J. Henry Schroder Banking Company is listed as Number 2 in capitalization in Capital City62 on the list of the seventeen merchant bankers who make up the exclusive Accepting Houses Committee in London. Although it is almost unknown in the United States, it has played a large part in our history. Like the others on this list, it had first to be approved by the Bank of England. And, like the Warburg family, the von Schroders began their banking operations in Hamburg, Germany. At the turn of the century, in 1900, Baron Bruno von Schroder established the London branch of the firm. He was soon joined by Frank Cyril Tiarks, in 1902. Tiarks married Emma Franziska of Hamburg, and was a director of the Bank of England from 1912 to 1945.
During World War I, J. Henry Schroder Banking Company played an important role behind the scenes. No historian has a reasonable explanation of how World War I started. Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated at Sarajevo by Gavril Princeps, Austria demanded an apology from Serbia, and Serbia sent the note of apology. Despite this, Austria declared war, and soon the other nations of Europe joined the fray. Once the war had gotten started, it was found that it wasn't easy to keep it going. The principal problem was that Germany was desperately short of food and coal, and without Germany, the war could not go on. John Hamill in The Strange Career of Mr. Hoover63 explains how the problem was solved.* He quotes from Nordeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, March 4, 1915, "Justice, however, demands that publicity should be given to the preeminent part taken by the German authorities in Belgium in the solution of this problem. The initiative came from them and it was only due to their continuous relations with the American Relief Committee that the provisioning question was solved." Hamill points out "That is what the Belgian Relief Committee was organized for--to keep Germany in food."
The Belgian Relief Commission was organized by Emile Francqui, director of a large Belgian bank, Societe Generale, and a London mining
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62 McRae and Cairncross, Capital City, Eyre Methuen, London, 1963
63 John Hamill, The Strange Career of Mr. Hoover, William Faro, New York, 1931
* Copies of Hamill's book were systematically located and destroyed by government agents, because it was published on the eve of President Hoover's re-election campaign.
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promoter, an American named Herbert Hoover, who had been associated with Francqui in a number of scandals which had become celebrated court cases, notably the Kaiping Coal Company scandal in China, said to have set off the Boxer Rebellion, which had as its goal the expulsion of all foreign businessmen from China. Hoover had been barred from dealing on the London Stock Exchange because of one judgement against him, and his associate, Stanley Rowe, had been sent to prison for ten years. With this background, Hoover was called an ideal choice for a career in humanitarian work.
Although his name is unknown in the United States, Emile Francqui was the guiding spirit behind Herbert Hoover's rise to fortune. Hamill (on page 156) identifies Francqui as the director of many atrocities committed against natives in the Congo. "For every cartridge they spent, they had to bring in a man's hand". Francqui's frightful record may have been the source for the charge later leveled against German soldiers in Belgium, that they chopped off the hands of women and children, a claim which proved to be groundless. Hamill also says that Francqui "tricked the Americans out of the Hankow-Canton railroad concession in China in 1901, and at the same time had 'stood by' in case Hoover needed any further help in the 'taking' of the Kaiping coal mines. This is the humanitarian who had sole charge of the distribution of the Belgian 'relief' during the World War, for which Hoover did the buying and shipping. Francqui was a director with Hoover, in the Chinese Engineering and Mining Company (the Kaiping mines), through which Hoover transported 200,000 Chinese slave workers to the Congo to work Francqui's copper mines."
Hamill says on page 311 that "Francqui opened the offices of the Belgian Relief in his bank, Societe Generale, as a one-man show, with a letter of permission from the German Governor General von der Goltz dated October 16, 1914.
The New York Herald Tribune of February 18, 1930, quoted by Congressman Louis McFadden in the House on February 26, 1930, said, "One of Belgium's two directors on the Bank for International Settlements will be Emile Francqui of the Societe Generale, a member of both the Young and Dawes Plan Committees. The board of directors of the international bank will have no more colorful character than Emile Francqui, former Minister of Finance, veteran of the Congo and China . . . he is rated as the richest man in Belgium, and among the twelve richest men in Europe."
Despite his prominence, The New York Times Index mentions Francqui only a few times during two decades before his death. On October 3, 1931, The New York Times quoted Le Peuple of Brussels that Francqui would visit the United States. "As a friend of President Hoover, Monsieur Francqui will not fail to pay a visit to the President."
