Germans using American weapons in the beginning of the war?

So while I was searching for facts on ww2 on the computer I came across something about Germans using U.S weapons in the beginning of the war..

Can anyone confirm if this is true, and if so what weapons?


Thanks a lot.

 

There is possibly early in the war the weapons could be captured Polish who used a modified M1918 BAR in 7.92 and both Poland and Norway had M1917 Colt Medium MG derivatives some small arms such as Browning pistols (Belgium) and M1935 Radom pistol (Poland. Looks like a commercial colt pistol). Additionally a few older weapons that are generally thought of as U.S. types Lewis Guns and Norwegian Krag !894 rifles spring to mind.

As to Standard issue U.S. weapons,considering the shortage of equipment for U.S. Forces would mean that practically none would be available for export covert or otherwise. Reisling M50 SMGs for example were supplied none Regular Army services (Navy, Marine, N.G. & C.G.) due to a shortage of M1928 Thompsons.

~Steve

 

Thanks a lot guys!!!!


Ha, this site is awesome as hell

 

I was about to post Steve's tidbit on the Polish BAR copy (standard issue to Polish infantry sections).

 

I've not heard anything regarding weapons per se, but there was a sizeable U.S. investment in Nazi Germany at the time, most of which had started in the 20's. The most well known being;

Ford via Ford-Werke AG which made trucks and light armoured vehicles in Cologne, which involved labour from the nearby Buchenwald camp, and also in Berlin. Ford was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of the German Eagle by Hitler for their service to the Third Reich, which accounted for around 60% of production.

General Motors via OPEL which was it's German investment originally prior to Hitler's rise , manufacturer of trucks, engines, light armoured vehicles, tanks and airplanes. Seized in 1940.

General Electric in association with Krupps rigged the price of Tungsten Carbide in the late 20's. As the U.S. tooled up for war it paid much more for this vital material than Germany, and via a Swiss company actually paid royalties to the German war effort.

Kodak, had factories in both Germany and occupied France and continued to do business with Germany until '43 via it's Swiss branch. Connected to using slave labour.

DuPont, associated with GM by share ownership, and in partnership with Rockefellers Standard Oil of New Jersey formed a profitable link with I.G. Farben, owners of the patent for Zyklon B, originally to manufacture fuel for vehicles but also including other chemicals as well as materials for munitions.

Hope this enlightens.

 

this is interesting!
the start of ww2,america was not apart of ww2 but america's main object before joining the war in late 1942 was to supply the english with american equitment.
i don't believe america gave germany weapons!
but this may have accurred though- the english soldiers that was captured start of ww2,may be carring usa guns therefore the germans must have taken the usa guns of the english and used for the german warfare.
that's if,this really happend,sometimes internet information is not 100% correct.

 

Hey Chad,

Did the US Gov't make those companies severe their ties with their German subsidiaries when America entered war?

 

I'm responding instead of "Chad", since I had put this next together about six years ago for that lame THC forum. It is not totally pertinent to your question, but coveres much of the problem. BTW, Ford had supplied the early Nazi organization with S&W pistols as a "gift" along with German translations of his anti-semetic publications in the Dearborne Independent. Anyway, here is that old post (be warned, it is LONG).

Most is from; Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler, by Professor Antony C. Sutton. Unless otherwise noted.

Admittedly after FDR signed the "Trading With The Enemy Act", this stuff should have stopped for the US citizens at least. But before hostilities broke out many people and companies were doing much the same. Such European industrial giants as Kuhlmann of France, Imperial Chemical Industries of Great Britain, Aussiger Verein, Skoda, and Tatra of Czechoslovakia, along with Boruta of Poland all took advantage of the opportunity until war erupted or their nations were occupied.

In October 1942, ten months after entering World War II, America was preparing its first assault against Nazi military forces, Prescott Bush was the managing partner of Brown Brothers Harriman. And his 18-year-old son George, our future President, had just begun training to become a naval pilot. On Oct. 20, 1942, the U.S. government ordered the seizure of Nazi German banking operations in New York City which were being run by Prescott Bush. (See the New York City Directory of Directors [available at the Library of Congress]. The volumes for the 1930s and 1940s list Prescott S. Bush as a director of Union Banking Corporation for the years 1934 through 1943.) Under the Trading with the Enemy Act, the government took over the Union Banking Corporation, in which Bush was senior director.

