Introduction: This program examines the “Peak Oil” controversy in terms of the cartel agreements surrounding the genesis of synthetic fuel. “Peak Oil” is the term applied to the concept that the world is on the edge of a disaster, because of the diminution of petroleum reserves. There is reason to believe that cynical elements associated with the petroleum industry are deliberately generating this line of thinking, in order to maximize their profit position. In fact, alarms about the world running out of oil have been sounded for many years. In the 1920’s, alarms about the imminent “Peak Oil” crisis spurred the development of a process to synthesize oil from coal. Jointly developed by Standard Oil of New Jersey and the I.G. Farben firm, this process provided Nazi Germany with most of the fuel to run its huge war machine. This program examines evidence that the cartel agreements surrounding synthetic oil may be in a position to be revived in the face of the “Peak Oil Crisis.” The Underground Reich appears to be at the epicenter of the effort to revive synthetic oil, as well as generating the notion of an imminent oil crisis. The elements that stand to benefit from the drastic increase in the price of oil, as well as the possible use of synthetic oil are corporations and political elements associated with the Underground Reich.
Program Highlights Include: The role of the elder George Bush, the major oil companies and Saudi Arabia in creating the phony oil shortage of the late 1970’s; the role of that oil shortage in destabilizing the Carter administration; the role of that oil shortage in justifying the Reagan administration’s enormous military build-up; the Thyssen firm’s role in the purchase of the Leuna synthetic oil facility in the former East Germany; the Thyssen firm’s pivotal role in the propagation of the Peak Oil controversy; an account of the development of the Bergius/hydrogenation process to synthesize oil from coal; examination of the possibility that the Bergius process may have been greatly improved since World War II; the capital participation of both the Rockefeller interests and the Iranian government in the Thyssen firm; the Thyssen firm’s historical links to Martin Bormann, his family and the Underground Reich; the Thyssen firm’s pivotal links to the Bush family.
1. Excerpting FTRs 214, 248, the broadcast begins by reviewing information about an arrangement among George H.W. Bush’s CIA, the Saudis, and the petroleum industry to create a deliberate, phony oil shortage. This oil shortage created dissatisfaction with the Carter administration (and inflation), thereby helping to defeat him in 1980. In addition, this phony oil shortage served as a pretext for drastically increasing defense spending and arming the Saudis with the latest American weaponry. The Saudi/Bush/petroleum industry axis manipulated oil prices to defeat Carter in 1980. In 2000, Mr. Emory discussed this conspiracy and forecast that, based on past evidence, we might see something similar if Bush was elected. Now, we are being told that the age of “Peak Oil” is upon us and that we must get used to high oil prices. On the basis of past information, it is reasonable to ask if this “oil shortage” is real or is being manufactured. Beyond that, it is important to ask what the results of this “shortage” might be? Who would benefit? These questions will be dealt with near the end of this description. “It is hard to recall why he [Carter] was so despised when he was in office. Much of it has to do with the secret history of oil politics. Even during the 1976 election campaign, the oil companies viewed the Democratic candidate as Public Enemy Number One. Carter certainly had some radical ideas about energy policy, which made the oil companies fearful for the future and their profit levels. Carter’s first move after the election didn’t please them. He nominated former CIA head and defense secretary James Schlesinger as his secretary of energy. . . . Worse still, Schlesinger was now a convert to ‘environmentalism.’ Conversation and efficiency were the new buzz words. In their first few months in office in 1977, Schlesinger and Carter made energy their number-one policy issue. . . .”
(The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People; John Loftus and Mark Aarons; Copyright 1994 [HC]; St. Martin’s Press; ISBN 0–312-11057‑X; p. 333.)
2. “Even before Americans voted for Carter, the oil industry had launched a quiet crusade of its own, in anticipation of a Democratic victory. In the last months of the Ford administration, the CIA had developed a series of papers on energy and oil issues. Just after his victory in November 1976, Carter was shown a classified CIA analysis of global oil supplies. The ‘old spies’ we asked about this point insist that the report had a powerful impact on Carter and helped to define his policies on the ‘energy crisis.’ ” (Idem.)
3. “When Carter launched his national energy plan in April 1977, he confirmed that the CIA had provided him with intelligence assessments which made dire predictions about future energy supplies in the Soviet Union. The CIA warning made front-page news: ‘Russia would be importing oil from the Middle East by 1985.’ The Soviets would need to buy three and a half million barrels per day, to be precise, whereas in 1977 they actually exported one and a half million barrels daily. ‘Previously, the assumption had been that the Soviets would continue to be self-sufficient in meeting their oil and gas needs.’ ” (Idem.)
4. ” . . . In effect, the CIA was telling President Carter that the Soviet Union would face a domestic oil shortage in 1985, causing the worst energy crisis in American history. When the Soviets ran out of domestic oil supplies, they probably would look to the traditional oil suppliers of the United States, especially Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Our sources in the intelligence community say that the CIA’s ‘oil shortfall’ probably was the greatest intelligence fraud in American history. . . .” (Ibid.; p. 334.)
5. Bush’s father appears to have been a principal player in the creation of the phony oil shortage! ” . . . According to several of our sources, the scheme to manufacture phony CIA estimates and push them on Carter began in the last days of Gerald Ford’s term. They claim that a cabal within the CIA realized that Carter would be the new president, produced the first phony report, and then promptly gave it to Carter as soon as he won, knowing how it would affect his view of the energy crisis. It should be recalled that George Bush was the director of the CIA at the time the oil scam was put in place in 1976. There is some evidence to suggest that it was Bush himself who passed the fake oil estimates to Carter.” (Ibid.; pp. 334–335.)
