“Getting along with their own business“

The secret pact of Standard Oil with the Nazis and why Adolf Eichmann was silenced

Gaby Weber

The Russian Revolution installed a new global order. Until 1917, the Europeans were in command of the world. Then the US corporates wanted to get in the global business, above all, John D. Rockefeller who founded Standard Oil in 1870. In 1879 he merged the Vacuum Company and many other firms until1911, when the Trust was desolved and broken into many smaller companies. But the Rockefeller family maintained power in the oil business.

At that time, petroleum was produced in two places, in Texas and in Baku, in the Caucasus. The Russian oilfields were owned by the Nobel and Rothschild families who lost their assets with October Revolution. “In summer 1918, Mr. Nobel flew from the Soviets and begged the German emperor Wilhelm to help him to conquer his assets back”, says the historian Dietrich Eichholtz. But thinking about “conquer” wasn’t possible with an unarmed German Republic.

The interest of the Rockefeller family were identical with the interest of Deutsche Bank. And after WW1, their shares of the „Turkish Petroleum Company“ were transferred as „enemy property“ to France. For many years, the Deutsche Bank tried to litigate against this expropriation, but finally they realized that there wouldn’t be any chance on the legal front. There is strong evidence to suggest that approximately in 1927, Deutsche Bank and Standard Oil made a secret pact aimed at bringing Hitler to power in order to conquer the Oil of Baku. Standard Oil promised to supply the fuel.

1927, Standard Oil and IG Farben founded the company „Standard IG Farben“; president was the oil dealer William Farish from Texas. Standard passed to IG Farben the patents about the coal hydrogenation processes and the Germans gave them the patents how to manufacture synthetic rubber. In the same year, 1927, the young Adolf Eichmann, close friend of Ernest Kaltenbrunner (chief of Hitler’s Gestapo), was hired by the Vacuum Oil Company in Austria, a relation with future.

While the European powers wanted to avoid growth of German industry after WW1, US invested huge sums in Germany and never ratified the Versailles Treaty. They sold German bonds in the US financial market. One of the most important was the"Union Banking Corporation" of George H. Walker. He named his son-in-law, Prescott Bush, grandfather of US president George W. Bush, director of the firm. And he made great business with the Germans, before and after 1933. In the board of his „Walkers American Shipping and Commerce Company“ with its Hamburg-America Line was Emil Helfferich, member of „Freundeskreis Reichsführer- SS“ and until end of WW2 President of Deutsch-Amerikanische Petroleum Gesellschaft, later ESSO, and Vacuum Oil Company in Hamburg.

Discrimination of Jews in Germany was no obstacle in this business. „The United States were deeply split about our position to National Socialism“, said Professor Christopher Simpson of American University in Washington DC, „the right wing organization ‚America First’ was openly engaged with the Nazis, considered discrimination of Jewish population as an internal problem of the German and asked for not get involved in the European War.“

„America First“ was leaded by the Dulles-brothers, John Foster Dulles, later US secretary of state, and Allan Dulles, later head of CIA. „America First“ defended the interest of companies who invested in Germany. War declaration would have put in danger these interests.

After 1933, everything went well with the pact. The Die Deutsche Bank, once again, entered with their Deutsche Petroleum AG in oil business. But the Bank needed partners with know how.

A memorandum of Deutsche Bank, dated March 15 th, 1935 makes it clear: „The Deutsche Petroleum AG (owned by Deutsche Bank, gw.) bought licences and will drill oil, with state subsidy drill in these new regions. (We) will share this deal with the Royal Dutch Shell and Vacuum Oil Company, sharing the risk and sharing the future profits.“

Royal Dutch Shell means British and Dutch monarchies and Vacuum Oil Company means: Standard Oil. In the attack of Iraq and Iran, Standard Oil wanted to „help“ - with drilling machines, wrote the chief of the department for Arabic affairs in the Foreign Ministry in Berlin: „The aim of our attack will be the occupation of Iraq, Syria and Palestine and the Suez Canal and the Gulf of Persia. We must prepare the takeover of the oil area of Arabia and Iran. A team of experts under direction of geologist Dr. Schmidt from the Vakuum-Oil-Company in Hamburg is built and the material, above all the drilling machines are available“.

This memo is from February 5 th, 1942. The US government just had declared the war to Nazi Germany but Vacuum Oil Company delivered the Wehrmacht with drilling machines.

