Cars & Nazis article

Hitler’s biggest allies in World War II were Ford, General Motors & a special report by Clive Matthew-Wilson

All content © The Dog & Lemon Guide 2010. All rights reserved N 1937, William E. Dodd, U.S. a tiny bunch of nutters raving on Mu- Ambassador to Germany, sent an nich street corners, Ford is believed to I urgent warning to the American have provided considerable amounts of government: finance to the fledgling party, enabling the Nazis to gain their stronghold on “A clique of U.S. industrialists is Germany. It is notable that even after hell-bent to bring a fascist state to sup- “A clique of U.S. the horrors of the Nazi era were exposed plant our democratic government and is following World War II, Ford never working closely with the fascist regimes industrialists denied financing Hitler. in Germany and Italy. ”1 is hell-bent By the mid-1930s General Motors Ford, General Motors and Standard to bring a was totally committed to large-scale Oil weren’t just the world’s leading auto- fascist state to war production in Germany, produc- motive suppliers, they were among the supplant our ing trucks, tanks & armoured cars. Its largest and wealthiest corporations on German subsidiary Adam-Opel manu- the planet. Greedy, ruthless and drunk democratic factured a host of effective military with Nazi ideology, they decided to help government equipment for the German military end democracy, first in Europe, then in throughout the war. And, while the America. and is working American Air Force used conventional closely with the piston engines, the German Air Force While their own country was at war fascist regimes was close to getting the world’s first with Germany, Ford, General Motors jet fighters, thanks almost entirely to and Standard Oil kept or expanded in Germany General Motors. 3 their ties with the Nazis. Thus, when and Italy. ” the Allied troops successfully invaded The earth is flat France near the end of World War II, How did this happen in America, a they discovered that they had something William E. country which prides itself on being a in common with their German enemies: Dodd, freedom-loving democracy? Well, the Ford and General Motors vehicles run- obvious answer is money, but money ning on gasoline provided by Standard U.S. alone does not explain what happened. Oil. 2 Ambassador For that you have to look back in American history. Ford, GM and Standard Oil weren’t to Germany, the only ones, of course. All in all, 1937 At the time when Standard Oil was around 200 prominent US corporations giving corporations a bad name back in helped the Nazis before and during the late nineteenth century, the average World War II, but you don’t have to American lived in a small town domi- dig very deep to see that the automotive nated by puritanical values. He or she industry was the axle around which the might not travel further than a few kilo- wheel of American fascism turned. The metres from his or her home in an entire Third Reich would have had financiers lifetime. Few voting Americans knew without the help of America, but it was anything at all about other countries, Ford, General Motors, Standard Oil, and tourists were rare. The Victorian Davis Oil & a few other key corpora- era was still in full swing. White people tions which made the German military controlled China and much of the rest conquest both economically and techni- of the planet; India & many African cally possible. countries were British colonies. Non- white people were widely considered Adolf Hitler kept a photo of Henry to be savages. Women were expected to Ford on his desk; Henry Ford built Hit- politely obey their husbands and could ler’s trucks and pushed Nazi propaganda not vote. Hollywood, California was through his car dealerships. At a time famous only for its fruit orchards. when the German Nazi party was still

All content © The Dog & Lemon Guide 2010. All rights reserved America was united in name only. genes were the reason for their wealth In the days before the Model T, America & power, then it stood to reason that had mostly dirt roads and consisted inferior genes must be the cause of of thousands of small towns, which poverty. Because the rich were rich as operated more or less autonomously. a result of superior genes, then it was There were no radios or movie theatres. foolish to try and help the poor, because Newspapers tended to cover an area of a the poor obviously arose from inferior few square miles. The average American genetic stock, otherwise they wouldn’t today knows far more about the moon when the be poor. And, of course, the rich and than the average American then knew powerful, being from superior genetic about Africa or China. At the turn of Allied troops stock, had not only a right but an ob- the twentieth century it took a year for successfully ligation to rule over the poor and keep the American army base in Alaska to the rabble from disrupting the natural ask its Washington office a question: six invaded order of things. months for a ship to sail from Alaska, France near and six months to sail back with the the end of In his 1911 textbook, Principles of reply. Alaska was not reachable by road Economics, Harvard Professor Frank W. until World War II. World War Taussig noted: II, they “More and more thought has been In an atmosphere like this, the pre- given of late years to the strange contrast vailing mindset for both rich and poor discovered between our care in breeding animals was almost medieval in its simplicity: that they had and our carelessness in breeding men. . . The world outside had no real shape or something in . Certain types of criminals and paupers form and was often intensely threaten- breed only their kind, and society has a ing because it was unknown. The Victo- common with right and a duty to protect its members rians worshipped control, and American their German from the repeated burden of maintain- Victorians had no control of the world ing and guarding such parasites.” outside their town. Other races might as enemies: well have come from a different planet. Ford and When you strip away the scientific The mental world of the Victorians was General presentation, you get back to the basic flat, and anyone who strayed too close bigotry behind all ethnic cleansing: to the edge was presumed to simply fall Motors the tribal leader believes that only he off into darkness. vehicles and his genetic group are holy, noble and righteous, and that therefore the Keeping things all white ‘lesser’ races are a threat and must be As American industry grew mas- exterminated. This bigotry is all the sively during the early twentieth cen- more shameful when it is presented as tury, its leaders, almost all of them white science. In this case, the science was Protestants, developed a simple, almost called Eugenics. childlike philosophy: “We are white, hard-working, virtuous, Christian men The term Eugenics was first coined and we have grown rich and powerful. in 1883 by Charles Darwin’s cousin, Therefore, if you are not rich and pow- English mathematician Sir Francis erful, it is because you are not white, Galton and literally means ‘good breed- hard-working, virtuous & Christian.” ing’ or ‘well-born’. Eugenics was well received by the wealthy in England, but These businessmen were enthusias- it made its biggest impact in America in tic followers of the quaint nineteenth the early twentieth century. century theories of social & economic Darwinism – the belief that the rich America’s rapid economic growth and powerful were genetically superior had attracted hoards of non-white peo- to the common man. It was a very ple from around the globe, eager to take convenient doctrine to hold; if superior part in the American Dream. While the

