WASHINGTON — President Bush's grandfather was a director of a bank seized by the federal government because of its ties to a German industrialist who helped bankroll Adolf Hitler's rise to power, government documents show.

Prescott Bush (search) was one of seven directors of Union Banking Corp. (search), a New York investment bank owned by a bank controlled by the Thyssen family, according to recently declassified National Archives documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

Fritz Thyssen (search) was an early financial supporter of Hitler, whose Nazi party Thyssen believed was preferable to communism. The documents do not show any evidence Bush directly aided that effort. His position with Union Banking never was a political issue for Bush, who was elected to the Senate from Connecticut in 1952.


Reports of Bush's involvement with the seized bank have been circulating on the Internet for years and have been reported by some mainstream media. The newly declassified documents provide additional details about the Union Banking-Thyssen connection.

Trent Duffy, a spokesman for President Bush, declined to comment.

Union Banking was owned by a Dutch bank, Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaardt N.V., which was "closely affiliated" with the German conglomerate United Steel Works, according to an Oct. 5, 1942, report from the federal Office of Alien Property Custodian. The Dutch bank and the steel firm were part of the business and financial empire of Thyssen and his brother, Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, the report said.

The 4,000 Union Banking shares owned by the Dutch bank were registered in the names of the seven U.S. directors, according a document signed by Homer Jones, chief of the division of investigation and research of the Office of Alien Property Custodian, a World War II-era agency that no longer exists.

E. Roland Harriman, the bank chairman and brother of former New York Gov. W. Averell Harriman (search), held 3,991 shares. Bush had one share.

Both Harrimans and Bush were partners in the New York investment firm of Brown Brothers, Harriman and Co., which handled the financial transactions of the bank as well as other financial dealings with several other companies linked to Bank voor Handel that were confiscated by the U.S. government during World War II.

Union Banking was seized by the government in October 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act (search).

No charges were brought against Union Banking's American directors. The federal government was too busy trying to fight the war, said Donald Goldstein, a professor of public and international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh.

"We did not have the resources to do these things," Goldstein said.

Fritz Thyssen broke with the Nazis in 1938 over their persecution of Catholics and Jews, and fled to Switzerland. He later was arrested and spent 1941 to 1945 in a Nazi prison. His brother lived in Switzerland from 1932 to 1947 but continued to operate businesses in Germany.

The new documents were first reported by freelance writer John Buchanan in The New Hampshire Gazette.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,100474,00.html

There were many Americans and American companies doing business with the Germans prior to the war. So what?

Baron Max

i think we have a new definition of the word tenuos

i think we have a new definition of the word tenuos

Hmm, I've never even had an old definition! What the fuck is "tenuos"?

Baron Max

Hmm, I've never even had an old definition! What the fuck is "tenuos"?

Baron Max

haha.,couldnt tell you..am drunk,slightly dislexic and i dont have a dictionary.
my spelling is shit.

tenuous?

Tenuous. Firefox 2 has an inline spell-checker.

Also, this thread is the very reason for that word to exist.

my internet is fucking up.if i try to open another window none of the other windows work.

also,the sentence you were looking for,baron is "what does tenuos mean?"
by using is you are either assuming that "tenuos" is a noun or asking a deep philisophical question.

I fail to see the relevance of this, unless, of course, one subscribes to illogical biblical notion that the sins of the father will be visited on the following four generations.

Ganymede, this is silly. There are so many relevant issues in which one can take umbrage with the Bush clan. Is you're hatred so juvenile that you need sink this low?

I have no idea what the point was in Ganymede's history lesson, but it is true that Prescott was dealing with the Nazis long after the US was at war with them, that large sums of money from these dealing ended up going from laundry banks in Holland to the US after the war, into Prescott's hands among others (some of that money bullion smelted from gold fillings, some of it profits from slave labor camps known to Prescott from his role as manager of the German operations of the United Bank), and so forth.

Prescott was also involved in dealing gasoline to the Japanese, including the fuel used to launch Pearl Harbor.

And there is a direct line from that money and those connections to the business and political operations of H and then W. The Bush family is really quite a clan, when you get to know it a little better.

