| | |  Editorials | Opinions | June 2009 
Pertinent Historical Question: Which Country Really Rules the World?
 Ivan Simic - PVNN
Since the formation of the first state, people around the world were trying to understand who is the most influential and the most powerful country in the world, country that make decisions on some of the most important issues related to our lives and our future.
For a long time, the answer for this question was revolving around three countries; the United States, State of Israel and the United Kingdom. However, were the answers for this question correct? No, they were not. The only and true ruler of the world is Federal Republic of Germany, not the US, not the UK and certainly not Israel.
Many will question this, saying that Germany cannot rule the world, that Germany is just fourth largest economy in the world, behind United States, Japan and China, that Germany lost both World Wars, among many other things. Therefore how can Germany rule the world?
Historical Rise
Rise of Germany, Europe's long lasting ruler, started with the Franks, a West Germanic tribal confederation first attested in the 3rd century. The Franks inhabited and ruled the territory called Francia also known as Frankish Empire, Kingdom of the Franks or Frankland from the 3rd to 10th century.
Under the Merovingian dynasty, the Franks founded one of the Germanic monarchies which replaced the Western Roman Empire from the 5th century. The Frankish state consolidated its hold over large parts of Western Europe by the end of the eighth century, developing into the Carolingian Empire and its successor states.
The first sign of Germany's desire to dominate others was seen with Clovis I, the first King of Franks. Clovis I united all the Frankish tribes under one king and brought them Catholic Christianity (he opposed to the Arian Christianity common among the Germanic peoples at the time). It was in fact Clovis I, or better to say today Germans who expended Catholic Christianity and protected papacy. Year 496, is one of the most important years in Catholic Church, a year when Clovis I converted to Catholic Christianity. Clovis I was the first to establish Frankish hegemony and was the one who expanded the Franks dominion over almost all of the old Roman province of Gaul (roughly modern France). He is considered to be the founder of the Merovingian dynasty which ruled the Franks for the next two centuries.
Period of Carolingian Empire (Carolingian Empire is term used to describe the Frankish Empire under Carolingian dynasty from 751 till 843), was one of the most important periods in European and world history. Since the fall of Rome, the Carolingian Empire was the largest western territory.
Carolingian dynasty is considered to be a founding father of France and Germany, and early sign of Holy Roman Empire. Charlemagne who founded the Carolingian Empire was King of the Franks, King of the Lombards, and Emperor of the Romans. Charlemagne is regarded not only as the founding father of both French and German monarchies, but also as the father of Europe.
Charles Martel, grandfather of Charlemagne, was a truly giant figure of the Middle Ages. He is best remembered for winning the Battle of Tours in 732, which has traditionally been characterized as an event that halted the Islamic expansionism in Europe that had conquered Iberia. Charles's victory has often been regarded as crucial for world history, since it preserved Western Europe from Muslim conquest and so called Islamization.
During their ruling, Charlemagne and Louis the Pious initiated the Carolingian Renaissance, a period of intellectual and cultural revival occurring in the late 8th and 9th centuries. The period of the Carolingian Renaissance provided a common language and writing style that allowed communication across most of Europe.
After Louis the Pious death, his sons (Charlemagne's grandsons) Lothair I, Charles the Bald and Louis the German divided Frankish lands. Lothair I received the central portion of the empire, what later became the Low Countries, Lorraine, Alsace, Burgundy, Provence, and the Kingdom of Italy. Charles the Bald was given the western lands, West Francia, that would later become France. Louis the German received the eastern lands, which would become Germany.
Period of East Francia later known as Kingdom of Germany was a period of the rise of Holy Roman Empire.
The Holy Roman Empire was a union of territories in Central Europe during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period under a Holy Roman Emperor from 962 till 1806. The first Holy Roman Emperor was Otto I the Great in 962. The Holy Roman Empire was ruled by the Germans since time immemorial. The number of the Holy Roman territories was amazingly large, rising to approximately 300.
The Empire's territorial level varied over its history, but at its peak it encompassed the Kingdom of Germany, the Kingdom of Italy and the Kingdom of Burgundy; territories embracing present-day Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, as well as significant parts of modern France, Italy, and present-day Poland.
The Napoleonic Wars resulted in the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, the most powerful and most influential Empire which lasted for more than 800 years. After the end of the Napoleonic Wars a new German union, the German Confederation was established in 1815. It lasted until 1866 when Prussia founded the North German Confederation, which in 1871 became a part of the German Empire.
German Reich (Deutsches Reich) - German Empire was the official name for Germany from 1871 to 1945. During the German Reich, Germany was the most powerful industrial and military force in the world.
