
SHADOW OF THE SWASTIKA:Part 2
General Motors is included here because, by 1929, the Du Pont corporation had acquired controlling interest in, and had interlocking directorships with, General Motors. Irenee du Pont, "the most imposing and powerful member of the clan," according to biographer and historian Charles Higham, "was obsessed with Hitler's principles." "He keenly followed the career of the future Fuhrer in the 1920s, and on September 7, 1926, in a speech to the American Chemical Society, he advocated a race of supermen, to be achieved by injecting special drugs into them in boyhood to make their characters to order." Higham's book on this subject, "Trading with the Enemy: An Expose of the Nazi-American Money Plot 1933-1949," is highly recommended. Du Pont's anti-Semitism "matched that of Hitler" and, in 1933, the Du Ponts "began financing native fascist groups in America . . ." one of which Higham identifies as the American Liberty League: "a Nazi organization whipping up hatred of blacks and Jews," and the "love of Hitler.
Du Pont support of Hitler extended into the very heart of the Nazi war machine as well, according to Higham, and several other researchers: "General Motors, under the control of the Du Pont family of Delaware, played a part in collaboration" with the Nazis. "Between 1932 and 1939, bosses of General Motors poured $30 million into I.G. Farben plants . . ." Further, Higham informs us that by "the mid-1930s, General Motors was committed to full-scale production of trucks, armored cars, and tanks in Nazi Germany." (6) Researchers Morton Mintz and Jerry S. Cohen, in their book, "Power Inc.," describe the Du Pont-GM-Nazi relationship in these terms:
Du Pont-GM Nazi collaboration, according to Snell, included the participation of Standard Oil of New Jersey [now Exxon] in one, very important arrangement. GM and Standard Oil of New Jersey formed a joint subsidiary with the giant Nazi chemical cartel, I.G. Farben, named Ethyl G.m.b.H. [now Ethyl, Inc.] which, according to Snell: "provided the mechanized German armies with synthetic tetraethyl fuel [leaded gas]. During 1936-39, at the urgent request of Nazi officials who realized that Germany's scarce petroleum reserves would not satisfy war demands, GM and Exxon joined with German chemical interests in the erection of the lead-tetraethyl plants. According to captured German records, these facilities contributed substantially to the German war effort: 'The fact that since the beginning of the war we could produce lead-tetraethyl is entirely due to the circumstances that, shortly before, the Americans [Du Pont, GM and Standard Oil] had presented us with the production plants complete with experimental knowledge. Without lead-tetraethyl the present method of warfare would be unthinkable.'" (7) At about the same time the Du Ponts were serving the Nazi cause in Germany, they were involved in a Fascist plot to overthrow the United States government. "Along with friends of the Morgan Bank and General Motors," in early 1934, writes Higham, "certain Du Pont backers financed a coup d'etat that would overthrow the President with the aid of a $3 million-funded army of terrorists . . ." The object was to force Roosevelt "to take orders from businessmen as part of a fascist government or face the alternative of imprisonment and execution . . ." Higham reports that "Du Pont men allegedly held an urgent series of meetings with the Morgans," to choose who would lead this "bizarre conspiracy." "They finally settled on one of the most popular soldiers in America, General Smedly Butler of Pennsylvania." Butler was approached by "fascist attorney" Gerald MacGuire (an official of the American Legion), who attempted to recruit Butler into the role of an American Hitler.
