Record­ed Novem­ber 12, 2006

Lis­ten: MP3  Side 1  Side 2

REALAUDIO

Intro­duc­tion: Sup­ple­ment­ing pre­vi­ous pro­grams about the per­ils of elec­tron­ic vot­ing, this broad­cast high­lights the new pro­pri­etors of the Sequoia elec­tron­ic vot­ing tech­nol­o­gy. Pre­vi­ous­ly run by ele­ments con­nect­ed to orga­nized crime and the GOP, Sequoia was recent­ly pur­chased by Smart­mat­ic. Because Smart­mat­ic is linked to the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment of Hugo Chavez, Smartmatic’s pur­chase of Sequoia has raised alarms in Wash­ing­ton. The truth con­cern­ing Smart­mat­ic is more sin­is­ter than its crit­ics in D.C. sus­pect.

Some­what obscured by a tan­gled web of off­shore com­pa­nies, Smart­mat­ic (and Sequoia’s vot­ing machines) are actu­al­ly owned by a group of enti­ties affil­i­at­ed with the mem­ber com­pa­nies of I.G. Far­ben. The back­bone of Nazi Ger­many and one of the most impor­tant com­pa­nies in the his­to­ry of com­merce, I.G. Far­ben dom­i­nat­ed the inter­na­tion­al chem­i­cal and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal busi­ness. I.G.’s suc­ces­sor firms con­tin­ue to dom­i­nate these fields.

After trac­ing the own­er­ship of Smart­mat­ic to enti­ties asso­ci­at­ed with the San­doz phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal inter­ests; the pro­gram sets forth the pro­found rela­tion­ship between I.G. Far­ben and the machin­ery of Nazi gov­ern­ment. After high­light­ing I.G. Farben’s role in the Bor­mann flight cap­i­tal pro­gram that relo­cat­ed the Third Reich’s wealth abroad, the pro­gram under­scores the posi­tion of the suc­ces­sor firms to I.G. in the day-to-day func­tion­ing of the Under­ground Reich. It is that Under­ground Reich that now holds sway over the Sequoia vot­ing tech­nol­o­gy used in the U.S.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: The role of Smartmatic’s par­ent firm Cit­co as the largest hedge fund admin­is­tra­tor in the world; Citco’s role as man­ag­er of George Soros’s Quan­tum Fund; the U.S. Government’s unsuc­cess­ful attempt at pros­e­cut­ing San­doz for con­spir­ing with the Far­ben car­tel in the run-up to World War II; review of the posi­tion of the Bor­mann net­work in the con­tem­po­rary busi­ness and polit­i­cal envi­ron­ments.

1. Begin­ning the analy­sis of the enti­ties under­ly­ing the pur­chase of Sequoia by Smart­mat­ic, the pro­gram high­lights the con­nec­tions of the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment of Hugo Chavez to Smart­mat­ic. (For more about Sequoia and its involve­ment in high­ly ques­tion­able activ­i­ties, see—among oth­er programs—FTR#470, 487, 493, 494.) “The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is inves­ti­gat­ing the takeover last year of a lead­ing Amer­i­can man­u­fac­tur­er of elec­tron­ic vot­ing sys­tems by a small soft­ware com­pa­ny that has been linked to the left­ist Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment of Pres­i­dent Hugo Chavez. The inquiry is focus­ing on the Venezue­lan own­ers of the soft­ware com­pa­ny, the Smart­mat­ic Cor­po­ra­tion, and is try­ing to deter­mine whether the gov­ern­ment in Cara­cas has any con­trol or influ­ence over the firm’s oper­a­tions, gov­ern­ment offi­cials and oth­ers famil­iar with the inves­ti­ga­tion said. The inquiry on the eve of the midterm elec­tions is being con­duct­ed by the Com­mit­tee on For­eign Invest­ment in the Unit­ed States, or Cfius, the same pan­el of 12 gov­ern­ment agen­cies that reviewed the abortive attempt by a com­pa­ny in Dubai to take over oper­a­tions at six Amer­i­can ports ear­li­er this year. The committee’s for­mal inquiry into Smart­mat­ic and its sub­sidiary, Sequoia Vot­ing Sys­tems of Oak­land, Calif., was first report­ed Sat­ur­day in The Mia­mi Her­ald. . . .”
(“U.S. Inves­ti­gates Vot­ing Machines’ Venezuela Ties” by Tim Gold­en; The New York Times; 10/29/2006.)

2. The evi­dence sug­gests a sym­bi­ot­ic rela­tion­ship between Smart­mat­ic and Hugo Chavez’s gov­ern­men­tal milieu. “ . . . Smart­mat­ic was a lit­tle-known firm with no expe­ri­ence in vot­ing tech­nol­o­gy before it was cho­sen by the Venezue­lan author­i­ties to replace the country’s elec­tions machin­ery ahead of a con­tentious ref­er­en­dum that con­firmed Mr. Chavez as pres­i­dent in August 2004. Sev­en months before that vot­ing con­tract was award­ed, a Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment financ­ing agency invest­ed more than $200,000 into a small­er tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny, owned by some of the same peo­ple as Smart­mat­ic, that joined with Smart­mat­ic as a minor part­ner in the bid. In return, the gov­ern­ment agency was a giv­en a 28 per­cent stake in the small­er com­pa­ny and a seat on its board, which was occu­pied by a senior gov­ern­ment offi­cial who had pre­vi­ous­ly advised Mr. Chavez on elec­tions tech­nol­o­gy. But Venezue­lan offi­cials lat­er insist­ed that the mon­ey was mere­ly a small-busi­ness loan and that it was repaid before the ref­er­en­dum. With a wind­fall of some $ 120 mil­lion from its first three con­tracts with Venezuela, Smart­mat­ic then bought the much larg­er and more estab­lished Sequoia Vot­ing Sys­tems, which now has vot­ing equip­ment installed in 17 states and the Dis­trict of Colum­bia. Since its takeover by Smart­mat­ic in March 2005, Sequoia has worked aggres­sive­ly to mar­ket its vot­ing machines in Latin Amer­i­ca and oth­er devel­op­ing coun­tries. ‘The goal is to cre­ate the world’s leader in elec­tron­ic vot­ing solu­tions,’ said Mitch Stoller, a com­pa­ny spokesman. But the role of the young Venezue­lan engi­neers who found­ed Smart­mat­ic has become less vis­i­ble in pub­lic doc­u­ments as the com­pa­ny has been restruc­tured into an elab­o­rate web of off­shore com­pa­nies and for­eign trusts. . . .” (Idem.)

