[PART 10]

3. Hitler's Ladder to Power

Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany January 30, 1933, and
absolute dictator in March 1933, after two years of expensive and
violent lobbying and electioneering. Two affiliates of the Bush-
Harriman organization played great parts in this criminal undertaking:
Thyssen's German Steel Trust; and the Hamburg-Amerika Line and
several of its executives. Note #1 Note #3

Let us look more closely at the Bush family's German partners.

"Fritz Thyssen" told Allied interrogators after the war about some 
of his financial support for the Nazi Party: "In 1930 or 1931 ... I told
[Hitler's deputy Rudolph] Hess ... I would arrange a credit for him
with a Dutch bank in Rotterdam, the Bank fussaur Handel und Schiff
[i.e. Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart (BHS), the Harriman-Bush
affiliate]. I arranged the credit ... he would pay it back in three years....
I chose a Dutch bank because I did not want to be mixed up with
German banks in my position, and because I thought it was better
to do business with a Dutch bank, and I thought I would have the
Nazis a little more in my hands....

"The credit was about 250-300,000 [gold] marks -- about the sum I
had given before. The loan has been repaid in part to the Dutch bank,
but I think some money is still owing on it...." Note #1 Note #4

The overall total of Thyssen's political donations and loans to the
Nazis was well over a million dollars, including funds he raised from
others -- in a period of terrible money-shortage in Germany.

"Friedrich Flick" was the major co-owner of the German Steel Trust
with Fritz Thyssen, Thyssen's longtime collaborator and sometime
competitor. In preparation for the war crimes tribunal at Nuremberg,
the U.S. government said that Flick was "one of leading financiers and
industrialists who from 1932 contributed large sums to the Nazi Party
... member of 'Circle of Friends' of Himmler who contributed large
sums to the SS." Note #1 Note #5

Flick, like Thyssen, financed the Nazis to maintain their private
armies called Schutzstaffel (S.S. or Black Shirts) and Sturmabteilung
(S.A., storm troops or Brown Shirts).

The Flick-Harriman partnership was directly supervised by Prescott
Bush, President Bush's father, and by George Walker, President Bush's
grandfather.

The Harriman-Walker Union Banking Corp. arrangements for the German
Steel Trust had made them bankers for Flick and his vast operations in
Germany by no later than 1926.

The "Harriman Fifteen Corporation" (George Walker, president, Prescott
Bush and Averell Harriman, sole directors) held a substantial stake in
the Silesian Holding Co. at the time of the merger with Brown Brothers,
January 1, 1931. This holding correlated to Averell Harriman's chairman-
ship of the "Consolidated Silesian Steel Corporation," the American
group owning one-third of a complex of steelmaking, coal-mining and
zinc-mining activities in Germany and Poland, in which Friedrich Flick
owned two-thirds. Note #1 Note #6

The Nuremberg prosecutor characterized Flick as follows:

"Proprietor and head of a large group of industrial enterprises (coal
and iron mines, steel producing and fabricating plants) ... 'Wehrwirt-
schaftsfuehrer,' 1938 [title awarded to prominent industrialists for
merit in armaments drive -- 'Military Economy Leader']...." Note #1
Note #7

For this buildup of the Hitler war machine with coal, steel, and arms
production, using SLAVE laborers, the Nazi Flick was condemned to
seven years in prison at the Nuremberg trials; he served three years.
With friends in New York and London, however, Flick lived into the
1970s and died a billionaire.

On March 19, 1934, Prescott Bush -- then director of the German
Steel Trust's Union Banking Corporation -- initiated an alert to the
absent Averell Harriman about a problem which had developed in the
Flick partnership. Note #1 Note #8 Bush sent Harriman a clipping from
the "New York Times" of that day, which reported that the Polish govern-
ment was fighting back against American and German stockholders who
controlled "Poland's largest industrial unit, the Upper Silesian Coal and
Steel Company...."

The "Times" article continued: "The company has long been accused
of mismanagement, excessive borrowing, fictitious bookkeeping and
gambling in securities. Warrants were issued in December for several
directors accused of tax evasions. They were German citizens and
they fled. They were replaced by Poles. Herr Flick, regarding this as
an attempt to make the company's board entirely Polish, retaliated by
restricting credits until the new Polish directors were unable to pay
the workmen regularly."

The "Times" noted that the company's mines and mills "employ 25,000
men and account for 45 percent of Poland's total steel output and 12
percent of her coal production. Two-thirds of the company's stock is
owned by Friedrich Flick, a leading German steel industrialist, and
the remainder is owned by interests in the United States."

