The Splendid Blond Beast

by Simpson, Christopher; Miller, Mark Crispin;

  14.Moody’s Investors Service, Moody’s Manual of Investments. American and Foreign Industrial Securities. New York: Moody’s, 1936, p. 3028.

  15.“Industrielle Besitzverlagerungen,” op. cit.

  16.Simon Reich, The Fruits of Fascism. Postwar Prosperity in Historical Perspective. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press, 1990, p. 113.

  17.For an extensive discussion on Ford’s complex activities in Nazi Germany, see ibid., pp. 111–46, with Diestel dismissal at p. 114. On directors of Ford Motor Company AG (Germany), see Moody’s Manual of Investments, 1936, op. cit., pp. 1283–84. On Bosch Aryanization: “Industrielle Besitzverlagerungen,” op. cit.

  18.Reich, op. cit., pp. 113–14.

  19.Mira Wilkins, The Maturing of Multinational Enterprise. American Business Abroad from 1914 to 1970. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1974. pp. 186–87.

  20.Moody’s Manual of Investments, 1939, op. cit., pp. 1798, 1800, 1801, 1804, a113–a117, “Six-Year Price Range of Foreign Industrials” (blue section).

  21.On Draper, see James Stewart Martin, All Honorable Men. Boston: Little, Brown, 1950, p. 206; on German Credit and Investment Corps’ role at Dillon, Read, see Robert Sobel, The Life and Times of Dillon, Read. New York: Dutton, 1991, pp. 89, 105–106.

  22.Wilkins, op. cit., p. 187 & fn.

  23.Ibid., p. 185; and U.S. Department of Commerce, American Direct Investment, op. cit.

  24.OMGUS Deutsche Bank, op. cit., p. 151.

  25.Erhardt Schmidt testimony, exhibit 148; OMGUS Deutsche Bank, op. cit.

  26.For material quoted in footnote, see Hjalmar Schacht (Diana Pyke, trans.), Confessions of the Old Wizard. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1974, pp. 325–26, 415; for related comments see p. 427. The U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command has released a small collection of materials concerning Schacht; see INSCOM file 528H075/1381 “Schacht, Hjalmar,” available via Freedom of Information Act. The released INSCOM material is fragmentary, however, and fails to report much that is on the record concerning Schacht’s trial for war crimes and business activities. The available material is so scanty that it suggests that INSCOM’s main collection of intelligence on Schacht has thus far been lost or suppressed.

  27.U.S., Office of the U.S. Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression (the “red” series). Washington, DC: USGPO, 1946, vol. 2, p. 739; for Schacht’s defense, see supplement B, pp. 501–43. Schacht was eventually acquitted by the tribunal (over objections by the USSR) largely on the grounds that his most important service to the Nazi state had predated the outbreak of war in 1939, and was thus regarded as largely outside the purview of the tribunal.

  28.Guenter Keiser, Der Juengste Konzentrationsprozess, vol. 2 of Die Wirtschaftskurve, published by Frankfurter Zeitung, 1939. Translation is by Anne Bloch in The Black Book, op. cit., pp. 93–94. For a detailed recent discussion of the Aryanization process, including several case studies, see Johannes Ludwig, Boycott Enteignung Mord, op. cit.

  29.Keiser, ibid.

  30.Walther Funk speech as published in Frankfurter Zeitung, November 17, 1938; see Nuremberg document no. 3545-PS, RG 238, National Archives, Washington, DC.

  31.“The Deutsche Bank served as the main collecting agency for a special levy imposed upon the Jewish population of Berlin after the November 1938 pogroms. This account held in the branch office ‘H’ of the Deutsche Bank was called ‘Wiedergutmachungskonto für die Schaeden Berlins’ (Compensation account for the damages of Berlin). This account was opened by Werner Waechter and Erwin Koehnen, who served as trustees of the Reich for the collection of this fine.” OMGUS Deutsche Bank, op. cit., p. 154.

