Letters from Vienna #133
Who financed the Nazis?
Did Sidney Warburg actually exist?
“The issue of concern was—using (John Ridgley) Carter’s words—very simple,” the curious book: “Hitler’s Secret Backers” (purportedly written by a certain “Sidney Warburg”) tells us. “It was clear to every one of us that there was only one way to free Germany from the financial clutches of France, and that was revolution. The revolution could be carried out by two different political groups. The German Communists came into question first, but if a Communist revolution succeeded in Germany, then the power of Soviet Russia would be strengthened and the Bolshevist danger to the rest of the world would be increased. There remained a revolution activated by German Nationalist groups. There were actually several groups of this persuasion, but no political movement was radical enough to bring about a real overthrow of the state in Germany, if necessary with force. (President-Commissioner of the Guaranty Trust Bank) Carter had heard a bank director in Berlin speak about a certain Hitler. Rockefeller himself had read a short essay in a German-American leaflet about the Nationalist movement led by this man Hitler (he said “Heitler”). It had been decided at the earlier meeting to make contact with “this man Hitler” and to try to find out if he were amenable to American financial support. Now the question was clearly addressed to me: would I be prepared to go to Germany, get in touch with him, and take the necessary steps to arrange this financial aid?”
“It must be taken care of quickly, because the sooner the Nationalist group in Germany could be built up the better. It should be emphasized in my negotiations with Hitler that an aggressive foreign policy was expected of him, he should stir up the Revanche-Idee against France. The result would be fear from the French side, and consequently greater willingness to ask for American and English help in international questions involving eventual German aggression. Hitler should naturally not know about the purpose of the assistance. It should be left to his reason and resourcefulness to discover the motives behind the proposal. The next topic of conversation was that I should find out from Hitler how much money he needed to bring he needed to bring about a complete revolution of the German state. As soon as I knew this, then I should report to Carter, in the Guaranty Trust’s secret code, which European bank, the amount, in my name, should be sent to, so I could then turn it over to Hitler. I accepted the assignment.”[1]
The only problem was: there was no nor had there been a “Sidney Warburg”. Who was the real author? We will most probably never know. Yet Antony C. Sutton still decided to devote a lot of time and thought to this vexed question:
“Who Was “Sidney Warburg”?
“The question posed…is the accusation that some Wall Street financiers (the Rockefellers and Warburgs specifically have been accused) directly planned and financed Hitler’s takeover in 1933, and that they did this from Wall Street. On this question the so-called myth of “Sidney Warburg” is relevant. Prominent Nazi Franz von Papen has stated in his Memoirs:
“... the most documented account of the National Socialists’ sudden acquisition of funds was contained in a book published in Holland in 1933, by the old established Amsterdam publishing house of Van Holkema & Warendorf, called De Geldbronnen van Het Nationaal-Socialisme (Drie Gesprekken Met Hitler) under the name “Sidney Warburg.””
“A book with this title in Dutch by “Sidney Warburg” was indeed published in 1933 but remained on the book stalls in Holland only for a matter of days. The book was purged.
One of three surviving original copies was translated into English. The translation was at one time deposited in the British Museum but is now withdrawn from public circulation and is unavailable for research. Nothing is now known of the original Dutch copy upon which this English translation was based.”
“The second Dutch copy was owned by Chancellor Schussnigg in Austria, and nothing is known of its present whereabouts. The third Dutch copy found its way to Switzerland and was translated into German. The German translation has survived down to the present day in the Schweizerischen Sozialarchiv in Zurich, Switzerland. A certified copy of the authenticated German translation of this Swiss survivor was purchased by the author in 1971 and translated into English.”
“Why was the Dutch original withdrawn from circulation in 1933? Because “Sidney Warburg” did not exist and a “Sidney Warburg” was claimed as the author. Since 1933 the “Sidney Warburg” book has been promoted by various parties both as a forgery and as a genuine document. The Warburg family itself has gone to some pains to substantiate its falsity.”
“From the viewpoint of research methodology it is much more preferable to assume that the “Sidney Warburg” book is a forgery, unless we can prove the contrary. This is the procedure we shall adopt. The reader may well ask — then why bother to look closely at a possible forgery? There are at least two good reasons, apart from academic curiosity.”
“First, the Warburg claim that the book is a forgery has a curious and vital flaw. The Warburgs deny as false a book they admit not to have read nor even seen. The Warburg denial is limited specifically to non-authorship by a Warburg. This denial is acceptable; but it does not deny or reject the validity of the contents. The denial merely repudiates authorship.”
