Back to George W. Bush and Adolph Hitler. My American friends, who were upset at my comparison between Bush and Hitler, will be angered by the fact that I followed up on the subject, and came up with more findings that prove my initial argument on the Bush family connection to the Nazi regime in Germany before, during, and after World War II.

Implicated in the Nazi connection are Prescott Bush, the current President's grandfather, and his great-grandfather Herbert Walker. Walker was president of the Union Banking Cooperation (UBC) in Manhattan, a firm that traded with Nazi Germany and was accused, during the war, of money laundering for the Nazis in America. It was founded by W. Averell Harriman. George W. Bush's father Prescott was also a board member of Union Banking, and its sister company, the investment firm W.A. Harriman & Company. The Harrimans, like their business partners the Bushs, were involved in murky business with the Nazis in the 1920s and 1930s. They had been involved in financing the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917, smuggling, then selling Tsar Nicolas's gold to help fund Vladimir Lenin. Through the Union Banking Cooperation, and the industrialist Fritz Thyssen (who officially joined the Nazi Party in 1931), Prescott Bush sold over $50 million in German bonds to American investors. Thyssen, in turn, transmitted the money to the infant Nazi Party in Germany, which tried, and failed, to stage a coup d'etat in 1923 in the famed Munich Beer Hall Putsch. That same year, Thyssen built the very first Nazi headquarters in Munich, as a donation to Hitler. When Hitler came to power, he wanted to connect Germany with a wide road design, especially around major cities, to fight unemployment, and also, for speedy military transportation in his plan to upgrade the German Army. Hitler contracted Thyssen for the job, who executed it with help from his business associate, Prescott Bush. One need only read Thyssen's autobiography I Paid Hitler to discover how involved both he and Herbert Walker were in dealing with the Nazis. Walker came to Germany to manage an investment firm called W.A. Harriman & Company, originally located in New York. He then made his new son-in-law Prescott Bush (who married his daughter Dorothy in 1926) vice-president of Harriman & Co. This fact is argued and proved aggressively by Christopher Simpson in his book The Splendid Blonde Beast. Walker was also in-charge of the Hamburg-Amerika Line, a shipping line that was accused of being a cover-up for Nazi espionage in the USA. Hamburg-Amerika, which was chaired by Mr Bush in North America, was believed to have smuggled Nazi agents into the USA during WWII, bribed American politicians into supporting Hitler, or at least, keeping the USA out of the war, and funded IG Farben, a company that held a total monopoly over chemical production in Nazi Germany. The gas Zyklon B, which was used in the gas chambers for mass murder, was manufactured by a company owned by IG Farben. On the eve of World War II, IG Farben was the largest chemical manufacturing enterprise in Europe, backed by very strong names in the USA and Nazi Germany. It yielded extraordinary power and influence in Nazi Germany and its founders helped orchestrate the Third Reich and fund Hitler's rise to power in 1933. IG Farben has been described as "a state within a state." The Bush family's involvement in Hamburg-Amerika, and IG Farben, are only small proof of what kind of business ethics George W. Bush learned from his grandfathers.

In December 1941, six days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt passed the Trading with the Enemy Act, which banned any US dealings with German companies. Bush continued to work with the Nazis, ignoring President Roosevelt. On July 30, 1942, The New York Tribune, loyal to Roosevelt and the US war effort, decided to expose Bush, dubbing him and Thyssen as "Hitler's Angels." On October 20, 1942, the US Congress seized Union Banking through Vesting Order No 248 in the US Office of the Alien Property Custodian. Eight days later, on October 28, again, using the Trading with the Enemy Act, the US government took control of Holland-American Trading Corporation, through Vesting Order No 261, and Seamless Steel Equipment Corp, another Thyssen-Bush enterprise, through Vesting Order 259. Under the same authority, Congress seized what remained of the Bush managed Thyssen enterprises, including Hamburg-Amerika Line, under Vesting Order No 126. When asked to comment in 2003 on Prescott Bush's connections to the Nazis, the White House refused to comment, as stated by John Buchanan and Stacey Michael, who followed the case in The New Hampshire Gazette in November 2003. Prescott Bush did in fact try to polish his image during the war by raising money for war-related causes as chairman of the National War Fund. His long-time partner and business associate Thyssen was arrested by the Allies in 1945 for "atrocities committed against humanity." To those who doubt the information above, these facts were confirmed, again, by John Loftus, a former investigator in the Justice Department's Nazi Crimes Unit, and director of the Florida Holocaust Museum, who said that his research revealed that Prescott Bush had in fact, been affiliated with the Nazis. He adds that when Union Banking was liquidated in 1951, Prescott Bush received $1.5 million for his shares, which were used to finance his senatorial campaign in Connecticut in 1952. Loftus adds, "That's where the Bush family fortune came from: It came from the Third Reich!" He adds saying: "Yes, they should have been tried for treason, because they continued to support Hitler after the US entered the war. Their goal was that no matter which side won the war, their international industrial cartel would survive and prosper." Loftus adds that other leading US families, like the Rockefellers and Kennedys, benefited from their Nazi connections. John F. Kennedy's father, a former ambassador to Great Britain, benefited from Nazi stocks he owned in the 1930s and 1940s. Joseph Kennedy bought his Nazi stocks from Prescott Bush. The British thought Kennedy was guilty of treason because his code clerk was tried in London as a Nazi agent and convicted. He was dismissed from his job in London for being pro-Hitler. To those who may doubt the words of Loftus, he is no amateur historian nor just a Bush-hater. He has dedicated his career to obtaining permission to declassify and publish the hidden secrets of our times. He is the author of four history books, three of which have been made into films, two were international best sellers, and one was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Loftus was also, recently quoted saying: "The American people and Congress have a right to find out how this happened, to make sure it never happens again. Its too late for justice, but its never too late for the truth."