The history of Germany during the time of the German Reich is conventionally broken into three distinct periods:
1. the monarchy under Hohenzollern rule, known in English as the German Empire (1871-1918).
2. the democratic republic, known retrospectively as the Weimar Republic (1919-1933).
3. the totalitarian dictatorship commonly known as the Third Reich or Nazi Germany (1933-1945).
The German Empire, under the leadership of the Kingdom of Prussia and Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck (1st Chancellor of the German Empire) emerged as a nation and as a world super power. The foundations of economic strength at the turn of the century were steel and coal. By the year 1914, Germany had become the most powerful industrial nation.
Some key elements of the German Empire's authoritarian political structure were also the basis for conservative modernization in Imperial Japan under Meiji and the preservation of an authoritarian political structure under the Tsars in the Russian Empire.
World War I brought nothing but problems to the German Empire. The German Empire was a member of Central Powers that won many battles but eventually lost the war in 1918. German economy was in bad condition because of the war, as Germany was not prepared for the war which would last more than a few months. However, German territory itself remained relatively safe from widespread invasion for most of the war. Result of the war did not change Germany much; Germany was not pacified, conciliated nor permanently weakened.
In 1919, German Empire was replaced with the Weimer Republic, the democratic republic, named after the city of Weimar. The Weimer Republic was often seen only as a transformation period between the reign of the Emperor and Hitler's dictatorship. Its constitution was one of the most modern in the world and it represented a period of cultural innovation in Germany. Throughout its time, Weimar Republic faced many problems, but prosperities as well.
Main problems of the new Weimar Republic were inflation, polarization, political extremism, and poor international position. Treaty of Versailles made Germany to accept sole responsibility for causing the World War I, to make substantial territorial concessions and to pay reparations (132 billion gold marks in 1921) to certain countries that had formed the Entente powers. Nevertheless, the new Republic overcame many discriminatory regulations of the Treaty of Versailles, reformed the currency (the Rentenmark), unified tax politics and the railway system, and brought increased foreign investments and loans to the German market.
Weimar Republic established extraordinary relations with both the United States and the USSR, and was admitted to the League of Nations as a permanent member, which gave her a good international position and the ability to veto.
The Great Depression later harmed Germany as it did to the rest of the western world, which was subject to debt repayments for loans. Yet, Germany survived financial crises thanks to production of steel, large foreign investments and German industrial influence in the United States.
Nazi Germany or the Third Reich arose in the wake of the national shame, embarrassment, anger and resentment which resulted from the Treaty of Versailles. More or less everybody knows that Adolf Hitler was the ruler of Germany from 1933-1945 and leader of Nazi Party from 1921, and that Germany eventually lost the World War II.
In June 1933, the "Reinhardt Program" was introduced. It was an ambitious project for the development of infrastructure. It combined indirect motivations, such as: tax reductions, with direct public investment in waterways, railroads and highways. In addition, the German car industry experienced a boom and military spending in Germany exceeded 10% of GNP (higher than any other European country at the time).
By the late 1930s, the aims of German trade policy were to use economic and political power to make the countries of Southern Europe and the Balkans dependent on Germany. The German economy would draw its raw materials from that region, and the countries in question would receive German manufactured goods in exchange. Already in 1938, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Greece transacted 50% of all their foreign trade with Germany.
Nazi regime encouraged German businesses to form cartels, monopolies and oligopolies, whose interests were then protected by the state. As big business became organized, it developed an increasingly close partnership with Hitler and the Nazi government. The government pursued economic policies that maximized the profits of its business allies, and in exchange, business leaders supported the government's political and military goals. Those German businesses include; Krupp, Thyssen, IG Farben, Deutsche Bank, Siemens, Salzgitter, Munich Re, among others.
After the end of WWII, Germany was divided to four regions: West Germany, East Germany, Saar protectorate and Ruhr area. The Allies decided to abolish the German armed forces as well as all munitions factories and civilian industries that could support them. This included the destruction of all ship and aircraft manufacturing capability.
The first level of industry plan, signed by the Allies in March 29, 1946, stated that German heavy industry was to be lowered to 50% of its 1938 levels. German steel production capacity was set at about 5,800,000 tons of steel a year, equivalent to 25% of the prewar production level. Germany was to be reduced to the standard of life it had known at the height of the Great Depression, car production was to be set to 10% of prewar levels, among others. In addition, the costs of the occupation were charged to the German people, about $2.4 billion per year. The first plan was subsequently followed by a number of new ones in order to destroy German industry for the next century.
