CHAPTER 7B - The Hitler Connection

With the entry of the United States into the war, Barnes and Gray were given important posts in the newly created U.S. Food Administration, which also was placed under Herbert Hoover's direction. Barnes became President of the Grain Corporation of the U.S. Food Administration from 1917 to 1918, and Gray was chief of Marine Transportation. Another J. Henry Schroder partner, G. A. Zabriskie, was named head of the U.S. Sugar Equalization Board. Thus the London Connection controlled all food in the United States through its grain and sugar "Czars" during the First World War. Despite many complaints of corruption and scandal in the U.S. Food Administration, no one was ever indicted. After the war, the partners of J. Henry Schroder Company found that they now owned most of Cuba's sugar industry. One partner, M.E. Rionda, was president of Cuba Cane Corporation, and director of Manati Sugar Company, American British and Continental Corporation, and other firms. Baron Bruno von Schroder, senior partner of the firm, was a director of North British and Mercantile Insurance Company. His father, Baron Rudolph von Schroder of Hamburg, was a director of Sao Paulo Coffee Ltd., one of the largest Brazilian coffee companies, with F.C. Tiarks, also of the Schroder firm. The New York Times noted on October 11, 1923: "Frank C. Tiarks, Governor of the Bank of England, will spend two weeks here to set up the opening of the banking house branch of J. Henry Schroder of London."

After the war, Zabriskie, who had been sugar Czar of the United States by presiding over the U.S. Sugar Equalization Board, became the president of several of the largest baking corporations in the United States: Empire Biscuit, Southern Baking Corporation, Columbia Baking, and other firms.

As his principal assistant in the U.S. Food Administration, Hoover chose Lewis Lichtenstein Strauss, who was soon to become a partner in Kuhn Loeb Company, marrying the daughter of Jerome Hanauer of Kuhn Loeb. Throughout his distinguished humanitarian service with the Belgian Relief Commission, the U.S. Food Administration, and, after the war, the American Relief Administration, Hoover's closest associate was one Edgar Rickard, born in Pontgibaud, France. In Who's Who, he states that he was "World War administrative assistant to Herbert Hoover in all war and post-war organizations including the Commission For Relief in Belgium. He also served on the U.S. Food Administration from 1914-1924." He remained one of Hoover's closest friends, and usually the Rickards and Hoovers took their vacations together. After Hoover became Secretary of Commerce under Coolidge, Hamill tells us that Hoover awarded his friend the Hazeltine Radio patents, which paid him one million dollars a year in royalties.

In 1928, "the London Connection" decided to run Herbert Hoover for president of the United States. There was only one problem; although Herbert Hoover had been born in the United States, and was thus eligible for the office of the presidency, according to the Constitution, he had never had a business address or a home address in the United States, as he had gone abroad just after completing college at Stanford. The result was that during his campaign for the presidency, Herbert Hoover listed as his American address Suite 2000, 42 Broadway, New York, which was the office of Edgar Rickard. Suite 2000 was also shared by the grain tycoon and partner of J. Henry Schroder Banking Corporation, Julius H. Barnes.

After Herbert Hoover was elected president of the United States, he insisted on appointing one of the old London crowd, Eugene Meyer, as Governor of the Federal Reserve Board. Meyer's father had been one of the partners of Lazard Freres of Paris, and Lazard Brothers of London. Meyer, with Baruch, had been one of the most powerful men in the United States during World War I, a member of the famous Triumvirate which exercised unequalled power; Meyer as Chairman of the War Finance Corporation, Bernard Baruch as Chairman of the War Industries Board, and Paul Warburg as Governor of the Federal Reserve System.

A longtime critic of Eugene Meyer, Chairman Louis McFadden of the House Banking and Currency Committee, was quoted in The New York Times, December 17, 1930, as having made a speech on the floor of the House attacking Hoover's appointment of Meyer, and charging that "He represents the Rothschild interest and is liaison officer between the French Government and J.P. Morgan." On December 18, The Times reported that "Herbert Hoover is deeply concerned" and that McFadden's speech was "an unfortunate occurrence." On December 20, The Times commented on the editorial page, under the headline, "McFadden Again", "The speech ought to insure the Senate ratification of Mr. Meyer as head of the Federal Reserve. The speech was incoherent, as Mr. McFadden's speeches usually are." As The Times predicted, Meyer was duly approved by the Senate.

Not content with having a friend in the White House, J. Henry Schroder Corporation was soon embarked on further international adventures, nothing less than a plan to set up World War II. This was to be done by providing, at a crucial juncture, the financing for Adolf Hitler's assumption of power in Germany. Although any number of magnates have been given credit for the financing of Hitler, including Fritz Thyssen, Henry Ford, and J.P. Morgan, they, as well as others, did provide millions of dollars for his political campaigns during the 1920s, just as they did for others who also had a chance of winning, but who disappeared and were never heard from again. In December of 1932, it seemed inevitable to many observers of the German scene that Hitler was also ready for a toboggan slide into oblivion. Despite the fact that he had done well in national campaigns, he had spent all the money from his usual sources and now faced heavy debts. In his book Aggression, Otto Lehmann-Russbeldt tells us that "Hitler was invited to a meeting at the Schroder Bank in Berlin on January 4, 1933. The leading industrialists and bankers of Germany tided Hitler over his financial difficulties and enabled him to meet the enormous debt he had incurred in connection with the maintenance of his private army. In return, he promised to break the power of the trade unions. On May 2, 1933, he fulfilled his promise."⁶⁴

