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For The Record  

FTR #292 Power Corrupts

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1. The broad­cast begins with dis­cus­sion of the rela­tion­ship between the father of Sau­di-born ter­ror­ist Osama Bin Laden and King Ibn Saud, the monarch of, and founder of, Sau­di Ara­bia. Sig­nif­i­cant­ly, Bin Laden’s father was a close friend and polit­i­cal ally of King Ibn Saud. “Bin Laden’s father, Mohammed Awad Bin Laden, emi­grat­ed from South­ern Yemen’s Hadraa­mawt Val­ley in the 1920’s to Sau­di Ara­bia, where he became a close friend of the coun­try’s founder and first monarch, Abdul-Aziz Ibn Saud, whose exam­ple he fol­lowed by tak­ing almost as many wives as the king. Like the king, Mohammed’s many chil­dren con­sol­i­dat­ed his strate­gic alliances through extend­ed fam­i­lies.” (“Mil­lion­aire, Ter­ror­ist, Fugi­tive” by Robin Allen and Car­o­la Hoyos; Finan­cial Times; 4/14–4/15/2001; p. 10.) (It should be not­ed that Bin Laden’s father was killed in a plane crash in 1967. The “Sheik Bin Laden” rep­re­sent­ed by Bush asso­ciate James R. Bath was anoth­er mem­ber of the fam­i­ly, not Osama’s father.)

2. Inter­est­ing­ly (and, per­haps, sig­nif­i­cant­ly) Osama Bin Laden is cred­it­ed with hav­ing engi­neered the suc­cess­ful ambush of U.S. troops in Soma­lia, an inci­dent which helped to dis­cred­it Bill Clin­ton’s admin­is­tra­tion in its first months. “One of Bin Laden’s ear­li­est actions was arguably one of his most suc­cess­ful. U.S. pros­e­cu­tors claim that Al-Qae­da (The Base), the net­work he co-found­ed in Afghanistan alleged­ly to car­ry out ter­ror­ist attacks, trained those who ambushed and killed 18 U.S. ser­vice­men sta­tioned in Soma­lia in 1983.” (Idem.) It should be remem­bered that the elder George Bush com­mit­ted U.S. troops to Soma­lia in the first place. In addi­tion, ele­ments of U.S. intel­li­gence, Ronald Rea­gan and Richard Nixon were involved with the Stibam arms-for-drugs ring that helped to arm the Soma­li com­bat­ants in the first place.

3. King Ibn Saud was an ally of the Third Reich, British fas­cist Jack Phil­by and Bush fam­i­ly asso­ciate Allen Dulles, who helped George W.‘s grand­fa­ther and great grand­fa­ther hide their invest­ments on behalf of Nazi Ger­many. “Jack Phil­by has become an obscure foot­note to the his­to­ry of the Cold war. But his lega­cy was far from minor. He is one of the less­er-known but most influ­en­tial per­sons in the mod­ern his­to­ry of the Mid­dle East, the rene­gade British intel­li­gence agent who plucked an obscure ter­ror­ist out of the desert and helped to make him the king of Sau­di Ara­bia. Ibn Saud was very much his cre­ation. Phil­by stole the infor­ma­tion from British intel­li­gence files that engi­neered Sau­di con­trol over the holi­est shrines of the Moslem world. Jack Phil­by and Ibn Saud betrayed the British empire and made the Amer­i­can oil com­pa­nies eco­nom­ic mas­ters of the region. The man who helped them do it was Allen Dulles, an Amer­i­can spy who had befriend­ed while he was coor­di­nat­ing Amer­i­can intel­li­gence gath­er­ing in the Mid­dle East in the first half of the 1920s. Between them, these three men built the very foun­da­tions of the mod­ern Mid­dle East. They were the archi­tects of the oil weapon, the insti­ga­tors of war, the manip­u­la­tors of his­to­ry. More impor­tant, Philby’s and Ibn Saud’s polit­i­cal and philo­soph­i­cal alle­giance was to Nazi Ger­many, while much of Dulles’s prof­its came from the same source.” (The Secret War Against the Jews: How West­ern Espi­onage Betrayed the Jew­ish Peo­ple; by John Lof­tus and Mark Aarons; Copy­right 1994 [HC]; St. Mar­t­in’s Press; ISBN 0–312-11057‑X; p. 21.)

