8. AMERICAN INDUSTRIALISTS TRADED WITH THE ENEMY
Author Charles Higham, in a shocking expose of American corporate greed,
has revealed a disgraceful if not criminal collaboration of some of
America's largest corporations with Nazi Germany not only before but
during World War II.
Higham documents his claims with information gathered through the National
Archives and the Freedom of Information Act. His book, Trading with
the Enemy, gives evidence that such industrial and financial giants
as DuPont, Rockefeller, Ford, Chase Manhattan Bank, I.T.T., General
Motors, and Standard Oil purposely collaborated with the Nazi's either
for monetary gain or because they were Nazi sympathizers hoping for
a German victory.
Higham claims that, among other examples, Standard Oil supplied fuel
for German U-boats through neutral Spain. It continued providing such
supplies until 1944 and in the process caused great loss of life to
American merchant seamen.
ITT was the willing supplier of communications and other equipment
for the buzz bombs that plummeted into London.
Ford maintained a motor plant in Vichy France that turned out tanks
and troop carriers fro the Third Reich.
Chase Manhattan Bank trafficked in the gold market through the Nazi-controlled
Bank for International Settlement in Basel. The source for some of the
gold it bought and sold: dentures and wedding rings from death camps.
Most of the above concerns were interlocked with the German industrial
giant I.G. Farben, the company that produced the poison gas for the
death camps and that ran the largest camp, Auschwitz, for its slave
labor.
On the surface, it would appear that this material has the makings
of a major international news story. Surely the information available
to Higham is equally available to our major news media.
Nor can the media be ignoring the story because it is dated. Earlier
this year, the press widely publicized a Nazi war criminal by the name
of Klaus Barbie.
If Barbie and his alleged wartime mass murders are worthy of front
page news coverage in our newspapers, is the alleged collaboration of
leading American corporations with the Nazi's any less worthy of front
page coverage?
SOURCE:
San Francisco Chronicle, 2/9/83, Carl Vogel review of Trading with
the Enemy: An Expose of the Nazi-Money 1933-1949, by Charles Higham,
Delacorte Publishing, N.Y.