American Investment

Wall Street and Hitler

While American politicians were condemning Hitler in public, American bankers were quietly funding him in private. They viewed Hitler as a “bulwark” (a defensive wall) against Communism in Russia.

• Union Banking Corporation: This was a bank in New York that acted as a clearinghouse for Nazi money. It was managed by Prescott Bush (the father and grandfather of two US Presidents). The bank was eventually seized by the US government in 1942 under the “Trading with the Enemy Act.”
• General Motors and Ford: These American giants did not just sell cars to Germany. They built factories there.
  • GM: Owned Opel, which built the “Blitz” trucks used by the German army to invade Poland.
  • Henry Ford: He was so admired by the Nazis for his anti-Jewish views and industrial genius that he was awarded the “Grand Cross of the German Eagle.” This was the highest medal a foreigner could receive.
• Motive: It was not just ideology. It was profit. American corporations saw the Third Reich as a massive new market free from labor unions.

The Cartel

IG Farben and Standard Oil (Cartel)

This is the most critical industrial connection. Germany has no natural oil and no rubber. You cannot run a modern army without them. The US giant Standard Oil (Rockefeller) helped solve this problem.

• Marriage: IG Farben (Germany’s chemical giant) and Standard Oil (America’s oil giant) formed a massive cartel. They agreed to share markets and secrets.
• Synthetic Fuel: Standard Oil transferred the technology to IG Farben that allowed them to turn coal into gasoline. Without this American technology, the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) would never have gotten off the ground.
• Synthetic Rubber: They also shared the secrets for making artificial rubber. This allowed German tanks to have tires even when the British blockaded natural rubber imports.
• Bombing Immunity: During the war, Allied bombers would level German cities, but they often strangely avoided hitting the IG Farben factories. Some historians argue this was because the American owners wanted to protect their investment.

Data Tech

IBM and Information Technology (Data)

This is an expansion on the “American Tech” connection. Before computers existed, we had “punch cards.” This technology was needed to organize a massive war and the Holocaust.

• Hollerith Machines: IBM (New York) leased punch-card machines to the Third Reich. These machines were the ancestors of the computer.
• Tracking People: The Nazis used these machines to identify, sort, and track the Jewish population across Europe. Every prisoner in a camp was assigned a number that corresponded to an IBM punch card.
• Profits: IBM subsidiaries continued to service these machines in Germany even after the war started, ensuring the trains ran on time to the camps.

The Heist

Bank of England Betrayal (Czech Gold)

The betrayal went all the way to the central bank of Great Britain.

• Heist: When Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939, he wanted their gold reserves. But the gold was not in Prague. It was stored in the vaults of the Bank of England in London for safekeeping.
• Transfer: The Nazis forced the Czech national bank to send a request to London to transfer the gold to Germany.
• Betrayal: Even though the British government had condemned the invasion, the Bank of England approved the transfer. They moved $30 million worth of gold (in 1939 prices) from the Czech account to the Nazi account. This gold was used to buy the supplies Germany needed to bomb London a year later.

The Friendship

Montagu Norman and Hjalmar Schacht

The financial relationship was not just business. It was a personal friendship between the two most powerful bankers in Europe.

• Montagu Norman: He was the Governor of the Bank of England. He famously disliked the French and feared the Communists. He believed a strong Hitler was better than a strong Stalin.
• Hjalmar Schacht: He was Hitler’s banker (President of the Reichsbank). He was a genius at manipulating currency to hide Germany’s debt.
• Bond: These two men were so close that Norman was the godfather to Schacht’s grandson. Even as their countries moved toward war, these two men kept the financial channels open through the BIS (Bank for International Settlements) in Switzerland. This allowed money to flow between enemies even while soldiers were dying on the front lines.

The Conclusion

Summary

The rise of the Third Reich was not a solo act. It was a joint venture funded by Wall Street, powered by American technology, and facilitated by the British banking elite. They built the monster to fight Communism, but it grew big enough to try to eat them too.

Antony C. Sutton, Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler (1976).
Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust (2001).
Charles Higham, Trading with the Enemy (1983).
Liaquat Ahamed, Lords of Finance.
Neil Forbes, Doing Business with the Nazis (2000).
Adam LeBor, Tower of Basel (2013).
Documents: Vestigial records of the Union Banking Corporation, seized by the US Alien Property Custodian in 1942.