Bush and WWII
from George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography, by Webster G. Tarpley &
Anton Chaitkin

Chapter - II - The Hitler Project

Bush Property Seized--Trading with the Enemy

In October 1942, ten months after entering World War II, America was
preparing its first assault against Nazi military forces. Prescott Bush
was managing partner of Brown Brothers Harriman. His 18-year-old son
George, the future U.S. President, had just begun training to become a
naval pilot. On Oct. 20, 1942, the U.S. government ordered the seizure
of Nazi German banking operations in New York City which were being
conducted by Prescott Bush.

Under the Trading with the Enemy Act, the government took over the
Union Banking Corporation, in which Bush was a director. The U.S. Alien
Property Custodian seized Union Banking Corp.'s stock shares, all of
which were owned by Prescott Bush, E. Roland "Bunny" Harriman, three
Nazi executives, and two other associates of Bush.

The order seizing the bank "vests" (seizes) "all of the capital stock
of Union Banking Corporation, a New York corporation," and names the
holders of its shares as:

"E. Roland Harriman--3991 shares" [chairman and director of Union
Banking Corp. (UBC); this is "Bunny" Harriman, described by Prescott
Bush as a place holder who didn't get much into banking affairs;
Prescott managed his personal investments]

"Cornelis Lievense--4 shares" [president and director of UBC; New
York resident banking functionary for the Nazis]

"Harold D. Pennington--1 share" [treasurer and director of UBC; an
office manager employed by Bush at Brown Brothers Harriman]

"Ray Morris--1 share" [director of UBC; partner of Bush and the
Harrimans]

"Prescott S. Bush--1 share" [director of UBC, which was co-founded
and sponsored by his father-in-law George Walker; senior managing
partner for E. Roland Harriman and Averell Harriman]

"H.J. Kouwenhoven--1 share" [director of UBC; organized UBC as the
emissary of Fritz Thyssen in negotiations with George Walker and Averell
Harriman; managing director of UBC's Netherlands affiliate under Nazi
occupation; industrial executive in Nazi Germany; director and chief
foreign financial executive of the German Steel Trust]

"Johann G. Groeninger--1 share" [director of UBC and of its
Netherlands affiliate; industrial executive in Nazi Germany] "all of
which shares are held for the benefit of ... members of the Thyssen
family, [and] is property of nationals ... of a designated enemy
country...."

By Oct. 26, 1942, U.S. troops were under way for North Africa. On Oct.
28, the government issued orders seizing two Nazi front organizations
run by the Bush-Harriman bank: the Holland- American Trading Corporation
and the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation.

U.S. forces landed under fire near Algiers on Nov. 8, 1942; heavy
combat raged throughout November. Nazi interests in the
Silesian-American Corporation, long managed by Prescott Bush and his
father-in-law George Herbert Walker, were seized under the Trading with
the Enemy Act on Nov. 17, 1942. In this action, the government announced
that it was seizing only the Nazi interests, leaving the Nazis' U.S.
partners to carry on the business.

These and other actions taken by the U.S. government in wartime were,
tragically, too little and too late. President Bush's family had already
played a central role in financing and arming Adolf Hitler for his
takeover of Germany; in financing and managing the buildup of Nazi war
industries for the conquest of Europe and war against the U.S.A.; and in
the development of Nazi genocide theories and racial propaganda, with
their well-known results.

The facts presented here must be known, and their implications
reflected upon, for a proper understanding of President George Herbert
Walker Bush and of the danger to mankind that he represents. The
President's family fortune was largely a result of the Hitler project.
The powerful Anglo-American family associations, which later boosted him
into the Central Intelligence Agency and up to the White House, were his
father's partners in the Hitler project.

President Franklin Roosevelt's Alien Property Custodian, Leo T.
Crowley, signed Vesting Order Number 248 seizing the property of
Prescott Bush under the Trading with the Enemy Act. The order, published
in obscure government record books and kept out of the news, explained
nothing about the Nazis involved; only that the Union Banking
Corporation was run for the `` Thyssen family" of "Germany and/or
Hungary" --"nationals ... of a designated enemy country.''

