and an additional 90,000 civilian trucks were used by Nazi troops in occupied Europe.[6] Ultimately, Ford motors powered vehicles on land, sea and air as World War II broke out.

Ford did not just produce trucks and engines for the Nazis, which on its own could seem innocuous and plausible enough to deflect its critics. The company was also involved in building advanced munitions. To hide its involvement, Ford’s German director, Heinrich Albert, created Arendt GmbH, a front company to handle this production.[7]

As Germany made war on its neighbors in 1939-40, Edsel Ford, who was now running his father’s business, had full knowledge of the activities of its German subsidiary. He made efforts to ensure other Ford plants, now in occupied countries such as Belgium, France and the Netherlands would follow a seamless transition to Nazi stewardship.[8] Edsel responded to Albert’s efforts to oversee this in 1940:

We have a fairly complete impression of the present status of the Ford Companies in Germany as well as the other occupied territories. It is quite evident and very gratifying that you and your organization are looking after our interests successfully and we appreciate your efforts on our behalf. I am glad to hear that outside plants are beginning to operate…Anything that can be done constructively to keep these plants in operation will be a great help for the future.[9]

Ford Motor Company maintained communication with its director throughout the war through a French banker named Maurice Dollfus. Working with the Bank of International Settlements in Switzerland, Dollfus was empowered to help manage many American interests.[10] What makes Dollfus interesting is that he is representative of a pattern of appointments utilized after the U.S. and Germany were at war to manage American owned businesses.

No discussion of business within Nazi Germany is complete without explaining its use of slave labor. Due to massive conscription, work shortages were widespread. In order to counteract this, Nazis allocated POW’s and concentration camp inmates, or KZ (Konzentrationslager) to all available industries. Ford-Werke began using “foreign workers,” as the Nazis called them, in the winter of 1940. These workers were subject to brutal treatment via the racist Nazi hierarchy, especially pregnant females. By the end of 1943, half of its workers were forced laborers. Ford had essentially sponsored one of the largest labor camps in Cologne.[11]

In comparison, General Motors’ Adam Opel AG dwarfed the efforts of Ford-Werke. By the late 1920’s this company was the largest car manufacturer in Europe. Opel was also an Aktiengesellschaft corporation, which allowed all of its stock to be purchased between 1929-31 by General Motors (GM). American managers were then sent to Germany and remained there until the war began in 1939. Also the beneficiary of the Nazi tax exemption on automobiles, Opel’s production soared at its plant in Russelsheim. Although this economic stimulation led to the consumption of more passenger vehicles, Opel’s direction was increasingly geared toward military construction. Just like Ford, GM built boats, tanks, and warplanes.[12] One of the most useful vehicles to Nazi war aims, the Opel Blitz truck, was developed by GM in 1936.

It is important to note that many within Hitler’s government disliked American companies, labeling them a “foreign” influence. Ultimately more pragmatic voices won out, arguing that Hitler’s vehicle consumption program and military buildup would not be possible with out U.S. money and know-how.[13]

In 1938 Opel was granted a major military contract to increase the fleet of the Luftwaffe to five times its original size. This was incorporated through a partnership with Volkswagen and IG Farben.[14] GM had supposedly dispensed with the Opel plant as a tax write-off, claiming Reich authorities had confiscated the plant. Nazi opponents took notice, calling for an immediate seizure of the “foreign enemy property.” GM Overseas Director James Mooney personally intervened and installed Heinrich Richter, who would remain loyal to the company. Richter worked directly with Hitler to insure that his company remained independent. When he met Richter in Russelsheim, Hitler was so impressed with the speed and efficiency that the operation was able to produce, that he officially ended debates on expropriating the company in 1943 by an official certification of Opel’s “Germanic” origins.[15]

GM’s Opel also utilized slave labor during the war. By 1942, over 4,000 “foreign laborers” were working in Russelsheim and its sister plant in Brandenburg. After this time records are sparse, but available information regarding the brutal treatment of laborers, especially Russian POW’s is explicit.[16]

Just as in the case of Ford, GM resumed direct control of its subsidiary after the war’s end with little resistance and brought many of its own authoritarian management personalities back into the fold.[17] There are no records of profits recovered by GM, but Mooney’s own estimate appears to be exceeding 100 million dollars in 1940 alone.[18] According to Anita Kugler’s research, GM recovered “…a tax value of $4.8 million requiring a U.S. tax payment of 1.8 million…about $21 million less than the company saved on its 1941 tax bill.”[19] According to an accounting of GM’s tax breaks relative to the war in 1967 by writer Charles Levinson, the corporation was awarded $33 million in tax exemptions for “troubles and destruction occasioned to its airplane and motorized vehicle factories in Germany and Austria in World War II.”[20] An appropriate conclusion to this section on GM and Ford comes from Bradford Snell, a U.S. Senate staff attorney who reported on the dealings of these businesses during the war in 1974:

Due to their multinational dominance of motor vehicle production, GM and Ford became principal suppliers for the forces of fascism as well as well as for the forces of democracy. It may, of course be argued that participating in both sides of an international conflict, like the common corporate practice of investing in both political parties before an election, is an appropriate corporate activity. Had the Nazis won, General Motors and Ford would have appeared impeccably Nazi; as Hitler lost, these companies were able to emerge impeccably American.[21]

Rubber and Oil were also crucial to making the Nazi domination of Europe possible. Facilitating this task was the chemical company IG Farben. Like many other major corporations deeply involved in the Nazi war effort, IG Farben was as brutally efficient and expansive as the Nazis themselves. According to historian Richard Sasuly:

IG Farben factories were dotted all over the map of Germany…As fast as the Wehrmacht moved forward in the years from 1939 to 1943, IG Farben followed close after picking up control of plants in the conquered countries.[22]

IG Farben was principally an international chemical cartel with links to many American businesses, including Standard Oil, Dupont, GM and Ford. Top personalities from all of these companies would sit on the board of IG Farben. To administer the sprawling and sometimes contentious arrangement of these huge companies, they formed a group called the Joint American Study Company collectively in 1930.[23] Essentially, this was a deal to consolidate major areas of chemical and petroleum production. At this time IG Farben was able to gain more effective control over certain corporations, like Bayer in America, to produce chemicals for Nazi war aims.[24]