  32.Nora Levin, The Holocaust. New York: Schocken, 1973, pp. 86, 90.

  33.Military spending estimate is from Burton Klein, Germany’s Economic Preparations for War. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1959, p. 14 (table 5, group I).

  34.Moody’s Investors Service, Moody’s Manual of Investments. American and Foreign Banks. New York: Moody’s, 1940, p. 801.

  35.Moody’s Investors Service, Moody’s Manual of Investments. American and Foreign Industrial Securities. New York: Moody’s, 1939, p. 1804.

  36.Nuremberg document no. PS-5375, RG 238, National Archives, Washington, DC, cited in Levin, op. cit., p. 723, n6. For more detailed discussion of the economics of German rearmament, see Klein, op. cit., and Barton Whaley, German Covert Rearmament 1919–1939: Deception and Misperception. Frederick, MD: University Publications, 1984.

  37.Arthur Schweitzer, Big Business in the Third Reich. Bloomington, IN: Indiana Univ. Press, 1964, p. 86.

  38.Henry Ashby Turner, German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1985, p. 252.

  39.Eric Warburg, Zeiten und Gezeiten. Hamburg: Hans Christians Druckerei, 1982, pp. 292–93.

  40.Wilhelm Treue, “Widerstand von Unternehmern und Nationalokonomen,” in Jürgen Schmadeke and Peter Steinback, Der Widerstand gegen den Nationalsozialismus. Munich: Piper, 1986, pp. 917–37.

  41.Simon Wiesenthal Center (Los Angeles), “Wiesenthal Center Demands Resignation of Hermann J. Abs, Hitler’s Leading Banker, from Vatican Bank,” press release with documentary exhibits, December 29, 1982; copy in author’s collection. For typical news coverage: Jay Mathews, “Vatican Advisor Accused by Center of Nazi Links,” Washington Post, December 30, 1982. Abs was eventually barred by the U.S. Justice Department from traveling to the United States; see: “Abs darf nicht in die USA,” Frankfurter Abendpost, May 7, 1990.

  42.On Austrian measures as a model for Nazi persecution; see Hans Safrian and Hans Witek, Und keiner war dabei: Dokumente des alltaglichen Antisemitismus in Wien 1938. Wien: Picus Verlag, 1988, pp. 95–157 passim; Levin, op. cit., pp. 101–10; Christopher Simpson, Blowback. New York: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1988, pp. 348–49, sn22.

  43.OMGUS Deutsche Bank, op. cit., p. 187. On Deutsche Bank’s earlier attempts to take control of Creditanstalt, see David Kaiser, Economic Diplomacy and the Origins of the Second World War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1980, pp. 35–41.

  44.OMGUS Deutsche Bank, op. cit., pp. 189–90; OMGUS Deutsche Bank Annex, op. cit., pp. 23–25.

  45.OMGUS Deutsche Bank, op. cit., pp. 189–93.

  46.On ideological struggle: OMGUS, Ermittlungen gegen die Dresdner Bank, op. cit., pp. xlii–xlv; Klein, op. cit., pp. 35–55 passim; Arno Mayer, Why Did the Heavens Not Darken? New York: Pantheon, 1988, pp. 156–57.

  47.OMGUS Deutsche Bank Annex, op. cit., p. 23; quotation is from the language of the report.

  48.Loc. cit.; quotation is from Keppler.

  49.Ibid., p. 24.

  50.OMGUS Deutsche Bank, op. cit., pp. 53–54. One noteworthy new Creditanstalt director was Hans Fischböck, the German-appointed finance and economics minister of post-Anschluss Austria. Fischböck went on to make a career in expropriations in Austria and the Netherlands, where he was eventually charged with war crimes by the Dutch government. For background, see Safrian and Witek, op. cit., pp. 97–98; Dietrich Orlow, The Nazis in the Balkans. Pittsburgh, PA: Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 1968, pp. 31–32, 187.

