| Royal Dutch Shell Adolf Hitler / Nazi ConnectionDaily Express: MYSTERY DOCUMENT IN GERMAN FORGERY TRIAL: 13 January 1930 EXTRACTThe second denial came Sir Henri Deterding, who is at present at St. Moritz. The oil magnate interviewed by telephone, declared that he had never heard of the conspiracy against Russia until he read reports of the trial in the German newspapers and found to his amazement that his name had been dragged into it. “The first I knew of this case was when I saw reports in certain of the German newspapers ,” Sir Henri said. “I was naturally astounded. I read the names of the accused and searched my mind in and out if I had ever met them. I can’t recall a single one. I am not connected with this case on any shape or form.”New York Times: BERLIN, April 17 1932 (AP). – The “anti-lie” department of Adolf Hitler’s National Socualist party branded as false tonight a report from Stockholm that Ivar Kreuger had donated $24,000 to the German Fascist cause. “Neither Hitler nor any member of the party ever took a penny from the match king or his representatives,” the statement said. “The alleged disclosures are stinking lies. Various local comments hinting at a similar gift from the oil king, Deterding (Sir Henri Deterding, head of the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company), are a shameless swindle.” 18 April 1932
Daily Mirror: OIL KING BLAMES SOVIET FOR SHARE SLUMP: 22 April 1932 Page 3
Russian Bid to Defeat Royal Dutch Group Causes Flood of Selling
Sir Henri Deterding, head of the Royal Dutch group, told the Daily Mirror last night that the slump was a cunning organised attempt by Soviet Russia to smash the company and capture the world oil markets.
The Royal Dutch Shell group, the shares of which have suffered so severely, in addition to general troubles of the industry, have had other difficulties to face.
Daily Express: NEW ATTACK ON SIR H. DETERDING: 16 April 1932
I had shown Sir Henri Deterding head of the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company, a translation of a vigorous attack on him published in Paris today in “Forces,” the financial newspaper…
Now “Forces,” reprinting the exclusive interview published last Monday in the “Daily Express,” accuses Sir Henri of being an enemy of France, of withholding vital statements of his companies investments and of secret dealings…
Hitler As Frankenstein: By Johannes Steel: Wishart & Co in 1933 – 185 pages
Johannes Steel (1908-1988) was the son of a German-Dutch landowner. When the Nazis took power in Germany he fled to the USA working as a journalist for the New York Post. Because of his prescience, which included predicting World War 2, he became widely followed, with a popular radio commentary in the U.S. during the war. (Information from Wikipedia)
Extracts from his book, Hitler As Frankenstein
From page 22
Finance is Adolf Hitler’s personal prerogative. Funds are centralised under his direction and he is virtually the only person who can authorise disbursements. It is no concern of the mass of the brown shirts, in the view of their leader, to know where the money comes from or how it is spent.
From pages 88 & 89
Dr. George Bell was present at several of these conferences as a delegate of Hitler and Deterding jointly. For Dr. Rosenberg, who at that time had been just two years naturalised in Germany, had become Hitler’s expert in foreign affairs, and he had advised Deterding, through the medium of Dr. George Bell, who brought about the contact, as to the attitude the Hitlerites would take in regard to the question of the Polish Corridor and the Soviet Ukraine, where there are rich supplies of oil. Rosenberg suggested to Deterding, through Bell, that at an appropriate moment unrest should be fostered in the Ukraine, and an attempt be made with the aid of Germany to wrest the Soviet Ukraine away from the Soviet Union and give it back to Poland, to whom it had belonged at the time of the ancient Polish kingdom. Germany in return should receive the Corridor back, so satisfying the Hitlerites’ nationalistic ambitions, and Sir Henri Deterding should be rewarded with mineral concessions for his efforts to persuade responsible British quarters to give tacit support to such an undertaking.
Anyway, from the day of the Ukrainian Conference, Deterding has been supporting Hitler with considerable sums of money (which found their way into the Hitler exchequer through Dr. Bell), hoping that in case the Hitlerites should come into power, they would pursue at any rate an anti-Soviet policy.
GERMANY PUTS THE CLOCK BACK: BY Edgar Ansel Mowrer: First published1933 By Penguin Books Limited
Extract from page 114
What foreign financier or Republican industrialist outside Germany would not have been proud to see his name on the list with such social stars as these? Rumour in Germany had it that Henry Ford befriended the party, perhaps out of admiration for its vigorous opposition to the Jews and its cavalier attitude to history. An American banker informed me that the late Ivar Kreuger told him before leaving New York on his last voyage that his (Kreuger’s) business interests in Germany would profit greatly by Hitler’s election to the German presidency. Sir Henry Deterding was accused by unfriendly Germans of having put up a considerable sum for the 1932 presidential campaign in the hope (or on the promise?) of being granted an oil monopoly in the ‘Third Empire.
The Border Cities Star: Soviet Paper In Bid for U.S. Trade: 3 April 1933 ( Pravda, commenting on raids against Soviet-owned oil stations in Germany, accused Sir Henri Deterding, head of Royal Dutch Shell, on inspiring them, remarking, “Deterding orders-Hitler acts.” “The German counter-revolution,” the newspaper said “is like a street-walker offering herself to an anti-Soviet group.” It charged Deterding helped finance the Hitlerites, who are now “the obedient agents of their benefactors.”)
Time.com: “Co-ordination”: 17 April 1933 (While still in Nazi good graces he went to London” called according to rumor by Sir Henri Deterding who was currying favor with Adolf Hitler in the hope of winning oil contracts for Royal Dutch-Shell.)
New York Times: HITLER ENVOY TALKS WITH BRITISH OFFICIAL: Rosenberg Sees Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs – Stays at Deterding Home: During the week-end Germany’s special envoy stayed at Buckhurst Park with Sir Henri W. A. Deterding, head of the Royal Dutch Company. With Dr. Rosenberg’s long-standing interest in Russia, it is assumed they discussed the Soviet oil monopoly. Sir Henry is bitterly hostile to the Soviet Government, owing to the confiscation of the Baku oil fields, which his companies owned. :9 May 1933
New York Times: J.P. Morgan Denies Giving Any Sums to Nazis; Accused With Others in Book by a German: 26 August 1933
Extracts
The book “Hitler as Frankenstein,” recently published by Wisbart & Co., and written by Johannes Steel, a former member of the nazi movement, although apparently not in the uniformed branch, contains some extraordinary facts about nazi financing – if facts they are. If they are not, they ought to be proven untrue by those against whom the charges are made.
Great Britain is listed in the book as one of the most productive fields for the hitlerites’ money-collecting activities. The main contributor appears to have been Sir Henri Deterding, the untiring advocate and organizer of foreign action against Soviet Russia. The nazi emissary Alfred Rosenberg persuaded him that the nazis would help him to important concessions in Ukraine.
New York Times: BRITISH WILL BAR CREDITS TO REICH: 29 July 1934
The Second World War: By Johannes Steel: Published by Coviel-Friede, 1934 – 204 pages
EXTRACT FROM PAGE 99
…had been advocating foreign action against the U.S.S.R., saw great possibilities in this plan and from that day on Deterding supplied the Nazis with money. This money was transmitted by Dr. Bell, who was murdered by Storm Troopers in March 1933, when he tried to sever his connection with the Nazis. In order to explain the necessity for this murder, Alfred Rosenberg, then official plenipotentiary of Hitler, arrived in London on May 5, 1933.
New York Times: “REICH OIL MONOPOLY SOUGHT BY DETERDING”: 26 October 1934 (“LONDON, Oct. 25.-It is reported confidentially from Berlin that the object of Sir Henry Deterding’s recent visit to Chancellor Hitler at Berchtesgaden, where he stayed for four days, was to discuss the conditions for granting a monopoly to the Royal Dutch and Shell Companies of petrol distribution in Germany for a long period of years.)
The Montreal Gazette: Deterding is seeking Reich Oil Monopoly: 26 October 1934 (“Special Cable to The New York Times and Montreal Gazette”)
New York Times: PARIS PUSHES PLAN FOR STABLE EUROPE: However, Russia learned about this several months ago. She got wind of it not only through the public speech in London by Dr. Alfred Hugenberg, which afterward was repudiated, but also in the conversation that Alfred Rosenberg, Chancellor Hitler’s mouthpeice, had with Sir Henry Deterding, the head of the Royal Dutch Oil interests. 4 November 1934
The Daily Gleaner: The Second World War by Johannes Steel: Thursday 8 November 1934
Extracts from the above article…
Nazi foreign policy as a whole is based upon the plans of Alfred Rosenberg now the head of the Foreign Office of the National Socialist Party.
As far back as 1926, Rosenberg through his secretary, Dr George Bell, a Scotchman naturalised in Germany, established contact with Sir Henri Deterding, the British oil magnate. He informed Sir Henri of the foreign political programme which the National Socialists intended to pursue when they achieved power.
Sir Henri, as well as the directors of the Lena Goldfield, who for a long time had been advocating foreign action against the U.S.S.R., saw great possibility in this plan, and from that day on Deterding supplied the Nazis with money.
World Diary by Quincy Howe (pdf) (alternate online access): First edition published in 1934 by Robert M McBride and Company in USA: 424 pages
Extracts from pages 57, 58 & 59
While British industrialists were fighting against the same group of German industrialists whom Thyssen also opposed, the foremost British oil magnate gave funds to Hitler. His eyes, however, were on Russia rather than Europe. Sir Henri Deterding, director general of the Royal Dutch-Shell Oil Company, had married a White Russian wife and had lost valuable oil properties in Russia at the hands of the Bolsheviks. According to Antoine Zischka, author of The Secret War for Oil, a book that carries the endorsement of Francis Delaisi, Deterding maintained a special agent in Hitler’s camp-Dr. George Bell, a naturalized German of Scotch birth. “Through the hands of Bell,” wrote Zischka, “enormous sums of money flowed from Deterding and others as gifts to the National Socialist Party.” M. Zischka talked to Dr. Bell in Berlin in 1932 after Deterding had withdrawn his support because he had become “a little worried about Hitler’s Socialist tendencies.” Up to that time, however, Deterding gave money to the Hitlerites, all that his agent Bell asked for.”
