While much has been written about the re-armament of Germany under Hitler leading up to World War II, there have been few literary efforts to date examining the American penetration of the German economy in the 1920-30s and its impact on the course of political and military events of both the pre-war period and World War II itself.
During the post-World War I reparations "negotiations", known as the Dawes and Young Plans, Germany was especially marketed within the inner circles of the leading American banks and investment houses as a source of lucrative profits. Once these financial experts leveraged Germany to open the doors for foreign corporations to operate in Germany, American investors were quick to put their money into companies like I.G. Farben and Krupp, while American corporations such as Ford, General Motors, General Electric, IBM and ITT established facilities in Germany and came to dominate German industry.
Later, the Hitler government was keen to assure the American industries and bankers that they were more than welcome in Nazi Germany. These American companies were rewarded with attractive incentives such as the waiving of certain building codes to help facilitate expansion; tax breaks on their investments; legal protection from seizure; and a docile labor force chaperoned by the Gestapo and the SS. These American firms reciprocated by expanding the export market jurisdictions of their German subsidiaries at the expense of their other subsidiaries and even engaged in barter trade with the German government so the rearmament program could acquire strategic materials such as copper, rubber and oil while saving Germany's valuable foreign currency reserves. In the run-up to the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, German aircraft benefiting from patented American technology and aviation fuel, helped Franco win the Spanish Civil War. At the same time, these same contributions also allowed the infant Luftwaffe the ability to also fly support missions for Hitler's takeover of Austria and Czechoslovakia.
When bottlenecks in production threatened the expansion of the Luftwaffe or its sustainability in combat, General Motors, Ford and ITT stepped to the fore to help produce such aircraft as the Me-109, Ju-88, Fw-190, Me-262 and even the V-2 rocket. Communication equipment, radar, data processing, trucks, oil, synthetic rubber and fuel were among the American industry's contribution to Hitler's war effort. While American citizens and military toiled to fight Fascism, another faction within the United States was motivated instead by profit and an incessant drive to build a world economy controlled by the world's biggest corporations. The business affairs of these players were often protected by a finely woven legal agreements that they sought to hoist up a flag pole higher than any national flag.