The Union Banking Corporation was established formally in 1924, as a unit of the Manhattan offices of W.A. Harriman & Co., interlocking with the Thyssen-owned Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart (BHS) in the Netherlands. The American investigators concluded that "the Union Banking Corporation has since its inception handled funds chiefly supplied to it through the Dutch bank by the Thyssen interests for American re-investment." The U.S. Alien Property Custodian seized Union Banking Corp.'s stock shares, all of which were owned by Prescott Bush, E. Roland (Bunny) Harriman, three Nazi executives, and two other associates of Bush.

The order seizing the bank, "vests (seizes) all of the capital stock of Union Banking Corporation, a New York corporation". And names the holders of UBC’s shares as:
"E. Roland Harriman--3991 shares '' [chairman and director of Union Banking Corp. (UBC); this is "Bunny'' Harriman, described by Prescott Bush as a place holder who didn't get into banking affairs; Prescott also managed "Bunny’s" personal investments]

"Cornelis Lievense--4 shares" [president and director of UBC; New York resident banking functionary for the Nazis]

"Harold D. Pennington--1 share" [treasurer and director of UBC; an office manager employed by Bush at Brown Brothers Harriman]

"Ray Morris--1 share '' [director of UBC; partner of Bush and the Harrimans]

"Prescott S. Bush--1 share'' [director of UBC, which was co-founded and sponsored by his father-in-law George Walker; senior managing partner for E. Roland Harriman and Averell Harriman]

"H.J. Kouwenhoven--1 share'' [director of UBC; organized UBC as the emissary of Fritz Thyssen in negotiations with George Walker and Averell Harriman; managing director of UBC's Netherlands affiliate under Nazi occupation; industrial executive in Nazi Germany; director and chief foreign financial executive of the German Steel Trust]

"Johann G. Groeninger--1 share" [director of UBC and of its Netherlands affiliate; industrial executive in Nazi Germany] all of which shares are held for the benefit of ... members of the Thyssen family, [and] is property of nationals designated as an enemy country.... ''

On Oct. 28, 1942, the government issued orders seizing two Nazi front organizations run by the Bush-Harriman bank: the Holland-American Trading Corporation and the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation. Nazi interests in the Silesian-American Corporation, long managed by Prescott Bush and his father-in-law George Herbert Walker, were also seized under the Trading with the Enemy Act on Nov. 17, 1942. In this action, the government announced that it was seizing only the Nazi interests, leaving the U.S. partners to carry on the business.

These and other actions taken by the U.S. government in wartime were, too little and too late. Prescott Bush's family had already played a central role in financing and arming Adolf Hitler for his takeover of Germany; in financing and managing the buildup of Nazi war industries for the conquest of Europe and war (eventually) against the U.S.A., as well as assisting in the development of the Nazi regime.

President Franklin Roosevelt's Alien Property Custodian, Leo T. Crowley, signed Vesting Order Number 248 seizing the property of Prescott Bush under the Trading with the Enemy Act. The order, published in obscure government record books and kept out of the news, explained nothing about the Nazis involved; only that the Union Banking Corporation was run for the "Thyssen family '' (citizens of Germany and/or Hungary) which are nationals ... of a designated enemy country." (Office of Alien Property Custodian, Vesting Order No. 248. The order was executed October 20, 1942; F.R. Doc. 42-11568; Filed, November 6, 1942, 11:31 A.M.; 7 Fed. Reg. 9097 (Nov. 7, 1942).

Fritz Thyssen and his business partners are universally recognized as the most important German financiers of Adolf Hitler's takeover of Germany. At the time of the order seizing the Thyssen family's Union Banking Corp., Mr. Fritz Thyssen had already published his famous book, I Paid Hitler, admitting that he had financed Adolf Hitler and the Nazi movement since October 1923. Thyssen's role as the leading early backer of Hitler's grab for power in Germany had been noted by U.S. diplomats in Berlin as early as 1932.How important was this connection between New York firms and the Nazi banking/war production financing? Well, the 1942 U.S. government investigative report said that Bush's Nazi-front bank was an interlocking concern with the Vereinigte Stahlwerke (United Steel Works Corporation or German Steel Trust) led by Fritz Thyssen and his two brothers.

After the war, Congressional investigators probed the Thyssen interests, Union Banking Corp. and related Nazi units. The investigation showed that the Vereinigte Stahlwerke had produced the following approximate proportions of total German national output:

50.8% of Nazi Germany's pig iron
41.4% of Nazi Germany's universal plate
36.0% of Nazi Germany's heavy plate
38.5% of Nazi Germany's galvanized sheet
45.5% of Nazi Germany's pipes and tubes
22.1% of Nazi Germany's wire
35.0% of Nazi Germany's explosives.


