Aalders, Gerard and Cees Wiebes The Art of Cloaking Ownership: The Secret Collaboration and Protection of the German War Industry by the Neutrals: The Case of Sweden

This book definitely gives alot of thinking to do. And not just for Sweden´s part.

During and after WW1 several companies owned by Germans were taken over. This led to the cloaking of businesses so that in the future this could not happen. Thus many firms led by Germans had other owners but only in name. The real decisions were made in Germany but as this could not be proved these factories and production methods ( protected by patents ) stayed untouched in WW2 and could not be forced to join the war production like in WW1.

The book gives some examples and I was wondering if anyone has read about these elsewhere:

-The US diesel engine production was delayed because Robert Bosch industrial companies (from Stuttgart) and the American Bosch (ABC) had a patent. Thus the US could not answer the German U-boat threat as well in 1941 as they should have when the war started.

-production of magnesium, army´s optical equipment, navy´s and air force´s fuel injection machinery were also delayed for the same reason.

-Standard Oil and IG Farben had a deal ( from 1929 ) due to which Standard Oil would have to give all the technical paper work to IG Farben.The US Army could not agree to this and Standard Oil refused to produce 100 octane cerosine for the aeroplanes.

-On 22nd Sept 1939 (!) IG Farben and Standard Oil made the so-called " Hague memo" in which co-operation was agreed to continue even if the US joined the war. This deal led to a huge demand for artificial rubber once the war started, because IG Farben had the monopoly for the patents used, and the US had to start literally from nothing to produce articial rubber.

-Deal between American Aluminium Corporation and IG Farben caused restrictions in Aluminium production.

-1929 Remington Arms and IG Farben made a tetracene deal, which made it impossible to ship this important chemical to Britain until 1941
( used in hardening of the barrel, I think )

-SKF Philadelphia ball bearings production levels : 150,000/ month ordered, 20,000/month produced.

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It makes one wonder whether the Communists were right or not about Capitalism having no moral or patriotic notions

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The laws were alright served to the point in the US because it was not known these were originally German run busineses. Wondering really how much the US production could do without these problems because with them they really were impresive!

The problem is that there are people who will help these cloaking systems to work by "owning" these shares etc for the bigger country thus making laws unfunctionable. And practically there is no way to prove who the original owner is....

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Anybody else read about these or has more examples?

I mean as I read about these I understood how much damage you can do by clever political actions- the Germans seem to have gotten secret info from the US by just asking their daughter firms to send info to Germany or through a neutral country. Or they could influence the production by refusing to give the details of patents or simply telling the factories to keep production levels low. And it all is based on laws....

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