Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler (20 page)

Almost a quarter of the 1944 Sonder Konto S contributions came from subsidiaries of International Telephone and Telegraph, represented by Kurt von Schröder. The 1943

payments from I.T.T. subsidiaries to the Special Account were as follows: Mix & Genest A.G.

5,000 RM

C. Lorenz AG

20,000 RM

Felten & Guilleaume

25,000 RM

Kurt von Schroder

16,000 RM

And the 1944 payments were:

Mix & Genest A.G.

5,000 RM

C. Lorenz AG

20,000 RM

Felten & Guilleaume

20,000 RM

Kurt von Schroder

16,000 RM

Sosthenes Behn of International Telephone and Telegraph transferred wartime control of Mix & Genest, C. Lorenz, and the other Standard Telephone interests in Germany to Kurt von Schroder — who was a founding member of the Keppler Circle and organizer and http://reformed-theology.org/html/books/wall_street/chapter_09.htm (5 of 9) [8/4/2001 9:44:18 PM]

CHAPTER NINE: Wall Street and the Nazi Inner Circle

treasurer of Himmler's Circle of Friends. Emil H. Meyer, S.S. Untersturmfuehrer, member of the Vorstand of the Dresdner Bank, A.E.G., and a director of all the I.T.T. subsidiaries in Germany, was also a member of the Himmler Circle of Friends — giving I.T.T. two powerful representatives at the heart of the S.S.

A letter to fellow member Emil Meyer from Baron von Schroder dated February 25, 1936

describes the purposes and requirements of the Himmler Circle and the long-standing nature of the Special Account 'S' with funds at Schroder's own bank — the J,H. Stein Bank of Cologne:

Berlin, 25

February 1936

(Illegible

handwriting)

To Prof. Dr. Emil H. Meyer

S.S. (Untersturmfuchrer) (second lieutenant) Member of the Managing Board (Vorstand) of the Dresdner Bank

Berlin W. 56,

Behrenstr. 38

Personal!

To the Circle of Friends of the Reich Leader SS

At the end of the 2 day's inspection tour of Munich to which the Reich Leader SS had invited us last January, the Circle of Friends agreed to put — each one according to his means — at the Reich Leader's disposal into "Special Account S" (Sonder Konto S), to be established at the banking firm J.H. Stein in Cologne, funds which are to be used for certain tasks outside of the budget.

This should enable the Reich Leader to rely on all his friends. In Munich it was decided that the undersigned would make themselves available for setting up and handling this account. In the meantime the account was set up and we want every participant to know that in case he wants to make contributions to the Reich Leader for the aforementioned tasks — either on behalf of his firm or the Circle of Friends — payments may be made to the banking firm J.H. Stein, Cologne (Clearing Account of the Reich Bank, Postal Checking Acount No.

1392) to the Special Account S.

: Heil Hitler!

(Signed) Kurt

Baron von

Sehroder

(Signed)

Steinbrinck
3

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CHAPTER NINE: Wall Street and the Nazi Inner Circle

This letter also explains why U.S. Army Colonel Bogdan, formerly of the Schroder Banking Corporation in New York, was anxious to divert the attention of post-war U.S. Army investigators away from the J. H. Stein Bank in Cologne to the
"bigger
banks" of Nazi Germany. It was the Stein Bank that held the secrets of the associations of American subsidiaries with Nazi authorities while World War II was in progress. The New York financial interests could not know the precise nature of these transactions (and particularly the nature of any records that may have been kept by their German associates), but they knew that
some
record could well exist of their war-time dealings — enough to embarrass them with the American public. It was this possibility that Colonel Bogdan tried unsuccessfully to head off.

German General Electric profited greatly from its association with Himmler and other leading Nazis. Several members of the Schroder clique were directors of A.E.G., the most prominent being Robert Pferdmenges, who was not only a member of the Keppler or Himmler Circles but was a partner in the aryanized banking house Pferdmenges & Company, the successor to the former Jewish banking house Sal Oppenheim of Cologne.

Waldemar von Oppenheim achieved the dubious distinction (for a German Jew) of

"honorary
Aryan" and was able to continue his old established banking house under Hitler in partnership with Pferdmenges.