All content © The Dog & Lemon Guide 2010. All rights reserved American Dream was open to all com- criminals, those afflicted with inherit- ers, the American Reality was firmly in able diseases, and others found bio- the hands of a small group of rich white logically unfit should be sterilised or in businessmen who viewed their success cases of doubt be isolated as to prevent as proof that rich white people were the perpetuation of their afflictions by genetically superior. Thus, the cream breeding.” of the American business community – including du Pont, Rockefeller, Hen- “We do not want word to get out ry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, JP Morgan, that we want to exterminate the Negro Andrew Mellon, Averell Harriman & population.” Prescott Bush (president George Bush’s grandfather) – all viewed the presence With corporate America picking up of Chinese, Jews, Italians, American “That’s where the tab, over half the American States Indians and Negroes as an alarming the Bush family passed eugenics laws, which allowed for dilution of the white gene pool. fortune came the forced sterilisation of the mentally ill and incapable. In practice this usu- The rich white businessmen weren’t from: It came ally meant poor whites, latinos, blacks about to take this ‘invasion’ lying down; from the Third & native Americans, all of whom were they financed two groups that were sterilised in the name of racial purity, to have a profound influence in both Reich” and often on the flimsiest of grounds. America and Germany: the Population Association of America, and the Pioneer Pioneer Fund’s first president, Harry Fund, founded in 1937 by General W. Laughlin, “wanted the lowest 10 percent Draper. Draper himself drew upon the of Americans sterilized to ‘eradicate in- work and words of the founder of the ferior people’”. Over 75,000 Americans planned parenthood movement, Mar- were sterilized against their will between garet Sanger, who believed that through 1924 and 1972. The legality of the com- birth control she could “create a race of pulsory sterilisations was upheld by the thoroughbreds”. US Supreme Court in 1927. The 1927 decision has never been overturned, and Does that sound familiar? Here are is still a part of US law. a few choice quotes:4 Most of the ‘inferior’ people steri- “The marriage bed is the most deni- lised in America in the name of racial grating influence of social order” purity were in fact simply the unedu- cated poor. A tv crew that went back “Free maternity care to the poor decades later and interviewed the off- will encourage the healthier and more spring of couples where sterilisations normal sections of the world to shoulder were unsuccessful showed that the the burden of unthink- offspring appeared to have as ing and indiscriminate good or better intelligence as fecundity of others...a dead anyone else. weight of human waste” The Population Associa- “...maternity facilities tion of America and the Pio- for slum mothers are in- neer Fund had a much larger jurious to the community part to play in world history, and the race. Charity will however: Hitler proudly and only prolong the misery of publicly based his own racial the unfit”. laws on the U.S. model. After meeting with Hitler, Lothrop “Feeble-minded per- Stoddard, a board member of sons, habitual congenital

All content © The Dog & Lemon Guide 2010. All rights reserved Margaret Sanger’s Population Associa- towards them. After all, General Motors tion of America, wrote a book called and Chrysler also wanted to take over The Rising Tide of Colour Against White Ford’s huge industrial empire, yet he World Supremacy. It was well reviewed never spent his life raving about them. in the Association’s magazine Birth Control Review. You only hate in other people what you see in yourself. The bottom line Jews, blacks and communists is that Ford was a psychotic, and like For the rich & white, the struggle most psychotics he couldn’t see that the for racial purity was inextricably tied up while real demons were inside his own mind. with the struggle for free enterprise. As Hitler’s In his madness, however, Ford was far as they were concerned, communists, thugs were not alone. As well as their prejudices Jews and non-white races all sprang against non-white races, the members from the same inferior source. smashing of Henry Ford’s all-white corporate club Jewish were especially paranoid about trade When we talk today of the United unionists. Henry Ford saw trade union Nations or racial equality, we may have windows in organisation as just another example of our grumbles, but most people accept Germany, Jewish conspiracy; at least the basic notion. Many modern Henry American corporations have some kind “Unions are organised by Jewish of profit-sharing arrangement with their Ford was financiers, not labour. A union is a neat staff. Even the most rabid conservative requiring his thing for a Jew to have on hand when accepts the need for laws governing the he comes around to get his clutches on use of resources and basic human rights. car dealers industry.”5 However, if you had proposed those to stock concepts at the beginning of the twen- anti-Jewish, As far as Ford was concerned: “The tieth century you would have probably Jews are the conscious enemies of all been labelled a radical socialist, and later pro-Nazi that the Anglo Saxons mean by civi- on, a communist. To the conservatives propaganda lisation”. Ford’s biography: The Fords: who grew up in nineteenth century an American Epic describes how Ford America, socialism and communism protected his plant from the taint of were not so much rival political and ‘Jewish conspiracy’: economic systems as some kind of deadly plague that could probably be “Henry’s reaction to the labour caught off toilet seats. movement was to make [the factory complex] into an industrial concen- If we take Henry Ford as the typical tration camp overseen by [an] army self-made tycoon of the early twentieth of Service Department men. They century, the question remains: why was followed workers into washrooms to he so obsessed with Jews and commu- make sure they didn’t talk about union nism? Henry Ford never had any trouble matters; they demanded that someone getting finance for his ventures, and his walking from one place to another tell backers were primarily white Anglo- them where he was going and why. Saxon Protestants; he was never turned While workers were at their benches down for a loan by a Jewish banker, he their lunch pails and overcoats were was never outwitted by some clever Jew- ransacked for union literature... There ish businessmen. The same applies to was no sitting, squatting, singing, talk- communists; even during the worst of ing or whistling on the job. Smiling was the Great Depression, communism was frowned upon... Anyone even suspected never a serious threat in America. Nor of being a [union] sympathiser was not does the obvious fact that communists only summarily fired but usually beaten wanted to take over Ford’s huge indus- up as well.” trial empire explain his utter paranoia

