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Begin­ning with dis­cus­sion of major Ger­man cor­po­ra­tions’ restruc­tur­ing of their cap­i­tal sit­u­a­tions, this pro­gram fur­ther devel­ops the analy­sis of maneu­ver­ing by cor­po­rate Ger­many. (Under­ly­ing the analy­sis is the remark­able and dead­ly Bor­mann orga­ni­za­tion, the eco­nom­ic com­po­nent of a Third Reich gone under­ground. Although this might seem absurd or incom­pre­hen­si­ble to new­er lis­ten­ers, this fear­some orga­ni­za­tion is a real­i­ty.)

Siemens, BASF (one of the com­po­nents of the old I.G. Far­ben Nazi chem­i­cal com­pa­ny) and media giant Ber­tels­mann have been reor­ga­niz­ing their finan­cial under­pin­nings in order facil­i­tate pur­chas­es of oth­er cor­po­ra­tions. In par­tic­u­lar, these cor­po­rate giants appear to be aim­ing at the acqui­si­tion of Amer­i­can com­pa­nies.

The pro­gram high­lights the grow­ing role of Ger­man cap­i­tal in the financ­ing of Hol­ly­wood.

The broad­cast sets forth the merg­er between Deutsche and Dres­d­ner banks. Major com­mer­cial banks that played a cen­tral role in the Third Reich, their merg­er cre­ates what is arguably the world’s largest finan­cial insti­tu­tion. In addi­tion, the pro­gram high­lights the pro­found involve­ment of Ger­man insur­ance giant Allianz in the Deutsche/Dresdner merg­er. Anoth­er com­pa­ny with deep Nazi involve­ment, Allianz is involved with the restruc­tur­ing inher­ent in the Deutsche/Dresdner deal and its involve­ment adds to the con­sum­mate finan­cial pow­er of this cor­po­rate enti­ty. The Deutsche/Dresdner deal sets the stage for fur­ther Amer­i­can cor­po­rate acqui­si­tions by the new Deutsche Bank (the name under which the merged banks will func­tion).

The first half of the pro­gram con­cludes with dis­cus­sion of the dis­turb­ing debt sit­u­a­tion under­ly­ing the Amer­i­can eco­nom­ic boom. With banks hid­ing pre­car­i­ous finan­cial expo­sure, the enor­mous con­sumer debt and cor­po­rate debt in the Unit­ed States cre­ate a tru­ly dis­turb­ing finan­cial real­i­ty. (The S & P 500 shows a debt to equi­ty ratio of 116% and the aver­age Amer­i­can fam­i­ly is a year’s dis­pos­able income in debt.) The U.S. debt sit­u­a­tion threat­ens a col­lapse and will cer­tain­ly facil­i­tate cor­po­rate acqui­si­tions by Ger­man firms. In addi­tion, the rel­a­tive growth of the NASDAQ rel­a­tive to the val­ue of major Dow Jones blue chip com­pa­nies threat­ens the tech­nol­o­gy-dri­ven eco­nom­ic boom. These blue chip com­pa­nies are among the biggest cus­tomers of high-tech prod­ucts and their finan­cial ill-health could, there­fore, become con­ta­gious.

The sec­ond half of the pro­gram focus­es large­ly on the ongo­ing strug­gle between the Unit­ed States and Ger­many over the can­di­da­cy for the head of the Inter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund. (For more on this sub­ject, see FTR-195.) Hav­ing suc­cess­ful­ly opposed the nom­i­na­tion of Caio Koch-Weser, the U.S. must now con­sid­er yet anoth­er Ger­man can­di­date, Horst Kohler. The broad­cast under­scores the extreme, force­ful and hyper-nation­al­is­tic effort by Ger­man Chan­cel­lor Ger­hard Schroder to insure that a Ger­man will assume the role as IMF head. Despite the fact that a Pol­ish can­di­date would appear to be the most qual­i­fied Euro­pean to fill the posi­tion, Ger­many appears intent on main­tain­ing its rigid­i­ty over the issue. Kohler’s fam­i­ly fled the advance of the Allies dur­ing World War II, a fact that rais­es more ques­tions than it answers. (One of those ques­tions con­cerns the pos­si­bil­i­ty that Kohler might be con­nect­ed to what Mr. Emory calls the “Under­ground Reich.” (See FTR-180 for more on this sub­ject.) The IMF plays a piv­otal role in world finan­cial affairs and the Ger­mans appear to be hop­ing that con­trol of this insti­tu­tion will increase their influ­ence.

Next, the broad­cast sets forth the iso­la­tion­ist stance of the U.S. Repub­li­can-con­trolled Con­gress toward the IMF. Advo­cat­ing a reck­less and reduced role for the U.S. in the IMF at the same time that Ger­many is push­ing for con­trol of the fund, the Repub­li­cans are (con­scious­ly or oth­er­wise) iso­lat­ing the Unit­ed States from the rest of the devel­oped world.

The broad­cast then touch­es on a scan­dal involv­ing the Ukraine and Cred­it Suisse First Boston. (The two insti­tu­tions com­pris­ing CFSB are impli­cat­ed in the back­ground of Pres­i­dent Kennedy’s assas­si­na­tion, accord­ing to some sources. FTR-179 dis­cuss­es the role of Swiss-based finan­cial insti­tu­tions in the above-men­tioned Bor­mann orga­ni­za­tion.) The dom­i­nant polit­i­cal insti­tu­tion in the now inde­pen­dent Ukraine is the Rukh orga­ni­za­tion, which has a polit­i­cal her­itage over­lap­ping that of the Third Reich.

The pos­si­bil­i­ty that these shenani­gans could involve the Under­ground Reich is not to be read­i­ly dis­count­ed. The pro­gram con­cludes with dis­cus­sion of grow­ing fric­tion between the EU and the Unit­ed States.