How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power --Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,,1312542,00.html

How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power
Rumours of a link between the US first family and the Nazi war machine have circulated for decades. Now the Guardian can reveal how repercussions of events that culminated in action under the Trading with the Enemy Act are still being felt by today's president

Ben Aris in Berlin and Duncan Campbell in Washington
Saturday September 25, 2004

Guardian

George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.
The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.

The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor to argue that the late senator's action should have been grounds for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

The debate over Prescott Bush's behaviour has been bubbling under the surface for some time. There has been a steady internet chatter about the "Bush/Nazi" connection, much of it inaccurate and unfair. But the new documents, many of which were only declassified last year, show that even after America had entered the war and when there was already significant information about the Nazis' plans and policies, he worked for and profited from companies closely involved with the very German businesses that financed Hitler's rise to power. It has also been suggested that the money he made from these dealings helped to establish the Bush family fortune and set up its political dynasty.

Remarkably, little of Bush's dealings with Germany has received public scrutiny, partly because of the secret status of the documentation involving him. But now the multibillion dollar legal action for damages by two Holocaust survivors against the Bush family, and the imminent publication of three books on the subject are threatening to make Prescott Bush's business history an uncomfortable issue for his grandson, George W, as he seeks re-election.

While there is no suggestion that Prescott Bush was sympathetic to the Nazi cause, the documents reveal that the firm he worked for, Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH), acted as a US base for the German industrialist, Fritz Thyssen, who helped finance Hitler in the 1930s before falling out with him at the end of the decade. The Guardian has seen evidence that shows Bush was the director of the New York-based Union Banking Corporation (UBC) that represented Thyssen's US interests and he continued to work for the bank after America entered the war.

Thanks for posting.

...had dealings with Hitler BEFORE he invaded Poland and Czechoslovakia. He was considered an acceptable leader before that happened. (And much of the crap he peddled in those years was hidden from the world.) I think it's only fair to hold people to account for their dealings with Hitler AFTER 1938. When did Bush's grandfather have dealings with him? (And, in any case, George W. had not been born at the time and could do little to influence his grandfather's choice of activities.)

Fair is fair (though I know many here don't think we have to be... if we want credibility, we DO). Blame W for what he has done (it's not like there isn't plenty of fodder) and not for what his ancestors did.

...you would have seen the following snippet: "His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act,..."

I believe that 1942 comes well after 1938, and is also after December 7, 1941, when we officially declared war.

Which is why the bank's assets were seized.
Unfortunately they were returned after the war.

The Harrimans and Bush's were/are among the worst of the worst.

Which is why the bank's assets were seized.
Unfortunately they were returned after the war.

The Harrimans and Bush's were/are among the worst of the worst.