All content © The Dog & Lemon Guide 2010. All rights reserved During the 1930s, while Hitler’s plying poison gases to the Auschwitz thugs were smashing Jewish windows death camp. Through I.G. Farben and in Germany, Henry Ford’s car dealers General Motors’ German subsidiary were forced to distribute anti-Jewish, pro-Nazi propaganda. Ford and his Adam-Opel, the du Ponts developed a colleagues were admired by the Nazis close, incestuous relationship with the because they ruled their industrial em- German Nazi party. Naturally, General pires with an iron hand. The admiration Rockefeller’s Motors was given the contracts to build was mutual. 7 basic technique much of the Nazi war equipment. Snake-oil science was to move While Adam-Opel was actively sup- Irénée du Pont was a prominent into a new area member of the extraordinarily wealthy porting the rise of fascism in Germany, du Pont family, which owned General and flood the General Motors was actively supporting Motors. Like Henry Ford, Irénée had a local market the rise of fascism in America. From the childlike enthusiasm for snake-oil social with cheap early 1930s, the du Ponts and General science and a complete lack of contact oil until his Motors bosses heavily financed several with planet Earth. Despite being partly pro-big business, anti-Jewish groups. competitors Among them was The Black Legion, Jewish himself, he quickly picked up on went broke, Nazi theory and became and enthusias- a semi-secret group which was named tic supporter of Hitler. then he would after the black hoods worn by its mem- quickly raise bers. Described in an FBI report as “a In 1926, Irénée gave a speech to the the price to the secret organisation national in scope American Chemical Society in which highest that the and military in nature”, the Legion’s he proposed that a race of supermen be oath of allegiance proclaimed: “We market would regard as enemies to ourselves and created by picking prime youths during stand childhood and giving them enhanced our country all aliens, Negroes, Jews characters by injecting them with spe- and cults and creeds believing in racial cial drugs. These Aryan youths would equality or owing allegiance to any then grow to rule a brave new world, foreign potentates. These we will fight free from the taint of black skin and without fear or favour as long as one foe 8 Jewish blood.6 of American liberty is left alive.”

Henry Ford & Irénée du Pont were Orginally founded in the 1920s as both nutters, but they were also indus- the Black Guards, the organisation be- trial leaders in a culture which gave gan as the paramilitary wing of the Ohio industrial leaders an almost god-like Ku Klux Klan. Run like an army, the status. Like Henry Ford, Irénée used his Legion conducted a secret war of terror car company as a vehicle for the New against enemies of the Klan. However, World Order. with the backing of the du Ponts, the organisation grew to become a pri- Thus, General Motors became a vate army for General Motors. Many substantial investor in the world’s larg- Michigan Black Legionnaires were also est chemical corporation I.G. Farben, members of the shadowy ‘Dawn Patrol’, which later became famous for sup- a private security force that guarded 9 John D. Rockefeller Detroit auto plants.

