Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler (19 page)

These corporations were deeply involved in both the promotion of Roosevelt's New Deal and the construction of the military power of Nazi Germany. Putzi Hanfstaengl's role in the early days, up to the mid-1930s anyway, was an informal link between the Nazi elite and the White House. After the mid-1930s, when the world was set on the course for war, Putzis importance declined — while American Big Business continued to be represented through such intermediaries as Baron Kurt von Schroder attorney Westrick, and membership in Himmler's Circle of Friends.

Footnotes:

1William E. Dodd,
Ambassador Dodd's Diary, 1933-1938,
(New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1941), p. 360.

2Ernst Hanfstaengl,
Unheard Witness,
(New York: J.B. Lippincott, 1957), p.

28.

3Ibid., p.

4Ibid., p. 52.

5Ibid., p. 53.

6Ibid., p. 59.

7Ibid., p. 122.

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CHAPTER EIGHT: Putzi: Friend of Hitler and Roosevelt

8Ibid., pp. 197-8.

9Ibid., p. 214.

10Ladislas Farago,
The Game of the Foxes,
(New York: Bantam, 1973), p. 97.

11Ibid., p. 106.

12Ernst Hanfstaengl,
Unheard Witness, op.
cit., p. 76.

13Ibid.

14Ibid., pp. 310-11.

15
Dustbin
report EF/Me/1. Interview of Thyssen, p. 13.

16Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht,
Confessions of" The Old Wizard,"
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1956), p. 276.

17George Dimitrov,
The Reichstag Fire Trial,
(London: The Bodley Head, 1934), p. 309.

18Ibid., p. 310.

19Ibid., p. 311.

20Helmut Magers,
Ein Revolutionar Aus Common Sense,
(Leipzig: R. Kittler Verlag, 1934).

21Nixon, Edgar B., Editor,
Franklin D. Roosevelt and Foreign Affairs,
(Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1969), Volume 1: January 1933-February 1934. Franklin D. Roosevelt Library. Hyde Park, New York.

BACK

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CHAPTER NINE: Wall Street and the Nazi Inner Circle

CHAPTER NINE

Wall Street and the Nazi Inner Circle

During the entire period of our business contacts we. had no inkling of
Farben's conniving part in Hitler's brutal policies. We offer any help we can
give to see that complete truth is brought to light and that rigid justice is done.

(F. W. Abrams, Chairman of the Board, Standard Oil of New Jersey, 1946.) Adolf Hitler, Hermann Goering, Josef Goebbels, and Heinrich Himmler, the inner group of Naziism, were at the same time heads of minor fiefdoms within the Nazi State. Power groups or political cliques were centered around these Nazi leaders, more importantly after the late 1930s around Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler, Reich-Leader of the S.S. (the dreaded
Schutzstaffel).
The most important of these Nazi inner circles was created by order of the Fuehrer; it was known first as the Keppler Circle and later as Himmler's Circle of Friends.

The Keppler Circle originated as a group of German businessmen supporting Hitler's rise to power before and during 1933. In the mid-1930s the Keppler Circle came under the influence and protection of S.S. chief Himmler and the organizational control of Cologne banker and prominent Nazi businessman Kurt von Schroder. Schroder, it will be recalled, was head of the J.H. Stein Bank in Germany and affiliated with the L. Henry Schroder Banking Corporation of New York. It is within this innermost of the inner circles, the very core of Naziism, that we find Wall Street, including Standard Oil of New Jersey and I.T.T., represented from 1933 to as late as 1944.

Wilhelm Keppler, founder of the original Circle of Friends, typifies the well-known phenomenon of a politicized businessman —
i.e., a
businessman who cultivates the political arena rather than the impartial market place for his profits. Such businessmen have been interested In promoting socialist causes, because a planned socialist society provides a most lucrative opportunity for contracts through political influence.

Scenting such profitable opportunities, Keppler joined the national socialists and was close to Hitler before 1933. The Circle of Friends grew out of a meeting between Adolf Hitler and Wilhelm Keppler in December 1931. During the course of their conversation — this was several years before Hitler became dictator — the future Fuehrer expressed a wish to have reliable German businessmen available for economic advice when the Nazis took power.

