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(dramatic music)
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Germany, 1942.
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The Third Reich is at the height of its power.
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With the help of finance
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from large corporations inside and outside of Germany,
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Adolf Hitler has conquered almost half of Europe
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in less than four years.
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In the beginning of the war,
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and even later for the Americans,
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it was legal to do business with Germany.
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When Hitler takes power in 1933,
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there are a number of American corporations
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that are already heavily invested
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in the German market.
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When the politics of Germany began to change,
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they simply say, we can't withdraw
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because we would lose too much of our investment.
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And so American companies are therefore right at the heart
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of the Third Reich's industrial machinery.
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(dramatic music)
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In every country they invaded,
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the Nazis seized both state and private assets
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in order to help pay for the war expenses of the Reich.
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Much of the loot would also find its way directly
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into the pockets of Hitler and his cronies.
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You know, this is basically sort of profiteering
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in a kind of mafia style.
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This is just theft.
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Neutral countries would not only turn
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a blind eye to the looting of the continent
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but would even, in some cases,
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become complicit in the crime.
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All these countries broke international law.
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Nobody seemed to care at that time.
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They wanted to be on the side
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of who was going to be powerful in Europe.
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Millions would be enslaved
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for the growth of the Nazi war machine.
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Even the bodies of their victims
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would be turned by the Nazis into profit.
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(suspenseful music)
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Imagine how many people it takes to fill up crates
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of teeth with gold filling,
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and they would get these, they would extract the metal,
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and smelt it into bars of precious metals,
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be it silver, gold, or whatnot.
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But in the end, what was it all for?
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Hitler was a war junkie.
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You know, the more he did war, the more he wanted war,
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the more he wanted a finance war.
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And as we know, you know, with all people
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in those situations, you know, things get worse and worse,
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and they did for Hitler.
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(suspenseful music)
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Paris, June the 23rd, 1940.
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Adolf Hitler walks triumphantly
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into the streets.
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The City of Lights has been covered
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by the dark blanket of Nazism.
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Inside the same wagon where the German Imperial Army
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had signed its capitulation in 1918,
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it's now the French who will submit to the whims
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of Europe's new overlord.
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(suspenseful music)
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Three days later, a group of prominent American businessmen
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are having dinner in New York City.
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They're celebrating the Nazi victory on the Western Front.
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The group is hosted by German lawyer,
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Gerhard Alois Westrick.
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So Westrick is one of the most colorful figures
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in the German economic and sort of political scene
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in this period.
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In the 1920s, he'd been an attorney
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who'd worked with a number of American companies in Germany.
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And in the 1930s, when Hitler takes power,
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he becomes really a commercial attache
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who's working on behalf of the Third Reich
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in the United States.
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In the years after Hitler was chancellor,
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from '33 to '39, the beginning of the war,
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and even later for the Americans,
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it was legal to do business with Germany.
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And Germany's one
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of the major industrial countries in the world.
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So naturally the banks
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were doing all kinds of business with them.
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In Germany, Gerhard Alois Westricks' law firm
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represents an impressive list of clients,
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including Ford, General Motors, Kodak, Texas Oil, and ITT.
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From 1938, he also served as chairman
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of ITT's German operation.
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In 1940, these deep connections
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to the American corporate establishment
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prompt Nazi foreign minister, Joachim Von Ribbentrop,
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to send Westrick on an extensive U.S. tour.
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The tour was officially referred
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to as a trade mission for the Reich,
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but the real purpose of the mission was somewhat different.
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(suspenseful music)
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Westrick makes American businessmen a fascinating offer.
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He says, look, if you can help prevent the U.S.
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from getting into the war
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and help Germany establish some sort
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of a new order in Europe,
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I can help you get your profits out of Nazi Germany.
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It's a deal that many American businessmen
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would have been very tempted by.
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(suspenseful music)
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In other words,
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Westrick was hoping that the businessmen he met
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could lobby President Roosevelt
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to help make America a neutral peace broker
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between the Reich and the European Allies,
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while canceling the supply of weapons
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to the British and the French,
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whom the Nazi's regarded as fair game.
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This proposal interested some of the businessmen
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who wanted to improve
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their long-term investments in Germany.
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(suspenseful music)
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But, as always with Hitler, there was a catch.
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In this commitment to spur investment
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and build up the industrial capacity of the country,
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Hitler had introduced tariffs and economic measures,
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designed to protect the deutschemark
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and penalized foreign investors.
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(Christopher speaking in German)
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(suspenseful music)
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Despite the challenges of moving assets and profits out
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of the Reich, several foreign would keep
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their businesses going in Germany,
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either out of economic necessity or political sympathy.
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(suspenseful music)
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To avoid the punitive export tariffs,
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some of these corporations would deal
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in a direct barter system with the Nazi state,
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supplying raw materials
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in exchange for manufactured products.
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These companies included Texas Oil,
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under its pro-Nazi chairman, Norwegian-born Torkild Rieber.
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He first gets on the radar of the American government
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because he's expressing, it seems, some sympathies
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with Nazi Germany, but more importantly,
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when Gerhard Alois Westrick comes to the United States,
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Rieber actually buys him a car and Westrick,
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on the registration for his American driver's license,
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puts the Texas Company's address as his residence.
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And so there's a clear connection between Rieber
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the Texas Company and Westrick.
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And then certainly he's very happy to do business
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with the Nazis.
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Whether or not he's ideologically attracted to Nazism
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I think is kind of a difficult question to answer,
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but certainly he sees business potential in the Reich.
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(suspenseful music)
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During the Spanish Civil War,
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Torkild Rieber and Texas Oil
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supplied Franco's nationalists with oil on credit,
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defying America's Neutrality Act of 1937.
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Following Hitler's rise to power,
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Rieber supplied the German, right with oil,
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in exchange for tankers that were built
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at the Deutsche Werft shipyard in Hamburg.
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(suspenseful music)
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But for some other American companies,
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such as automotive giants Ford and General Motors,
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this barter system wasn't so advantageous.
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Hence, Westrick's transatlantic charm offensive.
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(suspenseful music)
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The problem with the barter system
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for a lot of American automotive manufacturers
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is their products are pretty sophisticated
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and complicated things.
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Cars are not the same as steel tubing
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or even barrels of oil, in that sense.
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And so the American automotive companies
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have difficulty really getting goods out of Germany
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that they find useful for their business, in that sense.
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And so you can imagine Westrick walking
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into this room of American CEOs and saying,
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I can give you those profits that are piling up
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in your German accounts
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and Hitler's willing to release them,
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and all we need from you is some sort of a political favor.
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(suspenseful music)
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Westrick's tour of the United States
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would not go unnoticed by British intelligence.
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Their agents could easily pass their information
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to their American counterparts,
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as well as leaking it to the press.
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The American newspapers gleefully exposed the connection
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between the Nazi agent Westrick and American businessmen
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and their plans to influence President Roosevelt.
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(dramatic music)
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And there's hilarious accounts, actually,
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in New York City newspapers in this period
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where the press stakes out Westrick's home
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and begins monitoring his movements,
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really doing the FBI's job for them.
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And the American press literally hounds Westrick
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out of the country.
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He's written about in the papers so much
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that he can no longer fulfill his mission
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and eventually departs the country via steamship for Japan
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because he's become compromised by the American media.
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(dramatic music)
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(camera flashes clicking)
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Westrick's mission failed
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and he was recalled to Germany in disgrace.
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Despite his departure,
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the American businessmen who were linked with him
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would suffer long lasting negative publicity
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that would have significant ramifications.
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At a Texas Company board meeting,
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Torkild Rieber would be ordered to explain his connections
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to the Nazi regime and ultimately forced to resign.
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James D. Mooney was the next victim of this scandal.
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He also resigned his position at General Motors,
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after it was revealed that his service to the Nazi Reich
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had earned him, in 1938,
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the Order of the German Eagle, first-class.
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In that same year,
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on the occasion of his 75th birthday,
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Henry Ford was awarded the Grand Cross of the German Eagle.
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Why did the Nazi regime confer
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on both of these prominent American industrialists
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such prestigious decorations?
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(suspenseful music)
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After the Nazis took power in 1933,
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both companies had seized on the commercial opportunity
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in supporting Hitler's rearmament plants.
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Opel GM would build a new factory
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in Brandenburg an der Havel,
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to produce the Opel Blitz trucks for the Wehrmacht.
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Ford's factories in the U.S.
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would ship spare parts for heavy infantry trucks,
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which would be assembled in a new plant in nearby Berlin.
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But if these companies would ultimately
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be unable to retrieve their profits,
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why did they invest in these new factories?
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(suspenseful music)
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Probably there was no particular sympathy
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and there may have been, you know, a fear of communism
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and thinking that, well, this Hitler,
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this dictator's not such a bad guy
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because he's tough on the communists,
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or it may just have been an economic motive.