All content © The Dog & Lemon Guide 2010. All rights reserved In 1890 the Sherman Antitrust Act General Motors’ foremen were was passed to end anti-competitive mo- encouraged to join the Black Legion, nopolies such as Standard Oil. However, Rockefeller was a slippery customer and and as a result any attempt at union it was not until 1911 that the US Su- organisation within General Motors’ preme Court ordered the Standard Oil plants was often met with extreme vio- Many of the Company (New Jersey) to dismantle 33 of its most important affiliates, giving lence. In all, over 50 deaths were linked ‘inferior’ people to the Legion. 10 the stocks to its own shareholders and sterilised in not to a new trust. Thus, Exxon, Mobil, Chevron, American & Esso became The Legion was seriously weakened America in the separate corporations. However, by this after the 1936 killing of union organiser name of racial time, Rockefeller was one of the rich- Charles Poole. Poole’s murder received purity were in est men in the world, and his dynasty continues to this day. nationwide publicity and the subse- fact simply the quent investigation saw eleven Legion- uneducated Standard Oil’s chairman Walter C. naires sentenced to life imprisonment Teagle was great friends with Hermann for murder and another 37 imprisoned poor. A tv crew Schmitz of I.G. Farben. Both were also for other offences. Significantly, the that went back close friends with Sir Henri Deterding Legion’s financial backers were never decades later of Royal Dutch-Shell. All were active supporters of the German Nazis. Teagle revealed. and interviewed was also a director of the American wing the offspring of of the giant German chemical firm I.G. An oily customer Farben, a position he shared with Henry Like Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller couples where Ford’s son Edsel Ford. Both Standard was a small town, small-minded puri- sterilisations Oil and I.G. Farben heaviliy invested tan. After starting his working life as an in each other.11 accountant, he discovered he had a flair were unsuccessful for oil exploration and refining. By a showed that Standard Oil’s role in fuelling the mixture of luck and good management the offspring Nazi War machine was considerable. he soon gained a healthy share of the Standard Oil in New Jersey owned a local market. appeared to have healthy 94% of Standard Oil’s German as good or better subsidiary, Deutsche-Amerikanische Pe- However, Rockefeller wanted noth- intelligence as troleum A.G. Its board of directors read ing less than complete control of Amer- like a who’s who of the Third Reich. ica’s oil industry. His basic technique anyone else. was to move into a new area and flood However, Germany, with its heavy the local market with cheap oil until reliance on imported fossil fuels, was his competitors went broke, then he extremely vulnerable in the event of would quickly raise the price to the war, because it would be relatively easy highest that the market would stand. for enemies to disrupt the flow of In this manner his company, Standard oil from other countries. The Ger- Oil, moved across America until he man solution was to manufacture controlled 90% of its oil production. synthetic gasoline from Germany’s When Rockefeller encountered an vast coal resources. This proved opponent with the resources to fight technically difficult, until Standard a prolonged price war he simply Oil came to the rescue. switched tactics and was known to resort to sabotage of his competitors’ The U.S. Embassy in Berlin was pipelines or equipment. He also also under no illusions as to what bribed both judges and politicians. the fuel would be used for. In 1933

All content © The Dog & Lemon Guide 2010. All rights reserved the commercial attaché informed his 3) Big business does not need govern- government that: “In two years Ger- ment regulation. Indeed, any form of many will be manufacturing oil and government regulation is unnatural and gas enough out of soft coal for a long will inevitably lead to inefficiency; specifi- war. The Standard Oil of New York is cally, regulation of big business is a form furnishing millions of dollars to help.” of communism which must be fought at American G.M. all costs. As Germany’s war preparations be- 4) Business is above politics – regard- gan, I.G. Farben, a company with exten- vice-president less of the party currently in power, busi- sive cross-investments in both Standard Graeme K. ness must continue as usual. Oil and General Motors, acquired the crucial synthetic fuel technology which Howard (later This last principle was quickly made the early German invasions of colonel Graeme abandoned if the government of the day Europe possible. Nazi armaments chief K. Howard) was sought to regulate business activities, Albert Speer was quoted in 1977 as in which case the corporations would saying that without this synthetic fuel a committed heavily support whichever political technology, Hitler “would never have Nazi whose book movement had the loudest free enter- considered invading Poland”. 12 prise policy; by curious coincidence this America and the was usually the local fascists. In 1941, with the world at war, New World Order American Undersecretary of State read like a P.R. The end of the illusion Summer Welles presented a detailed Despite the increasing difficul- report revealing that Standard Oil of handout for the ties for the common man, the overall New Jersey and California were the Third Reich. growth of the American economy in chief suppliers of fuel to Nazi vessels in the early twentieth century was taken South & Central America.13 At the time as living proof of the superiority of the Nelson Rockefeller (John D. Rockefel- unregulated free enterprise system. ler’s grandson and former officer of the Venezuelan subsidiary of Standard Herbert Hoover, the Republican Oil) was the head of the Office of the Presidential nominee in 1928, said: “We Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, in America today are nearer to the final an agency charged with halting the Nazi triumph over poverty than ever before influence in South America.14 in the history of any land.”

This treason by Standard Oil was Reality has an annoying habit of also repeated in many other countries testing economic theory. Six months lat- throughout the war. Standard Oil er, the stock market suddenly crashed, subsidiaries around the world were also plunging America into the Great distributing Nazi propaganda. 15 Depression. With his good Protestant sense of the value of hard work and in- The Golden Rules dividual enterprise, Hoover (who took In the early twentieth century, much of the blame for the policies of his American corporations had four unwrit- advisors) announced that while people ten rules which overrode all others: must not suffer from hunger and cold, caring for them must be primarily a 1) Businesses exist to make money, local and voluntary responsibility. The not friends. government would not prop up ailing 2) Globalization is a desirable and in- banks and the unemployed should look evitable expansion of commerce. Ties with to their friends, family and local com- existing businesses in foreign countries are munities for help. a simple and effective means to achieving this globalization. Writing in retrospect, Hoover spoke bitterly of: “The ‘leave-it-alone liqui-

