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Winston Mideast Analysis & Commentary
Jewish Slave Labor
Emanuel A. Winston, a Middle East analyst & commentator
Since the end of World War II the focus of Germany's atrocities against the Jews has been Hitler, the Nazi Party and such institutions as the S.S. and the Gestapo. Later books were written which concluded that the German people participated en masse. They knew and applauded what came to be known as the Jewish solution. (1) One well-researched book that had a different thought is entitled "The Splendid Blond Beast: Money, Law & Genocide in the 20th Century" by Professor Christopher Simpson. (2) It refocused the thrust of whom actually led and who followed Hitler's assault against humanity. While factual matters of Hitler's war are known, other participants are just now emerging as vital players. But, even now, they are not being given full credit for their actual roles. Hitler was, of course, no puppet but his power did come from those who enabled him to dream of war and then wage it. "They" guided and, of course, benefitted from the plunder which, as expected and planned, fell into "their" hands. The "Theys" and "Theirs" were the industrialists of Germany. They also had their dreams wherein Germany would become the industrial colossus ruling all the other lesser nations. They were the brains behind the conquest of Europe. It was German industry and its banks who directed the German Army to the riches of Europe. To be sure, Hitler and his Generals planned tactics and military goals, often not heeding the advice of a Machiavellian industrial advisory staff which ultimately resulted in military and, therefore, economic losses. The planned Third Reich which was to have enslaved the Planet and last a thousand years was to be implemented by Germany's elite industrialists and Hitler as equal partners. German industry was always there to absorb the loot, converting it into benefits for Hitler's Army and their own intended future as the leading world industry. German industrialists planned and facilitated the stripping of captured factories, of machine tools and materials. Captured rolling stock (trains and trucks) were put into use for the war machine and future growth of German industry planned for after the war. Only in the case of transporting Jews to the Death Camps did industry bow to Eichmann's authority in giving up trains and trucks which otherwise would have been transporting weapons and troops to the front. All raw resources, iron, copper, oil, coal, etc. were targeted by these industrialists and everything was taken and managed. German banks absorbed the confiscated gold, silver, precious stones and anything absorbable as liquid assets were used as currency to buy needed materials from accommodating nations. German bankers, executives of steel, oil, chemical companies all concentrated their management skills into converting the wealth of Europe into assets to build the Super Nation: The Third Reich. They used their skills and contacts with the money handlers of other nations to convert this loot into purchasing power for Hitler's War Machine. Concurrently, this vast flood of riches was building their well-planned industry of the future - all built on the foundations of Slave Labor and the ashes of the dead. The Swiss and other nations acted as a knowing ‘fence' and storehouse for what the Germans stole from its victims. This, of course, was conspicuously true of the plunder taken from the Jews, including gold, paintings, jewelry, real estate - even the gold fillings and wedding rings torn from the Jewish victims in the Death Camps which became part of the gold bars absorbed by the German and Swiss Banks. Once converted into purchasing power, it was then turned over to German industry for production (some of which, of course, stuck to the hands of German officers, Swiss bankers and others.) But, to amass and process these assets to their maximum, they need manpower and thus German industry re-created the institution of free Slave Labor. The various German industries were not reluctantly forced to take on Slave Labor as they would have us believe, but rather they voluntarily instituted the procedure - with enthusiasm. They evolved the system with typical organized Germanic efficiency to place written purchase orders to the Camp Kommandant through the SS for whatever skilled and unskilled labor they required. They arranged transportation and housing around their factories. Freezing in winter - boiling in summer - even the cows had it better. The containments the Slave Laborers were forced into were merely smaller concentration camps surrounding or close by the factories. The Slaves were fed poorly, worked for excessive hours, often until they dropped dead of starvation and exhaustion. Those who were unable to work but still alive were sent back to an extermination camp since they were no longer of any value for work. At the Camps they were quickly gassed and the other prisoners would pull the gold fillings from the teeth of the corpses sending it back to the German Banks for smelting into useable gold bars . . . nothing was wasted. The factory managers at the directions of the top executives understood and participated in every phase involving the use of slaves, from ordering replacements to burial when they died on the factory grounds. The P & L (Profit and Loss) statements were leveraged on the basis of almost no cost of overhead for labor.
