It has become a tradition to explain Hitler's rise to power with his extraordinary oratory, political will and charisma. The Versailles Treaty, which became the result of the defeat in the First World War, also points to the difficult economic situation in the country. All this is fair, but it is important to consider that no political ambitions can be realized without serious funding. That is why the question of who sponsored Hitler so worries researchers.
Where did the money flow to the party cashier?
It is difficult to disagree with the fact that without the sufficient material resources necessary to pay for very expensive propaganda events, the German National Socialist Workers' Party (NSDAP) would never have been able to come to power, and would be forever lost in the variety of other political movements of that time. For all serious scholars of the history of National Socialism, this fact is undeniable, but when they answer the question of who sponsored Hitler, they cannot come to a consensus.
There is an assumption that at the initial stage the fascist party was financed by the leaders of the Reichswehr - the German armed forces limited in accordance with the terms of the Versailles Peace Treaty. According to another version, millions of stamps were transferred to party accounts by German industrialists, who were expecting, after Hitler came to power and the start of total militarization of the country, abundant government orders. Supporters of both hypotheses are probably right, since the funds spent by the future Fuhrer on the way to the heights of power were truly enormous.
Revelations of the Accused Mine
But one way or another, the question of who sponsored and PR Hitler remains open today. In this regard, it would be very appropriate to recall one of the episodes of the Nuremberg trials, when the defendant Hjalmar Schacht, who held the post of Minister of Economy and President of the Reichsbank in Nazi Germany, said that justice requires bringing to trial those who nurtured the militarism of the Third Reich.
At the same time, he publicly named the two largest American corporations - Ford and General Motors, as well as the Governor of the Bank of England - Norman Montague. According to him, both the leaders of these industrial giants and a number of representatives of the British financial oligarchy, in pursuit of their interests, were sponsors of Adolf Hitler, and, therefore, should be responsible for the disaster.
These revelations were extremely disadvantageous to the leadership of the countries that were part of the anti-Hitler coalition. Thanks to this, Hitler's former sponsors from the USA and Britain hurried to stop the talkativeness of Mine. An unspoken deal was made with him - freedom in exchange for silence. As a result, despite the protests of the Soviet representatives, the war criminal was released and lived another quarter century in contentment and honor.
About the dangers of excessive knowledge
Two people who died under very strange circumstances could shed light on the secret of the Anglo-Saxon financing of the Nazi party of Germany. The first of them was a modest financier from Switzerland Wilhelm Gustloff, who was in the period 1925-1929. a secret intermediary in transferring funds from their Anglo-American sponsors to the fascists. He could have remembered and told a lot, but took his secret to the grave after being attacked by a certain rowdy in Swiss Davos. Obviously, in memory of the services provided by Gustloff to the Nazis, his name is now Germany's largest cruise ship.
In addition, Hitler could be told about Hitler’s sponsors by his party treasurer, Franz Schwartz (photo above), since for many years he had received “voluntary donations” from them. However, trouble also happened to him. One day in the morning of December 1947, who was released from the filtration camp by the decision of the Nuremberg Tribunal, he had breakfast and suddenly died. In the medical report, the cause of death was not indicated, but only some kind of “stomach problems” was reported vaguely. However, with those who know too much, such stories sometimes happen.
We note that he earned the favor of Nuremberg Themis because in the spring of 1945, when the Soviet troops stormed Berlin, he managed to burn all the documents that discredited Hitler’s sponsors from among the representatives of the victorious countries. Thus, he hoped to extend his life, but, as practice has shown, he was too naive.
Revelations made by a curious Italian
However, it is not in vain that it says that all the secret sooner or later becomes apparent. In the postwar years, documents regarding the issue of who sponsored Hitler at the beginning of his career and in subsequent years became public. One of the researchers who lifted the veil over this mystery was the Italian journalist Guido Preparato.
Devoting to the study of this issue for more than two decades, he managed not only to document the relationship between the business community of London and Washington with the leaders of the NSDAP, but also to name many specific names of those who brought the Browns to power. Needless to say, with what risk to life was his work done?
He fundamentally dispelled the myth that the Nazis allegedly financed themselves by collecting voluntary donations at political rallies. With all the evidence he proved that the lion's share of party finances was of foreign origin and entered the accounts of the NSDAP from England and America.
Shares of German companies on the New York Stock Exchange
Talking about how the industrialists of England and the USA sponsored Hitler, Guido Preparato emphasized that often these were not direct transfers of funds. For example, he discovered and published documents testifying to the fact that American financial clans of the Rockefellers and Morganov actively promoted various German companies on the New York Stock Exchange, which were controlled directly by the leaders of the Nazi party. What is this, no matter how providing the fascists with material support, expressed in millions of dollars? And there are many similar examples in his studies.
Using the example of the Morgans and the Rothschilds sponsoring Hitler, an Italian journalist proved that in the period 1919-1933, that is, until the Nazis came to power, the entire Anglo-Saxon elite actively intervened in German domestic politics.
