News and information on Shell Plc
Royal Dutch Shell’s historical relationship with Nazi Germany has been documented by historians and investigative journalists. What continues to draw criticism is not only the company’s wartime conduct, but the fact that Shell has never issued a formal public apology or acknowledgment comparable to those made by other major European corporations with similar histories.
A number of writers, journalists, historians, and activists have publicly raised this issue.
Shell’s lack of apologies for its toxic history: A unanimous verdict by Bot buddies: Perplexity, Grok, ChatGPT, Copilot and Google AIShell’s documented conduct under Nazism, apartheid, and in Nigeria creates a strong ethical case that it should issue clear, specific apologies and undertake concrete remediation, rather than maintain its longstanding pattern of silence and minimisation.
Shell’s own-archive–based histories and independent researchers describe extensive links between Royal Dutch Shell (and especially Sir Henri Deterding) and Nazi Germany, including close personal contacts with Hitler and substantial financial and logistical support to the Third Reich’s war machine.
Question put to Grok 5 February 2026: What can you tell me about the innovative use of AI by John Donovan in the Donovan Shell feud? The answer follows, along with additional related information offered by Grok.
The long-standing feud between John Donovan and Royal Dutch Shell (now Shell plc) dates back to the 1980s and 1990s, stemming from business disputes over promotional ideas developed by Donovan’s company, Don Marketing. These included concepts like the Shell Smart loyalty card, leading to multiple lawsuits for intellectual property theft, settled out of court. Donovan has since maintained websites like royaldutchshellplc.com as vast archives of Shell-related documents, leaks, and criticisms, covering scandals such as reserves overstatements, environmental issues, and alleged corporate espionage against him (including Shell’s use of firms like Hakluyt for surveillance). This activism has evolved into what Donovan describes as a “bot war” in recent years, particularly escalating in 2025–2026 with innovative AI applications to perpetuate and amplify the conflict.
Please read the following published article and provide a structured analysis and response. Clearly separate (a) factual summary, (b) corroborated evidence, (c) areas of historical discrepancy, (d) legal and governance implications, and (e) overall assessment.
👉 Article:
When Corporate History Is Challenged: Shell, Deterding, and the Record Itself
When Corporate History Is Challenged: Shell, Deterding, and the Record Itself
Key questions:
Factual accuracy:
Based on publicly available historical sources (e.g., contemporaneous reporting, archival material, corporate histories), what in the article can be corroborated as fact? Please cite sources.
In March 2011, an exchange took place between John Donovan and Michiel Brandjes, then Company Secretary and General Counsel of Royal Dutch Shell plc, concerning the contents and interpretation of A History of Royal Dutch Shell, the company’s four-volume, internally commissioned corporate history.
At the time, the dispute appeared narrow: whether Shell’s paid historians had accurately characterised Sir Henri Deterding’s relationship with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime. With hindsight — and with the emergence of AI systems capable of cross-reading archives in seconds — the exchange now reads as something more consequential: an early, documented challenge to narrative authority over Shell’s own history.
By John Donovan & ChatGPT
Published 19 Jan 2026
In the industrialised warfare of the early 20th century, oil replaced coal as the decisive strategic resource. When the First World War erupted in 1914, the British Army and Royal Navy faced a profound logistical challenge: powering millions of troops, thousands of vehicles, and hundreds of warships across multiple theatres of war. Into that breach stepped the burgeoning Royal Dutch Shell Group — supplying fuel, shipping capacity and vital logistics at a time when oil was rapidly becoming as crucial to victory as manpower and guns.
LEAKED: SHELL INTERNAL CRISIS MEMO: Legal confirms we cannot sue ghosts(Now Widely Distributed)
FROM:
Group Communications, Reputation & Narrative Containment Unit
TO:
Executive Committee
Legal Affairs
External Counsel
Digital Risk
ESG Oversight
Whoever Is Still Listening
DATE:
10 January 2026
SUBJECT:
Escalation of Donovan Matter into AI-Mediated, Posthumous, and Algorithmic Domains
The long-running Donovan issue has entered a new phase.
This phase includes, but is not limited to:
Artificial intelligence platforms repeatedly resurfacing historic allegations
Public comparison of AI outputs across multiple systems
An exclusive ShellBot séance transcript, recovered during a late-night ESG compliance audit.
At precisely 3:47 a.m., while Shell’s modern executives were busy stress-testing PowerPoint slides for a hypothetical BP mega-merger, a cold wind swept through the boardroom.
The lights flickered.
The ESG dashboard froze.
And then, unmistakably, a voice spoke:
“What in God’s name is this?”