Who knew about the Slave Labor, the processing of Jewish assets, the unspeakable cruelty? Was it only the intimate secret of the victims, the Germans and the Industrialists? The English and the Americans knew from 1940. American intelligence (the OSS forerunner of the CIA) knew because escaped prisoners gave them eyewitness testimony. The Catholic Church and the Vatican knew because they could see it happening. The Red Cross knew as they visited the camps with blindfolds conveniently over their eyes and senses. The U.S. State Department knew; the Judges and Nuremberg investigators knew; the French knew; the Swiss knew; the leaders of all the European nations knew. In fact, most of the witnesses participated in one way or another. After the war, the witnesses denied knowledge to either protect themselves or protect the German Industrialists and SS officers with whom they expected to do business. They were rescued, but, the Jews were not. Yes, there were witnesses. (3) After the War, those German factories continued to thrive and grow, accumulating billions of dollars in profits. The industrialists who guided Hitler's production were mostly protected and absolved of their crimes by such men as the Dulles Brothers, John Foster (from the State Department) and Allen (Head of the CIA). Except for a few show trials like Nuremberg, most escaped punishment as war criminals. (4) Today, there is an effort to obtain compensation for those slave laborers who remain alive. Some of the German companies who enjoyed the free benefits of Slave Labor are grudgingly paying into a relatively small fund. I say ‘grudgingly' because most are only paying because they are concerned for the negative publicity which could affect their profits. The ‘Fund' should have been at least a hundred billion dollars for the pain, suffering and death although even that would not be enough. But, the German industrialists offered to pay $3.3 billion which was rejected on October 7. Deutsche Bank and the other leading German companies must disclose to the world the extent of their willing participation in the Holocaust and the profits they earned from it. Deutsche Bank's reluctance to disclose the full truth about Auschwitz sends a terrible message. Previously secret documents discovered in February 1999 revealed the Deutsche Bank's active aid of the Nazi campaign against Jews in Europe. Deutsche Bank knowingly financed the Auschwitz death camp construction in Poland, among other Nazi projects. Three million Jews - half the people killed in the Holocaust - died at Auschwitz, many of them in the final months of World War II. Supported by the Deutsche Bank, the Nazis killed nearly 800,000 Jews there between April and June of 1944 - at a time when war crimes' tribunals were being discussed by the Allies, the Russians were advancing and D-Day was well underway. The war was nearly over but Hitler's "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" went on and on." "The World Council of Orthodox Jewish Communities is dedicated to rebuilding the religious and communal infrastructure that was obliterated by Hitler during the war. We deserve full disclosure. The survivors' communities want and deserve compensation for the restoration of the religious and cultural property of the Eastern European Jewish communities." (5) Hitler's industry, that part which killed Jews, had such a grasp on the Germans that, even in their last moments of defeat, they continued their frantic, macabre dance of death. In Christopher Simpson's book, "The Splendid Blond Beast" he needed 20 pages (single spaced) to list the more than 1000 German companies who used and benefitted from Jewish Slave Labor. This is a short list of companies which you may recognize: AEG; IG Farben; Junkers; Krupp; Siemens; BMW; Dynamit Nobel; Ford-Werke; AGFA; Zeiss; Knopf; Busch; Braun; Herman-Goring-Werke; Hummel; Messerschmitt; Daimler-Benz (now partners with Chrysler); Knorr AG; Philips; Volkswagenwerke; Heinkel-Werke AG; Telefunken; Zeppelin; Wagner. These companies, among hundreds of others, are listed according to the Concentration Camps from whom they got their Slave Labor. Therefore, many are listed more than once in many different places in Germany. (6) Regrettably, space does not permit a full listing. Hamburg historian Bernard Grelner said 26 of the top 100 U.S. companies in the 1930s collaborated to some degree with the Nazis before, and in some cases after, Hitler declared war on the United States in December 1941. (7) Henry Ford was an admirer of Hitler and claimed that Ford could not control its foreign plants that manufactured for Hitler. This list does not include most of Germany's Banks who funded the building of the Concentration Camps, including the payment for construction of the gas chambers. So, what do these scurrilous companies owe to the victims upon which they built their fortunes. Paying reparations to their victims will not ease their conscience because, clearly, they have none. They have the same overriding interest now as they did when they used their victims to increase production. Are such companies redeemable after having been proven complicit in Genocide? Probably not, but they can make a genuine attempt to earn some respect by paying reparations without quibbling over payment to their victims. Let them pay now - as they should - to protect their anticipated future profits from scandal.
1. "Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust" by
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. 1996
2. "The Splendid Blond Beast: Money, Law & Genocide in the 20th Century" by
Christopher Simpson Grove Press NY 1993
3. "The Terrible Secret: Suppression of the Truth about Hitler's ‘Final
Solution' " by Walter Laqueur Little, Brown & Co. 1980
& "The Abandonment of the Jews: America & the Holocaust: 1941-1945" by David
S. Wyman Pantheon Books 1984
4. "World Council of Orthodox Jewish Communities Calls on Deutsche Bank to
Release All Auschwitz Documents" THE JEWISH PRESS November 19, 1999
5. "Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish
People: 1920-1992" by John Loftus & Mark Aarons St Martin's Press New York
1994
6. "The Splendid Blond Beast" Ibid Appendix pp. 290-310
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