Fred KOCH Helped Build NAZI Oil Refinery

[Octafish]

He said he jus' wanted to fight the commies and make a buck or two along the way...

Father of Koch Brothers Helped Build Nazi Oil Refinery, Book Says

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
The New York Times, Jan. 11, 2016

The father of the billionaires Charles G. and David H. Koch helped construct a major oil refinery in Nazi Germany that was personally approved by Adolf Hitler, according to a new history of the Kochs and other wealthy families.

The book, “Dark Money,” by Jane Mayer, traces the rise of the modern conservative movement through the activism and money of a handful of rich donors: among them Richard Mellon Scaife, an heir to the Mellon banking fortune, and Harry and Lynde Bradley, brothers who became wealthy in part from military contracts but poured millions into anti-government philanthropy.

SNIP...

The Kochs, the Scaifes, the Bradleys and the DeVos family of Michigan “were among a small, rarefied group of hugely wealthy, archconservative families that for decades poured money, often with little public disclosure, into influencing how the Americans thought and voted,” the book says.

Many of the families owned businesses that clashed with environmental or workplace regulators, come under federal or state investigation, or waged battles over their tax bills with the Internal Revenue Service, Ms. Mayer reports. The Kochs’ vast political network, a major force in Republican politics today, was “originally designed as a means of off-loading the costs of the Koch Industries environmental and regulatory fights onto others” by persuading other rich business owners to contribute to Koch-controlled political groups, Ms. Mayer writes, citing an associate of the two brothers.

SNIP...

In Ms. Mayer’s telling, the Kochs helped bankroll — through a skein of nonprofit organizations with minimal public disclosure — decades of victories in state capitals and in Washington, often leaving no fingerprints. She credits groups financed by the Kochs and their allies with providing support for the Tea Party movement, along with the public relations strategies used to shrink public support for the Affordable Care Act and for President Obama’s proposals to mitigate climate change.

CONTINUED...

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/01/12/us/politics/father-of-koch-brothers-helped-build-nazi-oil-refinery-book-says.html?_r=0&referer=http://m.huffpost.com/us

What this guy and his plutocratic heirs don't get is, if they wanted to really beat the commies they'd be getting taxed at a 90-percent clip. No one wants to be a commie, especially if they can get a piece of the action -- what used to be called "The American Dream."

[Act_of_Reparation]

1. I actually think the last line is more relevant

Ms. Mayer describes a sealed 1982 deposition in which William Koch recalled participating in an attempt by Charles and David to blackmail their fourth and eldest brother, Frederick, into relinquishing any claim to the family business by threatening to tell their father that he was gay.

Many American companies did business with the Third Reich, and most of the people who masterminded those partnerships are dead. While we can certainly talk about whether or not those companies should be paying reparations to those affected by Nazi Germany's expansionism and ethnic cleansing, for the purpose of discussing the moral character of the extant Kochs, that last line is the most telling.

They fucked over their own brother in what is probably one of the most despicable ways one could imagine. With this, I think we can put to rest any notion that these guys care about anything beyond their own immediate material gains.

[Octafish]

2. People die. Corporations don't have to. Take IBM.

The company and its Hollerith machines enabled the NAZIs to tabulate census data and find out "who was who?" and "who did what?"and "who lives where?" in Germany and the occupied nations.



Oh. The IBM machines and the cards they used to process information also were used to find out "how many Jews?" and "where are they?"

IBM & "Death's Calculator"

by Edwin Black

EXCERPT...

When the Reich needed to mount a systematic campaign of Jewish economic disenfranchisement and later began the massive movement of European Jews out of their homes and into ghettos, once again, the task was so prodigious it called for a computer. But in 1933, no computer existed. When the Final Solution sought to efficiently transport Jews out of European ghettos along railroad lines and into death camps, with timing so precise the victims were able to walk right out of the boxcar and into a waiting gas chamber, the coordination was so complex a task, this too called for a computer. But in 1933, no computer existed.

However, another invention did exist: the IBM punch card and card sorting system-a precursor to the computer. IBM, primarily through its German subsidiary, made Hitler's program of Jewish destruction a technologic mission the company pursued with chilling success. IBM Germany, using its own staff and equipment, designed, executed, and supplied the indispensable technologic assistance Hitler's Third Reich needed to accomplish what had never been done before-the automation of human destruction. More than 2,000 such multi-machine sets were dispatched throughout Germany, and thousands more throughout German-dominated Europe. Card sorting operations were established in every major concentration camp. People were moved from place to place, systematically worked to death, and their remains cataloged with icy automation.

SNIP...

I was haunted by a question whose answer has long eluded historians. The Germans always had the lists of Jewish names. Suddenly, a squadron of grim-faced SS would burst into a city square and post a notice demanding those listed assemble the next day at the train station for deportation to the East. But how did the Nazis get the lists? For decades, no one has known. Few have asked.

The answer: IBM Germany's census operations and similar advanced people counting and registration technologies. IBM was founded in 1898 by German inventor Herman Hollerith as a census tabulating company. Census was its business. But when IBM Germany formed its philosophical and technologic alliance with Nazi Germany, census and registration took on a new mission. IBM Germany invented the racial census-listing not just religious affiliation, but bloodline going back generations. This was the Nazi data lust. Not just to count the Jews — but to identify them.