3. Next, the pro­gram notes that the Unit­ed States has ini­ti­at­ed an inves­ti­ga­tion into Smartmatic’s pos­si­ble rela­tion­ship to Chavez’s gov­ern­ment. “Offi­cials of a major Amer­i­can vot­ing-machine com­pa­ny that has come under fed­er­al scruti­ny because of its pri­ma­ry owner’s past busi­ness ties to the left­ist gov­ern­ment of Venezuela said yes­ter­day that the com­pa­ny had vol­un­tar­i­ly sub­mit­ted to a fed­er­al inves­ti­ga­tion into its pur­chase. The Amer­i­can com­pa­ny, Sequoia Vot­ing Sys­tems, was bought in March 2005 by the Smart­mat­ic Cor­po­ra­tion, a Venezue­lan-owned soft­ware com­pa­ny whose only pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ence in the vot­ing-machine busi­ness had been to over­haul Venezuela’s elec­toral machin­ery before a ref­er­en­dum that con­firmed Hugo Chavez as pres­i­dent in August 2004. . . .”
(“Vot­ing Machine Com­pa­ny Sub­mits to Inquiry” by Tim Gold­en; The New York Times; 10/31/2006.)

4. Note that the founders of Smart­mat­ic were liv­ing in South Flori­da, home to Sami al-Ari­an (FTR#538) and oth­er ele­ments asso­ci­at­ed with the Under­ground Reich (FTR#533). “ . . . The government’s inter­est in Smart­mat­ic stems from ques­tions about the rela­tion­ship between its prin­ci­pal own­ers and the gov­ern­ment of Venezuela. The company’s founder and prin­ci­pal own­er, Anto­nio Mug­i­ca Rivero, said he and an ear­ly part­ner, Alfre­do Anzo­la, were young soft­ware engi­neers liv­ing in South Flori­da dur­ing the recount of the 2004 elec­tion and saw busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ty in elec­tron­ic vot­ing machines. Despite their lack of expe­ri­ence in the field, Smart­mat­ic and Biz­ta, anoth­er small com­pa­ny in which Mr. Mug­i­ca, his father and Mr. Anzo­la were major­i­ty share­hold­ers, were cho­sen in ear­ly 2004 to over­haul the Venezue­lan elec­tion machin­ery. Only weeks before, Biz­ta had received what com­pa­ny offi­cials said was a gov­ern­ment loan of some $150,000, in return for 28 per­cent of its shares. A Venezue­lan offi­cial, Omar Mon­til­la Castil­lo, joined its board as the government’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive. He has been iden­ti­fied in news reports as an elec­tions-sys­tems advis­er to Pres­i­dent Chavez. At the news con­fer­ence and in an inter­view yes­ter­day, Mr. Mug­i­ca said he had nev­er met Mr. Mon­til­la. When asked about the min­utes of a Biz­ta board meet­ing from Dec. 15, 2003, which indi­cate that both men were present, he said he had only ‘a vague rec­ol­lec­tion’ of the event. . . .” (Idem.)

5. The Venezue­lan ele­ment in the cor­po­rate con­trol of Smart­mat­ic is only a rel­a­tive­ly super­fi­cial com­po­nent of the enor­mous finan­cial jug­ger­naut that owns and guides Smart­mat­ic, the own­er of Sequoia. The real mas­ter, so to speak, of Smart­mat­ic (and con­se­quent­ly Sequoia) is Cit­co. Cit­co, the world’s largest hedge fund admin­is­tra­tor, was con­trolled for a long time by the San­doz Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion, which retains a sig­nif­i­cant minor­i­ty inter­est. As will be seen below, the San­doz Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion is part of the milieu of I.G. Far­ben Under­ground Reich.
“ . . . The Ams­ter­dam reg­istry shows that Smart­mat­ic Inter­na­tion­al Hold­ing B.V.‘s man­ag­ing direc­tor is Trust Inter­na­tion­al Man­age­ment (T.I.M.) B.V. Both com­pa­nies oper­ate from the same address. Accord­ing to the reg­is­ter the web­site of T.I.M. B.V is http://citco.com. Cit­co Group is quot­ed in Hedge Funds World as ‘the world’s largest hedge fund admin­is­tra­tor’ (sic), that until very recent­ly was con­trolled by Switzer­land’s San­doz Foun­da­tion. How­ev­er Cit­co has informed that ‘an investor group includ­ing the Smeets Fam­i­ly Trust, Cit­co man­agers, and friends of the firm has acquired a con­trol­ling inter­est in Cit­co from the San­doz Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion.’”
(Alek­sander Boyd blog)