4. Much of the first half of the broad­cast con­sists of read­ing and analy­sis of an infor­ma­tive arti­cle by Sam Par­ry in Online Jour­nal. (“Bush, Coal & the Inter­net” by Sam Par­ry; Online Jour­nal; 10/9/2000.)

5. This arti­cle points out that Bush, in an address in Sep­tem­ber of 2000, fore­shad­owed the “elec­tric­i­ty short­age” that has beset Cal­i­for­nia and threat­ens to affect much of the rest of the coun­try as well. “In a major address on ener­gy pol­i­cy, George W. Bush offered a sur­pris­ing assess­ment of the Inter­net as a heavy drain on the nation’s elec­tri­cal grid and fac­tor forc­ing the Unit­ed States toward a cost­ly new round of pow­er-plant con­struc­tion, includ­ing more coal-fired gen­er­a­tors and nuclear reac­tors. Bush’s com­ment about the Inter­net-as-fuel guz­zler flew in the face of wide­spread sci­en­tif­ic opin­ion that the Inter­net and oth­er tech­no­log­i­cal advances have eased the U.S. econ­o­my’s reliance on ener­gy, not made it worse. Yet on Sep­tem­ber 29, the Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee said, ‘Today, the equip­ment need­ed to pow­er the Inter­net con­sumes 8 per­cent of all the elec­tric­i­ty pro­duced in the Unit­ed States.’ Bush cit­ed this fast-grow­ing ener­gy demand as a jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for drilling in new oil fields, includ­ing Alaska’s Arc­tic Nation­al Wildlife Reserve, and for increased burn­ing of coal.” (Ibid.; p. 1.)

6. His pre­scrip­tion is not alto­geth­er sur­pris­ing in light of the fact that Bush’s fig­ures are derived from a study by a coal indus­try lob­by­ing orga­ni­za­tion. This same orga­ni­za­tion says that car­bon diox­ide pro­duced by coal burn­ing plants is good for the earth! “What Bush did not explain—and what the press did not deign to find out—was that Bush’s claim about the Inter­net’s ener­gy use came from a study com­mis­sioned by a coal-indus­try group that endors­es the view that more car­bon diox­ide in the atmos­phere is good—not bad—for the earth. Also not men­tioned by Bush was that the coal indus­try’s Inter­net study con­clud­ed that the Unit­ed States must under­take a $1 tril­lion invest­ment in new pow­er plants to meet ener­gy demands sup­pos­ed­ly cre­at­ed by the inter­net and oth­er new tech­nolo­gies. . . . Bush’s Inter­net ener­gy fig­ure can be traced to a 1999 study enti­tled ‘The Inter­net Begins with Coal,’ writ­ten by Mark Mills, pres­i­dent of Mills McCarthy & Asso­ciates Inc. Based on Mills’ per­son­al cal­cu­la­tions, the study states, ‘The elec­tric­i­ty appetite of the equip­ment on the Inter­net has grown from essen­tial­ly noth­ing 10 years ago to 8 per­cent of the total U.S. elec­tric­i­ty con­sump­tion today.’ Mills goes on to pre­dict that ‘now seems rea­son­able to fore­cast that in the fore­see­able future, cer­tain­ly with­in two decades, the direct and indi­rect needs of the Inter­net will con­sume 30–50 per­cent of the nation’s ener­gy sup­ply.” To meet that demand, Mills says, will require a $1 tril­lion invest­ment ‘in a hard-pow­er back­bone to sup­ply elec­tric­i­ty.’ Mills warns that ‘while envi­ron­men­tal­ists want to sub­stan­tial­ly reduce coal use in mak­ing elec­tric­i­ty, there is no chance of meet­ing future eco­nom­i­cal­ly dri­ven and Inter­net-accel­er­at­ed elec­tric demand with­out retain­ing and expand­ing the coal com­po­nent.’ Accord­ing to a sum­ma­ry of Mills’ report, pub­lished at the Web site, www.fossilfuels.org, the Inter­net project grew ‘out of an inquiry by green­ing Earth Soci­ety pres­i­dent Fred Palmer.’ Mills also is list­ed as a sci­en­tif­ic advis­er to the Green­ing Earth Soci­ety, a think tank ded­i­cat­ed to the propo­si­tion that the ris­ing lev­el of car­bon diox­ide in the atmos­phere is ben­e­fi­cial to the earth, not the ‘green­house’ threat to the envi­ron­ment that many sci­en­tists see. The Green­ing Earth Soci­ety, how­ev­er, is not a dis­in­ter­est­ed sci­en­tif­ic body. It was estab­lished by the West­ern Fuels Asso­ci­a­tion, a coop­er­a­tive owned by sev­en coal-burn­ing util­i­ties most­ly in the West and Mid­west. Accord­ing to the lat­est annu­al report, the West­ern Fuels Asso­ci­a­tion deliv­ered 22.7 mil­lion tons of coal to mem­ber util­i­ties in 1999. Green­ing Earth Soci­ety pres­i­dent Palmer, who com­mis­sioned the Inter­net study, also is West­ern Fuel’s chief exec­u­tive.” (Ibid.; pp. 1–2.)