In view of the fact that a great deal of Polish output was being exported
to Hitler's Germany under depression conditions, the Polish government
thought that Bush, Harriman, and their Nazi partners should at least
pay full taxes on their Polish holdings. The U.S. and Nazi owners re-
sponded with a lockout. The letter to Harriman in Washington reported
a cable from their European representative: "Have undertaken new
steps London Berlin ... please establish friendly relations with Polish
Ambassador [in Washington]."

A 1935 Harriman Fifteen Corporation memo from George Walker
announced an agreement had been made "in Berlin" to sell an 8,000
block of their shares in Consolidated Silesian Steel. Note #1 Note #9
But the dispute with Poland did not deter the Bush family from
continuing its partnership with Flick.

Nazi tanks and bombs "settled" this dispute in September, 1939 with
the invasion of Poland, beginning World War II. The Nazi army had
been equipped by Flick, Harriman, Walker, and Bush, with materials
essentially STOLEN from Poland.

There were probably few people at the time who could appreciate the
irony, that when the Soviets also attacked and invaded Poland from the
East, their vehicles were fueled by oil pumped from Baku wells revived
by the Harriman/Walker/Bush enterprise.

Three years later, nearly a year after the Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbor, the U.S. government ordered the seizure of the Nazis' share
in the Silesian-American Corporation under the Trading with the Enemy
Act. Enemy nationals were said to own 49 percent of the common
stock and 41.67 percent of the preferred stock of the company.

The order characterized the company as a "business enterprise within
the United States, owned by [a front company in] Zurich, Switzerland,
and held for the benefit of Bergwerksgesellschaft George von Giesche's
Erben, a German corporation...." Note #2 Note #0

Bert Walker was still the senior director of the company, which he had
founded back in 1926 simultaneously with the creation of the German
Steel Trust. Ray Morris, Prescott's partner from Union Banking Corp.
and Brown Brothers Harriman, was also a director.

The investigative report prior to the government crackdown explained
the "NATURE OF BUSINESS: The subject corporation is an American
holding company for German and Polish subsidiaries, which own large
and valuable coal and zinc mines in Silesia, Poland and Germany. Since
September 1939, these properties have been in the possession of and
have been operated by the German government and have undoubtedly
been of considerable assistance to that country in its war effort." Note #2
Note #1

The report noted that the American stockholders hoped to regain control
of the European properties after the war.

4. Control of Nazi Commerce

Bert Walker had arranged the credits Harriman needed to take control
of the Hamburg-Amerika Line back in 1920. Walker had organized the
"American Ship and Commerce Corp." as a unit of the W.A. Harriman
& Co., with contractual power over Hamburg-Amerika's affairs.

As the Hitler project went into high gear, Harriman-Bush shares in
American Ship and Commerce Corp. were held by the Harriman Fifteen
Corp., run by Prescott Bush and Bert Walker. Note #2 Note #2

It was a convenient stroll for the well-tanned, athletic, handsome
Prescott Bush. From the Brown Brothers Harriman skyscraper at 59
Wall Street -- where he was senior managing partner, confidential
investments manager and advisor to Averell and his brother "Bunny" --
he walked across to the Harriman Fifteen Corporation at One Wall
Street, otherwise known as G.H. Walker & Co. -- and around the corner
to his subsidiary offices at 39 Broadway, former home of the old W.A.
Harriman & Co., and still the offices for American Ship and Commerce,
and of the Union Banking Corporation.

In many ways, Bush's Hamburg-Amerika Line was the pivot for the
entire Hitler project.

Averell Harriman and Bert Walker had gained control over the steam-
ship company in 1920 in negotiations with its post-World War I chief
executive, "Wilhelm Cuno", and with the line's bankers, M.M. Warburg.
Cuno was thereafter completely dependent on the Anglo-Americans,
and became a member of the Anglo-German Friendship Society. In the
1930-32 drive for a Hitler dictatorship, Wilhelm Cuno contributed important
sums to the Nazi Party. Note #2 Note #3

"Albert Voegler" was chief executive of the Thyssen-Flick German Steel
Trust for which Bush's Union Banking Corp. was the New York office.
He was a director of the Bush-affiliate BHS Bank in Rotterdam, and a
director of the Harriman-Bush Hamburg-Amerika Line. Voegler joined
Thyssen and Flick in their heavy 1930-33 Nazi contributions, and helped 
organize the final Nazi leap into national power. Note #2 Note #4

The "SCHROEDER" family of bankers was a linchpin for the Nazi activities
of Harriman and Prescott Bush, closely tied to their lawyers Allen and
John Foster DULLES.