What did the Nazis have to offer Deterding? Hitler’s autobiography contains a passage that advocates attacking the Soviet Union, prying the Ukraine loose from Communist rule, and setting it up as a republic, financed and exploited by Germany. Alfred Rosenberg, Hitler’s chief adviser on foreign policy, had worked out the same scheme in greater detail in the plan that bears his name, and Deterding’ s persistent hostility to Russia made the Nazis his natural allies.
From page 333
Sir Henri Deterding, chairman of the board of the Royal Dutch-Shell Oil Company, lunched at the White House together with James A. Moffett, Federal Housing Administrator and former vice president of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. Afterward, Deterding and Roosevelt engaged in a long private conversation.
Page 334
The fact that Deterding had contributed to Hitler’s campaign funds accounted for his high opinion of Fascism as an aid to the industrialist And his approval of Roosevelt’s attacks on the money changers provided still further evidence that the New Deal merely marked the rise of the industrial magnate and the fall of the financial magnate.
Nazism: An Assault on Civilization. Multiple authors (18): Published by Harrison Smith and Robert Haas. New York. Publication Year: 1934
Extract from page 223
Then there is the League for Ukrainian Independence, of which Hetman Skoropadski, the successor of Simon Petlura, is the chief, Alfred Rosenberg, Hitler’s chief of intrigue the patron, and Messrs. Coty, Deterding and Rothermere the financiers.
From page 224
In his opening speech at the Sèvres Russian Orphanage Sir Henry Deterding told the boys: “A new leader has come in Europe. . . . The day is not far distant when you will be marching home to Kieff and Moscow and Petrograd. . . . The rule of the Bolshevik bandits is drawing to a close.”
Meriden Record: Europe’s Oil Napoleon Seen Winner Over U.S. Rivals For World Trade As Ethiopian Concession Fades: 13 September 1935
Sir Henry Deterding “strong man of the billion dollar Royal Dutch Shell corporation…”
EXTRACT
Enjoys Nazi Monopoly
Thus, when his American oil rivals invaded Europe, and brought much of their supplies from Soviet Russia, Sir Henri opened up a broadside denouncing the U.S. interests for buying “immoral” products. Critics point out that the huge importations of Soviet oil and byproducts by Germany before Hitler’s rise to power have been curtailed and that Sir Henri now enjoys a monopoly in the Nazi state.
It explains why Royal Dutch Shell shares are comparatively stable after several startling slumps in the past, London financial figures declare. Though it has been revealed that many of the sober Dutch investors who own almost half of Royal Dutch Shell shares would be far happier if Sir Henri meddled less in international affairs and more with looking after the oil domain that radiates from the modest headquarters situated at The Hague, Holland’s capital.
THE LETHBRIDGE HERALD: SATURDAY, 16 May, 1936 Page 4
Lady Deterding, wife of Sir Henri Deterding was granted a divorce at The Hague, Netherlands, on grounds of misconduct. The Court will decide custody of the children June 16. Alimony had been arranged privately. Sir Henri Deterding, K.B.E. was the principle founder of the Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., which operated oil wells in the Dutch East Indies. It merged later with the British Shell Oil Co., to form the Royal Dutch-Shell Co.
Daily Express: Sir Henri Deterding, Oil King, To Resign: Front Page: 26 October 1936
Sir Henri, himself a mystery man, has chosen another mystery man to succeed him…
Napoleonic Audacity
He became Director-General of the Royal Dutch company…
Sir Henri, who retains his seat on the board, is 70, Dutch born and a naturalised Englishman.
The Scotsman: £1,100,000 Gift to Germany FOR FOOD PURCHASE: 28 December 1936 (Contains confirmation of the report of the gift)
The Nation: Dutch State and literary newspaper: Sir Henri Deterding and the Dutch agriculture: Purchase for Germany: 28 December 1936
The Manchester Guardian: £1,000,000 TO BUT FOOD: Helping Germany: SIR H. DETERDING PROVIDES MONEY: Tuesday 29 December 1936
Extract
£1,000.000 TO BUY FOOD
Helping Germany
SIR H. DETERDING PROVIDES MONEY
The report is published in the official Nazi newspaper “Angriff,” under the headline “Deterding Plans Gigantic Gift of Foodstuff for the “Winter Help.”
The Times: Dutch Shell for Germany: Surplus Farm Produce: Sir Henri Deterding’s Scheme: 30 December 1936
DUTCH SHELL HEAD TO BUY DUTCH FARM PRODUCTS FOR GERMANY
The rise of a new agrarian party in the Netherlands, dominated by Sir Henri Deterding, may result from the oil magnate’s large-scale purchases of Dutch farm products for Germany, officials here said today.
Another result may be preferential treatment for Sir Henri’s oil interests in a grateful Germany, these authorities indicated.
Sir Henri, chairman of the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company, a Hollander recently married to a German woman, yesterday announced he was making available 10,000,000 guilders (about $5,400,000) to buy products of Dutch farms – which have had a hard time finding markets- for shipment to Germany, where shortage of foodstuffs is a serious problem.
The Argus (Melbourne) Wednesday 30 December 1936 Page 1
With the object of assisting Dutch farmers, Sir Henri Deterding has given £1,000,000 for the purchase of farm products for export to Germany.
The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA) Wednesday 30 December 1936 Page 11 Complete Article
UNEXPECTED AID FOR GERMANY
£1,000.000 Purchase Of Dutch Produce THE HAGUE. December 28.
With a view to assisting Dutch farmers, Sir Henri Deterding, Director-General of the Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., has given £1,000.000 to purchase produce for export to Germany. The gift is said not to be concerned with politics. Sir Henri Deterding married a German, Fraulien Knaack, in June last year, and at present lives outside Berlin. His object is, as a Dutchman, to help both countries. He proposes to buy up vegetables and meat, unsaleable owing to over-production. The Dutch Government has agreed to issue special export licences.
The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA Thursday 31 December 1936 Page 17: Complete Article
DUTCHMAN’S GIFT TO GERMANY
Communism And Trade Barriers Aimed At
Australian Associated Pres.
THE HAGUE, December 29.
Indicating that his gift of £1,000,000 to purchase produce for export to Germany was aimed to circumvent economic restrictions and communisism.
Henri Deterding, Director-General o! the Royal Dutch Petroleum Co, said today:—”The main object of the Communists is to prevent co-operation between nations. They therefore started to create trouble in Spain six years ago, and the result is now daily visible.” Britain, he said, could be thanked for her policy of non-intervention which had prevented greater trouble among other Powers whose further co-operation would be the quickest remedy against infectious Communism. Reviewing the economic conditions obtaining in Holland, Sir Henri Deter ding said that the only solution was the diversion of surplus products to a country where they were wanted. Trade restrictions between Germany and Holland could then be safely cancelled. Criticising the present go:d policy Sir Henri Deterding declared that not gold but products of ]abor would have to serve as the means of exchange. He asked for financial and other support for his scheme under the motto, “Western Co-operation.” Meanwhile 30.000 pigs and 1,000 tons of bacon have already been bought with his gift, and a new industry has been founded at Haarlem. It is expected that Sir Henri Deterding’s scheme will slightly increase the prices of dairy produce in the United Kingdom, of which Holland is a substantial supplier. Australia will undoubtedly benefit to some extent, but the increase in British purchases from individual nations is likely to be small. Australian circles hope that a considerable part of the gift will be devoted to buying Dutch eggs, which strongly compete with Australian eggs. This would be marked assistance and would go far to ensure a successful Australian export season.
Version also published same day in The Sydney Morning Herald on page 10
The Aryan path, Volume 7, Issue 6: Indian Instituteof World Culture: Theosophy Co (India) Ltd 1936
Extract from page 262
Deterding, Director General of Royal Dutch Shell, gave funds to the Hitler movement and even French munictions makers contributed to Hitler’s war chest.
Time.com: GERMANY: Petticoat Philanthropy? Monday, Jan 11, 1937: Sir Henri, who was knighted by King George V in 1920, has for many years had his chief residence in London’s swank Mayfair, but last week he was sitting in his new house near the German capital and showed signs of developing into a good Berliner. His big Germanic gesture as 1937 opened was to place 10,000,000 Dutch guilders ($5.475,000) at the disposal of Dutch farmers so that they might export their superfluous green stuffs, fruit and cattle to Germany without loss to themselves and with cost to food-starved Nazis much reduced. This “non-political and exclusively humanitarian” gift received the special commendation of The Netherlands Government. Though Sir Henri last week retired from his Royal Dutch Director Generalship, it was being said in London financial circles last week that he is not the sort of man to be idle very long, that he is probably laying bait to hock concessions and contracts from Dictator Hitler as soon as Germany gets back her “stolen” colonies.
Entry in diary of Joseph Goebbels made on 12 January 1937: Elke Fröhlich: The Diaries of Joseph Goebbels, all fragments, Munich, New York, London, Paris 1987, Part 1, Volume 3, p. 8
“Hilgenfeld says WHW Deterding has donated 40 million.”
This was a reference to a 40 million Reichsmark donation made by Deterding to the German Winter Reiief food donation scheme known by the acronym “WHW”. Part of the funds received were diverted by Goebbels for other purposes e.g. to build a giant factory for Volkswagen.