7. The asser­tions by George W. (and the inter­ests he rep­re­sents) that the inter­net is caus­ing the “ener­gy cri­sis” are not borne out by fact. “Ana­lysts for the Lawrence Berke­ley Nation­al Labs and the Cen­ter for Ener­gy and Cli­mate Solu­tions cal­cu­late the Inter­net is draw­ing about one per­cent of U.S. elec­tric­i­ty, while help­ing to achieve an his­toric shift toward ener­gy con­ser­va­tion for the coun­try. Tra­di­tion­al­ly, U.S. eco­nom­ic growth, as mea­sured by the Gross Domes­tic Prod­uct (GDP), has tracked almost pre­cise­ly the nation’s ener­gy con­sump­tion. When the econ­o­my has grown, ener­gy use has increased at about the same rate, a trend that has held until the Inter­net-dom­i­nat­ed New Econ­o­my of the past sev­er­al years. Advanced tech­nol­o­gy seems to have pro­duced sub­stan­tial ener­gy sav­ings, these stud­ies found. For instance, in the imme­di­ate ‘pre-Inter­net era’ of 1993–1996, the U.S. GDP grew an aver­age of 3.2 per­cent per year, while elec­tric­i­ty demand grew 2.9 per­cent per year, a ratio of 1.1 to 1. In con­trast, the ‘Inter­net era’ of 1997–2000 has aver­aged 4.2 per­cent eco­nom­ic growth per year while aver­ag­ing 2.2 per­cent annu­al growth in elec­tric­i­ty demand, a ratio of 1.9 to 1. These fig­ures indi­cate that the econ­o­my achieved a near dou­bling of effi­cien­cy in terms of elec­tric­i­ty use in the Inter­net era than in the pre-Inter­net peri­od. What’s more, this analy­sis does not account for the fuel saved by peo­ple who now do their read­ing, shop­ping, and com­mu­ni­cat­ing online rather than trav­el­ing to the neigh­bor­hood library or local mall or send­ing reg­u­lar mail through the postal ser­vice. Fac­tor­ing in oth­er types of ener­gy, such as gaso­line, the pre-Inter­net peri­od of 1993–1996 saw a 2.3 per­cent increase in total ener­gy demand while the 1997–2000 Inter­net peri­od saw ener­gy demand increase only 1 per­cent per year. All this while Amer­i­cans were increas­ing­ly dri­ving more time in traf­fic and using more home heat­ing and cool­ing due to the extreme weath­er pat­terns of 1998 and 1999.” (Ibid.; p. 3.)

8. In con­nec­tion with Bush’s affin­i­ty for fos­sil fuels and coal-gen­er­at­ed pow­er plants, in par­tic­u­lar, the broad­cast reviews a sec­tion of a very impor­tant arti­cle that was the focal point of FTR #281. (“Los Ami­gos de Bush” by Julie Reynolds; El Andar Mag­a­zine; Fall/2000 [Vol.11, #3].) One of Bush’s clos­est Lati­no asso­ciates is Ernesto Anci­ra, Junior. Relat­ed by mar­riage to the fam­i­ly of for­mer Pres­i­dent Raul Sali­nas, the Anci­ra fam­i­ly are piv­otal­ly involved with the Mex­i­can ener­gy gen­er­a­tion indus­try.

