Overflight, 74
The fact that the Bank possessed a truly international staff did, of course, present a highly anomalous situation in time of war. An American President was transacting the daily business of the Bank through a French General Manager, who had a German Assistant General Manager, while the Secretary−General was an Italian subject. …
The three largest loans handled by the Wall Street international bankers for German borrowers in the 1920s … were for the benefit of three German cartels which a few years later aided Hitler and the Nazis to power. American financiers were directly represented on the boards of two of these three German cartels. …
The three dominant cartels … were as follows: Allgemeine Elektrizitats−Gesellschaft (A.E.G.) (German General Electric), Vereinigte Stahlwerke (United Steelworks), American I.G. Chemical (I.G. Farben).
Looking at all the loans issued, it appears that only a handful of New York financial houses handled the German reparations financing. Three houses – Dillon, Read Co.; Harris, Forbes & Co.; and National City Company – issued almost three−quarters of the total face amount of the loans and reaped most of the profits. …
The two cartels, I.G. Farben and Vereinigte Stahlwerke, produced 95 percent of German explosives in 1937−8 on the eve of World War II. This production was from capacity built by American loans and to some extent by American technology.
The I. G. Farben−Standard Oil cooperation for production of synthetic oil from coal gave the I. G. Farben cartel a monopoly of German gasoline production during World War II. …
In brief, in synthetic gasoline and explosives (two of the very basic elements of modern warfare), the control of German World War II output was in the hands of two German combines created by Wall Street loans …