Part V -The Second World War: American, British and German Politics

There appears to be evidence pointing to treachery by leading U.S. business groups during World War II. In particular, friction existed between President Roosevelt and the Rockefeller oil and banking nexus which persisted in supplying the Germans with oil after 1939²⁷. In addition to this, it has been alleged that certain U.S. financiers (the same groups, in fact, that had helped set up and finance the German combines during the 1920s, e.g. the banking firm of Dillon Read²⁸) were able to maintain financial connections with such pro-Nazi capitalists as Thyssen, the steel-maker, via Holland²⁹. It is certainly also the case that, during World War II, bankers representing the Nazis and the Allies met regularly in Switzerland at the Bank for International Settlements³⁰.

Thus, Standard Oil and other U.S. corporations are reported to have operated inside Nazi Germany after World War I began, supplying some of the technical know-how that kept the Third Reich going. Meanwhile, immediately following the War, America successfully moved out large numbers of pro-Nazi scientists and technocrats who were then employed at NASA and elsewhere on classified projects for the U.S. armed forces and for U.S. intelligence, etc³¹.

In July, 1940, the New York Times reported that large amounts of oil were being supplied by the United States to Nazi Germany, at war with Britain³². Less well-known these days is the report that a million barrels of crude oil had been delivered to Germany’s partner, Japan, by the British Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. (predecessor of B.P.) as late as March, 1940, among other similar deals³³.

America would obviously have been well aware of Britain’s continued desire to rule the world, expressed in its own way by the British Round Table organization, but it had cultivated more effective ties within Germany in business, and this could have been pointed at Britain (at the time of World War I, 27% of the US population was of British descent and 25% of German descent³⁴, and several of America’s biggest business families were of German origin -e.g. the Rockefellers, Warburgs, Goldmans, Sachs, Lehmans and Guggenheims, although it should be pointed out that many of these Germans-American, some of whom had supported the Kaiser -e.g. the Warburgs seem to have been particularly close -before and even during World War I were Jews).

World War I had not rid the world of inter-imperialist conflict. Directly following it, not only had Russia taken a Socialist path, but Britain’s differences with the other imperialist powers, including France and the United States had broken out, a reflection of Britain’s weakened state and America’s ambitions.

Indeed, these conflicts were even pursued while the War was actually going on. For example, in the Middle East, Britain, ostensibly at war with Germany, clashed with France -T.E. Lawrence’s (“Lawrence of Arabia”) role in this is evident. Territories in the Arab world were haggled over, and Britain lost against the Wahabis and Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud who had begun to seize power in Saudi Arabia. This became America’s opportunity, cultivated during the 1930s and used to the great benefit of its oil corporations³⁵.

During the 1920s, movements had grown up in Britain in favor of better relations with Germany, sympathizing with it over its treatment in the 1919 Versailles Treaty. Although these movements were associated with the movement against the Soviet Union, and anti-communism in general, they also espoused the continued power of Britain and its Empire.

All those anti-communist, pro-British Empire and pro-Nazi, groups appear to have dissolved upon the outbreak of World War II, and yet it was common knowledge at the time and much commented upon, that those who had been pro-Nazi began turning up at the head of Britain’s military preparations and war effort. For instance, Lord Riverdale (quoted above), said to have been a member of the Anglo-German Fellowship, became associated with the head of Britain’s Aircraft Supply Board, Sir Charles Craven (also Chairman of the largest British armaments company at the time, Vickers Armstrong), Captain Oliver Lyttelton was the British Minister of Production in World War II, even though he was listed in 1940 as a director of the German company Metallgesellschaft AG, Peter Bennett was appointed to a controlling position in World War II Aircraft Supply after having been negotiator of an agreement for joint world trade exploitation with the Nazi Reichsgruppe Industrie as late as March 1939³⁶, while Montagu Norman remained Governor of the Bank of England until 1944, after having been responsible for financing Nazi Germany and sequestering investments made in Britain by German Jews, a matter that has only been “resolved” recently.

At the beginning of 1936, Edward VIII came to the throne. It seems Hitler was informed by the German Embassy in London that the new King believed “an alliance between Germany and Britain [was]... an urgent necessity.” In December, he was forced to abdicate, officially because he had decided to marry a divorcee, Wallis Simpson, and Parliament refused to change the law to make this possible. Britain’s aristocracy, and particularly the monarchy was (and remains) a cousinhood of European families in which the British Royal Family has especially strong relations with the German aristocracy, from whom they originate, in fact³⁷.

