Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler (14 page)

Herr Hitler openly boasts of Mr. Ford's support and praises Mr. Ford as a
great individualist and a great anti-Semite. A photograph of Mr. Ford hangs in
Herr Hitler's quarters, which is the center of monarchist movement.
6

Hitler received a mild and comfortable prison sentence for his Bavarian revolutionary activities. The rest from more active pursuits enabled him to write
Mein Kampf.
Henry Ford's book,
The International Jew,
earlier circulated by the Nazis, was translated by them into a dozen languages, and Hitler utilized sections of the book verbatim in writing
Mein
Kampf
.7

We shall see later that Hitler's backing in the late 20s and early 30s came from the chemical, steel, and electrical industry cartels, rather than directly from individual industrialists. In 1928 Henry Ford merged his German assets with those of the I.G. Farben chemical cartel. A substantial holding, 40 percent of Ford Motor A.G. of Germany, was transferred to I.G.

Farben; Carl Bosch of I.G. Farben became head of Ford A.G. Motor in Germany.

Simultaneously, in the United States Edsel Ford joined the board of American I.G. Farben.

(See Chapter Two.)

Henry Ford Receives a Nazi Medal

A decade later, in August 1938 — after Hitler had achieved power with the aid of the cartels

— Henry Ford received the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, a Nazi decoration for distinguished foreigners. The
New York Times
reported it was the first time the Grand Cross had been awarded in the United States and was to celebrate Henry Ford's 75th birthday.
8

The decoration raised a storm of criticism within Zionist circles in the U.S. Ford backed off to the extent of publicly meeting with Rabbi Leo Franklin of Detroit to express his sympathy for the plight of German Jews:

My acceptance of a medal from the German people [said Ford] does not, as
some people seem to think, involve any sympathy on my part with naziism.

Those who have known me for many years realize that anything that breeds

hate is repulsive to me.
9

The Nazi medal issue was picked up in a Cleveland speech by Secretary of Interior Harold Ickes. Ickes criticized both Henry Ford and Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh for accepting Nazi medals. The curious part of the Ickes speech, made at a Cleveland Zionist Society banquet, was his criticism of "wealthy Jews" and
their
acquisition and use of wealth:
A mistake made by a non-Jewish millionaire reflects upon him alone, but a
false step made by a Jewish man of wealth reflects upon his whole race. This is

harsh and unjust, but it is a fact that must be faced.
10

Perhaps Ickes was tangentially referring to the roles of the Warburgs in the I.G. Farben cartel: Warburgs were on the board of I.G. Farben in the U.S. and Germany. In 1938 the http://reformed-theology.org/html/books/wall_street/chapter_06.htm (3 of 7) [8/4/2001 9:44:15 PM]

CHAPTER SIX: Henry Ford and the Nazis

Warburgs were being ejected by the Nazis from Germany. Other German Jews, such as the Oppenheim bankers, made their peace with the Nazis and were granted "honorary Aryan status."

Ford Motor Company Assists the German War Effort

A post-war Congressional subcommittee investigating American support for the Nazi military effort described the manner in which the Nazis succeeded in obtaining U.S.

technical and financial assistance as "quite fantastic.
11
Among other evidence the Committee was shown a memorandum prepared in the offices of Ford-Werke A.G. on November 25, 1941, written by Dr. H. F. Albert to R. H. Schmidt, then president of the board of Ford-Werke A.G. The memo cited the advantages of having a majority of the German firm held by Ford Motor Company in Detroit. German Ford had been able to exchange Ford parts for rubber and critical war materials needed in 1938 and 1939 "and they would not have been able to do that if Ford had not been owned by the United States."

Further, with a majority American interest German Ford would "more easily be able to step in and dominate the Ford holdings throughout Europe." It was even reported to the Committee that two top German Ford officials had been in a bitter personal feud about who was to control Ford of England, such "that one of them finally got up and left the room in disgust."

