By Yuri Rubtsov

Global Research, September 18, 2022

Fort Russ 14 May 2016

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feature image: Hitler, Schacht and Prescott Bush

First published by Global Research in May 2016, Minor editing by Global Research. Title as in the original. Incisive historical analysis.

From World War I to the Present: Dollar denominated debt has been the driving force behind all US led wars. Wall Street creditors are the main actors.  (M.Ch. September 18, 2022)

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World War II: More than 80 years ago was the start of the greatest slaughter in history.

If we are to approach the problem of “responsibility for the war”, then we first need to answer the following key questions:

• Who helped the Nazis come to power?
• Who sent them on their way to world catastrophe?

The entire pre-war history of Germany shows that the provision of the “necessary” policies were managed by the financial turmoil, in which the world was plunged into in the wake of  World War I. 

The key structures that defined the post-war development strategy of the West were the central financial institutions of Great Britain and the United States — the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve System (FRS) — and the associated financial and industrial organizations set out as a means to establish absolute control over the financial system of Germany and its ability to control political processes in Central Europe.

To implement this strategy, the following stages were envisaged:

1.         From 1919 to 1924 — to prepare the ground for massive American financial investment in the German economy;
2. From 1924 to 1929 — the establishment of control over the financial system of Germany and financial support for Nazism (“national socialism”);
3. From 1929 to 1933 — provoking and unleashing a deep financial and economic crisis and ensuring the Nazis come to power;
4. From 1933 to 1939 — financial cooperation with the Nazi government and support for its expansionist foreign policy, aimed at preparing and unleashing a new World War.

WWI “War Reparations”

In the first stage, the main levers to ensure the penetration of American capital into Europe began with WWI war debts and the closely related problem of German reparations. 

After the US’ formal entry into the first World War, they gave the allies (primarily England and France) loans to the amount of $8.8 billion. The total sum of war debts, including loans granted to the United States in 1919-1921, was more than $11 billion.

To solve this problem, creditor nations tried to impose extremely difficult conditions for the payment of war reparations at the expense of Germany. This was caused by the flight of German capital abroad, and the refusal to pay taxes which led to a state budget deficit that could be covered only through mass production of unsecured German Marks.

The result was the collapse of the German currency — the “great inflation” of 1923,  when the dollar was worth 4.2 trillion Marks. German Industrialists began to openly sabotage all activities in the payment of reparation obligations, which eventually caused the famous “Ruhr crisis” — Franco-Belgian occupation of the Ruhr in January 1923.

The Anglo-American ruling circles, in order to take the initiative in their  own hands, waited for France to get caught up in a venturing adventure and to prove its inability to solve the problem. US Secretary of State Hughes pointed out:

“It is necessary to wait for Europe to mature in order to accept the American proposal.”

The new project was developed in the depths of “JP Morgan & Co.” under the instruction of the head of the Bank of England, Montagu Norman. At the core of his ideas was representative of the “Dresdner Bank” Hjalmar Schacht, who formulated it in March 1922 at the suggestion of John Foster Dulles (future Secretary of state in the Cabinet of President Eisenhower) and legal adviser to President W. Wilson at the Paris peace conference.

Dulles gave this note to the chief Trustee “JP Morgan & Co.”,which then recommended H. Schacht in consultation with Montagu Norman, Governor of the Bank of England.

In December, 1923, H. Schacht became Manager of the Reichsbank and was instrumental in bringing together the Anglo-American and German financial circles.

In the summer of 1924, the project known as the “Dawes plan” (named after the Chairman of the Committee of experts who created it – American banker and Director of one of the banks of the Morgan group), was adopted at the London conference. He called for halving the reparations and solved the question about the sources of their coverage. However, the main task was to ensure favorable conditions for US investment, which was only possible with the stabilization of the German Mark.

To this end, the plan gave Germany a large loan of $200 million, half of which was accounted for by JP Morgan.

One Bank to Rule Them All: The Bank for International Settlements

While the Anglo-American banks gained control not only over the transfer of German payments, but also for the budget, the system of monetary circulation and to a large extent the credit system of the country.