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On October 30, 1931, The New York Times reported this visit with the headline, "Hoover-Francqui Talk was Unofficial". "It was stated that Mr. Francqui spent Tuesday night as a personal guest of the President, and that they talked of world financial problems in general, strictly unofficial. Mr. Francqui was an associate of President Hoover during the latters ministrations in Belgium during the war. Their visit had no official significance. Mr. Francqui is a private citizen and not engaged in any official mission."
No reference is made to the Hoover-Francqui business associations which were the subject of huge lawsuits in London. The Francqui visit probably involved Hoover's Moratorium on German War Debts, which stunned the financial world. On December 15, 1931, Chairman McFadden informed the House of a dispatch in the Public Ledger of Philadelphia, October 24, 1931, "GERMAN REVEALS HOOVER'S SECRET. The American President was in intimate negotiations with the German government regarding a year's debt holiday as early as December, 1930." McFadden continued, "Behind the Hoover announcement there were many months of hurried and furtive preparations both in Germany and in Wall Street offices of German bankers. Germany, like a sponge, had to be saturated with American money. Mr. Hoover himself had to be elected, because this scheme began before he became President. If the German international bankers of Wall Street--that is Kuhn Loeb Company, J. & W. Seligman, Paul Warburg, J. Henry Schroder--and their satellites had not had this job waiting to be done, Herbert Hoover would never have been elected President of the United States. The election of Mr. Hoover to the Presidency was through the influence of the Warburg Brothers, directors of the great bank of Kuhn Loeb Company, who carried the cost of his election. In exchange for this collaboration Mr. Hoover promised to impose the moratorium of German debts. Hoover sought to exempt Kreuger's loan to Germany of $125 million from the operation of the Hoover Moratorium. The nature of Kreuger's swindle was known here in January when he visited his friend, Mr. Hoover, in the White House."
Not only did Hoover entertain Francqui in the White House, but also Ivar Kreuger, the most famous swindler of the twentieth century.
When Francqui died on November 13, 1935, The New York Times memorialized him as "the copper king of the Congo . . . Mr. Francqui, last year having gained dictatorial powers over the belga, maintained it on the gold standard during a crisis. In 1891 he led an expedition into the Congo and gained it for King Leopold. A man of great wealth, rated among the twelve richest men in Europe, he secured enormous copper deposits. He was Minister of State in 1926 and Minister of Finance in 1934. It was his pride that he never accepted a centime of remuneration for his services to the government. While consul general at Shanghai, he secured valuable concessions, notably the Kaiping coal mines and the
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railway concession for the Tientsin Railroad. He was governor of the Societe Generale de Belgique, Lloyd Royal Belge, and regent of La Banque Nationale de Belgique."
The Times does not mention Francqui's business partnerships with Hoover. Like Francqui, Hoover also refused remuneration for "government service", and as Secretary of Commerce and as President of the United States, he turned his salary back to the government.
On December 13, 1932, Chairman McFadden introduced a resolution of impeachment against President Hoover for high crimes and misdemeanors, which covers many pages, including violation of contracts, unlawful dissipation of the financial resources of the United States, and his appointment of Eugene Meyer to the Federal Reserve Board. The resolution was tabled and never acted upon by the House.
In criticizing Hoover's Moratorium of German War Debts, McFadden had referred to Hoover's "German" backers. Although all of the principals of "the London Connection" did originate in Germany, most of them in Frankfurt, at the time they sponsored Hoover's candidacy for the Presidency of the United States, they were operating from London, as Hoover himself had done for most of his career.
Also, the Hoover Moratorium was not intended to "help" Germany, as Hoover had never been "pro-German". The Moratorium on Germany's war debts was necessary so that Germany would have funds for rearming. In 1931, the truly forward-looking diplomats were anticipating the Second World War, and there could be no war without an "aggressor".
