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 Nazism, 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 Nazism, 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 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 indispensable 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)
|
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 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 Nazism, 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 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:
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
Keppler Circle |
I.G.
Farben
|
I.T.T.
|
Standard
Oil
of New Jersey |
General
Electric |
Wilhelm KEPPLER
|
Chairman of Farben subsidiary BRABAG
|
|
—
|
|
Fritz KRANEFUSS
|
On Aufsichrat of BRABAG
|
|
—
|
|
Emil Heinrich MEYER
|
|
On board of all I.T.T. German
subsidiaries: Standard/Mix & Genest/Lorenz
|
—
|
Board of A.E.G.
|
Emil HELFFRICH
|
|
|
Chairman of DAPAG (94-percent owned by
Standard of New Jersey
|
|
Friedrich FLICK
|
I.G. Farben
|
—
|
—
|
Board of A.E.G.
|
Kurt von SCHRODER
|
On board of all 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.
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.
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 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
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) Steinbrinck3
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:
|
||||
|
I.G.
Farben
|
I.T.T.
|
A.E.G.
|
Standard
Oil of New Jersey
|
KRANEFUSS, Fritz
|
x
|
|
|
|
KEPPLER, Wilhelm
|
x
|
|
|
|
SCHRODER, Kurt Von
|
x
|
x
|
|
|
BUETEFISCH, Heinrich
|
x
|
|
|
|
RASCHE, Dr. Karl
|
x
|
|
|
|
FLICK, Friedrich
|
x
|
|
x
|
|
LINDEMANN, Karl
|
|
|
|
x
|
SCHMIDT, Heinrich
|
x
|
|
|
|
ROEHNERT, Kellmuth
|
|
|
x
|
|
SCHMIDT, Kurt
|
|
|
x
|
|
MEYER, Dr. Emil
|
|
x
|
|
|
SCHMITZ, Hermann
|
x
|
|
|
|
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
(a Flick associate) |
100,000 RM
|
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-
Amerikanische Petroleum A.G. |
10,000 RM
|
Staatsrat Lindemann of Deutsch-
Amerikanische Petroleum A.G. and personally |
10,000 RM
4,000 RM |
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 Lindemann. 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. 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.
3NMT, 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."
5The significant
nature of this representation is reflected in Chart 8-1, "Wall Street
representation in the Keppler and Himmler Circles, 1933 and 1944."
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