All content © The Dog & Lemon Guide 2010. All rights reserved dationists’ headed by Secretary of the communism, they said. Blacks, Jews, Treasury Mellon [who was at that point trade unionists & the illiterate poor one of the wealthiest men in America Ford & his car all needed rigid state controls, but the and who] felt that government must virtuous, hard-working, Christian men keep its hands off and let the slump liq- industry friends like Henry Ford and John D. Rockefel- uidate itself. Mr. Mellon had only one saw their role as ler were so clearly superior to the com- formula: ‘Liquidate labour, liquidate mon man that it would be unthinkable stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate making money, for elected governments to regulate their real estate’. [Mellon ] held that even not taking sides. activities. panic was not altogether a bad thing. If the Germans He said: ‘It will purge the rottenness There was also a strong element of out of the system. High costs of living wanted Ford self-interest. The previous government and high living will come down. People trucks and SKF had slashed income tax in an effort to will work harder, live a more moral life. boost the economy. The opponents of Values will be adjusted, and enterprising ball bearings, the New Deal didn’t want to pay extra people will pick up the wrecks from less then why should taxes to provide relief for a bunch of lazy 16 competent people’”. they lose the sale? Jews, niggers & sharecroppers. Banks went bust, and with each One side was What do you do when you’re rich, bankrupt bank, panicking depositors going to win, and white, full of a self-righteous sense of rushed to withdraw their deposits from your own importance and angry at the the remaining banks, which meant if they helped both president? Why, you overthrow the that the other banks had no more sides, then they government, of course. In 1934, the money to pay out, and so went broke, really couldn’t Morgan Bank assembled an incestuous so depositors rushed to withdraw their cabal of industrial giants who also just deposits from the remaining banks, lose. It wasn’t happened to be among the nation’s and so on. The reason this lunacy was very patriotic, but largest automotive suppliers – General allowed to continue was because big Motors, Bethlehem Steel, Goodyear business feared government regulation it made a lot of Tyre Co, backed by Du Pont & others more than it feared recession. By 1933, money – to arrange a coup d’etat. The coup 11,000 of the United States’ 25,000 would end democratic rule and replace banks had failed. it with a business-friendly fascist gov- ernment. $3 million – a large fortune To quote from J. Bradford DeLong: in those days – was raised and organisers “At its nadir, the Depression was collec- despatched across the nation.17 tive insanity. Workers were idle because firms would not hire them to work their The plot failed mainly because machines; firms would not hire work- the conspirators were appallingly bad ers to work machines because they saw judges of character. They chose as their no market for goods; and there was no prospective coup leader war veteran Sm- market for goods because workers had edley Darlington Butler. The plotters no incomes to spend.” knew that Butler, who had faced gunfire 120 times, was the undisputed hero of Election day came and the Ameri- everyone in the armed forces and could can people threw Hoover out on his rally the gullible, the unemployed and ear. President Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’ the paranoid into a cohesive fighting gave some relief to the unemployed and force. Butler had other credentials, very slowly kick-started the American too. His role in the U.S. Marines led economy. You’d think that the corpo- him to be a de facto trouble-shooter rates would have been grateful, but for U.S. economic interests overseas. they were outraged. State-funded work He gained two Congressional medals schemes were little short of outright for his bravery.

All content © The Dog & Lemon Guide 2010. All rights reserved The trouble was, Butler had a con- MacGuire, Butler would become the science. On August 21, 1931, Butler Along with American equivalent of Hitler. Millions stunned the audience at an American of dollars were offered, with more in Legion convention with a speech that friends of the the pipeline. That goddamned commie few papers dared report even in part: Morgan Bank and Roosevelt would be deposed and an all-white corporate team, under Butler, “War is a racket. Our stake General Motors, would rule America. Arms and muni- in that racket has never been greater certain Du Pont tions would be supplied by Remington, in all our peacetime history. It may backers financed a du Pont subsidiary. seem odd for me, a military man, to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness a coup d’etat that Butler pretended interest, but he compels me to. I spent 33 years and 4 would overthrow was quietly horrified. He was, after all, months in active service as a member a loyal and patriotic American. He rang of our country’s most agile military the President the White House and blew the whistle force – the Marine Corps.... I spent 33 with the aid of to Roosevelt. years...being a high-class muscle man a $3 million- for Big Business, for Wall Street and Secret executive hearings of the U.S. the bankers. funded army government Commitee for Un-Ameri- I helped purify Nicaragua for of terrorists, can Activites opened on November the international banking house of 20th, 1934.18 Sworn testimony revealed Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I helped modelled on the incestuous cabal behind the plot. make Mexico and especially Tampico the fascist Some people named as plotters laughed, safe for American oil interests in 1916. movement in all denied everything, but the plot fiz- I brought light to the Dominican Re- zled in the light of public scrutiny. public for American sugar interests in Paris. Roosevelt 1916. I helped make Haiti and Cuba would be deposed It’s worth noting that if the plotters a decent place for the National City had been communists, seeking to over- [Bank] boys to collect revenue in. I and an all-white throw the US government by force, they helped in the rape of half a dozen Cen- corporate team, might deservedly have been hanged. tral American republics for the benefit under Butler, What happened to the plotters? Basical- of Wall Street.... ly, nothing. The hearings were regarded In China in 1927 I helped see would rule as something of a joke by the news to it that Standard Oil went its way America media, who were more than willing to unmolested....I had...a swell racket. I believe MacGuire when he said that the was rewarded with honours, medals, aging Butler had “misunderstood” his promotions....I might have given [no- intentions. However, when the House torious Chicago mobster] Al Capone a committee finally published its report, few hints. The best he could do was to the document concluded that: “with operate a racket in three cities. The Ma- the exception of the direct statement rines operated on three continents...” suggesting creation of the organization”, it “was able to verify all the pertinent Apparently unaware, or uncaring statements by General Butler.” of Butler’s current attack of conscience, the plotters asked him to organise an The showdown approaches army of 500,000 soldiers to be called As the world moved towards in- the American Liberty League, modelled evitable war, many Americans wanted after the French veterans’ group, the to stay out of the impending conflict. Croix de Feu. There were three main reasons for this: one was that America tended towards The plotters employed lawyer an isolationist foreign policy. In other Gerald MacGuire to put the proposal words, what happened overseas was to Butler. Under the deal offered by of no concern to America unless it Smedley Darlington Butler