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Ideology aside, Ford and GM
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became deeply involved in the rearmament of Germany.
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Their actions were a definitive contribution
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to the insatiable Nazi war machine,
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a machine that was about to start rolling
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into the rest of Europe.
(suspenseful music)
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(suspenseful music)
(artillery booms)
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September 1st, 1939,
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Hitler launches his Blitzkrieg against Poland.
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Within days, Britain and France declare war on Germany,
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making the start of the deadliest conflict
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in the history of mankind.
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But the Nazis expropriation to the Reich
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of the property and industries of newly-occupied Poland
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did not sit well with everyone.
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The invasion of Poland, frankly, is not great news
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for all of Hitler's financiers.
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One of those who's probably the most sort of verbal
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against it is, of course, Fritz Thyssen,
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who has been supporting the party for a very long time.
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And he says he does not wanna take part in this plunder.
269
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In fact, in '37, two years before,
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he had written a letter to Hitler protesting
271
00:12:30,710 --> 00:12:33,090
against the persecution of Christians.
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00:12:33,090 --> 00:12:36,150
And after Kristallnacht, he actually resigns
273
00:12:36,150 --> 00:12:37,600
from his Council of State
274
00:12:37,600 --> 00:12:40,140
because of the violence against the Jews.
275
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Of even greater concern to Nazi industrialists
276
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than the invasion of Poland
277
00:12:44,720 --> 00:12:46,530
was the non-aggression pact. Germany
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00:12:46,530 --> 00:12:48,660
had secretly signed weeks before
279
00:12:48,660 --> 00:12:51,050
with their sworn ideological enemy:
280
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the Soviet Union.
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One curious fact is
282
00:12:54,040 --> 00:12:57,600
that the notorious Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact actually evolved
283
00:12:57,600 --> 00:13:00,250
from a trade agreement between the regimes.
284
00:13:00,250 --> 00:13:03,410
So it starts out by Russia making the move
285
00:13:03,410 --> 00:13:05,000
for the trade agreement,
286
00:13:05,000 --> 00:13:08,980
which really, and it's so implacably anti Nazi,
287
00:13:08,980 --> 00:13:10,880
they shouldn't have been doing it in the first place.
288
00:13:10,880 --> 00:13:13,760
So Hitler sees that as like, oh, hang on a minute,
289
00:13:13,760 --> 00:13:15,340
this could be sort of a green light.
290
00:13:15,340 --> 00:13:20,023
Maybe they're interested in a political agreement.
291
00:13:20,023 --> 00:13:24,106
(Christopher speaking in German)
292
00:13:40,690 --> 00:13:43,160
In exchange for these Soviet raw materials,
293
00:13:43,160 --> 00:13:46,300
Nazi Germany agreed to export manufactured products
294
00:13:46,300 --> 00:13:47,900
to the Soviet Union,
295
00:13:47,900 --> 00:13:51,805
something which appalled Germany's leading industrialists.
296
00:13:51,805 --> 00:13:53,709
(suspenseful music)
297
00:13:53,709 --> 00:13:55,777
"The very possibility of an agreement
298
00:13:55,777 --> 00:13:59,367
"between Soviet Russia and National Socialist Germany
299
00:13:59,367 --> 00:14:01,017
"seemed beyond belief.
300
00:14:01,017 --> 00:14:03,587
"I had always warned industrialists,
301
00:14:03,587 --> 00:14:06,877
"as well as military circles, against a rapprochement
302
00:14:06,877 --> 00:14:08,547
"with communist Russia.
303
00:14:08,547 --> 00:14:11,217
"For me, this regime was the enemy of Germany,
304
00:14:11,217 --> 00:14:12,817
"and of Europe, as a whole."
305
00:14:13,980 --> 00:14:16,070
Thyssen, one of the Nazi's earliest
306
00:14:16,070 --> 00:14:18,540
and most committed industrialist supporters,
307
00:14:18,540 --> 00:14:20,180
would protests through a telegram
308
00:14:20,180 --> 00:14:23,560
to his closest ally in Hitler's inner circle.
309
00:14:23,560 --> 00:14:25,533
Nazi Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goering.
310
00:14:28,030 --> 00:14:29,970
Obviously the Nazis aren't very happy with this
311
00:14:29,970 --> 00:14:32,780
and they expel him from the Nazi party.
312
00:14:32,780 --> 00:14:35,240
His industries are seized,
313
00:14:35,240 --> 00:14:38,000
and he's going to be captured
314
00:14:38,000 --> 00:14:40,090
by the Vichy government police
315
00:14:40,090 --> 00:14:42,290
and delivered to the German authorities.
316
00:14:42,290 --> 00:14:44,850
And he'll end up being locked in a cell
317
00:14:44,850 --> 00:14:47,420
and he's gonna be spending the rest of the war
318
00:14:47,420 --> 00:14:49,120
in concentration camps.
319
00:14:49,120 --> 00:14:51,518
Although, frankly, he is a privileged inmate.
320
00:14:51,518 --> 00:14:52,750
(suspenseful music)
321
00:14:52,750 --> 00:14:54,880
As for those businessmen who remained loyal
322
00:14:54,880 --> 00:14:57,210
to the Nazis through thick and thin,
323
00:14:57,210 --> 00:14:59,570
any concerns over the deal with the Soviets
324
00:14:59,570 --> 00:15:02,750
would be assuaged through a new organization established
325
00:15:02,750 --> 00:15:04,420
by Hermann Goering.
326
00:15:04,420 --> 00:15:07,590
Its purpose was to seize and liquidate the assets
327
00:15:07,590 --> 00:15:11,670
of all Polish citizens, Jews and non Jews alike,
328
00:15:11,670 --> 00:15:14,420
and transfer them over to German ownership,
329
00:15:14,420 --> 00:15:17,460
directly into the pockets of the Nazi leadership
330
00:15:17,460 --> 00:15:19,672
and their favorite partners.
331
00:15:19,672 --> 00:15:22,630
(suspenseful music)
332
00:15:22,630 --> 00:15:24,340
You've got smaller businesses
333
00:15:24,340 --> 00:15:26,470
and companies are being closed
334
00:15:26,470 --> 00:15:30,650
in order to actually give these cartels huge monopolies.
335
00:15:30,650 --> 00:15:33,170
And you've got individual bank accounts,
336
00:15:33,170 --> 00:15:38,020
you've got private real estate, personal vehicles,
337
00:15:38,020 --> 00:15:41,120
and valuables like jewelry, art, antiques.
338
00:15:41,120 --> 00:15:43,010
They can all be confiscated from many
339
00:15:43,010 --> 00:15:45,040
of the wealthier citizens in the Third Reich.
340
00:15:45,040 --> 00:15:47,770
So, you know, this is basically sort of profiteering
341
00:15:47,770 --> 00:15:49,220
in a kind of mafia style.
342
00:15:49,220 --> 00:15:51,910
This is just theft.
343
00:15:51,910 --> 00:15:54,330
Anything deemed surplus to requirements
344
00:15:54,330 --> 00:15:56,900
was sold abroad and turned into cash,
345
00:15:56,900 --> 00:15:59,820
including so-called degenerate art
346
00:15:59,820 --> 00:16:02,270
that was confiscated and officially declared
347
00:16:02,270 --> 00:16:03,400
to be destroyed.
348
00:16:03,400 --> 00:16:06,130
But what they actually did was they sold a lot of that art
349
00:16:06,130 --> 00:16:10,110
in Switzerland and they sold it through a dealer.
350
00:16:10,110 --> 00:16:14,680
They sent a dealer to New York City who set up a gallery
351
00:16:14,680 --> 00:16:19,440
on 57th Street, who ended up selling a lot of that art
352
00:16:19,440 --> 00:16:22,850
to the Museum of Modern Art in New York,
353
00:16:22,850 --> 00:16:26,000
you know, at these like bargain basement prices
354
00:16:26,000 --> 00:16:30,110
and then sending the money back to the Nazis
355
00:16:30,110 --> 00:16:33,143
who used it, you know, for their war machine.
356
00:16:34,040 --> 00:16:34,900
By this time,
357
00:16:34,900 --> 00:16:38,230
a new American company developed a revolutionary technology
358
00:16:38,230 --> 00:16:39,400
that enabled the Nazis
359
00:16:39,400 --> 00:16:42,550
to catalog all the plundered loot from Poland.
360
00:16:42,550 --> 00:16:44,410
It also used the same technology
361
00:16:44,410 --> 00:16:46,280
to create a population census
362
00:16:46,280 --> 00:16:49,000
for the entire greater German Reich.
363
00:16:49,000 --> 00:16:51,390
That company would expand its operations
364
00:16:51,390 --> 00:16:53,840
alongside the Nazi empire.