The names of important individuals and groups involved in the conspiracy were suppressed by the committee, but later revealed by Seldes, Philadelphia Record reporter Paul French, and Jules Archer, author of the book, "The Plot to Seize the White House." Included were John W. Davis (attorney for the J.P. Morgan banking group), Robert Sterling Clark (Wall Street broker and heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune), William Doyle (American Legion official), and the American Liberty League (backed by executives from J.P. Morgan and Co., Rockefeller interests, E.F. Hutton, and Du Pont-controlled General Motors). (9) THE US/NAZI CARTEL AGREEMENT "On November 23, 1937," states Higham, "representatives of General Motors held a secret meeting in Boston with Baron Manfred von Killinger, who was . . . in charge of West Coast espionage [for the Nazis], and Baron von Tipplekirsch, Nazi consul general and Gestapo leader in Boston. This group signed a joint agreement showing total commitment to the Nazi cause for the indefinite future. . . ." (10) Seldes describes the plotters as "the great owners and rulers of America who planned world domination through political and military Fascism" including "several leading American industrialists, members of the Congress of the United States, and representatives of large business and political organizations . . ." He obtained the text of the agreement, and published it in his newsletter, "In Fact," on July 13, 1942. The plan "goes much further than the mere cartel conspiracies of Big Business of both countries," writes Seldes, "because it has political clauses and points to a bigger conspiracy of money and politicians such as helped betray Norway and France and other lands to the Nazi machine. The most powerful fortress in America is the production monopolies, but its betrayal would involve, as it did in France, the participation of some of the most powerful figures of the political as well as the industrial world." (11) STANDARD OIL OF NEW JERSEY (Now Exxon)
Blackmail? Yes, says Higham. And effective. Arnold was finally reduced to asking the oil company official "to what Standard Oil would agree. After all, there had to be at least token punishment. . . . Arnold, Stimson, and Knox soon realized they had no power to compare with that of Standard." The price Standard Oil "agreed" to pay for its crime? A modest fine of a few thousand dollars divided up among ten defendants. "Farish paid $1,000, or a quarter of one week's salary, for having betrayed America." In New Jersey, charges of "criminal conspiracy with the enemy" were filed against Standard, then "dropped in return for Standard releasing its patents and paying the modest fine." But Arnold, and his ally, Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, weren't finished with Standard Oil just yet. They approached Senator Truman, chairman of the Senate Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program. "With great enthusiasm Give 'em Hell Harry embarked on a series of hearings in March 1942, in order to disclose the truth about Standard." Between the 26th and the 28th of March, 1942, Arnold "produced documents showing that Standard and Farben in Germany had literally carved up the world markets, with oil and chemical monopolies all over the map," according to Higham. (12) Mintz and Cohen describe the confrontation:
Another source book on this subject of US / Nazi corporate activities is "The Secret War Against the Jews," by Mark Aarons and John Loftus. Here is their version of the events:
Evidence which Thurman Arnold turned over to the Truman Committee, which Truman would declare "treasonous," included "Standard's 1939 letter renewing its agreement, which made it clear that the Rockefellers' company was prepared to work with the Nazis whether their own government was at war with the Third Reich or not. Truman's Senate Committee on the National Defense was outraged and began to probe into the whole scandalous arrangement, much to the discomfort of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Suddenly, however, the whole matter was dropped. "There was a reason for Rockefeller's escape: blackmail. According to the former intelligence officers we interviewed on this point, the blackmail was simple and powerful: The Dulles brothers [John Foster, later Secretary of State, and Allen, later director of the CIA] had one of their clients threaten to interrupt the U.S. oil supply during wartime." When confronted by Arnold on the Standard - Farben arrangement "Standard executives made it clear that the entire U.S. war effort was fueled by their oil and it could be stopped. . . . The American government had no choice but to go along if it wanted to win the war." (14) July 13, 1944, Ralph W. Gallagher, attorney for Standard Oil, filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government's seizure of the contested patents. "On November 7, 1945, Judge Charles E. Wyzanski gave his verdict," according to Higham. "He decided that the government had been entitled to seize the patents. Gallagher appealed. On September 22, 1947, Judge Charles Clark delivered the final word