MEMBERS OF THE HIMMLER CIRCLE OF FRIENDS WHO

WERE ALSO DIRECTORS OF AMERICAN-AFFILIATED

FIRMS:

Standard Oil

of New

I.G. Farben

I.T.T.

A.E.G.

Jersey

KRANEFUSS, Fritz

x

KEPPLER, Wilhelm

x

SCHRODER, Kurt

x

x

Von

BUETEFISCH,

x

Heinrich

RASCHE, Dr. Karl

x

FLICK, Friedrich

x

x

LINDEMANN, Karl

x

SCHMIDT,

x

Heinrich

ROEHNERT,

x

Kellmuth

SCHMIDT, Kurt

x

MEYER, Dr. Emil

x

SCHMITZ,

x

Hermann

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CHAPTER NINE: Wall Street and the Nazi Inner Circle

Pferdmenges was also a director of A.E.G. and used his Nazi influence to good advantage.4

Two other directors of German General Electric were members of Himmler's Circle of Friends and made 1943 and 1944 monetary contributions to the Sonder Konto S. These were:

Friedrich Flick

100,000 RM

Otto Steinbrinck

100,000 RM

(a Flick associate)

Kurt Schmitt was chairman of the board of directors of A.E.G. and a member of the Himmler Circle of Friends, but Schmitt's name is not recorded in the list of payments for 1943 or 1944.

Standard Oil of New Jersey also made a significant contribution to Himmler's Special Account through its wholly owned (94 percent) German subsidiary, Deutsche-Amerikanische Gesellschaft (DAG). In 1943 and 1944 DAG contributed as follows:

Staatsrat Helfferich of Deutsch- 10,000 RM

Amerikanische Petroleum A.G.

Staatsrat Lindemann of

10,000 RM

Deutsch-

4,000 RM

Amerikanische Petroleum A.G.

and personally

It is important to note that Staatsrat Lindemann contributed 4,000 RM
personally,
thus making a clear distinction between the corporate contribution of 10,000 RM from Standard Oil of New Jersey's wholly owned subsidiary and the personal contribution from director Linde-mann. In the case of Staatsrat Hellfrich, the only contribution was the Standard Oil contribution of 10,000 RM; there is no recorded personal donation.

I.G. Farben, parent company of American I.G. (see Chapter Two), was another significant contributor to Heinrich Himmler's Sonder Konto S. There were four I.G. Farben directors within the inner circle: Karl Rasehe, Fritz Kranefuss, Heinrich Schmidt, and Heinrich Buetefisch. Karl Rasche was a member of the management committee of the Dresdner Bank and a specialist in international law and banking. Under Hitler Karl Rasche became a prominent director of many German corporations, including Accumulatoren-Fabrik A.G. in Berlin, which financed Hitler; the Metallgesellschaft; and Felten & Guilleame, an I.T.T.

company. Fritz Kranefuss was a member of the board of directors of Dresdner Bank and a director of several corporations besides I.G. Farben. Kranefuss, nephew of Wilhelm Keppler, was a lawyer and prominent in many Nazi public organizations. Heinrich Schmidt, a director of I.G. Farben and several other German companies, was also a director of the Dresdner Bank.

It is important to note that all three of the above — Rasche, Kranefuss, and Schmidt — were directors of an I.G. Farben subsidiary, Braunkohle-Benzin A.G. — the manufacturer of German synthetic gasoline using Standard Oil technology, a result of the I.G.

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CHAPTER NINE: Wall Street and the Nazi Inner Circle

Farben-Standard Oil agreements of the early 1930s.

In brief, the Wall Street financial elite was well represented in both the early Keppler Circle and the later Himmler Circle.
5

Footnotes:

1From the affidavit of Wilhem Keppler,
NMT,
Volume VI, p. 285.

2
Elimination of German Resources,
p. 869.

3
NMT,
Volume VII, p. 238. "Translation of Document N1-10103, Prosecution Exhibit 788." Letter from von Schroder and Defendant Steinbrinck to Dr.

Meyer, Dresdner Bank official, 25 February 1936, noting that the Circle of Friends would put funds at Himmler's disposal "For Certain Tasks outside of the Budget" and had established a "Special Account for this purpose."

