SWALLOWED UP BY GOERING

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 13772, 15 October 1942, Page 7

SWALLOWED UP BY GOERING

THYSSEN PLANTS

Man Who Helped To Finance Hitler

Now An Exile

Bern, Switzerland, Sept. 5

Industries of Fritz Thyssen, who helped finance Hitler in the early days of the Nazi regime, have been swallowed up completely by the Hermann Goering Works which has become Europe's largest industrial organisation, says Die Nation, Swiss weekly. Meanwhile .Air Thyssen is in exile, deprived of his properties and German citizenship, the Swiss paper said.

Air Thyssen, after a break with Hitler, went to Switzerland at the beginning of the war. He was in Southern France when the Germans occupied that country. Then he vanished and there have been conflicting reports that he escaped to South America, and that he was imprisoned by the Germans. Reichmarshal Goering in his capacity as economic dictator of the Reich controls the Herman Goering AVorks, which were named for him. He also controls the business direction and has been reported deriving much of his income from the mills.

In a review of the industrialist’s relations with the Nazis, Die Nation said Mr Thyssen mad a mistake when he assumed Hitler planned to give him and other financiers an insidetrack opportunity for the industrial exploitation of the continent. The Nazis, it appeared, had other plans which are being realised in the Herman Goering Works, which now have more than a million names on pay rolls.

‘“What Thyssen and his fellow industrialists overlooked was that the new order encompassed Germany as well as conquered countries, protectorates, allies and colonies,” Die Nation said. “They knew the Nazis planned to organise non-German Europeans industrially with cheap labour, and that the new European industry would be forced to produce for the- benefit of Germany. But they overlooked one point—the fact that German industry itself would be selected as a cornerstone for an institution in which no Thyssen would have a part.” The Hermann Goering Works for vastness cannot be compared with anything irf the United States and is matched only by such Japanese organisations as Mitsui or Mitsubishi, the paper continued.

Organised in 19 37 with a capital of 5,000,000 reichsmarks, it grew within a few months to an industrial unit with a capitalisation of 4,000,000,000 marks. It followed the German armies, the Skoda Works and the Brunner armament factories being only two of almqst innumerable firms swallowed.

Die Nation said Mr Thyssen frequently tried to persuade Hitler and Marshal Goering to alter their policies. On August 31, 1939, Mr Thyssen told Marshal Goering in a letter, “I am against war,” Die Nation continued. Thyssen, it was said, feared war would make Germany dependent on Russia for raw material. At the time he did not know, of course, that the Nazi plan included an attack on Russia. In October, 1939, Die Nation said. Mr Thyssen protested to Marshal Goering against the distribution of anti-Roman Catholic pamphlets, attacks on Jews and the outbreak of war. Mr Thyssen’s last letter to Hitler, according to the paper, said: “I committed no crime. My only mistake was to believe in you as our leader.” Mr Thyssen was deprived of citizenship in February. 19 40.