The main problem for Germany's attack on the Soviet Union was the need for fuel for tanks and airplanes. Thanks to the patents of Standard Oil, the Germans could produce fuel from their own coal, but this was not enough.

The alliance of Standard Oil with the Nazis wasn’t well regarded by the US-government, above all after the entered into the war after Pearl Harbour, on December 7 th, 1941. Officials remembered an old law, "Trading with the Enemy“, and opened a formal investigation against Standard Oil. The accusation was that the company hid patents from the US-Navy and supplied fuel to German submarines. John D. Rockefeller said that he wasn’t aware of that and Farish pled "no contest" to charges of criminal conspiracy with the Nazis. In March 1942, the Pentagon begged President Roosevelt to stop the investigation, to protect war production and oil supply. Roosevelt agreed. The Company paid a fine of 5000 dollars and promised to stop fuel supply for the enemies.

But Farish was forced to appear in front of a Special Committee of the US Senate investigating the National Defence Program, headed by Senator Harry Truman, who called behaviour of Standard Oil „treason“. Farish answered in the hearing: "Our contracts of 1929 (with IG Farben) were to run until 1947. As you gentlemen doubtless know, contracts such as these are not, in law, abrogated, but merely suspended when the party’s nations are at war. The parties to such contracts must therefore find some way of getting along with their own business“.

While the men slaughtered each other in the battlefields in World War II, corporate America was looking for a way of „getting along with their own business“. It was not easy, after the decision of US Congress to enter in the War and to frustrate the pact of Big Oil with the Nazis. For Standard Oil it was a profound defeat. How did they continue with their "own business“? Maybe creating its own intelligence agency? An agency that cared above all for business and not for National Security?

Little information is known about such an agency. The CIA published some time ago a report on their homepage about an intelligence group called „the Pond“, founded in 1942, just in the year of investigation against Standard Oil. William Mosetti, that mysterious man who played a central role in the Eichmann transportation to Israel, would fit well in the „Pond“, "The Pond" was disbanded in the fifties, after competition with CIA. Mosetti, first of all, was a businessman, open towards all sides. The documents, held by the CIA, are still classified because "they are now in a process of being reviewed before being sent to NARA to be made available to the public“. As the CIA official in charge of declassification told me, “this process will take three years”. But the CIA offered to sell me the information, paying 2880 dollars for the research. My request to get full access to the „Pond“ documentation is still pending.

The Caucasus campaign lasted five and a half months. From the middle of 1942, when in the US Standard Oil suffered the official investigation and the Senate Hearing, the German military started to suffer lack of fuel. In January 43, defeat was complete. The Nazis Allies - American and British Big Oil - couldn’t fulfill their part of the pact: the fuel supply.

Standard Oil tried to supply Nazi Germany via neutral countries. Standard Oil of New Jersey sent a young lawyer from their legal department to Venezuela, full of petroleum. And in 1940, Socony-Vacuum sent William Mosetti to Argentina. The country was friendly to the Axis but entered only in March 45 into the war against Germany.

Mosetti was born 1914 in Trieste. His father was director of „Lloyd Triestino“, a shipping company that controlled the Suez Canal. Mosetti participated in 1935 as a „First Lieutenant“ in the Abyssinian Campaign of Mussolini. Standard Oil had promised to the „Duce“ to supply the fuel for this war. 1936, the fascist army took Addis Abeba, after having used poison gas. After the war, Mosetti was hired first by General Motors, went in 1939 to Ford in Cologne and on November 15 th, 1939 he got his dream job with Socony-Vacuum, „Standard Oil Company of New York“.

When he came to Argentina, 1940, he saw that the country has its own oil fields, for their own supply and therefore no interest to export or import oil. And in the US, the powerful Petroleum Administration of War controlled distribution of oil, to avoid that it came into the hands of the enemy. But Standard Oil pressured US government to get permission to import petroleum from the US or from US controlled countries - as a letter from the US Embassy in Buenos Aires to the State Department shows, written March 25 th, 1942: “A very large bulk of imported crude is imported by the Argentine subsidiaries of Standard Oil of New Jersey and the Socony-Vacuum combine – Texas. Any sharp reduction would seriously restrict the activities of these American companies”.

Did Standard Oil plan to send fuel to the Nazis via the neutral Argentina where Mosetti stayed? The difference between oil exports from US-controlled refineries in the US, the Caribbean and Venezuela to Argentina, according to the PAW files held in NARA, and, on the other hand, the oil imports of Argentina from Standard Oil according to the Argentinean Trade Ministry is significant in 1941 - but far from satisfying the need of the German Wehrmacht.

