Bormann knew the Nazis had lost the war once the Allies landed in Normandy on D-Day.
He gave himself nine months to place into operation his flight capital program to find a safe haven for the Nazis' liquid assets. Essentially, the Alsace-Lorraine area would serve as a microcosm for his plans. Germans owned the controlling interest in many of the French banks in the area. A German majority ownership also controlled many of the factories. In essence, Bormann would rely on "Tarnung" [Corporate camouflage, the art of concealing foreign properties from enemy governments], the magic hood that renders its wearer invisible. Bormann sorted his records and then shipped them to Argentina via Spain. Bormann began his flight capital, already having control of the Auslands-Organisation and the I.G. Verbindungsmänner. Both organizations placed spies in foreign countries disguised as technicians and directors of German corporations.
By the time, the Battle of the Bulge was raging, Bormann had already been very successful in moving assets out of Germany. In 1938, the number of patent registrations to German companies was 1,618 but after the Red House meeting it had risen to 3,377. Bormann had also created a two-price system with Germany’s trading partners. In it, the lower price was the price cleared or settled at the end of the banking day, the higher price was retained on the books of the neutral importer. The difference accumulated to a German account, becoming flight capital on deposit. Under this system Bormann amassed about $18 million kroner and $12 million Turkish lira. Balance sheets in Sweden showed Bormann acquired seven mines in central Sweden.
Bormann created 750 new corporations. The corporations were scattered across the globe and represented a wide array of economic activity from steel and chemicals to electrical companies. The firms were located as follows: Portugal 58, Spain 112, Sweden 233, Switzerland 234, Turkey 35 and Argentina 98. All the corporations created by Bormann issued bearer bonds, so the real ownership was impossible to establish.
Bormann had several means of dispersing the Nazi assets. He used the diplomatic pouches of the Nazi’s foreign policy minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, to send gold, diamonds, stocks and bonds to Sweden twice a month. A similar pattern was used to ferry more valuables to South America. In addition to Bormann’s Aktion Feuerland project, Bormann allowed other Nazis to transfer their own valuables through the same channels.
In Turkey, both the Deutsche Istanbul and the Deutsche Orient banks were allowed to retain all their earnings rather than send them back to Berlin. The earnings were mere book-keeping items that were ready to be transferred anywhere in the world.
In 1941, German investments in United States corporations held a voting majority in 170 corporations and minority ownership in another 108 American corporations. Additionally, American corporations had investments in Germany totaling $420 million. With his program for flight capital well on its way, Bormann gave permission for Nazis to once again buy American stocks.
The purchase of American stocks was usually done through a neutral country, typically Switzerland or Argentina. From foreign exchange funds on deposits in Switzerland and Argentina, large demand deposits were placed in such New York banks as National City, Chase, Manufacturers Hanover, Morgan Guaranty, and Irving Trust. Over $5 billion dollars of American stocks was purchased in such a manner. These same banks were active in supporting Germany. In addition, every major Nazi corporation transferred assets and personnel to their foreign subsidiaries.
This was called "Aktion Adlerflug" [Project Eagle Flight], an operation code name which involved setting up innumerable foreign bank accounts and investing funds in foreign companies that were controlled by hidden German interests.
The United States and Britain never could fully grasp the extent of the Nazi flight capital.
John Pehle provides an interesting insight to why the United States was unable to stop Bormann and his movement of Nazi assets to neutral countries. Pehle was the original director of the Foreign Funds Control.
Pehle’s reasoning was:
"In 1944, emphasis in Washington shifted from overseas fiscal controls to assistance to Jewish war refugees. On presidential order I was made executive director of the War Refuge Board in January 1944. Orvis Schmidt became director of Foreign Funds Control. Some of the manpower he had was transferred, and while the Germans evidently were doing their best to avoid Allied seizure of assets, we were doing our best to extricate as many Jews as possible from Europe".
Pehle’s explanation seems overly simple. Additional personnel would have been useful and more could have been accomplished. However, the real problem was the rot and corruption within the United States. The leaders of America’s largest corporations were all in sympathy with the Nazis and almost all of them had invested heavily in Nazi Germany. Additionally, there were many in Congress that sympathized with the Nazi cause. The mood in Congress was one of "get the boys home and get on with business".