The most egregious example of this collusion occurred with increased manufacture of Zyklon B.[25] This cyanide-based chemical was originally used as an insecticide to fight the spread of typhus. The Nazis used Zyklon B in the gas chambers of Auschwitz and other concentration camps to implement the so-called “Final Solution”. Essentially this plan was utilized, not only to murder millions of Jews, but also untold numbers of Poles, Russians, Gypsies and anyone else deemed undesirable in the Nazi worldview. Although it has never been made clear exactly what components were sent to factories in Germany to produce this infamous gas, most historians on the subject contend that American subsidiaries were indispensable to IG Farben’s chemical production.[26] To complete the section on IG Farben, it also important to note that it utilized the largest amount of slave labor of any corporation in Nazi Germany. At its height in 1941, IG Farben employed 83,000 forced laborers.[27]

It is important to state that before America’s entry into the war, none of these activities were illegal. Despite growing worldwide concern about Germany’s rearmament, American firms were engaged in explicitly military enterprises. By 1938 International Telephone & Telegraph of New York (ITT) had included Germany in its growing system of worldwide communications via its subsidiaries, Telefunken and Siemens, two of the largest communications technology companies in Germany.[28] ITT supplied telephones, aircraft intercoms, submarine and ship phones, electric buoys, alarm systems, radio and radar parts, and fuses for artillery shells to the Nazis. In 1942, ITT CEO Sosthenes Behn met personally with top Nazis Walter Schellenberg and Baron Kurt von Schroder to renegotiate this deal.[29] By 1944 not only had ITT continued and increased its supply of fuses, crucial to the war effort, it also was in the process of developing new technologies used in rocket systems and high frequency radio equipment for the Nazis.[30] ITT also worked directly with the State Department to ensure uninterrupted trade after the implementation of the Trading with the Enemy Act, instated when the U.S. declared war on Germany.[31]

Like ITT, International Business Machines (IBM) also sought special license for its subsidiary, Dehomag, after hostilities between Germany and the U.S. commenced. In fact, IBM was deeply involved with Nazi Germany from its inception. According to historian Edwin Black, Hitler was very interested in being a partner with this corporation because of the early version of its revolutionary new tool, the computer. With this, the Nazis could achieve its two main goals: organizing Germany’s rearmament and committing genocide. Black puts this period in stark terms:

IBM had almost single-handedly brought modern warfare into the information age. Through its persistent, aggressive, unfaltering efforts, IBM virtually put the “blitz” in the krieg for Nazi Germany. Simply put, IBM organized the organizers of Hitler’s war.[32]

With IBM’s help, Hitler would gain the ability to use census data to locate and kill all the people he felt were racially inferior, or turn them into slaves for other corporations.[33] Thomas J. Watson personally supervised this process from his offices in New York.[34]

Throughout World War II, IBM remained in control of Dehomag.[35] With a very similar methodology to the other businesses we have already looked at, IBM ensured adherence to the Nazi program in all branches it owned in occupied countries.[36] Edwin Black offers us a brief synopsis:

Even after the U.S. entered the war in December 1941, IBM never lost control of its companies in Nazi-controlled lands. When German custodians, or receivers, took over, virtually all IBM staff and management remained in place. Only the profits were temporarily blocked as in any receivership. After the war, IBM fought to recover all those Nazi-blocked bank accounts, claiming they were legitimate company profits.[37]

In order to maintain the fidelity of its German assets, IBM employees drafted into the US Army worked directly with some of the Nazi managers to ensure production with little interruption after the war ended.[38]

This brief treatment of some of the military aid for the Nazis originating in America is by no means comprehensive. The picture is incomplete without touching upon the enormous financial aid Germany received from American sources throughout the early Hitler years. It is also essential to note that some of the aid that took place, as is in the case of the Union Banking Corporation, after hostilities commenced between the U.S. and Germany.

Investment in Germany was increased during the interwar years via the Dawes and later, the Young plan. Basically, these were agreements among Allied central bankers to reorganize the banking system of Germany to facilitate reparations payments and increase foreign investment. A great deal of this investment originated in Britain and America.[39] The retooling of the German economy, with essentially the whole European financial network involved, also led to a means of getting money into Nazi hands.

The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) of Basel, Switzerland was founded in 1930 as part of the Young Plan. Protected from outside intervention via its charter, it became an ideal environment to be dominated by the Nazis with the help of profit- minded foreign bankers. Montague Norman, governor of the Bank of England, was made chairman of the BIS in 1939.[40] Working with his friend and associate, Hjalmar Schacht, the Nazi minister of economics who helped conceive the Young plan, the board of directors of the BIS was populated by Hitler’s financial associates by the time Norman assumed office. Although Schact had fallen out of favor at this point, other Nazi financial leaders were allowed to occupy crucial board positions. The BIS then implemented the first of several major transfers of gold out of Nazi occupied territories, starting with Czechoslovakia.[41] As these events unfolded, U.S. banker Thomas McKittrick, chairman of the British-American chamber of commerce, became president of the BIS. Historian Charles Higham advises that by this time the BIS was completely controlled by confidants of Hitler:

Among the directors under Thomas H. McKittrick were Hermann Schmitz, head of the colossal Nazi industrial trust IG Farben, Baron Kurt von Schroder, head of the J.H. Stein Bank of Cologne and a leading financier of the Gestapo; Dr. Walther Funk of the Reichsbank, and, of course, Emil Puhl [director of the Reichsbank]. These last two figures were Hitler’s personal appointees to the board.[42]

It is also important to note that at this time McKittrick also worked directly with Allen and John Foster Dulles, who were also members of the international banking and U.S. intelligence community.[43] Allen Dulles was, in fact, the first civilian and longest running director of the CIA. The involvement of these personalities increases the likelihood that the U.S. government was aware of the link between corporate profit taking and Nazi seizure of sovereign treasuries.