6. ” ‘You have to understand who was screwing the Jews,’ one ‘old spy’ told us. ‘The whole phony scheme—the oil shortages, the predictions about Soviet troops in the Middle East, the Saudi arms buildup—all of that crap started coming out of the agency back in ’76. The CIA told their boss what he wanted to hear, and in those days, the head of the CIA was an oil man.’ ” (Ibid.; p. 334.)
7. ” . . . The oil companies and the Saudi government both had access to similar
advice from old CIA hands. It almost seemed that Aramco had more of its ex-employees inside the CIA than the CIA had agents in the Middle East. In public, the Saudis dismissed the report as ‘ridiculous and obviously untrue.’ In private, they went along with the CIA’s ‘declining production’ fraud. After some reflection, the House of Saud realized that here was an opportunity to sell less oil but make more money.” (Ibid.; p. 338.)
8. “In public, the Saudis continued to insist that they had plenty of oil. In practice, they helped create an oil shortage. The CIA had created a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Saudis’ reserves mysteriously fell by millions of barrels a day, and their pumping efficiency was said to be atrocious and sure to get worse. In a very short time, American consumers would find themselves running out of gas.” (Idem.)
9. ” . . . In the short run, of course, the motive was more money for American oil companies. Our sources in the intelligence community say that the oil industry used its CIA contacts to fabricate both the Soviets-will-steal-our oil hysteria as well as the dry-wells-in-Saudi Arabia predictions. The immediate goal of the phony predictions was to scare the White House into doing what the oil companies wanted: (1) lift the laws holding the price on domestic American oil; (2) provide a panic to excuse raising world oil prices; and (3) appease the Arabs, by arming the Saudis instead of the Israelis.” (Ibid.; p. 339.)
10. “The oil men in the intelligence services promoted the fear that the Soviets would have no other option than to move down into the Middle East, invade Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iran, and seize U.S. oil for themselves. If Carter didn’t move soon, there would be no hope of withstanding a Soviet invasion of the Middle East. The most powerful army in the area was Israel’s. But the Jews could hardly be expected to go to war to save the Arabs’ oil for the West’s often anti-Semitic oil companies. The time had come for the president to make a clear-cut decision: either bow to the Jews’ resolute opposition to U.S. arms sales to the Arabs and risk losing Middle Eastern oil to the Soviets, or arm the Arabs, thereby ending Israel’s military supremacy—a sacrifice that would have to be made in the American national interest.” (Idem.)
11. “Our sources say that the oil companies, and their friends in the CIA, had a very willing ally in the Saudis, who secretly cooperated with the CIA’s fraud by artificially decreasing production and simultaneously increasing the price per barrel of oil. It was all meant to be a very profitable game, in which both the Saudis and the companies would get huge windfalls, while their Jewish enemies were finally put in their place. The Arabs soon would have the weapons they needed to see to that.” (Idem.)
12. ” . . . The fact is that the CIA reports on the Soviet threat were as false as they were frightening. As one of our sources put it: ‘Look, the Soviets couldn’t even hang on to their puppet colony in Afghanistan. They were bleeding themselves white. At one point during the Afghan war, the military was consuming nearly 28 percent of the gross productivity of the Soviet Union. The last thing the Kremlin wanted was all out war with the Moslem world. They couldn’t finance their own PLO hit squads, let alone start a second front in the Middle East. The whole idea of the Russian army marching into the Saudi oil fields was a fraud.’ But the fraud worked. According to the Red scare scheme, there was only one thing to do: arm the Arabs so they could defend the oil fields themselves.” (Ibid.; pp. 350–351.)
13. “The cardinal sin of statesmanship is naivete. Carter and Turner never suspected that their own people would lie to them. The phony CIA oil reports completely fooled them. ‘Don’t you get it?’ asked one of our sources. ‘The gas shortage during the Carter administration was as phony as the CIA’s prediction about the Soviet oil shortage. The goddamn Middle East was swimming in oil during the Carter administration, but less and less of it was shipped to America. For chrissakes, there was so much oil in South America that they had to shut down refineries in the Caribbean to keep it away from the U.S.’ ” (Ibid.; p. 353.)
14. “This source has a point. One of the largest refineries in the Western Hemisphere is located on St. Croix, in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Most of its capacity went unused during the Carter administration’s ‘oil shortage,’ yet it was greatly expanded during Reagan’s term, despite the world glut of oil and falling prices. Most of the ‘old spies’ are adamant that the oil companies cut refinery production to cause as much damage to the Carter administration as possible.” (Ibid.; pp. 353–354.)
15. “By mid-1981, it was embarrassingly clear that all of the CIA’s predictions, upon which Carter had relied, were completely false. Not only was there not an oil crisis, the whole industry had suddenly gone the other way. There was a worldwide surplus of oil, not a shortfall. The CIA figures on Saudi oil were just as false as their Soviet production estimates. By June that year, the Saudi Arabian government had created an oil glut and was under intense pressure in the Arab world to cut its production. The Middle East was drowning in oil. . . .” (Ibid.; p. 354.)
16. Like his father and Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush’s combination of tax cuts and massive defense spending are destroying the American fiscal landscape. ” . . . Under the Republicans, lucrative arms factories sprouted in what had previously been rural Democratic states. The votes went where the jobs were. In the course of the Reagan-Bush administrations, the defense budget was increased to a point where more money was spent on arms than in all the wars in U.S. history combined. To accomplish this massive defense buildup, the Reagan-Bush administrations borrowed three times more money than all U.S. presidents combined. The largest debt in America history was based on the faulty premise that the Soviet Union was going to attack the Middle East.” (Ibid.; p. 355.)