From 1942 on, the difference between export from the US to Argentina and Argentinean imports from the US get smaller. The sea blockade of the Allied Forced got impenetrable and the military defeat of the Nazis was sure. So, Big Oil changed their motto: damage control.

Mosetti left Argentina and arrived March 18 th, 1943 in Los Angeles. Normally, an Italian citizen, once an officer in the fascist army, would have been detained. But Mosetti told Immigration authorities that from now on he wanted to serve to the Allies. A "prominent businessman“ guaranteed for him and within few days, Mosetti got US citizenship. On May 18 th, 1943, he was taken by the US Army and received training in Camp Crowder, Missouri.

The "Office of Strategic Services“ wanted to recruit Mosetti: “French and Italian is required in addition to a proficiency in guerrilla and/ or commando warfare, close combat, demolitions and small arms. Must be willing to undertake dangerous and trying missions, a leader, and physically vigorous. Must also be of the Christian faith”. But the Army didn’t want to loose him. „Not available“, noted a Colonel Conelly in the OSS-file. Mosetti was sent to Northern Africa and participated in the invasion of Italy. In June 1946, he left the active service of the Army and returned to SOCONY-Vacuum, then Mobil Overseas Oil Company. When he stood in Leopoldville, Belgish Congo, he was hired by Daimler-Benz and sent again to Buenos Aires. On 29 of April 1960, the General Meeting of shareholders of Mercedes Benz Argentina named him General Director and twelve days later Adolf Eichmann, worker at this moment on Mercedes Benz and former employee of Vacuum Oil, disappeared. On 23 May, Premier Minister Ben Gurion announced detention of Eichmann in Israel. But Eichmann never talked in public about his former employer Standard Oil.

Mosetti resigned 1975 from Mercedes Benz Argentina. His last job was at the US Embassy in Bern. He died 1992 in Switzerland. was at the US Embassy in Bern. He died 1992 in Switzerland.

After years of investigation, I am standing in front of a wall of silence. The Freedom of Information Act and the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act do not work. Several request are still pending.

Only a public administration can be forced to release information, not private firms. In the archives of Standard Oil and Daimler-Chrysler I was shown “cleaned” documents. During three years, Daimler-Chrysler claimed not to know Mosetti’s name, altho for 15 years he was their CEO in Buenos Aires. Then, they sent me, by email, parts of his resume,but without any date and signature.

I asked Exxon-Mobil about Mosetti and Eichmann, if they financed Eichmann’s transport out of Argentina and about the secret pact with the Nazis to take the oil fields of the Caucasus. Exxon-Mobil answered me: “We cannot confirm Mr. Mosetti's employment as we did not find his name within the available records. We know nothing of the details of the kidnapping of Mr. Eichmann, nor of any relationship between Socony-Vacuum and Mr. Eichmann.“

There is still a question to answer, the same question of 1942 as today: how do governments handle greed of corporations when they violate laws and national security. In 1942, the US government committed a serious mistake to close the criminal investigation against Standard Oil.

It committed the same mistake with the laundering of Nazi money. Twice the US government tried to investigate the destination of Nazi gold, hidden during World War II. In the last period of the war, their operation "Safehaven" systematically checked the ties between Germany and Switzerland. But on the eve of the Cold War,"Safehaven“ died. In the 1990's, Secretary Stuart Eizenstat tried again, and published an extensive report. Although the CIA and FBI participated in this investigation, the report did not reveal anything new. It didn’t mention the name of Jorge Antonio, his money laundering and the confiscation of his empire in Argentina – in spite of the fact that this confiscation had been discussed in the press for years. CIA and FBI station chiefs surely read the local press and informed their headquarters. German industry paid ten billon Deutsche Mark, about five billion dollars, to Jewish organizations for slave workers during the war and the whole subject disappeared from the newspapers.

At this time, the US Congress, controlled by Democrats, claims to want to stop the war in Iraq and create conditions to investigate the George W. Bush era of corruption. Probably, this investigation, if it will happen, will be classified, not public, and everything will be negotiated again – so that corporates can go along with their own business, buying their way to more power.

Next: An US aircraft and Uruguayan Pilots: Was Uruguay used as a basis for an operation against Argentina?