"Try
to get a few economic leaders — they need not be Party members — who will be at our disposal when we come into power.
1
This Keppler undertook to do.

In March 1933 Keppler was elected to the Reichstag and became Hitler's financial expert.

This lasted only briefly. Keppler was replaced by the infinitely more capable Hjalmar Schacht, and sent to Austria where in 1938 he became Reichs Commissioner, but still able http://reformed-theology.org/html/books/wall_street/chapter_09.htm (1 of 9) [8/4/2001 9:44:18 PM]

CHAPTER NINE: Wall Street and the Nazi Inner Circle

to use his position to acquire considerable power in the Nazi State. Within a few years he captured a string of lucrative directorships in German firms, including chairman of the board of two I.G. Farben subsidiaries: Braunkohle-Benzin A.G. and Kontinental Oil A.G.

Braunkohle-Benzin was the German exploiter of the Standard Oil of New Jersey technology for production of gasoline from coal. (See Chapter Four.)

In brief, Keppler war the chairman of the very firm that utilized American technology for the indispensible synthetic gasoline which enabled the Wehrmacht to go to war in 1939.

This is significant because, when linked with other evidence presented in this chapter, it suggests that the profits and control of these fundamentally important technologies for German military ends were retained by a small group of international firms and businessmen operating across national borders.

Keppler's nephew, Fritz Kranefuss, under his uncle's protection, also gained prominence both as Adjutant to S.S. Chief Heinrich Himmler and as a businessman and political operator. It was Kranefuss' link with Himmler which led to the Keppler circle gradually drawing away from Hitler in the 1930s to come within Himmler's orbit, where in exchange for annual donations to Himmler's pet S.S. projects Circle members received political favors and not inconsiderable protection from the S.S.

Baron Kurt von Schroder was, as we have noted, the I.T.T. representative in Nazi Germany and an early member of the Keppler Circle. The original Keppler Circle consisted of:
THE ORIGINAL (PRE-1932) MEMBERS OF THE

KEPPLER CIRCLE

Circle Member

Main Associations

Wilhelm KEPPLER

Chairman of I.G. Farben

subsidiary Braunkohle-Benzin

A.G. (exploited Standard Oil of

N.J. oil from coal technology)

Fritz KRANEFUSS

Keppler's nephew and Adjutant

to Heinrich Himmler. On

Vorstand of BRABAG

Kurt von SCHRODER

On board of all International

Telephone & Telegraph

subsidiaries in Germany

Karl Vincenz KROGMANN

Lord Mayor of Hamburg

August ROSTERG

General Director of

WINTERSHALL

Emil MEYER

On the board of I.T.T.

subsidiaries and German

General Electric.

Otto STEINBRINCK

Vice president of

VEREINIGTE STAHLWERKE

(steel cartel founded with Wall

Street loans in 1926)

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CHAPTER NINE: Wall Street and the Nazi Inner Circle

Hjalmar SCHACHT

President of the REICHSBANK

Emil HELFFRICH

Board chairman of

GERMAN-AMERICAN

PETROLEUM CO. (94-percent

owned by Standard Oil of New

Jersey) (See above under

Wilhelm Keppler)

Friedrich REINHARDT

Board chairman

COMMERZBANK

Ewald HECKER

Board chairman of ILSEDER

HUTTE

Graf von BISMARCK

Government president of

STETTIN

The S.S. Circle of Friends

The original Circle of Friends met with Hitler in May 1932 and heard a statement of Nazi objectives. Heinrich Himmler then became a frequent participant in the meetings, and through Himmler, various S.S. officers as well as other businessmen joined the group. This expanded group in time became Himmler's Circle of Friends, with Himmler acting as protector and expeditor for its members.

Consequently, banking and Industrial interest — were heavily represented in the inner circle of Naziism, and their pre-1933 financial contributions to Hitlerism which we have earlier enumerated were amply repaid. Of the "Big Five" German banks, the Dresdner Bank had the closest connections with the Nazi Party: at least a dozen members of Dresdner Bank's board of directors had high Nazi rank and no fewer than seven Dresdner Bank directors were among Keppler's expanded Circle of Friends, which never exceeded 40.