17. Next, the program takes up the issue of the development of the hydrogenation process (the “Bergius process”) that was developed to make oil out of coal. This process, developed and patented by the German I.G. Farben company and used to produce much of Germany’s oil during World War II, was developed during the 1920’s, when it was forecast that the world was about to run out of oil!! This process was brought to fruition as a result of the Standard/I.G. Agreement of 1929—one of the most important cartel arrangements ever made. (The Standard/I.G. Agreement is discussed in Miscellaneous Archive Show M11—available from Spitfire.) ” . . .Although [Robert] Bosch’s plan was to rely on the financial resources of I.G. to develop domestic production, he planned to bring in an American company like Standard Oil (New Jersey) as a partner in the worldwide exploitation of the process. Moreover, Standard had more than enormous financial resources: it had a huge and well-staffed research and development organization that had achieved important breakthroughs in petroleum technology.”
The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben by Joseph Borkin and Barrie Zwicker; The Free Press [HC]; Copyright 1978 by the Free Press; ISBN 0233 97126 2; p. 48.
26. “Shortly after the announcement of I.G.‘s new synthetic oil plant, Bosch himself arrived in the United States to begin negotiations with Standard. He was interested mainly in financial support. By now Teagle and Howard realized that their enthusiasm and stunned appreciation of the hydrogenation process had reduced their bargaining power with Bosch. They decided to put on a counterdemonstration. Teagle invited Bosch to accompany him on his annual tour of Standard’s vast properties. For three weeks they drove across the United States inspecting Standard facilities. On the trip it became clear to Bosch that the Standard Oil officials were not ready to make the large payment to I.G. he had expected. In mid December he returned to Germany without a definite agreement or financial commitment. Again he slipped in to the depression that periodically afflicted him.” (Ibid.; pp. 48–49.)
27. “It took until August of the next year for Teagle and Bosch to reach a relatively limited understanding. Standard agreed to embark on a cooperative program of research and development of the hydrogenation process to refine crude oil. It also agreed to build a new plant for this purpose as soon as possible in Louisiana. In return Standard was given the right to exploit the process in the United States and to share half of the royalties with I.G. on licenses to other parties. However, Standard was not entitled to exploit the process in any of its far-flung plants outside the United States.” (Ibid.; p. 49.)
28. “Modest as the arrangement was, the New York Times, in its news story of the agreement dispatched by its German correspondent, was almost euphoric about the possibilities of I.G.‘s synthetic oil process. ‘What experts in chemical fields admit is that the world is on the threshold of a new fuel era, and that the often predicted failure of the gasoline supply is now shoved centuries in the future . . . .The discoveries in these fields are more marvelous than inventions which enable rapid strides in the development of radio, other uses of electricity and in airplanes, a prominent industrialist told the correspondent of the New York Times.” (Idem.)
29. “It was estimated by ‘conservative authorities’ that twenty percent of the gasoline used in 1928 would be synthetic and that within a very few years, Germany would be completely self-sufficient. So great was the confidence in making synthetic oil, concluded the New York Times article, that the price for the synthetic fuel was expected to be less that that of natural oil imported from the United States and the Soviet Union. . . .” (Idem.)
30. Eventually, Standard and I.G. were able to conclude their agreement. “What Bosch really wanted was a large lump payment from Standard to extricate I.G. from its present financial difficulties and still enable him to continue the hydrogenation project in Germany. With the help of Hermann Schmitz, Bosch devised a counterproposal that he did not believe Standard could afford to refuse. He offered to sell the world rights to the Bergius-Bosch hydrogenation process for the production of gasoline. The only territorial exception was that the rights in Germany were reserved to I.G. Obviously, the German authorities would never permit I.G. to surrender to a foreign company the German rights to a process so crucial to military and economic self-sufficiency. Even so, I.G. did not reveal to its government that it was selling the hydrogenation rights to Standard. As Bosch anticipated, Standard jumped at the offer.” (Ibid.; pp. 50–51.)
31. “The parties negotiated their agreement in the manner of two great powers forging a treaty to divide the world into separate spheres of influence. They agreed to observe the sovereignty of each in their respective fields. In the words of a Standard official, ‘The I.G. are going to stay out of the oil business—and we are going to stay out of the chemical business.’ To set up a mechanism to carry out the terms of the agreement the parties agreed to create the Standard‑I.G. Company, incorporated in the United States, owned eighty percent by Standard Oil and twenty percent by I.G. This retained for I.G. a minority interest in any future success. I.G. then transferred the world patent rights (except for Germany) on the hydrogenation process to the new enterprise. In return, Bosch finally secured what he so desperately wanted. Standard turned over to I.G. two percent of its entire common stock: 546,000 shares valued on Standard’s books at $35 million! As a slight bonus for I.G., Teagle agreed to serve on the board of I.G.‘s newly formed holding company in the United States, the American I.G. Chemical Company. . .” (Ibid.; p. 51.)