9. One of the Anci­ra fam­i­ly ven­tures was the Car­bon II pow­er plant. “The Anci­ras had teamed up with an old school chum, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal heir Xavier Autrey, dur­ing Pres­i­dent Sali­nas’ pri­va­ti­za­tion free-for-all of the late 1980’s. The ‘A’ kids maneu­vered six mil­lion dol­lars of oth­er peo­ples’ mon­ey into bil­lions, buy­ing up min­ing and ener­gy com­pa­nies as well as Mex­i­co’s largest steel com­pa­ny, Altos Hornos de Mex­i­co (AHMSA). Soon their com­pa­nies were accused of being fronts for the drug trade, and were described as such by ana­lyst R.C. Whalen at a 1993 U.S. con­gres­sion­al hear­ing. Togeth­er with a secre­tive bi-nation­al strip-min­ing oper­a­tion called Dos Repub­li­cas, the Anci­ras tried to get a Tex-Mex ener­gy deal going by re-vamp­ing a decrepit coal-burn­ing pow­er plant on the bor­der, named Car­bon II. They con­vinced the World Bank, Citibank and South­ern Cal­i­for­nia Edi­son to invest over $250 mil­lion in the project. It was a dis­as­ter. The Anci­ras rep­u­ta­tion sank as fast as a rust-eat­en buck­et, and part­ners and investors began to look for ways out. The Anci­ra fam­i­ly was accused by share­hold­ers of wast­ing extra­or­di­nary amounts of mon­ey on cor­po­rate jets, lim­ou­sines and oth­er lux­u­ries. Not to men­tion their exten­sive pur­chas­es of San Anto­nio real estate. Just last year, while the com­pa­ny amassed near­ly $2 bil­lion in debt and had to sus­pend pay­ments, the Anci­ras began qui­et­ly mov­ing prop­er­ty titles to Cay­man Island hold­ing com­pa­nies, with the help of their front man Marce­lo Sanchez. Car­bon II should have been the kind of project Gov­er­nor Bush would have embraced: a mod­el ener­gy ven­ture between Mex­i­co and the U.S. But as envi­ron­men­tal­ists’ com­plaints about air pol­lu­tion grew loud­er, Bush’s com­ments grew guard­ed. By the time of the pro­jec­t’s final demise in 1995—due to mis­man­age­ment as well as the fact that its approval by Sali­nas had been bla­tant­ly illegal—Bush was giv­en cred­it for heed­ing envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns.” (Ibid.; pp. 26–27.) To access the rest of the arti­cle (which Mr. Emory believes should have received a Pulitzer Prize), vis­it their Web Site at www.elandar.com.

10. As the glob­al ener­gy indus­try is dereg­u­lat­ed, ener­gy cor­po­ra­tions are cross­ing nation­al bound­aries. One of the fastest grow­ing elec­tric­i­ty com­pa­nies is the Ger­man giant Eon. The sec­ond largest elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­at­ing com­pa­ny in the world, it is cur­rent­ly expand­ing into the Unit­ed States, where it plans to estab­lish a sig­nif­i­cant pres­ence.

11. “Britain’s sec­ond largest pow­er gen­er­a­tor yes­ter­day became a mere step­ping stone in the glob­al ambi­tions of one of Europe’s biggest util­i­ties. Eon, Ger­many’s sec­ond largest util­i­ty, final­ly launched its long-await­ed $13.5bn bid for Pow­er­Gen, call­ing it the first stage in its dri­ve to become one of the largest pow­er com­pa­nies in the U.S. ‘We are now get­ting ready for a dou­ble jump, across the [Eng­lish] Chan­nel and from there across the Atlantic Ocean,’ said Ulrich Hart­mann, chief exec­u­tive . . . .Instead, Eon decid­ed to spare no cost and face severe U.S. reg­u­la­to­ry scruti­ny to set up its first pow­er base in the U.S. Pow­er­Gen, which recent­ly pur­chased LG& E, the Ken­tucky-based util­i­ty, offers exper­tise in the high­ly reg­u­lat­ed and frag­ment­ed U.S. mar­ket. Eon gains access to Pow­er­Gen’s expe­ri­ence with the ful­ly-lib­er­al­ized U.K. elec­tric­i­ty mar­ket.” (“Pow­er­Gen Is a Step­ping Stone” by Uta Har­nischfeger; Finan­cial Times; 4/10/2001; p. 24.)