  51.OMGUS Deutsche Bank, op. cit., pp. 53–54.

  52.“Übersicht über die von der Kontrollbank durchgefuhrten Arisierungsfalle,” reproduced in Safrian and Witek, op. cit., pp. 143–57. Thanks to Hans Safrian for bringing this document to my attention.

  53.OMGUS Deutsche Bank, op. cit., p. 191; see also pp. 49–50, 171–74, 187–95. For data concerning Aryanizations in Vienna discussed in footnote, see “Übersicht über die von der Kontrollbank …” in Saf rian, op. cit.

  54.Cited in Levin, op. cit., p. 99.

  55.Ibid., pp. 97–98.

  Chapter Six

  “Who Still Talks of the Armenians?”

  1.Martin Weinmann (ed.), Das nationalsozialistische Lagersystem. Frankfurt a/M: Zweitausendeins, 1990, pp. xiii–xvi; Joachim Remak (ed.), The Nazi Years, A Documentary History. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1969, pp. 133–43; Nora Levin, The Holocaust. New York: Schocken
, 1973, pp. 301–305.

  2.Poland, Ministerstwo Informacji (Polish Ministry of Information, London), The German New Order in Poland. London: Hutchinson, 1942, pp. 71, 79–80.

  3.Ibid., pp. 28–75, 219–21, 235–36. See also: Poland, Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, German Crimes in Poland. New York: Howard Fertig, 1982.

  4.Biddle to Secretary of State, August 13, 1942, 740.00116 EW 1939/527, RG 59, National Archives, Washington, DC.

  5.Richard Breiting (Edouard Calic, ed.), Secret Conversations with Hitler. The Two Newly Discovered 1931 Interviews. New York: John Day, 1971, p. 81.

  6.U.S., Office of United States Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, vol. 3. Washington, DC: USGPO, 1946, p. 753.

  7.Adolf Hitler, Hitler’s Secret Conversations 1941–1944. New York: Farrar, Straus and Young, 1953, pp. 188, 317, 493.

  8.Gerhard Hirschfeld, “Chronology of Destruction” in Gerhard Hirschfeld (ed.), The Policies of Genocide. Jews and Soviet Prisoners of War in Nazi Germany. London: Allen & Unwin/German Historical Institute, 1986.

  9.Yehuda Bauer, “When Did They Know?” Midstream, April 1968, pp. 51–58.

  10.John Mendelsohn (ed.), The Holocaust: The Wannsee Protocol and a 1944 Report on Auschwitz. New York: Garland, 1982, reproduces Nuremberg document no. NG-2586, a reporter’s summary of the gathering.

  11.Ibid.

  12.For Eichmann’s recollections of the Wannsee Conference: Life, November 28, 1960, pp. 24, 101.

  13.See for example, “Terror Against Jews,” Times (London) December 7, 1942, which reports in part that “In all parts of Europe the Germans are calling meetings, or issuing orders, to bring about what they call ‘the final solution of the Jewish problem.’” The Times report is discussed in: Winant to Secretary of State, December 7, 1942, 740.00116 EW 1939/692, box 2917, RG 59, National Archives, Washington, DC. Eichmann discusses use of term “Final Solution” in Jochen von Lang (ed.), Eichmann Interrogated. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1983, pp. 73, 131.

  14.Nurenberg document no. NG-2586, RG 238, National Archives, Washington, DC.

  15.Gerhard Hirschfeld, “Chronology of Destruction” op. cit., pp. 150–53.

  16.Ibid.

  17.Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews. New York: Harper, 1961, p. 623.

  18.Walter Lacqueur and Richard Breitman, Breaking the Silence. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986, pp. 106–13.

  19.Ibid., pp. 67, 72–73, 101.

  20.“Memorandum of Conversation,” September 7, 1942, 740.00116 EW 1939/543 (attachment), box 2916, RG 59, National Archives, Washington, DC.

