Oliver Stone: Hitler 'Enabled By Western Bankers'

[The Straight Story]

Oliver Stone: Hitler 'Enabled By Western Bankers'
Controversial Filmmaker Making 'Secret History Of United States'

BANGKOK -- Adolf Hitler was a psychopath and a monster but rose to power thanks to big business leaders and other supporters who appreciated his vow to destroy communism and control workers, Hollywood filmmaker Oliver Stone said Monday.

Stone, who is working on a 10-part documentary on the 20th century titled "The Secret History of the United States," said the German dictator was "enabled by Western bankers" and managed to "seduce" Germany's military industrial complex.

"Hitler is a monster. There is no question. I have no empathy for Hitler at all. He was a crazy psychopath," Stone told reporters in the Thai capital. "But like Frankenstein was a monster, there was a Dr. Frankenstein. He is product of his era."

He said the aim of his documentary, which two historians are helping him with, was to offer a fuller understanding of the 20th century and how some of those lessons may be relevant to President Barack Obama in 2010.

http://www.clickorlando.com/atthemovies/22330312/detail.html

[stevietheman]

1. There are kernels of truth here. I think this project is interesting. n/t

n/t

[KonaKane]

3. More than just "kernels"

This is pretty widely known already among serious students of history. Hell, even GW Chimpster's grandpappy Prescott was in on the bankrolling of Adolf. So much so that he was indicted for lack of compliance with divestiture laws after the outbreak of war between the US and Germany.

[LiberalFighter]

4. I hope Prescott Bush has a major part in the movie.

[Bitwit1234]

5. He was one of the enablers....they confisciated his bank because of it

and after all that they then elected him a senator. Seems like even back then they forgave the republicans any thing they did.

[LiberalFighter]

12. I believe he was Senator as this was going on.

[dflprincess]

13. Grandpoppy Bush was in the Senate from 1952-1963

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prescott_Bush

And every year the Connecticut Republicans hold their "Annual Prescott Bush Awards Dinner".

Leave it to a bunch of Republicans to name their big dinner after a Nazi-sympathizing traitor.

[Kaleva]

29. E. Roland Harriman & W. Averell Harriman are the more interesting characters

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

25. Same here.

[cali]

20. sorry, but anyone who thinks that bush and other western money

people were the primary cause of Hitler's rise to power, isn't familiar with the history. they were on component, but he would almost certainly still have risen to power without them.

[KonaKane]

21. Nobody said they were the "primary cause"

They said they were enablers...and they were. Fuck em all.

[YouTakeTheSkyway]

38. Still waiting to see if Stone portrays this history accurately...

Until the film is out, I can't really complain. However, I do hope he sticks to the facts AND keeps those facts within context.

[MadHound]

22. Not necessarily

Hitler was backed by a lot of German industrial giants, Farbin, Thysen, etc. and those were backed by a lot of Western financial capital.

[YouTakeTheSkyway]

40. Right, and I don't think anyone is dismissing the importance of support from GERMANY'S elites

who backed Hitler because they saw him as an obvious alternative to both the dysfunctional Reichstagg and a much feared Communist takeover of Germany. I'd say it remains highly inaccurate to portray any American support Hitler may have received as instrumental to his rise to power though.

[YouTakeTheSkyway]

37. Exactly.

[malaise]

2. He's better watch his back

He's getting close to those Bushies

[FreakinDJ]

6. It's a FACT the Bush family supported Hitler

Prescott Bush

Although you'll never find that factoid on FUX

[proteus_lives]

44. To be fair.

You'll probably never hear of JFK's father being a Nazi appeaser or mobster.

[FreakinDJ]

47. Who didn't make a little booze to make ends meet

in the Last Great Depression - Want my Father's recipe for Gin?

Ang I guess you could call ANYONE who didn't want to enter WWII a "Nazi appeaser", Joe Kennedy was an Isolationist if any thing

[earth mom]

7. I don't trust Oliver Stone after he made that ki$$ a$$ movie about *. nt

[Bluenorthwest]

8. You must have seen a different movie than I did

The one I saw was sure not kind to Bush.

[Bluenorthwest]

9. delet

Repetitious post.

[anonymous171]

18. Or his incredibly revisionist JFK film. nt

[UTUSN]

10. B. U. S. H. n/t

[Canuckistanian]

11. I can't see how he can do this without mentioning Prescott Bush

And the Harrimans and Browns who all went on to lay the foundations for Halliburton and Kellog, Brown and Root.

This is the absolute basis for the fortunes of the Bush family.

I wish him well.

[Odin2005]

15. I hope he stays away from small planes.

[Hannah Bell]

17. bush-walker fortunes predate prescott. prescott's dad worked for frank rockefeller.

& on the walker side, there's more $$ history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Davis_Walker

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Herbert_Walker

[Odin2005]

14. That's something they will NEVER teach you in history textbooks

Just like the Business Plot against FDR, the PTB don;t want you to know about it.

[KonaKane]

23. History textbooks routinely lie, too

Prof. J. Lowen wrote some fantastic books on that issue. They should, ironically, be standard reading in the schools.

[Echo In Light]

34. That's the entire point of having such textbooks to begin with

[YouTakeTheSkyway]

36. The question, how accurate is the picture Stone will be portraying?

While it's undoubtedly true that many business leaders, worldwide, found the Nazi regime preferable to say...a Soviet-style Communist takeover of Germany, I see no evidence that their support was instrumental in Hitler's rise to power, much less in keeping him there. I get the feeling this is one of those instances when people who aren't all that familiar with WWII are blowing a small aspect of it out of proportion because it makes for an interesting story.

