Fritz Thyssen

Fritz Thyssen (November 9th 1873 - Buenos Aires, February 8th 1951) was a German industrialist, wire and heir to August Thyssen, which joined the Nazi party Adolf Hitler. At the time of the First World War, the Thyssen, specialized in the Steel, produced weapons and ammunition for the German army.

Biography

Member of the German national Popular party (DNVP), Fritz Thyssen started to support the new Nazi party publicly. As of 1923, it financed the Nazi S via the Bank voor Handel, undertaken family based with Scheepvaart in Rotterdam, which enabled them to build their HQ with Munich. This bank had then as a lawyer Allen Dulles, who worked for Sullivan & Cromwell (New York), and will become later director of the CIA - Allen Dulles represented also the baron Kurt von Schroeder, who worked for the Nazis. Johann Groening as Kurt von Schroeder - which treated with the democratic W. Averell Harriman and its little brother E. Roland Harriman, and W. Prescott Bush (grandfather of George W. Bush, the current president of the United States) - were both directors of a Aciérie of Thyssen. Von Schroeder will become later treasurer of another group of investment which financed NSDAP.

With the assistance of the bank of investment W.A. Harriman & Co, Fritz Thyssen founded the Union Banking Corporation (UBC), officially an only American investment by its official composition of shareholders (W.A. Harriman, with 3.991 shares; Cornelius Lievense, 4 shares; Harold D. Pennington, 1 share; Ray Morris; 1 share; H.J. Kouwenhoven, 1 share; Johan Groeninger, 1 share, and Prescott Bush, 1 share).

The bank of Thyssen (voor Handel) as well as the million dollars having forwarded by Bush-Harriman Union Banking Corporation (UBC) contributed to the rise of popularity of the Nazism in Germany, and largely helped with the installation of SA, the " sections of assaut" Nazi party.

The fusion of the empire of the steel-works of Thyssen with the Silesian Coal and Steel Company of Frederik Flick, which formed together the United Steel Works, allowed substantial profits having also fed the funds Nazis. This one caused the anger of the Polish government, which threatened more once to nationalize such a strategic company, fallen in German hands. This explains why the nominal property was transferred to Americans, while payments on private accounts belonging to high members of the administration Nazi, among which that of Hitler itself, continued until in 1944. These payments were always carried out by the UBC. In spite of the seizure of the UBC in 1942, these contributions of funds continued starting from the postal address of the public institution having seized it.

George Herbert Walker named Prescott Bush in order to supervise the news Thyssen/Flick United Steel Works. Walker, Bush and Harriman were owners of a third of Upper Silesian Coal and Steel Company de Flick, more big industry Polish, and called the news Holding, directed by John Foster Dulles, Consolidated Silesian Steel Corp. This one held a third of Upper Silesian Coal and Steel Company, the remaining two-thirds always belonging to Fredrick Flick. During the war, the latter depended, just like United Steel Works, of Forced labor carried out to Auschwitz.

With the assistance of other industrialists, Fritz Thyssen bought in 1930 the Braune Haus in Munich, and financed its restoration in order to make the new HQ of the NSDAP of it. They started also a campaign in order to encourage the industrialists to work with the NSDAP. Fritz Thyssen became officially member of the NSDAP on May 1st 1930. In favor of repression against the Trade unions and the left in general, it was opposed nevertheless to the Antisémitisme. Its adhesion with the Nazi party is probably explained by its standpoint revisionists towards the Traité of Versailles. In November 1932, it signs, with a score of other German business men, a petition addressed to the president Hindenburg, requiring the immediate nomination of Hitler to the chancellery.

Fritz Thyssen resigned of all its political offices after the Nuit of crystal of the November 9th 1938, and flees for Switzerland and then France. Hitler confiscated its goods then and ordered its arrest, carried out by the Régime of Vichy. Thyssen was then off-set with the concentration camp of Sachsenhausen, although some claim that it was not treated there like all " prisoner ordinaire". It would have also taken part in a secret meeting of industrialists and German bankers, held the August 10th 1944 with the hotel of the Red House in Strasbourg, in order to find a means of ensuring the financial future of the Nazis in spite of the defeat. The baron of the coal Emil Kirdorf, Georg von Schnizter of IG Farben, the tycoon of steel Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, like Fritz Thyssen and the banker Kurt von Schorder would have taken part in this meeting.

Thyssen officially “would then have been released” in 1945, then condemned as a former member of the party Nazi. It then lost approximately 15% of its goods, redistributed with war victims, before quickly finding its financial scale of pre-war period.

See too

Internal bonds

External bonds

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