Hoover had also carried out a number of mining promotions in various parts of the world as a secret agent for the Rothschilds, and had been rewarded with a directorship in one of the principal Rothschild enterprises, the Rio Tinto Mines in Spain and Bolivia. Francqui and Hoover threw themselves into the seemingly impossible task of provisioning Germany during the First World War. Their success was noted in Nordeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, March 13, 1915, which noted that large quantities of food were now arriving from Belgium by rail. Schmoller's Yearbook for Legislation, Administration and Political Economy for 1916, shows that one billion pounds of meat, one and a half billion pounds of potatoes, one and a half billion pounds of bread, and one hundred twenty-one millions pounds of butter had been shipped from Belgium to Germany in that year. A patriotic British woman who had operated a small hospital in Belgium for several years, Edith Cavell, wrote to the Nursing Mirror in London, April 15, 1915, complaining that the "Belgian Relief" supplies were being shipped to Germany to feed the German army. The Germans considered Miss Cavell to be of no importance, and paid no attention to her, but the British Intelligence Service in London was appalled by Miss Cavell's discovery, and demanded that the Germans arrest her as a spy.
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Sir William Wiseman, head of British Intelligence, and partner of Kuhn Loeb Company, feared that the continuance of the war was at stake, and secretly notified the Germans that Miss Cavell must be executed. The Germans reluctantly arrested her and charged her with aiding prisoners of war to escape. The usual penalty for this offense was three months imprisonment, but the Germans bowed to Sir William Wiseman's demands, and shot Edith Cavell, thus creating one of the principal martyrs of the First World War.
With Edith Cavell out of the way, the "Belgian Relief" operation continued, although in 1916, German emissaries again approached London officials with the information that they did not believe Germany could continue military operations, not only because of food shortages, but because of financial problems. More "emergency relief" was sent, and Germany continued in the war until November, 1918. Two of Hoover's principal assistants were a former lumber shipping clerk from the West Coast, Prentiss Gray, and Julius H. Barnes, a grain salesman from Duluth. Both men became partners in J. Henry Schroder Banking Corporation in New York after the war, and amassed large fortunes, principally in grain and sugar.
With the entry of the United States into the war, Barnes and Gray were given important posts in the newly created U.S. Food Administration, which also was placed under Herbert Hoover's direction. Barnes became President of the Grain Corporation of the U.S. Food Administration from 1917 to 1918, and Gray was chief of Marine Transportation. Another J. Henry Schroder partner, G. A. Zabriskie, was named head of the U.S. Sugar Equalization Board. Thus the London Connection controlled all food in the United States through its grain and sugar "Czars" during the First World War. Despite many complaints of corruption and scandal in the U.S. Food Administration, no one was ever indicted. After the war, the partners of J. Henry Schroder Company found that they now owned most of Cuba's sugar industry. One partner, M.E. Rionda, was president of Cuba Cane Corporation, and director of Manati Sugar Company, American British and Continental Corporation, and other firms. Baron Bruno von Schroder, senior partner of the firm, was a director of North British and Mercantile Insurance Company. His father, Baron Rudolph von Schroder of Hamburg, was a director of Sao Paulo Coffee Ltd., one of the largest Brazilian coffee companies, with F.C. Tiarks, also of the Schroder firm.*
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* The New York Times noted on October 11, 1923: "Frank C. Tiarks, Governor of the Bank of England, will spend two weeks here to set up the opening of the banking house branch of J. Henry Schroder of London."
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After the war, Zabriskie, who had been sugar Czar of the United States by presiding over the U.S. Sugar Equalization Board, became the president of several of the largest baking corporations in the United States: Empire Biscuit, Southern Baking Corporation, Columbia Baking, and other firms.
As his principal assistant in the U.S. Food Administration, Hoover chose Lewis Lichtenstein Strauss, who was soon to become a partner in Kuhn Loeb Company, marrying the daughter of Jerome Hanauer of Kuhn Loeb. Throughout his distinguished humanitarian service with the Belgian Relief Commission, the U.S. Food Administration, and, after the war, the American Relief Administration, Hoover's closest associate was one Edgar Rickard, born in Pontgibaud, France. In Who's Who, he states that he was "World War administrative assistant to Herbert Hoover in all war and post-war organizations including the Commission For Relief in Belgium. He also served on the U.S. Food Administration from 1914-1924." He remained one of Hoover's closest friends, and usually the Rickards and Hoovers took their vacations together. After Hoover became Secretary of Commerce under Coolidge, Hamill tells us that Hoover awarded his friend the Hazeltine Radio patents, which paid him one million dollars a year in royalties.
In 1928, "the London Connection" decided to run Herbert Hoover for president of the United States. There was only one problem; although Herbert Hoover had been born in the United States, and was thus eligible for the office of the presidency, according to the Constitution, he had never had a business address or a home address in the United States, as he had gone abroad just after completing college at Stanford. The result was that during his campaign for the presidency, Herbert Hoover listed as his American address Suite 2000, 42 Broadway, New York, which was the office of Edgar Rickard. Suite 2000 was also shared by the grain tycoon and partner of J. Henry Schroder Banking Corporation, Julius H. Barnes.