From May 1945 until September 1947 the US, UK, and France exported German coal for $10.50/ton, while the world price floated closer to $25-$30 per ton. During this period, the Allies took roughly $200,000,000 out of the German economy from this source alone. Germany received many offers from Western European nations to trade food for desperately needed coal and steel, however, the Allies disallowed the Germans to trade.
Allies also confiscated large amounts of German intellectual property. The US and the UK pursued a dynamic program to harvest all technological and scientific experience, as well as all patents in Germany. The so called intellectual reparations taken by the US and the UK amounted close to $10 billion.
Additionally, the Ruhr Agreement was imposed on the Germany as a condition for permitting them to establish the Federal Republic of Germany. By controlling the production and distribution of coal and steel, the International Authority for the Ruhr in effect controlled the entire West German economy. French were very interested in Ruhr area since their first occupation of Ruhr in January 1923, as a reprisal after Germany failed to fulfill reparation payments demanded by the Versailles Treaty. French aimed at dismantling German heavy industry, to place the coal rich Ruhr area and Rhineland under French control (or at a minimum internationalize them), and also to join the coal rich Saarland with the iron rich province of Lorraine. Consequently, in 1947, France removed the Saar from Germany and turned it into a protectorate under French economic control.
In 1951, West Germany agreed to join the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). This meant that some of the economic restrictions on production capacity and on actual production that were imposed by the International Authority for the Ruhr were lifted, and that its role was taken over by the ECSC. The area returned to German administration in January 1, 1957, but France retained the right to mine from its coal mines until 1981.
Failure to win the war did not affect Germany that much, as Germany managed to secure its local industry and foreign business investments. For Hitler was important to secure private investments of its countryman and financiers, since he personally believed in private capital. One of such cases was the Lex Krupp, a document signed into law on November 12, 1943 by Adolf Hitler to avoid inheritance law and ensure that the Krupp family enterprise remain intact.
Despite all oppressions against Germany and German people, West Germany, soon benefiting from the currency reform of 1948 and the Allied Marshall Plan, saw the fastest period of growth in European history from the early 1950s. This period soon became known as the "economic miracle" or Wirtschaftswunder. Industrial production increased by 35%. Agricultural production substantially surpassed pre-war levels. The poverty and starvation of the immediate postwar years disappeared, and Western Europe and especially West Germany embarked upon an unprecedented two decades of growth that saw standards of living increase dramatically.
After everything that happened to Germany, in 1955, West Germany joined NATO. A major reason for Germany's entry into the alliance was that without German manpower, it would have been impossible to field enough conventional forces to resist a Soviet invasion.
On October 3, 1990, German Democratic Republic (East Germany) joined the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), making today's Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland).
Germany rapidly prospered after WWII, regaining its position as the strongest European country and economy.
Today, despite all wars, reparation payments, destruction of land, exploitation of industry, Germany is stranding strong. Germany is a federal parliamentary republic of sixteen states. Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, G8, the OECD, IMF, among others. It is a major economic power with the world's fourth largest economy by nominal GDP. It is the largest exporter and second largest importer of goods in the world. Germany has a high standard of living and comprehensive system of social security.
Germany's economy has enormous impact on our lives as we speak. If we look around us, we will find that the German products are dominating our lifestyle. Companies like DHL, T-Mobile, Adidas, Puma, Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Hugo Boss, Henkel, Bayer, among others are key factors in today life.
It is not a secret that Germany is most influential and most powerful country in Europe since the 3rd century, and now European Union. However, how did Germany managed to set influence on and in the United States of America.
For the past century, German influence in United States was seen trough wealthy individuals, Government officials and companies like Krupp, Thyssen, IG Farben, Deutsche Bank, Siemens, Salzgitter, Munich Re and one political party; The Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU).
The United States of Germania
The United States of Germania is a term that should be used to describe United States of America since 20th century. For the past hundred years United States has been under strong influence from Germany and German industry, and that same influence and number of German-Americans living in the US made the United States to become the biggest German State.
Germans started arriving in the United States in 1608, but they were not important at that time as they became later. The largest number of arrivals came 1840€“1900, when Germans formed the largest group of immigrants coming to the US, outnumbering even the Irish and English. . German Americans and those Germans who settled in the US have been influential in most every field, from politics, economy, science, to architecture, to entertainment to commercial industry. Today, they account for 50 million people, or 17% of the US population
Germans have contributed to a vast number of areas in American culture, military, economy, journalism, and technology, among others. Some of the contributions were: John Peter Zenger, he came to America in 1733 as an indentured servant from the Palatinate region of Germany, and founded a newspaper: The New-York Weekly Journal. In 1742, Christopher Saur, a German printer in Philadelphia, printed the first Bible in America. The Baron von Steuben, a former Prussian officer, was inspector general of the Continental Army; he led the reorganization of the US Army during the War for Independence and helped make the victory against British troops possible. In 1821, the Germanic custom of having a specially decorated tree at Christmas time was introduced to America by Pennsylvania Dutch in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Later in the century, the Pennsylvania Dutch version of St. Nicholas (Sinterklaas), evolved into America's Santa Claus, popularized by a German immigrant and influential political cartoonist, Thomas Nast. The Easter bunny and Easter eggs were also brought to this country by German immigrants.
