Lis­ten: One Seg­ment

1. The pro­gram begins with review of an excerpt from FTR-245 con­cern­ing Deutsche Telekom. Mobile phones are seen as being cen­tral to the antic­i­pated world of the inter­net and e-commerce. As such, DT’s advance into the Amer­i­can mobile phone mar­ket fig­ures promi­nently in this series on Ger­man cor­po­rate con­trol over Amer­i­can media.) In order to resist leg­is­la­tion that would impede the firm’s pur­chase of Voic­eS­tream and Pow­er­tel, Deutsche Telekom has retained the pow­er­ful Wash­ing­ton law firm of Wilmer, Cut­ler & Pick­er­ing. (Wall Street Jour­nal, 7/21/2000, p. A9.)

2. In an excerpt from FTR-139, the pro­gram high­lights the recent addi­tion of Matthias Wiss­man, the trea­surer of the CDU party in Ger­many (and a for­mer trans­port min­is­ter) to Wilmer, Cut­ler & Pick­er­ing. (Finan­cial Times, 3/2/99.)

3. The pro­gram also notes that Wilmer, Cut­ler & Pick­er­ing had rep­re­sented Swiss banks in a law­suit filed by Holo­caust vic­tims against Swiss banks, as well as act­ing as coun­sel for Ger­man cor­po­ra­tions being sued over their use of slave labor in World War II. (Idem.)

4. This con­nec­tion also sug­gests the pres­ence of the Bor­mann group in the back­ground of the law­suits, as well as in the DT machi­na­tions. It should be noted that, as trea­surer of the CDU, Wiss­man must have had first hand knowl­edge of the CDU fund­ing scan­dal. (This scan­dal, as well, almost cer­tainly involves the Bor­mann organization.)

5. One of the many evi­den­tiary trib­u­taries in the trail of scan­dal runs in the direc­tion of the Philip­pines. (“Fil­ip­ina Maid Hunted in Money Scan­dal Probe;” The Asian Post; 4/13/-4/26/2000; p. 1.)

6. For­mer French oil exec­u­tive Alfred Sir­ven was pur­sued to the Philip­pines by French inves­ti­ga­tors. (Idem.)

7. Vilma Med­ina, Sirven’s maid-turned-lover, was a major finan­cial manip­u­la­tor in the con­spir­acy, serv­ing as the con­duit for many of the funds that were moved about dur­ing the course of the machi­na­tions. (Idem.)

8. A prin­ci­pal fig­ure in the inter­na­tional finan­cial web that fig­ures in the CDU fund­ing scan­dal, Sir­ven was a major exec­u­tive with Elf-Aquitaine, a French oil com­pany that served as “an oil min­istry in a cor­po­rate guise.” (“Light Shed on an Extra­or­di­nary Past” by Bertrand Benoit; Finan­cial Times; 2/3/2/4/2001; p. 3.)

9. The firm served as a con­duit for the plac­ing of polit­i­cal bribes, a fund­ing source for France’s right-wing polit­i­cal par­ties, as well as a front for French intel­li­gence activ­ity. (Idem.)

10. One of the most sig­nif­i­cant maneu­vers con­ducted by Elf while Sir­ven was with the firm was the plac­ing of a bribe with Hel­mut Kohl’s CDU. (Idem.)

11. This bribe secured the pur­chase of the Leuna oil refin­ing facil­ity for Elf. (Idem.) (Oper­ated by the Nazi I.G. Far­ben firm on behalf of the Third Reich, the Leuna facil­ity is located in the for­mer East Germany.)

12. Even­tu­ally, Elf “suc­cumbed to a hos­tile bid from rival Total­Fina in 1999.” (Idem.)

13. Much of the pro­gram con­sists of a lengthy excerpt from FTR-193 detail­ing impor­tant aspects of the CDU fund­ing scan­dal. This excerpt, in turn, comes from a major arti­cle about the CDU fund­ing scan­dal from the New York Times. (“Big Kick­backs Under Kohl Reported” by Roger Cohen and John Tagli­abue; New York Times; 2/7/2000.)

14. In addi­tion to the obvi­ous involve­ment in the scan­dal of ele­ments con­nected to both Ger­man and French intel­li­gence, the arti­cle high­lights the involve­ment of the Thyssen heavy indus­trial firm with sev­eral aspects of the scan­dal. (Idem.) (The Thyssen firm is one of the prin­ci­pal ele­ments of the remark­able and deadly Bor­mann flight cap­i­tal orga­ni­za­tion, about which Mr. Emory has spo­ken so often.

When con­sid­er­ing Ger­man cor­po­ra­tions, it is impor­tant to remem­ber that they are con­trolled by the Bor­mann Orga­ni­za­tion. This insti­tu­tion has per­pet­u­ated its power in an effec­tive, clan­des­tine, and deadly, Mafia-like fash­ion in the years since World War II. Amer­i­can cor­po­ra­tions are dri­ven by the profit motive, and coor­di­nate poli­cies on labor, envi­ron­men­tal, mar­ket­ing and tax­a­tion issues–they are oth­er­wise rel­a­tively apo­lit­i­cal. In con­trast, Ger­man cor­po­ra­tions, under con­trol of the Bor­mann group, func­tion as coor­di­nated ele­ments of inter­na­tional eco­nomic and polit­i­cal con­trol, not unlike the divi­sions of an army. Although they, too, strive to make money, profit is sub­or­di­nate to the goal of Ger­man national hegemony.)

15. Thyssen AG was involved in a sale of tanks to Saudi Ara­bia (one of the many facets of this enor­mous, inter­na­tional scan­dal.) (Idem.)