When Orvis Schmidt testified before congress to the extent of the Nazi infiltration of neutral countries before the end of the war, it fell on deaf ears. An excerpt of his testimony states:
"The danger does not lie so much in the fact that the German industrial giants have honeycombed the neutrals, Turkey and Argentina, with branches and affiliates which know how to subvert their commercial interest to the espionage and sabotage demands of their government. It is important and dangerous however, that many of these branches, subsidiaries and affiliates in the neutrals and much of the cash, securities, patents, contracts and so forth are ostensibly owned through the medium of secret numbered accounts or rubric accounts, trusts, loans, holding companies, bearer shares and the like by dummy persons and companies claiming neutral nationality and all of the alleged protection and privileges arising from such identities. The real problem is to break through the veil of secrecy and reach and eliminate the German ability to finance another world war. We must render useless the devices and cloaks which have been employed to hide German assets.
"We have found an I.G. Farben list of its own companies abroad and at home--- a secret list hitherto unknown--- which names over 700 companies in which I.G. Farben has an interest".
The list referred to in the quote list does not include the 750 companies Bormann set up.
Following the war Schmidt testified again to congress as follows:
"They were inclined to be very indignant. Their general attitude and expectations was that the war was over and we ought now to be assisting them in helping to get I.G. Farben and German industry back on its feet. Some of them have outwardly said that this questioning and investigation was in their estimation, only a phenomenon of short duration, because as soon as things got a little settled they would expect their friends in the United States and England to be coming over. Their friends, so they say would put a stop to activities such as these investigations and would see that they got the treatment which they regarded as proper and the assistance would be given to them to help reestablish their industry".
Between 1943 and 1945 more than 200 German companies set up subsidiaries in Argentina. Bormann deposited money and other assets, such as industrial patents, were transferred through shell companies in Switzerland, Spain and Portugal to the Argentine branches of German banks such as the Banco Alemán Transatlántico. The funds were then channeled to the German companies operating in Argentina, such as the automobile manufacturer Mercedes Benz, the first Mercedes Benz factory to be built outside Germany. These companies were then charged the higher production costs of their German head office for products made in Argentina. Bormann acquired his own shipping lines, including the Spanish shipping company 'Compania Naviera Lavantina' and the 'Italian Airline Linee Aeree Transcontinentali Italiane', or LATI. This gave Bormann his own independent pipeline to move people to Spain and from Spain to Argentina without having to use German Luftwaffe plane.
Statistics recently issued by the British Ministry of Economic Warfare estimate that the Nazis looted close to $27,000,000,000 from the conquered European nations. Much of this loot was used to pay for the war effort, but a large portion was still intact and in Nazi hands as the end of the war neared. The Nazi Party and the S.S., as organizations, got away intact. They got away with the money, the Reichsbank treasury, $15,000,000,000 in 1945 money. Guinness calls it the world's largest unsolved bank robbery in history. Then there was all the stolen art, pieces of which, to this day, occasionally surface.
It is easy and profitable to blame a dead, "crazy" man for one's mistakes and crimes. Hitler has assumed mythic proportions since his death. In life, he was mainly a front man, a mouthpiece, a lightning rod, and above all, the Nazi's "great communicator".
While the masses worshipped him like a god, his friends plotted behind his back, used him as a cat's paw and scapegoat, and [perhaps] cynically sacrificed him to save their own skins and fortune. Hitler had cleverly parlayed his position as figurehead into control over the military by rewording the soldiers oath. However, military power has always been subordinate to economic power. The purse strings of the Nazi Party were controlled by Bormann.
Bormann had help from his friends, like Herman Abs.
While Germany's bankers were collectively responsible for the financing of Hitler's war effort, the dean of them all is Herman Josef Abs. Money was his life, and his astuteness in banking and international financial manipulations enabled Deutsche Bank to serve as leader in fuelling the ambitions and accomplishments of Adolf Hitler and Martin Bormann. His dominance was retained when the Federal Republic of Germany picked itself up from the ashes; he was still there as chairman of Deutsche Bank, director of I.G Farben, and of such others as Daimler-Benz and the giant electrical conglomerate, Siemans. Abs became a financial advisor to the first West German chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, and was a welcome visitor in the Federal Chancellery under Mr. Adenauer's successors, Ludwig Erhard and Kurt George Kiesinger ... ... [Bormann's] friendship with Dr. Herman Josef Abs predated Abs's move into the management of Deutsche Bank. Dr. Abs had been a partner in the prestigious private bank of Delbruck, Schickler & Co. in Berlin.