After Herbert Hoover was elected president of the United States, he insisted on appointing one of the old London crowd, Eugene Meyer, as Governor of the Federal Reserve Board. Meyer's father had been one of the partners of Lazard Freres of Paris, and Lazard Brothers of London. Meyer, with Baruch, had been one of the most powerful men in the United States during World War I, a member of the famous Triumvirate which exercised unequalled power; Meyer as Chairman of the War Finance Corporation, Bernard Baruch as Chairman of the War Industries Board, and Paul Warburg as Governor of the Federal Reserve System.
A longtime critic of Eugene Meyer, Chairman Louis McFadden of the House Banking and Currency Committee, was quoted in The New York Times, December 17, 1930, as having made a speech on the floor of the House attacking Hoover's appointment of Meyer, and charging that "He
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represents the Rothschild interest and is liaison officer between the French Government and J.P. Morgan." On December 18, The Times reported that "Herbert Hoover is deeply concerned" and that McFadden's speech was "an unfortunate occurrence." On December 20, The Times commented on the editorial page, under the headline, "McFadden Again", "The speech ought to insure the Senate ratification of Mr. Meyer as head of the Federal Reserve. The speech was incoherent, as Mr. McFadden's speeches usually are." As The Times predicted, Meyer was duly approved by the Senate.
Not content with having a friend in the White House, J. Henry Schroder Corporation was soon embarked on further international adventures, nothing less than a plan to set up World War II. This was to be done by providing, at a crucial juncture, the financing for Adolf Hitler's assumption of power in Germany. Although any number of magnates have been given credit for the financing of Hitler, including Fritz Thyssen, Henry Ford, and J.P. Morgan, they, as well as others, did provide millions of dollars for his political campaigns during the 1920s, just as they did for others who also had a chance of winning, but who disappeared and were never heard from again. In December of 1932, it seemed inevitable to many observers of the German scene that Hitler was also ready for a toboggan slide into oblivion. Despite the fact that he had done well in national campaigns, he had spent all the money from his usual sources and now faced heavy debts. In his book Aggression, Otto Lehmann-Russbeldt tells us that "Hitler was invited to a meeting at the Schroder Bank in Berlin on January 4, 1933. The leading industrialists and bankers of Germany tided Hitler over his financial difficulties and enabled him to meet the enormous debt he had incurred in connection with the maintenance of his private army. In return, he promised to break the power of the trade unions. On May 2, 1933, he fulfilled his promise."64
Present at the January 4, 1933 meeting were the Dulles brothers, John Foster Dulles and Allen W. Dulles of the New York law firm, Sullivan and Cromwell, which represented the Schroder Bank. The Dulles brothers often turned up at important meetings. They had represented the United States at the Paris Peace Conference (1919); John Foster Dulles would die in harness as Eisenhower's Secretary of State, while Allen Dulles headed the Central Intelligence Agency for many years. Their apologists have seldom attempted to defend the Dulles brothers appearance at the meeting which installed Hitler as the Chancellor of Germany, preferring to pretend that it never happened. Obliquely, one biographer Leonard Mosley, bypasses it in Dulles when he states,
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64 Otto Lehmann-Russbeldt, Aggression, Hutchinson & Co., Ltd., London, 1934, p. 44
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"Both brothers had spent large amounts of time in Germany, where Sullivan and Cromwell had
considerable interest during the early 1930's, having represented several provincial governments,
some large industrial combines, a number of big American companies with interests in the Reich,
and some rich individuals."65
Allen Dulles later became a director of J. Henry Schroder Company. Neither he nor J. Henry Schroder were to be suspected of being pro-Nazi or pro-Hitler; the inescapable fact was that if Hitler did not become Chancellor of Germany, there was little likelihood of getting a Second World War going, the war which would double their profits.*
The Great Soviet Encyclopaedia states "The banking house Schroder Bros. (it was Hitler's banker) was established in 1846; its partners today are the barons von Schroeder, related to branches in the United States and England."66**
The financial editor of "The Daily Herald" of London wrote on Sept. 30, 1933 of "Mr. Norman's decision to give the Nazis the backing of the Bank (of England.)" John Hargrave, in his biography of Montagu Norman says,
"It is quite certain that Norman did all he could to assist Hitlerism to gain and maintain political
power, operating on the financial plane from his stronghold in Threadneedle Street." [i.e. Bank
of England.--Ed.]
