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bigoil406's InsaneJournal:
| Saturday, December 27th, 2008 | |
| 5:24 pm | Nazis rode to war on General Motor wheels `  What is Good for General Motors, is Good for America ~ Charlie Wilson, chairman of General Motors Corporation James D. Mooney thrust his arm diagonally, watching its reflection in his hotel suite mirror. Not quite right. He tried once again. Still not right. Was it too stiff? Too slanted? Should his palm stretch perpendicular to the ceiling; should his arm bend at a severe angle? Or should the entire limb extend straight from shoulder to fingertips? Should his sieg heil project enthusiasm or declare obedience? Never mind, it was afternoon. Time to go see Hitler. Just the day before, May 1, 1934, under a brilliant, cloudless sky, Mooney, president of the General Motors Overseas Corp., climbed into his automobile and drove toward Tempelhof Field at the outskirts of Berlin to attend yet another hypnotic Nazi extravaganza. This one was the annual May Day festival. Tempelhof Field was a sprawling, oblong-shaped airfield. But for May Day, the immense site was converted into parade grounds. Security was more than tense, it was paranoid. All cars entering the area were meticulously inspected for anti-Hitler pamphlets or other contraband. But not Mooney's. The Führer's office had sent over a special windshield tag that granted the General Motors' chief carte blanche to any area of Tempelhof. Mooney would be Hitler's special guest. As Mooney arrived at the airfield, about 3:30 in the afternoon, the spectacle dazzled him. Sweeping swastika banners stretching 33 feet wide and soaring 150 feet into the air fluttered from 43-ton steel towers. Each tower was anchored in 13 feet of concrete to resist the winds as steadfastly as the Third Reich resisted all efforts to moderate its program of rearmament and oppression. Thousands of other Nazi flags fluttered across the grounds as dense column after column of Nazis, marching shoulder to shoulder in syncopation, flowed into rigid formation. Each of the 13 parade columns boasted 30,000 to 90,000 storm troopers, army divisions, citizen brigades and blond-blue Hitler Youth enrollees. Finally, after four hours, the tightly packed assemblage totaled about 2 million marchers and attendees. Hitler eventually arrived in an open-air automobile that cruised up and down the field amid the sea of devotees. Accompanied by cadres of SS guards, Hitler was ushered to the stage, stopping first to pat the head of a smiling boy. This would be yet another grandiose spectacle of führer-worship so emblematic of the Nazi regime. When ready, Hitler launched into one of his enthralling speeches, made all the more mesmerizing by 142 loudspeakers sprinkled throughout the grounds. As the Führer demanded hard work and discipline, and enunciated his vision of National Socialist destiny, the crisp sound of his voice traveled across an audience so vast that it took a moment or two for his words to reach the perimeter of the throng. Hence, the thunderous applause that greeted Hitler's remarks arrived sequentially, creating an aural effect of continuous, overlapping waves of adulation. REVELING IN THE FÜHRER General Motors World, the company house organ, covered the May Day event glowingly in a several-page cover story, stressing Hitler's boundless affinity for children. "By nine, the streets were full of people waiting to see Herr Hitler go meet the children," the publication reported. The next day, May 2, 1934, after practicing his sieg heil in front of a mirror, Mooney and two other senior executives from General Motors and its German division, Adam Opel A.G., went to meet Hitler in his Chancellery office. Waiting with Hitler would be Nazi Party stalwart Joachim von Ribbentrop, who would later become foreign minister, and Reich economic adviser Wilhelm Keppler. As Mooney traversed the long approach to Hitler's desk, he began to pump his arm in a stern-faced sieg heil. But the Führer surprised him by getting up from his desk and meeting Mooney halfway, not with a salute but a businesslike handshake. This was, after all, a meeting about business -- one of many contacts between the Nazis and GM officials that are spotlighted in thousands of pages of little-known and restricted Nazi-era and New Deal-era documents. This documentation and other evidence reveals that GM and Opel were eager, willing and indispensable cogs in the Third Reich's rearmament juggernaut, a rearmament that, as many feared during the 1930s, would enable Hitler to conquer Europe and destroy millions of lives. Hitler knew that the biggest auto and truck manufacturer in Germany was not Daimler or any other German carmaker. The biggest automotive manufacturer in Germany -- indeed in all of Europe -- was General Motors, which since 1929 had owned and operated the longtime German company Opel. GM's Opel, infused with millions in GM cash and assembly-line know-how, produced about 40 percent of the vehicles in Germany and about 65 percent of its exports. Indeed, Opel dominated Germany's auto industry. As the May 2, 1934, Chancellery meeting progressed, Hitler thanked Mooney and GM for being a major employer -- about 17,000 jobs -- in a Germany where Nazi success hinged on re-employment. Moreover, because Opel was responsible for about 65 percent of auto exports, the company also brought in the foreign currency desperately needed by the Reich to purchase raw materials for re-employment as well as for the regime's crash rearmament program. Now, as Hitler embarked on a huge, threatening rearmament program, GM was in a position to make Germany's military a powerful, modern and