The Weimar Republic

By August 1924, the old German Mark was replaced by a new, stabilized financial situation in Germany, and, as researcher G.D Preparta wrote, the Weimar Republic was prepared for:

“the most picturesque economic aid in history, followed by the most bitter harvest in world history” — “an unstoppable flood of American blood poured into the financial veins of Germany.”

The consequences of this were not slow to appear.

This was primarily due to the fact that the annual reparations were to cover the amount of debt paid by the allies, formed by the so-called “absurd Weimar circle”.

The gold that Germany paid in the form of war reparations, was sold, pawned, and disappeared in the US, where it was returned to Germany in the form of an “aid” plan, who gave it to England and France, and they in turn were to pay the war debt of the United States. It was then overlayed with interest, and again sent  to Germany. In the end, all in Germany lived in debt [were indebted] , and it was clear that should Wall Street withdraw their loans, the country would suffer complete bankruptcy.

Secondly, although formal credit was issued to secure payment, it was actually the restoration of the military-industrial potential of the country.

The fact is that the Germans were paid in shares of companies for the loans so that American capital began to actively integrate into the German economy.

The total amount of foreign investments in German industry during 1924-1929 amounted to almost 63 billion gold Marks (30 billion was accounted for by loans), and the payment of reparations — 10 billion Marks. 70% of revenues were provided by bankers from the United States, and most of the banks were from JP Morgan. As a result, in 1929, German industry was in second place in the world, but it was largely in the hands of America’s leading financial-industrial groups.

US Investments in Nazi Germany. Rockefeller Financed Adolf Hitler’s Election Campaign

“Interessen-Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie”, the main supplier of the German war machine, financed 45% of the election campaign of Hitler in 1930, and was under the control of Rockefeller’s “Standard oil”.

Morgan, through “General Electric”, controlled the German radio and electrical industry via AEG and Siemens (up to 1933, 30% of the shares of AEG owned “General Electric”) through the Telecom company ITT — 40% of the telephone network in Germany.

In addition, they owned a 30% stake in the aircraft manufacturing company “Focke-Wulf”.

“General Motors”, belonging to the DuPont family, established control over “Opel”.

Henry Ford controlled 100% of the shares of  “Volkswagen”.

In 1926, with the participation of the Rockefeller Bank “Dillon, Reed & Co.” the second largest  industrial monopoly in Germany after “I.G Farben” emerged — metallurgical concern “Vereinigte Stahlwerke” (Steel Trust) Thyssen, Flick, Wolff, Feglera etc.

American cooperation with the German military-industrial complex was so intense and pervasive that by 1933 the key sectors of German industry and large banks such as Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, Danat-Bank (Darmstädter und Nationalbank), etc.  were under the control of American financial capital.

The political force that was intended to play a crucial role in Anglo-American plans was being simultaneously prepared. We are talking about the funding of the Nazi party and Adolf Hitler personally.

As former German Chancellor Brüning wrote in his memoirs, since 1923, Hitler received large sums from abroad. Where they went is unknown, but they were received through Swiss and Swedish banks.

It is also known that, in 1922 in Munich, a meeting took place between A. Hitler and the military attaché of the US to Germany – Captain Truman Smith – who compiled a detailed report for his Washington superiors (in the office of military intelligence), in which he spoke highly of Hitler.

It was through Smith’s circle of acquaintances that Hitler was first introduced to German-American businessman Ernst Franz Sedgwick Hanfstaengl, a graduate of Harvard University who played an important role in the formation of A. Hitler as a politician, endorsed by significant financial support, while securing him ties and communication with prominent personalities of the British establishment.

Hitler was prepared in politics, however, whereas Germany under the Weimar Republic reigned, his party remained on the periphery of public life. The situation changed dramatically with the beginning of the 1929 financial crisis.

Since the autumn of 1929 after the collapse of the America’s stock exchange was triggered by the Federal Reserve, the third stage of the strategy of the Anglo-American financial establishment commenced.