365
00:16:53,840 --> 00:16:54,970
The company was called
366
00:16:54,970 --> 00:16:59,743
the International Business Machines Corporation, or IBM.
367
00:17:01,685 --> 00:17:04,420
So in the 1920s, IBM had acquired a German company
368
00:17:04,420 --> 00:17:07,210
called Dehomag, which was essentially building machines
369
00:17:07,210 --> 00:17:09,090
somewhat similar to IBM's.
370
00:17:09,090 --> 00:17:11,110
But because of the economic circumstances of Germany
371
00:17:11,110 --> 00:17:13,890
in the 20s, was in dire financial straits.
372
00:17:13,890 --> 00:17:15,570
So IBM and Thomas Watson come in
373
00:17:15,570 --> 00:17:18,340
and acquire Dehomag at pennies on the dollar.
374
00:17:18,340 --> 00:17:21,770
And now they have a huge entrance into the German market.
375
00:17:21,770 --> 00:17:24,930
(suspenseful music)
376
00:17:24,930 --> 00:17:26,520
Having been founded in Germany
377
00:17:26,520 --> 00:17:30,180
in 1910 by Willy Heidinger to manufacture punch cards
378
00:17:30,180 --> 00:17:31,740
for tabulating machines,
379
00:17:31,740 --> 00:17:35,630
in 1923, 90% of the company was acquired
380
00:17:35,630 --> 00:17:39,040
by American businessman, Thomas J. Watson,
381
00:17:39,040 --> 00:17:41,420
who would merge it into a German subsidiary
382
00:17:41,420 --> 00:17:43,860
of his company, IBM.
383
00:17:43,860 --> 00:17:47,820
When Hitler gets nominated as chancellor in 1933,
384
00:17:47,820 --> 00:17:52,163
IBM-Dehomag offers its services to the new Nazi government.
385
00:17:53,660 --> 00:17:56,670
We have to understand the Nazis' obsession with numbers.
386
00:17:56,670 --> 00:17:59,120
So Nazis see themselves as a technocratic regime.
387
00:17:59,120 --> 00:18:01,230
They wanna know everything about their population
388
00:18:01,230 --> 00:18:02,840
and they wanna know everything about the populations
389
00:18:02,840 --> 00:18:04,660
of countries that they're going to be occupying
390
00:18:04,660 --> 00:18:06,640
and territories that they see the need
391
00:18:06,640 --> 00:18:08,040
for demographic shift in.
392
00:18:08,040 --> 00:18:10,210
IBM's technology is used in Germany
393
00:18:10,210 --> 00:18:12,210
to begin counting the population
394
00:18:12,210 --> 00:18:14,600
and arranging it in certain ways,
395
00:18:14,600 --> 00:18:16,870
for demographers, effectively.
396
00:18:16,870 --> 00:18:19,580
And so we see a very clear lineage, essentially,
397
00:18:19,580 --> 00:18:21,210
between the German government's efforts
398
00:18:21,210 --> 00:18:22,760
to begin counting its citizens
399
00:18:22,760 --> 00:18:25,190
and understanding the demographics religiously,
400
00:18:25,190 --> 00:18:27,550
and, as they would see it, racially within the country
401
00:18:27,550 --> 00:18:30,354
and the events that happened later on during the Holocaust.
402
00:18:30,354 --> 00:18:32,260
(suspenseful music)
403
00:18:32,260 --> 00:18:35,050
At a meeting in Berlin in 1937,
404
00:18:35,050 --> 00:18:38,500
IBM chairman, Thomas J. Watson, was elected president
405
00:18:38,500 --> 00:18:41,170
of the International Chamber of Commerce.
406
00:18:41,170 --> 00:18:43,170
Like Henry Ford and James D. Mooney,
407
00:18:43,170 --> 00:18:46,380
Watson was also awarded the Order of the German Eagle
408
00:18:46,380 --> 00:18:48,570
for his services to strengthening relations
409
00:18:48,570 --> 00:18:51,713
between the United States and Nazi Germany.
410
00:18:55,470 --> 00:18:58,330
But when the Nazis start invading neighboring countries,
411
00:18:58,330 --> 00:19:00,520
Watson, unlike Ford and Mooney,
412
00:19:00,520 --> 00:19:03,740
denounced Hitler's regime and returned his medal.
413
00:19:03,740 --> 00:19:05,740
When Watson actually gives back his medal,
414
00:19:05,740 --> 00:19:07,900
Dehomag is outraged because this is obviously a slap
415
00:19:07,900 --> 00:19:10,150
in the face to the German government
416
00:19:10,150 --> 00:19:11,970
and it could definitely affect their business.
417
00:19:11,970 --> 00:19:13,790
And so that's when we begin to see the separation
418
00:19:13,790 --> 00:19:15,570
between the Dehomag in Germany
419
00:19:15,570 --> 00:19:17,940
and IBM's sort of headquarters in the United States.
420
00:19:17,940 --> 00:19:20,530
And it's a separation that actually will be very timely
421
00:19:20,530 --> 00:19:22,990
for IBM because Dehomag will continue to do its work
422
00:19:22,990 --> 00:19:24,690
for the German government.
423
00:19:24,690 --> 00:19:26,300
Now, with the war raging,
424
00:19:26,300 --> 00:19:27,890
Germany turns the full focus
425
00:19:27,890 --> 00:19:30,923
of its economy and industry to military production.
426
00:19:31,890 --> 00:19:34,100
And this would initially include harnessing
427
00:19:34,100 --> 00:19:35,160
the production lines
428
00:19:35,160 --> 00:19:39,030
of the American automobile giants, Ford and GM.
429
00:19:39,030 --> 00:19:40,560
After the invasion of Poland,
430
00:19:40,560 --> 00:19:41,910
both Ford and General Motors see
431
00:19:41,910 --> 00:19:45,014
their factories gradually slipping out of their control.
432
00:19:45,014 --> 00:19:47,320
They've installed more Nazi party officials
433
00:19:47,320 --> 00:19:48,800
on their boards of directors.
434
00:19:48,800 --> 00:19:51,800
They begin to really take control of the company,
435
00:19:51,800 --> 00:19:52,890
and while they can still produce
436
00:19:52,890 --> 00:19:54,490
some profitable automobiles,
437
00:19:54,490 --> 00:19:57,780
much of GM and Ford's production in Germany
438
00:19:57,780 --> 00:20:00,560
switches over to aircraft engines for the Luftwaffe.
439
00:20:00,560 --> 00:20:02,730
And so both of these companies are making a contribution
440
00:20:02,730 --> 00:20:03,970
to the German war economy,
441
00:20:03,970 --> 00:20:05,420
and they really don't have a choice.
442
00:20:05,420 --> 00:20:07,960
You've got Opel General Motors, Opel GM,
443
00:20:07,960 --> 00:20:11,680
starting to build components for the Junkers 88 plane
444
00:20:11,680 --> 00:20:14,170
at the Rüsselsheim factory throughout the war.
445
00:20:14,170 --> 00:20:17,230
And that's gonna make enormous profits
446
00:20:17,230 --> 00:20:19,930
during the Battle of Britain when it supplies bombers.
447
00:20:21,290 --> 00:20:22,530
In a crowning irony,
448
00:20:22,530 --> 00:20:25,420
although Opel GM converted its factories in Germany
449
00:20:25,420 --> 00:20:28,880
to accommodate the increased demand of the Nazi war effort,
450
00:20:28,880 --> 00:20:31,900
GM in the U.S. refused to consider adapting
451
00:20:31,900 --> 00:20:32,970
its production lines
452
00:20:32,970 --> 00:20:35,330
to anything other than the manufacture
453
00:20:35,330 --> 00:20:37,400
of everyday motorcars.
454
00:20:37,400 --> 00:20:39,900
Some months later, Henry Ford would personally
455
00:20:39,900 --> 00:20:42,630
deny a request by Britain's Royal Air Force
456
00:20:42,630 --> 00:20:45,656
for Ford to produce aircraft engines.
457
00:20:45,656 --> 00:20:46,650
(plane rumbling)
458
00:20:46,650 --> 00:20:49,970
Another case of the involvement of American businessman
459
00:20:49,970 --> 00:20:53,940
in the German war effort would be Sosthenes Behn, the owner
460
00:20:53,940 --> 00:20:58,120
of the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation.
461
00:20:58,120 --> 00:21:01,460
ITT held shares in companies like Focke-Wulf
462
00:21:01,460 --> 00:21:03,610
that built fighter plans for the Luftwaffe.
463
00:21:04,740 --> 00:21:08,230
They also had a stake in Signalbau Huth in Berlin,
464
00:21:08,230 --> 00:21:11,093
which built communication equipment for the Wehrmacht.