motorized marvel. A few weeks after the prolonged Chancellery session, the company publication, General Motors World, effusively recounted the meeting, proclaiming, "Hitler is a strong man, well fitted to lead the German people out of their former economic distress. ... He is leading them, not by force or fear, but by intelligent planning and execution of fundamentally sound principles of government." For Mooney, and for Germany's branch of GM, the relationship with the Third Reich was first and foremost about making money -- billions in 21st century dollars -- off the Nazi desire to rearm even though the world expected that Germany would plunge Europe and America into a devastating war. Today, General Motors is reluctant to talk about its links with the Nazis. FEARS ALREADY RECOGNIZED By the spring of 1933, the world was beginning to learn about the lawlessness and savagery of the Nazi regime, and the Reich's determination to crush the Jews and threaten its neighbors. Beginning in the late spring of 1933, concentration camps such as Dachau were generating headlines reporting great brutality. By June 1933, Jews everywhere in Germany were being banned from the professional, economic and cultural life of the country. As state-designated pariahs, they were forbidden to remain members of the German Automobile Association, the popular organization for the general German motorist. Hitler's anti-Semitic demagoguery and the daily, semi-official, violent attacks against Jews were discussed in the American media almost daily. GM's president, Alfred P. Sloan, knew what was happening in Germany. Sloan and GM officials knew also that Hitler's regime was expected to wage war from the outset. Headlines, radio broadcasts and newsreels made that fact apparent. America, it was feared, would once again be pulled in. Nonetheless, GM and Germany began a strategic business relationship. Opel became an essential element of the German rearmament and modernization Hitler required to subjugate Europe. To accomplish that, Germany needed to rise above the horse-drawn divisions it deployed in World War I. It needed to motorize, to blitz -- that is, to attack with lightning speed. Germany would later unleash a blitzkrieg, a lightning war. Opel built the 3-ton truck named Blitz to support the German military. The Blitz truck and its numerous specialized models became the mainstay of the Blitzkrieg. In 1935, GM agreed to locate a new factory at Brandenburg, where it would be geographically less vulnerable to feared aerial bombardment by allied forces. In 1937, almost 17 percent of Opel's Blitz trucks were sold directly to the Nazi military. That military sales figure was increased to 29 percent in 1938 -- totaling about 6,000 Blitz trucks that year alone. The Wehrmacht, the German military, soon became Opel's No. 1 customer by far. Other important customers included major industries associated with the Hitler war machine. Expanding its German workforce from 17,000 in 1934 to 27,000 in 1938 also made GM one of Germany's leading employers. Unquestionably, GM's Opel became an integral facet of Hitler's Reich. More than just an efficient manufacturer, Opel openly embraced the bizarre philosophy that powered the Nazi military-industrial complex. The German company participated in cultic führer-worship as a part of its daily corporate ethic. After all, until GM purchased Opel in 1929 for $33.3 million, or about one-third of GM's after-tax profit that year, Opel was an established carmaker with a respected German persona. The Opel family included several prominent Nazi Party members. This identity appealed to rank-and-file Nazis who condemned anything foreign-owned or foreign-made. For all these reasons, during the Hitler years, Sloan and Mooney both made efforts to obscure Opel's American ownership and control. Of course, GM's subsidiary vigorously joined the anti-Jewish movement required of leading businesses serving the Reich. Jewish employees and suppliers became verboten. ILLUSION FOR PROFITS To conceal American ownership and reinforce the masquerade that Opel stood as a purely Aryan enterprise, Sloan and Mooney, beginning in 1934, concocted the concept of a directorate, comprised of prominent German personalities, including several with Nazi Party membership. This created what GM officials variously termed a "camouflage" or "a false facade" of local management. But the decisions were made in America. GM as the sole stockholder controlled Opel's board and the corporate votes. Among the decisions made in America beginning in about 1935 was the one transferring to Germany the technology to produce the modern gasoline additive tetraethyl lead, commonly called "ethyl," or leaded gasoline. This allowed the Reich to boost octane that provided better automotive performance by eliminating disruptive engine pings and jolts. Better performance meant a faster and more mobile fighting force -- just what the Reich would ultimately need for its swift and mobile blitzkrieg. Years after the war, Nazi armaments chief Albert Speer told a congressional investigator that Germany could not have attempted its September 1939 blitzkrieg of Poland without the performance-boosting additive. Within a few years of partnering with the Hitler regime, Opel began to dwarf all competition. By 1937, GM's subsidiary had grown to triple the size of Daimler-Benz. In 1938, just months after the Nazi annexation of Austria, Mooney, head of GM's overseas operations, received the German Eagle with Cross, the highest medal Hitler awarded to foreign commercial collaborators and supporters. On Nov. 9-10, 1938, shortly after Mooney's decoration, nationwide pogroms broke out in Germany