CONTINUED...

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/gypibm.html

What are "Information Technology" companies doing to forward Democracy these days? Like Fred Koch's heirs and most of the mineral extraction industries in general: Not much.

[Act_of_Reparation]

6. What, exactly, prompted this lecture?

I didn't say Koch Industries' responsibility died with their erstwhile owner.

[Octafish]

10. Sorry, not lecturing you.

I wanted to point out the larger picture of dealing with the NAZIs.

[JEB]

3. Stumbled across this list...

http://www.11points.com/News-Politics/11_Companies_That_Surprisingly_Collaborated_With_the_Nazis

[Octafish]

5. Ford admitted his mistake. General Motors, though, sued for Allied bomb damage.

General Motors & the Third Reich

by Edwin Black
Jewish Virtual Library

Following the publication of this article, General Motors released a statement saying it wished it could “hit the rewind button and change some of the things Mr. Sloan thought and said.” Alfred P. Sloan was the company chief during the Nazi era and responsible for many of the company’s policies at the time.

EXCERPT...

The Quest For The 'People's Car'

During the meeting with Mooney, Hitler estimated that if Germany were to emulate American ratios, the Reich should possess some 12 million cars. But, Hitler added, 3 million cars was a more realistic target under the circumstances. Even this would be a vast improvement over the 104,000 vehicles manufactured in Germany in 1932.

Mooney told Hitler that GM was willing to mass produce a cheap car, costing just 1,400 marks, with the mass appeal of Henry Ford's Model T, if the Nazi regime could guarantee 100,000 car sales annually, issue a decree limiting dealer commissions and control the price of raw materials. Many automotive concerns were vying for the chance to build Hitler's dream, a people's car or “volkswagen,” but GM was convinced it alone possessed the proven production know-how. An excited Hitler showered his GM guests with many questions.

Would the cost of garaging a car be prohibitive for the average man? Could vehicles parked outdoors be damaged by the elements? Mooney answered that the same vehicle built to withstand wind, dust and rain at 40 mph to 60 mph could stand up to overnight exposure outdoors. To promote automobile ownership Hitler even promised something as trivial as legalized street parking.

Of course, Hitler had already committed the Reich to expedite completion of the world's first transnational network of auto highways, the Autobahn. Now, to further promote motorcar proliferation, Hitler suggested to Mooney that the German government could also reduce gasoline prices and gasoline taxes. Hitler even asked if Opel could advise him how to prudently reduce car insurance rates, thus lowering overall operating costs for average Germans.

The conference in Hitler's Chancellery office, originally scheduled for a quarter hour, stretched to 90 minutes.

The next morning, May 3, 1934, an excited Hitler told Keppler, “I have been thinking all night about the many things that these Opel men told me.” He instructed Keppler, “Get in touch with them before they leave Berlin.” Hitler wanted to know still more. Mooney spent hours later that day ensconced in his hotel suite composing written answers to the Fuhrer's many additional questions.

SNIP...

During the Hitler years, many of those excess profits were used to acquire other companies and properties, only increasing Opel’s assets in Germany. After the war, starting in 1948, GM began regaining control over Opel operations and eventually its monumental assets as well as blocked dividends. GM also collected some $33 million in “war reparations” because the Allies had bombed its German facilities.

CONTINUED...

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/gm.html

This story is little known and seldom brought up in conversation here in Detroit. Thanks for remembering, JEB.

[KamaAina]

4. Prescott BUSH helped store NAZI gold

And so it goes.

[Octafish]

12. For some reason, that doesn't get mentioned on television.

Thank the Admins for DU:

Know your BFEE: Spawn of Wall Street and the Third Reich

[2naSalit]

7. I remember back when

George Romney was running for president in the late 1960s. I was still a little too young to vote but my family was loud about its politics so I was introduced to civics early in life... and growing up in New England will do it too.

During the primary season of that election year, 1967, we lived in Nashua, New Hampshire before Iowa caucuses became a "thing". My dad brought home all the literature from the rallies and I read them all. Interestingly my dad brought home a lot of debris from Romney rallies. Among the literature he had mixed in were informational pamphlets about the libertarian party and a book published by the john birch society. I was kind of horrified about their agenda then.

[1939]

8. George Romney

was a candidate in 1968 and ran second to Nixon at the GOP convention.

[2naSalit]

9. Thanks! I couldn't remember which election it was.

I'll fix my comment.

[Octafish]

11. ''Brainwashed by the Pentagon.''

Back in '67, Michigan Gov. George Romney looked like the GOP nominee -- until the candidate remarked how America's generals and diplomatic corps had "brainwashed" him on a tour of Vietnam in 1965.

I remember the time -- I was 10 years of age and a proud resident of Michigan -- and how powerful the news media are, capable of sinking a candidate.

[bullwinkle428]

13. So both Hitler AND Stalin were recipients of Fred's "Discount Double-Check"?

Apparently, some Koch knob was trying to spin this because the work was done in 1933, "before he really went nuts" (Marge Shott quote).