Although it is certainly not the case that Edward was alone in the British Royal Family in his admiration of Nazi Germany, he may have represented a specific route with respect to it that was not supported by the majority of them³⁸. That will probably remain a mystery for many years to come. Whatever light it may cast on things, this is not the main issue at stake, and his role has been turned into a myth to cover up more serious matters.

Upon Edward’s abdication, his brother George VI came to the throne in January ,1937, and in May the Government of Neville Chamberlain came into office and followed a policy of Appeasement with respect to Germany, which merely encouraged the militarist and expansionist government of Hitler. However, in doing this, Britain was not merely trailing behind Hitler, but following its own imperialist reasoning.

Edward (by then Duke of Windsor) visited Hitler until October, 1937, when Appeasement was in full swing -in November, 1937, Britain’s Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sent Lord Halifax to meet Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Goering in Germany, where Lord Halifax recalled saying that:

“Although there was much in the Nazi system that profoundly offended British opinion, I was not blind to what he (Hitler) had done for Germany, and to the achievement from his point of view of keeping Communism out of his country³⁹.”

Hitler had banned the German Communist Party and put its leaders into concentration camps.

Britain, however, appears to have been preparing for War as early as April 1938, following the Nazi occupation of Austria in March. For example, a British purchasing mission arrived in California in search of aircraft, and two months later they purchased 250 from Lockheed and named them Hudsons⁴⁰. However, Neville Chamberlain’s Appeasement policy did not come to an end until March, 1939, when Hitler seized the rest of Czechoslovakia, thus breaking with the Munich Agreement signed in September, 1938.

But it was not until June, 1939, when King George VI visited President Roosevelt in the United States (after having been invited by FDR in a letter dated September 17, 1938, to which the King replied on October 8th that year), on an unprecedented State visit to America, the first official State visit by a ruling monarch since America had split from the Britain in the 18th century. They discussed the ways America could help Britain and laid the basis for the destroyers for bases deal, which was authorized on September 2nd, 1940.

On the surface, the situation appears similar to what happened in World War I -Britain (France, Russia) versus the Alliance Powers led by Germany. But the power situation between Britain and America was reversed -instead of Britain being the most powerful State in the world, setting up a blockade across the North Sea and patrolling the Atlantic, now America was telling Britain how it could help her out of the mess. The Americans would take over various British bases in exchange for destroyers and Canada need not waste money building “a Canadian fleet as he [Roosevelt] had already laid his plans for the defense of the Pacific Coast of Canada, especially Vancouver Island⁴¹.” Britain declared war on Germany on September 3rd, 1939.

A curious piece of evidence for a shift by British imperialism against Germany is the book “Tory MP” by one Simon Haxey⁴², published in 1939, which exposes the fascist-Nazi connections of the British Conservative Party until then, while singling out a few Conservative dissidents, such as Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden, who it argued would lead the British Empire in the correct direction. This book, issued by the Left Book Club, gives every impression of standing on the left and exposing the fascist network, but adopts an openly pro-imperialist stance, e.g.:

“Every British Government also has responsibility towards the Empire, whose people have a right to depend on British statesmen to save them from the clutches of Hitler and Mussolini. Our Conservatives have made it increasingly difficult for any British Government to fulfil these, its greatest responsibilities⁴³.”

It is also worth noting that by 1930 the United States was outpacing Britain as an exporter, though not in all parts of the world. America’s biggest export coup was Canada (a Dominion of Britain), where US exports totaled £ 131.819 million compared with £ 29.138 million for British exports. However, Britain was still the dominant exporter to India (with £ 52.944 million, while US exports were only 17% of this amount), Ireland (US exports were only 8% of Britain’s), and South Africa (US exports were 29% of Britain’s). Meanwhile, US exports to Germany were more than double Britain’s and in Australia US exports were gradually catching up with Britain’s (at 48% of the latter’s). From 1913 to 1929, British exports to its Empire fell from 44% to 34%, while British imports from its Empire fell from 42% to 34%. Meanwhile, the United States share in these had grown⁴⁴.