against the Jews -- Kristallnacht. The American public was finally shocked onto its heels by the night of officially orchestrated burning, looting and mob action against Jews. By the summer of 1940, a senior GM executive wrote this assessment for internal circulation only. He explained that while "the management of Adam Opel A.G. is in the hands of German nationals," in point of fact, GM is still "actively represented by two American executives on the Board of Directors." The German-American balance of the many management entities created in the facade of control was constantly shifting during the Hitler years. But regardless of the number of members -- German or American -- on the various directing, managing or executive boards and committees, GM in the United States controlled all voting stock and could veto or permit all operations. WILLING PARTNER WITH NAZIS For all intents and purposes, though, once war began, Wehrmacht requirements and orders determined the specifics of military manufacturing at Opel. Like any nation at war, including the United States itself, the Reich alone determined what weapons would be made by its militarized factories. That said, it was GM's decision to remain operating in Germany, to continue to subject itself to Reich military orders and answer the Reich's call for ever more lethal weapons. As anticipated, Opel's Brandenburg facilities were conscripted and converted to an airplane-engine plant supplying the Luftwaffe's JU-88 bombers. Later, Opel's plants also built land mines and torpedo detonators. The factories and infrastructure that GM built during the 1930s were in fact finally used for their intended purpose -- war. Opel-built trucks on the ground, Opel-powered bombers in the sky and Opel-detonated torpedoes in the seas brought terror to Europe. A few weeks later, in May 1941, a year-and-a-half after World War II broke out, with newspapers and newsreels constantly transmitting the grim news that millions had been displaced, murdered or enslaved by Nazi aggression and that London was decimated by the blitz bombing campaign, Sloan, then in his mid-60s, told his closest executives during a Detroit briefing: "I am sure we all realize that this struggle that is going on though the world is really nothing more or less than a conflict between two opposing technocracies manifesting itself to the capitalization of economic resources and products and all that sort of thing." By now, Assistant Secretary of State Adolf Berle, whose portfolio included the investigation of Nazi fronts and sympathizers in Latin America, had had enough of Sloan and GM executives. Berle circulated a memo asserting "that certain officials of General Motors were sympathetic to or aligned with some pro-Axis groups. ... that this is [a] 'real Fifth Column' and is much more sinister than many other things which are going on at the present time." Berle called for an FBI investigation. TRADE OR TREASON? The FBI's probe of GM senior executives with links to Hitler found collusion with Germany by Mooney, but no evidence of any disloyalty to America. The Aug. 2, 1941, summary of the investigation clearly listed Sloan in the title of the report, but Mooney's was the only name mentioned in the investigative results. In a separate report to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, the agent stated, "No derogatory information of any kind was developed with respect to Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr." On Dec. 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor was bombed. The United States declared war on Japan. On Dec. 11, German diplomats in Washington called at the State Department to deliver Germany's declaration of war against America. All direct communications between GM and its Opel subsidiary in Germany were necessarily severed, although historians have always wondered about indirect links through Denmark where GM operated a longtime subsidiary. Ranking GM men from Denmark were also in ranking positions both in Opel in Germany and GM in America. After Germany declared war on America, all American corporate interests in Germany or under German control were systematically placed under the jurisdiction of a Reich-appointed custodian for enemy-owned property. In practice, the custodian was akin to a court-appointed receiver. Generally, the Reich custodian's duty was not to dismember the firm or Aryanize it, but to continue to run the enterprise as efficiently and profitably as possible, holding all assets and profits in escrow until matters would be resolved after the war. In the case of Opel, Carl Luer, the longtime member of the Opel Supervisory Board, company president and Nazi Party stalwart, was appointed by the Reich to run Opel as custodian, but only some 11 months after America entered the war. In anticipation of the outbreak of hostilities, GM had appointed Luer to be president of Opel in late 1941, just before war broke out. So the existing GM-approved president of Opel continued to run Opel during America's war years. GM continued as a major German war profiteer, and GM knew its subsidiary was at the forefront of the Nazi war machine. THE BUSINESS OF WAR In the wartime months and years that ensued, 1941-1945, GM built and operated some $900 million worth (about $120 billion in today's dollars) of defense manufacturing facilities for the Allies. Secretary of War Henry Stimson later explained that when a capitalist country wages war, "you have got to let business make money out of the process, or business won't work." GM also reaped the financial benefits of its relationship with the Third Reich. During the pre-war Hitler years, GM entered its Opel proceeds under "reserves" instead of listing the profits as ordinary income. Then during America's war years GM declared it had abandoned its Nazi subsidiary, and took a complete tax write-off under special legislation signed by Roosevelt in October 1942. The write-off of nearly $35 million created a tax reduction of "approximately $22.7 million" or about $285 billion in 21st-century money, according to an internal Opel document. But Opel's friendly Nazi custodian, Luer, kept on making profits for GM during those war years. Opel produced trucks, bomber engines, land mines, torpedo detonators and other war materiel, a significant amount of it by the sweat of thousands of prisoner laborers or other coerced workers; some of those workers were tortured if they did not meet expectations. Those profits and GM's 100 percent stock ownership were preserved by the Reich custodian, even though GM and Opel ostensibly severed ties with each other after America entered the war. During the Hitler years, many of those excess profits were used to acquire other companies and properties, only increasing Opel's assets in Germany. After the war, starting in 1948, GM began regaining control over Opel operations and eventually its monumental assets as well as blocked dividends. GM also collected some $33 million in "war reparations" because the Allies had bombed its German facilities. In 1953, when GM President Charlie Wilson was nominated to be secretary of defense, he was asked at his confirmation hearing if he could make a decision in the country's interest that was contrary to GM's interest. Wilson shot back with his famous comment, "I cannot conceive of one, because for years I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa. The difference did not exist. Our company is too big." Indeed, what GM accomplished in both America and Nazi Germany could not have been bigger. THE TRANSIT SCAM Ironically, while GM was mobilizing the Third Reich, the company was also leading a criminal conspiracy to monopolistically undermine mass transit in dozens of American cities that would help addict the United States to oil. The war in Europe had only been over for 16 months when on October 2, 1946, a memo from the Department of Justice landed on the desk of J. Edgar Hoover, outlining the elements of the GM conspiracy. At the center of the conspiracy was National City Lines, an Enronesque company that suddenly arose in 1937, ostensibly run by five barely educated Minnesota bus drivers, the Fitzgerald brothers. Yet the Fitzgeralds miraculously marshaled millions of dollars to buy up one failing trolley system after another. Soon, through a patchwork of subsidiaries, the brothers owned or controlled transit systems in more than 40 cities. Generally, when National City Lines acquired the system, the tracks were pulled from the street, the beloved electric trolleys were trashed or burned, and the whole system was replaced with more expensive, unpopular and environmentally hazardous motor buses that helped addict America to oil. The Justice Department discovered that National City Lines was just a front company for General Motors, in league with Mack Truck, Phillips Petroleum, Standard Oil of California and Firestone Tires - all petroleum interests. The companies became the major preferred stockholders of National City Lines, but operated behind the scenes. The scheme worked this way: The manufacturers purchased NCL preferred stock to acquire transit lines on condition that when the systems were acquired, the trolleys would be dismantled and replaced with motor buses. That is exactly what happened. All the conspirators gained immensely when non-polluting electric systems were replaced by oil-burners. Phillips and Standard sold oil products. Firestone sold the tires. GM and Mack divvied up the bus manufacturing and sales market according to an agreed-upon formula. Transit systems in 16 states were converted, adversely affecting millions of Americans, who had to pay higher fares for lesser, more unpopular service. Dozens more cities were targeted in the $9.5m. scheme. In April 1947, indictments alleging two counts of criminal conspiracy were handed down against General Motors, Mack Truck, Phillips Petroleum, Standard Oil of California and Firestone Tires, as well as against numerous key executives of the companies. The defendants were found guilty on one of the two counts: conspiring to monopolize the bus business by creating a network of petroleum-based transit companies that were forbidden to use transportation or technology products other than those supplied by the defendants themselves. The jury found the defendants not guilty on the count alleging a conspiracy to actually control those transit systems. On April 1, 1949, the judge handed down his sentence: a $5,000 fine to each corporate defendant except Standard, which was fined $1,000. As for National City Lines, president E. Roy Fitzgerald and his co-conspirators at GM and the other companies, they too were fined. Each was ordered to "forfeit and pay to the United States of America a fine in the amount of one dollar." The cases were appealed - even the one-dollar penalties - all the way to the United States Supreme Court, which allowed the convictions to stand. The government filed a civil action against the same circle of companies trying to stop their continued conduct. But the government was unsuccessful. Undaunted, National City Lines and its many subsidiaries continued into the 1950s to acquire, convert and operate urban transit systems using evolved methods. ============ PART II During the late 1930s, Hitler's persecution of Jews was building to a frenzy even as fears of a war escalated. Nevertheless, General