Quite a bit of the financing for Hitler and the Nazis came from affiliates or subsidiaries of many U.S. citizens and firms, Henry Ford’s help began in the twenties, and were simply included in with payments from American I.G. (Farben) and General Electric which had both started as early as 1933. The Standard Oil (New Jersey), American I.G. (Farben) and I.T.T. subsidiary payments through Heinrich Himmler continued up to 1944. Walter Teagle, a close Roosevelt associate and backer, as well as an NRA administrator; along with banker Paul Warburg (his brother Max Warburg was on the board of I.G. Farben in Germany), and Edsel Ford were the directors of the American I.G. (Farben) board.

J.P. Morgan Bank, Guaranty Trust, Chase Manhattan Bank, at least three Wall Street houses (Dillon, Read; Harris, Forbes; and, National City Company for sure), Standard Oil (New Jersey), Du Pont, Dow Chemical, General Motors, Ford Motors, and General Electric (A.E.G.) of the United States helped or profited in some manner. G.E. (A.E.G) rounded out its support by technical cooperation with Krupp, which seems to have been aimed at restricting the U.S. development of tungsten carbide. I.T.T. held a 28 percent interest in Focke-Wolfe aircraft, American Ford owned French Ford and Ford Werke of Belgium and profited from supplying the German Wehrmacht with cars and trucks through out the war. Standard Oil's most egregious role (beyond profiteering), was with technical aid to Nazi development of synthetic rubber and synthetic gasoline through a U.S. research company under the management and control of Standard Oil. Then the Ethyl Gasoline Company, jointly owned by Standard Oil and General Motors, was instrumental in supplying vital tetra-ethyl lead assistance to Nazi Germany with the clear knowledge that the tetra-ethyl lead was for Nazi military purposes. I also believe that the dividends to both GM (from Opel) and Ford from their European subsidiaries continued all through the war years too, through the Swiss and the Swedes. That may have been justified as "weakening" the Germany economy and strengthening our own at the same time however. Everybody it seems took advantage of the situation and had fingers in the pie.

The most embarrassing, it would seem to me, is Henry Ford Sr. sending Adolf Hitler a personal monetary "birthday gift" every April 20th through 1944. 1938 was the year he was awarded that medal by Der Fuehrer, and Henry sent something like 10,000, or 20,000 Reichmarks to Hitler through Swiss or Swedish banks every year. Even during the war years, he managed to continue the practice. There was a running joke in Detroit that Hitler had ordered thousands of tanks from Ford’s plant, but didn’t make painting or delivery arrangements. He said he would call ahead on the paint scheme, and pick them up on his way through town (giggle/snicker).

All of this (as mentioned previously), and more can be found in the book: Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler, by Professor Antony C. Sutton.

The U.S. Ambassador in Germany, William Dodd, wrote FDR from Berlin on October 19, 1936 (three years after Hitler came to power), concerning American industrialists and their aid to the Nazis: "Much as I believe in peace as our best policy, I cannot avoid the fears which Wilson emphasized more than once in conversations with me, August 15, 1915 and later: the breakdown of democracy in all Europe will be a disaster to the people. But what can you do? At the present moment more than a hundred American corporations have subsidiaries here or cooperative understandings. The DuPonts have three allies in Germany that are aiding in the armament business. Their chief ally is the I. G. Farben Company, a part of the Government which gives 200,000 marks a year to one propaganda organization operating on American opinion. Standard Oil Company (New Jersey sub-company) sent $2,000,000 here in December 1933 and has made $500,000 a year helping Germans make Ersatz gas for war purposes; but Standard Oil cannot take any of its earnings out of the country except in goods. They do little of this, report their earnings at home, but do not explain the facts. The International Harvester Company president told me their business here, in Germany rose 33% a year (arms manufacture, I believe), but they could take nothing out. Even our airplanes people have secret arrangement with Krupps. General Motor Company and Ford do enormous businesses [sic] here through their subsidiaries and take no profits out. I mention these facts because they complicate things and add to war dangers. (Edgar B. Nixon, ed., Franklin D. Roosevelt and Foreign Affairs, Volume III: September 1935-January 1937, [Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1969], p. 456.)

Second, a quote from the diary of the same U.S. Ambassador in Germany… "Our Commercial Attaché brought Dr. Engelbrecht, chairman of the Vacuum Oil Company in Hamburg, to see me. Engelbrecht repeated what he had said a year ago: ‘The Standard Oil Company, the parent company of the Vacuum, has spent 10,000,000 marks in Germany trying to find oil resources and building a great refinery near the Hamburg harbor.’ Engelbrecht is still boring wells and finding a good deal of crude oil in the Hanover region, but he had no hope of great deposits. He hopes Dr. Schacht will subsidize his company as he does some German companies that have found no crude oil. The Vacuum spends all its earnings here, employs 1,000 men and never sends any of its money home. I could give him no encouragement. (Ambassador Dodd's Diary, 1933-1938, [New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1941], p. 303.)

