What was good for Hitler

os after Hitler came to power, he

- gave an assurance to General Motors, the

huge U.S. firm, that if they would play ball

‘with him, he would see that General Mo-

tors “‘gets a square deal.”

The understanding mainly affected Opel
AG, at that time the largest producer of
road vehicles in Germany. Open was owned
100% by General Motors. The deal was made
in 1934, and in the following years Opel
played a major part in arming and equip-
ping the new nazi Wehrmacht.

German Report is today able to publish
exclusively some details of this momen-
tous deal. On April 30, 1934, a three-man

. party- of the top brass of General Motors,

headed by Vice-President James D. Moon-

ey, arrived in Berlin by plane for talks with

Hitler. On May 3, 1934, one of the mem-

bers of the party recorded his impressions

in a private letter. Chance (and the inter-:
national network of journalists who don’t

like nazis) has now brought. this letter into

our hands.

The writer began his account by de-
scribing rather breathlessly the arrival of
the General Motors party in Berlin:

“When we arrived at the Adlon, we
received our first taste of the big doings of

the morrow. The Adlon staff, including ©

Louis Adlon, always greets Jim (James D.
Mooney — Ed.) with a lot of ceremony,
but this time! Louis Adlon bowed low as we
entered the lobby and presented a big
brown envelope with the German Eagle
and Herr Hitler’s title on it, and watched
open-mouthed while Jim opened it, as did
every other member of the staff and guest.
In the envelope was a letter from Herr
Hitler giving Jim an appointment on Wed-
nesday and inviting him to attend the cele-
brations on Tuesday. Tickets were inclosed
as well as a red windshield card.”’

The man from General Motors then de-
scribes at length the nazi May Day parade,
which he found very impressive:

“About a quarter past nine, Hitler
passed by on his way to greet the children,
and the way the streets full cf people ran
and pushed and shoved to catch a glimpse
of him as he passed by was very good proof
that, though he is ruling them with an iron
hand, they already see that his system is
helping them...

“Our seats were in the center of the
tribune, directly behind the raised plat-
form on which Hitler spoke, and we of
course did not miss anything. As far as we
tould tell we were the only foreigners in
the stand, and Dr. Schacht sat near us,
together with other German officials not
taking part in the program...”

A. then the letter-writer comes: to a
short account of the meeting with Hitler:
- “On Wednesday, Jim went to call on
Hitler, and they had a regular round-table
discussion of the motor-car industry in Ger-
many and the important place played by
. Hitler insisted that he wanted Ger-
y to have three million automobiles in
five years (about 600,000 now) and told of
the various ways he was going to encour-
age his people to buy...
- “He said that if Opel will cooperate
with him, he will see that we always get a
square deal. Jim found him very human,
very affable, quite a sense of humor and a
clear picture of what it is all about. He in-
tends to keep on surrounding himself with

the best technical advisors he can find and.

himself tries to criticize his own-actions
before he makes them. Tomorrow. An-
twerp!”

Jim." who was so impressed by Hit- -

ler’s sense of humer. was James D. Moon-
ey. Lieutenant-Commander. USNR. and

Vice-President of General Motors Corpor-
ation. In 1938 Hitler awarded him the ‘‘Or-
der of Merit of the German Eagle’ and he
was an outspoken isolationist. On August 3,
1940, he published an article entitled ‘“‘War_
or Peace in America” in the Saturday
Evening Post, dwelling at length on the

’ horrors of war and defending the nazi posi-

tion following the occupation of Poland,
Denmark, Belgium, Holland and France.
He urged the U.S. Government to compel
Britain to sue for peace with Hitler.