Motors' German automotive subsidiary, Opel, remained a loyal corporate citizen of the Third Reich - content to obediently do the Nazi regime's bidding, and unstintingly supporting Hitler's program on many fronts. These included economic and employment recovery, anti-Jewish persecution, war preparedness and domestic propaganda. In return, Opel prospered. Hitler was pleased - very pleased. In 1938, just months after the Nazis' annexation of Austria, James D. Mooney, head of GM's overseas operations, received the German Eagle with Cross, the highest medal Hitler awarded to foreign commercial collaborators and supporters. On November 9-10, 1938, shortly after Mooney's decoration, nationwide pogroms broke out in Germany against the Jews - Kristallnacht. The American public was finally shocked onto its heels by the night of officially orchestrated burning, looting and mob action again Jews. President Roosevelt recalled America's ambassador, plunging German-American relations to their lowest point since Hitler assumed power. All things American came under special scrutiny in Germany. By now, the truth about GM's ownership of the Opel car and truck operation was out in the open among Germans. Reich armament officials increasingly directed Opel's output, including mandating that nearly all vehicles be devoted to military use. These are among the many findings of a JTA investigation. Thousands of pages of decades'-old documents were scrutinized and reexamined to produce this series, which sheds new light on GM's relationship with the Third Reich - and on the company's activities in America. They reveal that even as GM was helping jump-start the resurgent German military, it was undermining America's electric mass transit, and in doing so helped spawn America's unquenchable thirst for oil. GM has declined comment for this story. The company has steadfastly denied for decades that it actively assisted the Nazi war effort or that it simultaneously subverted mass transit in the United States. LAISSEZ FAIRE, SLOAN-STYLE In the months leading up to the feared 1939 invasion of Poland, Alfred P. Sloan, GM's president, defended his close collaboration with Hitler. Brushing off attacks for his partnership with a Nazi regime already notorious for filling concentration camps, taking over Austria and now threatening to install the Master Race across Europe, Sloan was stony and proud. He stated, in a long April 1939 letter to an objecting stockholder, that in the interests of making a profit, GM shouldn't risk alienating its German hosts by intruding in Nazi affairs. "In other words, to put the proposition rather bluntly," Sloan said in the letter, "such matters should not be considered the business of the management of General Motors." Indeed, in August of 1939, the world wondered when Hitler might invade Poland. During those days, Opel, under the direct day-to-day supervision of GM's senior executive, Cyrus Osborn, played its role in Germany's fast-paced military plans. The company was already manufacturing thousands of Blitz trucks that would become a mainstay of the Reich's upcoming Blitzkrieg. The German military in early August urgently ordered Blitz truck spare parts to be delivered to Reich bases near the Polish border. Days later in August, nearly 3,000 Opel employees, from factory workers to senior managers, were drafted into the Wehrmacht. Moreover, at about that time, GM's Osborn began evacuating most of the American employees and their families to the Netherlands. Soon, virtually all Opel civilian passenger car sales were eliminated in favor of military orders. At 6 a.m. on September 1, 1939, Germany launched its Blitzkrieg against Poland, with troops arriving in Blitz trucks manufactured by GM's Opel. The night before, Sloan reportedly told stockholders that GM was "too big" to be impeded by "petty international squabbles," according to a congressional investigation. Shortly after war broke out in Europe, however, GM executives in Germany tried to distance the American company from its involvement in the brutal German war machine. The Opel board was restructured to ensure that GM executives maintained a controlling presence on the board of directors but continued invisibility in daily management. This was accomplished in part by bringing in GM's reliable Danish chief, Albin Madsen, and maintaining two Americans on that board. The company's 1939 annual report, released in April 1940, stated: "With full recognition of the responsibility that the manufacturing facilities of Adam Opel A.G. must now assume under a war regime, the Corporation has withdrawn the American personnel formerly in executive charge… and has turned the administrative responsibilities over to German nationals." However, GM was still masquerading. By the summer of 1940, a senior GM executive wrote a more honest assessment for internal circulation only. He explained that while "the management of Adam Opel A.G. is in the hands of German nationals," in point of fact, GM is still "actively represented by two American executives on the Board of Directors." The construction and German-American balance of the many management entities created in the facade of control was constantly shifting during the Hitler years. But regardless of the number of members - German or American - on the various directing, managing or executive boards and committees, GM in the United States controlled all voting stock and could veto or permit all operations. For all intents and purposes, though, once war began, Wehrmacht requirements and orders determined the specifics of military manufacturing at Opel. Like any nation at war, including the United States itself, the