6. Next, the dis­cus­sion turns to Pierre Lan­dolt, pres­i­dent of the San­doz Foun­da­tion and a sig­nif­i­cant minor­i­ty share­hold­er in the Novar­tis phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­ny. Recall that the San­doz Foun­da­tion for a long time con­trolled Cit­co, the real par­ent of Smartmatic/Sequoia. As will be seen in para­graph 9, San­doz, Ciba and Ceigy (which merged to form Novar­tis) were key ele­ments of the I.G. Far­ben chem­i­cal car­tel. Note that the San­doz Foun­da­tion is not like the Gates Foun­da­tion. It is a busi­ness enti­ty, not a phil­an­thropic one. “Pierre holds the rotat­ing pres­i­den­cy of the fam­i­ly-owned San­doz Foun­da­tion, named after the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­ny found­ed by his grand­fa­ther in the 1880s. San­doz dis­ap­peared in 1996 when it was merged with Ciba-Geigy to form Novar­tis. Today Pierre and his three sib­lings own a 3.8% stake in Novar­tis, worth $3.4 bil­lion. That’s $1 bil­lion less than it was worth last May, but the fam­i­ly has oth­er assets to cush­ion the blow, includ­ing a pri­vate bank, two resort hotels and sig­nif­i­cant stakes in Ital­ian Inter­net por­tal Tis­cali and tele­com start­up Inter­oute. Under the foun­da­tion rules, each sib­ling is allowed to make one with­draw­al from the cap­i­tal to finance a per­son­al project. Fam­i­ly head Pierre, 54, used his stake to build a suc­cess­ful bank­ing, com­modi­ties and ranch­ing busi­ness in Brazil.”
(“World’s Rich­est Men”; Forbes; 10/2002)

7. Note that Cit­co was said to have been estab­lished “more than 60 years ago.” This was writ­ten in 2005. That might well put the found­ing of that com­pa­ny dur­ing the clos­ing months of World War II. Is the Smeets Fam­i­ly Trust and/or Cit­co one of the com­pa­nies estab­lished as part of the Bor­mann cap­i­tal net­work? The founder of Cit­co was the Smeets Fam­i­ly Trust, which con­tin­ues to be a major share­hold­er in Cit­co. It is also inter­est­ing and sig­nif­i­cant that Cit­co man­ages George Soros’s Quan­tum Fund. “Estab­lished more than 60 years ago, Cit­co is a glob­al finan­cial ser­vices com­pa­ny with offices in more than 27 coun­tries that pro­vides cor­po­rate and fidu­cia­ry ser­vices, fund admin­is­tra­tion and cus­tody and bank­ing ser­vices. In July 1995 the Fon­da­tion de Famille San­doz A.G. became the major­i­ty share­hold­er of the Cit­co Group, bring­ing with it sim­i­lar goals, insti­tu­tion­al inde­pen­dence, and the finan­cial back­ing and strate­gic resolve to under­take and meet the chal­lenges of the finan­cial indus­try with its con­tin­ued con­sol­i­da­tion and cross­bor­der alliances. The Smeets Fam­i­ly Trust, which found­ed the Cit­co Group, con­tin­ues to be a sub­stan­tial minor­i­ty share­hold­er. Cit­co Fund Ser­vices (CFS), the fund admin­is­tra­tion com­pa­ny of the Cit­co Group, is one of the largest fund admin­is­tra­tors in the world. CFS admin­is­ters world­wide more than 1,500 off­shore mutu­al funds with a mar­ket val­ue of more than US$ 200 bil­lion. Among these funds are the well-known Quan­tum Funds of George Soros, Jaguar Fund, Moore Glob­al, Fair­field Sen­try, Fletch­er Income Arbi­trage and many oth­er well-known funds.”
(“Nav­i­gat­ing the Evolv­ing Hedge Funds Land­scape” by Mark Knapen; 5/27/2005; Hedge Funds World.)

8. More about the rela­tion­ship between Cit­co, the Smeets Fam­i­ly Trust and the San­doz Foun­da­tion: “The Cit­co Group Lim­it­ed (‘Cit­co’) today announced that an investor group includ­ing the Smeets Fam­i­ly Trust, Cit­co man­agers, and friends of the firm has acquired a con­trol­ling inter­est in Cit­co from the San­doz Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion. Terms of the trans­ac­tion were not dis­closed. The San­doz Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion, which had made a sub­stan­tial equi­ty invest­ment in Cit­co in 1995, will retain a minor­i­ty own­er­ship posi­tion and a seat on the Cit­co Board. Found­ed over 60 years ago, Cit­co Group com­pa­nies today rep­re­sent the largest glob­al ser­vice provider to hedge funds, admin­is­ter­ing over USD 250 bil­lion in assets from 36 offices around the world. Cit­co Group com­pa­nies also serve as cus­to­di­ans for over USD 140 bil­lion in assets of hedge funds of funds and finan­cial insti­tu­tions. The Cit­co Group com­pa­nies also pro­vide the high­est qual­i­ty cor­po­rate and pri­vate client fidu­cia­ry ser­vices to multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies, finan­cial insti­tu­tions and their pro­fes­sion­al advi­sors.” Christo­pher Smeets, CEO, and Cit­co’s cur­rent man­age­ment team will con­tin­ue to oper­ate the busi­ness. He said, ‘We are very pleased that the Cit­co Group of com­pa­nies will remain an inde­pen­dent orga­ni­za­tion, well posi­tioned to pro­vide spe­cial­ized finan­cial ser­vices to our hedge fund and oth­er clients world­wide. This new invest­ment will ensure the con­ti­nu­ity and future growth of our busi­ness serv­ing the needs of sophis­ti­cat­ed investors on a glob­al basis.’ Pierre Lan­dolt, Chair­man of the San­doz Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion, said, ‘Cit­co is a superb fran­chise that will con­tin­ue to ben­e­fit from its unique mar­ket posi­tion as an inde­pen­dent firm. We look for­ward to par­tic­i­pat­ing in the con­tin­ued suc­cess of the busi­ness.’”
(Busi­ness Wire; 7/27/2005)