32. A precipitous drop in the price of oil made synthetic oil too expensive to compete in the marketplace with naturally produced petroleum. It remains to be seen if the rise if oil prices once again makes synthetic oil viable in the marketplace. Note that in FTR#385, Mr. Emory expressed his opinion that the theme of the novel The Formula was probably based in reality. That novel featured high-level intrigue around a formula for a catalyst that rendered synthetic oil competitive with natural petroleum by making the hydrogenation process dramatically more efficient. The possible implications of this will be discussed later on in this description. ” . . .Hardly had the I.G.-Standard marriage been completed that it received a series of staggering blows. The Great Depression, combined with the discovery of enormous oil reserves in Texas, dropped the price of oil so drastically that Standard abandoned any immediate hope for world-wide development of the conversion of coal into oil. . . .and it took the Arab oil boycott in 1974 to rekindle Standard’s interest in making gasoline from coal.” (Ibid.; p. 52.)
33. The broadcast then reviews “the Battle of Leuna”, one of the key aerial engagements of World War II. In this battle, the U.S. Eighth Air Force bombed the German synthetic fuel production out of effective operation, thus starving the German war machine of petroleum. (As discussed in Miscellaneous Archive Show M11, as well as FTR#‘s 194, 276, 278, 341, 385, 411, I.G.‘s synthetic fuel operation was inextricably linked with the Standard/I.G. Agreement of 1929—one of the most important cartel agreements of the 20th century.) During World War II, I.G. Farben’s hydrogenation plants provided Germany with the bulk of its fuel, thus realizing the potential of the Standard‑I.G. Agreement. The 1944 aerial campaign against the largest of those plants, the giant I.G. facility at Leuna, was one of the pivotal engagements of the air war in Western Europe. “The Battle of Leuna” was instrumental in crippling Germany’s war machine. Although Germany managed to keep the plant operating by cannibalizing equipment from other hydrogenation facilities, the resulting damage to the overall synthetic oil program was a decisive element in the destruction of the fuel for Germany’s war machine. “May 12, 1944, was a fateful day for Germany and for I.G. On that day, the United States Eighth Air Force sent 935 bombers over Germany to attack its synthetic oil industry: 200 bombers concentrated on I.G.‘s plant alone. This attack marked the beginning of what the U.S. strategic bombing survey called ‘the Battle of Leuna,’ classifying it as ‘one of the major battles of the war.’ ” The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben by Joseph Borkin and Barrie Zwicker; The Free Press [HC]; Copyright 1978 by the Free Press; ISBN 0233 97126 2; p. 48.
34. “The next day, Albert Speer, Reich minister for armaments and war production, toured the wreckage of Leuna with Buetefisch. What he saw convinced him that ‘the technological war was decided. . . . It meant the end of German armament production.’ For Speer it was the turning point in the war. He immediately flew to Hitler’s headquarters at Obersalzburg to report on the extent and meaning of the disaster: ‘The enemy has struck us at one of our weakest points,’ he told the Fuehrer. ‘If they persist at this time, we will soon have no fuel production worth mentioning. Our one hope is that the other side has an air force general staff as scatterbrained as ours!’ ” (Idem.)
35. “Hitler then summoned four of the top fuel experts from I.G., including Krauch and Buetefisch, for a discussion about the consequences of the May 12 air raid. Goering and Speer accompanied them to the meeting. Before the group went in to see Hitler, Speer advised the four fuel experts to tell ‘the unvarnished truth.’ However, Goering insisted that they not be too pessimistic. ‘He was probably afraid that Hitler would place the blame for the debacle chiefly on him,’ Speer wrote later. Krauch was determined to follow Speer’s advice. He told Hitler that Germany’s position was hopeless if the enemy air raids on the synthetic oil plants continued. To support his grim forecast, he presented Hitler with an impressive array of facts and figures. . .” (Ibid.; pp. 128–129.)
36. “The course of the Battle of Leuna became the gauge for the state of German oil production. By early July the resourceful I.G. technicians were able to restore Leuna to seventy-five percent operating capacity. However, the Eighth Air Force returned on July7, again bombing the plant to a halt. Two days later the plant started operating again and by July 19 had reached fifty-three percent of capacity. And so the cycle of bombings and reconstruction continued. But the total effect on German fuel production was nothing less than catastrophic. Krauch concluded that the only way fuel installations could be rebuilt after each raid was to cannibalize other installations. Under this plan to prevent the total cessation of oil production, Germany’s productive capacity diminished with each recuperation. By September, oil production had dropped to fifteen percent, a condition from which Germany was never to recover.” (Ibid.; p. 130.)
37. In the context of both the Standard/I.G. Agreement of 1929 and the other business arrangements that I.G. had with major western corporations, a discussion of a “gentleman’s agreement” with key businessmen on the “other side” not to bomb I.G’s synthetic fuel plants is more than a little interesting. It is also significant to note that it is the old I.G. firm Degussa that was at the core of Hitler’s program to develop an atomic bomb. Degussa was instrumental in equipping Saddam Hussein with his nuclear capability in the 1980’s and 1990’s. “The intensive bombing of Leuna led to a curious confrontation between Buetefisch, who was in charge of Leuna, and Paul Harteck, leading nuclear scientist working on Germany’s atomic bomb project. Part of Leuna was devoted to the manufacture of heavy water, a necessary component of atomic energy. After the first bombs fell on Leuna, Buetefisch informed Harteck that the heavy water installation must be abandoned. He claimed that the massive bombing could not have been aimed at fuel production since there was a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ between heavy industry in Germany and abroad that I.G.‘s synthetic gasoline plants would not be bombed. The only explanation for the raids against Leuna, therefore, was the heavy water facility.” (Idem.)
38. Next, the broadcast excerpts FTR#278, with discussion of the complex CDU funding scandal. Speaking of the CDU funding scandal, The Financial Times wrote: “This could yet throw light on kickbacks paid by ELF over a deal between Mr. Mitterand and German ex-chancellor Helmut Kohl to invest in the Leuna refinery in East Germany—an affair which helped bring Mr. Kohl down.”