Reich alone determined what weapons would be made by its militarized factories. That said, it was GM's decision to remain operating in Germany, to continue to subject itself to Reich military orders, and answer the Reich's call for ever more lethal weapons. As anticipated, Opel's Brandenburg facilities were conscripted and converted to an airplane-engine plant supplying the Luftwaffe's JU-88 bombers. Later, Opel's plants also built land mines and torpedo detonators. The factories and infrastructure that GM built during the 1930s were in fact finally used for their intended purpose - war. Opel-built trucks on the ground, Opel-powered bombers in the sky and Opel-detonated torpedoes in the seas brought terror to Europe. Back in the United States, Sloan tried to obstruct FDR's war preparedness planning. The GM chief tried to dissuade GM executives with needed manufacturing and production experience from helping Washington's early mobilization plans. In one typical 1940 case, Sloan asked Danish-born William Knudson, who had ascended to become president of GM, not to leave the company and help Washington's war efforts. Sloan, who had become chairman of the company in 1937, warned his friend that the Roosevelt administration would make a "monkey out of you." Knudson replied, "That isn't important, Mr. Sloan. I came to this country [from Denmark] with nothing. It has been good to me. Rightly or wrongly, I feel I must go." Sloan retorted, "That's a quixotic way of looking at it." By mid-1940, with or without Sloan's acquiescence, GM had been drafted by Washington to become a major war supplier for the Allies. Sloan had no choice but to comply, and GM and its employees would ultimately make enormously valuable contributions to the Allied war effort. In June 1940, Sloan brought Mooney back to America to head up GM's key participation in America's crash program to prepare for war. He was installed as an assistant to the new GM president to take "full charge of all negotiations [with Washington] involving defense equipment …" Mooney's mere appointment sent shivers through the anti-Nazi boycott and protest committee, which well remembered his 1938 medal for what the Nazis had termed "service to the Reich." COLLUSION BUT NO DISLOYALTY In June 1940, about the same time Mooney returned to America, Sloan wrote to a colleague, expressing disdain for FDR's democracy while grudgingly acknowledging his admiration for Hitler's fascist drive, even if that drive had become criminal. "It seems clear that the Allies are outclassed on mechanical equipment," Sloan wrote, "and it is foolish to talk about modernizing their Armies in times like these, they ought to have thought of that five years ago. There is no excuse for them not thinking of that except for the unintelligent, in fact, stupid, narrow-minded and selfish leadership which the democracies of the world are cursed with." Sloan added a poignant contrast: "… But when some other system develops stronger leadership, works hard and long, and intelligently and aggressively - which are good traits - and, superimposed upon that, develops the instinct of a racketeer, there is nothing for the democracies to do but fold up. And that is about what it looks as if they are going to do." When at the end of 1940 the White House began to insist that GM break off relations with Latin American car dealers suspected of being pro-Nazi, Sloan defiantly refused. He lashed out at Washington, accusing it of protecting Communists at home while focusing on GM dealers in South America. "I have flatly declined to cancel dealers," Sloan wrote in April 1941 to Walter Carpenter, a GM board member and vice president of du Pont. Days later, on April 18, 1941, Carpenter retorted, "I think that General Motors has to consider this problem from three standpoints; first, from the commercial, second, the patriotic and, third, the public relations standpoint....We are definitely a part of the nation here and our future is very definitely mingled with the future of this country. The country today seems to be pretty well committed to a policy opposite to Germany and Italy." Carpenter continued with a blunt warning. "If we don't listen to the urgings of the State Department in this connection," he said, "it seems to me just a question of time... The effect of this will be to associate the General Motors with Nazi or Fascist propaganda against the interests of the United States...The effect on the General Motors Corporation might be a very serious matter and the feeling might last for years." A few weeks later, in May 1941, a year-and-a-half after World War II broke out, with newspapers and newsreels constantly transmitting the grim news that millions had been displaced, murdered, or enslaved by Nazi aggression and that London was decimated by the Blitz bombing campaign, Sloan, then in his mid-60s, told his closest executives during a Detroit briefing: "I am sure we all realize that this struggle that is going on though the World is really nothing more or less than a conflict between two opposing technocracies manifesting itself to the capitalization of economic resources and products and all that sort of thing." He then continued in a rambling, incoherent fashion, trying to further justify the company's Nazi business dealings. By now, Assistant Secretary of State Adolf Berle, whose portfolio included the investigation of Nazi fronts and sympathizers in Latin America, had had enough of Sloan and GM executives. Berle circulated a memo asserting "that certain officials of General Motors were sympathetic to or aligned with some pro-Axis groups....That this is [a] 'real Fifth Column' and is much more sinister than