Recalling those days, Abs has written: "The Reich Chancellery in Berlin was its largest account, and it was through this account that Adolf Hitler received his salary as Chancellor of the Reich".
Reichsleiter Bormann knew that his relationship with Abs would tighten as his own power grew. He knew in 1943 that with his Nazi banking committee well established, he had the means to set new Nazi state policy when the time was ripe for the general transfer of capital, gold, stocks, and bearer bonds to safety in neutral nations.
Under the direction of Dr Herman Josef Abs [who never became a Nazi] the Deutsche Bank was responsible for financing the slave labour used by business giants such as Siemens, BMW, Volkswagen, I.G. Farben, Daimler Benz and others. The banks wealth quadrupled during the twelve years of Hitler's rule. Arrested by the British after the war for war crimes, he was quietly released after the intervention of the Bank of England to help restore the German banking industry in the British zone This caused much dissension between the British and the Americans who wanted the German Economy crushed.
This is the same Hermann Abs who was chosen by Pope John Paul II to oversee the reorganization of the Vatican Bank when it was caught red-handed laundering counterfeit securities and heroin profits for the Gambino crime family. It is worth noting that in his youth John Paul II was, according to the official version, once a slave labourer for I.G. Solvay, a Farben subsidiary specializing primarily in pharmaceuticals. He is supposed to have laboured in the Solvay quarries near Auschwitz. It's a rare slave indeed who becomes Pope at all, let alone then hires his former master to keep track of his money. Wonders truly never cease.
In October 1978 the Marshall Foundation was utilized as a platform for Dr. Herman J. Abs, now honorary president of Deutsche Bank A.G. as he addressed a meeting of businessmen and Bankers and members of the Foreign Policy Association in New York City on the 'Problems and Prospects of American-German Economic Co-operation.' This luncheon was chaired by his old friend, John J. McCloy, Wall Street banker and lawyer, who had worked closely with Dr. Abs when McCloy served as U.S. High Commissioner for Germany during those postwar reconstruction years. At that time, Hermann Abs, as chief executive of Deutsche Bank was also directing the spending of America's Marshall Plan money in West Germany as the chairman of the Reconstruction Loan Corporation of the Federal Republic of Germany.
This is the same McCloy who designed the Pentagon building and served on the Warren Commission. While Undersecretary of War, he had forbidden bombing of the rail lines to Auschwitz on the grounds that it might provoke retaliation against the Jews. One cannot but wonder what he had in mind.
Auschwitz was intended, first and foremost, to be a synthetic rubber and synthetic fuel factory complex. The more well-known dead Jews were to be merely a by-product. Abs had arranged the financing of its construction. In charge of synthetic rubber production was Otto Ambros, who also developed the root technology on which magnetic data storage is based. He was convicted of 25,000 counts of slavery and mass murder, and was sentenced to eight years in prison. After three and a half years, McCloy freed him. The head of the W.R. Grace & Co., J. Peter Grace [a Knight of Malta] hired Ambros as a research chemist and petitioned Congress to allow his emigration to the United States. This is the same J. Peter Grace who President Reagan appointed to head the so-called 'Grace Commission. to make the United States government more "efficient'.
-- "Esquire", 19 December 1978
More than Nazi money went underground.
Himmler was quoted as summing up his talk with Bormann to his most trusted lieutenants in these words: "It is possible that Germany will be defeated on the military front. It is even possible that she may have to capitulate. But never must the National Socialist German Workers' Party capitulate. That is what we have to work for from now on".
--"The Nazis Go Underground", by Curt Riass, Doubleday, Doran, and Co., Inc. 1944
Ex"-S.S. men infiltrated, among other things, every major Intelligence apparatus on earth. They have been major players in postwar history.
Spymaster Reinhardt Gehlen, for example, created the rationale for starting the Cold War out of whole cloth. As we now know, had the Red Army actually been intending to continue their drive westward, as Gehlen said they did, they would not have been tearing up railroad track in front of themselves. They relied heavily on rail to transport their troops. Our leaders didn't know; they believed Gehlen, and acted accordingly. Or they knew, and they lied to us. There is no third possibility. This comes as no surprise to those who have actually studied war.
Truth is the first casualty.
"Adolf Hitler's top Iintelligence officials worked with U.S. Intelligence officials during World War II, according to a transcript made available of secret testimony by Allen Dulles before a House Select committee in 1947".