9. Pro­vid­ing his­tor­i­cal per­spec­tive to the analy­sis of Smartmatic’s con­trollers, the pro­gram delves into World War II his­to­ry to note the par­tic­i­pa­tion of the San­doz firm (as well as its Novar­tis part­ners Ciba and Geigy) in I.G. Far­ben car­tel agree­ments that were the focal point of antitrust indict­ments. (These car­tel agree­ments are dis­cussed at length and in detail in FTR#511. Seri­ous stu­dents of this sub­ject should read Treason’s Peace, All Hon­or­able Men, Germany’s Mas­ter Plan and The Devil’s Chemists. These books are avail­able (along with descrip­tions of the books writ­ten by Mr. Emory)
“ . . . So these three cas­es, in some respects the most impor­tant involv­ing Far­ben and its huge Amer­i­can false fronts, remained untried while the war went on—so as not to inter­fere with its con­duct and, a year after the war was over, were still untried—because one branch of the Gov­ern­ment did not want anoth­er branch to enforce the law. If Farben’s [Her­mann] Schmitz, look­ing ahead before the war had planned it this way, could he have done it bet­ter? Anoth­er indict­ment accus­ing Gen­er­al Ani­line [the Amer­i­can sub­sidiary of I.G. Far­ben] and Gen­er­al Dyestuff of con­spir­a­cy in the dye indus­try was filed in the New Jer­sey Dis­trict Court on May 14, 1942; but in this instance Far­ben (local address still unknown) was named only as a co-con­spir­a­tor. Those indict­ed includ­ed duPont; Allied chem­i­cal and Dye; and Amer­i­can Cyanamid; also Far­ben affil­i­ates the Amer­i­can Ciba, San­doz and Geigy. Some twen­ty offi­cers of the cor­po­rate defen­dants, includ­ing Ernest K. Hal­bach and two of his Far­ben pals were also indict­ed in this case. The alleged con­spir­a­cy includ­ed world-wide restric­tions in the man­u­fac­ture, dis­tri­b­u­tion, import and export of dyestuffs, stem­ming out of the inter­na­tion­al car­tel set-up in 1928 in which co-con­spir­a­tor Far­ben was the dom­i­nant influ­ence. A long list of oth­er co-con­spir­a­tors includ­ed the Swiss Ciba, San­doz, and Geigy com­pa­nies . . . .”
(Treason’s Peace: Ger­man Dyes and Amer­i­can Dupes; Howard Wat­son Ambruster; Copy­right 1947 by Howard Wat­son Ambruster; Beech­hurst Press [HC]; pp. 337–338.)

10. Much of the sec­ond half of the broad­cast deals with the role of I. G. Far­ben in the Bor­mann flight cap­i­tal pro­gram, begin­ning with an August 10, 1944 meet­ing in Stras­bourg. Mar­tin Bor­mann called the meet­ing in order to arrange for the Third Reich to secrete its wealth abroad. That wealth became the foun­da­tion for the post­war Under­ground Reich. The pro­gram describes the Stras­bourg meet­ing in detail. (To gain a more com­plete under­stand­ing of the Bor­mann cap­i­tal net­work, see FTR#305. Seri­ous lis­ten­ers are encour­aged to read the entire book Mar­tin Bor­mann: Nazi in Exile, avail­able for down­load.) “The Staff car had left Col­mar at first light for Stras­bourg, car­ry­ing SS Ober­grup­pen­fue­herer Scheid, who held the rank of lieu­tenant gen­er­al in the Waf­fen SS, as well as the title of Dr. Scheid, direc­tor of the indus­tri­al firm of Her­madorff & Schen­burg Com­pa­ny. While the beau­ty of the rolling coun­try­side was not lost on Dr. Scheid, his thoughts were on the meet­ing of impor­tant Ger­man busi­ness­men to take place on his arrival at the Hotel Mai­son Rouge in Stras­bourg. Reich­sleit­er Mar­tin Bor­mann him­self had ordered the con­fer­ence, and although he would not phys­i­cal­ly be present he had con­fid­ed to Dr. Scheid, who was to pre­side, ‘The steps to be tak­en as a result of this meet­ing will deter­mine the post­war future of Ger­many.’ [Empha­sis added.] The Reish­sleit­er had added, ‘Ger­man indus­try must real­ize that the war can­not now be won, and must take steps to pre­pare for a post­war com­mer­cial cam­paign which will in time insure the eco­nom­ic resur­gence of Ger­many.’ It was August 10, 1944. . . .”
(Mar­tin Bor­mann: Nazi in Exile; Paul Man­ning; Copy­right 1981 [HC]; Lyle Stu­art Inc.; ISBN 0–8184-0309–8; pp. 23–24.)