Baron Kurt von Schroeder was co-director of the massive Thyssen-Huette
foundry along with Johann Groeninger, Prescott Bush's New York bank
partner. Kurt von Schroeder was treasurer of the support organization
for the Nazi Party's private armies, to which Friedrich Flick contributed.
Kurt von Schroeder and Montagu Norman's proteaageaa Hjalmar Schacht
together made the final arrangments for Hitler to enter the government.
Note #2 Note #5

Baron Rudolph von Schroeder was vice president and director of the
Hamburg-Amerika Line. Long an intimate contact of Averell Harriman's
in Germany, Baron Rudolph sent his grandson Baron Johann Rudolph
for a tour of Prescott Bush's Brown Brothers Harriman offices in New
York City in December 1932 -- on the eve of their Hitler-triumph. Note #2
Note #6

Certain actions taken directly by the Harriman-Bush shipping line in
1932 must be ranked among the gravest acts of TREASON in this 
century.

The U.S. Embassy in Berlin reported back to Washington that the
"costly election campaigns" and "the cost of maintaining a private
army of 300,000 to 400,000 men" had raised questions as to the Nazis'
financial backers. The constitutional government of the German republic
moved to defend national freedom by ordering the Nazi Party private
armies disbanded. The U.S. Embassy reported that the "Hamburg-
Amerika Line was purchasing and distributing propaganda attacks
against the German government, for attempting this last-minute crack-
down on Hitler's forces." Note #2 Note #7

Thousands of German opponents of Hitlerism were SHOT or intimida-
ted by privately armed Nazi Brown Shirts. In this connection, we note
that the original "Merchant of Death," Samuel Pryor, was a founding
director of both the Union Banking Corp. and the American Ship and
Commerce Corp. Since Mr. Pryor was executive committee chairman
of Remington Arms and a central figure in the world's private arms
traffic, his use to the Hitler project was enhanced as the Bush family's
partner in Nazi Party banking and trans-Atlantic shipping.

The U.S. Senate arms-traffic investigators probed Remington after it
was joined in a cartel agreement on explosives to the Nazi firm I.G.
FARBEN. Looking at the period leading up to Hitler's seizure of power,
the senators found that "German political associations, like the Nazi
and others, are nearly all armed with 'American' ... guns.... Arms of
all kinds coming from America are transshipped in the Scheldt to river
barges before the vessels arrive in Antwerp. They then can be carried
through Holland without police inspection or interference. The Hitlerists
and Communists are presumed to get arms in this manner. The
principal arms coming from America are Thompson submachine 
guns and revolvers. The number is great." Note #2 Note #8

The beginning of the Hitler regime brought some bizarre changes to
the Hamburg-Amerika Line -- and more betrayals.

Prescott Bush's American Ship and Commerce Corp. notified Max
Warburg of Hamburg, Germany, on March 7, 1933, that Warburg was
to be the corporation's official, designated representative on the board
of Hamburg-Amerika. Note #2 Note #9

Max Warburg replied on March 27, 1933, assuring his American sponsors
that the Hitler government was good for Germany: "For the last few years
business was considerably better than we had anticipated, but a reaction
is making itself felt for some months. We are actually suffering also under
the very active propaganda against Germany, caused by some unpleasant
circumstances. These occurrences were the natural consequence of the
very excited election campaign, but were extraordinarily exaggerated in
the foreign press. The Government is firmly resolved to maintain public
peace and order in Germany, and I feel perfectly convinced in this respect
that there is no cause for any alarm whatsoever." Note #3 Note #0

This seal of approval for Hitler, coming from a famous Jew, was just
what Harriman and Bush required, for they anticipated rather serious
"alarm" inside the U.S.A. against their Nazi operations.

On March 29, 1933, two days after Max's letter to Harriman, Max's
son Erich sent a cable to his cousin Frederick M. Warburg, a director
of the Harriman railroad system. He asked Frederick to "use all your
influence" to stop all anti-Nazi activity in America, including "atrocity
news and unfriendly propaganda in foreign press, mass meetings,
etc."

[This, as well as the Rothschild's alliance with the Rockefeller's, would 
be a perfect example of selling out one's own kind for personal profit.  
It is uncertain whether the Warburgs were aware of the Nazi plan for 
a "final solution" against the Jews, but even if they were oblivious to 
this fact their support of Adolph Hitler in spite of their blindness to his 
true character -- and that of the Bavarian secret societies that backed 
him -- would make them one of the worst racial traitors to the Jewish 
cause in history. - Wol.]

...The executive board of the "Hamburg Amerika Line" "(Hapag)" met
jointly with the North German Lloyd company board in Hamburg on
September 5, 1933. Under official Nazi supervision, the two firms were
merged. Prescott Bush's American Ship and Commerce Corp. installed
Christian J. Beck, a longtime Harriman executive, as manager of freight
and operations in North America for the new joint Nazi shipping lines
"(Hapag-Lloyd)") on November 4, 1933.

