Bush Property Seized--Trading with the Enemy
In October 1942, ten months after entering World War II, America
was preparing its first assault against Nazi military forces.
Prescott Bush was managing partner of Brown Brothers Harriman.
His 18-year-old son George, the future U.S. President, had just
begun training to become a naval pilot. On Oct. 20, 1942, the
U.S. government ordered the seizure of Nazi German banking operations
in New York City which were being conducted by Prescott Bush.
Under the Trading with the Enemy Act, the government took
over the Union Banking Corporation, in which Bush was a
director. The U.S. Alien Property Custodian seized Union Banking
Corp.'s stock shares, all of which were owned by Prescott Bush,
E. Roland `` Bunny '' Harriman, three Nazi executives, and two
other associates of Bush.@s1
The order seizing the bank `` vests '' (seizes) `` all of the
capital stock of Union Banking Corporation, a New York corporation,
'' and names the holders of its shares as:
`` E. Roland Harriman--3991 shares ''
[chairman and director of Union Banking Corp. (UBC); this
is `` Bunny '' Harriman, described by Prescott Bush as a place
holder who didn't get much into banking affairs; Prescott managed
his personal investments]
`` Cornelis Lievense--4 shares ''
[president and director of UBC; New York resident banking
functionary for the Nazis]
`` Harold D. Pennington--1 share ''
[treasurer and director of UBC; an office manager employed
by Bush at Brown Brothers Harriman]
`` Ray Morris--1 share ''
[director of UBC; partner of Bush and the Harrimans]
`` Prescott S. Bush--1 share ''
[director of UBC, which was co-founded and sponsored by his
father-in-law George Walker; senior managing partner for E. Roland
Harriman and Averell Harriman]
`` H.J. Kouwenhoven--1 share ''
[director of UBC; organized UBC as the emissary of Fritz Thyssen
in negotiations with George Walker and Averell Harriman; managing
director of UBC's Netherlands affiliate under Nazi occupation;
industrial executive in Nazi Germany; director and chief foreign
financial executive of the German Steel Trust]
`` Johann G. Groeninger--1 share ''
[director of UBC and of its Netherlands affiliate; industrial
executive in Nazi Germany]
`` all of which shares are held for the benefit of ... members
of the Thyssen family, [and] is property of nationals ... of a
designated enemy country.... ''
By Oct. 26, 1942, U.S. troops were under way for North Africa.
On Oct. 28, the government issued orders seizing two Nazi front
organizations run by the Bush-Harriman bank: the Holland-American
Trading Corporation and the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation.@s2
U.S. forces landed under fire near Algiers on Nov. 8, 1942; heavy
combat raged throughout November. Nazi interests in the Silesian-American
Corporation, long managed by Prescott Bush and his father-in-law
George Herbert Walker, were seized under the Trading with the
Enemy Act on Nov. 17, 1942. In this action, the government announced
that it was seizing only the Nazi interests, leaving the Nazis'
U.S. partners to carry on the business.@s3
These and other actions taken by the U.S. government in wartime
were, tragically, too little and too late. President Bush's family
had already played a central role in financing and arming Adolf
Hitler for his takeover of Germany; in financing and managing
the buildup of Nazi war industries for the conquest of Europe
and war against the U.S.A.; and in the development of Nazi genocide
theories and racial propaganda, with their well-known results.
The facts presented here must be known, and their implications
reflected upon, for a proper understanding of President George
Herbert Walker Bush and of the danger to mankind that he represents.
The President's family fortune was largely a result of the Hitler
project. The powerful Anglo-American family associations, which
later boosted him into the Central Intelligence Agency and up
to the White House, were his father's partners in the Hitler project.
President Franklin Roosevelt's Alien Property Custodian, Leo T.
Crowley, signed Vesting Order Number 248 seizing the property
of Prescott Bush under the Trading with the Enemy Act. The order,
published in obscure government record books and kept out of the
news,@s4 explained nothing about the Nazis involved; only that
the Union Banking Corporation was run for the `` Thyssen family
'' of `` Germany and/or Hungary ''--`` nationals ... of a designated
enemy country. ''
NOTES:
1. Office of Alien Property Custodian, Vesting Order No. 248.
The order was signed by Leo T. Crowley, Alien Property Custodian,
executed October 20, 1942; F.R. Doc. 42-11568; Filed, November
6, 1942, 11:31 A.M.; 7 Fed. Reg. 9097 (Nov. 7, 1942). See also
the New York City Directory of Directors (available at
the Library of Congress). The volumes for the 1930s and 1940s
list Prescott Bush as a director of Union Banking Corporation
for the years 1934 through 1943.
2. Alien Property Custodian Vesting Order No. 259: Seamless Steel
Equipment Corporation; Vesting Order No. 261: Holland-American
Trading Corp.
3. Alien Property Custodian Vesting Order No. 370: Silesian-American
Corp.
4. The New York Times on December 16, 1944, ran a five-paragraph
page 25 article on actions of the New York State Banking Department.
Only the last sentence refers to the Nazi bank, as follows: ``
The Union Banking Corporation, 39 Broadway, New York, has received
authority to change its principal place of business to 120 Broadway.
''
The Times omitted the fact that the Union Banking Corporation
had been seized by the government for trading with the enemy,
and even the fact that 120 Broadway was the address of the government's
Alien Property Custodian.
5. Fritz Thyssen, I Paid Hitler, 1941, reprinted in (Port
Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1972), p. 133. Thyssen says
his contributions began with 100,000 marks given in October 1923,
for Hitler's attempted `` putsch '' against the constitutional
government.
6. Confidential memorandum from U.S. embassy, Berlin, to the U.S.
Secretary of State, April 20, 1932, on microfilm in Confidential
Reports of U.S. State Dept., 1930s, Germany, at major U.S.
libraries.
7. Oct. 5, 1942, Memorandum to the Executive Committee of the
Office of Alien Property Custodian, stamped CONFIDENTIAL, from
the Division of Investigation and Research, Homer Jones, Chief.
Now declassified in United States National Archives, Suitland,
Maryland annex. See Record Group 131, Alien Property Custodian,
investigative reports, in file box relating to Vesting Order No.
248.
8. Elimination of German Resources for War: Hearings Before
a Subcommittee of the Committee on Military Affairs, United States
Senate, Seventy-Ninth Congress; Part 5, Testimony of [the United
States] Treasury Department, July 2, 1945. P. 507: Table of Vereinigte
Stahlwerke output, figures are percent of German total as
of 1938; Thyssen organization including Union Banking Corporation
pp. 727-31.
9. Robert Sobel, The Life and Times of Dillon Read (New
York: Dutton-Penguin, 1991), pp. 92-111. The Dillon Read firm
cooperated in the development of Sobel's book.
10. George Walker to Averell Harriman, Aug. 11, 1927, in the W.
Averell Harriman papers at the Library of Congress (designated
hereafter WAH papers).