John Foster Dulles also worked with the international bank Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH), which is often written about in the context of World War II for two reasons: First, because their subsidiary, the Union Banking Corporation (UBC), was a prominent institution to be seized with the Trading with the Enemy Act; second, because the chairman of this bank is the grandfather of the current U.S. President, Prescott Bush.[44] Much of what has been written has not been well sourced, making research into this facet of financial collaboration with the Nazis difficult. However, just as in the case with Ford, new lawsuits have spurred declassification of documents related to this topic, making more information readily available.[45] Essentially, the UBC worked solely for the Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart in the Netherlands. The Thyssen family, prominent German industrialists and early supporters of Hitler, owned this bank. Fritz Thyssen used his directorship in IG Farben to leverage political power and helped Hitler become chancellor in 1933.[46]

During the period of German rearmament, the UBC, under the auspices of Brown Brothers Harriman, transferred enormous amounts of gold, fuel, steel, coal, and US treasury bonds to Germany.[47] According to the investigation done by The Guardian in 2004:

Between 1931 and 1933 UBC bought more than $8m worth of gold, of which $3m was shipped abroad. According to documents seen by the Guardian [Recently declassified Harriman papers], after UBC set up it transferred $2m to BBH accounts and between 1924 and 1940 the assets of UBC hovered around $3m, dropping to $1m only on a few occasions.[48]

The activities of the UBC in the 1930’s before the Trading with the Enemy Act were also not illegal. However, scandal erupted when the New York Herald-Tribune investigated the matter, precipitating the article “Hitler’s Angel Has $3m in US Bank” on July 30 1942 about Thyssen and the UBC. This prompted the U.S. Alien Property Commission (APC) to look into the activities of the UBC. The APC determined that the Union Banking Corporation was directly connected to Thyssen, IG Farben, and Auschwitz. Prescott Bush and other directors were forced to divest their shares in the company and the UBC was shut down.[49] No further criminal action was taken against Prescott Bush or Brown Brothers Harriman.

Financial support unrelated to military spending should also be noted. Coca-Cola also continued to do business with the Nazis after war was declared adding needed economic stimulation to their consumer market. To increase its market share in Europe, Coca-Cola invented the company Fanta.[50] Fanta immediately began doing business in Germany under the auspices of being a separate company; all the while sending profits back to Coca-Cola’s U.S. headquarters. These profits increased greatly when Fanta began using prisoners of war as their primary workforce later in the war.[51]

Across the Atlantic, fundraising for the Nazis began even before Hitler became chancellor of Germany. The German-American Bund, or the Friends of the New Germany, organized themselves in Chicago in 1932. Many of the leaders of this group were members of an earlier organization called Teutonia, which had existed in Chicago since 1924.[52] Spreading rapidly, they openly created Nazi affiliated groups in New York City, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and elsewhere. In 1933, they were specifically ordered by Nazi Party leader, Rudolf Hess, to change their name to “The Friends of the New Germany” to avoid suspicion.[53] Considerable growth led the group to change its name again to The German-American Bund at a convention in Buffalo in March of 1936.

Presiding over this growth of this group was Fritz Kuhn. Kuhn was a German immigrant and ex Freikorps member, a right-wing German veteran’s group involved with the power struggles that ensued after World War I. He was also an industrial chemist who emigrated to Mexico for work. Ultimately, he found employment with Ford Motor Company and became an American citizen in 1933. He became president the same year after assuming leadership of the Gau-Mittelwest, the American Midwest branch of the organization.[54]

The Bund’s organizing work appeared to pay off. Claiming to receive their orders directly from the Nazi High Command, they initiated massive propaganda campaigns, and registered members of the group swelled to 20,000 by 1939. Fundraising was a prominent part of their activities, although they denied receiving any significant amount of money from non-Germans.[55]

Another organization sympathetic to the Nazis was the American Liberty League, which was funded by Lamont and Irenee Dupont. Also engaged in aggressive organizing, the group set up branches at twenty-six colleges and was financed by a half-million dollar budget in its first year alone.[56]

The line between financial and political support blurs as we turn the conversation to the prominent individuals sympathetic to Nazi aims. Many leaders of corporations discussed earlier, such as Henry & Edsel Ford, James Mooney, W. Averell Harriman, and Thomas J. Watson held U.S. government positions or at least had strong influence on domestic and international policy. Other figures, such as Ernst Hanfstaengl are less well known, but equally crucial.

Thomas J. Watson is an appropriate person to begin this section as one of the most influential CEO’s of his generation. By 1934, Watson was the highest paid executive in America, eclipsing the combined income of top managers at Chrysler and General Motors.[57] Both Watson and his company wielded tremendous political power. According to Edwin Black:

Thomas J. Watson had cultivated a loyal following of employees throughout the IBM empire, as well as a nation of admiring executives, a fascinated American public, and enamored officials throughout the U.S. government. He enjoyed close relations with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the First Lady, and Secretary of State Cordell Hull. Chiefs of state and royal families on several continents welcomed his company. His veneration internationally, and his esteem in America, overcame any incongruities and embarrassing curiosities of his little-understood multinational technocracy. Even when some American diplomats and Washington financial bureaucrats balked at sanctioning what clearly seemed like IBM’s marginal or improper actions against American interests, the reluctance was quiet and cautious.[58]

Watson was elected chairman of the American Section of the International Chamber of Commerce in 1935. In many capacities, this role made him the official representative of all U.S. business abroad. Two years later, Watson personally traveled to Germany to receive a medal from Hitler himself for his efforts in organizing Nazi aims. After the meeting, Watson wrote to Hitler:

Before leaving Berlin, I wish to express my pride in and deep gratitude for the high honor I received through the order with which you honored me. Valuing fully the spirit of friendship which underlay this honor, I assure you that in the future as in the past, I will endeavor to do all on my power to create more intimate bonds between our two great nations. My wife and family join in best wishes for you.[59]

Although Watson was pressured to return the medal in 1940, which angered many in the Nazi High Command, he simultaneously made discrete efforts to reassure them while forcefully taking steps to maintain control of his subsidiary with the help of the U.S State Department.[60]

As with IBM, the impact of the Ford Motor Company has been expressed by numerous writers. Undoubtedly, Henry Ford occupied a privileged place in the circles of the industrial elite and wielded influence over public policy.[61] In comparison to Watson, Henry Ford and his son, Edsel, were far more outspoken in their support of Hitler’s regime. Henry Ford was virulently anti-Semitic. According to historian Victoria Woeste, “[Henry] Ford gained as much fame for his anti-Semitic views as his cars. His Dearborn Independent, published dozens of articles between 1920 and 1925…the accusations in the Dearborn Independent, represented the broadest, most sustained published attack on individual Jews and Jews as a group in the nation’s history.”[62] Many of these articles were combined in a book called The International Jew published in 1922. This text would become very influential to Hitler and the Nazis, who reprinted thirty-seven different editions by 1942. According to historian Reinhold Billstein, “A reading of the International Jew alongside the sections about Jews in Mein Kampf (1924) reveals a largely identical content…”[63] In 1927 only one of the many lawsuits related to his racist publications made it into court against Henry Ford, but he was able to circumvent legal action by commissioning a Jewish constitutional lawyer who wrote an apology for him. Again we gain insight from Woeste, who states, “Ford then disposed of the distasteful affair by signing a statement in which he apologized for the wrongs he had ‘unintentionally’ done to the Jews.”[64] All charges were dropped. This example of the latitude U.S policy makers allowed Henry Ford would carry over to his son as he took over as leadership of their industrial empire in the 1930’s.