All content © The Dog & Lemon Guide 2010. All rights reserved threatened American interests. Two fact controlled from Nazi Germany was the fresh memory of the masses of throughout the war, and returned most young American troops needlessly killed of its profits to the Third Reich. 20 in World War I. The third was that Standard Oil, General Motors, Ford & It is difficult to believe that the friends spent a great deal of public rela- activities of Ford and General Motors’ tions money keeping America ‘neutral’, German factories were unknown and meaning that Nazi Germany should be Henry Ford unregulated by their American owners, left to take over Europe without Ameri- although both companies have since can intervention. appointed a claimed their innocence. number of key Standard Oil’s top spin doctor, Hard evidence shows that the Ger- Ivy Lee, was given the task of selling Nazis to run Ford man and American industrial combines fascism to the American masses. One in Germany, and were joined by a vast web of investment, half of his job was to feed the German was given special ideology and international trading Nazis with top level information about networks. However, whereas Ford and American reaction to such things as the treatment by the General Motors’ American workers German armament programme. The Germans earned cash each week, many German other was to feed anti-Jewish, pro-Nazi workers were rewarded each week with propaganda to the American public.19 the gift of life. They were slaves, shipped After the Japs bombed Pearl Harbour, in at gunpoint from the neighbouring however, American sentiment swung countries and forced to work under overwhelmingly against both Japan and threat of death. 21 her German ally. Was American Ford innocent? The Business as usual evidence suggests exactly the opposite: Politics aside, Ford & friends saw Henry Ford appointed a number of key their wartime role as making money, Nazis to run Ford in Germany, and was not taking sides. If the Germans wanted given special treatment by the Germans. Ford trucks and SKF ball bearings, then Ford Germany director Carl Krauch why should they lose the sale? One side testified in 1946 that: was going to win, and if they helped “I myself knew Henry Ford and both sides, then they really couldn’t admired him. I went to see [Hitler’s lose. It wasn’t very patriotic, but it made right hand man Hermann] Göring per- a lot of dough. Plus it was a splendid sonally about that...and I told Göring opportunity to help the expansion that if we took the Ford independence of Germany and thus create a single, away from them in Germany, it would business-friendly government that aggrieve friendly relations with Ameri- would control most of the world and can industry in the future...Thus we which would doubtless welcome them succeeded in keeping the Ford works with open arms. working and operating independently of our government’s seizure.” One bank greased the wheels of international commerce: The Bank for After meeting with top Nazi official International Settlements. Founded in Gerhardt Westrick in 1940, Henry 1930 as an international clearing house Ford refused to build Rolls-Royce for the world’s great banks, the organisa- aircraft engines for England. However, tion was conceived by Hjalmar Horace he had no problems supplying similar Greeley Schacht, the Nazi Minister of products to the Germans. In 1940 the Economics and president of the Ger- giant French Ford factory began mak- man Reichsbank. Despite the bank’s ing aircraft engines which were used to public position of neutrality, it was in bomb England, together with trucks for

All content © The Dog & Lemon Guide 2010. All rights reserved the German army. The plant was run American G.M. vice-president by Carl Krauch and Hermann Schmitz Graeme K. Howard (later colonel in conjunction with Henry’s son Edsel Graeme K. Howard) was a committed Ford in the U.S.22 Nazi whose book America and the New World Order read like a P.R. handout After the bombing of the American for the Third Reich. Hitler awarded bases at Pearl Harbour, the arrangement G.M. boss James D. Mooney with the became a little trickier, so with the ap- Order of Merit of the Golden Eagle for proval of both the U.S. State Depart- his services to Nazi Germany. ment and the Nazis, a courier travelled it was Ford, back and forth from the French plant General Motors’ internal docu- with communications to & from the General ments show a clear strategy to profit Ford head office in Dearborn Michi- Motors, from their German military contracts gan. Standard Oil, even after the outbreak of war between America and Germany. Defending the When the RAF reduced the French Davis Oil, German investment strategy as “highly factory to rubble, Ford Motor Co was ITT & SKF profitable”, G.M.’s Alfred P. Sloan paid compensation by a grateful Ger- told shareholders in 1939 that G.M.’s man government. Ford simply took and others continued industrial production for the machinery out of the bombed which made the Nazi government was merely sound factory and continued production in the German business practice. a number of secret locations around France. Meanwhile Ford had set up conquest In a letter to a concerned share- a German-financed plant in French- technically holder, Sloan said that the manner in controlled Algiers making trucks and which the Nazi government ran Ger- armoured cars for Rommel’s African possible many “should not be considered the invasion force. business of the management of General Motors...We must conduct ourselves as Ford and his agents around Europe a German organization. . . We have no also provided an excellent level of right to shut down the plant.” 25 customer service to the Nazis, servic- ing and repairing tens of thousands of After 20 years of researching Gen- trucks for the German army, with the eral Motors, Bradford Snell stated full knowledge and authorisation of the that: “General Motors was far more American head office.23 important to the Nazi war machine than Switzerland ... Switzerland was What’s good for General Motors just a repository of looted funds. GM is good for America was an integral part of the German war Like the Ford Motor Co, General effort. The Nazis could have invaded Motors has since claimed that its Ger- Poland and Russia without Switzerland. man operations were outside its control They could not have done so without during World War II. About the kind- GM.”26 est thing that can be said about G.M.’s claim is that it appears to be flatly So how were these corporations contradicted by almost all available able to get away with it? The bottom evidence. General Motors was not just line is: the government was scared of a car company that happened to have big business, and the American news factories in Germany; G.M manage- media was largely incapable of seeing ment from the top down had extensive threats to the American way of life un- Nazi connections, both on a business less they originated from communists and personal level.24 or trade unions.