many other things which are going on at the present time." Berle called for an FBI investigation. The FBI's probe of GM senior executives with links to Hitler found collusion with Germany by Mooney, but no evidence of any disloyalty to America. The Aug. 2, 1941, summary of the investigation clearly listed Sloan in the title of the report, but Mooney's was the only name mentioned in the investigative results. However, in a separate report to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, the agent stated, "No derogatory information of any kind was developed with respect to Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr." OPEL'S FRIENDLY NAZI CUSTODIAN On December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor was bombed. The United States declared war on Japan. On December 11, German diplomats in Washington called at the State Department to deliver Germany's declaration of war against America. All direct communications between GM and its Opel subsidiary in Germany were necessarily severed, although historians have always wondered about indirect links through Denmark where GM operated a longtime subsidiary. Ranking GM men from Denmark were also in ranking positions both in Opel in Germany and GM in America. After Germany declared war on America, all American corporate interests in Germany or under German control were systematically placed under the jurisdiction of a Reich-appointed "custodian" for enemy-owned property. In practice, the "custodian" was akin to a court-appointed receiver. Generally, the Reich custodian's duty was not to dismember the firm or Aryanize it, but to continue to run the enterprise as efficiently and profitably as possible, holding all assets and profits in escrow until matters would be resolved after the war. This generally meant reappointing members of the pre-existing management team, although these managers no longer reported directly to their American masters in the United States. In the case of Opel, Carl Luer, the longtime member of the Opel Supervisory Board, company president and Nazi Party stalwart, was appointed by the Reich to run Opel as custodian, but only some 11 months after America entered the war. In anticipation of the outbreak of hostilities, GM had appointed Luer to be president of Opel in late 1941, just before war broke out. In other words, the existing GM-approved president of Opel continued to run Opel during America's war years. The company continued as a major German war profiteer, and GM knew its subsidiary was at the forefront of the Nazi war machine. An August 27, 1944, New York Times article detailed that Opel was the principal target of a 1,400-plane RAF bombing mission because its 35,000-worker plant was turning out crucial military transport and was known to be developing rocket technology. In the wartime months and years that ensued, 1941-1945, GM built and operated some $900 million worth (about $120 billion in today's dollars) of defense manufacturing facilities for the Allies. Almost all of the company's undertakings were propped up by federal programs that guaranteed profit and "cost-plus" contracts, various subsidies, tax benefits and other incentives then available to defense contractors to produce goods for the war effort. Secretary of War Henry Stimson later explained that when a capitalist country wages war, "you have got to let business make money out of the process, or business won't work." Gen. Lucius Clay, who oversaw war materiel contracts, confessed, "I had to put into production schedule the largest procurement program the world had ever seen. Where would I find somebody to do that? I went to General Motors." GM also reaped the financial benefits of its relationship with the Third Reich. During the pre-war Hitler years, GM entered its Opel proceeds under "reserves" instead of listing the profits as ordinary income. Then during America's war years GM declared it had abandoned its Nazi subsidiary, and took a complete tax write-off under special legislation signed by Roosevelt in October 1942. The write-off of nearly $35 million created a tax reduction of "approximately $22.7m." or about $285b. in 21st-century money, according to an internal Opel document. But Opel's friendly Nazi custodian, Carl Luer, kept on making profits for the company during those war years. Opel produced trucks, bomber engines, land mines, torpedo detonators and other war materiel, a significant amount of it by the sweat of thousands of prisoner laborers or other coerced workers; some of those workers were tortured if they did not meet expectations. Those profits and GM's 100 percent stock ownership were preserved by the Reich custodian, even though GM and Opel ostensibly severed ties with each other after America entered the war. During the Hitler years, many of those excess profits were used to acquire other companies and properties, only increasing Opel's assets in Germany. After the war, starting in 1948, GM began regaining control over Opel operations and eventually its monumental assets as well as blocked dividends. GM also collected some $33m. in "war reparations" because the Allies had bombed its German facilities. After the defeat of Berlin, GM and its executives, including those who joined the government in Washington, then steered America toward its gargantuan postwar boom. That boom was in large measure powered by the constellation of direct and indirect economic benefits delivered by the US automobile industry. Sustainable Technology TRAINING for WOMEN http://sarahteach.livejournal.com/2 SOLAR Heated SWIMMING POOL, Spa, Hot Tub http://www.fafco.com http://www.solargenix.com http://www.canadiansolartechnologie JOURNEY to FOREVER