Edsel Ford continued his father’s expansion into Europe and was instrumental in maintaining political contacts to implement this policy.[65] It is also important to note that Edsel worked closely with many other business leaders sympathetic to the Nazis. On June 26, 1940 Edsel Ford, James Mooney of GM, and other corporate leaders held a celebration at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City commemorating Nazi victories in France and pledged to use their political influence toward more free trade and peaceful relations with Germany.[66]

James Mooney would become very popular with Hitler for bending the will of his company to Nazi aims. On December 22, 1936 he informed U.S. diplomat George Messersmith, “We ought to make some arrangement with Germany for the future. There is no reason why we should let our moral indignation over what happens in that country stand in our way”.[67] It was clear that business at GM/Opel would go on as usual with the Nazi regime. Two years later in 1938 he would be awarded, like Henry Ford and Thomas J. Watson, the Order of the Golden Eagle Medal directly from Hitler.

Another figure that played an equally important role was W. Averell Harriman, head of the powerful Harriman & Brown banking corporation, and owner of the UBC, as we have explored earlier. Politically well connected as the governor of New York and a friend to FDR, he was well aware when prosecutors of the Trading with the Enemy Act were preparing to move on the UBC.[68] Conflict of interest appeared to be maintained at the highest levels by Harriman & Brown. According to investigator John Buchanan:

At the same time Bush and the Harrimans were profiting from their Nazi partnerships, W. Averell Harriman was serving as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s personal emissary to the United Kingdom during the toughest years of the war. On October 28, 1942, the same day two key Bush-Harriman-run businesses were being seized by the US government, Harriman was meeting in London with Field Marshall Smuts to discuss the war effort.[69]

Unfortunately, John Buchanan has lost a good deal of his credibility for stalking the personnel of media outlets trying to get a broader reach for his work on Prescott Bush and W. Averell Harriman.[70] Admittedly, however, he has come up with previously undisclosed information that is worth further research.

Another extraordinary character is Ernst Sedgwick Hanfstaengl. After graduating from Harvard, he took over management of one of his families businesses, the Franz Hanfstaengl Fine Arts Publishing House in New York City. There, he played piano at the Harvard Club where he became acquainted with Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt and other members of high society. Hanfstaengl traveled to Germany in 1922 to manage his family’s German business interests. It is here that researcher Stephen Norwood best explains how he became involved with Nazism:

Scion of a wealthy Munich family, Hanfstaengl had been one of Hitler’s earliest backers, joining his Nazi movement in 1922 largely because he shared Hitler’s virulent antisemitism. After the abortive beer hall putsch in 1923, Hitler had taken refuge at Hanfstaengl’s country villa outside Munich, where he was arrested. Hanfstaengl provided important financial assistance to the Nazi party when it was first establishing itself in the early 1920s. He also later claimed to have introduced the stiff-armed Nazi salute and Sieg Heil chant, modeled on a gesture and a shout he had used as a Harvard football cheerleader…Hitler considered Hanfstaengl valuable because his wealth, air of sophistication, and fluency in English helped legitimate the Nazi party in conservative, upper-class circles, both in Germany and abroad. Hanfstaengl was descended on his mother’s side from a prominent Back Bay family, the Sedgwicks, which facilitated his entry into influential Boston Brahmin circles.[71]

Hanfstaengl would eventually fall out of favor with Nazis and fled to Switzerland and then England. Interestingly, he was taken back to the U.S. after being declared a prisoner of war and put to work under his old friend FDR with the Office of Strategic Services. There he helped put together the “Analysis of the Personality of Adolf Hitler” for top military intelligence. Ultimately, Hanfstaengl is a prime example of a prominent person worth deeper consideration for his role on both sides of the Atlantic.

It is important to place these figures in a cultural context in order to understand the ideological reasons behind why they collaborated so willingly with the Nazis. The currents of racist ideology were present in many circles of American life at that time. Eugenicists promoting racial purity had several offices around the country. Virulent anti-Semitic evangelists like Charles Coughlin held the attention of millions using the medium of radio. Hollywood sheltered many racist elements, producing films such as Birth of a Nation. Walt Disney himself, an American cultural icon, sympathized and contributed to these extreme right-wing undercurrents. On the Atlantic coast, elites in Boston entertained visiting Nazis in the mid 1930’s.

The American eugenics movement housed some of these intellectuals mentioned above. Active before Nazi Germany existed, many eugenics organizations were well established in the U.S. by the time Hitler took power in 1933. Influenced by genetics pioneers like Francis Galton and Gregor Mendel, Americans began to translate the racism that had already been festering in their country into pseudoscientific terms. Anger against increased immigration and struggles with natives and blacks in the late 1800’s found its way into publications like The Passing of the Great Race by Madison Grant, trustee of the American Museum of Natural History.[72]

The results of this hateful ideology might not have been so tragic if it were not for the involvement and financial help from the Carnegie Institution. Headed by the thoroughly racist zoologist Charles B. Davenport, the new “Experimental Evolution” organization began its work in 1904. Striving to create an office where American genealogical records could be collected and studied, Davenport enlisted the financial help of E. H Harriman.[73] It is worth mentioning that he is the father of W. Averell Harriman, who has been mentioned earlier. Meanwhile, sterilization laws were being passed in many states under racist rationales. Between 1907 and 1912 California, Washington, Indiana, New Jersey and New York would all pass laws permitting forced sterilization of anyone pronounced ‘genetically unfit’.[74] As New Jersey’s governor, Woodrow Wilson signed his state’s eugenics law into existence on April 21, 1911. In order to surmount the understandable disgust from many segments of the American population to the widespread application of the new race laws, the Carnegie Institute enlisted the help of Secretary of State P.C Knox, who provided political cover for their activities. Incidentally, he was previously one of Carnegie Steel’s top lawyers.[75] In the ensuing decades, untold numbers of convicts, orphans, the mentally ill, and minorities of all types were sterilized in these states.