Related extracts from translated Wikipedia article
In the prewar years, the largest item on the revenue side, however, were the “donations from companies and organizations…
The Winter’s Fund was therefore an indispensable financier of the Nazi People’s Welfare, which in turn ran a “Nazi racial-genetic biology people care.” Primarily the Nazi People’s Welfare aimed with its affiliated organizations aim to promote the “genetically healthy” and “racial quality” within the meaning of a “people care”…
Time Magazine article “THE NETHERLANDS: Serene & Royal” published 18 January 1937. (Extract: Prince Bernhard zu Lippe-Biesterfeld, at the time his engagement to Crown Princess Juliana was announced (TIME, Sept. 14), was a minor salaried employe of the great German chemical trust I. G. Farben-industrie Aktiengesellschaft, and a Nazi Storm Trooper. As the future Prince Consort of The Netherlands he became a naturalized Dutch subject and swore allegiance to his future mother-in-law Queen Wilhelmina (TIME, Jan. 4). This made no difference to Nazi Party fanatics who insist, “Once a German always a German!” Last week rampant Nazis were whooping against the ex-German and ex-Nazi bridegroom in almost every German newspaper.)
The Advertiser (Adelaide), Saturday 23 January 1937 page 23
Extract fro page 23
Awaiting Goering’s Return
The Berlin correspondent of “The Times” adds:—”Germany at last seems to realise that certain Nazi trends In respect of Spain and elsewhere can no longer be hidden in a mist of words. This does not mean that she will not pursue the trends to the logical end, but it does strengthen the arguments of those advising Hitler that present German policy in Spain is not worth the risks. Hitler himself may be more cautious, but much depends on the mood in which the Air Minister (General Goering) returns from Italy.” Reports from other sources suggest that while Germany would undoubtedly welcome tentative conversations at present regarding possible economic readjustments, she will not allow any interference with her military Four-Year plan. She may even for that reason refuse Sir Henri Deterding’s offer to buy £1,000.000 worth of foodstuffs from Holland for Germany.
New York Times: Powerful Henri Deterding, Who Rivals Standard Oil: 12 June 1938 (A Left-Wing Historian Surveys the Life and Activities of The Petroleum Baron THE MOST POWERFUL MAN IN THE WORLD: The Life of Sir Henri Deterding.)
THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL: Sir Henri Deterding Is the Arch-Villain in This Biography: SUNDAY 12 June 1938 Page 3
EXTRACT
THE MOST POWERFUL MAN IN THE WORLD. By Glyn Roberts.
Two years ago Sir Henri Deterding, the Anglo-Dutch oil king and head of the Royal Dutch-Shell Group, retired ad director general of the Royal Dutch unit, at the age of 70, though he remained on the board of directors. In his semiretirement, Sir Henri will feel flattered that his dear enemies, the leftists, still regard him as “the most powerful man in the world,” and they charge him with financing Hitler, admiring Mussolini and generally propping up “decadent capitalism: all over the world.
Sir Henri is not merely a fascist, he is the paymaster and wet nurse of a dictatorship.
SOURCE ARTICLE
EXTRACTS
The author believes that the enormous financial and political power wielded by a really big-shot capitalist like Deterding is a very dangerous influence in world affairs – and particularly when such power is used, as Deterding, according to the author, used it in the post-war years to organize the forces of fascism in Europe, to wage an unremitting propaganda campaign against Soviet Russia and to subsidize the nazi movement in Germany. Besides subsidizing the nazis in the hope that Hitler will launch a crusade against Soviet Russia, Deterding, says the author, also admired Mussolini, sides with Franco, has his doubts about democracy, believes that youth should be “disciplined” and all “idlers” shot.
Under Deterding, Royal Dutch Shell immediately launched bitter price wars to get into Standard Oil’s big markets.
As a businessman, his life has been an astonishing success, and his achievements in building up gigantic financial structures have been prodigious. The author readily admits all this, but grows alarmed because Deterding is on the fascist side – as if such a man could be on any other side! – and concludes his book by saying: “And we have seen the world which he, in many ways the most powerful man in it, has produced. Can we afford to leave our world in such hands any longer?”
Time Magazine: Ruddy Old Gent: THE MOST POWERFUL MAN IN THE WORLD: THE LIFE OF SIR HENRI DETERDING—Glyn Roberts—Covici-Friede ($3): 27 June 1938 (“Author Roberts thinks his backing of Hitler and his admiration for Mussolini are based on his hatred of Communism, which was born of frustration when he lost the oil of the Caucasus. And his second wife was a White Russian, his third a German.”)
New York Times: HENRI DETERDING DIES IN ST. MORITZ: 5 February 1939
EXTRACTS
Sir Henri Wilhelm August Deterding was an outstanding figure in world financial affairs because of his role as guiding genius of the great Royal Dutch Petroleum Company, of which he remained a director after retiring from the post of director-general.
He was known as a bitter foe of Soviet Russia and was named at a Moscow trial as having aided in a plot against the Soviet government.
Daily Mirror: 9s.-a-Week to Millions: 6 February 1939 Page 7
Oil King Sir Henri Deterding, seventy two, who died at St. Moritz, Switzerland, began as a nine-shillings-a-week bank clerk and rose to riches so great that eventually he matched dollar for dollar with Rockefeller.
Sir Henri was a Dutchman. He was knighted by the British Government “for services rendered.”
Hitler is said to have received his financial support. He hated the Soviet Government, admired Mussolini and aided France.
He was thrice married. His third bride was thirty-one years his junior.
Daily Express: Deterding millions in Germany: 6 February 1939. Front page.
The Times: Sir Henri Deterding Obituary: 6 February 1939
The Montreal Gazette: SIR H. DETERDING, 72 DIES IN SWISS HOME: Monday 6 February 1939 Page 14
EXTRACTS
Netherlands – born Magnate Built Up Royal Dutch Petroleum Company
Was Ardent Hitler Supporter and Foe of Soviet
Sir Henri, who possesses a personal fortune estimated at between $150,000,000 and $200,000,000, retired from the direction of the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company.
He became an ardent Nazi after Adolf Hitler attained power in Germany.
A practical token of his admiration for the anti-Communist regime of Hitler was given in 1937. He gave $5,000,000 with which to purchase Holland’s surplus food products. He stipulated that the proceeds should go to Germany’s “Winter Help Fund.”
SOURCE
THE OSHKOSH NORTHWESTERN: Rockefeller of Europe, Sir Henry Deterding, Dies: MONDAY FEBRUARY 6, 1939 Page 7
EXTRACTS
Son of Sea Captain Rises in Meteoric Career in Fashion Comparable to Horatio Alger Tales – Strong Pro-Nazi and Bitter Russia Opponent Carves Way to Success.
He became an ardent nazi after Adolf Hitler attained power in Germany.
Deterding immediately saw the possibilities and set out to tie Royal Dutch and Shell together, the better to compete with Standard Oil.
A practical token of his admiration for the anticommunist regime of Hitler was given in 1937. He gave $5,000,000 with which to purchase Holland’s surplus food products. He stipulated that the proceeds should go to Germany’s “Winter Help Fund.”
EXTRACTS
FEW careers in modern times have been more strange and eventual that that of Sir Henri Deterding.
An inveterate enemy of Soviet rule in Russia because of confiscation of the rich Caucasus oil fields, he later swung over to the support of the Hitler movement in Germany and helped to finance it.
SOURCE ARTICLE
Daily Express: Oil King will be buried in Germany: 7 February 1939
Oil king will be buried in Germany
Daily Express Correspondent
GENEVA. Monday.- The two sons of Sit Henri Deterding, the oil magnate, who died on Saturday, were expected to fly to St. Moritz yesterday, but arrived tonight by train with other relatives.
After meeting Lady Deterding, they decided that their father should be buried on his estate at Dobbin, Mecklenburg, North Germany. The family will leave tomorrow morning.
Divorced, went to live in Germany
Daily Express Staff Reporter
SIR HENRI DETERDING, the oil king, once estimated to have a personal fortune of £25,000,000, has left practically nothing in England.
Mein Kampf: By Adolf Hitler: Publisher: Reynal & Hitchcock. Place of Publication into English: New York. Publication Year: 1939.
Extract from publishers annotation on page 184.
Rosenberg and others have been convinced that British support could be gained for any serious attempt to undermine the Russian system and therewith stamp out the Third International as a fomenter of world revolution. Two reasons for this conviction are usually advanced. The first is the support received by White Russian revolutionists from English sources, which support has occasionally been deflected to Hitler. The second is the feud long since in progress between certain British financiers and the Soviet system. Sir Henry Deterding, the oil magnate, is the most manifest of the partisans of Germany;
The Times: SIR HENRI DETERDING’S FUNERAL: 11 February 1939 (Extract: Herr Hitler and Field-Marshal Goring, and the Dutch Government, sent wreaths to the funeral to-day of Sir Henri Deterding at his estate at Dobbin, Mecklenburg)
Daily Express: Hitler sends wreath: Front Page: 11 February 1939
Hitler sends wreath
Daily Express Staff Reporter
BERLIN, Friday.- Hitler has sent a wreath with a red, white and black ribbon worded “Adolf Hitler,” to the funeral today of Sir Henri Deterding, multi-millionaire Dutch oil king, who died last Saturday.
Time Magazine: Royal Dutch knight: 13 February 1939 (He backed Hitler in Germany, added a German residence to his English, Dutch and Swiss homes.)
THE ERA, BRADFORD, PA., TUESDAY, MARCH 7, 1939
Extract from above newspaper article…
The last honors bestowed upon the late Sir Henri Deterding by high German officials furnish eloquent confirmation of the story that he was one of the original financial backers of the Nazi movement. A Dutchman by birth and nationality, he attained the chairmanship of the Royal Dutch (Shell) Oil Co. and was knighted by the British king.