[WinkyDink]

39. It's a movie, not a documentary. Ya think all war movies show absolute truth?

[YouTakeTheSkyway]

42. Yes, I'm an idiot and I believe all movies show the absolute truth. You got me.

Of course I realize that it's a movie and that some liberties will inevitably be taken (it IS Oliver Stone, after all...). However, when someone insists they're putting out a film in order to put Hitler in his proper context, that's a bit of a different story than say...Tarantino putting out the Inglorious Basterds. I expect accuracy and truth in cases such as this. Call me old fashioned.

[Enrique]

16. I am really looking forward to this

Stone always has some really interesting things to say about the U.S. :thumbsup:

[MadHound]

19. Not just the bankers

Ford and GM armed a good portion of the German military machine throughout the war, and IBM supplied the information technology that helped enable the Holocaust and make the Nazi war machine so very efficient.

[Thothmes]

24. Which type of tank was ford built, which type of fighter was

GM built. Did they make Kar 98s for the German army. Which ships of the German Navy were ford or GM built. Please identify which arms Ford and GM
supplied the German Armed forces during the war.

[Hannah Bell]

26. GM's Opel Blitz truck was a pivotal cog in Nazi Germany's military machine.

GM's Opel Blitz truck was a pivotal cog in Nazi Germany's military machine. It is shown here juxtaposed next to a Panzer tank, made by another manufacturer. Photo illustration by JTA

[Thothmes]

35. Again which weapons did GM and Ford manufacture for

the Germans. What Tanks, aircraft, artillery, rifles, ships. Looks like the answer is zero. GMs partnership with Opal predated the Nazi take over in Germany.

[MadHound]

27. I'm not sure of the specifics,

Too early in the morning, too much material to go through before I've finished my coffee.

However I do know that GM provided much, if not most of the trucks and half tracks that Germany ran on while Ford was big into making airplane engines and such.

The specifics are fairly easy to research, there are a number of books on the subject.

[Thothmes]

33. Which german aircraft used ford engines

beside the 1933 tri motor.

[leveymg]

28. Ford made 1/3 of all trucks in the German Army during WWII

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20000124/silverstein/2

Ford vehicles were crucial to the revolutionary Nazi military strategy of blitzkrieg. Of the 350,000 trucks used by the motorized German Army as of 1942, roughly one-third were Ford-made. The Schneider report states that when American troops reached the European theater, "Ford trucks prominently present in the supply lines of the Wehrmacht were understandably an unpleasant sight to men in our Army." Indeed, the Cologne plant proved to be so important to the Reich's war effort that the Allies bombed it on several occasions. A secret 1944 US Air Force "Target Information Sheet" on the factory said that for the previous five years it had been "geared for war production on a high level."

While Ford Motor enthusiastically worked for the Reich, the company initially resisted calls from President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Churchill to increase war production for the Allies. The Nazi government was grateful for that stance, as acknowledged in a letter from Heinrich Albert to Charles Sorenson, a top executive in Dearborn. Albert had been a lawyer for German Ford since at least 1927, a director since 1930 and, according to the Treasury report, part of a German espionage ring operating in the United States during World War I. "The 'Dementi' of Mr. Henry Ford concerning war orders for Great Britain has greatly helped us," Albert wrote in July of 1940, shortly after the fall of France, when England appeared to be on the verge of collapse before the Führer's troops.

[Thothmes]

32. Ford made 100 % of the trucks used by the Soviet Army

up until 1942. Does this make Ford a Communist sympathizer

[704wipes]

45. nope, just a vulgar war profiteer

Ford could have stopped the war by just saying no to trucks for anyone.

[Thothmes]

46. Probably not

We have an image of the German armed forces being highly mechanized. Less than half of german logistics was by truck. Majority of German supplies moved by horse and wagon in the field. The Imperial Japanese Army was the least mechanized of all of the major armies in WWII. If ford did not make trucks, the only people it would have hurt would have been the United States, the Soviet Union and the British Empire. Not having Ford trucks would have slowed the Germans down, it would not have stopped them. To the Japanese it would have made no difference whatsoever. Not having Ford Trucks would not have stopped war.

[bluesmail]

30. Reinhardt Gehlen. Should have an hour on Operation Paperclip. EOM

[MadHound]

31. Should just have an hour on Gehlen himself

Gee, nothing like putting a rabid Nazi war criminal in charge of gathering intelligence on the Soviet Union.

What gets me is when it is proven that Gehlen was drastically overestimating the Soviet threat, we still kept listening to him. Hmm, wonder why, perhaps because his overblown reports allowed the MIC to keep up the arms race and keep them making money.

[Rabrrrrrr]

41. Stone's only error here is that Frankenstein is the doctor, and the creature is just the creature.

The monster is never called Frankenstein in the book, just the creature, or the monster.

As to the banking stuff, he's totally right - and Prescott Bush at Citibank was the numero uno traitor of 'em all.

During Shrubya's tyranny of incompetence I used to work by his old building at 1 Broadway in downtown Manhattan, and walked by it quite often and thought of ol' Prescott and his Nazi sympathizing America-betraying ways, and how even two generations later his evil seed is still fucking this country.

[proteus_lives]

43. Actually, he was enabled by German people.