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HARRIMAN & CO'S  EARLY SUPPORT OF HITLER

Click. BEFORE HITLER THERE WAS HARRIMAN & CO AND DILLON READ.

Click. BROWN BROTHERS HARRIMAN'S ROLE IN THE HITLER PROJECT.

BEFORE HITLER THERE WAS HARRIMAN & CO AND DILLON READ.

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excerpted from:
GEORGE BUSH: THE UNAUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY
by Webster Griffin Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin

THE HITLER PROJECT

Prescott Bush became vice president of W.A. Harriman & Co. in 1926. That same year, a friend of Harriman and Bush set up a giant new organization for their client Fritz Thyssen, prime sponsor of politician Adolf Hitler.

The new "German Steel Trust," Germany's largest industrial corporation, was organized in 1926 by Wall Street banker Clarence Dillon. Dillon was the old comrade of Prescott Bush's father Sam Bush from the "Merchants of Death" bureau in World War I.

In return for putting up $70 million to create his organization, majority owner Thyssen gave the Dillon Read company two or more representatives on the board of the new Steel Trust. Note #9

Thus there is a division of labor: Thyssen's own confidential accounts, for political and related purposes, were run through the Walker-Bush organization; the Steel Trust did its corporate banking through Dillon Read.

The great financial collapse of 1929-31 shook America, Germany, and Britain, weakening all governments. It also made the hard-pressed Prescott Bush even more willing to do whatever was necessary to retain his new place in the world. It was in this crisis that certain Anglo-Americans determined on the installation of a Hitler regime in Germany.

W.A. Harriman & Co., well-positioned for this enterprise and rich in assets from their German and Russian business, merged with the British-American investment house, Brown Brothers, on January 1, 1931. Bert Walker retired to his own G.H. Walker & Co. This left the Harriman brothers, Prescott Bush, and Thatcher M. Brown as the senior partners of the new Brown Brothers Harriman firm. (The London, England branch of the Brown family firm continued operating under its historic name -- Brown, Shipley.)

Robert A. Lovett also came over as a partner from Brown Brothers. His father, E.H. Harriman's lawyer and railroad chief, had been on the War Industries Board with Prescott's father. Though he remained a partner in Brown Brothers Harriman, the junior Lovett soon replaced his father as chief executive of Union Pacific Railroad.

Brown Brothers had a racial tradition that fitted it well for the Hitler project. American patriots had cursed its name back in Civil War days. Brown Brothers, with offices in the U.S.A. and in England, had carried on their ships fully 75 percent of the slave cotton from the American South over to British mill owners; through their usurious credit they controlled and manipulated the slave-owners.

Now, in 1931, the virtual dictator of world finance, Bank of England Governor Montagu Collet Norman, was a former Brown Brothers partner, whose grandfather had been boss of Brown Brothers during the U.S. Civil War. Montagu Norman was known as the most avid of Hitler's supporters within British ruling circles, and Norman's intimacy with this firm was essential to his management of the Hitler project.

In 1931, while Prescott Bush ran the New York office of Brown Brothers Harriman, Prescott's partner was Montagu Norman's intimate friend Thatcher Brown. The Bank of England chief always stayed at the home of Prescott's partner on his hush-hush trips to New York. Prescott Bush concentrated on the firm's German actitivites, and Thatcher Brown saw to their business in old England, under the guidance of his mentor Montagu Norman. Note #12

The "Harriman Fifteen Corporation" (George Walker, president, Prescott Bush and Averell Harriman, sole directors) held a substantial stake in the Silesian Holding Co. at the time of the merger with Brown Brothers, January 1, 1931. This holding correlated to Averell Harriman's chairmanship of the "Consolidated Silesian Steel Corporation," the American group owning one-third of a complex of steel making, coal-mining and zinc-mining activities in Germany and Poland, in which Friedrich Flick owned two-thirds. Note #16

A 1935 Harriman Fifteen Corporation memo from George Walker announced an agreement had been made "in Berlin" to sell an 8,000 block of their shares in Consolidated Silesian Steel. Note #1 Note #9 But the dispute with Poland did not deter the Bush family from continuing its partnership with Flick. Nazi tanks and bombs "settled" this dispute in September, 1939 with the invasion of Poland, beginning World War II. The Nazi army had been equipped by Flick, Harriman, Walker, and Bush, with materials essentially stolen from Poland.