(“French Trial Paints a Picture of Graft on a Grandiose Scale” by Robert Graham; Financial Times; 4/22/2003; p. 14.)
39. In the early 1990’s, the Leuna refinery (which had been rebuilt by the Soviets after the war) became the focal point of a complex deal involving the French oil firm ELF-Aquitaine, the Thyssen heavy industrial firm and the Saudi Arabian armaments industry. This deal, in turn, is at the center of an ongoing scandal in Germany involving political payouts to the CDU party of former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, bribes allegedly made by French politicians, kickbacks involving powerful Canadian political and economic interests, and the intelligence services of numerous countries. In turn, the CDU funding scandal is inextricably linked with the Underground Reich. (For more about the CDU funding scandal, see FTR#‘s 193, 276, 278.) The intense interest on the part of major political and industrial interests in this renovated Second World War facility is of particular significance in this context. Most of the industrial infrastructure of the former East Germany was bought out and liquidated shortly after reunification (with enormous resultant hardship for the citizens of that part of Germany). In contrast, the former I.G. facility at Leuna was considered a valuable prize. The maneuvering around the Leuna facility and the CDU funding scandal was instrumental in convincing Mr. Emory that The Formula was of more than mere literary significance. It convinced him that that fact-based novel would have to be discussed at some future point.
40. The novel The Formula revolves around the formula for a catalyst (“the Mangan Catalyst”) developed by I.G. Farben as part of its “Genesis Project.” The significance of the project lies in the fact that it greatly improved the efficiency of the hydrogenation process, streamlining Germany’s synthetic fuel production capacity and (potentially) making the hydrogenation process economically competitive with naturally-produced petroleum. In the novel, the post-1973 increase in the price of oil makes the “Formula” a pivot-point of clandestine intrigue. Consider the significance of the hypothetical existence of such a formula. It would: potentially control petroleum-producing countries (including the former USSR and the Middle-East oil kingdoms) by threatening their economic foundation; offer the key to manipulating the economies of non-oil producing industrial economies by potentially freeing them from the need to import oil; control the “profit position” of the major oil companies; and legally freeing Germany from the need to import oil—I.G.‘s successor companies would have retained the right to produce hydrogenation-derived oil. Given the improvements in organic chemistry and other technologies in years since World War II, it seems unlikely that something like the “Mangan Catalyst” (or an analogous technological development) would not have been developed.
41. The motivation for the petroleum companies to withhold a technical improvement in the Bergius hydrogenation process that would make synthetic fuel economically competitive with natural petroleum was expressed by the character Adam Steiffel in The Formula: ” ‘Why?’ Barney asked. ‘What’s wrong with making America self-sufficient in synthetic fuel?’ The old man stared at Barney with a look of total wonder. ‘Do you honestly expect a three-hundred-billion-dollar industry to undermine its own stake in the lucrative scarcity of oil by mass-producing synthetic fuel?’ ”
(The Formula; by Steve Shagan; Copyright 1979 Cirandinha Productions, Inc.; Soft Cover edition published in 1980 by Bantam Books; 0–553-13801–4; pp. 326–327.)
42. The program excerpts FTR-193, detailing an important aspect of the CDU funding scandal. This excerpt, in turn, comes from a major article about the CDU funding scandal from the New York Times. The broadcast underscores the fact that the Leuna facility was being utilized jointly by TotalFina and the Thyssen heavy industrial firm. The Thyssen firm, in turn, was involved with a complex sale of tanks to Saudi Arabia as part of the complex maneuvering at the heart of the CDU funding scandal. (For more about the CDU funding scandal, see—among other programs—FTR#‘s 276, 278.
(“Big Kickbacks Under Kohl Reported” by Roger Cohen and John Tagliabue; New York Times; 2/7/2000.)
43. Next, the program reviews information from FTR#478. “Psst! Hey there. You believe that we are facing a crisis, an Imminent Peak of World Oil Production, right? Well, the insiders in the President’s Energy Strategy Team would like you to join with them in solving this new sudden crisis. In fact, you may already have been inducted. You panic at the idea of Western civilization collapsing as the engines and machines grind to a halt, uh-huh? You agree with Ron Swenson of Ecosystems that ‘The world is about to experience a real energy crisis, likely to be a calamity unparalleled in human history’ (Swenson, 1996).”
(“The Coming Panic over the End of Oil—Coming to a Ballot Box Near You” by “Scoop”, Section News; Posted on 12/24/2003 by Walt Contreras Sheasby; p. 1 .)
44. In light of the Thyssen-Krupp firm’s acquisition of the Leuna plant, it is more than a little interesting to contemplate the fact that the professional epicenter of “Peak Oil” theorists is a firm that is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Thyssen-Bornemisza Industries!! Are the acquisition of the Leuna facility and the acquisition of HIS connected? Is the Thyssen nexus generating the foundation for producing and marketing synthetic fuel by exaggerating the scarcity of the world’s petroleum resources? Is the petroleum cartel and its associated interests going along with the Peak Oil theorists in order to maximize their profit position (as the Adam Steiffel character stated)? “You think, as oil geologist Colin J. Campbell says, that ‘the very future of our subspecies ‘Hydrocarbon Man’ is at stake,’ right? You agree with Virginia Abernathy that there are too many immigrants using up our resources, I’m sure. You probably realize, as many do not, that the Era of Cheap Oil and Gas is over. As Matthew E. Simmons, the CEO of the energy investment bankers of Simmons and Co. International, recently said: ‘I think basically that now, that peaking of oil will never be accurately predicted until after the fact. But the event will occur, and my analysis is leaning me more by the month, [toward] the worry that peaking is at hand; not years away. If it turns out I’m wrong, then I’m wrong. But if I’m right, the unforeseen consequences are devastating.’ ” (Idem.)