The Milwaukee Sentinel: 16 March 1939 Sir Henri Deterding gave 7 ½ million marks to Hitler in 1929
Daily Mirror: £250,000 FOR A BABY: 20 March 1939 Page 13
EXTRACT
EIGHT weeks after the death, of her seventy-year-old millionaire husband, Lady Charlotte Deterding, aged forty, has given birth to a daughter in a Berlin nursing home. Under the terms of her oil-magnate husband’s will the child will inherit about a quarter of a million pounds. Lady Charlotte is to name the baby after her husband, Sir Henri Wilhelm August. The baby will be christened Henrietta Wilhelmina Augustine. Sir Henri left more than £2,000,000, but the exact figure is not yet known. Lady Charlotte was Sir Henri’s third wife. They were married in 1936. She was formerly Fraulein Charlotte Knaack and acted for some time as his secretary.
1939 BOOK REVIEW BY JOHN B. CLARK OF MERCER UNIVERSITY: The Most Powerful Man in the World. BY GLYN ROBERTS.
(New York: Covici-Friede. 1938. Pp. 448. $3.00.)
EXTRACT
Deterding, though pretending to remain free from politics, has always been a political factor. His has been a crusade for capitalism. He has poured millions of dol- lars into the hands of Franco and the Fascist cause in Spain; has aided Hitler and the Nazi program in Germany; has admired Mussolini; and has given unstinted financial support to White Russia.
The Bee: Danville, Va., Tuesday, February 13 1940 Editorial Section Page 6
EXTRACT
Up to the end of December -Shell made deliveries of oil products to Germany In fulfillment of its regular contracts. This operation caused no stir among insiders who know the background of the story. It all dates back to the operations of Sir Henri Deterding the born Hollander with a French first name, knighted by His Britannic Majesty and buried on his beloved estate in Northern Germany. Deterding sewed up the German market by substantial cash payments to the rising Nationalist party before and after they came to power.
New York Times: Herman Rauschning’s Talks With Hitler: 18 February 1940 (“…Henri Deterding had told Hitler that Mexico had the laziest population in the world, and rich prizes for Germany to grasp.”)
The Glasgow Hearald: SON OF “NAZIS FRIEND” MISSING: LIEUTENANT DETERDING R.N.V.R.: 1 October 1940 (“…Sir Henri Deterding, the oil king and the man whom Hitler once described as the “great friend” of the Germans”)
DAILY EXPRESS: Naval officer son of oil king missing: 1 October 1940 Page 3
EXTRACT
Naval officer son of oil king missing
Lieutenant Henry Deterding, R.N.V.R. reported missing while serving with the Fleet Air Arm, yesterday, is the son of the late Sir Henri Deterding, the oil king and the man Hitler once described as “the great friend of the Germans.” Sir Henri died in Switzerland last year, and he was buried at his estate at Dobbin, Mecklenburg. A wreath was sent by Hitler.
War in the Twentieth Century: By Willard Waller:. Publisher: Dryden Press. Publication: New York: 1940.
Extract from page 350
The British oil magnate, the late Sir Henri Deterding, contributed to Hitler’s campaign funds because he saw in the Nazi movement an instrument to attack the Soviet Union and to regain his petroleum wells that the Russians had confiscated.
THE LETHBRIDGE HERALD: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1940 Page 5
LONDON- Lieut. Henri Deterding, son of the late oil king, Sir Henri Deterding, is a prisoner of war, the admiralty informed his wife at her Daventry home today. Lieut. Deterding previously was reported missing while on active service with the fleet air arm.
Collected Works of Michal Kalecki: Volume VI: Studies in Applied Economics By Michal Kalecki, Jerzy Osiatynski 1927-1941
EXTRACT FROM PAGE 170
One can definitely say that over the last five years Deterding was one of the main centres of counterrevolution and that he was one of tbe main financial backers of those who were supposed to carry out his incessant prediction of ‘a near end of the Soviets’.
FROM PAGE 173
3. Since when and to what extent Deterding has been financing those who planned armed intervention in the Soviet Union it is difficult to say. From time to time there surface only echoes of this work going on in secret. The trial of counterfeiters of ten-rouble notes in Berlin has revealed their unquestionable link with Deterding. At the same time, they were in close contact with General Hoffmann, one of the main advocates of a French-German military alliance whose objective would be a ‘penal expedition’ to the Soviet Union.
Subsequently, apparently not unfounded revelations have surfaced that Deterding had given large subsidies to Hitler who more than once has extended his offer in the role of the future conqueror of the Soviet Union in the services of international capitalism. An integral part of Hitler’s programme is forcing the separation from the USSR of the Ukraine and the Caucasus with its oilfields. Deterding’s subsidies for Hitler must have been large since, not content with these lofty dreams about the future triumphs of German arms, Deterding is said to have received much more concrete pledges from Hitler: the Nazi leader supposedly promised that after he comes to power, he will give Deterding the German oil monopoly in exchange for a payment of £1.5 million and a 20% share in the profits of the monopoly.
Los Angeles Times: Reporter Tells What He Saw: 25 October 1942
But, says Childs, Sir Henri Deterding of Royal Dutch Shell was not himself innocent of working with Hitler. Sir Henri backed him with a huge sum when the Nazi party was about to fall; and it was the oil man’s objective to get Hitler to attack Russia so that Sir Henri might take over the Baku oil fields.
Way for America by Alexander Laing Published by Duell, Sloan and Peace 1943 378 pages
EXTRACTS
FROM PAGE 241 & 242
Edgar Ansel Mowrer published in 1933 a book entitled Germany Puts the Clock Back. In it he said (p. 146), “Sir Henri Deterding was accused by unfriendly Germans of having put up a considerable sum for the 1932 presidential campaign in the bope (or on the promise?) of being granted an oil monopoly in the Third Empire.”
FROM PAGE 242
Deterding made it plain that he too considered Hitler’s dictatorship a stabilizing influence which could join in an orderly removal of the blunders of Versailles. If he was secretive about his early backing of the Nazis, later he came out as an eamest advocate of a scheme which greatly eased Hitler’s problems. Deterding put his own estate manager in charge of the Western Cooperation plan, under which benevolent Dutchmen bought up the Dutch food surplus and gave it to German organizations. Public acknowledgment of Deterding’s own first contribution to the scheme placed it at a sum which converts to more than five milion dollars. This was after Hitler and his henchmen had committed some of their most loathesome brutalities.
FROM PAGE 243
Sir Henri admired “the Higher Simpletons” -not a term of derision in his usage. His four favorite examples were Mussolini, Pope Pius XI, Thomas A. Edison, and John D. Rockefeller Jr. Of his talk with Mussolini be said, “We both agreed that the coping-stone of education is a sense of discipline and respect .for prestige.’
FROM PAGE 244
He is alleged to have spent millions helping Hitler to power. Whether he did or not, he expressed over and over again his admiration for Fascist methods and for a kind of international cooperation on his own terms.
PAGE 245
Sir Henri was an unashamed admirer of Fascism.
PAGE 247
Recalling these circumstances, ask yourself whether the opinion of the “most powerful man in the world” -the praiser of Mussolini and backer of Hitler-the announced hater of the Soviets–tbe autocrat of the second largest oil company in existence-had a decisive effect upon the course of the British government.
PAGES 249 & 250
In desperate recognition of their mistake in backing the more dangerous of two tyrants, most Britons began to oppose the Hitler regime as much as they dared. Sir Henri then indicated where his own sympathies still lay by moving his headquarten from the house near Windsor Castle to another which he had recently purchased between Berlin and Rostok. He was buried on his German estate. The bishop who delivered the funeral oration said (according to the New York Times) that the oil man had fought Bolshevism with the “boldness of a Napoleon and the will-power of a Cromwell.” Placing the last wreath, an official emissary added, “In the name of Adolf Hitler, I greet you, Henri Deterding, the great friend of the Germans.”
U.S. FIRMS FUELED GERMANY FOR WAR: The New York Times:19 October 1945
U.S. FIRMS FUELED GERMANY FOR WAR
I. G. Farben Report to Gestapo Bares Gains From Cartel Agreements on Oil
By Wireless to THE NEW YORK TIMES
HOECHST, Germany. Oct. 18-
Experience in the field of lubricants that was of the “utmost importance in warfare” and enabled Germany to be “completely prepared from a technical point of view” was the fruit of the cartel agreement between I. G. Farben industrie and various American industries, including Standard Oil of New Jersey, it was revealed today.
The information was contained in a report prepared for the Gestapo by the huge chemical combine soon after the secret police had started to question its directors.
The reason for the Gestapo’s suspicion was a report in The Petroleum Times of Dec. 25, 1943, by a Professor Haslam that stated that American industry had gained rather than lost as a result of its agreement with I. G. Farben. The report sought to refute this, mentioning as the results of this cooperation its ability to improve propellants with lead tetraethyl, the improvement of lubricants by the extraction of paraffines and asphalts, and information on agents for lowering solidifying points.
“It need not be pointed out that without lead tetraethyl modern warfare could not be conceived,” the report declared. “Since the beginning of the war we have been in a position to produce lead tetraethyl solely because, a short time before the outbreak of the war, the Americans had established plants for us ready for production and supplied us with all available experience. In this manner we did not need to perform the difficult work of development because we could start production right away on the basis of all the experience that the Americans had had for years.”
License Granted Despite Contract
A license on the process to I. G. Farben was granted “at the urgent request to Standard Oil to comply with our wish,” the report added. “We were not entitled by our contract to this request and later on we learned that the War Department in Washington had consented only after long deliberation.”
The improvement of lubricants by the extraction of paraffines and asphalts by means of propane, which was “of the utmost importance for modern warfare,” also resulted from “a contact with an American,” the report said. “We first received from America instructions for the industrial application of this process. Besides, we were informed of agents for lowering solidifying points. * * * In this case that favorable effect of the contract with America on Germany becomes evident if one considers that, while the product was developed in Germany, its most important use as an agent * * * was first recognized by the Americans.