There were probably few people at the time who could appreciate the irony, that when the Soviets also attacked and invaded Poland from the East, their vehicles were fueled by oil pumped from Baku wells revived by the Harriman/Walker/Bush enterprise.

Three years later, nearly a year after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government ordered the seizure of the Nazis' share in the Silesian-American Corporation under the Trading with the Enemy Act. Enemy nationals were said to own 49 percent of the common stock and 41.67 percent of the preferred stock of the company.

The order characterized the company as a "business enterprise within the United States, owned by [a front company in] Zurich, Switzerland, and held for the benefit of Bergwerksgesellschaft George von Giesche's Erben, a German corporation...."
Note #20

Bert Walker was still the senior director of the company, which he had founded back in 1926 simultaneously with the creation of the German Steel Trust. Ray Morris, Prescott's partner from Union Banking Corp. and Brown Brothers Harriman, was also a director.

The investigative report prior to the government crackdown explained the "NATURE OF BUSINESS: The subject corporation is an American holding company for German and Polish subsidiaries, which own large and valuable coal and zinc mines in Silesia, Poland and Germany. Since September 1939, these properties have been in the possession of and have been operated by the German government and have undoubtedly been of considerable assistance to that country in its war effort." Note #21

The report noted that the American stockholders hoped to regain control of the European properties after the war.

NOTES:

9. Robert Sobel, "The Life and Times of Dillon Read" (New York: Dutton-Penguin, 1991), pp. 92-111. The Dillon Read firm cooperated in the development of Sobel's book.

12. Andrew Boyle, "Montagu Norman" (London: Cassell, 1967).

16. "Consolidated Silesian Steel Corporation - [minutes of the] Meeting of Board of Directors," October 31, 1930 (WAH papers), shows Averell Harriman as Chairman of the Board.

Prescott Bush to W.A. Harriman, Memorandum December 19, 1930 on their Harriman Fifteen Corp.

Annual Report of United Konigs and Laura Steel and Iron Works for the year 1930 (WAH papers) lists "Dr. Friedrich Flick ... Berlin" and "William Averell Harriman ... New York" on the Board of Directors.

"Harriman Fifteen Coporation Securities Position February 28, 1931," WAH papers. This report shows Harriman Fifteen Corporation holding 32,576 shares in Silesian Holding Co. V.T.C. worth (in scarce depression dollars) $1,628,800, just over half the value of the Harriman Fifteen Corporation's total holdings.

The "New York City Directory of Directors" volumes for the 1930s (available at the Library of Congress) show Prescott Sheldon Bush and W. Averell Harriman as the directors of Harriman Fifteen Corp.

"Appointments," (three typed pages) marked "Noted May 18 1931 W.A.H.," (among the papers from Prescott Bush's New York Office of Brown Brothers Harriman, WAH papers), lists a meeting between Averell Harriman and Friedrich Flick in Berlin at 4:00 P.M., Wednesday April 22, 1931. This was followed immediately by a meeting with Wilhelm Cuno, chief executive of the Hamburg-Amerika Line.

The "Report To the Stockholders of the Harriman Fifteen Corporation," October 19, 1933 (WAH papers) names G.H. Walker as president of the corporation. It shows the Harriman Fifteen Corp.'s address as 1 Wall Street -- the location of G.H. Walker and Co.

20. Order No. 370: Silesian-American Corp. Executed November 17, 1942. Signed by Leo T. Crowley, Alien Prop. Custodian. F.R. Doc. 42-14183; Filed, December 31, 1942; 8 Fed. Reg. 33 (Jan. 1, 1943). The order confiscated the Nazis' holdings of 98,000 shares of common and 50,000 shares of preferred stock in Silesian-American. The Nazi parent company in Breslau, Germany wrote to Averell Harriman at 59 Wall St. on Aug. 5, 1940, with "an invitation to take part in the regular meeting of the members of the Bergwerksgesellsc[h]aft Georg von Giesche's Erben...." WAH papers.

21. Sept. 25, 1942, Memorandum To the Executive Committee of the Office of
Alien Property Custodian, stamped CONFIDENTIAL, from the Division of
Investigation and Research, Homer Jones, Chief. Now declassified in United
States National Archives, Suitland, Maryland annex. See Record Group 131,
Alien Property Custodian, investigative reports, in file box relating to
Vesting Order Number 370.