http://www.journeytoforever.org SOLAR HOSPITALS http://solar2hospital.livejournal.c HOME POWER http://www.homepower.com SOLAR TODAY http://solartoday.org http://solarstate3.livejournal.com Electric BICYCLES http://nycewheels.com http://www.myebike.com Does Big OIL or Big COAL have a Body BAG with your CHILD'S Name on it? http://air301.livejournal.com http://adhd102.livejournal.com/4176.htm OIL - GAS REFINERIES = DIRTY AIR & DEATH http://www.refineryreform.org G.Bush@Bankruptcy~Enron.com http://ovl.indymedia.org/news/2008/06/2 http://argentina.indymedia.org/news/200 http://chiapas.indymedia.org/display.ph http://barcelona.indymedia.org/news DICK CHENEY Made Millions with SADDAM HUSSEIN book: Tyranny of Oil; by Antonia Juhasz book: Halliburton Agenda - The Politics of Oil and Moneyl; by Dan Briody book: Cronies - Oil, the Bushes, and the Rise of Texas; by Dan Briody book: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man; by John Perkins book: Economic Gangsters; Ray Fisman book: Sound Truth and Corporate Myth - The Legacy of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill; by Riki Ott book: Poisoned Wells - The Dirty Politics Of African Oil; by Leandre Poisson book: Justice Under Siege; by Eva Joly book: Texas Oil and the New Deal; by Steve Isser book: Corruption In Iraq & World; by Vance Jochim book: Teapot Dome Scandal: How Big Oil Bought the Harding White House and Tried to Steal the Country; by Laton Mccartney book: Untapped - The Scramble for Africa's Oil; by John Ghazvinian book: Eating Fossil Fuel - Oil, Food and the Coming Crisis in Agriculture; by Dale Allen Pfeiffe book: Blood and Oil; by Michael Klare book: Backstabbing for Beginners; by Michael Soussan book: A Culture of Corruption; by Daniel Jordan Smith book: THE RISE, CORRUPTION AND COMING FALL OF THE HOUSE OF SAUD; by Said K. Aburish book: Greed and corruption in the Caspian; by Derek Brower book: Corporate Corruption - The Abuse of Power; by Marshall B. Clinard report: All the Presidents’ Men - The Devastating Story of Oil and Banking in Angola’s Privatised War; by Global Witness book: Curse of the Black Gold - 50 Years of Oil in the Niger Delta; by Michael Watts book: Crude - The Story of Oil; by Sonia Shah book: Where Vultures Feast: Shell, Human Rights and Oil; by Ike Okonta book: The Prize - The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power; by Daniel Yergin book: A Game as Old as Empire - The Secret World of Economic Hit Men and the Web of Global Corruption; by Steven Hiatt book: Blood Bankers; by James S. Henry book: Grand Theft Pentagon - Tales of Corruption and Profiteering in the War on Terror; by Jeffrey St. Clair book: Oil and the Glory - The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune on the Caspian Sea; by Steve LeVine book: Indonesian Production Sharing Contract, an investor's perspective; by T. N. Machmud book: Grand corruption in the regulation of oil; by Tina Soreide book: Oil on the Brain; by Lisa Margonelli book: Many Faces of Corruption; by J. Edgardo Campos http://www.thebushagenda.net How much political campaign contributions (bribes) is your congressman receiving www.campaignfinance.org/states www.publicintegrity.org How much money (bribes) are the Republicans and their friends receiving from big companies? www.campaignfinance.org/states www.publicintegrity.org DVD: Capitol Crimes by Bill Moyers The fall of super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff has exposed what may be one of the biggest political scandals in America's history. What does the dizzying scope of corruption say about how laws are made and who really owns the U.S. government? Bill Moyers and his team of investigative journalists untangle the web of relationships, secret deals, and political manipulation to open a disturbing window on the dark side of American politics. stop ELECTION FRAUD, support Honest elections. www.verifiedvoting.org www.blackboxvoting.org state info: http://victorygard379b.insanejournal.co DVD: Who Killed the Electric Car? http://www.amazon.com/Who-Killed-Electr http://vegcar.livejournal.com/24209.htm book: Internal Combustion; by Edwin Black http://www.internalcombustionbook.c WHY DID GENERAL MOTORS DESTROY ELECTRIC CARS http://www.saveev1.org http://www.dontcrush.com ARE YOU DRIVING A GM HITLER CAR? book: Nazi Connection - Eugenics, American Racism, and German National Socialism; by Stefan Kuhl book: War Against the Weak - Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race; by Edwin Black NAZIS in the AMERICAN MILITARY http://bigoil600036.insanejournal.c Enemies of Democracy http://bigoil431.insanejournal.com Pure, clean air is the invisible staff of life. Smog is the invisible staff of death. book: Super Power Breathing for Super Energy and Longevity; by Patricia Bragg VEGETABLE OIL Cars http://plantdrive.com http://vegcar.livejournal.com/24209.htm SolFocus Aims to Beat Coal with Solar Concentrators http://air302.livejournal.com SOLAR ENERGY INTELLIGENCE More Jobs, Economic Progress, Clean Environment Why be Stupid? http://solomonintel.livejournal.com/129 IS GOD GREEN? http://solarafrica307.livejournal.c POLLUTION and RACISM, INJUSTICE book: Confronting Environmental Racism; by Robert Bullard Bush slams Christians, Bunch of NUTS http://bigoil600037.insanejournal.c book: Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction; author: David Kuo Republican Child Molesters and Pedophiles http://bigoil600039.insanejournal.c Homosexuals for Republicans & George Bush http://bigoil600038.insanejournal.c Proverb: A good person leaves an inheritance to their children’s children. What kind of inheritance are you leaving? 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