12. Where­as dereg­u­la­tion has oblig­ed com­pa­nies in the Unit­ed King­dom to divest them­selves of cor­po­rate assets in order to max­i­mize mar­ket com­pe­ti­tion, it has had the oppo­site effect in Ger­many. “In the UK, the dom­i­nant gen­er­at­ing com­pa­nies were forced to divest in order to pro­mote com­pe­ti­tion. So in spite of Pow­er­Gen’s acqui­si­tion of L G & E of Ken­tucky, it is a rel­a­tive­ly small pow­er com­pa­ny in inter­na­tion­al terms, with only about 8 per cent of the U.K. mar­ket. In Ger­many, by con­trast, dereg­u­la­tion has allowed con­sol­i­da­tion of the region­al monop­o­lies into two main groups Eon and RWE. Eon, formed from Veba and Viag, is now set to become the sec­ond largest elec­tric com­pa­ny in the world after Elec­tric­i­ty de France. It plans to become big­ger still by mak­ing U.S. acqui­si­tions.” (“Bad Con­nec­tion;” [edi­to­r­i­al]; Finan­cial Times; 4/11/2001; p. 16.)

13. As Eon began divest­ing itself of assets in order to com­ply with U.S. reg­u­la­to­ry statutes, the nature of some of its busi­ness­es proved to be more than a lit­tle inter­est­ing. One of its main cor­po­rate sub­sidiaries was the Degus­sa chem­i­cal firm. “Eon the Ger­man util­i­ty pledged to sell its Degus­sa chem­i­cals divi­sion yes­ter­day after agree­ing to buy Pow­er­Gen, the British elec­tric­i­ty group, in a deal worth $13.8bn). U.S. reg­u­la­tions bar groups that gen­er­ate less than 80 per­cent of their sales from elec­tric­i­ty and gas sup­ply from own­ing U.S. ener­gy com­pa­nies. To com­ply with the reg­u­la­tions, Eon will also sell its real estate activ­i­ties. Chem­i­cal oper­a­tions con­tributed 22 per­cent of Eon’s sales last year . . . . The acqui­si­tion of Pow­er­Gen will make eon the world’s largest pow­er sup­pli­er behind Elec­tric­i­ty de France, the state-owned pow­er group, which would be 30 per cent big­ger. The acqui­si­tion will give Eon footholds in both the UK and U.S. ener­gy mar­kets. Ulrich Hart­mann, Eon’s chair­man said: ‘We have had very con­struc­tive talks with the U.S. Secu­ri­ties and Exchange Com­mis­sion and they will grant us three to five years after the clos­ing of the deal to get these things done.’ ” (“Eon to sell Off assets to Smooth Deal on Pow­er­Gen” by Andrew Tay­lor and Uta Har­nischfeger; Finan­cial Times; 4/10/2001; p. 18.)

14. The Degus­sa firm is part of the old I.G. Far­ben com­plex of chem­i­cal firms that com­prised the back­bone of Hitler’s polit­i­cal, indus­tri­al and mil­i­tary sup­port dur­ing World War II. (For more about I.G. Far­ben, see also: RFA#‘s 1, 2, 24, Mis­cel­la­neous Archive Show M11, FTR#‘s 87, 216, 278, 294.) Degus­sa, in which I.G. had a sig­nif­i­cant cap­i­tal par­tic­i­pa­tion, was a dom­i­nant play­er in the Degesch firm.

15. Degesch (an I.G. sub­sidiary) man­u­fac­tured the Zyk­lon B gas used in the gas cham­bers in the con­cen­tra­tion camps. “Actu­al­ly, Zyk­lon B, whose gener­ic name is prus­sic acid, was new only in its appli­ca­tion to human beings; its tra­di­tion­al, com­mer­cial use was as an insec­ti­cide. The result was a rev­e­la­tion of effi­cien­cy. Only one firm, Deutsche Gesellschaft Fuer Schaedlings­bekamp­fung (Ger­man Cor­po­ra­tion for Pest Con­trol), known in the trade as Degesch, sup­plied this lethal chem­i­cal. The firm and its most valu­able asset, the monop­oly of Zyk­lon B man­u­fac­ture was owned 42.5 per­cent by I.G. Far­benin­dus­trie; 42.5 per­cent by Deutsche Gold und Silbersceidenanstalt—known as Degus­sa (in which I.G. owned a third); and 15 per­cent by the Theo. Golds­d­ch­midt con­cern. That I.G. dom­i­nat­ed Degesch was gen­er­al knowl­edge in the chem­i­cal indus­try. In fact, in its offi­cial cor­po­rate pro­nounce­ments Degesch described itself as an exclu­sive sell­ing agent for I.G. More­over, I.G. dom­i­nat­ed the Degesch super­vi­so­ry board; of its eleven mem­bers five were from I.G., includ­ing the chair­man, Wil­helm Mann . . . In the past, the S.S. had bought mod­er­ate amounts of Zyk­lon B from Degesch as a ver­min con­trol in its con­cen­tra­tion camps. When the final solu­tion added Jews to the S.S. exter­mi­na­tion plans, Degesch prof­its reflect­ed the new pros­per­i­ty. I.G.‘s div­i­dends on its Degesch invest­ment for the years 1942, 1943 and 1944 were dou­ble those of 1940 and 1941.” (The Crime and Pun­ish­ment of I.G. Far­ben; by Joseph Borkin; Copy­right 1978 [HC]; The Free Press; ISBN 0–02-904630–0; pp. 122–123.)