When we examine the names comprising both the original pre-1933 Keppler Circle and the post-1933 expanded Keppler and Himmler's Circle, we find the Wall Street multi-nationals heavily represented — more so than any other institutional group. Let us take each Wall Street multinational or its German associate in turn — those identified in Chapter Seven as linked to financing Hitler — and examine their links to Keppler and Heinrich Himmler.

I.G. Farben and the Keppler Circle

I.G. Farben was heavily represented within the Keppler Circle: no fewer than eight out of the peak circle membership of 40 were directors of I.G. Farben or a Farben subsidiary.

These eight members included the previously described Wilhelm Keppler and his nephew Kranefuss, in addition to Baron Kurt von Schroder. The Farben presence was emphasized by member Hermann Schmitz, chairman of I.G. Farben and a director of Vereinigte Stahlwerke, both cartels built and consolidated by the Wall Street loans of the 1920s. A U.S.

Congressional report described Hermann Schmitz as follows:

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CHAPTER NINE: Wall Street and the Nazi Inner Circle

Hermann Schmitz, one of the most important persons in Germany, has achieved
outstanding success simultaneously in the three separate fields, industry,
finance, and government, and has served with zeal and devotion every
government in power. He symbolizes the German citizen who out of the
devastation of the First World War made possible the Second.

Ironically, his may be said to be the greater guilt in that in 1919 he was a
member of the Reich's peace delegation, and in the 1930's was in a position to
teach the Nazis much that theft had to know concerning economic penetration,

cartel uses, synthetic materials for war.
2

Another Keppler Circle member on the I.G. Farben board was Friedrich Flick, creator of the steel cartel Vereinigte Stahlwerke and a director of Allianz Versicherungs A.G. and German General Electric (A.E.G.).

Heinrich Schmidt, a director of Dresdner Bank and chairman of the board of I.G. Farben subsidiary Braunkohle-Benzin A.G., was in the circle; so was Karl Rasehe, another director of the Dresdner Bank and a director of Metallgesellschaft (parent of the Delbruck Schickler Bank) and Accumulatoren-Fabriken A.G. Heinrich Buetefisch was also a director of I.G.

Farben and a member of the Keppler Circle. In brief, the I.G. Farben contribution to Rudolf Hess' Nationale Treuhand — the political slush fund — was confirmed after the 1933

takeover by heavy representation in the Nazi inner circle.

How many of these Keppler Circle members in the I.G. Farben complex were affiliated with Wall Street?

MEMBERS OF THE ORIGINAL KEPPLER CIRCLE

ASSOCIATED WITH U.S. MULTI-NATIONALS

Member of

Standard Oil

General

Keppler Circle

I.G. Farben

I.T.T.

of New Jersey Electric

Wilhelm

Chairman of

KEPPLER

Farben

—

subsidiary

BRABAG

Fritz

On Aufsichrat

—

KRANEFUSS

of BRABAG

Emil Heinrich

On board of

Board of

MEYER

all I.T.T.

A.E.G.

German

subsidiaries:

—

Standard/Mix

&

Genest/Lorenz

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CHAPTER NINE: Wall Street and the Nazi Inner Circle

Emil

Chairman of

HELFFRICH

DAPAG

(94-percent

owned by

Standard of New

Jersey

Friedrich

I.G. Farben

Board of

—

—

FLICK

A.E.G.

Kurt von

On board of all

SCHRODER

I.T.T.

subsidiaries in

Germany

Similarly, we can identify other Wall Street institutions represented in the early Keppler's Circle of Friends, confirming their monetary contributions to the National Trusteeship Fund operated by Rudolf Hess on behalf of Adolf Hitler. These representatives were Emil Heinrich Meyer and banker Kurt von Schroder on the boards of all the I.T.T. subsidiaries in Germany, and Emil Helffrich, the board chairman of DAPAG, 94-percent owned by Standard Oil of New Jersey.

Wall Street in the S.S. Circle

Major U.S. multi-nationals were also very well represented in the later Heinrich Himmler Circle and made cash contributions to the S.S. (the Sonder Konto S) up to 1944 — while World War II was in progress.