Posted on 10/18/2003 10:17:21 AM PDT by rface
Reports of Bush’s involvement with the seized bank have been circulating on the Internet for years and have been reported by some mainstream media.
Trent Duffy, a spokesman for President Bush, declined to comment.
Bush documents show Hitler link
U.S. bank had ties to Nazi supporterWASHINGTON
(AP) - President George W. Bush’s grandfather was a director of a bank seized by the federal government because of its ties to a German industrialist who helped bankroll Adolf Hitler’s rise to power, government documents show.
Prescott Bush was one of seven directors of Union Banking Corp., a New York investment bank owned by a bank controlled by the Thyssen family, according to recently declassified National Archives documents reviewed by The Associated Press.
Fritz Thyssen was an early financial supporter of Hitler, whose Nazi party Thyssen believed was preferable to communism. The documents do not show any evidence Bush directly aided that effort. His position with Union Banking never was a political issue for Bush, who was elected to the Senate from Connecticut in 1952.
Reports of Bush’s involvement with the seized bank have been circulating on the Internet for years and have been reported by some mainstream media. The newly declassified documents provide additional details about the Union Banking-Thyssen connection.
Trent Duffy, a spokesman for President Bush, declined to comment.
Union Banking was owned by a Dutch bank, Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaardt N.V., which was "closely affiliated" with the German conglomerate United Steel Works, according to an Oct. 5, 1942, report from the federal Office of Alien Property Custodian. The Dutch bank and the steel firm were part of the business and financial empire of Thyssen and his brother, Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, the report said.
The 4,000 Union Banking shares owned by the Dutch bank were registered in the names of the seven U.S. directors, according a document signed by Homer Jones, chief of the division of investigation and research of the Office of Alien Property Custodian, a World War II-era agency that no longer exists.
Roland Harriman, the bank chairman and brother of former New York Gov. Averell Harriman, held 3,991 shares. Bush had one share.
Both Harrimans and Bush were partners in the New York investment firm of Brown Brothers, Harriman and Co., which handled the financial transactions of the bank as well as financial dealings with several other companies linked to Bank voor Handel that were confiscated by the U.S. government during World War II.
Union Banking was seized by the government in October 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act.
No charges were brought against Union Banking’s American directors. The federal government was too busy trying to fight the war, said Donald Goldstein, a professor of public and international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh.
Fritz Thyssen broke with the Nazis in 1938 over their persecution of Catholics and Jews and fled to Switzerland. He later was arrested and spent 1941 to 1945 in a Nazi prison.
OBTW, It looks like grandad financed what he thought was the lesser of two evils, to prevent the rise of the other.
You have the advantage of 20/20 hindsight...a Monday morning QB.
So the point of this article is to plant a seed in peoples minds even though Bush did nothing wrong.
Sigh. . .
Schwarzenegger now Bush ?
Jeeze, how long will it be before they find out my great great grandfather owned slaves?
I'm in deep trouble now .......sob .......cough ....... wheeze
I'm sure that AP will be discussing Joe Kennnedy, Dean's aristocratic forebears and abortion performance history, the Heinz millions and similar trash in a tabloid type manner tomorros...I'll just watch for it in the paper.
It's a dreadful team, Osama Dem Laden and his Presidential candidates. Sending in tapes and digging for sensationtional headline material.
The kid that put the box cutters on the planes was probably thinking about running or maybe wanted to ensure the safety of social security for generations to come.
From the article: ".........The documents do not show any evidence Bush directly aided that effort......."
Hmmmmmmmmmmm........
Maybe a better title would be Bush documents show tenuous Hitler link (?)
Or how about: Bush documents exonerate Bush family (?)
Or maybe: Bush documents fail to uphold slanderous lies (?)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.