In the early 1930’s both Eugene Whitney, president of the American Eugenics Society, and Madison Grant would receive letters from Adolf Hitler extolling the virtues of their work. At many points in Mein Kampf Hitler references the American Eugenics movement and its efforts such as the U.S. National Origins Act, which sought racially based immigration quotas.[76] In fact, certain passages seem to be almost direct copies of Grant’s work.[77]

American eugenicists continued warm relations with the Nazis throughout the 1930’s. Several traveled to Germany to work directly for Hitler.[78] While worldwide outrage toward Nazism grew, major American eugenics groups pledged support for Hitler’s Regime. According to the 1935 annual report from the Human Betterment Foundation of Pasadena, California:

You will be interested to know that your work has played a powerful part in shaping the opinions of the group of intellectuals who are behind Hitler in this epoch-making program. Everywhere I sensed that their opinions have been tremendously stimulated by American thought and particularly by the work of the Human Betterment Foundation. I want you, my dear friend, to carry this thought with you for the rest of your life, that you have really jolted into action a great government of 60 million people.[79]

On another front in the fight to distinguish who would be a ‘desirable’ citizen, Breckinridge Long would join the antisemitic cause. He would use his U.S. government position to create difficulty for any Jews who attempted to flee Nazi Germany to escape to the United States. Starting his career as ambassador to Italy, Long was known to have sympathy for Mussolini’s regime, speaking out against proposed American oil embargoes.[80] Later, Long would then drastically constrict immigration quotas for refugees coming specifically from Germany and Eastern Europe as Secretary of State. He was able to do this by simultaneously reducing the number of Jews that could enter the U.S., and deliberately creating complex, obstructive rules for those that were attempting to. By the time the war was in full swing up to 90% of immigration quotas from areas controlled by Nazi Germany were going unfulfilled. In a hearing at the House of Representatives in 1943 Breckinridge Long deliberately lied, stating extraordinarily exaggerated numbers of Jews had escaped to the U.S. and that “all that can be done is being done.”[81] An investigation into the State Department’s activities eventually led to his demotion and the establishment of the War Refugees board in 1944 to oversee the rescuing of Jews from Nazi occupied territories. Unfortunately, sympathies for the Nazis were far more widespread beyond some U.S. government and business officials. In the mid west, other loud voices would also echo Nazi ideals.

Father Charles Coughlin is probably one of the most infamous American orators to have openly espoused Nazism. A powerful political force in his time, he was an evangelical Catholic priest, who became one of the early users of radio to spread his sermons to a mass audience. Operating out of Detroit from 1926 to 1942, Coughlin’s radio show was on the air, peaking in popularity in the mid 1930’s. At this time he received thousands of letters a day and met with many major politicians, including FDR and Henry Ford. During this period, his sermons took on an overtly anti-Semitic tone as he focused on blaming Jewish bankers for the Great Depression. In these rants, he would often express sympathy for German and Italian fascist regimes for their fight against “International Jewry”.[82] In fact, an article published on December 5, 1938 in his newspaper, Social Justice, is almost an exact copy of a speech made by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels on September 13, 1935.[83] Biographer of Father Coughlin’s career, Donald Warren, sums up this era: “…Coughlin increasingly immersed himself in a global context of political advocacy and even direct political action, his identification with fascism and then Nazism became hallmarks of his public career.” Eventually his popularity would wane in the early 1940’s, but not before he would spread his hateful message to untold numbers of people.

Finally, one of the most unlikely characters, Walt Disney, also deserves a footnote in the list of Nazi sympathizers. According to Art Babbitt, who was one of Disney’s chief animators, Nazism was an active force in Hollywood. Babbitt states:

In the immediate years before we entered the war, there was a small but fiercely loyal, I suppose legal following of the Nazi party. You could buy a copy of Mein Kampf on any newsstand in Hollywood. Nobody asked me to go to any meetings, but I did, out curiosity. They were open meetings, anybody could attend, and I wanted to see what was going on for myself. On more than one occasion I observed Walt Disney and Gunther Lessing there [Disney’s lawyer], along with other prominent Nazi-afflicted [sic] Hollywood personalities. Disney was going to meetings all the time. I was invited to the homes of several prominent actors and musicians all of whom were actively working for the American Nazi party.[84]

It will take more research to substantiate the claims Babbitt has made. Unfortunately, these quotes are apparently the final interview for Mr. Babbitt, who died shortly after they were published in Marc Elliot’s Walt Disney: Hollywood’s Dark Prince. Among the other explosive allegations in the book, according to Elliot:

In her memoirs German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl claims that after Kristallnacht she approached every studio in Hollywood looking for work. No studio head would even screen her movies except Walt Disney. He told her that he admired her work but if it became known that he was considering hiring her, it would damage his reputation.[85]

Again, more research is needed to hold up these claims. Given the growing contextual evidence on Nazi activism in America, these points are worth considering.

As stated previously, this subject is a challenging avenue for discussion. Despite all of what has been presented here, much of it shocking, it is important to address the prominent Americans who stood up and spoke out against the Nazis. Although there far too many to mention here, people who did emerge during the course of this research were New York’s mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and Pennsylvania’s governor Gifford Pinchot. Both frequently voiced strong criticism of the Nazis, the latter spearheading boycotts on Nazi Germany’s goods.[86] Obviously, the contributions of Treasury secretary Henry Morgenthau’s investigation of American-Nazi collaboration continue to be crucial to this study, and also led to the halt of some these activities. The efforts of Col. Bernstein, who investigated wartime production on the ground in Germany is an equally important figure. Finally, one should appreciate that the U.S. Military machine did help put an end to Nazism.

When considering why those who supported Nazism chose to do so, it is difficult but important to consider that in the highly unstable environment of the Great Depression, investment in Germany made sense for both material and ideological reasons. Gripped with fear of communist uprisings, business leaders gravitated toward authoritarian regimes. Many political leaders also saw Nazi Germany as a bulwark against Soviet Russia. Others believed war was simply good for business. However, there are problems that arise from this mode of thinking: More investigation needs to be done on the transfer of technology, and particularly why some advanced research, such as developments at Ford’s Arendt GmbH, did not make it to the Allied side until after the collapse of the Nazi state. Another issue that arises is the blurry line of legality. Much of the activities described in this paper were within the law in America. Once the Trading with the Enemy Act was put in place and the U.S. was officially at war, many businesses received a special license to continue operations in Germany. This phenomenon also needs more consideration. It is debatable whether or not legality is even an issue in the case of the Holocaust. Although hindsight allows us to know how Hitler’s program turns out, the question of how much those involved knew (or cared) is still problematic.