The Bush family has always been close to the fascist right, in the US and abroad, both politically and economically. It has always pushed the envelope of the law, in these dealings.

Again, what does any of that history, which so far as I know is unsubtantiated, have to do with the price of tea in China?

I don't need to drag up the Kennedy clan's past to criticize the political positions of Ted Kennedy...

I fail to see the relevance of this, unless, of course, one subscribes to illogical biblical notion that the sins of the father will be visited on the following four generations.

Ganymede, this is silly. There are so many relevant issues in which one can take umbrage with the Bush clan. Is you're hatred so juvenile that you need sink this low?

Listen you little ***** did you see my post any commentary? NO I only posted the article. So go flame FoxNews!

Listen you little ***** did you see my post any commentary? NO I only posted the article. So go flame FoxNews!
so, you admit to posting this thread just for the hell of it.

so, you admit to posting this thread just for the hell of it.

I just want to discuss the current news. It's not my fault you follow Nazi funders. And are ashamed of it. So you and and little **** friend of yours have to make this about me. Instead of commenting on the subject matter at hand.

i wish spidergoat would grow a fucking backbone.

I don't follow anyone, Ganymede, and I don't believe I ever "flamed" you or stooped to calling you a name. However, you did the latter of the two to me...

And please, don't pretend like you didn't post that little gem in order to stir something up. Your intentions are wonderfully obvious.

Odd little fact - All Freemasons and many bonesman.

Barack HUSSEIN Obama's father is a muslim. Liberals are not holding that against him. Mitt Romneys great grandfather had multiple wives or something. Liberals aren't holding that against him. Who the hell cares what Bush's grandfather did?:confused:

We have MUCH bigger problems here right now than spending even 10 seconds discussing this.:rolleyes:

I don't need to drag up the Kennedy clan's past to criticize the political positions of Ted Kennedy... But you would, I hope, if he had inherited the money and the connections and the political ideology.
Who the hell cares what Bush's grandfather did? The people who have been following the consequnces and influences and personal connections in W's political life. WWII was not that long ago - W's father fought in it - and afterwards, as President, adopted as slogan "A New World Order" for his foreign policy. Any idea where he got that ?

W inherited a good share of his administration and political direction from the Iran Contra days, when his dad was head of the CIA or VP - Prince Bandar and Dick Cheney and Elliot Abrams and the boys were political associates of his father's, and themselves inheritors of the pro-Nazi legacy in the US of the mid 1900s.

But you would, I hope, if he had inherited the money and the connections and the political ideology.

So you believe in punishing the sons for the sins of the fathers? Muslim terrorists and extremists do that, too, ya' know? Are you Muslim?

Baron Max

So you believe in punishing the sons for the sins of the fathers? No.

I believe in identifying the political ideology, family and political connections, corporate ties, and financial entanglements of anyone who has the keys to the US Army.

I believe in identifying the political ideology, family and political connections, corporate ties, and financial entanglements of anyone who has the keys to the US Army.

Huh? What's "the keys to the US Army"???

Baron Max

So you believe in punishing the sons for the sins of the fathers? Muslim terrorists and extremists do that, too, ya' know? Are you Muslim?

Baron Max


and christians.


it doesnt matter if his grandad was a tap-dancing tibetan transvestite with tits the size of talluga,what matters is the man.

Agreed.

it doesnt matter if his grandad was a tap-dancing tibetan transvestite with tits the size of talluga,what matters is the man. In this case, the man has been tap dancing with those same trannies himself, and wearing his grandfather's shoes.

W has inherited his grandfather's business, political, and ideological connections, in a straight line through his father. If you want to know who W is, you have to know where he's coming from. You don't know the man, otherwise. He's the scion of a distinct, powerful, well-connected family with roots and characteristics in American political power.

For example, unless you have some idea of the differences in the attitude toward Jews among Al Gore's forbears and George W's inherited connections, you might have a hard time explaining W's original support from Saudi Arabia, or the fact that Islamic jihadist financiers campaigned for him in Florida - where he got 90% of the Muslim vote, for a 55,000 vote advantage over Gore, who got almost none of it.

