EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

The book you are about to read is one of the most extraordinary historical documents of the 20th century.

Where did Hitler get the funds and the backing to achieve power in 1933 Germany? Did these funds come only from prominent German bankers and industrialists or did funds also come from American bankers and industrialists?

Prominent Nazi Franz von Papen wrote in his MEMOIRS (New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc. 1953) p. 229, "... the most documented account of the National Socialists' sudden acquisition of funds was contained in a book published in Holland in 1933, by the old established Amsterdam publishing house of Van Holkema & Warendorf, called DE GELDBRONNEN VAN HET NATIONAAL SOCIALISME (DRIE GESPREKKEN MET HITLER) under the  name 'Sidney Warburg.'

The book cited by von Papen is the one you are about to read and was indeed published in 1933 in Holland, but remained on the book stalls only a few days. The book was purged. Every copy -- except three accidental survivors -- was taken out of the bookstores and off the shelves. The book and its story were silenced -- almost.

One of the three surviving copies found its way to England, translated into English and deposited in the British Museum. This copy and the translation were later withdrawn from circulation, and are presently "unavailable" for  research. The second Dutch language copy was acquired by Chancellor Schussnigg of Austria. Nothing is known of its present whereabouts. The third Dutch survivor found its way to Switzerland and in 1947 was translated into German.  This German translation was in turn found some years ago by this editor in the Schweizerischeft Sozialarchiv in Zurich, along with an affidavit by the three Dutch-to-German translators and a critique of the book. This editor made copies of the German text and commissioned an English translation. It is this translation that you will read here. Even allowing for the double translation from Dutch to German and German to English, the original lively style is essentially retained. The book is not by any means dull reading.

The original book FINANCIAL ORIGINS OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM was branded a forgery. However, since 1933 numerous pre-war German government files have become public information, including the captured German  Foreign Ministry files and the Nuremburg Trial documents. These confirm the story at key points. 

For example, in the book, Sidney Warburg claims to have met with an obscure banker von Heydt in 1933. We now know in 1982 from the German records that in 1933 the Dutch Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart N.V., was a  channel of funds for the Nazis. The earlier name for this bank was the von Heydt Bank. Coincidence? How would Sidney Warburg know in 1933?

There are other links. We now know that the German combine of I.G. Farben was a financier of Hitler, and Paul Warburg was a director of American I.G. Farben. Further, Max Warburg was a director of the German I.G. Farben.  Max Warburg also signed the document appointing Hjalmar Schaht to the Reichsbank -- and Hitler's signature appears alongside that of Max Warburg.

Yet the Warburg family denied any link to Hitler. The Warburgs branded the book a forgery and threatened the publisher unless it was removed from bookstores. In any event, the Warburgs are not accused directly. "Sidney Warburg" was only the courier. In fact, all the bankers named are gentiles, not Jewish.

In 1949 James P. Warburg made a sworn affidavit which compounds the mystery. Warburg denied he had even seen the "Sidney Warburg" book, yet branded it as a complete forgery! Furthermore, careful reading of the James  Warburg affidavit shows that his denial refers to another book published by one of the translators, Rene Sonderegger, and not the "Sidney Warburg" book.  And just to deepen the mystery, this Warburg affidavit is published in Fritz von Papen's MEMOIRS -- the very same source that recommended Sidney Warburg as a source of accurate information on the financing of Hitler (and Papen was, of course, a prominent Nazi).

Even today in 1983 a mystery surrounds the document. There is a ring of authenticity about the original explanation for its publication -- that an individual member of the Warburg family wanted to warn of the coming European war.

Go to Next Page