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"In 1932, Schmitz joined
forces with Kurt von Schroder, director of the BIS and the
enormously wealthy private bank, J.H. Stein, of Cologne,
Germany. Schroder was a fanatical Nazi. On the surface he
was suave, elegant, impeccably dressed, with a clean-cut
face. In private he was a dedicated leader of the Death's
Head Brigade. During the war he could be seen driving from
his office in his sober pinstripe, changing into a black and
silver uniform covered in decorations, and continuing to a
meeting by torchlight of his personal storm troopers. It was
this SS man who was most closely linked to Winthrop Aldrich
of the Chase Bank, Walter Teagle of Standard Oil, Sosthenes
Behn of ITT, and the other American members of The
Fraternity. In 1933, at his handsome villa in Munich,
Schroder arranged the meeting between Hitler and von Papen
that helped lead to Hitler's accession to power in the
Reichstag. Also in
1932, Hitler's special economic advisor Wilhelm Keppler
joined Schroder in forming a group of high-ranking
associates of The Fraternity who could be guaranteed to
supply money to the Gestapo. They agreed to contribute an
average of one million marks a year to Himmler's personally
marked "S" account at the J. H. Stein Bank, transferable to
the secret "R" Gestapo account at the Dresdnerbank in
Berlin."
*** "On March 29, 1933,
Farben's Max Ilgner -- by now a Nazi officer in Gestapo
uniform -- sent a message to Max Wojahn, Sterling export
manager for South America, which read, in part: "You are
asked to refrain from objecting to 'indecencies' committed
by our [Nazi] government. ... Immediately upon receipt of
this letter, you are to contribute to the spread of
information best adapted to the conditions of your country
and to the editors of influential papers, or by circulars to
physicians and customers; and particularly to that part of
our letter which states that in all the lying tales of
horror [about Germany] there is not one word of truth.""
*** "A clique of U.S.
industrialists is hell-bent to bring a fascist state to
supplant our democratic government and is working closely
with the fascist regime in Germany and Italy. I have had
plenty of opportunity in my post in Berlin to witness how
close some of our American ruling families are to the Nazi
regime. On [the ship] a fellow passenger, who is a prominent
executive of one of the largest financial corporations, told
me point blank that he would be ready to take definite
action to bring fascism into America if President Roosevelt
continued his progressive policies." -- U.S. Ambassador
to Germany William E. Dodd -
- Trading With the Enemy, by
Charles Higham |