11. In order to effect the eco­nom­ic res­ur­rec­tion of Ger­many (and the under­ground sus­tain­ing of the Third Reich), Dr. Scheid stressed that Ger­man cor­po­rate inter­ests must make good use of their con­nec­tions with for­eign cor­po­ra­tions that had assist­ed Ger­many in the past. Of par­tic­u­lar inter­est were Amer­i­can cor­po­ra­tions, and Dr. Scheid con­clud­ed the morn­ing meet­ing by giv­ing New York address­es to the assem­bled busi­ness­men. One of the firms that Scheid cit­ed as an exam­ple of a com­pa­ny that had been par­tic­u­lar­ly use­ful to Ger­many was the Ham­burg-Ameri­ka Line. As dis­cussed in FTR#’s 273, 361, 475, the Ham­burg-Ameri­ka Line was part of the Bush family’s busi­ness oper­a­tions on behalf of the Third Reich. “ . . . Dr. Scheid also affirmed, ‘The ground must now be laid on the finan­cial lev­el for bor­row­ing con­sid­er­able sums from for­eign coun­tries after the war.’ As an exam­ple of the kind of sup­port that had been most use­ful to Ger­many in the past, Dr. Scheid cit­ed the fact that ‘patents for stain­less steel belonged to the Chem­i­cal Foun­da­tion, Inc. New York, and the Krupp Com­pa­ny of Ger­many, joint­ly, and that of the Unit­ed States Steel Cor­po­ra­tion, Carnegie, Illi­nois, Amer­i­can Steel & Wire, Nation­al Tube, etc., were there­by under an oblig­a­tion to work with the Krupp con­cern.’ He also cit­ed the Zeiss Com­pa­ny, the Leica Com­pa­ny, and the Ham­burg-Ameri­ka line as typ­i­cal firms that had been espe­cial­ly effec­tive in pro­tect­ing Ger­man inter­ests abroad. He gave New York address­es to the twelve men.” (Ibid.; p. 25.)

12. The group also dis­cussed pro­vi­sions to con­tin­ue to fund the Nazi par­ty in an under­ground fash­ion after the war. “A small­er con­fer­ence in the after­noon was presided over by Dr. Bosse of the Ger­man Arma­ments Min­istry. It was attend­ed only by rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Hecko, Krupp, and Rochling. Dr. Bosse restat­ed Bormann’s belief that the war was all but lost, but that it would be con­tin­ued by Ger­many until cer­tain goals to insure the eco­nom­ic resur­gence of Ger­many after the war had been achieved. He added that Ger­man indus­tri­al­ists must be pre­pared to finance the con­tin­u­a­tion of the Nazi Par­ty, which would be forced to go under­ground, just as had the Maquis in France.” (Ibid.; p.26.)

13. The I.G. Far­ben com­pa­ny, a core ele­ment of the Third Reich, was cen­tral to Bormann’s plans to secret Germany’s wealth abroad. Note, also, I.G. Farben’s dom­i­nance of the Euro­pean chem­i­cal indus­try, and the opin­ion of Dr. von Schnit­zler that tech­ni­cal depen­dence on I.G. facil­i­ties would con­tin­ue after the war. (To learn more about I.G. Far­ben, see—among oth­er programs–FTR#’s 305, 411, 506, 552. Seri­ous stu­dents should also read Treason’s Peace and The Devil’s Chemists, avail­able for down­load.)
“ . . . I.G. Far­ben was a for­mi­da­ble ally for Reich­sleit­er Bor­mann in his plans for the post­war eco­nom­ic rebirth of Ger­many. In a tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion with Dr. von Schnit­zler, Bor­mann asked what would the loss of fac­to­ries in France and the oth­er occu­pied coun­tries mean to Ger­man indus­try in gen­er­al and to I.G. in par­tic­u­lar. Dr. von Schnit­zler said he believed the tech­ni­cal depen­dence of these coun­tries on I.G. would be so great that despite Ger­man defeat I.G., in one way or anoth­er, could regain its posi­tion of con­trol of the Euro­pean chem­i­cal busi­ness. ‘They will need the con­stant tech­ni­cal help of I.G.’s sci­en­tif­ic lab­o­ra­to­ries as they do not own appro­pri­ate instal­la­tions with­in them­selves.’” (Ibid.; p. 28.)

14. Bor­mann and Schmitz then dis­cussed I.G.’s prospects for the post­war peri­od. The cozy rela­tion­ship with pow­er­ful ele­ments with­in the pow­er elites of the West­ern allies was fore­seen by Schmitz as bod­ing well for the company’s future. Schmitz’s pre­dic­tions were rel­a­tive­ly accu­rate. Nei­ther Schmitz nor any of the I.G. Far­ben exec­u­tives were severe­ly pun­ished and the firm’s three suc­ces­sor firms car­ried on effec­tive­ly in the post­war peri­od. “The Reich­sleit­er asked Schmitz his views of the future. Schmitz replied, ‘The occu­pa­tion armies will be under­stand­ing in the West, but cer­tain­ly not in the East. I have instruct­ed all Far­ben admin­is­tra­tors and tech­ni­cians to come to the West, where they can be of use in resum­ing our oper­a­tions once the dis­tur­bances of 1945 come to a halt.’ Schmitz added that, while gen­er­al bomb dam­age to the I.G. plants was about 25 per­cent of capac­i­ty, some were untouched. He men­tioned speak­ing with Field Mar­shal Mod­el, who was com­mand­ing the defens­es of the Ruhr. ‘Mod­el had planned to turn our Bay­er-Leberkusen phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal fac­to­ry into an artillery base, but he agreed to make it an open, unde­fend­ed fac­to­ry. Hope­ful­ly, we will get it back untouched.’ ‘What about your board of direc­tors and the essen­tial exec­u­tives? If they are held by the occu­pa­tion author­i­ties, can I.G. con­tin­ue?’ Bor­mann asked. ‘We can con­tin­ue. We have an oper­a­tional plan for such a con­tin­gency, which every­one under­stands. How­ev­er, I don’t believe our board mem­bers will be detained too long. Nor will I. But we must go through a pro­ce­dure of inves­ti­ga­tion before release, so I have been told by our N.W. 7 peo­ple who have excel­lent con­tacts in Wash­ing­ton.’” (Ibid.; p. 158.)