on the subject. He said, 'Standard Oil can be considered an enemy national in view of its relationships with I.G. Farben after the United States and Germany had become active enemies.' The appeal was denied." (15) One aspect of this Standard - I.G. Farben relationship, revealed in testimony during the Patents Committee hearings, chaired by Senator Homer T. Bone in May 1942, is of interest to those who seek direct evidence of a conspiracy by big oil companies to suppress development of synthetic substitutes to petrochemical products such as industrial chemicals, aircraft lubricants and fuel, all of which can be made from hemp: "On May 6th, John R. Jacobs, Jr., of the Attorney General's department, testified that Standard had interfered with the American explosives industry by blocking the use of a method of producing synthetic ammonia. As a result of its deals with Farben, the United States had been unable to get the use of this vital process even after Pearl Harbor. Also, the United States had been restricted in techniques of producing hydrogen from natural gas and from obtaining paraflow, a product used for airplane lubrication at high altitudes. . . ." On August 7th, "Texas oil operator C.R. Starnes appeared to testify that Standard had blocked him at every turn in his efforts to produce synthetic rubber after Pearl Harbor. . . ." On August 12th, "John R. Jacobs reappeared in an Army private's uniform (he had been inducted the day before) to bring up another disagreeable matter: Standard had also, in league with Farben, restricted production of methanol, a wood alcohol that was sometimes used as motor fuel." (16) The restriction against methanol production apparently did not apply to the Nazis, however. "As late as April 1943," Higham reveals, "General Motors in Stockholm [Sweden] was reported as trading with the enemy. . . . Further documents show that, as with Ford, repairs on German army trucks and conversion from gasoline to wood-gasoline production were being handled by GM in Switzerland." (17) The use of hemp as a source of methanol was known to the Nazis, revealed in the pamphlet "The Humorous Hemp Primer," published in Berlin, also in 1943. This document, recently re-published in the 1995 edition of "Hemp and the Marijuana Conspiracy: The Emperor Wears No Clothes," by veteran hemp conspiracy researcher Jack Herer, states that:
The Nazis obviously considered hemp a vital war material that could be used to produce methanol, or "wood gas," at the same time, in 1943, that Du Pont-controlled General Motors in Switzerland was "converting from gasoline to wood-gasoline production." This, taken into consideration along with the earlier statement that Standard Oil-I.G. Farben had "restricted production of methanol" and the GM-Standard Oil-I.G. Farben joint venture, Ethyl, Inc., whose profitability depended on the production of lead-tetraethyl for oil-based petrochemical gasoline - in direct competition with the alternative methanol, or "wood gas," certainly opens new avenues of investigation into the existence of a conspiracy against hemp as an alternative, and competing, industrial raw material, by these very same corporations which sold America out to the Nazis for profit and control of world resources and markets. "Just after Pearl Harbor," writes Seldes, "the Assistant Attorney General, Mr. Thurman Arnold, issued a sensational report of the sabotage of the national [war production] program, the first report naming the practices which were later to be referred to as the treason of big business in wartime. Said Mr. Arnold:
By "ruinous overproduction," of course, they meant free-market competition. So, to question the existence of an industrial conspiracy against competition, during the 1930s and 1940s, is pointless. It has long been totally documented by volumes of evidence, available in the public record. And among this list of convicted corporate conspirators are murderers, racists, pro-Nazi collaborators, blackmailers and American Fascists who plotted at least one armed take-over of the U.S. government. And the list is not yet complete. THE FORD MOTOR COMPANY Henry Ford, writes Higham, "admired Hitler from the beginning, when the future Fuhrer was a struggling and obscure fanatic. He shared with Hitler a fanatical hatred of Jews." "Ford's book 'The International Jew' was issued in 1927. A virulent anti-Semitic tract, it was still being distributed in Latin America and the Arab countries as late as 1945. Hitler admired the book and it influenced him deeply. Visitors to Hitler's headquarters at the Brown House in Munich noticed a large photograph of Henry Ford hanging in his office. Stacked high on the table outside were copies of Ford's book. As early as 1923," when Hitler heard that Ford was planning to run for President, he "told an interviewer from the 'Chicago-Tribune,' 'I wish that I could send some of my shock troops to Chicago and other big American cities to help'." As late as 1940, Ford Motor Company "refused to build aircraft engines for England and instead built supplies of the 5-ton military trucks that were the backbone of German army transportation." (20) The