Many other avenues of research related to this topic are not expanded upon in this paper. For instance, of those corporations that are mentioned here, such as the case of Dehomag and Ford-Werke, many of their facilities were not bombed by the Allies despite being part of the Nazi war machine. Although IBM and the Holocaust and Working with the Enemy give this phenomenon brief treatment, this is a largely unexplored thread that deserves more treatment. Additionally, accusations of American corporate collaboration with the Nazis have also been leveled against General Electric, Chase Bank, National City Bank, Texaco, Eastman Kodak, and Westinghouse, to name a few. Given the limited scope of this project, the choice to deal with the activities of a small number of corporations became necessary. These activities were covered in part due to the large amount of easily obtainable evidence on them. There is still plenty of investigative research needed to define the ultimate dimensions of this topic. As stated earlier, a portion of the evidence presented in this paper has only become available recently, leading to the possibility that much more information may be uncovered in the future. To increase awareness and interest in this topic, it is imperative that this research continues.

Another dynamic linked to this area of study that was purposely not expanded upon in this paper were the efforts made to cover up collaborative activities. The victorious Allies discovered numerous instances where documents were deliberately destroyed or burned in former Nazi-occupied areas. In the U.S., all the corporations discussed in this paper took steps to obscure their involvement. John Loftus, vice-chairman of the Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida and a former American attorney who prosecuted Nazi war criminals provides insight:

This was the mechanism by which Hitler was funded to come to power, this was the mechanism by which the Third Reich’s defence industry was re-armed, this was the mechanism by which Nazi profits were repatriated back to the American owners, this was the mechanism by which investigations into the financial laundering of the Third Reich were blunted.[87]

What is extraordinary about the subject of the U.S./Nazi connection is its lack of treatment in academic circles. The information presented in this paper deserves a footnote in the history books, even if some portions of it are contested. This is vital given the volume of recent writing on the subject. Several history books used within the last several years have not only fail to mention the topic at all, but they also provide information that may be inaccurate given the context of the evidence provided here. For example, in America’s History the text on America and the Holocaust states:

The Roosevelt administration had reliable information about the death camps as early as November 1942. Even if it aggressively sought a means to rescue the inmates, the obstacles of negotiating with Hitler’s regime made it unlikely that many could have been saved once incarcerated.[88]

Many of the sources used in this paper, especially IBM and the Holocaust use an exhaustive amount of examples from U.S. media showing that knowledge of what was happening in Germany dates to well before 1942. One article located in the course of research for this paper is located on the front page of the October 31, 1938 edition of The New York Times providing specific references to the activities at the concentration camps.[89] The other problem with the information provided in this college textbook is its explanation that nothing could have been done to stop the incarcerations. Obviously, the direct involvement of IBM, Ford, GM and the UBC could have been halted. This is precisely why this paper explores the connection between the leaders of these companies and the U.S. government.

An overwhelming amount of movies, documentaries, and literature have been produced on America in World War II. However, the subject of collaboration is still taboo. Often distinct differences are made between profiteering and willful participation. World War II is still portrayed as “The Good War.” Given the millions of copies sold worldwide of People’s History of the United States and IBM and the Holocaust, many Americans are still unaware of the information provided in these texts, especially in relation to America’s direct connection to the Holocaust. Charles Mills, author of The Racial Contract, describes this phenomenon:

One could say then, as a general rule, that white misunderstanding, misrepresentation, evasion, and self-deception on matters related to race are among the most pervasive mental phenomena of the past few hundred years, a cognitive and moral economy psychically required for conquest, colonization, and enslavement.[90]

Again, the importance of disseminating information on Nazi/American collaboration cannot be understated relative to discussion on worldwide racial hegemony.

Major speeches by U.S. politicians suggest this kind of denial is taking place. World War II is consistently portrayed by American leaders as a righteous crusade, bereft of any moral ambiguity. For example, President George W. Bush linked the contentious issue of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to America’s battle against the Nazis in a speech at the World War II memorial in Normandy on May 27, 2002:

Words can only go so far in capturing the grief and sense of loss for the families of those who died in all our wars. For some military families in America and in Europe, the grief is recent, with the losses we have suffered in Afghanistan. They can know, however, that the cause is just and, like other generations, these sacrifices have spared many others from tyranny and sorrow…Here, where we stand today, the new world came back to liberate the old. A bond was formed of shared trial and shared victory. And a light that scattered darkness from these shores and across France would spread to all of Europe — in time, turning enemies into friends, and the pursuits of war into the pursuits of peace. Our security is still bound up together in a transatlantic alliance, with soldiers in many uniforms defending the world from terrorists at this very hour.[91]

This comparison is disingenuous at best and provides a striking example of the lack of candor regarding America’s role in World War II, especially considering the speaker’s own grandfather has been implicated in these collaborative activities.

The Americans who fought and died in World War II are often heralded as the victors over fascism. However, the historical context reveals a collaborative element among the most elite and iconic forces in America with Hitler’s goals. There are at least two distinct reasons for this that should be expanded upon: First the fascist command economy was highly profitable. Corporate and fascist interests were intimately tied. Harnessing a terrified working population and concentration camp prisoners, businesses in the Third Reich were able to keep their labor overhead remarkably low. Second, the United States emerged as one of the two “super powers” fighting for global supremacy during the Cold War. Was support for Nazi aggression, and ultimately, the weakening of Europe key to formulating this dominance? Right after the start of Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi offensive on Russia, then Senator Harry Truman’s statement is instructive: “If we see that Germany is winning, we should help Russia, and if Russia is winning, we should help Germany, so that as many as possible perish on both sides…”[92] A lucid response to U.S. cooperation with the Nazis, perpetrated by businessmen and politicians in the World War II era, is vital to understanding the geopolitical nature of our current situation.

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1. Reinhold Billstein, et al., Working for the Enemy: Ford, General Motors and Forced Labor in Germany During the Second World War, (New York: Berghahn Books, 2000) 1-4. This section is a decent overview of the text, noting in general terms the involvement of these two corporations and the research behind these revelations by the team of historians involved.

2. Ford Motor Company, Research Findings About Ford-Werke Under the Nazi Regime (Dearborn, MI: Ford Motor Company, 2001) Section 2 Historical Background of Ford Motor Company and Ford-Werke, 2. This source is made possible due to the first group of slave labor related lawsuits, starting with Iwanowa vs. Ford, which is still in appeal. Although Ford claims it lost control of its plant, its own report seems to contradict this.

3. Billstein, 110. Billstein picks up where the Ford report leaves off. Relying on Allied military accounts, we are able to set the stage for Ford’s deep involvement with Nazi Germany and its efforts to dominate Europe.