“Finally It may be mentioned that knowledge of certain substances that prevent the oxidizing of portions of propellants and oils as well as the forming of mud and pitching of pistons is also of American origin,” the report continued.
Benefited by Our Experience
The Germans were advised “in a very liberal manner of the action of lubricants in automobile and air-plane motors” and were thus started on the development of synthetic lubricants for war use so that, at the outbreak of the war, “we were completely prepared from a technical point of view. In this way we obtained standards not only from our own experiences but also from those of General Motors and other big American motor-car manufacturers,” the report added.
Standard Oil and the Anglo-Netherland Royal Dutch Shell group also aided I. G. Farben in 1934 and 1935 to purchase large quantities of mineral-oil products, the report said. These products, including airplane benzine and lubricants, were bought for a market price of $20,000,000 and stored as reserve stocks.
“The Government inquired of I. G. Farben whether it would be in a position to buy these quantities for itself, but actually as trustee for the Government on account of its friendly relations with Standard Oil,” the report added. “The fact that we actually succeeded after the most difficult negotiations in buying these quantities demanded by the German Government from the, Standard Oil Company and the Royal Dutch Shell group and importing them into Germany was only because of the support of the Standard Oil Company.”
The New York Times
Published October 19, 1945
Copyright © The New York Times
The Plot against the Peace: A Warning to the Nation! By Michael Sayers and Albert E. Kahn. Publisher: Dial. New York. Publication Year: 1945.
Extract from page 100
*Other international financial backers of Nazism in its early years included Sir Henri Deterding, Anglo-Dutch chairman of the oil trust Royal Dutch Shell;
New York Times: Propaganda Success in Britain Vaunted by Rosenberg to Hitler: 10 January 1946 (“NUREMBERG, Germany, Jan. 9- One of Alfred Rosenberg’s reports to Adolf Hitler on his work in winning friends for nazism in foreign countries came to light today”: Later Extract: ‘Rosenburg also told Hitler that “a firmer bond” had also been established between Rosenberg’s British division and Sir Henri Deterding, the oil magnate, and his associates’)
German-French Unity, Basis for European Peace. By Hermann Lutz:. Publisher: H. Regnery Co: Chicago. Publication Year: 1957
Extracts
From page 113
It is noteworthy for our topic that William E. Dodd, American Ambassador to Germany from 1933 to 1937, learned soon after his arrival in Berlin that the French munitions makers had helped Hitler to power.
More illuminating than Dodd’s entry in his diary is an entry in a German diary, according to which General von Schleicher, while Chancellor, said early in January, 1933:
Hitler must be, arrested, his Party dissolved and outlawed, the whole scandal of the Nazis’ revenues brought to light, their connection with the armaments industry abroad, with Deterding, with Ivar Kreuger made public.
Pages 114 & 115
In the early thirties, Deterding regarded the struggle against the Communists as “the only task left for him to accomplish.” 24, He was, thus, a natural ally of Adolf Hitler.
In 1932, the Netherlands’ press reported that the Dutchborn Sir Henri had subsidized the NSDAP with 4,000,000 gulden, a statement which was allegedly never denied .
Immediately after the Reichstag fire, February 27, 1933, Bell brought Dr. Gerlich several important documents, one of which was a contract of the NSDAP, represented by Chief-of-Staff Roehm, with the English-Dutch petroleum King Deterding, concerning the financing of the SA in the years before the seizure of power, against the assurance to favor his oil interests after the seizure of power.
Page 116
Deterding had also been a good friend of Hermann Göring ever since the latter’s early days.
It is noteworthy that E. A. Mowrer heard “unfriendly Germans” accuse Deterding of having put up a considerable sum for the 1932 presidential campaign in the hope (“or on the promise?” Mowrer inserted) “of being granted an oil monopoly in the Third Empire.” When Sir Henri Deterding died in February, 1939, the German press was instructed not to mention that he had been a sincere friend of Nazi Germany.
Extracts from page 117
If Sir Henri was thought liberal enough to give the weak British Fascist leader two million marks, it may be safety concluded that his contributions over the years to the Hitler movement, infinitely more important to him, comprised a good many millions of marks. He may surely be considered the largest single foreign financial backer of the NSDAP.
One of these was Fritz Thyssen, who also mentioned to Mr. Emery Reves, the editor of his book I Paid Hitler ( New York, 1941), that Sir Henri Deterding was one of the foreigners who gave financial aid to Hitler.
Page 180
These principles decreed by the victors in 1945 and 1946, lead logically to the conclusion that, for instance, Viscount Rothemere as an influential moral supporter, and Sir Henri Deterding as an outstanding financial supporter of the Hitler movement were Offenders, ranking as Activists, and would have been liable to the severe sanctions under Article IX.
Annual, Volumes 19-20: Obshtestvena kulturno-prosvetna organizat͡sii͡a na evreite v Narodna republika Bŭlgarii͡a. T͡Sentralno rŭkovodstvo: Further info: Published 1984?: Journal/Magazine?
From page 165
… suggested Hitler as the new Chancellor. These circles possessed over 1 500 000 000 marks. At the Nurnberg trial, and later in a number of documents, it became obvious that the Nazis had got large sums of money from the big capital. A letter of the ex-Chancellor Bruning, published in 1947, read: “The subsidies for the Nazi party came from people who could hardly be expected to finance it …” “and further: “One of the major factors for Hitlers ascent … was the fact that from 1923 on he had been receiving large sums of money from abroad”. According to the American journalist and historian P. Lockner, Henry Deterding alone had subsidized Hitler with 10 000 000 marks. (Henry Deterding was an English Petroleum tycoon.)
The Mexican petroleum industry in the twentieth century: ByJonathan Charles Brown, Alan Knight: 352 pages: Publisher: University of Texas Press (1 Jun 1992) Language English: ISBN-10: 0292765339: ISBN-13: 978-0292765337
EXTRACT FROM PAGE 97
In July 1937, Ortiz Rubio (ex-President, fellow-Michoacano, ex-head of Petromex, and an old ally of Cardenas) sent the president a resume of a French publication that, Oniz Rubio alleged, “serves to confirm the various reports which I previously submitted to you “; the gist of the publication was that global political alignments-from the First World War to the rise of Nazism-were determined by the epic struggle of Deterding’s Royal-Dutch Shell and Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. Accordingly, Deterding-who was certainly sympathetic to fascism–channeled cash to Hitler (“thanks to English money Hitler conquered Germany”), in the hope that Hitler would revalidate Royal-Dutch’s lost Caucasian concessions:
Intercontinental press: 1985
EXTRACT FROM PAGE 325
One of Hitler’s earliest foreign financial backers was Sir Henri Deterding, head of the giant Royal Dutch/Shell oil company.
The Nuremberg trial: a history of Nazi Germany as revealed through the Testimony at Nuremberg: By Joe Julius Heydecker and Johannes Leeb: Published by Greenwood Press, 1975: ISBN 0837181313, 9780837181318: 398 pages
FOREWORD:
This book is an attempt to make the material of the Nuremberg Trial available to a wider public in a comprehensible form. The verbatim reports of the court proceedings alone run to fortytwo volumes; in addition, there are tens of thousands of written and printed pages of further documents, which at the time of the Trial were not yet written or were not yet available…
Extract from page 111
Hanussen’s presumable informant, the engineer Georg Bell, who had his information from the highest Nazi circles, escaped to Austria, but before leaving he gave some secret Nazi papers to a Munich newspaper editor, Fritz Michael Gerlich. But his office was likely to be searched, and so those papers had to disappear as quickly as possible. The last to see them was the former State President of Württemberg, Eugen Anton Bolz. Gerlich’s secretary, Miss Breit, clearly remembered the contents of the documents. They contained: detailed facts about the Reichstag fire; an agreement between the Nazi Party and the British oil millionaire, Deterding, concerning the secret backing of the SA in return for preferential treatment of his German interests; a list of witnesses to the fact that Hitler had murdered his niece Geli Raubal; plans for discrediting the Church; plans of SA Chief of Staff Roehm for getting rid of Hitler after the Nazis’ seizure of power. The men who had seen these dangerous documents had to die.
The Trial of the Germans: an account of the twenty-two defendants before the …: By Eugene Davidson: Pub. Date: October 1997: Publisher: University of Missouri Press: ISBN-13: 9780826211392: ISBN: 0826211399
Page 229
Some support of Hitler came from foreign countries. The Dutch oil magnate Henri Deterding, who had an estate in Mecklenburg, made sizable contributions.
Doing business with the Nazis: Britain’s economic and financial relations … By Neil Forbes: Pub. Date: December 2000: Publisher: Taylor & Francis, Inc.: Format: Hardcover , 280pp: ISBN-13: 9780714650821: ISBN: 071465082X
From page 149
Deterding was known to be an admirer of the National Socialists. Indeed, he retired from Shell in 1936 after the London directors became so alarmed at his activities that they approached the British government for help. With the coming of war the search began for guilty men; Sir Henri, who had just died, was named as one of the industrialists suspected of facilitating Hitler’s rise to power through financial support. The American consul in Hamburg reported in 1934 that Deterding, because of his fear of the Soviet Union, was favourably inclined toward the German government as a necessary safeguard against the spread of communistic ideas in western Europe. The consul added:
Sir Henri had contributed fairly large sums to the National Socialists treasury before the advent of the Party into power and since Herr Hitler’s assumption of the Chancellorship; he had offered to supply the Reich with all their oil requirements in return for payment in blocked reichsmarks …
Deterding supported the Nazis in the belief that the alternative would be the downfall of the Reich and a violent swing to the left.