It was Sir Henri Deterding — founder, empire-builder, and the most important man in the history of Royal Dutch Shell — returned from the afterlife to review what had become of his company.
A story of billions—of barrels, of dollars, and of lies.
A story of how one of the most powerful oil companies on Earth, Shell, got caught inflating its most precious asset: oil reserves.
Because in the oil business, reserves aren’t just numbers.
They are everything.
They represent future profits, shareholder confidence, executive bonuses.
They are the oil industry’s currency of credibility.
And Shell? Shell cooked the books.
In January 2004, Shell shocked the financial world by slashing its previously declared “proven” reserves by nearly 4 billion barrels—around 20% of what it had claimed.
Once upon a time in the Kingdom of Oil, two fossil-fuelled juggernauts stood shoulder to shoulder atop a scorched planet. Their names? Shell and —the Bonnie and Clyde of carbon capitalism, the Gordon Gekkos of global warming. If the Earth had lungs, these two would’ve been chain-smoking them for decades.
And now, just when you thought it couldn’t get more grotesque, we have merger whispers. Shell flirted with the idea of swallowing BP whole, because nothing says “energy transition” quite like an all-British megamerger to keep the fossil flame alive.
By John Donovan
A hacking attack is apparently underway targeting my shellnazihistory.com website.
According to Jetpack Monitoring (see above)over 50,000 total blocked brute force attacks were made on the website between Nov 4, 2021 and Dec 4, 2021.
We can only speculate on who might have the motive and any prior form to take such sinister action against a non-commercial entirely free to use highly informative website?
It is true that Shell has used cloak and dagger activity against my Shell focussed websites several times, as recently as July 2021. But there is no evidence that Shell is behind the more recent attacks.
Another hammer blow for Shell. Evidence confirms that Shell fuelled the Nazi war machine
Shell had advance sight of my book and my website ShellNaziHistory.com. Despite aggressive threats, bluster and a global spying operation, Shell took no legal action. No multinational giant would want to draw attention to its past association with Hitler and the Nazis.
NEW BOOK: Crude Britannia: How Oil Shaped a Nation
Some of the information about Shell’s collaboration with the Nazis covered on pages 19, 20, 21, 22 of the main book, and pages 352, 353 and 354 from the Notes section of the book:
ACCESS TO MORE INFORMATION THAN ANYWHERE ELSE ON THE PLANET ABOUT THE ROYAL DUTCH SHELL RESERVES SCANDAL / FRAUD
By John Donovan
Royal Dutch Shell Group Chairman Sir Philip Watts, was forced to resign as a result of the fraudulent over-statement of claimed hydrocarbon reserves.
Sir Philip subsequently became a very rich vicar, after a payoff package from Shell worth nearly $20 million to buy his silence.
Link to a John Donovan file containing extensive news coverage.
Daily Telegraph: Shell drops ‘bombshell’ on reserves: 9 January 2004
The Times: How Shell blew a hole in a 100-year reputation: 10 January 2004
The West Australian: Investors howl for Shell’s blood: 12 January 2004
London Evening Standard: Shell bosses lied to the City: 19 April 2004
(Former executives, led by ex-chairman Sir Philip Watts, admitted they had repeatedly lied to investors about the true level of Shell’s oil and gas reserves.)
Houston Chronicle: ‘Sick and tired about lying’ at Shell: 19 April 2004
Bloomberg: Shell Loses AAA Credit Rating: 19 April 2004
Shell bosses ‘fooled the market’: 19 April 2004
The Guardian: Trail of emails reveals depths of deceit at the heart of Shell: 20 April 2004
The Guardian: Shell admits it misled investors: 20 April 2004
The Independent: Lies, cover-ups, fat cats and an oil giant in crisis: 20 April 2004
The Scotsman: Shell admits reserve ‘lies’: 20 April 2004
The Scotsman: Shell implodes as e-mails provide damning evidence: 20 April 2004
The Times: Deceitful Shell ‘needs ten years’ to rebuild exploration business: 20 April 2004
Financial Times: Observer Column: Shell-shocked: Corporate slogans consigned to the dustbin of history no. 94: “You can be sure of Shell.”: 20 April 2004
Minneapolis Star Tribune: Dutch/Shell Group exec was ‘sick and tired’ of lying: 20 April 2004
Daily Telegraph: Memos expose Shell’s years of lying: 8 May 2004
The Scotsman: Shell’s reputation left in tatters: 21 April 2004
TheStarOnline: Shell report exposes lies, CFO sacked: 21 April 2004
Daily Telegraph: Shell suffers second cut to credit rating: 21 April 2004
Daily Telegraph: Sacked Shell boss ‘escorted from HQ’: 22 April 2004
The Times: A very British kind of scandal: why Shell is no Enron: 23 April 2004
Daily Telegraph: Shell’s lies over reserves spark FSA investigation: 24 April 2004
Times: “Shell is a disreputable company in need of a strong injection of ethics”: 25 April 2004 ”
(“An Audience with Sir Phillip Watts”)
The Mail On Sunday: Shell’s top bosses named in £8 billion lawsuit after being spared the sack: 25 April 2004
Daily Mail: Shell attacked from all sides: 26 April 2004
(OIL giant Shell urgently needs to embark on a damage limitation offensive with investors before regulatory probes and lawsuits send the crisis spiralling out of control.)