All content © The Dog & Lemon Guide 2010. All rights reserved Where the news media actually did fact was that the majority of ordinary its job, the government was sometimes people in America and the rest of the forced to take action. For example, world hated the Nazis and everything in July of 1942 the New York Herald they stood for. Millions of troops from Tribune ran a headline reading: “Hitler’s America, England, Australia, New Zea- Angel Has 3 Million in US Bank,” The land, Canada and other nations across story told how Hitler’s financier had the globe made enormous sacrifices to stashed money away for safekeeping in defeat the Third Reich. America. The US Government seized the assets of the bank after the story The bottom line But even as the businesses in the was run. Third Reich were crumbling, new op- is this: World portunities for international commerce Prescott Bush, president George W. War II could were opening up. In 1944, while the Bush’s grandfather, was one of seven have occurred war was still raging, the Bank for In- directors of that bank. Prescott Bush ternational Settlements assembled in suddenly developed a born-again zeal without Hitler, Basle, Switzerland for an annual meet- for very public anti-Nazi activities, but it couldn’t ing. Representatives from America, and travelled America raising money Japan, Germany, Italy and Great Britain to boost the morale of troops. Thus he have occurred met in friendship to discuss the distri- emerged from World War II with his without Ford, bution of the spoils of war. reputation largely intact.27 General Motors The meeting was chaired by an However, according to John Lof- and Standard American, Thomas Harrington McKit- tus, a former prosecutor in the Justice Oil trick, and high on the agenda was $378 Department’s Nazi War Crimes Unit, million in gold held by the bank on leading Nazi industrialists secretly behalf of the German Nazi government, owned the bank at that time, and were much of it looted from Germany’s na- moving money into it through a second tional bank, the Reichsbank, or from bank in Holland even after the United the teeth, spectacle frames and jewellery States declared war on Germany. U.S. of the millions of Jews who died in the Government investigators concluded Nazi concentration camps. The $378 that: “huge sections of Prescott Bush’s million ended up in the Swiss National empire had been operated on behalf of Bank, with the paperwork stating that Nazi Germany and had greatly assisted it was payments to the American Red the German war effort.” Cross and the German legations in Switzerland. The bank was liquidated in 1951, Loftus said, and Bush’s grandfather and After heavy pressure from the U.S. great-grandfather received $1.5 million Treasury, the Bank of International from the bank as part of that dissolu- Settlements handed over $4 million, a tion. $1.5 million was a lot of money shortfall of $374 million. For his ster- in an age when a brand new Plymouth ling efforts in protecting international V8 business coupé cost around $1500. banking from the meddling hand of “That’s where the Bush family fortune government, McKittrick was appointed came from”, Loftus said, “it came from vice-president of the Rockefeller- the Third Reich.”28* controlled Chase National Bank in New York. 29 One door shuts, another opens So how come Germany lost the In from the cold war? The bottom line is, however In 1946, George F. Kennan, who much support Ford, du Pont and their was attached to the American Embassy comrades gave Germany, the simple in Moscow, sent a paranoid telegram

*Lest we be accusedAll content of anti-Republican © The bias,Dog we & should Lemon point outGuide that president 2010. Kennedy’sAll rights father reserved – a Democrat – also sympathised with the Nazis and had investments in Nazi Germany. However, both Prescott Bush’s son George and Kennedy’s son John served to the U.S. State Department warning and directly contributing to the deaths of Soviet plans to dominate the world. of around 55 million people, General World War III was an imminent pos- Motors was given a further $33 million sibility, he claimed.30 As Kennan him- in tax exemptions to make up for the self later admitted, his statement was after growing damage that its German factories suf- complete garbage, but it kick-started rich from fered during World War II. the Cold War.31 knowingly The Cold War deepened into the Aside from a few brave efforts to aiding the ultra-paranoid McCarthy era, where a expose corporate America’s treason, in- enemies of the lifetime career in any industry could be terest in the men who backed the Nazis wrecked overnight by even the sugges- died with the onset of the Cold War. United States tion that a person might be a commu- and directly nist or communist sympathiser. As veteran Nazi-hunter Simon Wi- esenthal put it in 1984: “Nazi criminals contributing Many of the people who had the were the principal beneficiaries of the to the deaths dirt on the American corporates’ role Cold War.” American priorities sud- of around 55 in World War II were disgraced, impris- denly switched from ending fascism to oned or even robbed of their citizenship, defending the free world against god- million people, usually without a proper hearing and less communism. In addition to many General Motors often on the flimsiest of evidence. former high-ranking Nazis being imme- diately restored to power in Germany, was given a Instead of the truth, America’s chil- many thousands of former Nazis were further $33 dren grew up believing that the brave also smuggled into America, ostensibly million in tax American motor industry helped defeat to help fight the Russians. the Nazis by building planes and trucks exemptions to for the Allied soldiers, thus making the The trials at Nuremberg of a few make up for the world safe for democracy. high profile war criminals provided a brief focus on the horrors of Hitler’s damage that The bottom line is this: World War Germany, but the American backers of its German II could have occurred without Hitler, the Nazis went largely unnoticed and factories but it couldn’t have occurred without unpunished. Ford, General Motors and Standard suffered during Oil. For example, when U.S. Justice De- World War II partment lawyer James Stewart Martin As they said in the 1950s: ‘What’s arrived in Europe to investigate the good for General Motors is good for hiding of Nazi assets, he discovered that America’. Yeah, right • his superior at U.S. Military Command in London was a leading American Nazi, colonel Graeme K. Howard, vice- president of General Motors. Martin protested in vain about the General Motors-Nazi connection. However, he did discover a copy of Howard’s book America and the New World Order. Fear- ful of bad publicity so soon after the war, the U.S. sent Howard home, but no other action was taken.32