15. The broad­cast details the pro­found rela­tion­ship between I.G. Far­ben and the gov­ern­ment of the Third Reich. Of par­tic­u­lar util­i­ty to the Bor­mann flight cap­i­tal pro­gram was I.G. Farben’s elab­o­rate infra­struc­ture in for­eign coun­tries. Note that, as is seen here, I.G. Far­ben was inex­tri­ca­bly linked with both the gov­ern­ment of the Third Reich and with the Nazi par­ty itself. “ . . . This, too, report­ed to Mar­tin Bormann.I.G. Farben’s N.W.7 office in Berlin com­piled mil­i­tary and eco­nom­ic data on all coun­tries for the Wehrma­cht. This depart­ment was staffed with men of rec­og­nized abil­i­ty in all branch­es of busi­ness and sci­ence. It was under the direc­tion of Dr. Max Ilgn­er, nephew of Her­mann Schmitz, I.G.’s pres­i­dent, who was known through­out the indus­tri­al world as ‘the mas­ter of finan­cial cam­ou­flage.’ [Empha­sis added.] Far­ben had offices and rep­re­sen­ta­tives in 93 coun­tries, and no social gath­er­ing of busi­ness­men was too small to be cov­ered by an N.W.7 rep­re­sen­ta­tive, whose reports on mar­ket con­di­tions, fac­to­ry instal­la­tions, raw-mate­r­i­al sup­plies, and research were trans­mit­ted imme­di­ate­ly to Berlin and Dr. Ilgn­er. In the Unit­ed States, N.W.7 oper­at­ed through the firm of Chem­ny­co, Inc., an Amer­i­can-formed sub­sidiary. Chem­ny­co sent tremen­dous amounts of infor­ma­tion rang­ing from pho­tographs and blue prints to detailed descrip­tions of entire indus­tri­al com­plex­es and secret process­es. . . .” (Ibid.; p. 54.)

16. Of par­tic­u­lar impor­tance for this dis­cus­sion is the fact that I.G. used Ger­man mil­i­tary con­quest to gain effec­tive func­tion­al con­trol of the chem­i­cal indus­try of the con­ti­nent. In para­graph 13, we not­ed Georg von Scnitzler’s pre­dic­tion that I.G.’s tech­ni­cal dom­i­nance would result in the post­war per­pet­u­a­tion of this con­trol. As we will see, this con­trol was main­tained. It is against the back­ground of I.G. Farben’s con­tin­ued dom­i­nance of the Euro­pean chem­i­cal indus­try as well as the post­war per­pet­u­a­tion of the Nazi par­ty appa­ra­tus that the San­doz Foundation/Citco/Smartmatic rela­tion­ship must be viewed! “ . . . This huge orga­ni­za­tion func­tioned as a man­u­fac­tur­ing and research arm of the Ger­man gov­ern­ment, with the respon­si­bil­i­ty of dis­cov­er­ing all pos­si­ble means of increas­ing the mil­i­tary pow­er of Ger­many. More than RM 4.25 bil­lion was invest­ed in new plants, mines, and pow­er instal­la­tions, with oth­er mil­lions going into new research facil­i­ties. . . . So close had Far­ben become to the gov­ern­ment that I.G. always knew in advance all inva­sions planned by Hitler. It was to sup­ply the mate­ri­als nec­es­sary to each con­quest, and when a land had been over­run and sub­ju­gat­ed, the Far­ben experts would han­dle the con­sol­i­da­tion and orga­ni­za­tion of the indus­tri­al facil­i­ties as addi­tion­al sup­ply sources for the Ger­man armed forces. As Ger­man troops swept across Europe and Hitler pro­claimed his vision of a thou­sand-year Third Reich, I.G. Far­ben also dreamed of world empire. This was out­lined with clar­i­ty in a doc­u­ment called Neuord­nung, or ‘New Order,’ that was accom­pa­nied by a let­ter of trans­mit­tal to the Min­istry of Eco­nom­ics. It declared that a new order for the chem­i­cal indus­try of the world should sup­ple­ment Hitler’s New Order. There­fore, the doc­u­ment stat­ed, Far­ben was fit­ting future indus­tri­al plans into such a frame­work. . . . I.G. Far­ben was the major chem­i­cal firm on the Con­ti­nent, and as each coun­try fell to Ger­many its acqui­si­tions of chem­i­cal and dyestuff com­pa­nies were enor­mous. I.G. also increased its invest­ments in these by RM 7 bil­lion. [Empha­sis added.]” (Ibid.; pp. 55–56.)