There were many Americans and American companies doing business with the Germans prior to the war. So what?

Baron Max
Just prior? IBM supplied the "computers" that managed the concentration camps. And those computers were serviced on site. So they knew very well what they were doing! :bugeye:

Just prior? IBM supplied the "computers" that managed the concentration camps. And those computers were serviced on site. So they knew very well what they were doing! :bugeye:

Exactly, Bayer also tested their drugs on the poor jews too! Didn't IBM have to pay reperations to Jews?

What do either of those companies have to do with Bush? And Ice can you back any of your ridiculous claims up, or do we have to take it all on faith, as usual, whenever your post something?

In this case, the man has been tap dancing with those same trannies himself, and wearing his grandfather's shoes.
.

haha.,thanks for continuing the analogy.

The Bush family has been in control of this country ever since the ending days of Eisenhower when Prescott was an advisor to him, backed Johnson in Texas, and then personally raised Nixon into politics starting in SoCal. Then Ford took over when Nixon quit, then no idea on Carter, but Reagan came into control with H.W. as VP, then president, then his Mena, AR, drug-dealing buddy Clinton took control and now his shoe-in son. Next we either get another Clinton crime family member or Guilliani as president in '08 to create our NAFTA superhighway to sell out this country thanks to Guilliani owning the firm behind it.

Two faces to the same coin. Our government is a corporate oligarchy.

- N

And Ice can you back any of your ridiculous claims up, or do we have to take it all on faith, as usual, whenever your post something? Google is your friend and servant. Since you don't care, and you already know what to reject as "ridiculous", take it as you please.

Although it's no real trouble to point you toward the obvious: start with Halliburton (merged with one of Prescott's companies that HW inherited an interest in, probably part of W's personal or trust holdings since it paid stock for the merger/acquisition) and the Carlyle Group, and work backwards toward WWII or outwards toward Prince Bandar (nickname: "Bandar Bush"), bin Laden, and the House of Saud.

Along the way, check out Grover Norquist's Muslim Alliance campaign setup in 2000, and the short life and strange death of the owner of War Emblem - if you like the odd bit of trivia.

Yes, I suppose I should get all my information from what I can find on the internet, because it's such a reliable source for facts.

But regardless of where one acquires their knowledge, your attempt to paint Bush in a negative light rests on a very obvious fallacy: The mistake of drawing conclusions for inferred correlations (it also smacks of some sort of historical dialectic from which an individual is powerless to escape or act against in his own life with his own decisions). So Bush's family has a history. Most families do. Inferring that the policies he has chosen to pursue rest heavily on the background of his relations, both recent and historical, is something that can never be proven, and matters little in the real politik of the here and now. There are plenty of things to criticize Mr. Bush about (see the thread about whether he was a great president), so let's just leave his family out of it, and avoid petty attempts to try and attach him to your interpretation of the impact his family has had on American history.

countezero,

Bush doesn't just have a family history. His actions are very clear.
Also, our families ALWAYS have great impact on who we are.

I'm not denying they have an impact, I'm saying there's no way to quantify how powerful that influence is and therefore no way to make logical conclusions about a person's actions based on their background and family history. Any attempt to do so is an inference, nothing more.

Ok. I agree with that. However, we can infer it by his actions, and his actions give a positive result to the theory. Psychologically, he is more likely to be influenced by his own family then by outside sources, which would explain his behaviour.

But as you said, quantifying psychological variables is very hard.

I would like you all to imagine being a fly on the wall for another "tenuous" connection to Nazi efforts. I believe it was Zurich Re, but I won't pin this directly on them; several years ago, executives from a major European insurance firm released to the public some amazing documents concerning the company's involvement in Nazi death camps. The material included notes on a labor-insurance meeting that included (ready for your fly-on-the-wall moment) a discussion of the need for greater safety devices on the human ovens in order to reduce the number of injuries suffered by the Nazis operating them.

The Bush family had money and will in the Nazi enterprise. This is history. Examining that may put that history in context. Attempting to suppress such an examination, or dismiss the documentary evidence as "tenuous" is, quite simply, helping to empower a distorted telling of history. In the end, the longer the Bushlovers try to ward this off, the more grotesquely distorted the discussion will become, and the farther will our starting point move from the truth.