465
00:21:14,870 --> 00:21:17,810
Behn would meet frequently with his German contacts,
466
00:21:17,810 --> 00:21:19,520
Gerhard Alois Westrick
467
00:21:19,520 --> 00:21:23,103
and Nazi banker Kurt Baron Von Schroeder in Switzerland.
468
00:21:24,280 --> 00:21:27,700
Certainly, if your company is under Nazi occupation,
469
00:21:27,700 --> 00:21:29,730
has a Nazi board of directors at that point,
470
00:21:29,730 --> 00:21:31,460
it's difficult to convince them to do anything
471
00:21:31,460 --> 00:21:33,190
when you're thousands of miles away.
472
00:21:33,190 --> 00:21:34,490
But it certainly seems to be the case
473
00:21:34,490 --> 00:21:36,690
that Ford and General Motors directors
474
00:21:36,690 --> 00:21:38,010
didn't take the affirmative steps
475
00:21:38,010 --> 00:21:40,750
they would have needed to in the period before the war
476
00:21:40,750 --> 00:21:41,810
to ensure that those plants
477
00:21:41,810 --> 00:21:44,000
were not available for German war production.
478
00:21:44,000 --> 00:21:47,040
And that, I think, is where the real ambiguity lies here.
479
00:21:47,040 --> 00:21:48,870
For heavy industrial businesses
480
00:21:48,870 --> 00:21:49,960
within the Reich,
481
00:21:49,960 --> 00:21:53,260
there was no option but to submit to Hitler's demands,
482
00:21:53,260 --> 00:21:56,332
which were only going to grow as time went on.
483
00:21:56,332 --> 00:21:57,200
(suspenseful music)
484
00:21:57,200 --> 00:21:59,513
What Hitler completely understands is
485
00:21:59,513 --> 00:22:00,960
that the expropriation
486
00:22:00,960 --> 00:22:03,300
of all these national financial reserves,
487
00:22:03,300 --> 00:22:05,630
these industries, these infrastructures
488
00:22:05,630 --> 00:22:07,370
in all these countries is only
489
00:22:07,370 --> 00:22:11,450
gonna solve the German deficit on a temporary basis.
490
00:22:11,450 --> 00:22:12,530
He's like a drug addict.
491
00:22:12,530 --> 00:22:14,780
He knows he's gonna have to get more and more and more
492
00:22:14,780 --> 00:22:18,049
to feed this credit habit that he's got.
493
00:22:18,049 --> 00:22:21,049
(suspenseful music)
494
00:22:29,705 --> 00:22:31,410
(suspenseful music)
495
00:22:31,410 --> 00:22:32,510
For eight months after
496
00:22:32,510 --> 00:22:34,620
the British and French declaration of war
497
00:22:34,620 --> 00:22:37,480
against Nazi Germany, the world held its breath
498
00:22:37,480 --> 00:22:40,506
and waited to see who would make the first move.
499
00:22:40,506 --> 00:22:43,506
(suspenseful music)
500
00:22:44,390 --> 00:22:47,730
On April the 9th, 1940 Hitler sent his troops
501
00:22:47,730 --> 00:22:50,530
to occupy Denmark and Norway on the pretext
502
00:22:50,530 --> 00:22:52,470
that they were protecting these countries
503
00:22:52,470 --> 00:22:54,233
from Anglo-French aggression.
504
00:22:55,240 --> 00:22:57,510
Then one month later, on May 10th,
505
00:22:57,510 --> 00:22:59,460
Germany launched a surprise invasion
506
00:22:59,460 --> 00:23:03,180
against the neutral Low Countries, Belgium and France,
507
00:23:03,180 --> 00:23:04,580
while managing to skirt around
508
00:23:04,580 --> 00:23:06,183
the well fortified Maginot Line.
509
00:23:07,660 --> 00:23:10,020
But even with the protection of the Maginot Line,
510
00:23:10,020 --> 00:23:13,560
by June 22nd, the French were bludgeoned into submission
511
00:23:13,560 --> 00:23:16,470
and forced to sign a humiliating ceasefire
512
00:23:16,470 --> 00:23:17,970
in the very same wagon
513
00:23:17,970 --> 00:23:20,150
where the Germans had signed the surrender
514
00:23:20,150 --> 00:23:22,223
at the end of the First World War.
515
00:23:23,380 --> 00:23:25,390
With all of continental Western Europe
516
00:23:25,390 --> 00:23:27,460
now under Nazi occupation,
517
00:23:27,460 --> 00:23:30,890
Hitler had a wealth of riches at his command.
518
00:23:30,890 --> 00:23:33,980
They levied quite a few taxes against the French.
519
00:23:33,980 --> 00:23:35,540
The French had to pay something
520
00:23:35,540 --> 00:23:39,880
like 20% of their gross national product to Germany.
521
00:23:39,880 --> 00:23:43,890
They also created a system within this occupied zone,
522
00:23:43,890 --> 00:23:47,560
you know, this Greater German Reich, all over Europe,
523
00:23:47,560 --> 00:23:50,720
they created a system of exchange,
524
00:23:50,720 --> 00:23:55,680
whereby they got favorable exchange to the German mark
525
00:23:55,680 --> 00:23:58,330
from whatever currency they were transferring it in.
526
00:23:58,330 --> 00:24:01,000
And this was really, they were really bad terms.
527
00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:02,640
The Nazis hit upon a simple,
528
00:24:02,640 --> 00:24:04,930
yet ingenious way, to extract the gold
529
00:24:04,930 --> 00:24:08,000
and cash reserves of the countries they occupied.
530
00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:10,430
They would actually take in gold bars.
531
00:24:10,430 --> 00:24:15,200
They would resmelt them and put the German symbol on it.
532
00:24:15,200 --> 00:24:17,340
There's so many crazy stories.
533
00:24:17,340 --> 00:24:20,980
Belgian gold being sent to safe keeping in Africa
534
00:24:20,980 --> 00:24:23,360
and the Nazis seizing the gold,
535
00:24:23,360 --> 00:24:26,090
bringing it back through Switzerland
536
00:24:26,090 --> 00:24:27,970
and resmelting the gold.
537
00:24:27,970 --> 00:24:30,500
I mean, it was a huge operation.
538
00:24:30,500 --> 00:24:32,850
It was a huge theft, but, I mean,
539
00:24:32,850 --> 00:24:34,670
that they went to that much trouble
540
00:24:34,670 --> 00:24:37,515
to conceal the theft is amazing to me.
541
00:24:37,515 --> 00:24:40,515
(suspenseful music)
542
00:24:41,730 --> 00:24:43,590
The Reich was also able to massively
543
00:24:43,590 --> 00:24:46,770
increase their industrial resources and capacity,
544
00:24:46,770 --> 00:24:48,600
as factories in the occupied territories
545
00:24:48,600 --> 00:24:50,640
were forced to accept terms
546
00:24:50,640 --> 00:24:53,901
and offers to fuel the German war machine.
547
00:24:53,901 --> 00:24:56,901
(suspenseful music)
548
00:24:59,440 --> 00:25:01,210
The whole process was orchestrated
549
00:25:01,210 --> 00:25:03,160
by leading German industrialists,
550
00:25:03,160 --> 00:25:05,950
sympathetic to the Nazi cause.
551
00:25:05,950 --> 00:25:08,580
And so when the war began,
552
00:25:08,580 --> 00:25:11,870
Krupp and two other industrialists sat around a board
553
00:25:11,870 --> 00:25:13,170
and they had those little pins
554
00:25:13,170 --> 00:25:17,560
with the red tops and green tops on them,
555
00:25:17,560 --> 00:25:20,180
and they were sticking them in the factories of France
556
00:25:20,180 --> 00:25:21,150
and the Low Countries.
557
00:25:21,150 --> 00:25:23,410
This one's mine that one's yours.
558
00:25:23,410 --> 00:25:25,050
These were the people that financed it
559
00:25:25,050 --> 00:25:27,789
and they were being rewarded to these factories.
560
00:25:27,789 --> 00:25:32,789
(woman singing in French)
(upbeat music)
561
00:25:39,556 --> 00:25:43,639
(Christopher speaking in German)
562
00:26:16,918 --> 00:26:18,475
(suspenseful music)
563
00:26:18,475 --> 00:26:19,710
Tellingly, the more men
564
00:26:19,710 --> 00:26:21,740
that were sent to the battlefronts in Africa
565
00:26:21,740 --> 00:26:24,110
and in the air war against Great Britain,
566
00:26:24,110 --> 00:26:27,540
the weaker Germany's domestic workforce became.
567
00:26:27,540 --> 00:26:29,810
The Reich desperately needed a plentiful supply
568
00:26:29,810 --> 00:26:31,440
of low-cost labor.