  21.Biddle to Secretary of State, August 13, 1942, 740.00116 EW 1939/527, RG 59, National Archives, Washington, DC. See also The German New Order in Poland, op. cit.

  22.Harvey Sachs, “Der Ordinare,” New Yorker, June 4, 1990.

  23.Dietrich Eichholtz, Geschichte der deutschen Kriegswirtschaft 1939–1945, band II. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1985, pp. 220–22; see also pp. 187, 189, 225.

  24.Sachs, op. cit. There were reportedly about 8,000 prisoners in Auschwitz in late 1940, most of them Poles and Polish Jews. See Gerhard Hirschfeld, op. cit., pp. 150–51.

  25.Albert Speer (Joachim Neugroschel, trans.), Infiltration. New York: Macmillan, 1981, p. 23. See also Eichholtz, op. cit., p. 225. See Joseph Billig, Les Camps de Concentration dans l’Ecoriomie du Reich Hitlerien. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1973, pp. 136–221, for an extensive report concerning SS economic enterprises. In addition to providing labor for the private sector, the SS in-house companies produced war materiel for SS troops and engaged in mining, heavy construction, brickmaking, and cement work associated with prisons, civil defense, and military installations. The SS companies also provided most of the labor for building the concentration camps, including the installation of gas chambers. For an excellent resource for locating forced labor centers, see Weinmann, Das nationalsozialistische Lagersystem, op. cit.

  26.Rudolf Hoess (Auschwitz commandant) affidavit, March 12, 1947, Nuremberg document no. NI-4434-A, RG 238, National Archives, Washington, DC. Also available at Benjamin Ferencz, Less Than Slaves. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1979. pp. 202–204.

  27.Eichholtz, op. cit., p. 225.

  28.Ibid., pp. 225–26.

  29.Karl Sommer affidavit, October 4, 1946, Nuremberg document no. NI-1065, National Archives microfilm collection T-301, roll 10, frames 001126ff.

  30.U.S., Strategic Bombing Survey, The Effects of Strategic Bombing on the German War Economy, reports on the European War, no. 3. Washington, DC, October 31, 1945, p. 214, table 12; and Eichholtz, op. cit., pp. 245–47.

  For data in footnote, see Edward Homze, Foreign Labor in Nazi Germany. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1967, pp. 152–53. For an important early work on this subject, see John Fried, The Exploitation of Foreign Labor by Germany. Montreal: International Labor Office, 1945. Probably the most complete discussion of the subject thus far is Ulrich Herbert, Fremdarbeiter: Politik und Praxis des ‘Auslander-einsatzes’ in der Kriegswirtschaft des Dritten Reiches. Berlin: Verlag J.H.W. Dietz, 1985.

  For examples of corporate evasion and suppression of evidence concerning exploitation of forced laborers, see Karl-Heinz Roth and Michael Schmid, Die Daimler-Benz AG 1916–1948. Schlusseldokumente zur Konzerngeschichte. Nordlingen: Delphi, 1987, doc. no. 143, 145, 146, 147, pp. 374–91; and Hamburger Stiftung zur Foerderung von Wissenschaft und Kultur, Industrie, Behoerden und Konzentrationslager 1938–1945. Reaktionen 1988–1989. Hamburg: Hamburger Stiftung zur Foerderung von Wissenschaft und Kultur, 1989. In English, see Benjamin Ferencz, op. cit., for detailed discussion of efforts to obtain restitution for Jewish forced laborers, usually in the face of intense corporate opposition. IG Farben, which was particularly notorious for destroying records, was discovered to have pulped “tons of documentary evidence … principally concerned with various phases of the administration of the Oswiecim (Auschwitz) concentration camp” when several IG Farben directors were on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity in 1947; see John Alan Appleman, Military Tribunals and International Crimes. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1971, p. 179.