Present at the January 4, 1933 meeting were the Dulles brothers, John Foster Dulles and Allen W. Dulles of the New York law firm, Sullivan and Cromwell, which represented the Schroder Bank. The Dulles brothers often turned up at important meetings. They had represented the United States at the Paris Peace Conference (1919); John Foster Dulles would die in harness as Eisenhower's Secretary of State, while Allen Dulles headed the Central Intelligence Agency for many years. Their apologists have seldom attempted to defend the Dulles brothers appearance at the meeting which installed Hitler as the Chancellor of Germany, preferring to pretend that it never happened. Obliquely, one biographer Leonard Mosley, bypasses it in Dulles when he states,

"Both brothers had spent large amounts of time in Germany, where Sullivan and Cromwell had considerable interest during the early 1930's, having represented several provincial governments, some large industrial combines, a number of big American companies with interests in the Reich, and some rich individuals."⁶⁵

Allen Dulles later became a director of J. Henry Schroder Company. Neither he nor J. Henry Schroder were to be suspected of being pro-Nazi or pro-Hitler; the inescapable fact was that if Hitler did not become Chancellor of Germany, there was little likelihood of getting a Second World War going, the war which would double their profits.** (Ezra Pound, in an April 18, 1943 broadcast over Radio Rome stated, ". . .and men in America, not content with this war are already aiming at the next one. The time to object is now.")The Great Soviet Encyclopaedia states "The banking house Schroder Bros. (it was Hitler's banker) was established in 1846; its partners today are the barons von Schroeder, related to branches in the United States and England."⁶⁶ The New York Times noted on October 11, 1944

"Senator Claude Pepper criticized John Foster Dulles, Gov. Dewey's foreign relations advisor for his connection with the law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell and having aided Hitler financially in 1933. Pepper described the January 4, 1933 meeting of Franz von Papen and Hitler in Baron Schroder's home in Cologne, and from that time on the Nazis were able to continue their march to power."

The financial editor of "The Daily Herald" of London wrote on Sept. 30, 1933 of "Mr. Norman's decision to give the Nazis the backing of the Bank (of England.)" John Hargrave, in his biography of Montagu Norman says,

"It is quite certain that Norman did all he could to assist Hitlerism to gain and maintain political power, operating on the financial plane from his stronghold in Threadneedle Street." [i.e. Bank of England.--Ed.]

Baron Wilhelm de Ropp, a journalist whose closest friend was Major F.W. Winterbotham, chief of Air Intelligence of the British Secret Service, brought the Nazi philosopher, Alfred Rosenberg, to London and introduced him to Lord Hailsham, Secretary for War, Geoffrey Dawson, editor of The Times, and Norman, Governor of the Bank of England. After talking with Norman, Rosenberg met with the representative of the Schroder Bank of London. The managing director of the Schroder Bank, F.C. Tiarks, was also a director of the Bank of England. Hargrave says (p. 217),

"Early in 1934 a select group of City financiers gathered in Norman's room behind the windowless walls, Sir Robert Kindersley, partner of Lazard Brothers, Charles Hambro, F.C. Tiarks, Sir Josiah Stamp, (also a director of the Bank of England). Governor Norman spoke of
the political situation in Europe. A new power had established itself, a great 'stabilizing force', namely, Nazi Germany. Norman advised his co-workers to include Hitler in their plans for financing Europe. There was no opposition."

In Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler, Antony C. Sutton writes

"The Nazi Baron Kurt von Schroeder acted as the conduit for I.T.T. money funneled to Heinrich Himmler's S.S. organization in 1944, while World War II was in progress, and the United States was at war with Germany."⁶⁷

Kurt von Schroeder, born in 1889, was partner in the Cologne Bankhaus, J.H. Stein & Co., which had been founded in 1788. After the Nazis gained power in 1933, Schroeder was appointed the German representative at the Bank of International Settlements. The Kilgore Committee in 1940 stated that Schroeder's influence with the Hitler Administration was so great that he had Pierre Laval appointed head of the French Government during the Nazi Occupation. The Kilgore Committee listed more than a dozen important titles held by Kurt von Schroeder in the 1940's, including President of Deutsche Reichsbahn, Reich Board of Economic Affairs, SS Senior Group Leader, Council of Reich Post Office, Deutsche Reichsbank and other leading banks and industrial groups. Schroeder served on the board of all International Telephone and Telegraph subsidiaries in Germany.

In 1938, the London Schroder Bank became the German financial agent in Great Britain. The New York branch of Schroder had been merged in 1936 with the Rockefellers, as Schroder, Rockefeller, Inc. at 48 Wall Street. Carlton P. Fuller of Schroder was president of this firm, and Avery Rockefeller was vice-president. He had been a behind the scenes partner of J. Henry Schroder for years, and had set up the construction firm of Bechtel Corporation, whose employees (on leave) now play a leading role in the Reagan Administration, as Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State.

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