They don't care what the truth is. They just want to believe that they live in the best country of the world. That is all. :rolleyes:

America IS the best country. Why are so many coming here? I don't see anyone leaving for Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Australia, South America, or Antarctica.:rolleyes:

America IS the best country.
Yeah... RIGHT! :rolleyes:

Ever heard of the Human Development Index? I guess not. ...... :rolleyes:

Why are so many coming here?
Because of your arrogant propaganda. "American Dream"? HA! Gimme a break! :rolleyes:

I don't see anyone leaving for Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Australia, South America, or Antarctica.
...

I'm not a Bush-lover. In fact, I criticized him and called him an "abject failure" in the thread discussing his greatness.

You can talk about your own Marxist perception of history's "connections" as much as you like, but that doesn't change the fact that any conclusion you reach that posits that Bush's current policies have something to do with familial dealings that go back 70 years is nothing more than a gross inference on your part. It wouldn't stand up in a court of law, nor should it.

It's obvious that you hope the dealings of the Bush family in the 1940s, which I know little or nothing about, somehow will help make your case that W is a fascist, something you've argued less than convincingly in another thread. I fail to make that connection, because it lacks logic. Your positing correlations you can't prove...

So Bush's family has a history. Most families do. Inferring that the policies he has chosen to pursue rest heavily on the background of his relations, both recent and historical, is something that can never be proven, and matters little in the real politik of the here and now. I think that W's policies in the realpolitik of the here and now are strongly influenced by his inherited entanglements with Saudi Arabia, the Reagan era father-legacy of Elliot Abrams and Wolfowitz and Cheney et al, his personal upbringing in an anti-intellectual familial environment of political and economic privilege, and so forth,

while "proven" is less important than "consistent with overwhelming evidence".

And his fascist family background proves nothing, of course - until it hooks up with his current political base and corporate support, while being made evident in his own political behavior (such as the "Mission Impossible" photo op, or his NSA wiretapping operation, or his surrounding himself with sycophants and incompetents whose main qualification is loyalty - the "fasces" of fascist organization - while carrying out the will of corporate supporters, or his assumption of political power as the spoils of victory and an end in itself, and the use of it as a personal prerogative with personal goals, etc).
Yes, I suppose I should get all my information from what I can find on the internet, because it's such a reliable source for facts You demand support for claims you find ridiculous. You object to my assertions from books, etc, as unsupported. You find my links, etc, biased and therefore devoid of information. You refuse to read in the lefty stuff on your own. Now you deny credibility to the internet and anything found on it, even of your own finding. The next time you want me to support my claims, what would you accept, on this internet forum ?

Iceaura, believe me. I hear what you're trying to say, but all presidents deal with Saudi Arabia, et al. It's a fact of American political life. Clinton had as many dealings with Bandar as Bush has. The only difference is that he probably didn't know him before he was elected, which is essentially my point in arguing all these "past connections" aren't as all-powerful as they appear to be...

I suppose my point is most presidents surround themselves with sycophants and incompetents and most presidents are keen on the odd photo op, so I'm still having trouble seeing what Prescott Bush and his ilk have to do with the here and now. I also seem to remember you arguing the Bush's had dealings with Japan, a claim which seems negated by Bush Sr.'s service in arms against that country...

As to your "sources", the post I referred to listed none, as most of yours don't (most of anyone's, including mine, don't). I never specifically objected to books or such, what I objected to was you telling me I had to search to see if your claims were legitimate or not. As I told Spider in another thread, it's your argument, not mine. So it's not my job to "fact check" your assertions and provide credible links, which few people manage. Most of the links here on this site lead to obviously partisan sights. I don't suggest this is the case in your regard, so far as this issue is concerned, I merely point out that made several bold claims with very few specifics. That's all...

America IS the best country. Why are so many coming here?

Funny, all I see are Hispanics..

- N

Then you need to visit Chicago or New York City, etc., where there are hordes of Eastern Europeans who, Africans and Caribbean immigrants...