45. Among the most visible and prominent of the Peak Oil advocates is Matthew E. Simmons. He is also one of the Bush administration’s most important energy advisors. Simmons participated in Cheney’s energy task force in 2001. Note that both Bush and Cheney are former p‑petroleum company CEO’s from the state of Texas. In light of the elder Bush’s collaboration in the phony oil shortage of the late 1970’s, it is not unreasonable to ask if the Bush administration, the Saudis, OPEC and the Underground Reich are collaborating to create the “Peak Oil” scare and then realize the potential of the Standard/I.G. Agreement of 1929. “Well, guess what? Simmons is not only an oilionaire himself, but he has been a key advisor to the Bush Administration and to Vice President Cheney’s 2001 Energy Task Force, as well as sitting on the Council of Foreign Relations. Simmons is a board member of Kerr-McGee Corp., a major oil and gas producer. He insists that the US government is very worried about oil depletion. However, Cheney’s secretive National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG) refused to make its records of closed-door meetings with industry executives public. The Industry has taken a beating in public opinion since the Kyoto summit put the spotlight on global warming. And now Simmons apparently wants to make the public’s fear of The End of Cheap Oil the drum beat of the 2004 Re-elect Bush and Cheney Campaign, although a more enlightened energy policy, he worries, ‘is going to take a while.’ ” (Idem.)
46. Among the earliest forecasters of Peak Oil was Marion King Hubbert. “In fact, the coalition that is pushing for a radical new energy policy is largely composed of those who stand to benefit from a revival, not a phase out, of oil and gas development. The intellectual and activist core of the coalition is made up of those veteran oil geologists and engineers who use the method of modeling the ratio of reserves to production developed by the maverick research geophysicist Marion King Hubbert, who died in 1989. He believed that the peak of production is reached when half of the estimated ultimately recoverable resource, determined by what has been discovered and logged cumulatively as actual reserves, has been pumped. In1956 at the Shell Oil Lab in Houston, Hubbert startled his colleagues by predicting that the fossil fuel era would be over very quickly. He correctly predicted that US oil production would peak in the early 1970’s.” (Ibid.; p. 2.)
47. Unlike Hubbert and Deffeyes, Monsieurs Laharrere, Campbell and Ivanhoe advocate more oil exploration, as opposed to alternative fuel development. As we shall see Petroconsultants—the firm that employed all three—is closely connected to the Thyssen business empire. “Support for a remedial program of oil exploration and development versus switching to research and development of alternative energy sources tends to be found among oil experts who are consultants to the industry. While accepting some of the values of the New Age, they largely remain loyal tot heir calling as oil geologists and wildcatters. The leading trio of Jean H. Laherrere, Colin J. Campbell, and L.F. (Buz) Ivanhoe have worked for, or with, the leading firm modeling oil fields, Petroconsultants of Geneva. Since the 1950’s they have been fed data on oil exploration and production by just about all the major oil companies, as well as by a network of about 2000 oil industry consultants around the world. They use this data to produce reports on various matters pertinent to the oil industry, which they sell back to the industry. ‘This much is known,’ Kenneth Deffeyes writes, ‘the loudest warnings about the predicted peak of world oil production came from Petroconsultants’ (Deffeyes, 2001: p. 7).” (Ibid.; p. 3.)
48. The epicenter of the Peak Oil hypothesis is IHS Energy Group—which evolved out of Petroconsultants—a Thyssen-Bornemisza subsidiary.
The program sets forth the Petroconsultants/Thyssen link at length: “In a late 1998 merger, Petroconsultants became HIS Energy Group, a subsidiary of Information Handling Services Group (IHS Group), a diversified conglomerate owned by Holland America Investment Corp., IHS Group’s immediate parent company, for the Thyssen-Bornemisza Group (TBG, Inc.).” [Emphasis added.] In the 1920’s, George Herbert Walker and his son-in-law, Prescott Bush, had helped the Thyssen dynasty finance its acquisitions through Union Banking Corp. and Holland-American trading Corp. (Wikipedia, 2003). Until his death last year, Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, the nephew of the Nazi steel and coal magnate, was one of the world’s richest men. Some of the old Hubbertians would probably flinch at such an association.” (Idem.)
49. It is essential to note that the raw data upon which IHS (formerly Petroconsultants) has drawn its Peak Oil conclusions is provided by the very oil industry interests that stand to profit from enormous price increases!! This is tantamount to assigning the foxes to guard the hen house and then giving credence to their claim that the world is facing a “Peak Poultry” crisis and resulting shortage of chickens!! “In 1995, a report by Campbell and Laherre on world oil resources, World Oil Supply 1930–2050 (Petroconsultants Pty. Ltd., 1995), written for oil industry insiders and priced at $32, 000 per copy, concluded that world oil production and supply probably would peak as soon as the year 2000 and decline to half the peak level by 2025. Large and permanent increases in oil prices were predicted after the year 2000. . . .” (Idem.)