Baron Wilhelm de Ropp, a journalist whose closest friend was Major F.W. Winterbotham, chief
of Air Intelligence of the British Secret Service, brought the Nazi philosopher, Alfred Rosenberg, to London and introduced him to Lord Hailsham, Secretary for War, Geoffrey Dawson, editor of The Times, and Norman, Governor of the Bank of England. After talking with Norman, Rosenberg met with the representative of the Schroder Bank of London. The managing director of the Schroder Bank, F.C. Tiarks, was also a director of the Bank of England. Hargrave says (p. 217), "Early in 1934 a select group of City financiers gathered in Norman's room behind the
windowless walls, Sir Robert Kindersley, partner of Lazard Brothers, Charles Hambro, F.C.
Tiarks, Sir Josiah Stamp, (also a director of the Bank of England). Governor Norman spoke of
the political situation in Europe. A new power had established itself, a great 'stabilizing
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65 Leonard Mosley, Dulles, Dial Publishing Co., New York 1978, p. 88
* Ezra Pound, in an April 18, 1943 broadcast over Radio Rome stated, ". . .and men in America, not content with this war are already aiming at the next one. The time to object is now."
66 The Great Soviet Encyclopaedia, Macmillan, London, 1973, v.2, p. 620
** The New York Times noted on October 11, 1944: "Senator Claude Pepper criticized John Foster Dulles, Gov. Dewey's foreign relations advisor for his connection with the law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell and having aided Hitler financially in 1933. Pepper described the January 4, 1933 meeting of Franz von Papen and Hitler in Baron Schroder's home in Cologne, and from that time on the Nazis were able to continue their march to power."
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force', namely, Nazi Germany. Norman advised his co-workers to include Hitler in their plans
for financing Europe. There was no opposition."
In Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler, Antony C. Sutton writes "The Nazi Baron Kurt von Schroeder acted as the conduit for I.T.T. money funneled to Heinrich Himmler's S.S. organization in 1944, while World War II was in progress, and the United States was at war with Germany."67 Kurt von Schroeder, born in 1889, was partner in the Cologne Bankhaus, J.H. Stein & Co., which had been founded in 1788. After the Nazis gained power in 1933, Schroeder was appointed the German representative at the Bank of International Settlements. The Kilgore Committee in 1940 stated that Schroeder's influence with the Hitler Administration was so great that he had Pierre Laval appointed head of the French Government during the Nazi Occupation. The Kilgore Committee listed more than a dozen important titles held by Kurt von Schroeder in the 1940's, including President of Deutsche Reichsbahn, Reich Board of Economic Affairs, SS Senior Group Leader, Council of Reich Post Office, Deutsche Reichsbank and other leading banks and industrial groups. Schroeder served on the board of all International Telephone and Telegraph subsidiaries in Germany.
In 1938, the London Schroder Bank became the German financial agent in Great Britain. The New York branch of Schroder had been merged in 1936 with the Rockefellers, as Schroder, Rockefeller, Inc. at 48 Wall Street. Carlton P. Fuller of Schroder was president of this firm, and Avery Rockefeller was vice-president. He had been a behind the scenes partner of J. Henry Schroder for years, and had set up the construction firm of Bechtel Corporation, whose employees (on leave) now play a leading role in the Reagan Administration, as Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State.
Ladislas Farago, in The Game of the Foxes,68 reported that Baron William de Ropp, a double agent, had penetrated the highest echelons in pre-World War II days, and Hitler relied upon de Ropp as his confidential consultant about British affairs. It was de Ropp's advice which Hitler followed when he refused to invade England.