According to evidence presented to the Committee, Ford-Werke A.G. was technically transformed in the late 1930s into a German company. All vehicles and their parts were produced in Germany, by German workers using German materials under German direction and exported to European and overseas territories of the United States and Great Britain.

Any needed foreign raw materials, rubber and nonferrous metals, were obtained through the American Ford Company. American influence had been more or less converted into a supporting position
(Hilfsstellung)
for the German Ford plants.

At the outbreak of the war Ford-Werke placed itself at the disposal of the Wehrmacht for armament production. It was assumed by the Nazis that as long as Ford-Werke A.G. had an American majority, it would be possible to bring the remaining European Ford companies under German influence — i.e., that of Ford-Werke A.G. — and so execute Nazi "Greater European" policies in the Ford plants in Amsterdam, Antwerp, Paris, Budapest, Bucharest, and Copenhagen:

A majority, even if only a small one, of Americans is essential for the
transmittal of the newest American models, as well as American production
and sales methods. With the abolition of the American majority, this advantage,
as well as the intervention of the Ford Motor Company to obtain raw materials
and exports, would be lost, and the German plant would practically only be

worth its machine capacity.
12

And, of course, this kind of strict neutrality, taking an international rather than a national viewpoint, had earlier paid off for Ford Motor Company in the Soviet Union, where Ford was held in high regard as the ultimate of technical and economic efficiency to be achieved by the Stak-hanovites.

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CHAPTER SIX: Henry Ford and the Nazis

In July 1942 word filtered back to Washington from Ford of France about Ford's activities on behalf of the German war effort in Europe. The incriminating information was promptly buried and even today only part of the known documentation can be traced in Washington.

We do know, however, that the U.S. Consul General in Algeria had possession of a letter from Maurice Dollfuss of French Ford — who claimed to be the first Frenchman to go to Berlin after the fall of France — to Edsel Ford about a plan by which Ford Motor could contribute to the Nazi war effort. French Ford was able to produce 20 trucks a day for the Wehrmacht, which [wrote Dollfuss] is better than,

... our less fortunate French competitors are doing. The reason is that our
trucks are in very large demand by the German authorities and I believe that as
long as the war goes on and at least for some period of time, all that we shall
produce will be taken by the German authorities .... I will satisfy myself by
telling you that... the attitude you have taken, together with your father, of strict
neutrality, has been an invaluable asset for the production of your companies
in Europe.
13

Dollfuss disclosed that profits from this German business were already 1.6 million francs, and net profits for 1941 were no less than 58,000,000 francs — because the Germans paid promptly for Ford's output. On receipt of this news Edsel Ford cabled:
Delighted to hear you are making progress. Your letters most interesting. Fully
realize great handicap you are working under. Hope you and family well.

Regards.

s/ Edsel Ford
14

Although there is evidence that European plants owned by Wall Street interests were not bombed by the U.S. Air Force in World War II, this restriction apparently did not reach the British Bombing Command. In March 1942 the Royal Air Force bombed the Ford plant at Poissy, France. A subsequent letter from Edsel Ford to Ford General Manager Sorenson about this RAF raid commented,
"Photographs
of the plant on fire were published in

American newspapers but fortunately no reference was made to the Ford Motor Company.15

In any event, the Vichy government paid Ford Motor Company 38 million francs as compensation for damage done to the Poissy plant. This was not reported in the U.S. press and would hardly be appreciated by those Americans at war with Naziism. Dubois asserts that these
private
messages from Ford in Europe were passed to Edsel Ford by Assistant Secretary of State Breckenridge Long. This was the same Secretary Long who one year later suppressed
private
messages through the State Department concerning the extermination of Jews in Europe. 16 Disclosure of those messages conceivably could have been used to assist those desperate people.