In every possible way indulging the “brown plague”, which was gaining strength, and not really imagining the consequences of their adventure, they assigned Hitler the role of a trump card in a big geopolitical game. Summing up his research, Guido Drugo wrote that it was not America and England that generated Hitlerism, but it was they who created the conditions under which it could develop into a threat to all of humanity.
In the wake of secret financial flows
The question of who sponsored Hitler was devoted to a series of publications by the modern German historian Joachim Fest. He traced the secret routes of many financial flows that flocked from abroad to the Nazi party’s Munich headquarters. In one of the articles he cites testimonies of witnesses of how in the fall of 1923 the future Fuhrer visited Switzerland and returned from there with a huge amount of cash (dollars and francs). There is no doubt that it was precisely on these funds that the Nazis attempted a coup d'etat on November 9, called the “Beer Coup”.
He also calls the name of the man who supplied Hitler with so much money. According to him, it was none other than Henry Deterding, a major economist who headed the joint Anglo-Dutch Shell concern in those years. In subsequent years, he also transferred millions of money to Germany through the Swiss financier William Gustloff, mentioned above, who plays the role of a secret transfer link.
Money that came from abroad
As you know, the notorious “Beer putsch” failed, and its organizers were jailed. Their leader was sentenced by a Munich court to five years in prison for high treason, but six months later he was set free, and having bought a luxurious Berghof mansion, he began publishing a previously closed party newspaper. In this regard, the thought involuntarily comes about the secret sponsors of Adolf Hitler, at the expense of which he managed to overcome the consequences of his political fiasco and continue the struggle for power in such a short time.
Satisfying the legitimate curiosity of readers, Joachim Fest gives the names of major industrialists - Schroeder, Vogler, Thyssen and Kirdorf, who relied on the rapidly developing national socialist movement in the country, and supplied its leader with the necessary funds.
It is characteristic that the first two, being Germans by origin, lived and earned their millions in America, so their financial support came from overseas. The historian also notes the fact that, according to his information, all Nazi party functionaries and assault squad commanders received salaries in foreign currency - so, just in case, you never know what can happen in the country.
In addition, giving a list of those who sponsored Hitler while in foreign countries, he mentions such large representatives of the business world as the head of one of the Ford corporations, Carl Bush, and the director of the New York Federal Bank, Max Warburg .
Portrait on the table of the Fuhrer
Talking about the fact that America sponsored Hitler, modern researchers pay special attention to the head of the largest automobile corporation, Henry Ford, who is considered to be one of the most active accomplices of Nazism. For the first time, information about his connections with the future Fuhrer hit the pages of world newspapers in 1931.
This happened after the American journalist Elizabeth Snils, having visited Munich, interviewed a very promising, but then little-known foreign politician, Adolf Hitler. Subsequently, she recalled that in the office of the party leader she was extremely surprised by the portrait of Henry Ford standing on the table. Noticing her bewilderment, Hitler explained that this man was an inspiration and an example for him. Further during the conversation, he also mentioned that he was receiving generous material support from him.
According to most historians, among all the other sponsors of Adolf Hitler, Ford was closest in spirit to him, and this inner kinship was based primarily on the anti-Semitism that was characteristic of both of them. The Führer’s pathological hatred of Jews is well known, as for his overseas idol, many facts testify to it. For example, back in the 1920s, Ford printed and sent to Germany a huge circulation of slanderous fake “Protocols of the Sages of Zion”, and in subsequent years two more books of this kind, but of his own composition, were published.
The written evidence of Franz Schwartz (the very treasurer of the NSDAP), about the mysterious death of which is mentioned above, in which he talks about how America sponsored Hitler, has survived to this day. Perhaps this testimony cost him his life. In them, he assigns the main role to Henry Ford, informing along the way that it was precisely for the millions of dollars that were transferred to the accounts of the Nazi party in the early 30s that he subsequently received from Hitler the highest order of the Third Reich - the large cross of the German Eagle.
The award was presented to Ford by the German ambassador during a gala dinner held in Detroit in August 1938 (photo above). Eyewitnesses later told that the head of the automobile concern was so moved that he burst into tears in front of everyone. In gratitude, Ford took the trouble (including financial) of producing a “people's car” in Germany. It ended, however, with the fact that he also became the owner of 100% of the shares of the Volkswagen concern, newly formed by him (on Hitler's behalf) .
It is also known for certain that Ford belonged to those industrialists who sponsored Hitler to war with the countries that opposed him on a united front. Despite the law passed in the United States, which forbade all cooperation with the Nazis, he defiantly engaged in the production of engines for Luftwaffe aircraft, and at the same time categorically refused to fulfill orders from the British military aircraft factory.
He supplied the fascists with his main products - cars. There is evidence that in 1940, when the war unleashed by Hitler in Europe was already blazing, Ford provided him with 65 thousand trucks for free. The Fuhrer received the same gift from him in Algeria, where parts of General Rommel were uninterruptedly supplied with various cars and, based on them, armored vehicles. All this was done by Ford enterprises located in occupied France.