According to testimony of officials of the companies before Congress
in 1934, a supervisor from the "Nazi Labor Front" rode with every ship
of the Harriman-Bush line; employees of the New York offices were
directly organized into the Nazi Labor Front organization; Hamburg-
Amerika provided free passage to individuals going abroad for Nazi
propaganda purposes; and the line subsidized pro-Nazi newspapers
in the U.S.A., as it had done in Germany against the constitutional
German government. Note #3 Note #2

In mid-1936, Prescott Bush's American Ship and Commerce Corp.
cabled M.M. Warburg, asking Warburg to represent the company's
heavy share interest at the forthcoming Hamburg-Amerika stockholders
meeting. The Warburg office replied with the information that "we repre-
sented you" at the stockholders meeting and "exercised on your behalf
your voting power for Rm [gold marks] 3,509,600 Hapag stock deposited
with us."

The Warburgs transmitted a letter received from Emil Helfferich, German
chief executive of both Hapag-Lloyd and of the STANDARD OIL subsi-
diary in Nazi Germany: "It is the intention to continue the relations with 
Mr. Harriman on the same basis as heretofore...." In a colorful gesture,
Hapag's Nazi chairman Helfferich sent the line's president across the
Atlantic on a Zeppelin to confer with their New York string-pullers.

After the meeting with the Zeppelin passenger, the Harriman-Bush
office replied: "I am glad to learn that Mr. Hellferich [sic] has stated
that relations between the Hamburg American Line and ourselves
will be continued on the same basis as heretofore." Note #3 Note #3

Two months before moving against Bush's Union Banking Corp., the
U.S. government ordered the seizure of all property of the Hamburg-
Amerika Line and North German Lloyd, under the Trading with the
Enemy Act.  The investigators noted in the pre-seizure report that
Christian J. Beck was still acting as an attorney representing the
NAZI firm. Note #3 Note #4

In May 1933, just after the Hitler regime was consolidated, an
agreement was reached in Berlin for the coordination of all Nazi
commerce with the U.S.A. The "Harriman International Co.," led by
Averell Harriman's first cousin Oliver, was to head a syndicate of
150 firms and individuals, to conduct "all exports from Hitler's
Germany to the United States". Note #3 Note #5

This pact had been negotiated in Berlin between Hitler's economics
minister, Hjalmar Schacht, and John Foster Dulles, international
attorney for dozens of NAZI enterprises, with the counsel of Max
Warburg and Kurt von Schroeder.

John Foster Dulles would later be U.S. Secretary of State, and the
great power in the Republican Party of the 1950s. Foster's friendship
and that of his brother Allen (HEAD OF THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
AGENCY), greatly aided Prescott Bush to become the Republican 
U.S. senator from Connecticut. And it was to be of inestimable value 
to George Bush, in his ascent to the heights of "covert action govern-
ment," that both of these Dulles brothers were the lawyers for the Bush 
family's far-flung enterprise.

Throughout the 1930s, John Foster Dulles arranged debt restructuring
for German firms under a series of decrees issued by Adolf Hitler. In
these deals, Dulles struck a balance between the interest owed to
selected, larger investors, and the needs of the growing Nazi war-
making apparatus for producing tanks, poison gas, etc.

Dulles wrote to Prescott Bush in 1937 concerning one such arrange-
ment. The German-Atlantic Cable Company, owning Nazi Germany's
only telegraph channel to the United States, had made debt and
management agreements with the Walker-Harriman bank during the
1920s. A new decree would now void those agreements, which had
originally been reached with non-Nazi corporate officials. Dulles asked
Bush, who managed these affairs for Averell Harriman, to get Averell's
signature on a letter to Nazi officials, agreeing to the changes. Dulles
wrote: "Sept. 22, 1937 "Mr. Prescott S. Bush "59 Wall Street, New
York, N.Y.

"Dear Press,

"I have looked over the letter of the German-American [sic] Cable
Company to Averell Harriman.... It would appear that the only rights
in the matter are those which inure in the bankers and that no legal
embarrassment would result, so far as the bondholders are concerned,
by your acquiescence in the modification of the bankers' agreement.

"Sincerely yours,

"John Foster Dulles"

Dulles enclosed a proposed draft reply, Bush got Harriman's signature,
and the changes went through. Note #3 Note #6

In conjunction with these arrangements, the German Atlantic Cable
Company attempted to stop payment on its debts to smaller American
bondholders. The money was to be used instead for arming the Nazi
state, under a decree of the Hitler government.

Despite the busy efforts of Bush and Dulles, a New York court decided
that this particular Hitler "law" was invalid in the United States; small
bondholders, not parties to deals between the bankers and the Nazis,
were entitled to get paid. Note #3 Note #7

In this and a few other of the attempted swindles, the intended victims 
came out with their money. But the Nazi financial and political reorgani-
zation went ahead to its tragic climax.

For his part in the Hitler revolution, Prescott Bush was paid a fortune.

This is the legacy he left to his son, President George Bush.