Any influence Britain (through its aristocratic connections) and America (through business connections) may have had in Germany, however, was surely eclipsed by its own power-groups’ desire (again) to extend their control over the rest of Europe. Germany was being treated as a second-rate power because it had been crushed by the combined weight of the other powerful States,. This was unacceptable to its ruling classes, the industrial and financial capitalists and the great landowners, the Junker class. It united them, but plenty more divided them⁴⁵, and it took Hitler and the Nazi Party to bring them together -under Hitler Germany began arming in earnest.

World War II and the period leading up to it were clearly characterized by the clash of imperial designs on the world. Within this conflict, it was the largest, most economically powerful that won, a fact that was announced in 1930 by Ludwell Denny⁴⁶:

“The ‘feeling’ of victory is on America’s side. It is America’s ‘day.’ The devastating ‘will to win’ so characteristic of youth and the energy and daring which flow from it, drive America forward… The ‘Americanization’ of Europe and the far places of the Earth advances… We were Britain’s colony once. She will be our colony before she is done, not in name but in fact. Machines gave Britain power over the world. Now better machines are giving America power over the world… What chance has Britain against America? Or what chance has the world?”

N.B. This is a continuing project. We welcome comments, corrections, suggestions, criticisms from readers.

NOTES

²⁷ For FDR’s opposition to the Rockefellers -see: Charles Higham: “Trading with The Enemy; the Nazi American Money Plot, 1933-1949”.

²⁸ The German Steel Trust, Stahlvereign consolidated in 1926 about half of Germany’s steel capacity and a fifth of its coal. It was underwritten by Dillon Read and J. Henry Schroder & Company in New York. See: Robert Franklin Maddox: “The War Within World War II: The United States and International Cartels”, 2001, page 71.

²⁹ See: John Loftus, “Heir to the Holocaust”, 2003

³⁰ Baron Kurt von Schroder, who held a very high position in the Nazi Party, as well as helping to finance it -and was also the head of a worldwide banking group, with offices in London and New York, as well as a business connection with America’s ITT (See: Anthony Sampson, “The Sovereign State of I.T.T.”, 1973) -became Germany’s representative on the Bank for International Settlements, sitting alongside representatives from the Bank of England and the US Federal Reserve, in Switzerland during the course of the War. (see: Anthony Sutton: “Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler”, Chapter 5)

³¹ Top Nazi V-2 rocket scientist Wernher Von Braun, for example, was smuggled out along with many others in Operation Paperclip, to become the founder of NASA’s George C. Marshall Space Flight Center.

³² Ivor Montagu: “The Traitor Class”, 1940, page 59.

³³ Ibid, page 57

³⁴ See: Don Von Heinrich Tolzmann: “The German-American Experience”, page 268.

³⁵ This is evident from Richard Aldington’s “Lawrence of Arabia, a Biographical Enquiry” (1955), with respect to certain territories in the Middle East, later followed through at the Versailles negotiations.

³⁶ See Ivor Montagu: “The Traitor Class”, 1939.

³⁷ The British Royal Family is descended from the German aristocratic Saxe-Coburg dynasty and connected through marriage to both the British and German aristocracy. Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh’s full name is Philip von Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg. His education began in Germany, and his sisters married several German Dukes and one German Prince, all of whom stood or fought on the German side during World War II.

³⁸ His brother, the Duke of Kent and his wife, for instance, were intrigued by Hitler’s “sociological experiment”. In November 1939, Queen Elizabeth, George VI’s wife, sent Lord Halifax a copy of Hitler’s “Mein Kamph”. In her accompanying letter, the Queen Mother made reference to Hitler’s “obvious sincerity” (from the biography of Lord Halifax by Andrew Roberts: “The Holy Fox”)

³⁹ See Spartacus pages, “Appeasement”.

⁴⁰ See: Anthony Sampson; “The Arms Bazaar”, 1977, page 94.

⁴¹ Transcript of King George VI’s “Handwritten Notes for a Memorandum on His Conversations with President Roosevelt on June10 and 11, 1939”.

⁴² Richard Griffiths (“Fellow Travellers of the Right”, 1983, page 382) states that “Simon Haxey” is a pseudonym.

⁴³ Haxey, page 226

⁴⁴ Ranji Palme Dutte: “World Politics, 1918-1936”, 1936, page 197, 237.

⁴⁵ Industrialization, for instance, against which the Junkers put up some opposition.

⁴⁶ “America Conquers Britain”, 1930, pages 404-7.