In modern publications, which shed much light on those who sponsored Hitler for the war with Russia, one can find information about one curious fact that took place in the last months of World War II. The fact is that after the American aviation carried out a massive bombardment of Cologne and several other German cities, they were all turned into ruins, among which, “by incredible chance” only buildings related to Ford plants remained intact.
It’s even more interesting - in spite of such a successful combination of circumstances, their owner managed to receive full compensation from the American government for damage allegedly caused to his property located on enemy territory. In this regard, a completely relevant, albeit clearly rhetorical question arises: why did the American Themis react so favorably to a person who acted contrary to the interests of his own state?
American concerns - accomplices of the Nazis
However, among those American entrepreneurs who sponsored Hitler for the war with Russia and other European countries, there were many more big names. Among them are the entire leadership of General Motors. Under their complete control was the German automobile concern Opel, in the workshops of which the main model of Blitz military trucks, the Lightning, was made famous for the fact that they were used to create the infamous "gas chamber" - gas chambers on wheels.
It was proved that in 1939, the American corporations that became Hitler's sponsors in World War II invested more than $ 800 million in German industry, which at that time was a record sum. At the same time, investments by Henry Ford himself amounted to about 18 million dollars.
Fritz Thyssen's mistake
Among the German industrialists who sponsored Hitler in World War II, the most prominent figure is the big businessman Fritz Thyssen (photo below) - the brother of the famous tycoon August Thyssen. He began to provide material support to the nascent Nazi movement in 1923, and then acted as one of its main creditors. Such a definition is quite appropriate, because as a true businessman, Thyssen hoped to receive substantial dividends from his investments in the future, moreover, not only material, but also political.
As early as 1932, he and the German financiers closest to him in spirit appealed to Reich President Paul von Hindenburg with a demand to provide Hitler with the post of Reich Chancellor. He and his like-minded people needed this to achieve the long-set goal - the restoration in Germany of the pre-existing estate state in which they would be granted the most privileged position. For this, they spared no money.
It should be noted that these people did not miscalculate, having made their bet on Hitler. Sponsors - whoever they are always, to one degree or another, receive a reward. Having come to power, the FĂĽhrer directly assisted them in creating an official state structure called the Institute of Estates. Its headquarters was located in Dusseldorf. The head of this organization was Fritz Thyssen, who from the very first days was engaged in drafting a document that brings, supposedly a scientific base, under the ideology of class inequality of citizens. It is known that the FĂĽhrer was very sympathetic to his work.
However, the time came when Thyssen made a fatal mistake, forgiveness for which it was impossible to get in Nazi Germany. An ardent anti-communist and supporter of war with the Soviet Union, he was at the same time an opponent of confrontation with Western states.
Despite the fact that such a position was contrary to the plans of Hitler, who dreamed of conquering Europe, this got away with him thanks to investments in the party box office. But once Thyssen went too far and crossed the line - he dared to oppose the persecution of the Jews - not all, of course, but only those who were among his business partners. That was already too much.
Only a miracle helped him and his wife safely escape from the angry Fuhrer to neutral Switzerland. Before the start of World War II, he very rashly moved to France, where he was arrested after its occupation by the Germans. The unfortunate businessman spent the whole war in which he invested a lot of money in a concentration camp, and when he left it, he wrote the book “I Financed Hitler”. In it, he spoke in detail about how the material base of the Nazi movement was created.
CIA connection with the Nazis
Continuing the theme of Hitler’s sponsors in World War II, it will be quite appropriate to recall the separate negotiations that took place in Switzerland in the spring of 1945 between representatives of the Western powers and the Wehrmacht command. Their characteristic feature was the fact that on the American side, the head of the CIA Allen Dulles participated in them, who back in 1932, together with the British financier Norman Montague, concluded a secret agreement with Hitler on financing his party during the next election campaign.
Researchers believe that, firstly, Dulles’s participation in separate negotiations of 1945 indirectly proves the connection between the American intelligence and the German high command, and secondly, the existence of cash flows from the ocean that didn’t run out during the military operations, as they were controlled directly to the head of the CIA. The explanation for this is quite obvious: the one who sponsored Hitler wanted to give him the opportunity to inflict maximum damage to the Soviet Union before the crash and make him more accommodating in the distribution of post-war spheres of influence.
Common goal and tool for achieving it
Now Western politicians deny this fact. Nevertheless, the results of numerous studies conducted by both Russian historians and their foreign colleagues prove that Hitler's sponsors - American companies, coupled with German industrial and financial circles, pursued a common goal, which was to unite Europe against the Soviet Union, which was intensively gaining military and economic power.
To solve this problem, the possessed Fuhrer was a very suitable tool, which, after fulfilling the mission entrusted to him, had to leave the political arena and leave its former sponsors to establish the notorious “new world order” without it.