Actually, some action was taken: after growing rich from knowingly aiding the enemies of the United States Hitler’s novel solution to Germany’s lack of living space All content © The Dog & Lemon Guide 2010. All rights reserved References

Archer, Hawthorn Books: New York Margaret Sanger’s harshest critics are 1 Trading with the Enemy, Charles fundamentalist Christians who are not so 18 Investigation of Nazi Propaganda Higham much opposed to eugenics as Sanger’s Activities and Investigation of Certain advocacy of birth control. Thus Sanger’s Other Propaganda Activities: Public 2 Ford and GM Scrutinized for Alleged critics tend to use her link to the eugen- Hearings Before the Special Committee Nazi Collaboration, Washington Post, ics movement to smear birth control on Un-American Activities, House of Monday, November 30, 1998; Page A0 generally, which brings into question their Representatives, Seventy-third Con- objectivity on both Sanger and eugenics, gress, Second Session, at Washington, the entire article can be viewed at not to mention birth control. DC, December 29, 1934. Hearings No. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/ 73-D.C.-6, Part 1. national/daily/nov98/nazicars30.htm 5 The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem. A collection of articles 19 Trading with the Enemy, Charles 3 Trading with the Enemy, Charles originally published in The Dearborn Inde- Higham Higham pendent on behalf of the Ford Motor Co 20 ibid. 4 There is some controversy as to the 6 Trading with the Enemy, Charles actual sources of some quotations attrib- Higham 21 Ford and GM Scrutinized for Alleged uted to Sanger. The Planned Parenthood Nazi Collaboration, Washington Post, Federation of America has claimed that 7 ibid. Monday, November 30, 1998; Page A0 some quotations were in fact misquotes and/or were written by other people, and 8 Trading with the Enemy, Charles 22 Trading with the Enemy, Charles that Sanger was in fact a jolly fine person Higham. The quotes in the lower part Higham and pioneering feminist. This view does of the paragraph are from documents not stand much scrutiny. Regardless of released by the American FBI under the 23 ibid. the validity of individual quotations, there Official Information Act. is no doubt that the general tone of the 24 ibid. quotations attributed to Sanger accurately 9 American Swastika, Charles reflect her views at the time. For example, Higham, 1985 25 Ford and GM Scrutinized for Alleged here’s a direct quote from her own 1922 Nazi Collaboration, Washington Post, book: The Pivot of Civilisation: 10 Trading with the Enemy, Charles Monday, November 30, 1998; Page A0 “This degeneration has already begun. Higham. Eugenists demonstrate that two-thirds of 26 ibid. our manhood of military age are physically 11 ibid. too unfit to shoulder a rifle; that the feeble- 27 Trading with the Enemy, Charles minded, the syphilitic, the irresponsible 12 Ford and GM Scrutinized for Alleged Higham and the defective breed unhindered; that Nazi Collaboration, Washington Post, women are driven into factories and shops Monday, November 30, 1998; Page A0 28 http://www.john-loftus.com/Thyssen. on day-shift and night-shift; that children, asp frail carriers of the torch of life, are put to 13 Treason’s Peace, Howard Ambuster work at an early age; that society at large Beechhurst Press, 1947, p386 29Trading with the Enemy, Charles is breeding an ever-increasing army of Higham under-sized, stunted and dehumanized 14 http://www.rockefeller.edu/archive.ctr/ slaves; that the vicious circle of mental narbiog.html 30 the entire telegram can be viewed at and physical defect, delinquency and http://www.learner.org/channel/work- beggary is encouraged, by the unseeing see also shops/primarysources/coldwar/docs/ and unthinking sentimentality of our age, http://www2.worldbook.com/features/ tele.html to populate asylum, hospital and prison... features.asp?feature=presidents&page= All these things the Eugenists sees and html/rockefeller.htm&direct=yes 31 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/bomb/ points out with a courage entirely admi- peopleevents/pandeAMEX57.html rable.” 15 Trading with the Enemy, Charles Higham. 32 Trading with the Enemy, Charles see also Higham The Repackaging of Margaret Sanger 16 Memoirs, H. Hoover, 1952, vol.3, Steven W. Mosher p.30 Wall Street Journal — May 5, 1997 17 The Plot to Seize the White House Jules It’s worth noting, however, that many of

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