Next Ambassador Dodd records:

"These men were hardly out of the building before the lawyer came in again to report his difficulties. I could not do anything. I asked him, however: Why did the Standard Oil Company send $1,000,000 over here in December, 1933, to aid the Germans in making gasoline from soft coal for war emergencies? Why do the International Harvester people continue to manufacture in Germany when their company gets nothing out of the country and when it has failed to collect its war losses? He saw my point and agreed that it looked foolish and that it only means greater losses if another war breaks loose." (Ibid, p. 358.)

The alliance between Nazi political power and American "Big Business" may well have looked foolish to Ambassador Dodd and the American attorney he questioned. In practice, of course, "Big Business" is anything but foolish when it comes to promoting its own self-interest. Author Carroll Quigley has shown that the apex of this international financial control system before World War II was the Bank for International Settlements, with representatives from the international banking firms of Europe and the United States, in an arrangement that continued throughout World War II. During the Nazi period, Germany's representative at the Bank for International Settlements was Hitler's financial genius and president of the Reichsbank, Hjalmar "Horace Greeley" Schacht. To record his American origins, Hjalmar's middle names were designated "Horace Greeley" after the well-known publisher/politician.

Consequently, Hjalmar spoke fluent English and the post-war interrogation of Schacht in Project "Dustbin" was conducted in both German and English. The point to be made is that the Schacht family had its origins in New York, worked for the prominent Wall Street financial house of Equitable Trust (which was controlled by the Morgan firm), and throughout his life Hjalmar retained these Wall Street connections. Newspapers and contemporary sources record repeated visits with Owen Young of General Electric; Farish, the chairman of Standard Oil (New Jersey); and their banking counterparts. In brief, Schacht was a member of the international financial elite that wielded its power behind the scenes through the political apparatus of any nation. He is one of the key links between the Wall Street elite and Hitler's inner circle. (Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope [New York: The Macmillan Company, 1966] )

Schacht held executive positions in several major German banks before becoming (1923) commissioner of currency. Inflation had reached its height and the paper mark had become worthless. Schacht substituted the rentenmark, in theory secured by a mortgage on all land and industry. By various stringent deflationary measures the rentenmark was stabilized and the budget balanced. In 1924, Germany obtained a foreign loan under the Dawes Plan, and in 1925 the rentenmark was replaced by the reichsmark, based on a gold standard. Appointed president of the Reichsbank in Dec., 1923, Schacht resigned in 1930 because of his opposition to continued German reparations payments. A nationalist and representative of conservative capitalism, Schacht after 1931 supported the National Socialist (Nazi) party. He was appointed president of the Reichsbank (1933) and minister of economy (1934) and was given wide powers.

Through bartering agreements with Balkan and Middle Eastern countries, he enabled Germany to secure raw materials for its rearmament and developed German trade. Conflict with Hermann Goering, who had been made virtual economic dictator, led to Schacht’s resignation from the ministry in 1937. Schacht continued as president of the Reichsbank until 1939, when he was dismissed for opposing the huge armament program, which he felt would cause inflation.

He remained minister without portfolio until 1943. In 1944 he was placed in a concentration camp for his alleged part in the plot against Hitler’s life. Acquitted (1946) by the war-crimes tribunal at Nuremberg, he twice won (1948, 1950) appeal from a German "denazification" court’s sentence. In 1953 he established a private bank in Düsseldorf. (See Schacht’s autobiography, Confessions of the Old Wizard [1953, translated-1956]; or A. E. Simpson’s; Hjalmar Schacht in Perspective [1969] ).

 

Jeeze man. Good post. I will have to spend a solid hour on that one.

 

In the tangled world of interwar international finance, the corporations of many countries, including, but not limited to, the United States, Britain, France, Holland, Norway, Sweden, and the Soviet Union, had firms with financial ties to Axis countries like Germany and Japan, which later became embarrassments. For example, The Diamond Trading Corporation of London was alleged to have sabotaged Allied efforts to halt Nazi Germany's acquisition of industrial diamonds necessary to it's conduct of the war, even after the start of the war. ( see; Glitter & greed: the secret world of ... - Google Book Search )

Some of these capitalists pursued trade with the Nazi's until their objectives became obvious, and then stopped. Others continued trading with them until it became illegal. Still others continued trading with the enemy even after war was declared. I tend to take a very skeptical view of these charges unless they are clearly and completely documented. It is too easy to make an inflated case for collaboration with the enemy through deliberate misinterpretation of the available evidence.