Hidden Agenda: How the Duke of Windsor Betrayed the Allies: By Martin Allen: Publisher M. Evans and Co., 2002: Length 342 pages
Extract from pages 19 & 20
After Hitler and the Nazis took power in 1933, Rosenberg returned to Britain for a second visit, only this time he made a beeline for the palatial Ascot home of Sir Henry Deterding (which, by a curious coincidence, was only a mere three miles from Fort Belvedere). It was reported in the press that: In light of the present European situation, this purely private talk between Hitler’s Foreign Adviser (Rosenberg) and the dominant figure in European oil politics is of profound interest. It supports suggestions current in well-informed political circles that the big oil interests had been closely in touch with the Nazi Party in Germany.
It was also claimed that Rosenberg had previously met Deterding during his Winterbotham sponsored visit of 1931. If Deterding and Rosenberg had met in 1931, then Winterbotham and de Ropp must have known. This is significant because Deterding was one of the wealthiest men in the world, and it can hardly be a coincidence that after Rosenberg’s visit in the early 1930s, Deterding loaned Hitler almost £55,000,000.
(information was sourced from “Who Financed Hitler”.)
Fathoming the Holocaust: A Social Problems Approachby Ronald J. Berger Published in 2002
Extract
The party also solicited money from beyond German borders ° Hitler himself went on several fund-raising tours in Switzerland, Austria. and Czechoslovakia. Italian dictator Benito Mussolini had his government provide support. Through Rosenberg the party received money from wealthy British oilman Sir Henri Deterding.
The Hitler/Hess deception: British intelligence’s best-kept secret of the Second World War: Published by HarperCollins, 2003: 324 pages
Exract from pages 206 & 207
The subject of their telephone conversation is not known, but as head of the Nazi Party’s own foreign affairs office and a close confidant of Hitler’s, Rosenberg had been party to the peaceable attempts of 1940. During the early 1930s he had been invited to Britain where he had been introduced to many eminent Britons, including Lord Hailsham and Lord Lloyd, Montagu Norman, the Governor of the Bank of England, and Sir Henry Deterding, one of Britain’s wealthiest men and a prodigious businessman. After meeting the persuasive Rosenberg, Deterding would loan Hitler the enormous sum of £55 million.
The British press had reported:
In light of the present European situation, this purely private talk between Hitler’s Foreign Adviser (Rosenberg) and the dominant figure in European oil politics [Deterding] is of profound interest. It supports suggestions current in well-informed political circles that the big oil interests had been closely in touch with the Nazi Party in Germany.
(information was sourced from “Who Financed Hitler”.)
Energy for the 21st Century: A Comprehensive Guide to Conventional and Alternative Sources: By Roy L. Nersesian: 402 pages Publisher: M.E. Sharpe (15 Dec 2006) ISBN-I0: 0765613239 ISBN-13: 978-0765613233
Extracts from page 156
Hitler inadvertently took down three leading oil company executives. The first was Deterding, who was showing signs of mental imbalance (megalomania) as his management style became increasingly dictatorial.
Deterding’s position against communism hardened with his marriage to a White Russian and his third to a German. Deterding became a Nazi sympathiser because of their determination to rip communism out root and branch. Deterding would not be the only industrialist, statesman, monarchist, or church leader to support the Nazis for this reason. The board of directors removed Deterding from his position in 1936 by forcing him to retire, and he died six months before the war started. Shell’s penchant for collegiality and corroboration in the decision-making process might be partly in retain to Deterding’s last years of rule.
The Nazi Hydra in America: Suppressed History of a Century: Wall Street and the Rise of the Fourth Reich by GlenYeadon, with John Hawkins: 2008
Extract from pages 48 and 49
Other foreign sources of support for Hitler came from Sir Henri Deterding, the founder of Royal Dutch Petroleum. Deterding was strongly opposed to communism and, as early as 1921, was a Hitler admirer. Deterding was interested in discovering those forces that would remove once and for all the dangers of social or colonial revolutions. At the inquiry into the Reichstag fire, Johannes Steel, a former agent of the German Economic Intelligence Service, testified to Deterding’S financial support for the Nazis. The Dutch press reported that Deterding had given Hitler about 4 million guilders. By the 1930s, Deterding began secret negotiations with the German military to provide a year’s supply of oil on credit. In 1931, Deterding made a 20 million pound loan to Hitler, allegedly for a promise of a petroleum monopoly once the Nazis were in power. In May 1933, Alfred Rosenberg, Hitler’s representative, met with Deterding, confIrming the close link between big oil and the Nazis. In 1936, the board of directors forced Deterding to resign over his Nazi sympathies.
The Gentleman Talk of Peace: By William B Ziff: Published by Macmillan Company in 1944: Length 530 pages
Extract from page 337.
The German Fuehrer had risen to power with the indirect assistance of powerful reactionary British groups. Industrial giants such as Henri Deterding, head of the vast Shell Oil combine, and the immensely wealthy Guinness family, are said to have contributed heavily to the Nazi war chest.
Shadow Rulers: The Euro-American Trojan Horse By Ernest Millington: Publisher: iUniverse.com (11 Oct 2009) 708 pages: ISBN-10: 1440122962 ISBN-13: 978-1440122965
Page 401
Another Bank investor that came aboard the Hitler boat was Sir Henry Deterding. Head of Royal Dutch-Shell Oil, whose motives, according to Marrs, arose from the Fuhrer’s Mein Kampf disclosures of a plot to regain the oil field assets of Baku, Grozny and Maikop, through the subjugation of Russia.
Maxim Litvinoff: Arthur Upham Pope: Published by L B Fisher in 1943: 530 pages
Extract from page 173
…influential figure in the background was the rabidly reactionary Sir Henry Deterding, later a friend of Adolf Hider, who beyond doubt lavishingly financed a good deal of anti-Soviet propaganda.
Hitler, Volume 1 by Konrad Heiden: Publisher Eugen Prager, 1936 – Biography & Autobiography – 388 pages
Extract from page 224
They showed such exact knowledge that the agency of wire-pullers was immediately suspected, until in 1929 Hitler positively denied any financial connection with the East-Elbe Brown Coal Syndicate. On the other hand, financial connections with Sir Henry Deterding, head of the Koninklijke Shell-Oil concern, owner of Russian oil wells confiscated by the Bolsheviks, and the main instigator of the anti-Bolshevik campaign, were never denied either directly or indirectly.
The Weimar Republic. By Eberhard Kolb (Translated by P. S. Falla and R. J. Park): Published by Routledge in London. 2005.
Extract from page 115
Germans in foreign countries, and some magnates such as Ford, Deterding and Kreuger, provided the NSDAP with large sums, partly from ideological motives (anti-Semitism) and partly from political and economic calculation.
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF THE LUFTWAFFE: By Werner Baumbach first published in 1949. Translated into English in 1960.
The Gestapo: a history of horror By Jacques Delarue: Publisher Morrow, 1964 – History – 384 pages
Page 29
In fact the S.S. settled bloody accounts, liquidated their adversaries and the accomplices of the old days who had become dangerous. They murdered the engineer, George Bell, who had acted as intermediary in the financial transactions between Hitler and Sir Henri Deterding:
Toward an American Revolution: Exposing the Constitution and Other Illusions: By Jerry Fresia:. Published by South End Press. Boston. Publication Year: 1988.
Extract from page 129
Sir Henry Deterding, Chairman of Royal Dutch Shell, pointed out in 1932, the “Nazis are a great stabilizing force which would come in handy against Soviet Russia.”
Tycoons & Tyrant: By Louis P. Lochner. Published in 1954 by Henry Regnery Company in Chicago.
Extract from pages 110 and 111: It is generally believed that Sir Henry Deterding, the Dutch oil king , who owned an estate in Meckenburg and supported all anticommunist movements, helped Hitler in a big way. It is alleged he gave as much as ten million marks in the course of the years. I have been unable to find concrete evidence to prove this point.
Footnote on page 111: Walter Gorlitz and Herbert A. Quint in their Adolf Hitler-eine Biographie (Stuttgart, Steingruben Verlag, 1952), p. 279, merely refer to Deterding as one of a number of financial backers.
The Windsor Secret: By Sir Peter Allen: Published in 1983 by Stein and Day, New York. Originally published in the UK as “The Crown and the Swastika.”
Extract from page 42
There is strong evidence that the Nazis had also attracted a very substantial amount of international finance, especially from Britain and France. In mid-1933 Rosenberg made a second and last visit to Britain. It was on this occasion not an outstanding success, however, because by then the Nazis were firmly in power and Rosenberg’s innate pomposity and blundering got the better of him. He could not resist spouting tactless remarks about the Jews, which were then reported in the press. Despite this setback, his visit included one particularly noteworthy event: He spent an entire weekend at the palatial home at Ascot of Sir Henry Deterding. Several newspapers gave reliable accounts of the visit. Reynolds Illustrated News wrote: “In the light of the present European situation, this purely private talk between Hitler’s foreign adviser (Rosenberg) and the dominant figure in European oil politics is of profound interest. It supports the suggestions current in well-informed political circles that the big oil interests have been closely in touch with the Nazi Party in Germany.” Another source claimed they had met in 1931 as well-perhaps the reason for the drive into the countryside that had so pleased Rosenberg? The meeting between Rosenberg and Deterding was significant because Deterding was one of the wealthiest men in the world, and it is a fact that in the 1930s he loaned Hitler between 30 and 55 million pounds. His clandestine meetings with Rosenberg, though, gave little indication of the plots, intrigues, and secret transfers of money that were occurring between Hitler and Deterding. Deterding’s oil business had suffered severe financial losses as a result of the Soviet takeover of his interests in Russia, and he was, per se, another dedicated anti-Communist.
The Blood of His Servants: By Malcolm C. MacPherson: Published by The New York Times Book Co in 1984
On page 63, Deterding is described as “a maniacal genius.”
Extract from page 128
Ever since Sir Henry Deterding’s death in Berlin in 1939, the ties with Shell and its banker Mannheimer had dissolved. Even more, now that the war was going badly for the Nazis, Shell wanted to disassociate itself from Deterding’s fanatic devotion to Hitlerism. In his last years, Sir Henry had suffered from megalomania, at one point writing, “If I were the dictator of the world, I would shoot all idlers at sight.” He embarrassed Shell’s management and its stockholders.