By deciding that Prescott Bush and the other directors of the Union
Banking Corp. were legally front men for the Nazis, the government
avoided the more important historical issue: In what way were Hitler's
Nazis themselves hired, armed and instructed by the New York and London
clique of which Prescott Bush was an executive manager? Let us examine
the Harriman-Bush Hitler project from the 1920s until it was partially
broken up, to seek an answer for that question.

Origin and Extent of the Project

Fritz Thyssen and his business partners are universally recognized as
the most important German financiers of Adolf Hitler's takeover of
Germany. At the time of the order seizing the Thyssen family's Union
Banking Corp., Mr. Fritz Thyssen had already published his famous book,
I Paid Hitler, admitting that he had financed Adolf Hitler and the Nazi
movement since October 1923. Thyssen's role as the leading early backer
of Hitler's grab for power in Germany had been noted by U.S. diplomats
in Berlin in 1932. The order seizing the Bush-Thyssen bank was curiously
quiet and modest about the identity of the perpetrators who had been
nailed.

But two weeks before the official order, government investigators had
reported secretly that "W. Averell Harriman was in Europe sometime prior
to 1924 and at that time became acquainted with Fritz Thyssen, the
German industrialist." Harriman and Thyssen agreed to set up a bank for
Thyssen in New York. "[C]ertain of [Harriman's] associates would serve
as directors...." Thyssen agent "H. J. Kouwenhoven ... came to the
United States ... prior to 1924 for conferences with the Harriman
Company in this connection...."

When exactly was "Harriman in Europe sometime prior to 1924"? In
fact,he was in Berlin in 1922 to set up the Berlin branch of W.A.
Harriman & Co. under George Walker's presidency.

The Union Banking Corporation was established formally in 1924, as a
unit in the Manhattan offices of W.A. Harriman & Co., interlocking with
the Thyssen-owned Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart (BHS) in the
Netherlands. The investigators concluded that ``the Union Banking
Corporation has since its inception handled funds chiefly supplied to it
through the Dutch bank by the Thyssen interests for American
investment."

Thus by personal agreement between Averell Harriman and Fritz Thyssen
in 1922, W.A. Harriman & Co. (alias Union Banking Corporation) would be
transferring funds back and forth between New York and the "Thyssen
interests" in Germany. By putting up about $400,000, the Harriman
organization would be joint owner and manager of Thyssen's banking
operations outside of Germany.

How important was the Nazi enterprise for which President Bush's
father was the New York banker?

The 1942 U.S. government investigative report said that Bush's
Nazi-front bank was an interlocking concern with the Vereinigte
Stahlwerke (United Steel Works Corporation or German Steel Trust) led by
Fritz Thyssen and his two brothers. After the war, Congressional
investigators probed the Thyssen interests, Union Banking Corp. and
related Nazi units. The investigation showed that the Vereinigte
Stahlwerke had produced the following approximate proportions of total
German national output:

50.8% of Nazi Germany's pig iron 41.4% of Nazi Germany's universal
plate 36.0% of Nazi Germany's heavy plate 38.5% of Nazi Germany's
galvanized sheet 45.5% of Nazi Germany's pipes and tubes 22.1% of Nazi
Germany's wire 35.0% of Nazi Germany's explosives.

Prescott Bush became vice president of W.A. Harriman & Co. in 1926.
That same year, a friend of Harriman and Bush set up a giant new
organization for their client Fritz Thyssen, prime sponsor of politician
Adolf Hitler. The new German Steel Trust, Germany's largest industrial
corporation, was organized in 1926 by Wall Street banker Clarence
Dillon. Dillon was the old comrade of Prescott Bush's father Sam Bush
from the "Merchants of Death '' bureau in World War I.

In return for putting up $70 million to create his organization,
majority owner Thyssen gave the Dillon Read company two or more
representatives on the board of the new Steel Trust.