Victor Perlo writes, in The Empire of High Finance:
"The Hitler government made the London Schroder Bank their financial agent in Britain and
America. Hitler's personal banking account was with J.M. Stein Bankhaus, the German subsidiary
of the Schroder Bank. F.C. Tiarks of the British J. Henry Schroder Company
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67 Antony C. Sutton, WALL STREET AND THE RISE OF HITLER, 76 Press, Seal Beach, California, 1976, p. 79
68 Ladislas Farago, The Game of the Foxes, 1973
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was a member of the Anglo-German Fellowship with two other partners as members, and a
corporate membership."69
The story goes much further than Perlo suspects. J. Henry Schroder WAS the Anglo-German Fellowship, the English equivalent of the America First movement, and also attracting patriots who did not wish to see their nation involved in a needless war with Germany. During the 1930's, until the outbreak of World War II, the Schroders poured money into the Anglo-German Fellowship, with the result that Hitler was convinced he had a large pro-German fifth column in England composed of many prominent politicians and financiers. The two divergent political groups in the 1930's in England were the War Party, led by Winston Churchill, who furiously demanded that England go to war against Germany, and the Appeasement Party, led by Neville Chamberlain. After Munich, Hitler believed the Chamberlain group to be the dominant party in England, and Churchill a minor rabble-rouser. Because of his own financial backers, the Schroders, were sponsoring the Appeasement Party, Hitler believed there would be no war. He did not suspect that the backers of the Appeasement Party, now that Chamberlain had served his purpose in duping Hitler, would cast Chamberlain aside and make Churchill the Prime Minister. It was not only Chamberlain, but also Hitler, who came away from Munich believing that it would be "Peace in our time."
The success of the Schroders in duping Hitler into this belief explains several of the most puzzling questions of World War II. Why did Hitler allow the British Army to decamp from Dunkirk and return home, when he could have wiped them out? Against the frantic advice of his generals, who wished to deliver the coup de grace to the English Army, Hitler held back because he did not wish to alienate his supposed vast following in England. For the same reason, he refused to invade England during a period when he had military superiority, believing that it would not be necessary, as the Anglo-German Fellowship group was ready to make peace with him. The Rudolf Hess flight to England was an attempt to confirm that the Schroder group was ready to make peace and form a common bond against the Soviets. Rudolf Hess continues to languish in prison today, many years after the war, because he would, if released,
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69 Victor Perlo, The Empire of High Finance, International Publishers, 1957, p. 177
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testify that he had gone to England to contact the members of the Anglo-German Fellowship, that is, the Schroder group, about ending the war.*
If anyone supposes this is all ancient history, with no application to the present political scene, we introduce the name of John Lowery Simpson of Sacramento, California. Although he appears for the first time in Who's Who in America for 1952, Mr. Simpson states that he served under Herbert Hoover on the Commission for Relief in Belgium from 1915 to 1917; U.S. Food Administration, 1917 to 1918, American Relief Commission, 1919, and with P.N. Gray Company, Vienna, 1919 to 1921. Gray was the Chief of Maritime Transportation for the U.S. Food Administration, which enabled him to set up his own shipping company after the war. Like other Hoover humanitarians, Simpson also joined the J. Henry Schroder Banking Company (Adolf Hitler's personal bankers) and the J. Henry Schroder Trust Company. He also became a partner of Schroder-Rockefeller Company when that investment trust backed a construction company which became the world's largest, the firm of Bechtel Incorporated. Simpson was chairman of the finance committee of Bechtel Company, Bechtel International, and Canadian Bechtel. Simpson states he was consultant to the Bechtel-McCone interests in war production during World War II. He served on the Allied Control Commission in Italy 1943-44. He married Margaret Mandell, of the merchant family for whom Col. Edward Mandell House was named, and he backed a California personality, first for Governor, then for President. As a result, Simpson and J. Henry Schroder Company now have serving them as Secretary of Defense, former Bechtel employee Caspar Weinberger. As Secretary of State they have serving them George Pratt Schultz, also a Bechtel employee, who happens to be a Standard Oil heir, reaffirming the Schroder-Rockefeller company ties. Thus the "conservative" Reagan Administration has a Secretary of Defense from Schroder Company, a Secretary of State from Schroder-Rockefeller, and a vice president whose father was senior partner of Brown Brothers Harriman.