-- "UPI", 29 September 1982
This is the same Dulles who served on the Warren Commission, investigating the assassination of the President who had fired him just prior to the murder in Dallas that enabled the success of the coup of '63. It is interesting to note that Dulles's law firm, Cromwell and Sullivan, also represented I.G. Farben before the War.
The Nazis did very well in the war, from a business viewpoint. War is a business. It is fought for material gain. The Nazis gained materially, and lived to spend it thus, they won the war. What they lost was territory. What they gained was treasure, new friends, and experience. The treasure included a couple of U-Boats full of bearer bonds, numbered stock shares and patent certificates.
This represented:
"... the hard core of Nazi wealth in Latin America. In 1944 a great treasure had been sent secretly across the Atlantic, the famous "Bormann treasure". This operation involved the transport from Germany to Argentina of several tons of gold, some securities, shares, and works of art ...
"... Several U-Boats arrived in Argentine waters after the capitulation of Germany. They were the carriers of bundles of documents, industrial patents, and securities. On 10 July 1945, the U-530 surfaced at the mouth of the River Platte and entered the port of La Plata. The following month, on 17 August, the U-977 also arrived at La Plata. In accordance with international conventions, both U-Boats were interned by Argentina and later handed over to the United States authorities.
"To the surprise of few, they were found to be empty of treasure. Two more U-Boats, according to reliable sources, appeared off an uninhabited stretch of the coast of Patagonia between 23 and 29 July 1945".
-- "The Avengers", by Michael Bar-Zohar, Hawthorn Books, 1967
In occupied Germany one could neither vote with these shares nor could one collect interest, dividends, nor royalties. When [West] Germany again "took its place among the nations of the World" in 1955, the Bundestag immediately changed all this. The holders of these once worthless scraps of paper suddenly, once again, possessed incredibly wealth.
Where was Hitler’s body?
This was the question asked by the first Soviet troops to enter the Führerbunker on 1 May 1945. A few days earlier, on 29 April, a special detachment of the SMERSH [NKVD counterespionage] element serving with the headquarters of the 3rd Shock Army had been created at Stalin’s insistence, specifically to discover the whereabouts of Adolf Hitler, dead or alive. The SMERSH team arrived at the Reich Chancellery moments after its capture by the Red Army. Despite intense pressure whereabouts of Adolf Hitler, dead or alive. The SMERSH team arrived at the Reich Chancellery moments after its capture by the Red Army. Despite intense pressure from Moscow, its searches proved fruitless. Although the charred bodies of Josef and Magda Göbbels were quickly found in the shell-torn garden, no evidence for the deaths of Adolf Hitler or Eva Braun was found.
Close behind the assault troops and NKVD officers, a group of twelve women doctors and their assistants of the Red Army medical corps were the first to enter the Bunker in the early afternoon of 2 May. The leader of the group spoke fluent German and asked one of the four people then remaining in the Bunker, the electrical machinist Johannes Hentschel, "Wo ist Adolf Hitler? Wo sind die Klamotten?" ["Where is Adolf Hitler? Where are the glad rags?"]. She seemed more interested in Eva Braun’s clothes than in the fate of the Führer of the Third Reich. The failure to find an identifiable corpse would vex the Soviet authorities for many months, if not years.
Apart from the Vorbunker’s above-ground access to the Old Chancellery building, three tunnels provided the upper Vorbunker with underground links. One led north, to the Foreign Office; one crossed the Wilhelmstrasse eastward, to the Propaganda Ministry; and one ran south, linking up with the labyrinth of shelters under the New Chancellery. However, the Old Chancellery—a confusing maze of passages and staircases, much altered over the years—also had an underground emergency exit to a third, deeper, secret shelter, known to only a select few. Hitler maintained his private quarters in the Old Chancellery throughout the war until forced underground in February 1945. To get to the secret shelter, Hitler did not have to leave his private study: as part of Hochtief’s extensive underground works, a tunnel had been built that connected Hitler’s quarters directly with the shelter. The tunnel was accessible via a doorway covered by a thin concrete sliding panel hidden beside a bookcase in the study. This tunnel, in turn, was connected to the Berlin underground railway system by a five-hundred-yard passageway. The third shelter had been provided with its own water supply, toilet facilities, and storage for food and weapons for up to twelve people for two weeks. Bormann had never really planned for it to be used; it was simply one of the range of options available to get Hitler out of Berlin. But by 27 April 1945, it was the obvious means of escape to take the Führer away from the devastating shells that were raining down on the government quarter of Berlin as Soviet troops fought their way in from three directions.