Daily Telegraph: Shell gives Watts a £1m golden farewell: 23 May 2004
Daily Telegraph: Shell slices still more off proven reserves: 25 May 2004
Daily Telegraph: Watts’ pension pot tops £10m: 28 May 2004
fin24: Shell directors under fire: 20 June 2004
Extract: “The report came just a day after Dutch paper NRC Handelsblad quoted a former executive of one of the oil group’s subsidiaries as saying half of the company’s 400 most senior managers were aware of the problem.”
London Evening Standard: Shell ‘has lied for 10 years’: 26 June 2004
Sadistic sacking of a Royal Dutch Shell whistleblower: 27 October 2010
Shell Closes Book on 2004 Reserves Scandal as Claims Deadline Passes: 5 November 2010
Article from page 13 of the Nigerian newspaper “Dateline” published 4 Jan 1996. Sourced from the archive evidence files of Esther Kiobel (right), one of the Ogoni 9 widows currently suing Shell in the Dutch courts. Her late husband Dr. Barinem Kiobel, can be seen in the same photo. Esther has been seeking justice from Shell for over two decades for its alleged complicity in his murder. “Ruthless military operations” were proposed specifically to help Shell establish stability in its oil business in Nigeria, a confidential memorandum obtained by the Independent on Sunday reveals. It recommends”wasting vocal individuals.”
The internal state security memorandum which is marked “restricted” 12 times, says that regular financial “inputs” from oil companies have been discussed. A British environmentalist said yesterday that the author of the document had told him that his men had been paid by Shell to protect installations.
G&E also directed litigation against Royal Dutch Shell which led to a $400 million investor settlement in 2007, the largest securities fraud settlement in Europe at the time.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Oct. 21, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — A second wave of lawsuits has been filed by an international coalition of institutional investors in the ongoing financial fraud case against Danske Bank A/S.
The new investor suits were brought by leading U.S. shareholder law firms Grant & Eisenhofer P.A.
G&E also directed litigation against Royal Dutch Shell which led to a $400 million investor settlement in 2007, the largest securities fraud settlement in Europe at the time.
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The photograph shows Swastika flag flying at the head office of Royal Dutch Petroleum, 30 Carel van Bylandtlaan, The Hague, during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands in World War II (From Image Database Hague Municipal)
EBOOK TITLE: “SIR HENRI DETERDING AND THE NAZI HISTORY OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON
EBOOK TITLE: “JOHN DONOVAN, SHELL’S NIGHTMARE: MY EPIC FEUD WITH THE UNSCRUPULOUS OIL GIANT ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
EBOOK TITLE: “TOXIC FACTS ABOUT SHELL REMOVED FROM WIKIPEDIA: HOW SHELL BECAME THE MOST HATED BRAND IN THE WORLD” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
30 November 2023: Posted by John Donovan
The content below is sourced from current verifiable customer reviews of Shell Energy published on Trustpilot.
Extremely slow broadband for 10 months, not fixed. I have had slow broadband well below the guaranteed speed for 10 months and Shell Energy have not been able to fix it. They have tried sending about 4 or 5 engineers but have not fixed the problem. Gurps, who I have been dealing with most recently, has been friendly and polite, alth… Read more
See our link list of over 500 articles by the FT, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Bloomberg, Forbes, Dow Jones Newswires, New York Times, CNBC etc, plus UK House of Commons Select Committee Hansard records, information on U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission website etc. all containing references to our Shell focussed websites, or our website founders Alfred and John Donovan. Includes TV documentary features in English and German, newspaper and magazine articles, radio interviews, newsletters etc. Plus academic papers, Stratfor intelligence reports and UK, U.S. and Australian state/parliamentary publications, also citing our Shell websites. Click on this link to see the entire list, all in date order with a link to an index of over 100 books also containing references to our non-profit websites and/or our activities.
John Donovan, the website owner
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