50. ” . . . Colin J. Campbell, the leader of the Neo-Hubbertians, is a petroleum geologist from Ballydehob, Ireland, and author of The Coming Oil Crisis (1997). He worked for Texaco as an exploration geologist and then at Amoco as chief geologist for Ecuador. He is a Trustee of the Oil Depletion Analysis Center (ODAC) and the founder of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO), originally a network of 24 oil scientists. ASPO has Associate members like Halliburton and financial sponsors like Schlumberger, but Campbell is critical of the Bush-Cheney Administration for ‘collectively having personal investments of as much as $150 million in oil companies’ (ASPO, 2002).” (Idem.)
51. Taken in the context of Peak Oil, the Thyssen firm’s interest in the Leuna facility in the former East Germany takes on added significance. Colin Campbell notes the possible use by Germany of its coal resources to supplement its energy diet. It was German coal—utilized in the hydrogenation process—that provided the Third Reich with the foundation for its synthetic fuel project in World War II. The Leuna facility was the largest of those installations. Is Thyssen (and Totalfina Elf) gearing up for possible use of the Leuna facility to manufacture synthetic oil? Again, for more about the complex maneuvering around Leuna in the CDU funding scandal, see FTR#‘s 193, 276, 278, 385, 407, 478. “Campbell has laid out his prescription for various consumer governments, for example: ‘Germany should resist Green pressure to give up nuclear power at precisely the moment it needs more energy, as oil peaks and declines. Germany has coal and possibilities for coalbed methane. This industry needs to be rediscovered. It may become economic again. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] Germany should encourage its motor manufacturers to move to more efficient engines and hydrogen fuels, especially those made by solar means. It should provide whatever fiscal incentives are needed.’ (Campbell, 2000).” (Ibid.; pp. 3–4.)
52. Note that the genesis of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil was in Germany on December 7, 2000. This was at the same time as the Supreme Court was appointing George W. Bush President of the United States! “It was here in Germany that ASPO had its origin. On December 7th in the year 2000, I was privileged to give a talk on oil depletion at the ancient university of Clausthal in the Harz Mountains. The idea of forming an institution, or network of scientists concerned about the subject, developed. Next day, I took the idea to Professor Wellmer, the head of the BGR in Hannover, who gave it his support. The Norwegians were the next to join, followed by the Swedes. Today, ASPO is represented in almost all European countries—at least before its recent enlargement.” (“ASPO Third International Workshop on Oil and Gas Depletion” by C.J. Campbell; 5/25–26/2004; p. 1; accessed at: http://www.peakoil.net/iwood2004/ProgramBerlin.doc.)
53. The program reviews the profound relationship between the branches of the Thyssen industrial empire and the Bormann organization: “Thyssen-Bornemisza runs his private Dutch-based investment group from Lugano, Switzerland, and his cousin, Count Federico Zichy-Thyssen, grandson of old Fritz Thyssen, exercises control over Thyssen A.G. from his base in Buenos Aires.” (Martin Bormann: Nazi in Exile; by Paul Manning; copyright 1981; Lyle Stuart [hardcover]; ISBN 0–8184-0309–8; p. 237.)
54. “During the final year of his life, in Argentina, dividing his time between the villa in Buenos Aires and the ranches, one in Argentina, the other in Paraguay, Fritz Thyssen completed establishing the control that would assure everlasting family prosperity through Thyssen A.G. Elder grandson Count Federico Zichy-Thyssen of Buenos Aires was placed on the board of this German steel trust. When the count votes at board meetings in Dusseldorf three or four times a year, he votes for the entire Thyssen family of South America and Europe.” (Ibid.; p. 257.)
55. “Count Federico Zichy-Thyssen, who has a younger brother Count Claudio Zichy-Thyssen, represents the largest single shareholding group, with 25 percent of the stock of Thyssen A.G. The remainder of the stock is diffused into Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt and Buenos Aires, which holds shares for many individuals on both continents, including those representing the Bormann group. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.]” (Idem.)
56. Martin Bormann himself was very close to the Argentine branch of the Thyssen family. “Count Zichy-Thyssen, grandson of old Fritz Thyssen, is looked upon with affection by Martin Bormann, who visits the Zichy-Thyssens upon occasion. Bormann’s eldest daughter is said to be almost a permanent guest at the Thyssen ranches. As with the eldest brother, Adolf Martin, the former Jesuit priest, Martin Bormann strongly wanted at least these first of his children with him in South America. Adolf, accompanied by his wife, visits his father from time to time. Daughter ‘Neumi’ never married and devotes herself to her father in his declining years.” (Ibid.; p. 290.)
57. “Along with the good life, there is no lessening of safeguards. They have been on the run for so many years that it is part of their intrinsic survival pattern to question all strangers and any overtures. Even the Zichy-Thyssens, who in no way participated in the rise and fall of the Third Reich as did grandfather Fritz, evidence anxiety when approached by me with courteous questions regarding the history of their family and further details about the life and career of Fritz Thyssen.” (Idem.)
58. “Count Federico Zichy-Thyssen, grandson of old Fritz Thyssen, Claudio Zichy-Thyssen, and their families are intimate friends of Bormann. Because of this friendship, Martin Bormann has three sanctuaries: his own pampas spread in Argentina and the Thyssen ranches in Argentina and Paraguay.” (Ibid.; p. 292.)
59. It is worth noting that the Bormann group is heavily involved with the interests growing out of I.G. Farben. (For more about this, see FTR#411.) “The Bormann organization continues to wield enormous economic influence. Wealth continues to flow into the treasuries of its corporate entities in South America, the United States and Europe. Vastly diversified, it is said to be the largest land-owner in South America, and through stockholdings, controls German heavy industry and the trust established by the late Hermann Schmitz, former president of I.G. Farben, who held as much stock in Standard Oil of New Jersey as did the Rockefellers.” (Idem.)