Clinton had as many dealings with Bandar as Bush has. Not even close. Bandar is an old family friend of HW's, and cozied up with W during and after the 2000 campaign. He did not come by the nickname "Bandar Bush" for no reason.

He is now Saudi Arabia's National Security Adviser, having been promoted from Ambassador in 2005 for successful representation of Saudi interests in the US. Very successful, once W was elected (he found Clinton difficult), and against serious odds. (It also got him out of the US, and away from awkward legal inquiries or publicity. He is now a principal on the Saudi side in the recent joint US/Saudi strategy of funding Sunni jihadists against Hezbollah and Iran. The blowback from that has been unusually quick, if you've been listening to the news from Lebanon and Pakistan).

And Bandar was just one of the Saudis in the Bush camp, going back to HW's years in the CIA and before, going forward to the Harken Energy scandal and various investments in Texas under W's governership.

A good and reasonably accurate compilation reference, up to early 2004: "House of Bush, House of Saud" (Craig Unger). It's got footnotes and references and all that. Sample quote: " In all, at least 1.476 billion had made its way from the Saudis to the House of Bush and its allied companies and institutions. It could safely be said that never before in history had a presidential candidate - much less a presidential candidate and his father, a former president - been so closely tied financially and personally to the ruling family of another foreign power. Never before had a president's personal fortunes and public policies been so deeply entwined with another nation. " (P 200).

I'm not denying Bandar has extremely close ties to the Bush clan, all I'm saying is the man was the Saudi ambassador in Washington DC, and as such, dealt with multiple presidents about energy policy and otherwise. Or to quote Bob Woodward, "as ambassador his chief focus was the presidency, whoever held it."

In his book See No Evil, Robert Baer talks about high-level American officials selling out to Saudi Oil interests --- during the Clinton administration. So it's hardly fair to just bash Bush about it...

all I'm saying is the man was the Saudi ambassador in Washington DC, and as such, dealt with multiple presidents about energy policy and otherwise. Or to quote Bob Woodward, "as ambassador his chief focus was the presidency, whoever held it." He did not get along with Clinton's administration all that well.

Clinton kept trying to investigate Saudi terrorist connections, and money laundering, and the like. He was not friendly. Clinton was focused on OBL, and through him Saudi terrorist connections. Yes, Clinton's administration had much dealing with Saudi Arabia. But Bandar to them was merely ambassador.

During the Florida vote "count", Bandar was on a hunting trip in Spain - with HW Bush, Norman Schwarzkopf, Brent Skowcroft, and other old friends. James Baker and Dick Cheney had been invited, but were needed in Florida. The incoming administration - Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell - were people Bandar knew personally. These relationships dated back to the seventies and eighties, financial and personal. Nothing like this existed with the Clintons and any powerfulSaudi - or Gore and any powerful Saudi.

Clinton "was focussed on OBL?"

Like when he refused to authorize the CIA to kill the man, then later lied about it to Chris Wallace on television? Or when he refused to accept OBL from Syria?

Look, I don't buy into the Republican argument that Clinton was asleep at the wheel, but to suggest that Clinton was serious about terrorism, Saudi or otherwise, doesn't gel with the results of his administration or his numerous tentative actions.

And again, you need to learn what a correlation/causation fallacy is. Just because "these relationships dated back to the seventies and eighties," does not prove anything in the here and now. You need direct proof of how the access led to something, not inferences and your own time line of events.

You also should read Baer's book and pay very close attention to the last section, when he talks about why he left the CIA. He left during the Clinton administration, and essentially, he was sold out for Saudi oil interests and put to the sword thanks to Sandy Berger, one of Sandy's underlings and a Middle Easterner who raised buckets of money for Clinton, so the whole Clinton "was not friendly" with the Saudis is a joke. You might could prove he was less friendly than Bush, but not friendly? No way...

And I should care about this (by which I mean the original topic of the thread)...why, exactly?
Everyone in anyway involved with the bullshit back then is or will very soon be dead .

Also, I have issues with anyone claiming that the sins of the father become the sins of the son. Look back a couple generations and I have little doubt that your family tree will have a few lizards impaled on its thorns by the resident shrike. Mine certainly does.