16. In addi­tion, Thyssen was involved with Aquitaine-Elf in some of the oper­a­tions of the Leuna refin­ery. (Idem.)

17. Next, the pro­gram intro­duces a num­ber of areas of over­lap between the CDU scan­dal and infor­ma­tion pre­sented in other pro­grams. These areas of inter­sec­tion are dis­cussed at greater length in FTR-278. FTR-275 high­lights an impor­tant deal between the Ber­tels­mann com­pany and the Bel­gian par­ent firm of the RTL tele­vi­sion com­pany. (Ber­tels­mann has strong links to the Third Reich and is the prin­ci­pal ele­ment in the series on Ger­man cor­po­rate con­trol over the Amer­i­can media.)

18. One of the minor­ity cor­po­rate part­ners in the Bertelsmann/RTL deal has sig­nif­i­cant cap­i­tal par­tic­i­pa­tion in Total­Fina Elf. (“Global GBL Falls for Bertelsmann’s Charms” by Dan Bilef­sky; Finan­cial Times; 2/6/2001; p. 18.) Total­Fina Elf is, in turn, involved in the com­plex con­spir­a­to­r­ial web involved in the CDU fund­ing scan­dal. (It should be recalled that Total­Fina took over Aquitaine Elf, as dis­cussed ear­lier in the program.

19. On his way back to France, Sir­ven was to stop over in Frank­furt, Ger­many. (“Star Wit­ness in French Cor­rup­tion Trial Arrested” by Raphael Min­der, David Owen, and Hugh Williamson; Finan­cial Times; 2/3–2/4/2001; p. 1)

20. Sir­ven boasted that he “knew enough secrets to blow up the French Repub­lic ten times over.” (“Sir­ven Set to Unpack Explo­sive Evi­dence” by Raphael Min­der; Finan­cial Times; 2/3/2/4/2001; p. 3.)

21. It should be noted that at this time, Ger­many is engaged in an attempt at “fed­er­al­iz­ing” the EU, much to the con­ster­na­tion of France. Bertelsmann’s par­ent (the Ber­tels­mann foun­da­tion) spon­sored a think tank at which Ger­man Chan­cel­lor Ger­hard Schroder called for the fed­er­al­ist inte­gra­tion of the EU into a Euro­pean super­state. (“Schroder Launches Brus­sels Offen­sive” by Alan Hall; The Scots­man; 1/26/2001.)

22. This step would entail “a Europe where deci­sions on tax, defense, health, insur­ance and a plethora of other issues were defined by the EU and not national gov­ern­ments.” (Idem.)

23. Such a state would, of course, be dom­i­nated by Ger­many. In effect, this would give Ger­many the con­trol of Europe that it has sought through mil­i­tary con­quest in two world wars. In lan­guage rem­i­nis­cent of the ora­tory of Adolf Hitler, Ger­man For­eign Min­is­ter warned that, unless this inte­gra­tion took place, grave mea­sures would fol­low. (Idem.)

24. “The Ger­man gov­ern­ment will not stand idly by, but would take coura­geous steps against the cen­trifu­gal forces of the inter-governmentalists,” warned Fis­cher. (Idem.)

25. At the same time, the “eurogroup” is reported to be head­ing toward a restruc­tur­ing that would dimin­ish the influ­ence of Britain. (“Moves Afoot to Over­haul the Eurogroup” by Peter Nor­man; Finan­cial Times; 2/9/2001; p. 2.) In addi­tion, some of the pro­posed changes in the “eurogroup” (the gov­ern­ing body com­posed of the finance min­is­ters of the euro-zone states) have been vig­or­ously opposed by the French. This broad­cast under­scores the pos­si­bil­ity that the tim­ing of the arrest of Mr. Sir­ven (and the pos­si­ble dis­clo­sure of the infor­ma­tion that he pos­sesses) may have been timed to pres­sure the French into acced­ing to the pro­posed changes in both the EU and the “euro-group.”

26. The end of this pro­gram (and FTR-278) also high­light the impli­ca­tions of Holocaust-related law­suits for cor­po­rate oper­a­tions in both the United States and Europe. FTR-275 dis­cusses a recent law­suit that charges IBM with com­plic­ity in the Nazi exter­mi­na­tion pro­grams. (“Law­suit Says IBM Helped Nazis” by Barn­aby J. Felder [New York Times]; San Fran­cisco Chron­i­cle; 2/11/2001; p. A9.)

27. The coun­sel for the plain­tiffs noted that “pub­lic rela­tions strate­gies have been as impor­tant as legal argu­ments in their Holo­caust suits.” (Idem.) This law­suit was timed to coin­cide with the pub­li­ca­tion of a book that presents doc­u­men­ta­tion for the plain­tiffs’ arguments.

28. Inter­est­ingly (and per­haps sig­nif­i­cantly) the book is being pub­lished by Crown books, a Ran­dom House (and Ber­tels­mann) sub­sidiary. (“Book Links IBM to Hitler” by Paul D. Col­ford; New York Daily News; 2/10/2001.)

29. This law­suit now threat­ens the set­tle­ment of pre­vi­ous Holocaust-related law­suits by dis­turb­ing the “legal peace” in the United States. (“IBM Legal Bomb­shell Threat­ens Land­mark Holo­caust Deal” by Richard Wolffe and John Authers; Finan­cial Times; 2/15/2001; p. 5.) The pos­si­bil­ity that the IBM suit may con­sti­tute (inten­tion­ally or oth­er­wise) a “pres­sure point” that may hold the key to busi­ness oper­a­tions in both Europe and the U.S. is not one to be too read­ily cast aside.