According to Simpson, after WWII, many one-time Nazi supporters went to the USA, searching for a better life while Germany was being re-constructed by America. Many of them joined the Republican Party's National Republican Heritage Groups Council. In the 1980s, they operated as part of Bush's Coalition of American Nationalities, despite the fact that their criminal past was no big secret. This was part of the "ethnic outreach division" at the Republican Party, which operated under Bush (the father) to counter-balance the works of Jimmy Carter's Office of Special Investigation (OSI), an organization created to track down and bring Nazis to justice, or one-time Nazi supporters, who illegally entered the USA. Simpson shows that the Republicans, and the CIA, hired one-time Nazis on the intelligence payroll "for their expertise in propaganda and psychological warfare"—which Hitler was brilliant at doing. According to Simpson, the most senior Nazi to come on the payroll of the CIA was Reinhard Gehlen, one of the intelligence barons of Hitler. Gehlen was director of Hitler's eastern intelligence, charged with monitoring the USSR, who cut a deal with the USA after the end of WWII, turning over his entire intelligence apparatus, and was installed, as a reward, as director of West German Intelligence, where he served ruthlessly, until 1969. When the Americans worked with Gehlen, as early as 1946, they had little to no intelligence information on the USSR. This explains why after he was abducted and taken to the USA as a war-criminal, he was discharged, declared innocent of war crimes, and funded by the CIA to recruit over 350 former German intelligence officers to help the USA track down communists in Eastern Europe. During his tenure as intelligence chief in Germany, he employed many one-time Nazis, and continued to work with Nazis in the Diaspora. After WWII ended, many senior officers from the Third Reich, including Klaus Barbie, the Gestapo director in Lyon, and Gehlen, made their peace with the Allies, securing protection in exchange for their services. Barbie, it must be noted, was defended against war crimes by none other than Jacques Verges, the French lawyer who is currently defending Saddam Hussein. One American writer described it as "a temporary marriage of convenience to an (unfortunately) unattractive bride." Another Nazi to work with America is Laszlo Pasztor, who was architect of the Republican Party Émigré Network. Pasztor, who worked as advisor to the Republican Paul Weyrich, was a member of the Hungarian Arrow Cross, a group that helped liquidate Hungary's Jews, in collaboration with Hitler. He had served in the Hungarian Embassy in Berlin during WWII. Mr Pasztor was a founding chairman of the Republican Heritage Groups Council. Also of great interest is a finding, from a small newspaper called Washington Jewish Week, which says that in the November 1988 presidential elections, many of George Bush's activists were one-time Nazis or supporters of the Third Reich. The scandal prompted six of Bush's electoral coalition, including Pasztor, to resign, before he made it to the White House.

Radi Slavoff, the executive director of the Republican Party's Heritage Council, was also a one-time Nazi supporter. A Bulgarian by birth, Slavoff was head of "Bulgarians for Bush" and organized an event in Washington, honoring the Holocaust denier Austin App. Another one-time Nazi is Florian Gaidau, director of the Republican outreach efforts among Romanians, who headed the "Romanians for Bush." Galdau was once a recruiter of the Iron Guard, and defended the convicted Nazi criminal Valerian Trifa. Then there is Nicholas Nazarenko, leader of the Republican Party ethnic unit, an ex-officer in the SS. The argument against Bush was also made public in an article by David Lee Preston, published in The Philadelphia Inquirer on September 10, 1988, entitled "Fired Bush backer one of several with possible Nazi links." The main man who served as network coordinator between these Nazis and the US government was Harold Keith Thompson. After the war, and well into the 1950s, Thompson had worked as US representative for the National Socialist German Worker's Party. He made many friendships with US politicians, and handed out money generously to Republican Party candidates, most notably Senator Jesse Helmes, and Oliver North, who nominated himself but lost the elections. The money he gave the Republicans earned him in the party's Presidential Legion of Merit. At the Hoover Institution, Special Collections Library in the USA, one can find thank-you-letters from members of the Republican Party to Thompson.

