by Edwin Black

March 12, 2009

Adolf Hitler was completely responsible for the Holocaust. But Hitler had help. When Nazis waged war against an imaginary generation-to-generation Jewish conspiracy… when Nazis created extermination plans to help ensure their master race would rule the world… when the German military smashed across Europe in Blitz trucks… when Mengele undertook heinous medical experiments on twins in Auschwitz… when the Reich identified Jews everywhere in Europe and then systematically pauperized and destroyed them… when all these terrible things were done, the shape and scope of the horror was pivotally determined by major American industrial giants.

Now the dots can be connected. They create an undeniable Nazi nexus between iconic American corporations and the Holocaust.

Henry Ford, acting through the Ford Motor Company, published the fake Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which quickly became the bible of German anti-Semites, the Nazi party, and greatly influenced Adolf Hitler. In Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote, “The whole existence of this people is based on a continuous lie [as] shown incomparably by the Protocols of the Elders of Zion…”

The Carnegie Institution propagated the American race “science” of eugenics which idealized a blond, blue-eyed superior race. Carnegie-funded scientists targeted 90 percent of humanity for elimination by researching methods that included identification, asset seizure, marriage prohibition or nullification, forced surgical sterilization, segregation, and gas chambers. The Carnegie Institution spent millions to propagate American eugenic theories in post-World War I Germany, financing race science programs in universities and institutions.

While in prison, Hitler closely studied American eugenics. He even wrote a fan letter to American eugenic leader Madison Grant, calling his writing “my bible.” Der Fuhrer exchanged the American term “Nordic” for the Nazi term “Aryan,” then medicalized his anti-Semitism and nationalism to conceptualize the blond, blue-eyed Master Race he deified in Mein Kampf.

The Rockefeller Foundation acted as a full partner with Carnegie in establishing eugenics in Germany. Millions of Depression-era dollars were transmitted by Rockefeller to Hitler’s most virulent anti-Semitic doctors. Rockefeller funded Hitler’s chief raceologist, Otmar Verschuer, and his experiments on twins. Verschuer had an assistant, Josef Mengele. By the time Rockefeller funding stopped, Mengele had transferred his monstrous twin “studies” to Auschwitz, sending precise clinical reports weekly to Verschuer.

General Motors president Alfred Sloan committed the Detroit company and its German division, Opel, to motorizing a substantially horse-drawn Germany, preparing it for war. Sloan and GM converted the Reich into a motorized powerhouse and knowingly prepared the Wehrmacht to wage war in Europe. GM built the Blitz truck for the Blitzkrieg and even moved spare parts to the Polish border days before the invasion to facilitate the Blitzkrieg. Using a charade of interlocking boards and executive committees, Sloan kept GM’s role secret as long as possible.

IBM, inventor of the Hollerith punch card, precursor to the modern computer, enjoyed a monopoly on information technology. Under its president, Thomas Watson, IBM reached out to Hitler, offering to organize and systemize any solution the Reich desired.

With IBM as a partner, the Hitler regime was able to automate and accelerate all six phases of the Holocaust: identification, exclusion, confiscation, ghettoization, deportation, and extermination. IBM asked the Hitler regime what result was desired. Then company engineers devised custom-tailored punch card systems to deliver those results. IBM customer sites were in every concentration camp, and machines were serviced regularly by IBM on site.

Conscious involvement of American corporations ensured the speed, shape, and dimension of the Holocaust as we know it. The astronomical scope could never have been achieved without this involvement. American corporate collaborators have tried to obscure the details of their collusion using corporate misinformation, financial contributions, and bought-and-paid-for historians. But in this era when people no longer believe big corporations, the dots can now be fully connected to unveil the outlines of an indispensible Nazi nexus.

The words “never again” must resound not just among the victims, but within the boardrooms of corporations that have yet to come to terms with their past.

Edwin Black is the New York Times best-selling investigative author of IBM and the Holocaust, and his just released book, Nazi Nexus: America’s Corporate Connections to Hitler’s Holocaust (Dialog Press). He can be reached at www.nazinexus.com.

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