16. The rest of the broad­cast deals with the rela­tion­ship between the remark­able and dead­ly Bor­mann orga­ni­za­tion, the I.G. Far­ben com­pa­ny and its suc­ces­sor firms. The eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal com­po­nent of a Third Reich gone under­ground, the Bor­mann orga­ni­za­tion con­trols cor­po­rate Ger­many and much of the rest of the world. Cre­at­ed and run by Mar­tin Bor­mann, the orga­ni­za­tion­al genius who was the “the pow­er behind the throne” in Nazi Ger­many, the Bor­mann group is a pri­ma­ry ele­ment of the analy­sis pre­sent­ed in the For the Record pro­grams.

17. One of the fac­tors that per­mit­ted the real­iza­tion and per­pet­u­a­tion of the Bor­mann orga­ni­za­tion was the pro­found con­nec­tion between the above-ground Ger­man cor­po­rate struc­ture, the 750 flight cap­i­tal cor­po­rate fronts estab­lished in neu­tral coun­tries, and major cor­po­rate and polit­i­cal ele­ments in West­ern nations. “Pow­er­ful friends of the Bor­mann orga­ni­za­tion in all West­ern coun­tries, includ­ing those sprin­kled in con­trol points through­out the admin­is­tra­tion in Wash­ing­ton and in the finan­cial and bro­ker­age busi­ness­es of Wall Street, the City of Lon­don, and the Paris estab­lish­ment, did not wish a coor­di­nat­ed dri­ve to get at these exter­nal Ger­man assets. They had under­stand­able rea­sons, if you over­look moral­i­ty: the finan­cial ben­e­fits for coop­er­a­tion (col­lab­o­ra­tion had become an old-hat term with the war wind­ing down) were very entic­ing, depend­ing on one’s impor­tance and abil­i­ty to be of ser­vice to the orga­ni­za­tion and the 750 cor­po­ra­tions they were secret­ly manip­u­lat­ing, to say noth­ing of the known multi­na­tion­als such as I.G. Far­ben, Thyssen A.G., and Siemens; and, as a sec­ond rea­son, the phi­los­o­phy of free enter­prise and preser­va­tion of pri­vate prop­er­ty.” (Mar­tin Bor­mann: Nazi in Exile; Paul Man­ning; Copy­right 1981 [HC]; Lyle Stu­art Inc.; ISBN 0–8184-0309–8; P. 156.)

18. The vast inter­na­tion­al scope of the I.G. Far­ben firm and its var­i­ous sub­sidiary oper­a­tions was a prin­ci­pal ele­ment of the Bor­mann orga­ni­za­tion. I.G. Far­ben chief Her­mann Schmitz dis­cussed I.G.‘s involve­ment with the Bor­mann pro­gram. “In tes­ti­mo­ny lat­er giv­en to Nurem­berg inves­ti­ga­tors, Schmitz praised Bor­mann for the way he had direct­ed the dis­tri­b­u­tion of Ger­man assets around the world. His own Far­ben orga­ni­za­tion had, of course, con­tributed to the suc­cess of the oper­a­tion. Every region­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive work­ing for Her­mann Schmitz was an excep­tion­al busi­ness­man, or he would not have been with I.G. All had con­tributed sound advice in their areas of com­pe­tence, the regions of the world where they rep­re­sent­ed Far­ben while keep­ing an eye on the sub­sidiaries of the par­ent con­cern and the 700 hid­den cor­po­ra­tions they con­trolled. They had pro­vid­ed assis­tance and con­tin­u­ing guid­ance in estab­lish­ing the 750 new com­pa­nies cre­at­ed on order of Bor­mann, who want­ed more than hid­den assets; Bor­mann want­ed the mon­ey and patents and tech­ni­cians put to work to cre­ate even greater assets that would bol­ster Ger­many in the post­war years. In their meet­ing in the chan­cellery, both men checked over the fig­ures of sums dis­bursed, and they were accu­rate to the pfen­nig.” (Ibid.; pp. 157–158.)