“Second, we have already identified I.G. Farben as a key financier and backer of Hitler. We have provided photographic evidence of the bank transfer slip for 400,000 marks from I.G. Farben to Hitler’s “Nationale Treuhand” political slush fund account administered by Rudolf Hess. Now it is probable, almost certain, that “Sidney Warburg” did not exist. On the other hand, it is a matter of public record that the Warburgs were closely connected with
I.G. Farben in Germany and the United States. In Germany Max Warburg was a director of I.G. Farben and in the United States brother Paul Warburg (father of James Paul Warburg) was a director of American I.G. Farben. In brief, we have incontrovertible evidence that some Warburgs, including the father of James Paul, the denouncer of the “Sidney Warburg” book, were directors of I.G. Farben. And I.G. Farben is known to have financed Hitler. “Sidney Warburg” was a myth, but I.G. Farben directors Max Warburg and Paul Warburg were not myths.”[2]
According to Guido Giacomo Preparata: “In all, and without counting the abominable Zeitgeist of the Modern Era, three clans contributed to the Nazi seizure of power: Anglo-American finance, the USSR, and the Vatican…”
“With the Wall Street Crash of October 1929, something the Nazi organ, the Völkischer Beobachter, did not even bother to mention, and the severance of the pound from gold in September 1931, Anglo-American finance interrupted the monetary transfusion to Germany, causing automatically…the electoral success of the Nazis. In the same interval of time, as if faithfully aiding the plots of London, the Russian Soviets engineered within Germany a civil war to ‘baptize’ the freshly elected Hitlerite contingent.”
“Who had been funding them from the beginning? According to one hideously humorous folk tale eagerly circulated, the Nazis financed themselves by way of rallies and contributions, in addition to the storm troopers’ late endorsements of razor blades called ‘Stürmer’ (‘Stormer’), and a brand of margarine named ‘Kampf’ (‘Battle’). Ten years of political activity all over the nation, and three technologically innovative, mass-publicized elections in a country half-bankrupt, funded by means of tickets, piddling donations, and margarine?”
“A more creditable version exposed by a first-class historian (Quigley) that had access for two years to classified documents alleged that Nazism from 1919 to 1923, the year of the putsch, had been financed by the secret funds of the Reichswehr (the army), and thereafter by German industrialists, such as the steel magnate Fritz Thyssen, who began paying Hitler in 1931 by remitting funds to his deputy, Hess, via an account with a Dutch bank which was interlocked with a Wall Street outfit called Union Banking Corporation. This was a subsidiary of Harriman Brown Bros. that was managed by Prescott Bush. In 1934 the foreign correspondent of the Manchester Guardian confirmed the widely diffused rumor that the bulk of Nazi funding was foreign in origin: Hitler had large funds at his disposal, not obtained entirely from German sources. He got money from certain capitalist interests in foreign countries, who were attracted by his hostility to Soviet Russia, or by...his policy to increase the demand for armaments...International finance does not seem to be unfavorable to the Nazi regime.”[3]
Webster Tarpley is more direct: “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.”
“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”, admitting that he had financed Adolf Hitler and the Nazi movement since October 1923. U.S. diplomats in Berlin had noted Thyssen’s role as the leading early backer of Hitler’s grab for power in Germany in 1932. 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.”
“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.”
“How important was the Nazi enterprise for which President Bush’s father was the New York banker? The 1942 U.S. government investigative report said that Bush’s Nazi-front bank was an interlocking concern with the Vereinigte Stahlwerke (United Steel Works Corporation or German Steel Trust) led by Fritz Thyssen and his two brothers. After the war, Congressional investigators probed the Thyssen interests, Union Banking Corp. and related Nazi units. The investigation showed that the Vereinigte Stahlwerke had produced the following approximate proportions of total German national output: 50.8% of Nazi Germany’s pig iron 41.4% of Nazi Germany’s universal plate 36.0% of Nazi Germany’s heavy plate 38.5% of Nazi Germany’s galvanized sheet 45.5% of Nazi Germany’s pipes and tubes 22.1% of Nazi Germany’s wire 35.0% of Nazi Germany’s explosives. 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.”[4]
Much in the same way that the seizure of power by Bolsheviks in Russia in 1917 (see letter #117) was a “revolution from above” financed by banks so the seizure of power by the Nazis in 1933 was a similar event and must be treated as such. As argued repeatedly in my previous letters: the oligarchs and above all the “gods of finance” are directly responsible for most of the ill in the world, which is why measures need to be taken (in a non-violent fashion) to liberate ourselves from their clutches. We must start simply saying: “No.”
[1] p. 6 Hitler’s Secret Backers, Sidney Warburg
[2] pp. 106-107 Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler, Antony C. Sutton
[3] pp.189-199 Conjuring Hitler. How Britain And America Made The Third Reich, Guido Giacomo Preparata
[4] pp.22-30 George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography, Webster G. Tarpley.