Nothing New about War and Corruption

Now we could look forward to building a world based on the Four Freedoms promulgated at the Yalta Conference: freedom of speech and of religion as well as freedom from want and from fear. Our marching orders for building a brave new world were in place. The U.N. was to be the vehicle turning dreams of justice into reality, translating hopes for peace into an actual dynamic. But in the mind of this old soldier, doubts began to arise as early as 1945.

As I mentioned in one of my previous columns, I was stationed in Hofheim, Germany, located near Frankfurt. One day on a trip to Frankfurt, I drove through the suburb of Hoechst. I passed a huge manufacturing complex. It probably encompassed an area about a mile long and half a mile wide. I could not see any bomb damage. Yet, across the street, in Frankfurt, block after block of apartment houses lay in ruins. Precision bombing made a wasteland of civilian residences. Yet, the plant was undamaged.

On my way back to my detachment, I stopped in Hoechst to find out more about this plant. I learned that it was part of the I.G. Farben complex. During the war it manufactured ammunition. A single bomb was dropped on one corner of the plant. My informants opined that it was an accidental bombing and not part of a plan to destroy the ability to manufacture ammunition. The minor damage certainly did not affect production.

I found this information unbelievable. Yet, the evidence was undeniable. We had not destroyed or even damaged a sizeable plant vital to Germany’s war effort. When, some time later, I questioned the matter, I was told that the allies decided to spare the plant because following the war Germany would need fertilizer in order to grow crops to feed the population. The Hoechst plant was considered a prime site for this task and therefore was not a military target.

Of course, it could not be that I.G. Farben had influential friends in America who somehow managed to save that plant so I.G. Farben could become profitable soon after the conflict. Surely, not!

A second discovery was made soon after I saw the Hoechst plant. The I.G. Farben headquarters building was located in Frankfurt. It was a large building about five stories high. From a curved main structure, four or five finger-like extensions made it an impressive edifice. Much of Germany’s war production was directed from this complex.

Yet not a single bomb was dropped on it. Like Hoechst, the surrounding apartment buildings lay in ruins. German civilians stated that the I.G. Farben H.Q. building was the safest place to be when Frankfurt was bombed. From the evidence this was not an urban myth.

Of course, there were other soldiers who were somewhat perplexed by this fact. The story making the rounds said that Ike wanted to preserve the building for the Supreme Headquarters, American Expeditionary Force.

How much sooner would the war have ended had we bombed that industrial nerve center of Germany’s war effort with the same deathly precision we unleashed on civilian structures in the surrounding area?

Was there something underfoot between I.G. Farben and some pretty influential people in the United States? I am merely raising the question. However, it seemed to me that there was something rotten in Denmark. More was involved here than the all-out destruction of Hitler’s regime.

Another interesting story came to my attention. After American Forces liberated Kaiserslautern, they found that a plant manufacturing tanks had not been bombed. The town itself was reduced to shambles. The story was that the plant was owned by Ford Motor Company. When the war broke out, the German government took it over and started to build tanks.

When the American infantry forces “liberated” the facility, they used whatever weapons they had — bazookas, mortars, grenades — to totally ruin it. I don’t know if it is true, yet the story circulated from several different sources.

I took my discharge in Germany and went to work as an investigator for the War Department. I was assigned to the External Assets Branch. Our task was to locate records evidencing the transfer of legal ownership of American-based German companies into the hands of American citizens who were sympathetic to Hitler. This “legal” transfer began in about 1936 and 1937. When the war broke out, the American Alien Property Custodian could not sequester these German assets because they were legally owned by American citizens. That was a pretty neat trick pulled by the Hitler gang.

The legal ownership was American but the actual management was German.

Of course, the ministry maintained meticulous records of all cover-ups. Our job was to locate these documents. Our group was split into two sections. One was to trace all of the I.G. Farben records. My section was charged with recovery of all the records pertaining to other German entities.

The I.G. Farben section made the most interesting discovery. General Aniline, a chemical corporation located in New Jersey, was suspected by the Alien Property Custodian to be a company owned and controlled by I.G. Farben. However, during the war that claim could never be established. General Aniline continued their operations without American control or oversight.

Discovery of records in Berlin traced the legal ownership of General Aniline to a Swiss bank acting as a holding company for I.G. Farben. A trip to that source resulted in a rather interesting conversation. The American investigator asked the Swiss banker what he knew about the ownership of General Aniline. His answer was the classic Swiss reply, “Our banking laws do not permit me to make any comment on that matter.”

Of course, the Swiss, while yodeling and climbing the Alps, made billions over the years taking care of the dirty laundry of nations world-wide as well as of crooks from all corners of the globe. In my book, the Swiss are not a nice nation of pipe-smoking watchmakers wearing Lederhosen. They provide the facilities for outlaws of every kind, both states and individuals, to hide transactions that might smell to the high heavens with unpleasing odors to whatever gods there might be.

I guess it shouldn’t come as a great surprise that big business has all sorts of under-the-table deals while young men and women are losing their lives protecting corporate interests. The chicanery of German companies and their American and Swiss friends reflects the mendacity perpetrated by the international military industrial complex. Ike warned about that unsavory marriage.

This is the way of world! We wave the flag and shout patriotic slogans while the big boys in the walnut paneled board rooms count their filthy shekels. The blood of the innocent cries from the gore-stained ground but no one hears their voices. We know George Bush’s grandfather played footsie with Hitler and amassed a fortune doing it. Now his grandson is waving the flag and shilling for America’s corporations at the expense of the masses of Americans.

The wheelers and dealers forever and a day have chanted the doxology: “As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. World without end. Amen.” The world that was, is, and shall be is in the hands of a few unscrupulous persons who think that money is more important than men (and women) and profits more important than principles.

John Brand is a Purple Heart, Combat Infantry veteran of World War II. He received his Juris Doctor degree at Northwestern University and a Master of Theology and a Doctor of Ministry at Southern Methodist University. He served as a Methodist minister for 19 years, was Vice President, Birkman & Associates, Industrial Psychologists, and concluded his career as Director, Organizational and Human Resources, Warren-King Enterprises, an independent oil and gas company. He is the author of Shaking the Foundations, and encourages your comments, write him at jbrand@YellowTimes.org.