19. Bor­mann and Schmitz then dis­cussed I.G.‘s prospects for the post­war peri­od. The cozy rela­tion­ship with pow­er­ful ele­ments with­in the pow­er elites of the West­ern allies was fore­seen by Schmitz as bod­ing well for the com­pa­ny’s future. “The Reich­sleit­er asked Schmitz his views of the future. Schmitz replied, ‘The occu­pa­tion armies will be under­stand­ing in the West, but cer­tain­ly not in the East. I have instruct­ed all Far­ben admin­is­tra­tors and tech­ni­cians to come to the West, where they can be of use in resum­ing our oper­a­tions once the dis­tur­bances of 1945 come to a halt.’ Schmitz added that, while gen­er­al bomb dam­age to the I.G. plants was about 25 per­cent of capac­i­ty, some were untouched. He men­tioned speak­ing with Field Mar­shal Mod­el, who was com­mand­ing the defens­es of the Ruhr. ‘Mod­el had planned to turn our Bay­er-Leberkusen phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal fac­to­ry into an artillery base, but he agreed to make it an open, unde­fend­ed fac­to­ry. Hope­ful­ly, we will get it back untouched.’ ‘What about your board of direc­tors and the essen­tial exec­u­tives? If they are held by the occu­pa­tion author­i­ties, can I.G. con­tin­ue?’ Bor­mann asked. ‘We can con­tin­ue. We have an oper­a­tional plan for such a con­tin­gency, which every­one under­stands. How­ev­er, I don’t believe our board mem­bers will be detained too long. Nor will I. But we must go through a pro­ce­dure of inves­ti­ga­tion before release, so I have been told by our N.W. 7 peo­ple who have excel­lent con­tacts in Wash­ing­ton.’ ” (Ibid.; p. 158.) Schmitz’s pre­dic­tions were rel­a­tive­ly accu­rate. Nei­ther Schmitz nor any of the I.G. Far­ben exec­u­tives were severe­ly pun­ished and the fir­m’s three suc­ces­sor firms car­ried on effec­tive­ly in the post­war peri­od.

20. Even the post­war per­pet­u­a­tion of I.G.‘s poi­son gas-pro­duc­ing firms was pre­pared. (Degus­sa, now a sub­sidiary of Eon, was obvi­ous­ly part of this nexus.) “Schmitz also told Bor­mann of his vis­it to Switzer­land ear­li­er in the month. ‘Ger­many will have a poor image prob­lem this time. Much worse than after the First World War. It can all be placed on the doorsteps of Goer­ing, Himm­ler, and Hey­drich. Goer­ing and Himm­ler thought up the Final Solu­tion for the Jews, and Hey­drich made it a fact.’ Bor­mann agreed, ask­ing, ‘How does that affect I.G.?’ ‘We pro­duced the poi­son gas on Himm­ler’s orders,’ Schmitz explained, ‘so I’ve been mak­ing some cor­po­rate name changes in Basel, which may help our over­seas sit­u­a­tion.’ ” (Ibid.; p. 159.)

21. The pro­gram con­cludes with anoth­er pas­sage from the Man­ning text which ana­lyzes the piv­otal role of the Bor­mann orga­ni­za­tion in Ger­man heavy indus­try and, in turn, the influ­ence of the Her­mann Schmitz trust in the Bor­mann orga­ni­za­tion. “The Bor­mann orga­ni­za­tion con­tin­ues to wield enor­mous eco­nom­ic influ­ence. Wealth con­tin­ues to flow into the trea­suries of its cor­po­rate enti­ties in South Amer­i­ca, the Unit­ed States, and Europe. Vast­ly diver­si­fied, it is said to be the largest land-own­er in South Amer­i­ca, and through stock­hold­ings, con­trols Ger­man heavy indus­try and the trust estab­lished by the late Her­mann Schmitz, for­mer pres­i­dent of I.G. Far­ben, who held as much stock in Stan­dard Oil of New Jer­sey as did the Rock­e­fellers.” (Ibid.; p. 292.) The rela­tion­ship between the Bor­mann orga­ni­za­tion, Degus­sa and Eon is one to be care­ful­ly con­sid­ered.

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