Just before his article appeared, James
D. Mooney was parleying in New York with
a top nazi representative about what cut
General Motors would get in a nazi ‘‘New
Order in Europe.’’ The nazi representative
was Ludger Westrick, one of Hitler’s
“Wehrwirtschaftsfuhrer” or War Economy:
Leaders. (Herr Westrick was, incidentally,
a post-war cabinet minister in West Ger-
many, and was created Knight Grand
Cross of the Most ExceHent Order of the
British Empire in 1965.) :

Details of Westrick’s wartime trip to
the United States were exposed on August 1,
1940, in a sensational front-page store in the
New York Herald Tribune headlined:

was good for General Motors

HITLER’S AGENT
ENSCONCED IN WESTCHESTER
_ DR. WESTRICK TRACED
TO SECLUDED HEADQUARTERS
ON SCARSDALE ESTATE

The story told of Westrick’s activities
in the United States, and an editorial in the
paper commented:

“It is desirable to know what those who
have been dealing with Westrick have been
doing; it is even more important to get
those who have been dealing with him to
stand up, to be counted, and to explain
themselves... The great danger to a demo-
cracy from its potential Petains and Lavals
and Baudoins is that they exist in secret,
pretending to support the majority until
that critical moment when their sudden de-
fection may paralyze the whole national
will just when it is needed most.”

Following the revelations in the New
York Herald Tribune, Herr Westrick left

the United States hurriedly; predictably —

none of his contacts in U.S. big. business
stood up to be counted. One man did speak
up for the nazi industrialist, however. John
Foster Dulles, then a corporation lawyer,
told a reporter: ‘‘I knew Dr. Westrick in

>

oa Fehrer and Kradtwagiia bi
Frieden fiir stirkste Beanspru

den hirtesten Bedingungen.

FORD-WERKE AKTIENGESELLSCHAFT, KOLN”

ste Anforderungen:  Ford-Wagen
hung gebaut. Sie kamen wihrend des Krieges an
Fronten in grosser Zahl zum Einsatz, Ford-Wagen blieben zuverlissig auch unt

. was imprisoned by the U.S. occup?

‘James Mooney of General Mol

‘many had invaded France,

. the report in the New York

and was based largely UPOn + ihe!

. foreign policy goals.”

This advertisement appeared in Iilustrirte Zeitung, publication of the German Airforce,

in March 1941. Koln is Cologne in the Rhineland, now part of the FRG. The ad says: Co-

logne FORD Trucks were there! The transport and supply tasks of the Wehrmacht place
great demands on drivers and trucks. Ford trucks were built even in peacetime to meet

the most severe demands. During the war they have been used in great numbers on all
fronts. Ford trucks remain reliable under the most severe conditions. Ford-Works Corpora-

tion, Cologne.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, JULY 26, 1974—PAGE 6

the old days and have a righ regard ”
integrity. I don’t. believe he has done *
thing wrong.”’
One year later, the United Stal
tered the Second World. War, a”
D. Mooney, Vice-President of
Motors, became the man who fix U
contracts between GM and the “oid
ernment; the total contracts he nel oh
aggregated almost $14 billion, abo ?
twelfth of all war contracts. :
When the Second World Wat
Herr Ludger Westrick, as a tP Mee

into the ‘‘automatic arrest” cateB™”

thorities. He immediately ma0”
statement on his 1940 trip to demo!

mp
Eberhard Faber of the Faber COR",

Edsel Ford and Henry Ford... 1 Pa
ey a visit and one day he came
in the Waldorf-Astoria, and ye ae
initiative he told me that he aM
of other people had the intention
the President and trying to Or
President that he ere bee ve
litical relations Ww
States and Germany. This was aftet

Norway.”

A study recently submitted a
Senate Anti-Trust and Anti-Mo!

committee gave- further detalle and |
ation between General Moto

nazis. The following account ‘Post of

ruary 27, 1974. : 45
The study was made by Bradfor ty
classified German documents Motors:
period. It stated that Genera made”
gether with Ford and Chrysler. fo
profits by supplying: both ih vita! '
and the nazi Wehrmacht W! $
materiais during World War Il.
Mr. Snell reported: eG
“The General Motors plant ie
built thousands of bomber if
propulsion systems for the L :
same time its American plam
aircraft engines for the U |
Corps.” {ru
The Ford Company “opened # pure
sembly plant in Berlin whos? i
according to U.S. Army Inte V
producing troop-transportt
the Wehrmacht.”’ t
The report points out the ions
the ‘dominant structural POT og of
and Ford in the war econ i
America and Germany, thes?" worl
power to influence the course
ha Gas ; bet
Mr. Snell, who is a staff M®
Senate subcommittee, said the p
ed the wartime acta of ulti
as an example ‘‘o
expansion of the big-three cat sect
conflict with U.S. national

ig

of}
His conclusion: “AS OWE! cies