I’ve encountered another of those real life true stories so bizarre that in a year’s time I’m probably going to think I dreamed it.
Herman Göring’s Nazi raccoons are invading Europe.
I think that’s even better than the Fanta story.
A few days ago I woke up and was thinking about caffeinated beverages, when I vaguely remembered how the current attempts to revive the Fanta brand were covering up the sinister secret–that Fanta was actually a drink invented specifically for Nazi Germany.
I mentioned this to sara. We laughed, both agreeing that it was obviously some crazy stuff I’d come up with in a dream.
Coke sponsoring the 1936 Nazi Olympics. Sales of Coke dropping after it was advertised as Kosher. The Nazis banning the importation of Coke syrup as a threat to Europe’s precious bodily fluids. Coca-Cola’s German operation coming up with Fanta as a drink more acceptable to the Third Reich. All completely ludicrous and very, very silly.
Except… it’s true. It’s all true. I’d obviously read about it somewhere, somewhen, and it had stuck in the back of my mind, only to surface like a bad dream.
Here’s another crazy stupid dream: Coca-Cola are setting up factories in villages across the country. As the Coke flows, the villagers realize the factory is sucking the village wells dry. Meanwhile, the factory pumps out a toxic sludge of lead, cadmium and chromium, source unknown. Eventually the local water supply is declared undrinkable, and all the villagers can do is drink Coke… or their bottled water product, Dasani.
It’s the half-remembered plot of a Ben Elton novel. No, wait, my mistake, it’s another actual news story. So’s the one about Coca Cola paying right-wing paramilitaries to kill troublesome union leaders and their families in Columbia.
This is it. This is the week when reality became so bizarrely horrific that I could no longer believe it was real.
With regard to the maze of pain photos doing the rounds…
I don’t like slugs much. One day my mother found one in the garden and wanted me to get rid of it. I knew that salt killed slugs, so I got some salt and put it on the slug.
What I didn’t know was how salt kills slugs.
It’s awful, truly vile, like something out of a sci-fi horror movie. The slug thrashed about, as its innards apparently bubbled through its skin and oozed out over the ground. As I watched the creature’s torment, I almost imagined I could hear it screaming. I felt like some mad Nazi scientist; I couldn’t stop thinking about the thing for several days. I never harmed a slug again.
Ever wonder where the Bush family got all that money?
In 1923, the Nazi party was given 100,000 gold marks ($25,000) by German industrialist Fritz Thyssen. This generous donation helped the fledgling party through its early financial troubles. After his father August’s death in 1926, Thyssen created the United Steel Works, a German industrial conglomerate.
In 1924, the Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart met with Harriman & Co, represented by the Harriman brothers and George Walker. They formed the Union Banking Corporation.
Later in 1924, George Walker hired his new son-in-law, Prescott Bush, to be VP of Harriman & Co. Bush was responsible for overseeing the Thyssen/Flick United Steel Works.
In 1928, Hitler was broke again. Things had gone badly since his failed coup attempt in 1923. Thyssen arranged for the Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart to buy the Barlow Palace and refit it as the new Nazi HQ. Thyssen claimed the cost was 250,000 marks; the Nazis claimed over 800,000.
In 1931, Harriman & Co. changed its name to Brown Brothers Harriman. Averell Harriman and Prescott Bush established a holding company called The Harriman 15 Corporation.
In 1932, Thyssen joined the Nazi party, and held a fundraiser for Hitler at his castle.
By 1934, Hitler had seized power, and USW was chosen to overhaul the German military machinery. Thyssen and Flick made hundreds of millions in profits, which flowed to UBC and the Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart.
In 1934, the Polish government started threatening action against Consolidated Silesian Steel Corporation and Upper Silesian Coal and Steel, for financial irregularities. The owners of the companies—including the Harriman 15 Corporation—were faced with a demand for back taxes. Fortunately, Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939 ended the investigation.
Consolidated Silesian Steel happened to be located near Oswiecim in Poland, so when the Nazis began building concentration camps for slave labor, they decided to build one near Oswiecim. They called it Auschwitz. It provided cheap labor for many companies, including Consolidated Silesian Steel.
As Hitler began to march his armies across Europe, Thyssen and Flick began to have misgivings. They sold Consolidated Steel to UBC. It became Silesian American Corporation, under the complete control of Harriman, and managed by Prescott Bush. In fact, a Dutch intelligence agent reported that a portion of the slave labor force was managed by Bush.
Six days after Pearl Harbor in 1941, the Trading With The Enemy Act made it illegal for US business interests to deal with US enemies of war. Prescott Bush continued running Silesian American Corporation until the summer of 1942, when the New York Tribune exposed his business deals with Thyssen. The US government took over UBC and the Silesian American Corporation, but Bush was not prosecuted. In 1943, he resigned from UBC, but kept his stock.
In 1951, Thyssen died, and UBC’s assets were released to Brown Brothers Harriman. Prescott Bush cashed in his stock for $1.5 million, and used it to set up a firm called Overby Development Company as a gift to his son—George Herbert Walker Bush.
In 1980, George Herbert Walker Bush placed his father’s family inheritance into a trust fund, managed by William Farish III. Farish was the inheritor of millions of dollars made by Standard Oil, from its investments in IG Farben to build the IG Auschwitz gasoline plant.
—Summarized from a feature article in Clamor Magazine.