A U.S. Air Force bombing intelligence report written in 1943 noted that,
Principal wartime activities [of the Ford plant] are probably manufacture of
light trucks and of spare parts for all the Ford trucks and cars in service in
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CHAPTER SIX: Henry Ford and the Nazis

Axis Europe (including captured Russian Molotovs).
16

The Russian Molotovs were of course manufactured by the Ford-built works at Gorki, Russia. In France during the war, passenger automobile production was entirely replaced by military vehicles and for this purpose three large additional buildings were added to the Poissy factory. The main building contained about 500 machine tools, "all imported from the United States and including a fair sprinkling of the more complex types, such as Gleason gear cutters, Bullard automatics and Ingersoll borers.
17

Ford also extended its wartime activities into North Africa. In December 1941 a new Ford Company, Ford-Afrique, was registered in France and granted all the rights of the former Ford Motor Company, Ltd. of England in Algeria, Tunisia, French Morocco, French Equatorial, and French West Africa. North Africa was not accessible to British Ford so this new Ford Company — registered in German-occupied France — was organized to fill the gap. The directors were pro-Nazi and included Maurice Dollfuss (Edsel Ford's correspondent) and Roger Messis (described by the U.S. Algiers Consul General as "known

to this office by repute as unscrupulous, is stated to be a 100 percent pro-German")18

The U.S. Consul General also reported that propaganda was common in Algiers about

... the collaboration of French-German-American capital and the questionable
sincerity of the American war effort, [there] is already pointing an accusing
finger at a transaction Which has been for long a subject of discussion in
commercial circles.
19

In brief, there is documentary evidence that Ford Motor Company worked on both sides of World War II. If the Nazi industrialists brought to trial at Nuremburg were guilty of crimes against mankind, then so must be their fellow collaborators in the Ford family, Henry and Edsel Ford. However, the Ford story was concealed by Washington — apparently like almost everything else that could touch upon the name and sustenance of the Wall Street financial elite.

Footnotes:

1June 4, 1938, 2:2.

2A list of these Gorki vehicles and their model numbers is in Antony G. Sutton,
National Suicide: Military Aid to the Soviet Union,
(New York: Arlington House Publishers, 1973), Table 7-2, p. 125.

3The House of Morgan was known for its anti-Semitic views.

4Page 2, Column 8.

5Ibid.

6Jonathan Leonard,
The Tragedy of Henry Ford,
(New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1932), p. 208. Also see U.S. State Department Decimal File, National http://reformed-theology.org/html/books/wall_street/chapter_06.htm (6 of 7) [8/4/2001 9:44:15 PM]

CHAPTER SIX: Henry Ford and the Nazis

Archives Microcopy M 336, Roll 80, Document 862.00S/6, "Money sources of Hitler," a report from the U.S. Embassy in Berlin.

7On this see Keith Sward,
The Legend of Henry Ford,
(New York: Rinehart & Co, 1948), p. 139.

8
New York Times,
August l, 1938.

9Ibid., December 1, 1938, 12:2.

10Ibid., December 19, 1938, 5:3.

11
Elimination of German Resources,
p. 656.

12
Elimination of German Resources,
pp. 657-8.

13Josiah E. Dubois, Jr.,
Generals in Grey Suits,
(London: The Bodley Head, 1958), p. 248.

14Ibid., p. 249.

15Ibid., p. 251.

16Ibid.

17U.S. Army Air Force,
Aiming point report No I.E.2,
May 29, 1943.

18U.S. State Department Decimal File, 800/61o.1.

19Ibid.

BACK

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CHAPTER SEVEN: Who Financed Adolf Hitler?

CHAPTER SEVEN

Who Financed Adolf Hitler?

The funding of Hitler and the Nazi movement has yet to be explored in exhaustive depth.

The only published examination of Hitler's personal finances is an article by Oron James Hale, "Adolph Hitler: Taxpayer,
1 which records Adolph's brushes with the German tax

authorities before he became
Reichskanzler,
In the 1920s Hitler presented himself to the German tax man as merely an impoverished writer living on bank loans, with an automobile

.bought on credit. Unfortunately, the original records used by Hale do not yield the source of Hitler's income, loans, or credit, and German law "did not require self-employed or professional persons to disclose in detail the sources of income or the nature of services