4. Ford, 161. This useful section contains the profit sheets of Ford-Werke from its inception through 1945.

5. Jacques R Pauwels, “Profits uber Alles! American Corporations and Hitler.” Labour/Le Trevail (2003). 18-23.

6. Billstein, 115.

7. Billstein, 115-116. This section is interesting in that the author notes that although Ford wanted to hide its munitions production, it did not obscure its construction of Luftwaffe (Nazi air force) motors or navy craft.

8. Billstein, 117. Much of this information is available due to the efforts of Col. Bernstein, who aggressively investigated Ford’s wartime activities. He was later aided by U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, an instrumental figure in documenting and prosecuting American/Nazi corporate collaboration.

9. Ibid.

10. Charles Higham, Trading with the Enemy: An Expose of the Nazi-American Money Plot

1933-1949, (New York: Delacorte Press, 1983) 157-162. This book focuses on Morgenthau’s research, among others, contained at his diary collection at the Roosevelt Memorial Library in Hyde Park, NY.

11. Billstein, 142-144. It is important to note that this text provides many primary sources of inmate labor at the Ford Plant to give as detailed a picture as possible. These pages are cited to provide a brief overview.

12. Billstein, 21-24. Anita Kugler’s summation of the early history Opel along side that of Nazism is useful for its contextual value.

13. Billstein, 24-25. Here Kugler references the work by Hans Mommsen, another historian crucial to this subject.

14. Billstein, 37. This section contains an interesting story about James Mooney, arguably one of the most powerful people at GM. His memoirs, which are the sole source of information on what GM knew about what was happening at Opel at this point, are our only source as other records are supposedly either lost or destroyed. Mooney visited Russelsheim soon after this contract was awarded, apparently on a “peace mission” and left for Basel, Switzerland a few days later, presumably to meet with members of the Bank of International Settlements (BIS). At the same time Opel reinvested 40 million Reichmarks in its Russelsheim plant. GM has been able to use this lack of knowledge of Opel’s activities at this point as a defense to date.

15. Billstein, 73-74.

16. Billstein, 69-71. The text describes Opel’s records in detail on the racial differentiation of treatment of its slave workers, similar to Ford.

17. Pauwels, 56-58. This text is telling in its portrayal of the behavior of American corporations as they resumed control of their possessions in postwar Germany. In many cases the forces of anti-fascism were ignored in favor of right-wing controlling personalities, including former Nazi management.

18. Higham, 173. This appears to be another reference to Mooney’s memoirs.

19. Billstein, 75. Quote includes a section from GM executive C. R. Osborn’s report on the postwar corporate assets.

20. Higham, 177.

21. Bradford Snell, U.S. Congress Senate Committee on the Judiciary, American Ground Transport, (1974) A-22. This primary source states in no uncertain terms the involvement of GM and Ford in Nazi war production. Documents like this are important because they are explicit and drastically reduce deniability. Later this source will prove more instructive as we explore the level of involvement of Ford and GM executives within the U.S. government itself.

22. Richard Sasuly, IG Farben, (New York: Boni & Gaer Press, 1947) 8. Published in 1947, this book is the first of many scholarly efforts that came after to study this corporation. IG Farben is arguably the most studied Nazi war businesses. Again, it is the efforts of Col. Bernstein that we have to thank for his vigorous investigation into this company as well

23. Peter Hayes, Industry and Ideology, IG Farben in the Nazi era (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) 37-38. The interests involved in this organization are truly dizzying. Behind GM, US Steel, and Standard Oil of New Jersey, IG Farben was the fourth largest corporation in the world.

24. Allyn Lite, “Another Attempt to Heal the Wounds of the Holocaust.” Human Rights: Journal of the Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities 27.2 (2000):12-15. This article is useful in its treatment of post war profit taking on American subsidiaries of IG Farben.

25. Hayes, 362. This chilling chart shows records recovered from IG Farben of increasing orders of Zyklon B, which were explained by Nazis as needed to fight the “growing typhus problem” at places like Aushwitz and elsewhere.

26. Graham D. Taylor & Patricia E. Sudnick, Du Pont and the International Chemical Industry, (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1984) 95-97. This text provides exhaustive detail on the intimate connection between German and American chemical firms at this time.

27. Hayes, 343.

28. Pauwels, 30.

29. Higham, 94.

30. Higham, 99. The author uses this section to emphasize just how essential this equipment was to the Nazi military.

31. Higham, 99-100. This section cites communication between the U.S. State Department legal counsel Yingling and the Assistant Secretary of State Long in 1942.

32. Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance between Nazi Germany and America’s Most Powerful Corporation, (New York: Crown Publishing, 2001) 208. This well sourced documentation of U.S. corporate collaboration with the Nazis provides yet another example of the pattern of deliberate and ruthless implementation of Nazi goals.

33. Black, 7-11. The pages selected are an introduction to the text.

34. Black, 80-88, 111.

35. Black, 7.

36. Black, 247-251. This section contains a transcript between American IBM representative Harrison Chauncey and Nazi leader Karl Hummel reporting on wartime production in all Nazi occupied countries.

37. Black, 448.

38. Black, 405-411. Again, a pattern seems to be exhibited regarding the reintegration of corporate control and rehiring of former Nazi bosses as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

39. Eberhard Kolb, The Weimar Republic. Second Edition, (New York: Routledge, 2005) 60-62.

40. Higham, 5-8. What is not noted in the text is that Norman and Schact were part of the Anglo-German fellowship, an anti-semitic organization that shared much ideology with the Nazi Party. On a separate note, there is a fairly decent video about Nazi influence at the BIS from the UK history channel “Timewatch” series on youtube.com called “Banking with Hitler” http://youtube.com/watch?v=YauM5dHLn1s

41. Higham, 4-5. Once again, Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau’s investigation becomes crucial to uncovering the looting of national treasuries by the Nazis.

42. Higham 2.

43. Pauwels, 43. John Foster Dulles would become the BIS corporate lawyer in New York and represent many international interests of corporations we have already discussed such as Ford, ITT and GM.

44. Ben Aris and Duncan Campbell, “How Bush’s Grandfather Helped Hitler’s Rise to

Power.” Guardian Unlimited September 25, 2004. http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1312540,00.html (accessed October 28 2004). As mentioned above, numerous authors have written about the involvement of the BBH, the UBC and Prescott Bush’s involvement with financial aid to the Nazis. This article is among the more judicious and disciplined examples of this avenue of research, providing a concise overview of the subject and its context. It helps to separate the more outlandish claims from well-sourced material.

