WWII Nazi/American corp. collaboration

[MalignD at aol.com]

Millison writes:

<<A Frank Rich op-ed piece ... the recent story of GM and Ford collaborating
with the Nazis ... 

I'm not enough of a historian to know to what degree that information about
"cartels" that Pynchon delineated in GR might have been news to the reading
public.  Was Pynchon putting together, within his fictional context, the
secret history of WWII that wasn't widely known outside specialist circles?>>

Yes and no.  Yes, GR includes, refers to, and builds upon the business
relations that were maintained during the war among various American and
allied companies and IG Farben in Germany, something of a secret history.  But
no, Pynchon wasn't really "putting [this] together."  Pynchon's source was,
for the most part, a single book, IG Farben by Richard Sasuly (Boni & Gaer, NY
1947), from which he lifted, unalloyed, most of his facts.  

Sasuly was part of an allied team that first got access to IG Farben's files
at the end of the war. Although thousands, of these files had already been
destroyed by officers at the IG, thousands remained and they spelled out
numerous linkages, agreements, co-ownerships, shared patents, and dummy
companies in (and with companies in) many of the allied countries.  IG's
holdings included approximately 500 companies, some 248 admitted, the rest
camouflaged.  Among these, 26% of Norsh Hydro in Norway and control of GAF in
the US through the IG's dummy company, IG Chemie of Switzerland.  

A cartel existed during the war among IG Farben and Royal Dutch Shell,
Standard Oil of New Jersey, and Imperial Chemical (ICI) in England.  A memo
from one Frank Howard of Standard Oil re this cartel states in part: "... we
did our best to work out complete plans for a modus vivendi which would
operate through the term of the war, whether or not the U.S. came in ..."
another Standard Oil memo said, also in part:  "How we are going to make these
belligerent parties [i.e., the warring countries] lie down in the same bad
isn't quite clear yet.  We are now addressing ourselves to that phase of the
problem and I hope we will find some solution.  Technology has to carry
on--war or no war ..."     

For any who many know little about it, IG Farben was the most powerful, most
respected company of its era.  It had numerous Nobel prize winners on its
research staff and had what today would be unimaginable reach and control of
its markets world-wide.  Major companies today, household names--Bayer,
Hoechst, BASF, Agfa, Sandoz, Ciba Geigy--were all once and not long ago under
the IG umbrella.  

I could post further about IG Farben and in more detail if anyone is
interested.

On a separate note--

I'm not taking part in VLVL but, even so--

A tip of the hat to ppetto for his rich and informative posts, informing me
that "Yosemite" is Yosemite National Park; that Vietnam is a country in
southeast Asia; that "Dick" Nixon was actually Richard Milhaus Nixon, a
President of the United States; that San Diego and San Clemente are in
California.  

Good work, ppetto!