Earth Could Be Fair: A Chronicle: By Pierre Van Paassen: Published byThe Dial Press. New York. Publication Year: 1946.
Extracts from pages 393 and 394
That fellow Hitler is the God-given leader Europe has needed for a long time. He is going to straighten things out a little. To begin with, he will get us the Baku oil fields back. That’s as certain as tomorrows sunrise. Deterding and Colijn are supporting him, and every decent businessman in the land.
The Seven Sisters: By Anthony Sampson: 1975
(He died six months before the outbreak of war: memorial services were held in all Shell offices in Germany and Hitler and Goering both sent wreaths to the funeral on his estate.)
The Prize: By Daniel Yergin: Published 1992
New York Times: Review/Television; The Epic Of Oil, Catalyst Of Conflict : 11 January 1993 (“It concentrates especially on the unlikely partnership, out of which was born Royal Dutch Shell, between Marcus Samuel, the Jew from the East End of London who became the Lord Mayor of London, and Henri Deterding, the dashing Dutch oil man who turned into a Nazi supporter in his old age.”)
A Century In Oil: By Stephen Howarth: 1997
Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order: By F. William Engdahl
“On January 30, 1933 Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of the Reich. The final London visit of Alfred Rosenberg was in May 1933,this time as one of the inner figures in the new Hitler government. He went directly to the country home in Buckhurst Park in Ascot of Sir Henri Deterding, the head of Royal Dutch Shell and arguably the world’s most influential businessman. According to English press accounts, the two had a warm and eventful discussion. Rosenberg had first met Deterding during his 1931 London trip. Royal Dutch Shell had intimate contact and support to the German NSDAP. While the details were kept secret, reliable British reports of the day were that Deterding had provided substantial financial support to the Hitler Project in its critical early phases.” (FROM PAGE 100)
GlobalResearch.ca: Rreview of “Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order”: 12 February 2008
“Later, the consequences from Baron Kurt von Schroeder’s January 4, 1932 meeting would have to be faced after he, Heinrich von Papen and Hitler secretly arranged a Nazi takeover. A year later, another meeting followed preparatory to acting. The Weimar government was weak, the scheme was to topple it, and it made Hitler Reichschancellor on January 30, 1933. On August 2, 1934 he seized absolute power as Fuhrer. British interests backed him, Royal Dutch Shell financed him, and the Bank of England “moved with indecent haste to reward” him with a vital line of credit. The rest, as they say, is history, and from it would emerge a new world order.”
The Guardian: Unloveable Shell, the Goddess of Oil: 15 November 1997 (“After it merged in 1907 with its rival Royal Dutch, the Royal Dutch Shell company was formed; its first chairman was the Dutchman Henri Deterding. By the 1930s, Deterding had become infatuated with Adolf Hitler, and began secret negotiations with the German military to provide a year’s supply of oil on credit. In 1936, he was forced to resign over his Nazi sympathies.”)
The Observer: Oil behemoth that must evolve: 20 December 1998 (Page 34) (Unfortunately, Deterding was also an authoritarian who was strongly attracted by the ideas of first Mussolini and then of Hitler’s Germany. The scandal forced Deterding to resign in 1936)
New York Daily News Gossip Column: BIDDER SWEET NIGHT FOR LEO: 29 July 1999: (Gargia went on to have another romance, with 80-year-old Lady Lydia Deterding, the oil heress who amused him with stories about the sexual inadequacies of her ex-lover Adolf Hitler)
Boston Globe: Cloaked Business: 19 November 2001
Newly declassified United States intelligence records reveal in unprecedented detail how US and Allied firms systematically used backwater countries to conduct backroom business with Axis enterprises. The files peel away a whole new layer of collaboration, describing scores of so-called “shadow agreements” in which corporations disguised their ties with the enemy through the cover of other companies in neutral countries, from Spain to Sweden to much of Latin America.
The report said the two men also ran a steamship company that chartered tankers for Royal Dutch Shell, a Nazi collaborator that used Hitler’s slave laborers.
Sir Henri Deterding and Royal Dutch-Shell: Changing Control of World Oil 1900-1940:1 April 2003
The Times: A very British kind of scandal: why Shell is no Enron: 23 April 2003
When the British Shell company merged with Royal Dutch in 1906 it was soon dominated by a single despot, Henri Deterding, a brilliant trader who became increasingly autocratic and ended up a fervent admirer of Hitler.
SKY NEWS: ADOLF HITLER AND ROYAL DUTCH SHELL: December 2008
SKY NEWS: ADOLF HITLER AND ROYAL DUTCH SHELL (Expanded): JAN 2009
USAToday: Royal Dutch Shell, Tom Cruise, YouTube and Hitler: (More than 60 years after the demise of Nazi Germany, people apparently remain fascinated by the evil deeds of Adolf Hitler and his equally evil henchmen. The new movie ‘Valkyrie‘ tells the story of the well-documented bomb plot against Hitler. )
Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com: Royal Dutch Shell and the Nazi (updated with report of 4 day meeting between Deterding and Hitler): 5 January 2009
Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler by Antony Cyril Sutton: 220 pages • Publisher: Clairview Books (5 Nov 2010) • Language English • ISBN-IO: 1905570279 • ISBN-13: 978-1905570270
Extracts from pages 101 and 102
One flow of foreign political funds not considered here is that reported from the European-based Royal Dutch Shell Standard Oil’s great competitor in the 205 and 3Os, and the giant brainchild of Anglo- Dutch businessman Sir Henri Deterding. It has been widely asserted that Henri Deterding personally financed Hitler. This argument is made, for instance, by biographer Glyn Roberts in The Most Powerful Man in the World.
Roberts notes that Deterding was impressed with Hitler as early as 1921:
… and the Dutch press reported that. through the agent Ceorg Bell, he (Deterding) had placed at Hitler’s disposal, while the party was “still in long clothes,” no less than four miillion guilders.
It was reported (by Roberts) that in 1931 Georg Bell, Deterding’s agent, attended meetings of Ukrainian Patriots in Paris “as joint delegate
of Hitler and Deterding.” Roberts also reports:
Deterding was accused, as Edgar Ansell Mower testifies in his Germany Puts the Clock Back, of putting up a large sum of money for the Nazis on the understanding that success would give him a more favored position in the German oil market. On other occasions. figures as high as £55; 000,000 were mentioned.”
Biographer Roberts really found Deterding’s strong anti-Bolshevism distasteful, and rather than present hard evidence of funding he is inclined to assume rather than prove that Deterding was pro-Hitler. But pro-Hitlerism is not a necessary consequence of anti-Bolshevism; in any event Roberts offers no proof of finance, and hard evidence of Deterding’s involvement was not found by this author.
Mowrer’ s book contains neither index nor footnotes as to the source of his information and Roberts has no specific evidence for his accusations. There is circumstantial evidence that Deterding was pro-Nazi. He later went to live in Hitler”s Germany and increased his share of the German petroleum market. So there may have been some contributions, but these have not been proven.
Fortune Magazine: 5 ways to keep your company alive: 7 March 2011
In the years before World War II, Shell was very much a one-man-band led by Sir Henri Deterding. Under Deterding’s firm control, the group prospered but also flirted with disaster as he saw Adolf Hitler as the man most likely to preserve Europe from Communism. Luckily for Shell, Deterding retired in 1936 before he could make any disastrous commitments. The company did not forget its narrow escape.
EMAIL CORRESPONDENCE ON THIS SUBJECT WITH ROYAL DUTCH SHELL IN MARCH 2011
Will Royal Dutch Shell carry out threat to block Internet publication of its connection with Hitler and the Nazis?
By John Donovan
I have printed below my recent email correspondence with Mr. Michiel Brandjes, the Company Secretary and General Counsel Corporate of Royal Dutch Shell Plc.
As can be seen, it relates to Royal Dutch Shell’s support for Hitler and the Nazis.
I have already published a related article: “Royal Dutch Shell and the Nazis: Shell threatens legal proceedings
This is obviously a highly sensitive subject for Shell.
The reply to my email concerning our intention to publish related information from “A History of Royal Dutch Shell”, authored by Shell’s paid historians, is the first time we have managed to elicit any comment from Shell on the subject.
Since Shell’s statement and associated threats are likely to be of most interest, I have printed it first, then again in appropriate order, within the entire correspondence.
The links immediately below are the pdf files which generated the threats from Royal Dutch Shell. Because they contain multiple pages, they take some time to load, so please be patient.
A History of Royal Dutch Shell: Pages from Volume 1
A History of Royal Dutch Shell: Pages from Volume 2
Despite the bluster, it is doubtful that Shell will take any action, because to do so would guarantee coverage of the subject by the mainstream media, a development Shell executives must dread.
The example (top right) from Volume 2 of “A History of Royal Dutch Shell” is the official announcement in May 1940 of the transfer of Royal Dutch’s legal seat to Curacao in the Netherlands Antilles located in the southern Caribbean Sea, off the Venezuelan coast. Royal Dutch Petroleum directors refused to locate the company seat in England. Perhaps they were not sure whose side they were on and were hedging bets about the outcome of the war? There was also antagonism between UK and Dutch directors in the Group, which seems to be a reoccurring theme.
EMAIL FROM MICHIEL BRANDJES, 3 MARCH 2011
From: [email protected]
Date: 3 March 2011 09:02:21 GMT
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: A HISTORY OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL
Dear Mr Donovan,
Thank you for your message. Except for this message the company does not wish to respond to you other than to convey that it strongly disagrees with your views and allegations, objects to your actions and reserves its legal rights, including with respect to copyrights.
On an exceptional basis we tested your views about history with the relevant historians. They convincingly refute with evidence what you claim in contradiction with A History of Royal Dutch Shell.