17. “The close rela­tion­ship of Far­ben to the Third Reich lead­er­ship was under­scored in oth­er ways. I.G.’s lead­ing offi­cials assist­ed in for­mu­la­tion and exe­cu­tion of eco­nom­ic poli­cies of gov­ern­ment; its pres­i­dent was a mem­ber of the Reich­stag; its lead­ing sci­en­tist was a chief assis­tant to Her­mann Goer­ing under the Four-Year Plan; its sta­tis­ti­cians and econ­o­mists pre­pared intel­li­gence for the Nazi High Com­mand; scores of its tech­ni­cians were at any giv­en time on loan to the air and war min­istries. . . . The con­tact men of N.W.7 through­out the world were called the I.G. Verbindungs­man­ner, the liai­son offi­cers between Far­ben back in Ger­many and the branch­es else­where. These I.G. Verbindungs­man­ner, as well as all oth­er key Far­ben rep­re­sen­ta­tives work­ing beyond the bor­ders of the Third Reich, were mem­bers of the Nation­al Social­ist Ger­man Work­ers Par­ty. . . . So now Mar­tin Bor­mann had at his com­mand not only the Aus­lands-Organ­i­sa­tion but also the I.G. Verbindungs­man­ner of Far­ben, which could be count­ed on to heed his orders when it was time to dis­perse the com­mer­cial assets of the Third Reich. . . .” (Ibid.; pp. 56–58.)

18. The vast inter­na­tion­al oper­a­tions of the I.G. Far­ben firm and its var­i­ous sub­sidiary oper­a­tions was a prin­ci­pal ele­ment of the Bor­mann orga­ni­za­tion. I.G. Far­ben chief Her­mann Schmitz dis­cussed I.G.’s involve­ment with the Bor­mann pro­gram. “In tes­ti­mo­ny lat­er giv­en to Nurem­berg inves­ti­ga­tors, Schmitz praised Bor­mann for the way he had direct­ed the dis­tri­b­u­tion of Ger­man assets around the world. His own Far­ben orga­ni­za­tion had, of course, con­tributed to the suc­cess of the oper­a­tion. Every region­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive work­ing for Her­mann Schmitz was an excep­tion­al busi­ness­man, or he would not have been with I.G. All had con­tributed sound advice in their areas of com­pe­tence, the regions of the world where they rep­re­sent­ed Far­ben while keep­ing an eye on the sub­sidiaries of the par­ent con­cern and the 700 hid­den cor­po­ra­tions they con­trolled. They had pro­vid­ed assis­tance and con­tin­u­ing guid­ance in estab­lish­ing the 750 new com­pa­nies cre­at­ed on order of Bor­mann, who want­ed more than hid­den assets; Bor­mann want­ed the mon­ey and patents and tech­ni­cians put to work to cre­ate even greater assets that would bol­ster Ger­many in the post­war years. In their meet­ing in the chan­cellery, both men checked over the fig­ures of sums dis­bursed, and they were accu­rate to the pfen­nig.” (Ibid.; pp. 157–158.)

19. As fore­cast by Dr. Scheid in the August 10, 1944 meet­ing, the cor­po­rate allies of the major Ger­man cor­po­ra­tions, includ­ing and espe­cial­ly those of I.G. Far­ben, proved to be of great val­ue to the suc­cess of the Bor­mann flight cap­i­tal pro­gram. “Pow­er­ful friends of the Bor­mann orga­ni­za­tion in all West­ern coun­tries, includ­ing those sprin­kled in con­trol points through­out the admin­is­tra­tion in Wash­ing­ton and in the finan­cial and bro­ker­age busi­ness­es of Wall Street, the City of Lon­don, and the Paris estab­lish­ment, did not wish a coor­di­nat­ed dri­ve to get at these exter­nal Ger­man assets. They had under­stand­able rea­sons, if you over­look moral­i­ty: the finan­cial ben­e­fits for coop­er­a­tion (col­lab­o­ra­tion had become an old-hat term with the war wind­ing down) were very entic­ing, depend­ing on one’s impor­tance and abil­i­ty to be of ser­vice to the orga­ni­za­tion and the 750 cor­po­ra­tions they were secret­ly manip­u­lat­ing, to say noth­ing of the known multi­na­tion­als such as I.G. Far­ben, Thyssen A.G., and Siemens; and, as a sec­ond rea­son, the phi­los­o­phy of free enter­prise and preser­va­tion of pri­vate prop­er­ty.” (Ibid.; p. 156.)

20. Note the post­war resus­ci­ta­tion of I.G. Far­ben, in the form of the “Big Three” suc­ces­sor firms that grew out Far­ben. Although offi­cial­ly bro­ken up at the end of World War II, I.G. Far­ben con­tin­ued func­tion­ing in new form. Recent merg­ers (such as the 1996 merg­er of I.G. car­tel affil­i­ates Ciba-Geigy and San­doz to form Novar­tis) indi­cate a new com­ing togeth­er of the old com­po­nents of I.G. Again, pay close atten­tion to the rela­tion­ship between these com­pa­nies and the Bor­mann cap­i­tal net­work. “By 1956, the three major multi­na­tion­als (Hoechst, BASF, and Bay­er) reshaped from the 159 com­pa­nies with­in Ger­many that had com­prised I.G. Far­ben were gen­er­at­ing record prof­its for the orig­i­nal 450 major Far­ben stock­hold­ers, who had orga­nized them­selves into the I.G. Far­ben Stock­hold­ers Pro­tec­tive com­mit­tee in Bonn. The Big Three went on expand­ing, tripling cap­i­tal­iza­tion in 1956 from invest­ment funds that poured in from the inter­lock­ing com­pa­nies estab­lished in safe haven coun­tries by Mar­tin Bor­mann and Her­mann Schmitz. There was a return, more vig­or­ous than ever, of the huge, mono­lith­ic indus­tri­al multi­na­tion­als that dom­i­nat­ed the Ger­man econ­o­my before and dur­ing World War II.” (Ibid.; p. 282.)