569
00:26:31,440 --> 00:26:33,730
Being the largest country on the planet,
570
00:26:33,730 --> 00:26:35,890
the Soviet Union was the obvious source
571
00:26:35,890 --> 00:26:37,549
of men and materials.
572
00:26:37,549 --> 00:26:41,290
(suspenseful music)
573
00:26:41,290 --> 00:26:44,670
On June the 22nd, 1941,
574
00:26:44,670 --> 00:26:46,650
Hitler broke his treaty with Stalin
575
00:26:46,650 --> 00:26:49,530
and launched Operation Barbarossa.
576
00:26:49,530 --> 00:26:51,710
A new wave of economic pillaging
577
00:26:51,710 --> 00:26:54,010
and plundering followed the rapid advances
578
00:26:54,010 --> 00:26:56,623
of the Wehrmacht into Soviet territory.
579
00:26:59,150 --> 00:27:01,530
Seize the iron ore and the nickel
580
00:27:01,530 --> 00:27:03,327
in the mine of the Ukraine.
581
00:27:03,327 --> 00:27:06,120
And these, of course, were given to German industrialists.
582
00:27:06,120 --> 00:27:08,060
But Hitler said something very interesting
583
00:27:08,060 --> 00:27:10,370
about the war and the advance in Russian.
584
00:27:10,370 --> 00:27:14,470
He said, either I take Maykop and Grozny,
585
00:27:14,470 --> 00:27:15,790
or I lose the war.
586
00:27:15,790 --> 00:27:17,730
And these were the sources of oil.
587
00:27:17,730 --> 00:27:19,710
Romanian oil was not going to be enough
588
00:27:19,710 --> 00:27:21,380
to support the German war machine.
589
00:27:21,380 --> 00:27:22,213
That's why they were trying
590
00:27:22,213 --> 00:27:24,233
to develop the synthetic petroleum.
591
00:27:24,233 --> 00:27:25,670
(suspenseful music)
592
00:27:25,670 --> 00:27:28,370
I think what we can say about Operation Barbarossa
593
00:27:28,370 --> 00:27:32,220
is that it does provide some oil, for example.
594
00:27:32,220 --> 00:27:35,340
The Ukraine provides a lot of bread.
595
00:27:35,340 --> 00:27:37,110
So, you know, there is some gains,
596
00:27:37,110 --> 00:27:39,460
but, of course, it was enormously expensive
597
00:27:39,460 --> 00:27:42,180
to keep this army in the field.
598
00:27:42,180 --> 00:27:46,520
And mostly the army, you know, was still getting supplies
599
00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:48,600
from Germany itself.
600
00:27:48,600 --> 00:27:51,000
So on the balance sheet of, you know,
601
00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:54,300
how much money did they make from Operation Barbarossa?
602
00:27:54,300 --> 00:27:56,070
How much did it cost?
603
00:27:56,070 --> 00:27:59,560
At the beginning, you could say there was a profit, yeah,
604
00:27:59,560 --> 00:28:02,090
but as it started to get into a war of attrition,
605
00:28:02,090 --> 00:28:05,738
like Stalingrad and afterwards, it started to be a loss.
606
00:28:05,738 --> 00:28:08,738
(suspenseful music)
607
00:28:11,400 --> 00:28:12,960
And even as German forces
608
00:28:12,960 --> 00:28:15,570
were bidding to take control of the vast resources
609
00:28:15,570 --> 00:28:17,510
of the Soviet empire,
610
00:28:17,510 --> 00:28:22,080
on December 7th, 1941, its ally, Imperial Japan,
611
00:28:22,080 --> 00:28:24,350
launched a sneak attack of the U.S. base
612
00:28:24,350 --> 00:28:26,290
at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
613
00:28:26,290 --> 00:28:27,240
Four days later,
614
00:28:27,240 --> 00:28:30,100
Hitler declared war against the United States.
615
00:28:30,100 --> 00:28:32,030
Although this would sever trading relations
616
00:28:32,030 --> 00:28:33,570
between the two nations,
617
00:28:33,570 --> 00:28:35,920
many American industrialists were powerless
618
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:38,830
to stop their subsidiary operations in Germany
619
00:28:38,830 --> 00:28:41,880
from producing and trading with the Nazi Reich.
620
00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:43,330
So most of the American subsidiaries
621
00:28:43,330 --> 00:28:44,900
simply continue their operations
622
00:28:44,900 --> 00:28:48,140
as they existed in on December 1st, 1941.
623
00:28:48,140 --> 00:28:51,400
There's really no major change that we see taking place.
624
00:28:51,400 --> 00:28:53,440
Partially, this is because the German companies
625
00:28:53,440 --> 00:28:56,210
themselves have largely broken free of American control
626
00:28:56,210 --> 00:28:57,060
at that point.
627
00:28:57,060 --> 00:28:58,960
The Nazi party has installed loyalists
628
00:28:58,960 --> 00:29:00,880
onto their boards of directors.
629
00:29:00,880 --> 00:29:03,240
They have mandated these companies engage
630
00:29:03,240 --> 00:29:05,600
in the war effort in some way.
631
00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:08,000
So a lot of these companies simply don't have a choice.
632
00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:10,130
If they wanted to shut down their operations in Europe,
633
00:29:10,130 --> 00:29:11,735
they couldn't have, at that stage.
634
00:29:11,735 --> 00:29:12,760
(suspenseful music)
635
00:29:12,760 --> 00:29:14,730
But there would be some American companies
636
00:29:14,730 --> 00:29:17,890
that would willfully continue to deal with the Nazi Reich
637
00:29:17,890 --> 00:29:19,250
in a clear violation
638
00:29:19,250 --> 00:29:21,590
of the U.S. Trading with the Enemy Act.
639
00:29:21,590 --> 00:29:23,483
Companies like Standard Oil.
640
00:29:26,110 --> 00:29:30,630
A small, but dangerous minority of industrial managers,
641
00:29:30,630 --> 00:29:32,830
who perhaps hold out for extra profits,
642
00:29:32,830 --> 00:29:36,260
call for business as usual.
643
00:29:36,260 --> 00:29:38,340
So by early 1942, the U.S. government
644
00:29:38,340 --> 00:29:40,570
is increasingly concerned that American companies
645
00:29:40,570 --> 00:29:42,530
are not only doing business with the Reich,
646
00:29:42,530 --> 00:29:44,360
but that they're helping the German war effort.
647
00:29:44,360 --> 00:29:46,670
And of course, that accusation is correct.
648
00:29:46,670 --> 00:29:48,510
And so begin looking at all of this involvement,
649
00:29:48,510 --> 00:29:50,380
all of this corporate involvement in the Reich,
650
00:29:50,380 --> 00:29:52,420
and they pinpoint Standard Oil as one of the companies
651
00:29:52,420 --> 00:29:54,990
that is probably still doing an appreciable amount
652
00:29:54,990 --> 00:29:57,603
of business to help the German war effort.
653
00:29:57,603 --> 00:30:00,603
(suspenseful music)
654
00:30:01,470 --> 00:30:02,400
At that time,
655
00:30:02,400 --> 00:30:05,680
the president of Standard Oil, James Walter C. Teagle,
656
00:30:05,680 --> 00:30:08,400
was also a director of the American subsidiaries
657
00:30:08,400 --> 00:30:09,840
of IG Farben.
658
00:30:09,840 --> 00:30:13,273
The combined companies were known as Standard I.G.
659
00:30:14,330 --> 00:30:15,380
They're sharing patents
660
00:30:15,380 --> 00:30:17,491
and essentially helping IG Farben increase
661
00:30:17,491 --> 00:30:20,170
the octane content of its gasoline.
662
00:30:20,170 --> 00:30:21,790
Now, this is incredibly important later on
663
00:30:21,790 --> 00:30:25,963
for the Luftwaffe and other German military establishments.
664
00:30:28,490 --> 00:30:30,340
After the Pearl Harbor attack,
665
00:30:30,340 --> 00:30:32,310
the U.S. Navy approached Standard Oil
666
00:30:32,310 --> 00:30:34,490
to provide synthetic materials, vital
667
00:30:34,490 --> 00:30:36,350
for the American war effort.
668
00:30:36,350 --> 00:30:39,660
Incredibly, even after America's declaration of war
669
00:30:39,660 --> 00:30:42,060
against Japan and Nazi Germany,
670
00:30:42,060 --> 00:30:44,360
Walter C. Teagle refused to renege
671
00:30:44,360 --> 00:30:47,047
on his existing deals with IG Farben.
672
00:30:47,047 --> 00:30:50,047
(suspenseful music)
673
00:30:51,600 --> 00:30:53,830
A congressional investigation was launched
674
00:30:53,830 --> 00:30:56,300
and the chairman of the presiding special committee,
675
00:30:56,300 --> 00:30:59,983
Senator Harry S. Truman, accused the corporation of treason.
