VERY Gravity's Rainbow.

[jesse gooch]

That makes sense. It was just the way he used it “whirls around and sees a nazi purchasing mission,” that threw me for some reason. Thanks Mark.

> On Jun 7, 2017, at 4:54 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Beyond an official trip to buy stuff, no I can"t. I think it must vary widely as to exactly what one can be. 
> 
> On Tue, Jun 6, 2017 at 9:51 PM, jesse gooch <jlguuch at gmail.com <mailto:jlguuch at gmail.com>> wrote:
> Can you define a purchasing mission for me? I think I get the idea, nazis sent off to acquire goods and $, but can’t seem to find examples elsewhere.
> 
>> On May 29, 2017, at 9:46 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com <mailto:mark.kohut at gmail.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> From The Paris Review interview with George Steiner, 1994.
>> 
>> 
>> STEINER
>> Then the war comes and my father is asked by the French prime minister to go with a mission to negotiate with the Germans for the purchase of Grumman fighter planes. A totally amazing story happened. Everybody has forgotten that New York was a neutral city in 1940. It was full of Nazi purchasing missions, bank missions, engineers. My father was at lunch in honor of the Trade Purchasing Commission at the Wall Street Club. At his table were representatives of the American treasury, the banks and the French delegation. The waiter brings my father a folded sheet of paper saying that a gentleman at another table has asked that I bring this to you. My father whirls around and sees a Nazi purchasing mission, with the swastikas in their lapels. Perfectly legitimate: they too were buying equipment and arranging oil loans with the Chase Bank and many others. Father recognizes a man who had been one of his closest friends in business, and with whom he has had no contact whatever since 1933 when Hitler took over. So my father ostentatiously tears up the note, the piece of paper, and drops it on the floor. He goes to the john; the man is waiting there, grabs my father and says, “You better listen to me whether you like it or not. I can give you no details, I don't know any. We're coming into France very soon.” (This is in 1940.) “Get your family out at any price.”
>> Now, this was one of the heads of the most important electrical concerns in Europe, Siemens. The “final solution” meeting had not yet taken place. But in Poland the massacres were already on, and the heads of Siemens knew something. They didn't know the details, because you were shot immediately if you were on leave and talked about it; but it was filtering through the high command, through diplomats, and this man, thank God, believed it, and my father believed him.
>> My father got in touch with the prime minister and asked him if his family could join him for a while since the negotiations were going to be longer than he had thought. The prime minister said, “Yes, of course, let them join you.” That's what saved us. We came out with the last American boats.
>> This story will be of considerable interest to historians, because it means that early in 1940 — the Germans came through in May, whereas this was in January — an informed senior German knew something.
> 
> 

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