BROWN BROTHERS HARRIMAN'S ROLE IN THE HITLER PROJECT.

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excerpted from:
GEORGE BUSH: THE UNAUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHYby
Webster Griffin Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin

THE HITLER PROJECT
Bush Property Seized -- Trading with the Enemy

In October 1942, ten months after entering World War II, America was preparing its first assault against Nazi military forces. Prescott Bush was managing partner of Brown Brothers Harriman. His 18-year-old son George, the future U.S. President, had just begun training to become a naval pilot. On October 20, 1942, the U.S. government ordered the seizure of Nazi German banking operations in New York City which were being conducted by Prescott Bush.

Under the "Trading with the Enemy Act", the government took over the "Union Banking Corporation," in which Bush was a director. The U.S. Alien Property Custodian seized Union Banking Corp.'s stock shares, all of which were owned by Prescott Bush, E. Roland "Bunny" Harriman, three Nazi executives, and two other associates of Bush. Note #1

The order seizing the bank "vest[ed] [seized] all of the capital stock of Union Banking Corporation, a New York corporation," and named the holders of its shares as:

"E. Roland Harriman -- 3991 shares." Harriman was chairman and director of Union Banking Corp. (UBC); this is "Bunny" Harriman, described by Prescott Bush as a place holder who didn't get much into banking affairs; Prescott managed his personal investments.

"Cornelis Lievense -- 4 shares." Lievense was president and director of UBC, and a New York resident banking functionary for the Nazis.

"Harold D. Pennington -- 1 share." Pennington was treasurer and director of UBC, and an office manager employed by Bush at Brown Brothers Harriman.

"Ray Morris -- 1 share." Morris was director of UBC, and a partner of Bush and the Harrimans.

"Prescott S. Bush -- 1 share." Bush was director of UBC, which was co-founded and sponsored by his father-in-law George Walker; he was senior managing partner for E. Roland Harriman and Averell Harriman.

"H.J. Kouwenhoven -- 1 share" Kouwenhoven was director of UBC; he organized UBC as the emissary of Fritz Thyssen in negotiations with George Walker and Averell Harriman; he was also managing director of UBC's Netherlands affiliate under Nazi occupation; industrial executive in Nazi Germany, and also director and chief foreign financial executive of the German Steel Trust.

"Johann G. Groeninger -- 1 share." Groeninger was director of UBC and of its Netherlands affiliate; he was an industrial executive in NaziGermany. The order also specified: "all of which shares are held for the benefit of ... members of the Thyssen family, [and] is property of nationals ... of a designated enemy country...."

By October 26, 1942, U.S. troops were underway for North Africa. On October 28, the government issued orders seizing two Nazi front organizations run by the Bush- Harriman bank: the "Holland-American Trading Corporation" and the "Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation." Note #2 U.S. forces landed under fire near Algiers on November 8, 1942; heavy combat raged throughout November. Nazi interests in the "Silesian-American Corporation," long managed by Prescott Bush and his father-in-law George Herbert Walker, were seized under the Trading with the Enemy Act on November 17, 1942. In this action, the government announced that it was seiz
ing only the Nazi interests, leaving the Nazis' U.S. partners to carry on the business. Note #3

These and other actions taken by the U.S. government in wartime were, tragically, too little and too late. President Bush's family had already played a central role in financing and arming Adolf Hitler for his takeover of Germany; in financing and managing the buildup of Nazi war industries for the conquest of Europe and war against the U.S.A.; and in the development of Nazi genocide theories and racial propaganda, with their
well-known results.

The facts presented here must be known, and their implications reflected upon, for a proper understanding of President George Herbert Walker Bush and of the danger to mankind that he represents. The President's family fortune was largely a result of the Hitler project. The powerful Anglo-American family associations, which later boosted him into the Central Intelligence Agency and up to the White House, were his father's
partners in the Hitler project.

President Franklin Roosevelt's Alien Property Custodian, Leo T. Crowley, signed Vesting Order Number 248 seizing the property of Prescott Bush under the Trading with Enemy Act. The order, published in obscure government record books and kept out of the news, Note #4 explained nothing about the Nazis involved; only that the Union Banking Corporation was run for the "Thyssen family" of "Germany and/or Hungary" -- "nationals ... of a designated enemy country."