21. The enor­mous cor­po­rate wealth and pow­er of the three suc­ces­sor firms is at the dis­pos­al of the Bor­mann cap­i­tal net­work and Under­ground Reich. “Each of these three spin­offs from I.G. Far­ben today does more busi­ness indi­vid­u­al­ly than did Far­ben at its zenith, when its cor­po­rate struc­ture cov­ered 93 coun­tries. BASF and Bay­er indi­vid­u­al­ly boast world­wide sales of near­ly $10 bil­lion annu­al­ly, while Hoechst, now the world’s largest chem­i­cal com­pa­ny, gen­er­at­ed $16.01 bil­lion in world­wide sales in 1980. Each does more busi­ness than E.I. du Pont de Nemours, with sales of $9.4 bil­lion. The Unit­ed States is, of course, the major mar­ket, one into which these Ger­man cor­po­ra­tions con­tin­ue to pour invest­ment mon­ey for both new cap­i­tal con­struc­tion and cor­po­rate takeovers. Togeth­er, these three multi­na­tion­als assure per­ma­nent pros­per­i­ty for the orig­i­nal 450 Far­ben stock­hold­ers, their banks, and the shad­owy share­hold­ers of the Bor­mann orga­ni­za­tion in South Amer­i­ca who guard and vote the Her­mann Schmitz trust fund through inter­me­di­aries at the annu­al meet­ings of BASF, Bay­er and Hoechst. [Empha­sis added.]” (Ibid.; pp. 282–283.)

22. A sig­nif­i­cant part of the I.G. Far­ben lega­cy, the Her­mann Schmitz Trust is also at the dis­pos­al of the Bor­mann cap­i­tal net­work and the Under­ground Reich. “If there is any doubt in Europe who in the long run won the peace, there is none what­so­ev­er among the for­mer Ger­man lead­ers dwelling in South Amer­i­ca. It is a good bet that if Her­mann Schmitz were alive today, he would bear wit­ness as to who real­ly won. Schmitz died con­tent­ed, hav­ing wit­nessed the resur­gence of I.G. Far­ben, albeit in altered cor­po­rate forms, a mon­ey machine that con­tin­ues to gen­er­ate prof­its for all the old I.G. share­hold­ers and enor­mous inter­na­tion­al pow­er for the Ger­man cadre direct­ing the work­ings of the suc­ces­sor firms. . . . He was the mas­ter manip­u­la­tor, the cor­po­rate and finan­cial wiz­ard, the magi­cian, who could make mon­ey appear and dis­ap­pear, and reap­pear again. His whole exis­tence was leg­erde­main, played out on the game­board of I.G. Far­ben and his beloved Ger­many. . . Their [Schmitz and Bor­mann] asso­ci­a­tion was close and trust­ing over the years, and it is the con­sid­ered opin­ion of those in their cir­cle that the wealth pos­sessed by Her­mann Schmitz was shift­ed to Switzer­land and South Amer­i­ca, and placed in trust with Bor­mann, the legal heir to Hitler. [Her­mann] Schmitz’s wealth—largely I.G. Far­ben bear­er bonds con­vert­ed to the Big Three suc­ces­sor firms, shares in Stan­dard Oil of New Jer­sey (equal to those held by the Rock­e­fellers), as well as shares in the 750 cor­po­ra­tions he helped Bor­mann estab­lish dur­ing the last year of World War II—has increased in all seg­ments of the mod­ern indus­tri­al world. The Bor­mann orga­ni­za­tion in South Amer­i­ca uti­lizes the vot­ing pow­er of the Schmitz trust along with their own assets to guide the multi­na­tion­als they con­trol, as they keep steady the eco­nom­ic course of the Father­land.” (Ibid.; pp. 279–280.)

23. In clos­ing, the pro­gram notes the eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance of the Bor­mann net­work: “Atop an orga­ni­za­tion­al pyra­mid that dom­i­nates the indus­try of West Ger­many through banks, vot­ing rights enjoyed by major­i­ty share­hold­ers in sig­nif­i­cant car­tels, and the pro­fes­sion­al input of a rel­a­tive­ly young lead­er­ship group of lawyers, invest­ment spe­cial­ists, bankers, and indus­tri­al­ists, he is sat­is­fied that he achieved his aim of help­ing the Father­land back on its feet. To ensure con­ti­nu­ity of pur­pose and direc­tion, a close watch is main­tained on the prof­it state­ments and man­age­ment reports of cor­po­ra­tions under its con­trol else­where. This lead­er­ship group of twen­ty, which is in fact a board of direc­tors, is chaired by Bor­mann, but pow­er has shift­ed to the younger men who will car­ry on the ini­tia­tive that grew from that his­toric meet­ing in Stras­bourg on August 10, 1944. Old Hein­rich Mueller, chief of secu­ri­ty for the NSDAP in South Amer­i­ca, is the most feared of all, hav­ing the pow­er of life and death over those deemed not to be act­ing in the best inter­ests of the orga­ni­za­tion. Some still envi­sion a Fourth Reich. . .What will not pass is the eco­nom­ic influ­ences of the Bor­mann orga­ni­za­tion, whose com­mer­cial direc­tives are obeyed almost with­out ques­tion by the high­est ech­e­lons of West Ger­man finance and indus­try. ‘All orders come from the share­hold­ers in South Amer­i­ca,’ I have been told by a spokesman for Mar­tin Bor­mann.” (Ibid.; pp. 284–5.)