The Federal Reserve and JP Morgan decided to stop lending to Germany, inspired by the banking crisis and economic depression in Central Europe. In September 1931, England abandoned the gold standard, deliberately destroying the international system of payments and completely cutting off the flow of “financial oxygen” to the Weimar Republic.

But a financial miracle occurred with the Nazi party: in September 1930, as a result of large donations from Thyssen, “I.G. Farben”and Industrialist Emil Kirdorf (who was a firm supporter of Adolf Hitler), the Nazi party got 6.4 million votes, and took second place in the Reichstag, after which generous investments from abroad were activated.

The main link between the major German industrialists and foreign financiers became H. Schacht.

1932 Secret Agreement: Wall Street Finances Hitler’s Nazi Party 

On January 4th, 1932, a meeting was held between British financier Montagu Norman (Governor of the Bank of England), Adolf Hitler and Franz Von Papen (who became Chancellor a few months later in May 1932) At this meeting, an agreement on the financing of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP or Nazi Party) was reached.

This meeting was also attended by US policy-makers and the Dulles brothers, something which their biographers do not like to mention.

A year later, on January 14th, 1933, another meeting was held between Adolph Hitler, Germany’s Financier Baron Kurt von Schroeder, Chancellor Franz von Papen and Hitler’s Economic Advisor Wilhelm Keppler took place, where Hitler’s program was fully approved.

It was here that they finally resolved the issue of the transfer of power to the Nazis, and on the 30th of January 1933 Hitler became Chancellor. The implementation of the fourth stage of the strategy thus begun.

The attitude of the Anglo-American ruling elites in relation to the new Nazi government was very sympathetic.

When Hitler refused to pay reparations, which, naturally, called into question the payment of war debts, neither Britain nor France showed him the claims of the payments. Moreover, after his  visit to the United States in May 1933, H. Schacht became once more head of Reichsbank, and after his meeting with the U.S. President and the big bankers on Wall Street, America allocated Germany new loans totalling $1 billion.

In June, during a trip to London and a meeting with Montagu  Norman, Schacht also sought a British loan of $2 billion, and a reduction and cessation of payments on old loans.

Thus, the Nazis got what they could not achieve with the previous government.

In the summer of 1934, Britain signed the Anglo-German transfer agreement, which became one of the foundations of British policy towards the Third Reich, and at the end of the 1930’s, Germany became the main trading partner of England.

Schroeder Bank became the main agent of Germany in the UK, and in 1936 his office in New York teamed up with the   Rockefellers to create the “Schroeder, Rockefeller & Co.” investment Bank, which “Times” magazine called the “economic propagandist axis of Berlin-Rome”.

As Hitler himself admitted, he conceived his four-year plan on the basis of foreign financial loans, so it never inspired him with the slightest alarm.

In August 1934, America’s Standard Oil [owned by the Rockefellers] in Germany acquired 730,000 acres of land and built large oil refineries that supplied the Nazis with oil. At the same time, Germany  secretly took delivery of the most modern equipment for aircraft factories from the United States, which would begin the production of German planes.

Germany received a large number of military patents from American firms Pratt and Whitney”, “Douglas”, “Curtis Wright”, and American technology was building the “Junkers-87”. In 1941, when the Second world war was raging, American investments in the economy of Germany amounted to $475 million. “Standard oil” invested – 120 million, “General motors” – $35 million, ITT — $30 million, and “Ford” — $17.5 million.

The close financial and economic cooperation of Anglo-American and Nazi business circles was the background against which, in the 1930’s, a policy of appeasement led to World War II.

Today, the world’s financial elites have implemented the Great Depression 2.o [2008], with a followup transition towards a “New World Order“.

Yuri Rubtsov is a doctor of historical sciences, academician of the Russian Academy of military sciences, and member of  the International Association of historians of World War II

Translated from Russian by Ollie Richardson for Fort Russ

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The original source of this article is Fort Russ

Copyright © Yuri Rubtsov, Fort Russ, 2022