Best Regards,
Michiel Brandjes
Company Secretary and General Counsel Corporate
Royal Dutch Shell plc
Registered office: Shell Centre London SE1 7NA UK
Place of registration and number: England 4366849
Correspondence address: PO Box 162, 2501 AN The Hague,
The Netherlands
ENTIRE EMAIL CORRESPONDENCE IN DATE/TIME ORDER
JOHN DONOVAN EMAIL TO MR MICHIEL BRANDJES, WEDNESDAY 2 MARCH 2011
From: John Donovan [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: woensdag 2 maart 2011 13:43
To: Brandjes, Michiel CM RDS-LSC
Subject: A HISTORY OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL
Dear Mr. Brandjes
I have tried, without success, to send you two pdf files for your information. Both exceeded a size limit imposed by your server.
Each contains a selection of pages from “A History of Royal Dutch Shell”.
The first pdf relates to Volume One, 1890-1939, and contains the front and back cover, plus three preamble pages, including copyright and publishers details. In addition, it includes numbered pages 464 to 493 inclusive.
The second pdf relates to Volume 2, 1939-1973, and contains the front and back cover, two preamble pages covering publishers details and copyright information, plus the following numbered pages: 12, 22, 26, 29, 30, 31, 32, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 84 and 86.
Both include the following 2 page introduction, plus an article from the New York Times published on 26 October 1934 reporting on a 4 day summit meeting between Hitler and Sir Henri Deterding.
INTRODUCTION
Royal Dutch Shell and the Nazis
By John Donovan
In the “Fortune Global 500 Ranking by Revenue 2010”, Royal Dutch Shell Plc is ranked as the second largest company in the world, after Wal-Mart Stores.
Many people know something about the oil giants’ controversial track record in Nigeria. It includes decades long plunder and pollution, with involvement in espionage, corruption, torture, murder, and other human rights abuses.
Some people are aware of Shell’s unscrupulous dealings with despotic regimes in Iraq, Iran, and Libya. Shell deliberately disguised shipping movements of Iraqi and Iranian oil during UN sanctions.
Very few people have any inkling of Shell’s pivotal support for Hitler and the Nazi Party.
Basically, Shell saved the Nazi Party when it was in danger of financial collapse and continued, for over a decade, to pump funds into the Nazi project. As a consequence, Shell was arguably indirectly responsible for over 30 million deaths in World War 2.
I have already published a series of articles on this explosive subject, the most recent major article under the headline: “Royal Dutch Shell Nazi Secrets”
The Dutch oil baron Sir Henri Deterding drove Shell’s support for the Nazis. He was the dictatorial founder of Royal Dutch Shell publicly described as the “Napoleon of Petroleum” and “The Most Powerful Man in the World”. Sir Henri was infatuated with Hitler and the Nazis.
An official account of the history of the oil giant – “A History of Royal Dutch Shell” – authored by eminent historians associated with Utrecht University, provided invaluable information during my research. The historians were given unrestricted access to Royal Dutch Shell archives. The Research Institute for History and Culture supervised the project. The entire 4-volume history published in 1997 costs £140 (over $200).
I have created pdf files from relevant pages of Volumes 1 & 2 for publication on the Internet. Public interest in knowing the truth about such historically important matters in my view outweighs copyright issues. Instead of the information being buried in an expensive set of history books available mainly in a few reference libraries for research by academics, the information is now freely available on the World Wide Web.
The public and investors should be aware of Shell’s Nazi past. Some people, perhaps relatives of those poor souls who suffered horrific deaths in the Nazi gas chambers, may wish to boycott Shell on these grounds alone. Shell’s Nazi business partner, the infamous I.G. Farben, supplied the Zyklon-B gas used during the Holocaust to exterminate millions of people, including children.
Information in Shell’s own authorised history of the company confirms that Shell pumped funds into the Nazi in a variety of ways, was at times anti-Semitic, sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis and conspired directly with Hitler.
Readers can see for themselves from the pages below that Shell continued its partnership with the Nazis in the years after the retirement of Sir Henri Deterding as leader of the company. Sir Henri remained a director after his retirement from the top job and made huge food donations to Nazi Germany that were widely reported. This meant that Shell was aware of his activities and allowed him to remain as a director; no surprise bearing in mind that Shell also continued its partnership with the Nazis (even after the subsequent death of Sir Henri).
As a long-term campaigner against Shell management misdeeds, my objectivity and impartiality is open to question. This is why I created pdf’s containing relevant pages from “A History of Royal Dutch Shell”, so those interested can read Shell’s own account of relevant events.
Since the historians were paid by Shell, it follows that their objectivity and impartiality is also open to question. They also appear to have enjoyed some global jet setting funded by Shell.
The relevant historians – Joost Jonker and Jan Luiten van Zanden – downplayed the central issue of Shell funding the Nazis on the basis that Hitler would not even agree to meet with Sir Henri. My own research, including newspaper reports from the 1930’s unearthed in The New York Times archive, revealed that this could not have been further from the truth.
Agents engaged in sinister activities jointly for Hitler and Sir Henri after the two men had a private four-day summit meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat in Berchtesgaden. Both dictators had designs on the Russian oil fields.
What transpired all those years ago obviously has no reflection on current Shell employees, the vast majority of whom are decent hard working people.
The dreadful events do however stain forever the name of Royal Dutch Shell and the brand name by which the company is best known throughout the world: Shell.
John Donovan
March 2011
INTRODUCTION ENDS
You will see my stated contention that public interest overrides copyright issues.
As you will probably be aware, I published an article last week giving notice to Shell lawyers of my intention to publish this information on the Internet.
I have not received any response and this suggests that Shell has no objection to such publication.
Please let me know if this assumption is wrong.
Shell is, as always, welcome to correct any inaccurate information which is stated as fact in the introduction.
If you want any comment or response by Shell to be added, it will be included on an unedited basis.
If there is no response within the next 48 hours, I will take that as confirmation that Royal Dutch Shell plc has waived copyright in favour of the public interest and our right to criticise Shell using the Internet, as stated by your company in its submission to the World Intellectual Property Organisation in 2005. This was in regard to the proceedings by Shell in respect of the top level domain name RoyalDutchShellPlc.com and two other Shell related domain names.
Internet publication in controversial circumstances may promote renewed interest in “A History of Royal Dutch Shell” and generate sales.
If you need more time to consider the matter, that is not a problem. Just kindly let me know within the 48 hour period that you will be responding after due consideration.
Best Regards
John Donovan
EMAIL RESPONSE FROM MICHIEL BRANDJES, 3 MARCH 2011
From: [email protected]
Date: 3 March 2011 09:02:21 GMT
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: A HISTORY OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL
Dear Mr Donovan,
Thank you for your message. Except for this message the company does not wish to respond to you other than to convey that it strongly disagrees with your views and allegations, objects to your actions and reserves its legal rights, including with respect to copyrights.
On an exceptional basis we tested your views about history with the relevant historians. They convincingly refute with evidence what you claim in contradiction with A History of Royal Dutch Shell.
Best Regards,
Michiel Brandjes
Company Secretary and General Counsel Corporate
Royal Dutch Shell plc
Registered office: Shell Centre London SE1 7NA UK
Place of registration and number: England 4366849
Correspondence address: PO Box 162, 2501 AN The Hague,
The Netherlands
REPLY FROM JOHN DONOVAN
From: John Donovan <[email protected]>
Date: 3 March 2011 13:18:33 GMT
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: A HISTORY OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL
Dear Mr Brandjes
Thank you for your response.
For the record, we are not in contradiction with the stated facts based on information/evidence in Shell archives, but rather with the surprising opinions and conclusions aired by your paid historians in relation to that evidence.
Their defence of the numerous allegations of Shell/Deterding funding of Hitler and the Nazi Party was founded on the claim that all attempts by Deterding to meet with Hitler were rebuffed, with the conclusion being that Deterding could not have been held in high esteem by Hitler. I can only surmise that the historians were unaware that in fact Deterding had a summit meeting with Hitler at Berchtesgaden. Only an honoured personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat. In contrast, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s face-to-face meeting in September 1938 with Hitler at Berchtesgaden in an attempt to avoid war, lasted for just three hours. The absence of any reference to the Deterding/Hitler meeting in my view undermines the credibility of the relevant paid historians and their ill informed opinions on this historically important matter.
Further evidence of the high regard the Nazis had for Deterding was apparent at his Nazi funeral, which included a glowing personal tribute from Hitler in a wreath sent by Göring: ‘In the name and on the instructions of the Fuhrer, I greet thee, Heinrich Deterding, the great friend of the Germans.‘
I am sure that you will understand that having been bombarded with various threats by Shell and its lawyers for getting on to 20 years, such threats have lost their impact. Please also bear in mind the fact that we are in possession of a Shell internal communication indicating that Shell decided long ago that it would never take legal action against us. There was a fear expressed in one such communication about “internal laundry”. If you categorically state that Shell will take legal action if we proceed with our planned publication, then we would be more impressed and act accordingly.
As to the blanket condemnation of “our views about history”, I note that not a single example of any inaccurately stated fact has been provided.
Best Regards
John Donovan
CORRESPONDENCE ENDS
A History of Royal Dutch Shell: Pages from Volume 1
A History of Royal Dutch Shell: Pages from Volume 2
THIS SECTION ON SEPARATE WEB PAGE |
Shell must grapple with its own existential crisis: How should a company that generates most of its profits by serving the world’s enormous appetite for oil navigate a long-term future in which shifting political and economic tides threaten to make fossil fuels obsolete?
Even Forestry and Land Scotland officials warned this deal was greenwashing, and that is exactly what Shell is doing in adverts in petrol stations across the country.
By 
Extract from a This is Money/Daily Mail article by Rob Davies published 2 June 2014
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