Ford Motor Company was also aware of the potential of hemp as an alternative industrial resource, devoting many years research to the subject. In a 1989 ABC Radio broadcast, Hugh Downs reported that in the 1930s, "the Ford Motor Company also saw a future in biomass fuels. Ford operated a successful biomass conversion plant that included hemp at their Iron Mountain facility in Michigan. Ford engineers extracted methanol, charcoal fuel, tar, pitch, ethyl acetate, and creosote - all fundamental ingredients for modern industry, and now supplied by oil-related industries. . . . Henry Ford's experiments with methanol promised cheap, readily-available fuel." (21) As reported in "Popular Mechanics" in December, 1941, Ford's research represented "an industrial revolution in progress . . . a revolution in materials that will affect every home." (22) So, it is possible, even likely, that Ford and General Motors conversion "from gasoline to wood-gasoline production" for Nazi Germany, as earlier reported by Higham, involved at least some consideration of hemp as a resource, if not actual production of "wood-gas" from hemp. After all, Ford had already committed several years and significant research dollars to the subject. The implication of methanol fuel patents, hemp industry research and production facilities, all in the hands of this cabal of Nazi-allied American corporations, during a proven period of anti-competition conspiracies, and wartime blackmail against the U.S. government, should provide additional support for the hemp conspiracy theories. The fact is that Nazi Germany recognized hemp as a vital war material - one which, just before America's entrance into World War II, was positioned to compete in the free-market against the products controlled by the Pro-Nazi American corporations. Unrestricted expansion of United States industrial hemp production threatened not only the profits of these treasonous corporations, but the degree of their control over America's production of vital war materials. This view of hemp, not as a "dangerous drug" but as a vital war material, was acknowledged by the Kentucky Legislature a little over 100 years before the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. In 1841, according to Professor James F. Hopkins, author of "A History of the Hemp Industry in Kentucky," published by the University of Kentucky Press in 1951:
INTERNATIONAL TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH Even after Pearl Harbor, ITT was working for the Nazis, reports Higham: ". . . the German army, navy, and air force contracted with ITT for the manufacture of switchboards, telephones, alarm gongs, buoys, air raid warning devices, radar equipment, and thirty thousand fuses per month for artillery shells used to kill British and American troops."
ITT also "supplied ingredients for the rocket bombs that fell on London," and other devices as well, without which "it would have been impossible for the German air force to kill American and British troops, for the German army to fight the Allies in Africa, Italy, France, and Germany, for England to have been bombed, or for Allied ships to have been attacked at sea." (24) In 1938, "following a series of meetings with Luftwaffe chief Herman Goring, [ITT founder and chairman Sosthenes] Behn encouraged ITT's Lorenz subsidiary to purchase 28 percent of the Focke-Wulf firm, manufacturer of the bombers that were to sink so many Allied ships during the war," according to researcher and author Jim Hougan. (25) Anthony Sampson, in "The Sovereign State of ITT," reports on what is perhaps the most bizarre aspect of the US/Nazi corporate partnership, war reparations:
The Foreign Claims Settlement Commission was responsible for this payment to ITT, and other U.S. corporations as well. Bradford Snell reports that "After the cessation of hostilities, GM and Ford demanded reparations from the U.S. Government for wartime damages sustained by their Axis facilities as a result of Allied bombing. By 1967 GM had collected more than $33 million in reparations and Federal tax benefits for damages to its warplane and motor vehicle properties in formerly Axis territories . . . Ford received a little less than $1 million, primarily as a result of damages sustained by its military truck complex at Cologne." (27) ALLEN DULLES: ARCHITECT OF THE US-NAZI NETWORK Contemporary history records Allen Dulles as one of America's top spymasters, from his early days in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in World War II, to his position as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the 1950s and early 1960s (until President John F. Kennedy fired him over the Bay of Pigs disaster in 1961), and finally to his membership on the controversial Warren Commission, which investigated President Kennedy's assassination. Until recently, his pivotal role in promoting a U.S. corporate relationship with the Nazis was little known. Loftus and Aarons describe the post-World War I role of Allen, and his brother, John Foster, in the following terms:
NOTES: U.S. CORPORATIONS AND THE NAZIS
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