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* The following accounts are from The New York Times: October 21, 1945, "A broadcast over the Luxembourg radio said tonight that Baron Kurt von Schroder, former banker who helped finance the rise of the Nazi party, had been recognized in an American prison camp and arrested." November 1, 1945, "British Army Headquarters: Baron Kurt von Schroder, 55 year old banker and friend of Heinrich Himmler is being held in Dusseldorf pending decision on his indictment as a war criminal, the Military Government official announcement said today." February 29, 1948, "An immediate investigation was demanded yesterday by the Society for the Prevention of World War III as to why the German Nazi banker, Kurt von Schroder, was not tried as a war criminal by an allied military tribunal. Noting that von Schroder was sentenced last November to three months imprisonment and fined 1500 Reichsmarks by a German denazification court in Bielefeld, in the British Zone, C. Monteith Gilpin, secretary for the society said the question should be asked why von Schroder was allowed to escape allied justice, and why our own officials have not demanded that von Schroder be tried by an Allied military tribunal. 'Von Schroder is as guilty as Hitler or Goering.'"
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The Heritage Foundation has also been an important factor in the policy-making of the Reagan Administration. Now we find that the Heritage Foundation is part of the Tavistock Institute network, directed by British Intelligence. The financial decisions are still made at the Bank of England, and who is head of the Bank of England? Sir Gordon Richardson, chairman of J. Henry Schroder Co. of London and New York from 1962 to 1972, when he became Governor of the Bank of England. The "London Connection" has never been more firmly in the saddle of the United States Government.
On July 3, 1983, The New York Times announced that Gordon Richardson, Governor of the Bank of England for the past ten years, had been replaced by Robert Leigh-Pemberton, Chairman of the National Westminster Bank. The list of directors of National Westminster Bank reads like a Who's Who of the British ruling class. They include the Chairman, Lord Aldenham, who is also Chairman of Antony Gibbs & Son, merchant bankers, one of the seventeen privileged firms chartered by the Bank of England; Sir Walter Barrie, Chairman of the British Broadcasting System; F.E. Harmer, Governor of the London School of Economics, the training school for the international bankers, and chairman of New Zealand Shipping Company; Sir E.C. Mieville, private secretary to the King of England 1937-45; Marquess of Salisbury, Lord Cecil, Lord Privy Seal (the Cecils have been considered one of England's three ruling families since the Middle Ages); Lord Leathers, Baron of Purfleet, Minister of War Transport 1941-45, chairman of William Cory group of companies; Sir W.H. Coates and W.J. Worboys of Imperial Chemical Industries (the English DuPont); Earl of Dudley, chairman British Iron & Steel, Sir W. Benton Jones, chairman United Steel and many other steel companies; Sir G.E. Schuster, Bank of New Zealand; East India Coal Company; A. d'A. Willis, Ashanti Goldfields and many banks, tea companies and other firms; V.W. Yorke, chairman of Mexican Railways Ltd.
Richardson, former chairman of Schroders with a New York subsidiary holding Federal Reserve Bank of New York stock, was replaced by the chairman of National Westminster, with a subsidiary in New York holding Federal Reserve Bank of New York stock. Robert Leigh Pemberton, a director of Equitable Life Assurance Society (J.P. Morgan), married the daughter of the Marchioness of Exeter, (the Cecil Burghley family). Thereby, the control of the London Connection remains constantly in effect.
The list of the present directors of J. Henry Schroder Bank and Trust shows the continuing international influence since the First World War. George A. Braga is also director of Czarnikow-Rionda Company, vice-president of Francisco Sugar Company, president of Manati Sugar Company, and vice-president of New Tuinicui Sugar Company. His relative,
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Rionda B. Braga, is president of Francisco Sugar Company and vice-president of Manati Sugar Company. The Schroder control of sugar goes back to the U.S. Food Administration under Herbert Hoover and Lewis L. Strauss of Kuhn, Loeb, Company during World War I. Schroder's attorneys are the firm of Sullivan and Cromwell. John Foster Dulles of this firm was present during the historic agreement to finance Hitler, and was later Secretary of State in the Eisenhower administration. Alfred Jaretzki, Jr., of Sullivan and Cromwell is also a director of Manati Sugar Company and Francisco Sugar Company.
Another director of J. Henry Schroder is Norris Darrell, Jr., born in Berlin, Germany, partner of Sullivan and Cromwell, and a director of Schroder Trust Company. Bayless Manning, partner of the Wall Street law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind and Wharton, is also a director of J. Henry Schroder. He was president of the Council on Foreign Relations from 1971-1977, and is editor in chief of the Yale Law Review.
Paul H. Nitze, the prominent "disarmament negotiator" for the United States government, is a director of Schroder's Inc. He married Phyllis Pratt, of the Standard Oil fortune, whose father gave the Pratt family mansion as the building which houses the Council on Foreign Relations.
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