The current US President, George W. Bush, has broken with his family past, and in fact from the history of the Republican Party, by conducting a perfect friendship with the Jews. Before him, the Bush dynasty had been generally colored anti-Jewish, mainly for their dealings with the Nazis in the 1940s, and for George Bush's oil business with the Arabs from the 1970s onwards. Jewish Americans were not too found of the Bush family, and this President knew that, trying very hard to change this image, seeing that it was financially and political rewarding to court the Jews, both in the Middle East and America. George Bush Sr. received 27% of the Jewish vote in 1988, while his opponent Michael Dukkakis won 73%. In 1998, his son George W. Bush took his first trip to Israel, before becoming president, and was escorted by none other than Ariel Sharon. He later described it as one of the most meaningful experiences of his life, and had his picture taken, wearing the yarmulke, standing in reverence before the Wailing Wall. The elder Bush had enraged American Jews by once saying that he had doubts that any non-Christians, Jews or Muslims, would get into heaven. They tolerated his words, thinking that he would never threaten their interests when he had served as Vice-President under Ronald Reagan, who had been the first Republican in 80 years to win a considerable amount of the Jewish vote (39%). Reagan, unlike other presidents, had shown eagerness to defend the security of Israel, seeing it as part of his Cold War strategy against the USSR. When Bush Sr. came to the White House in 1989, he discarded Reagan's pro-Jewish policy and in 1991, seriously demanded that Yitzhak Shamir end building settlements in the Occupied Territories. He even pressured him not to retaliate when Saddam Hussein dropped scuds on Tel Aviv during the second Gulf War. Bush threatened to bloc millions in loans to Israel if Shamir disobeyed. The New York Times quotes President George Bush Sr. on April 14, 1990 as having said, "Lets forgive the Nazi war criminals." In 1991, during a press conference, he complained about the strength of the Jewish lobby on Capitol Hill, implying that "the Jews work insidiously behind the scenes," as quoted by David J. Forman in The Jerusalem Post. On another occasion, he reminded his critics that the USA gave "Israel the equivalent of $1,000 for every Israeli citizen," a remark that was delivered with scorn. Adding insult to injury, his Secretary of State James Baker once blurted the remark "f—ck the Jews" during a private conversation that was leaked to the press, adding, "they didn't vote for us anyway!" When his career seemed in doubt in 1992, however, Bush was forced to soften his tone towards the Jews, pressuring Congress for loan guarantees to Israel. In 1992, Clinton got 78% of the Jewish vote, while Bush Sr. got only 15%, the lowest ranking for a Republican candidate since Berry Goldwater in 1964. Then in 2002, Al Gore ran for office with Joseph Lieberman, a Jew, as his vice-president. George W. Bush was undaunted, doing little to no effort to polish the anti-Jewish image bequeathed by his father and grand-father. He paid the obligatory dues, speaking at the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee, but at heart, campaigned as being a friend of the Arab-Americans. He met with them extensively, counting a lot on their vote (which in fact worked), and remained their friend, more or less, until 9-11. Not surprisingly, Al Gore got 79% of the Jewish vote, while George W. Bush got only 19%. Bush tried to invest in his friendship with the Arabs during the war on Afghanistan, but ever since, his White House has taken on a strongly pro-Jewish image. Sharon succeeded in getting Bush to view the Arabs as terrorist, especially after 9-11, portraying the resistance in the Occupied Territories as "terrorism" no different from that of al-Qaeda. Bush dropped his calls on Israel to "show restraint," encouraging the onslaught against the Palestinians and sidelining the constitutionally elected Yasser Arafat—something his father would never have done. He has courted conservative Jews at his White House, such as Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, and Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, who is also, a devote and practicing Jew. To crown his pro-Jewish policy, Bush issued the "Bush Doctrine" in April 2004, saying: "Terror must be stropped. No nation can negotiate with terrorists. For there is no way to make peace with those whose only goal is death!"

The bottom-line of this article is to shatter the illusion being created since 2001, that George W. Bush is a democracy seeker in the Middle East. A man whose ancestors dabbled with terrorists like Adolph Hitler, is not qualified to talk about democracy and human rights. What influenced me to write this article was a comment by Nancy Krauss from Florida, who spoke to the Sarasota Herald Tribune after hearing of Bush's connection to the Nazis, saying: "I am absolutely shocked! I wish this would have come out before the election. My husband voted for Bush. I don't think he would have voted for him if he would have known." This means that Bush's Nazi past could have cost him his presidency, if courageously leaked in the mainstream US media. If this article influences one American citizen into voting against Bush in the upcoming November 2004 elections, then I would have achieved my goal. This study hopes to get Americans to think before they vote, inspired by none other than Hitler's saying: "How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think!"

Damascus, Syria.
July 11, 2004.