60. Next, the program excerpts FTR-273. Former Justice Department official John Loftus disclosed that the Bush family fortune came from the 1951 liquidation of the Union Banking Corporation—a joint Thyssen/Bush/Harriman business venture. For more about the Bush family’s involvement with the Thyssen milieu and other elements of Nazi industry, see—among other programs—FTR#‘s 361, 370, 435, 475, 481.) (“Author Links Bush Family to Nazis;” Sarasota Herald-Tribune; 11/11/2000; accessed at www.newscoast.com.)
61. It is worth noting that the Rockefeller family was (as of 1972) a major stockholder in the Thyssen firm, giving that family a stake in Thyssen control of the Leuna facility and any products coming from it. “A few decades later things had quieted down and all the Nazi money finally came home to Wall Street. By 1972, one of Rockefeller’s assets, the Chase Manhattan bank in New York, secretly owned 38% of the Thyssen company, according to internal Thyssen records in my custody. Not a bad payoff for the Robber Barons. The Auschwitz investment paid off handsomely. The Thyssen-Krupp corporation is now the wealthiest conglomerate in Europe. WWII is over. The Germans won.” (“Former Federal Prosecutor John Loftus Confirms the Bush-Nazi Scandal” by John Loftus; 10/31/2003; p. 2; accessed at: http://www.john-loftus.com/bush_nazi_scandal.asp.)
62. Another major capital participant in the Thyssen-Krupp firm was the Iranian government. Iran—like Saudi Arabia—would be among the beneficiaries of the Peak Oil gambit. Note that the Iranian government has had a traditionally close relationship with the Al Taqwa milieu. (For more about this, see—among other programs, FTR#‘s 343, 352, 354, 381.) “…Friday, Thyssen-Krupp, a steel making conglomerate, said a representative of Iran-Thyssen’s No. 3 shareholder—no longer would hold a seat on its supervisory board, which is similar to a U.S. board of directors. Iran has held a major stake in the company since before the nation’s 1979 Islamic revolution, and helped rescue it from near-bankruptcy with a capital injection 30 years ago. . . .” (“European Firms React to U.S. Hard Line on Iran” by Matthew Karnitschnig; The Wall Street Journal; 1/28/2005; p. A7.)
63. ” . . .Under U.S. law, the government isn’t allowed to grant contracts to companies in which Iran holds a stake of more than 5%. To avoid sanction, Thyssen-Krupp spent 406 million Euros ($531 million) to repurchase more than 3% of its stock from Iran in 2003. While that reduced the country’s share to 4.8%, the U.S. also leaned on Thyssen-Krupp to remove the Iranian representative from its board, people familiar with the matter say. The representative, Mohamad-Mehdi Navab-Motlagh, a deputy minister in Iran’s Ministry of Industry and Mining, had served on the board for more than 20 years.” (Idem.)
64. Author Kevin Coogan ruminates on the significance of the Genoud milieu’s presence in the events of 9/11: “My own belief is that it is less the apparently fantastic and ‘James Bond’-like quality of this analysis that is most difficult to understand. The real difficulty is the utter ignorance of most Westerners (Americans in particular) about the very existence of such people as Francois Genoud. Thus when Ernst Backes, one of Europe’s leading experts in money laundering, told the Luxemourg-based economic journal Plus Minus last year that he believed the financial source of funds for the 9/11 terrorists would ultimately be traced back to Swiss bank accounts established by Genoud, few Americans had any idea what Backes could possibly be talking about. For this same reason there has been virtually no independent investigation into SICO’s Baudoin Dunand’s relationship to Genoud or (for that matter) the role Syrian-born Muhammad Mardam Bay (believed to be related to a former Syrian foreign minister) has played both as a member of Magnin, Dunand & Associates as well as Bay’s possible links with Genoud. And what does it mean when we are told that [Al Taqwa founder] Youssef Nada, for example, is believed by Egyptian authorities to have worked for German intelligence in World War II?” (Ibid.; p. 15)
65. It should be noted that the marketing of the Peak Oil concept would greatly enrich some of the most fascistic elements on earth, from the major oil companies to the vultures of OPEC, to the Muslim Brotherhood—a traditional beneficiary of Arab wealth. The increase in the price of oil will greatly enhance the power of the fascistic networks examined in this broadcast. Whether they will, in time, shift their wealth away from the dollar to the euro remains to be seen. Kevin Coogan’s rumination is presented here for examination by the reader. “It is not at all impossible that networks first developed in the 1930’s and who saw their economic power fantastically multiplied in the wake of the enormous hike in oil prices in 1973 are now engaged in trying to enact a major financial shift away from the dollar and Anglo-American financial networks and to shift the vast wealth of the Muslim oil states into a new Euro-based financial network that would vastly increase the power of those banks and financial interests in Europe associated with elements of far right elites that survived World War II relatively intact.” (Idem.)
66. “If this were at all the case, it would not be a new development. The very same attempt to develop an independent Saudi-German hookup to subvert the U.S. and British domination of the Saudi oil markets was actually attempted in the mid-1950’s. At that time, the Saudi royal family—using the advise of the famous German banker Hjalmar Schacht—attempted to employ Aristotle Onassis to transport Saudi oil on new oil tankers that would be constructed in the shipyards of Germany. This attempt to break the Western oil control over Saudi Arabia was finally blocked by the United States, a story well documented in Jim Hougan’s book Spooks (New York: William Morrow, 1978.)” (Ibid.; pp. 15–16.)
Discussion
No comments for “FTR #506 The Road to Lugano, Part II”