 

Excellent posts

 

Thanks for doing so, I'd have only added a couple of sentences in reply.

I quite agree, plus there's also a danger of quite wrongly labelling the whole of any nation as collaborators purely to make a point.

Although there are some right nasty individuals or companies involved, of the ones mentions the top nasty three (Ford, Dupont, GE) are well known and recorded as such so I didn't go into much, or enough perhaps, detail. There were many investigations by U.S. authorities ( two federal anti-trust indictments against GE and the Krupp company originated in 1940, suspended during the war and resumed in '47), as well as more recent legal actions ( Washingtonpost.com: Ford and GM Scrutinized for Alleged Nazi Collaboration ) which I assume most here would be aware of in some form.

A few points worth repeating are;
* A lot of these investments started in the 1920's before the rise of Nazism and as such were not neccessarily linked to supporting that mindset.
* How financial investment in a recently defeated Germany was actually quite progressive when originally made.
* Many of these activities were quite legal typically from being based in neutral countries such as Switzerland.

pip pip

 

It could also be something much simpler than the tangled world of international finance and behind the back handshakes. If Germans were using American weapons at any time, I imagine it would be after the American's began engaging in combat with them. Like any other time in warfare, you are going to pick up anything usable left behind....especially during a fight. A great example of it, although taking place in Korea, is dictated in "The Last Stand of Fox Company" where the Marine company took any Chinese weapon with a single bullet in it to fight with. Great read.

 

Quite, or even more devious endeavours.

Otto Skorzeny was given a few captured Sten guns which he thought ideal for the kind of operations he was becoming more involved in. He approached his own official supply channels to get some made which became an immediate dead end. So using captured radios and codes from Dutch resistance he arranged for an air drop of fresh stens courtesy of the War Department and dropped in a convenient field by the RAF.

 

Quite so.

There is a book out by Edwin Black titled "IBM and the Holocaust" which claims IBM deliberately produced punch card tabulation machines which made possible the administration of the Holocaust and other Nazi administrative achievements like the planning for the Blitzkrieg and Operation Barbarossa. In fact, an IBM German subsidiary company produced tabulation machines and another printed the necessary punch cards. But, IMHO, Black fails to prove that IBM had any control over these German firms once Hitler came to powewer, and also fails to make a convincing case that the Holocaust was impossible without IBM's punchcard technology.

Another example is Douglas Aircraft. They had, quite legally, prior to the war, sold a license to the government of Japan to produce copies of the DC-3. The Japanese continued to build these licensed copies during WW II and even paid the royalties to Douglas for the planes they built. Douglas profited from this production even though they did not wish to do so after Japan became an enemy of the US.

 

That's a very good example.

IBM did actually face legal action over that which was dropped. Black and some others are in danger of being labelled as part of what Norman Finkelstein calls the "holocaust industry" in his pursuit of original historical research which doesn't meet academic standards, but which can still be used to back a legal case when reinforced with the negative publicity which a connection to the Third Reich can bring to a corporation.

It's interesting to see the media play along with such distasteful trends, the New York Times actually gave Finkelstein's book "The holocaust industry" a harsher review than it did "Mein Kampf", meanwhile the internet simply adapts work such as Blacks' to factual status on what appears to be little more than a political whim.

Historical facts are exactly what they are, they're of historical interest but for anything else rather useless. Exploiting them is just not on and the sign of an uncivilised mind as I see it. I wouldn't consider boycotting nor even thinking any more or less of a company because of their historical connections. Individuals yes, but piety remains an unattractive trait.

Does make me wonder how far historical legal tourism might go, Boston tea party, Roman invasion of England, or perhaps the combination of nonsense so sueing God for the Big Bang perhaps?

One of the things I enjoy about this forum and the other place is how we rise above common trends, and can discuss these things with reason and as a matter of fact.

pip pip

 

The Germans captured Belgium in 1940 and there the FN factory was making Browning High power pistols (called the P-35 by FN in those days). Even though the Germans had two servicable pistols of their own (The luger and the P-38) in war you can never have enough small arms, so the Germans simply allowed the factory to keep producing the High power. I have seen several pictures of German troops holding these pistols in battle conditions, some even equipped with factory wooden add-on buttstock (issued in relatively small numbers). This pistol was unique in being one of the few small arms used and manufactured by both sides.
There are several pictures of germans carrying M1 carbines during the battle of the bulge. It was said to be one of the Germans favorite weapons to capture, and not to keep as a souvenir but to use. Who knows where and how they found ammo for them too!

 

For all their short falls and treachery at least they paid their bills.