4
Elimination of German Resources,
p. 857.

5The significant nature of this representation is reflected in Chart 8-1, "Wall Street representation in the Keppler and Himmler Circles, 1933 and 1944."

BACK

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CHAPTER TEN: The Myth of "Sidney Warburg"

CHAPTER TEN

The Myth of "Sidney Warburg"

A vital question, only partly resolved, is the extent to which Hitler's accession to power in 1933 was aided
directly
by Wall Street financiers. We have shown with original documentary evidence that there was
indirect
American participation and support through German affiliated firms, and (as for example in the case of I.T.T.) there was a knowledgeable and deliberate effort to benefit from the support of the Nazi regime. Was this indirect financing extended to direct financing?

After Hitler gained power, U.S. firms and individuals worked on behalf of Naziism and certainly profited from the Nazi state. We know from the diaries of William Dodd, the American Ambassador to Germany, that in 1933 a stream of Wall Street bankers and industrialists filed through the U.S. Embassy in Berlin, expressing their admiration for Adolf Hitler — and anxious to find ways to do business with the new totalitarian regime. For example, on September 1, 1933 Dodd recorded that Henry Mann of the National City Bank and Winthrop W. Aldrich of the Chase Bank both met with Hitler and "these bankers feel

they can work with him."1 Ivy Lee, the Rockefeller public relations agent, according to

Dodd "showed himself at once a capitalist and an advocate of Fascism."2

So at least we can identify a sympathetic response to the new Nazi dictatorship, reminiscent of the manner in which Wall Street international bankers greeted the new Russia of Lenin and Trotsky in 1917.

Who Was "Sidney Warburg"?

The question posed in this chapter is the accusation that some Wall Street financiers (the Rockefellers and Warburgs specifically have been accused) directly planned and financed Hitler's takeover in 1933, and that they did this from Wall Street. On this question the so-called myth of "Sidney Warburg" is relevant. Prominent Nazi Franz von Papen has stated in his
Memoirs:
3

... the most documented account of the National Socialists' sudden acquisition
of funds was contained in a book published in Holland in 1933, by the old
established Amsterdam publishing house of Van Holkema & Warendorf, called
De Geldbronnen van Het Nationaal-Socialisme (Drie Gesprekken Met Hitler)
under the name "Sidney Warburg."

A book with this title in Dutch by "Sidney Warburg" was indeed published in 1933, but remained on the book stalls in Holland only for a matter of days. The book was purged.
4

One of three surviving original copies was translated into English. The translation was at one time deposited in the British Museum, but is now withdrawn from public circulation and is unavailable for research. Nothing is now known of the original Dutch copy upon which this English translation was based.

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CHAPTER TEN: The Myth of "Sidney Warburg"

The second Dutch copy was owned by Chancellor Schussnigg in Austria, and nothing is known of its present whereabouts. The third Dutch copy found its way to Switzerland and was translated into German. The German translation has survived down to the present day in the Schweizerischen Sozialarchiv in Zurich, Switzerland. A certified copy of the authenticated German translation of this Swiss survivor was purchased by the author in 1971

and translated into English. It is upon this English translation of the German translation that the text in this chapter is based.

Publication of the
"Sidney
Warburg" book was duly reported in the
New York Times
(November 24, 1933) under the title "Hoax on Nazis Feared." A brief article noted that a

"Sidney Warburg" pamphlet has appeared in Holland, and the author is not the son of Felix Warburg. The translator is J. G. Shoup, a Belgian newspaperman living in Holland. The publishers and Shoup "are wondering if they have not been the victims of a hoax." The
Times
account adds:

The pamphlet repeats an old story to the effect that leading Americans,
including John D. Rockefeller, financed Hitler from 1929 to 1932 to the extent
of $32,000,000, their motive being"to liberate Germany from the financial grip
of France by bringing about a revolution·" Many readers of the pamphlet have
pointed out that it contains many inaccuracies.

Why was the Dutch original withdrawn from circulation in 1933? Because "Sidney Warburg" did not exist and a "Sidney Warburg" was claimed as the author. Since 1933 the