45. Ben Aris and Duncan Campbell. According to the Guardian, two Holocaust survivors, Kurt Julius Goldstein and Peter Gingold, brought suit against the U.S. government and the Bush family in 2001 for their role in profiting off Nazi activities, specifically Auschwitz slave labor.

46. Henry A. Turner, “German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler.” The American Historical Review 75.1 (1969): 63-65. Fritz Thyssen’s support of Adolf Hitler has been well known to scholars of the subject. This older article was chosen for this reason.

47. Ben Aris and Duncan Campbell. Another reason this article stands out compared to the overwhelming amount of writing on the Bush/Nazi connection is due to its citation of the Harriman papers at the U.S. Library of Congress.

48. Ben Aris and Duncan Campbell.

49. Ben Aris and Duncan Campbell. This information can be found in the U.S. National Archives under vesting order 248 showing seizure of the UBC’s assets and Prescott Bush as a director. Within weeks, Consolidated Silesian Steel Company (linked to IG Farben and Auschwitz) was also vested. Prescott Bush was also a director of this organization.

50. Mark Pendergrast, For God, Country, and Coca-Cola: The Unauthorized History of the Great American Soft Drink and the Company that Makes It (New York 1993), 221.

51. Mark Pendergrast, 228.

52. Donald S Strong, American Council on Public Affairs. Organized Anti-Semitism in America; The Rise of Group Prejudice During the Decade 1930-1940. (Washington DC: American Council on Public Affairs, 1941) 21. This is another well-sourced document published by the U.S. Congress Committee on Public Affairs in 1941. The opening sentence is well in line with this avenue of research: “This study is an effort to throw some light on the growth of fascism in the United States.”

53. Donald Strong, 21-22.

54. Donald Strong, 24-25.

55. Donald Strong, 26-38. Much of this information is available through an investigation and eventual prosecution of Kuhn, who was accused of embezzling Bund funds. Another important note: though the group claimed to have non-German support, they do point to “silent supporters”, whom later authors, such as Charles Higham and Marc Elliot, have identified as prominent members of society such as Henry Ford, Irenee Dupont, and Walt Disney. The text does concede ample sources of American funding.

56. Higham, 165. Higham also ties this group to widespread anti-union activity. Pauwels also confirms Dupont’s and other industrialists anti-union/anti-simetic actions in Profit uber alles on page 14-16

57. Black, 119.

58. Black, 333.

59. Black, 137. For a description of the fanfare Watson received in Berlin see preceding pages 131-134.

60. Black 213-291. Although the details of this story are too numerous to be included here, the results of Dehomag-IBM struggle ended decisively. The assistance of U.S. Treasury Department should also be noted; IBM received a special license to trade with the Nazis after the Trading with the Enemy Act was instituted.

61. Billstein, 105. This citation points to an article in Fortune magazine naming Ford “Businessman of the Century”. It is difficult to ascertain just how much the modern world has been affected by the mass production Ford revolutionized. The political power the Ford family gained from this position is also a challenge to fully quantify.

62.Victoria S. Woeste, “Insecure Equality: Louis Marshall, Henry Ford, and the Problem of Defamatory Antisemitism, 1920-1929.” The Journal of American History 91.3 (2004): 4-6.

63. Billstein, 103-105.

64. Victoria S. Woeste, 4-6.

65. Higham, 154-160. Much of this section deals with Edsel Ford’s role in top management with IG Farben, Ford-Werke, and General Aniline and Film (another high profile organization prosecuted for war crimes in the U.S.) and his dealings with the U.S. State Department and government officials in Britain, Switzerland and elsewhere to continue operations in Nazi occupied territory.

66. Higham, 97. Also Pauwels, 23.

67. Higham, 166.

68. John Buchanan “’Bush – Nazi Dealings Continued Until 1951’ – Federal Documents.” The New Hampshire Gazette Nov. 2003. 1-2.

69. Ibid.

70. Ben Aris and Duncan Campbell.

71. Norwood, 199.

72. Black, Edwin. War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a

Master Race. (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows 2003) 9-29.

73. War Against the Weak, 46-51.

74. War Against the Weak, 67-69.

75. War Against the Weak, 71-72.

76. War Against the Weak, 274-275. This passage references Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler Vol. I ch. II 29, Vol II ch. III 439-440, and Vol I. Ch. IX 286.

77. Ibid.

78. Stefan Kohl, The Nazi Connection: Eugenics, American Racism, and German National

Socialism (Oxford: Oxford Publishing, 1994)

79. The Human Betterment Foundation, Report to the Board of Directors of the Human

Betterment Foundation, for the Year Ending February 12, 1935. (Pasadena, CA:The Human Betterment Foundation, 1935). Also referenced in War Against the Weak 260-261.

80. Public Broadcasting Service. America and the Holocaust. Public Broadcasting

Corporation. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/holocaust/filmmore/index.html (accessed November 25, 2007)

81. Ibid.

82. Warren, Donald. Radio Priest: Charles Coughlin, The Father of Hate Radio. (New York:

The Free Press/Simon & Schuster 1996) 1-2, 115. 129-160.

83. William Manchester, “The Glory And The Dream,” (New York: Bantam Books 1974) 176.

84. Marc Eliot, Walt Disney: Hollywood’s Dark Prince: A Biography. (Secaucus NJ: Carol

Publishing Group, 1993) 120-121.

85. Eliot 121.

86. Stephen H. Norwood “Legitimating Nazism: Harvard University and the Hitler Regime,

1933-1937” American Jewish History 92, no. 2(June 2004): 193.

87 Ben Aris and Duncan Campbell. John Loftus has also authored his own book on the subject of Nazi/American collaboration.

88. Henretta, James A. et al., America’s History. Fifth Edition. Boston: Bedford-St. Martin’s 2004. 770-771.

89. Wireless to the New York Times, “Ousted Jews find Refuge in Poland after Borders Stay,” New York Times, October 31, 1938. A-1.This article is located right next to the story on Orson Wells’ radio program “The War the Worlds” causing hysteria and revealed as a hoax. Though this may be trivial, it is notable for how much attention that particular edition may have received.

90. Charles W Mills, The Racial Contract, (Ithaca: Cornell University, 1997) 19.

91. Bush, George W., Remarks by the President in Memorial Day Commemoration. May 27,

2002. This transcript is available on the web at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/05/20020527-1.html

92. Ralph B. Levering, American Opinion and the Russian Alliance, 1939–1945 (Chapel Hill, NC 1976), 46-47. Truman spoke these words on June 24, 1941.

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