676
00:31:01,060 --> 00:31:03,620
And so Teagle makes a deal with the American government.
677
00:31:03,620 --> 00:31:05,850
Effectively Standard Oil is such a big player
678
00:31:05,850 --> 00:31:07,250
on the American economic scene
679
00:31:07,250 --> 00:31:08,170
that you don't wanna punish it
680
00:31:08,170 --> 00:31:10,820
during the Second World War, or so he argues.
681
00:31:10,820 --> 00:31:12,730
And so Teagle agrees to give up his position
682
00:31:12,730 --> 00:31:15,770
at Standard Oil a year before he's supposed to retire
683
00:31:15,770 --> 00:31:17,520
and, effectively, the U.S. government agrees
684
00:31:17,520 --> 00:31:19,940
that they won't pursue what they could have really done
685
00:31:19,940 --> 00:31:22,570
against Standard Oil, which is antitrust cases
686
00:31:22,570 --> 00:31:24,850
or other forms of punishment for the company.
687
00:31:24,850 --> 00:31:26,650
Standard's is not the only oil company
688
00:31:26,650 --> 00:31:29,320
that will enter this type of activity in Germany.
689
00:31:29,320 --> 00:31:31,860
The Texas Company will continue to make shipments
690
00:31:31,860 --> 00:31:33,300
to Germany throughout the 1930s,
691
00:31:33,300 --> 00:31:36,000
and even after the start of the Second World War.
692
00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:38,320
A Texas oil man named William Rhodes Davis actually
693
00:31:38,320 --> 00:31:41,210
began selling cut rate Mexican oil to the Third Reich
694
00:31:41,210 --> 00:31:43,500
and continues doing it as long as he can
695
00:31:43,500 --> 00:31:45,770
until the British blockade cuts off his tankers
696
00:31:45,770 --> 00:31:47,640
from getting to German ports.
697
00:31:47,640 --> 00:31:49,590
And so we see the American oil industry
698
00:31:49,590 --> 00:31:51,100
is able and willing to provide
699
00:31:51,100 --> 00:31:52,530
this incredibly critical resource
700
00:31:52,530 --> 00:31:55,770
to the Third Reich, even after the war has begun.
701
00:31:55,770 --> 00:31:57,040
But in other cases,
702
00:31:57,040 --> 00:31:59,770
the U.S. government successfully froze the assets
703
00:31:59,770 --> 00:32:02,430
of many companies that dealt with the Nazis,
704
00:32:02,430 --> 00:32:03,830
severing important links
705
00:32:03,830 --> 00:32:06,410
in the German industrial supply lines.
706
00:32:06,410 --> 00:32:08,390
Now, fighting a war on two fronts
707
00:32:08,390 --> 00:32:09,759
against two of the world's largest
708
00:32:09,759 --> 00:32:12,060
and best resourced countries,
709
00:32:12,060 --> 00:32:13,920
Hitler needed his friends in industry
710
00:32:13,920 --> 00:32:15,996
and finance more than ever.
711
00:32:15,996 --> 00:32:18,996
(suspenseful music)
712
00:32:28,013 --> 00:32:30,571
(suspenseful music)
713
00:32:30,571 --> 00:32:32,470
Autumn, 1942.
714
00:32:32,470 --> 00:32:35,730
The war begins to change for Hitler and the Nazis.
715
00:32:35,730 --> 00:32:38,190
In Russia the Red Army counter attacks
716
00:32:38,190 --> 00:32:39,027
against the Wehrmacht
717
00:32:39,027 --> 00:32:42,580
and the myth of German military supremacy is shattered
718
00:32:42,580 --> 00:32:46,403
in devastating defeats at Stalingrad and Leningrad.
719
00:32:47,500 --> 00:32:49,080
In the early years of the war,
720
00:32:49,080 --> 00:32:51,880
Hitler could count on the Soviet Union and U.S. companies
721
00:32:51,880 --> 00:32:55,240
for the raw materials to feed his war machine.
722
00:32:55,240 --> 00:32:58,620
But now, as his armies were bogged down in the east,
723
00:32:58,620 --> 00:33:01,000
he could only rely on a few close allies
724
00:33:01,000 --> 00:33:03,713
and fellow fascist regimes for those things.
725
00:33:04,730 --> 00:33:08,360
The Portuguese were a neutral country,
726
00:33:08,360 --> 00:33:13,360
but run by Antonio Salazar, who was a fascist dictator.
727
00:33:15,090 --> 00:33:20,090
So the Nazis were buying wool from an other important
728
00:33:20,950 --> 00:33:24,364
resources that they needed for their war machine.
729
00:33:24,364 --> 00:33:28,531
(Christopher speaking in German)
730
00:33:39,680 --> 00:33:42,190
You've also got chromite from Turkey,
731
00:33:42,190 --> 00:33:45,220
and then you've got Spanish and Portuguese ports
732
00:33:45,220 --> 00:33:46,053
that are being used
733
00:33:46,053 --> 00:33:48,820
for shipments destined to the Third Reich.
734
00:33:48,820 --> 00:33:52,090
And these are being conducted by American corporations,
735
00:33:52,090 --> 00:33:55,440
using neutral flags on their ships.
736
00:33:55,440 --> 00:33:58,323
So, you know, it looks neutral, but it ain't neutral.
737
00:33:59,220 --> 00:34:01,240
Even after the Pearl Harbor attack,
738
00:34:01,240 --> 00:34:03,190
less scrupulous American businessmen
739
00:34:03,190 --> 00:34:05,920
would hold secret meetings with German trade delegations
740
00:34:05,920 --> 00:34:08,870
in these so-called neutral countries
741
00:34:08,870 --> 00:34:10,700
where they would establish shell companies
742
00:34:10,700 --> 00:34:12,560
in a bid to continue to benefit
743
00:34:12,560 --> 00:34:15,520
from the growth of the Nazi war machine.
744
00:34:15,520 --> 00:34:18,670
Some influential players in American industry and commerce
745
00:34:18,670 --> 00:34:21,670
saw Imperial Japan, rather than Germany,
746
00:34:21,670 --> 00:34:23,620
as their real enemy.
747
00:34:23,620 --> 00:34:25,330
So they just did this in secret
748
00:34:25,330 --> 00:34:27,810
by setting up all these LLCs,
749
00:34:27,810 --> 00:34:29,805
but all of these shell companies
750
00:34:29,805 --> 00:34:32,830
that you couldn't trace back to the Nazis,
751
00:34:32,830 --> 00:34:34,950
but that they were controlled by them.
752
00:34:34,950 --> 00:34:38,577
And that's how they hid what they were doing.
753
00:34:38,577 --> 00:34:39,410
(suspenseful music)
754
00:34:39,410 --> 00:34:40,960
But if visits to nearby Spain
755
00:34:40,960 --> 00:34:43,100
and Portugal provided the perfect cover
756
00:34:43,100 --> 00:34:45,910
for business meetings between Nazi government officials
757
00:34:45,910 --> 00:34:49,320
and their Western industrial and commercial counterparts,
758
00:34:49,320 --> 00:34:51,600
the most popular stopping off point to hide
759
00:34:51,600 --> 00:34:53,040
their own stolen loot
760
00:34:53,040 --> 00:34:55,350
was undoubtedly neighboring Switzerland.
761
00:34:55,350 --> 00:34:57,410
So you had a lot of high-ranking Nazis
762
00:34:57,410 --> 00:34:59,410
with Swiss bank accounts.
763
00:34:59,410 --> 00:35:03,210
Hitler had a bank account at the Union Bank of Switzerland
764
00:35:03,210 --> 00:35:06,300
where he deposited the royalties to "Mein Kampf."
765
00:35:06,300 --> 00:35:07,260
I mean, go figure.
766
00:35:07,260 --> 00:35:09,060
Like everybody was using Swiss banks.
767
00:35:09,060 --> 00:35:09,963
It was a thing.
768
00:35:09,963 --> 00:35:14,046
(Christopher speaking in German)
769
00:35:38,616 --> 00:35:40,940
The SS, the most brutal and pervasive
770
00:35:40,940 --> 00:35:42,790
of all the Nazi Party militias,
771
00:35:42,790 --> 00:35:44,600
played a key role in the plundering
772
00:35:44,600 --> 00:35:46,930
and pillaging of occupied countries,
773
00:35:46,930 --> 00:35:49,320
which drastically impaired the productivity
774
00:35:49,320 --> 00:35:50,740
of their economies.
775
00:35:50,740 --> 00:35:51,610
For the most part,
776
00:35:51,610 --> 00:35:55,890
the SS was in charge of the systematic pillaging.