  31.Ferencz, op. cit., pp. 56–57.

  32.Edward Zilbert, Albert Speer and the Nazi Ministry of Arms. London: Associated Univ. Presses, 1981, p. 111. See also Zilbert’s study: RAND Corporation (Edward Zilbert), The Development of Hauptausschusse und Ringe in the German War Economy. RAND publication P 3649. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1967.

  33.Ferencz, op. cit.

  34.International Military Tribunal, Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg: 1947, vol. 3, p. 440. This is cited hereafter as International Military Tribunal.

  35.Bohdan Wytwycky, The Other Holocaust. Washington, DC: Novak Report, 1980, p. 49.

  36.Arno Mayer, Why Did the Heavens Not Darken? The Final Solution in History. New York: Pantheon, 1988. pp. 310–12.

  37.For a vivid example of this structure at the network of Krupp factories at Essen, see William Manchester, The Arms of Krupp. New York: Bantam, 1970, pp. 535–66. For contemporary German documentation in which Speer’s ministry advertises the use of foreign labor in publications designed for German industrialists and economists, see Hauptausschuss Maschinen (ed.), Einsatz von Östarbeitern in der deutschen Maschinenindustrie. Essen: Bucherverlag W. Girardet, 1943; captured German records collection T-73 (Records of Reichsministerium für Rustung und Kriegsproduktion), roll 187, frame 3400898 ff. See Christa Rotzoll, “Östarbeiter im Lager und in der Fabrik,” Das Reich, November 21, 1943, for a glowing presentation of “guestworkers” as they appeared in Nazi propaganda; contrast this with “Die Juden mussen arbeiten!” Illustrierter Beobachter, October 12, 1939, with photos depicting obviously sadistic penal labor for Jews in Poland in the wake of the Nazi invasion.

  38.International Military Tribunal, vol. 3, p. 435.

  39.For shipment of women, see International Mili
tary Tribunal, vol. 3, pp. 436–37. On murder of Ukrainian children, see Homze, op. cit., pp. 160–61. For material in footnote, see ibid., pp. 165–67, and Edgar Howell, The Soviet Partisan Movement 1941–1944. Department of the Army pamphlet 20–244, 1956, p. 107.

  40.The estimate of casualties among forced laborers is the author’s. No complete statistics are known to exist, but some indication of the level of the carnage can be gleaned from the difference between the Sauckel and the Speer statistics discussed in the text. If they are roughly accurate, about three million forced laborers were “replaced” between 1942 and 1944 alone. Some of these workers escaped, and a small number were returned home or disappeared from government rolls in other ways. Considering, however, that particularly brutal forced labor had been under way in the occupied Eastern territories since 1939, and that the death rate among forced workers sharply escalated during the winter of 1944–45, the estimate of three million deaths among laborers seems conservative. For notes on sources for estimates, see Homze, op. cit., pp. 152–53.

  41.Internationaler Suchdienst (International Red Cross), Verzeichnis der Haftstatten unter dem Reichsführer-SS 1933–1945. Geneva: International Red Cross, 1979, p. xx. An excellent and more easily available resource on this subject is Weinmann, op. cit. For a valuable study of forced labor in the Berlin region, with emphasis on the role of AEG, Siemens, and other electrical manufacturers, see Laurenz Demps and Reinhard Holzer, “Zwangsarbeiter und Zwangsarbeiterlager in der faschistischen Reichshauptstadt Berlin 1939–1945,” Miniaturen zur Geschichte, Kultur und Denkmalpflege Berlins, no. 20/21, Berlin 1986.

  42.Internationaler Suchdienst, ibid.; for Pohl report to Himmler on structure of the camp system, see Nuremberg documents no. NO-020(a) and NO-020(b), RG 238, National Archives, Washington, DC. For Pohl’s April 1942 estimate of the number of prisoners in the six largest camps and his plans for further expansion, see Nuremberg document no. R-129.