By deciding that Prescott Bush and the other directors of the Union Banking Corp. were legally "front men for the Nazis", the government avoided the more important historical issue: In what way "were Hitler's Nazis themselves hired, armed, and instructed by" the New York and London clique of which Prescott Bush was an executive manager? Let us examine the Harriman-Bush Hitler project from the 1920s until it was partially broken up, to seek an answer for that question.

Origin and Extent of the Project

Fritz Thyssen and his business partners are universally recognized as the most important German financiers of Adolf Hitler's takeover of Germany. At the time of the order seizing the Thyssen family's Union Banking Corp., Mr. Fritz Thyssen had already published his famous book, "I Paid Hitler", Note #5 admitting that he had financed Adolf Hitler and the Nazi movement since October 1923. Thyssen's role as the leading early backer of Hitler's grab for power in Germany had been noted by U.S. diplomats in Berlin in 1932. Note #6

The order seizing the Bush-Thyssen bank was curiously quiet and modest about the identity of the perpetrators who had been nailed.

But two weeks before the official order, government investigators had reported secretly that "W. Averell Harriman was in Europe sometime prior to 1924 and at that time became acquainted with Fritz Thyssen, the German industrialist." Harriman and Thyssen agreed to set up a bank for Thyssen in New York. "[C]ertain of [Harriman's] associates would serve as directors...." Thyssen agent "H.J. Kouwenhoven ... came to the United States ... prior to 1924 for conferences with the Harriman Company in this
connection...." Note #7

When exactly was "Harriman in Europe sometime prior to 1924"? In fact, he was in Berlin in 1922 to set up the Berlin branch of W.A. Harriman & Co. under George Walker's presidency.

The Union Banking Corporation was established formally in 1924, as a unit in the Manhattan offices of W.A. Harriman & Co., interlocking with the Thyssen-owned "Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart" (BHS) in the Netherlands. The investigators concluded that "the Union Banking Corporation has since its inception handled funds chiefly supplied to it through the Dutch bank by the Thyssen interests for American investment."

Thus by personal agreement between Averell Harriman and Fritz Thyssen in 1922, W.A. Harriman & Co. (alias Union Banking Corporation) would be transferring funds back and forth between New York and the "Thyssen interests" in Germany. By putting up about $400,000, the Harriman organization would be joint owner and manager of Thyssen's banking operations outside of Germany.

NOTES:

1. Office of Alien Property Custodian, Vesting Order Number 248. Signed by Leo T. Crowley, Alien Property Custodian, executed October 20, 1942; F.R. Doc. 42-11568; Filed, November 6, 1942. 7 Fed. Reg. 9097 (November 7,1942). The "New York City Directory of Directors", 1930s-40s, list Prescott Bush as a director of Union Banking Corp. from 1934 through 1943.

2. Alien Property Custodian Vesting Order No. 259: Seamless Steel Equipment
Corporation; Vesting Order Number 261: Holland-American Trading Corp.

3. Alien Property Custodian Vesting Order No. 370: Silesian-American Corp.

4. "New York Times," December 16, 1944, ran a five-paragraph page 25 article on actions of the New York State Banking Department. Only the last sentence refers to the Nazi bank, as follows: "The Union Banking Corporation, 39 Broadway, New York, has received authority to change its principal place of business to 120 Broadway."

The "Times" omitted the fact that the Union Banking Corporation had been seized by the government for trading with the enemy, and the fact that 120 Broadway was the address of the government's Alien Property Custodian.

5. Fritz Thyssen, "I Paid Hitler", 1941, reprinted in (Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1972), p. 133. Thyssen says his contributions began with 100,000 marks given in October 1923, for Hitler's attempted "putsch" against the constitutional government.

6. Confidential memorandum from U.S. Embassy, Berlin, to the U.S. Secretary of State, April 20, 1932, on microfilm in "Confidential Reports of U.S. State Dept., 1930s, Germany," at major U.S. libraries.

7. October 5, 1942, Memorandum to the Executive Committee of the Office of Alien Property Custodian, stamped CONFIDENTIAL, from the Division of Investigation and Research, Homer Jones, Chief. Now declassified in United States National Archives, Suitland, Maryland annex. Note Record Group 131, Alien Property Custodian, investigative reports, in file box relating to Vesting Order Number 248.