777
00:35:55,890 --> 00:35:58,410
Once the Wehrmacht had passed through a country,
778
00:35:58,410 --> 00:36:01,737
the civilian administration reverted to the SS
779
00:36:01,737 --> 00:36:03,540
and the operations in the rear
780
00:36:03,540 --> 00:36:07,070
and the SS would be in charge of looting, let's say.
781
00:36:07,070 --> 00:36:11,690
But also suppressing partisans or whatnot,
782
00:36:11,690 --> 00:36:14,180
including rounding up suspect populations,
783
00:36:14,180 --> 00:36:17,050
above all the Jews, and sending them to their death.
784
00:36:17,050 --> 00:36:19,230
Just as the deportations were starting,
785
00:36:19,230 --> 00:36:21,090
in the fall of 1941,
786
00:36:21,090 --> 00:36:24,790
they introduced the 11th decree to the Reich Citizenship Law
787
00:36:24,790 --> 00:36:27,320
and this meant that when Jews were deported
788
00:36:27,320 --> 00:36:29,430
and crossed the borders of the German Reich,
789
00:36:29,430 --> 00:36:31,570
their property was legally confiscated
790
00:36:31,570 --> 00:36:34,200
the moment they left the borders of the German Reich.
791
00:36:34,200 --> 00:36:37,330
In this way was automatic legal confiscation
792
00:36:37,330 --> 00:36:40,350
as soon as the trains left and crossed the border.
793
00:36:40,350 --> 00:36:43,340
Between 1942 and 1945,
794
00:36:43,340 --> 00:36:45,240
millions of Jews would be identified
795
00:36:45,240 --> 00:36:47,920
and sent to concentration and death camps.
796
00:36:47,920 --> 00:36:50,920
The logistics and coordination of that process
797
00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:54,210
was assisted by the tabulating technology provided
798
00:36:54,210 --> 00:36:57,890
by IBM's German subsidiary, Dehomag.
799
00:36:57,890 --> 00:36:59,130
Most of the camps were built
800
00:36:59,130 --> 00:37:01,450
for the sole purpose of extermination,
801
00:37:01,450 --> 00:37:06,450
with the use of Zyklon B gas pellets provided by IG Farben.
802
00:37:06,450 --> 00:37:08,210
Before meeting their demise,
803
00:37:08,210 --> 00:37:10,870
the prisoners would be disposed of any possessions
804
00:37:10,870 --> 00:37:12,490
they were able to carry with them,
805
00:37:12,490 --> 00:37:14,740
which would be melted down and processed
806
00:37:14,740 --> 00:37:17,320
for return to the Nazi Reich.
(suspenseful music)
807
00:37:17,320 --> 00:37:21,063
So it was a grim process of collecting assets
808
00:37:22,920 --> 00:37:26,440
or valuables the Jews managed to take
809
00:37:26,440 --> 00:37:29,010
with them to the concentration camps.
810
00:37:29,010 --> 00:37:31,270
Everything was taken from them,
811
00:37:31,270 --> 00:37:33,370
including anything they could hide
812
00:37:33,370 --> 00:37:35,810
in any kind of body cavities.
813
00:37:35,810 --> 00:37:38,630
Their gold teeth were extracted.
814
00:37:38,630 --> 00:37:40,200
I mean, hair, everything,
815
00:37:40,200 --> 00:37:41,960
the Nazis took advantage of everything.
816
00:37:41,960 --> 00:37:44,480
I mean, skin was used to make lamps.
817
00:37:44,480 --> 00:37:48,690
I mean, it's really, really kind of gross,
818
00:37:48,690 --> 00:37:53,111
but nothing was wasted.
819
00:37:53,111 --> 00:37:56,111
(suspenseful music)
820
00:37:57,450 --> 00:37:58,710
There are a number of different ways
821
00:37:58,710 --> 00:38:01,390
the Nazis exploited Jewish property.
822
00:38:01,390 --> 00:38:05,120
A lot was used obviously for the Nazi party's coffers,
823
00:38:05,120 --> 00:38:08,790
and especially to bump up the war economy.
824
00:38:08,790 --> 00:38:10,580
And they were particularly concerned
825
00:38:10,580 --> 00:38:12,400
for anything they could use for foreign currency.
826
00:38:12,400 --> 00:38:16,370
So diamonds, fur coats, also stocks and shares,
827
00:38:16,370 --> 00:38:18,910
and these were marketed in Switzerland
828
00:38:18,910 --> 00:38:20,940
or Sweden through intermediaries
829
00:38:20,940 --> 00:38:23,111
so that they could get hard currency for their war effort.
830
00:38:23,111 --> 00:38:24,140
(suspenseful music)
831
00:38:24,140 --> 00:38:26,030
This widespread process of theft
832
00:38:26,030 --> 00:38:28,940
and murder was particularly prolific in Poland,
833
00:38:28,940 --> 00:38:32,250
where the systematic extermination of over 3 million Jews,
834
00:38:32,250 --> 00:38:35,960
between October, 1941 and November 1945,
835
00:38:35,960 --> 00:38:37,810
code named Aktion Reinhard,
836
00:38:37,810 --> 00:38:41,830
was overseen by SS and police leader, Odilo Globocnik.
837
00:38:45,450 --> 00:38:46,759
According to documentation
838
00:38:46,759 --> 00:38:51,759
from Aktion Reinhard, Globocnik sent 178 million Reichsmark
839
00:38:51,840 --> 00:38:53,840
to the Reich treasury
840
00:38:53,840 --> 00:38:55,300
which was all the money collected
841
00:38:55,300 --> 00:38:57,260
from the Aktion Reinhard camps.
842
00:38:57,260 --> 00:39:00,190
This included receipts from hair
843
00:39:00,190 --> 00:39:02,150
that was was recycled,
844
00:39:02,150 --> 00:39:05,120
from all sorts of clothing and shoes
845
00:39:05,120 --> 00:39:07,720
and even gold bars and other valuable items
846
00:39:07,720 --> 00:39:10,290
that were sent to the Reichsbank in Berlin
847
00:39:11,630 --> 00:39:12,930
An equally significant
848
00:39:12,930 --> 00:39:15,540
and inhumane contribution by the SS
849
00:39:15,540 --> 00:39:17,800
was the way they organized the slave labor force
850
00:39:17,800 --> 00:39:21,660
for the benefit of the German economy and its war effort.
851
00:39:21,660 --> 00:39:25,360
In the mid 1930s, the SS Reichsführer, Heinrich Himmler,
852
00:39:25,360 --> 00:39:29,090
formed a close relationship with architect, Albert Speer.
853
00:39:29,090 --> 00:39:31,560
Speer had a very close bond with Hitler
854
00:39:31,560 --> 00:39:34,000
and designed numerous projects for his vision
855
00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:36,170
of the Thousand-Year Reich.
856
00:39:36,170 --> 00:39:39,560
Those projects included the Olympic Stadium in Berlin,
857
00:39:39,560 --> 00:39:43,800
the Nuremberg Party Rally Grounds, the Reich's Chancellery,
858
00:39:43,800 --> 00:39:46,660
and the design for Hitler's Hall of Glory,
859
00:39:46,660 --> 00:39:49,843
where he intended to celebrate his victory in World War II.
860
00:39:51,050 --> 00:39:54,800
In March, 1942, Adolf Hitler surprised everyone
861
00:39:54,800 --> 00:39:56,340
by nominating Albert Speer
862
00:39:56,340 --> 00:40:00,250
to the post of minister of armaments and war production.
863
00:40:00,250 --> 00:40:01,780
Well, what's interesting about Speer
864
00:40:01,780 --> 00:40:04,270
is he's a kind of technocrat, you know,
865
00:40:04,270 --> 00:40:07,000
he's one of these guys so he learns on the job.
866
00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:09,400
And he becomes ready excellent in this role
867
00:40:09,400 --> 00:40:10,850
of armaments minister,
868
00:40:10,850 --> 00:40:15,713
and armament production under Speer doubles within one year.
869
00:40:17,000 --> 00:40:18,560
Able-bodied German workers
870
00:40:18,560 --> 00:40:22,290
had been routinely conscripted to fight on the front lines.
871
00:40:22,290 --> 00:40:25,890
This created a shortage of workers in the armament industry.
872
00:40:25,890 --> 00:40:29,490
Speer relied on the SS to provide both materials and labor
873
00:40:29,490 --> 00:40:32,470
from the prison camps to maintain the production lines
874
00:40:32,470 --> 00:40:34,483
crucial to the Nazi war effort.
875
00:40:35,330 --> 00:40:38,590
As a result, the main concentration and death camps
876
00:40:38,590 --> 00:40:41,866
were situated close to major industrial hubs.
877
00:40:41,866 --> 00:40:45,340
(melancholy music)
878
00:40:45,340 --> 00:40:47,680
Farben went to Himmler,
879
00:40:47,680 --> 00:40:49,760
and this is after the fall of Poland,
880
00:40:49,760 --> 00:40:51,610
and they said there's a spot right here,
881
00:40:51,610 --> 00:40:52,960
and they pointed to the map,
882
00:40:52,960 --> 00:40:55,080
three rivers converge.
883
00:40:55,080 --> 00:40:58,150
There's a source of coal nearby.
884
00:40:58,150 --> 00:41:02,660
We intend to build the largest synthetic rubber
885
00:41:02,660 --> 00:41:05,920
and synthetic petroleum plant in the world here.
886
00:41:05,920 --> 00:41:07,873
You supply us with slave labor.
887
00:41:08,900 --> 00:41:10,550
That was the origin of Auschwitz.
888
00:41:10,550 --> 00:41:11,383
(melancholy music)
889
00:41:11,383 --> 00:41:12,420
A strict distinction was made
890
00:41:12,420 --> 00:41:14,820
between forced and slave labor.
891
00:41:14,820 --> 00:41:16,730
Slave labor consists of the work
892
00:41:16,730 --> 00:41:18,310
of concentration camp prisoners
893
00:41:18,310 --> 00:41:19,340
and others who were treated
894
00:41:19,340 --> 00:41:20,840
like concentration camp prisoners,
895
00:41:20,840 --> 00:41:22,410
and especially all Jews,
896
00:41:22,410 --> 00:41:26,010
as they faced almost certain death working for the Nazis.
897
00:41:26,010 --> 00:41:29,560
Forced labor refers mainly to the Eastern laborers
898
00:41:29,560 --> 00:41:30,590
and also Western laborers
899
00:41:30,590 --> 00:41:32,800
who were brought to Germany to work in factories.
900
00:41:32,800 --> 00:41:35,820
The rate of death among those forced laborers
901
00:41:35,820 --> 00:41:38,733
was only about 10%, mainly from Allied air raids.
902
00:41:39,700 --> 00:41:41,970
This meant that German companies involved
903
00:41:41,970 --> 00:41:43,320
in producing armaments,
904
00:41:43,320 --> 00:41:44,970
whether German domestic companies,
905
00:41:44,970 --> 00:41:47,760
or former subsidiaries of American companies,
906
00:41:47,760 --> 00:41:52,030
needed to pay the SS for use of forced or slave labor.
907
00:41:52,030 --> 00:41:55,100
As the German war effort grew weaker and more vulnerable,
908
00:41:55,100 --> 00:41:58,358
so this labor became more and more expendable.
909
00:41:58,358 --> 00:41:59,191
(melancholy music)
910
00:41:59,191 --> 00:42:00,640
Initially, prisoners would be marched
911
00:42:00,640 --> 00:42:02,090
from the concentration camps
912
00:42:02,090 --> 00:42:03,960
to nearby factories and were used there
913
00:42:03,960 --> 00:42:05,840
and would march back at the end of the day,
914
00:42:05,840 --> 00:42:07,670
but this proved to be quite inefficient.
915
00:42:07,670 --> 00:42:09,100
And, as the war went on,
916
00:42:09,100 --> 00:42:11,980
increasingly sections of concentration camps
917
00:42:11,980 --> 00:42:14,967
or sub-camps were set up in various large factories
918
00:42:14,967 --> 00:42:17,170
and the prisoners remained there all the time,
919
00:42:17,170 --> 00:42:18,730
working for those companies.
(suspenseful music)
920
00:42:18,730 --> 00:42:20,410
We know that, in 1945,
921
00:42:20,410 --> 00:42:23,010
when the Allies come in and liberate the Opel plant
922
00:42:23,010 --> 00:42:24,620
and the Ford plant in Cologne,
923
00:42:24,620 --> 00:42:27,490
they find starving and shivering slave laborers there
924
00:42:27,490 --> 00:42:28,610
who have not only had been forced
925
00:42:28,610 --> 00:42:30,730
into manufacturing aircraft parts
926
00:42:30,730 --> 00:42:32,220
and other war supplies
927
00:42:32,220 --> 00:42:33,930
for the Third Reich against their will,
928
00:42:33,930 --> 00:42:35,870
but have also been subjected to Allied bombing,
929
00:42:35,870 --> 00:42:36,860
because the Allies see
930
00:42:36,860 --> 00:42:38,810
that these are essential production facilities
931
00:42:38,810 --> 00:42:41,300
that need to be taken out of circulation.
932
00:42:41,300 --> 00:42:42,133
But in the end,
933
00:42:42,133 --> 00:42:44,870
slave labor caused many industries to lose money
934
00:42:44,870 --> 00:42:48,380
because the quality and pace of production suffered.
935
00:42:48,380 --> 00:42:49,920
It's not more profitable.
936
00:42:49,920 --> 00:42:51,300
It's less efficient.
937
00:42:51,300 --> 00:42:54,100
A German manager didn't think in terms of profit
938
00:42:54,100 --> 00:42:57,520
from slave labor, they thought in productivity costs
939
00:42:57,520 --> 00:42:59,690
and the productivity costs are much higher
940
00:42:59,690 --> 00:43:03,580
for an unskilled, unmotivated slave laborer.
941
00:43:03,580 --> 00:43:05,670
Even if you pay them much less
942
00:43:05,670 --> 00:43:07,520
than for a skilled German worker,
943
00:43:07,520 --> 00:43:08,850
especially on an assembly line
944
00:43:08,850 --> 00:43:11,059
for something like airframe manufacture.
945
00:43:11,059 --> 00:43:12,670
(suspenseful music)
946
00:43:12,670 --> 00:43:14,680
Despite Albert Speer's best efforts,
947
00:43:14,680 --> 00:43:17,240
the challenges to German production and supply lines
948
00:43:17,240 --> 00:43:19,120
became insurmountable.
949
00:43:19,120 --> 00:43:21,970
As the German losses on the Eastern Front quickly grew
950
00:43:21,970 --> 00:43:24,930
and the prosperity and success the Germans once enjoyed
951
00:43:24,930 --> 00:43:26,650
became a distant memory,
952
00:43:26,650 --> 00:43:29,240
support for Nazi warmongering and fanaticism
953
00:43:29,240 --> 00:43:32,495
from within Germany was, at last, on the wane.
954
00:43:32,495 --> 00:43:35,495
(suspenseful music)
955
00:43:44,970 --> 00:43:47,090
Economic historians are now clear,
956
00:43:47,090 --> 00:43:49,660
wars don't actually make money.
957
00:43:49,660 --> 00:43:51,760
And the reason they don't make money is
958
00:43:51,760 --> 00:43:54,790
they cost a huge amount to stage.
959
00:43:54,790 --> 00:43:57,160
So you've gotta build all these weapons
960
00:43:57,160 --> 00:44:00,340
and it's not really a great idea,
961
00:44:00,340 --> 00:44:02,180
is it, to build a huge airplane
962
00:44:02,180 --> 00:44:04,000
and then it crashes from the sky
963
00:44:04,000 --> 00:44:06,900
or a tank that gets blown up or ammunition
964
00:44:06,900 --> 00:44:09,010
which just goes out of the gun and is lost
965
00:44:09,010 --> 00:44:10,590
and can't be used again.
966
00:44:10,590 --> 00:44:12,920
So there's an enormous cost in wars
967
00:44:12,920 --> 00:44:16,040
and the longer they go on, the more they cost.
968
00:44:16,040 --> 00:44:17,540
So in the end, you could say
969
00:44:17,540 --> 00:44:21,040
that you need a lot of money, capital, actually,
970
00:44:21,040 --> 00:44:23,360
not just being able to occupy countries.
971
00:44:23,360 --> 00:44:25,040
You need a lot of capital.
972
00:44:25,040 --> 00:44:27,390
And, in the long run, the Americans
973
00:44:27,390 --> 00:44:29,780
and the British had more capital
974
00:44:29,780 --> 00:44:31,290
so they could go on financing
975
00:44:31,290 --> 00:44:34,543
this war forever more, if you like.
976
00:44:36,440 --> 00:44:38,970
And the Americans, British, and Soviets
977
00:44:38,970 --> 00:44:40,160
would soon have the means
978
00:44:40,160 --> 00:44:42,610
and momentum to launch their final assault
979
00:44:42,610 --> 00:44:45,200
into the Reich and force Nazi Germany
980
00:44:45,200 --> 00:44:47,480
to a final desperate reckoning,
981
00:44:47,480 --> 00:44:51,540
for which they had neither the soldiers nor the resources.
982
00:44:51,540 --> 00:44:54,687
Hitler's hourglass was running out of sand.
983
00:44:54,687 --> 00:44:56,242
(dramatic music)
984
00:44:56,242 --> 00:44:59,325
(suspenseful music)
73411
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