The Studebakers built large numbers of wagons used during the Western migration; Studebaker, like the Duesenberg brothers, later became an important early automobile manufacturer. Carl Schurz, German revolutionary and American statesman, served as the United States Senator (1869-1875) and the US Secretary of the Interior (1877-1881). In 1856, Margaretha Meyer Schurz, wife of Carl Schurz, established the first kindergarten in America at Watertown, Wisconsin.
Maybe the most interesting thing is that both countries have experienced the ideology of white supremacy. When the Congress of the Nazi Party met in 1935 to pass their Nuremberg Laws (racist and anti-Semitic laws in Nazi Germany), they were in many ways modeled on the Jim Crow Laws (state and local laws in the US. They mandated €śde jure€ť segregation in all public facilities, with a "separate but equal" status for black Americans and members of other non-white racial groups) which were in place in the USA from 1877 to 1965.
However, German real influence in the US started to build with John Jacob Astor, German. He left his village of Waldorf in Germany and arrived in the United States in 1784. He amassed a fortune from real estate dealings and the fur trade, and at his death was by far the richest man in the country and the world, worth an estimated $20 million ($110.1 billion in 2006).
Years later, German influence in the US was seen with J.P. Morgan (German student), John D. Rockefeller (of German ancestry) and Theodore Roosevelt (of German ancestry), Herbert Hoover (of German ancestry), Dwight David €śIke€ť Eisenhower (of German ancestry). Germany became very interested in the US steel and private banking.
John Pierpont Morgan also known as J.P. Morgan next to the Rockefellers was the most powerful individual and hegemon in American banking system, owner of Moran House and J.P. Morgan Company. He had very close ties with Germany; his father, who also had close ties with Germany, had sent him to the University of Göttingen in order to improve his German.
J. P. Morgan and Elbert H. Gary founded the US Steel in 1901. Elbert Henry Gary was an American lawyer and corporate officer. He was a key founder of the United States Steel Corporation in 1901, bringing together partners J. P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and Charles M. Schwab. Schwab was born into a German Catholic family. After the buyout, Schwab became the first president of the US Steel Corporation, the company formed out of Carnegie's former holdings.
In the spring of 1903, Carl Duisberg, the chairman of Bayer (German chemical and pharmaceutical company, 3rd largest in the world) had traveled to the US to meet with J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller, to establish cooperation between two industries, and visit their trusts such as Standard Oil and US Steel. Carl Duisberg told his counterparts that Germany needs one more steel industry to control; therefore in 1903 Charles Schwab left the US Steel to form the Bethlehem Steel Company in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Under his leadership it became the largest independent steel producer in the world. In 1904, after having returned to Germany Duisberg proposed a nationwide merger of the producers of dye and pharmaceuticals.
In 1907, in addition to steel and private banking, Germany became interested in the US Coal and Iron industry and in control of the US monetary system. As a result, Germany's already well known partners are causing Panic of 1907, a financial crisis that occurred in the United States when the New York Stock Exchange fell close to 50%. The 1907 panic eventually spread throughout the nation when many state and local banks and businesses entered into bankruptcy.
In 1907, The Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company (TCI), a major American steel manufacturer with interests in coal and iron ore mining and railroad operations collapsed. J.P. Morgan exploited turbulence on the financial markets by procuring a majority stake in Tennessee Company shares from a troubled New York brokerage firm. Subsequently, the TCI merged with US Steel, making the US Steel multibillion dollar company. The US President Theodore Roosevelt also known as €śtrust buster€ť endorsed this merger. Roosevelt was of German ancestry. Throughout his Presidency Roosevelt distrusted wealthy businessmen and dissolved forty monopolistic corporations; however Morgan and Rockefeller were safe.
In 1908, in response to the Panic of 1907, the US Congress enacted the Aldrich-Vreeland Act which provided for an emergency currency and established the National Monetary Commission to study banking and currency reform. Nelson W. Aldrich was largely responsible for the Aldrich-Vreeland Currency Law, and he became the Chairman of the National Monetary commission.
Aldrich was a prominent American politician, a leader of the Republican Party in the Senate and chief of the bipartisan National Monetary Commission. He had close ties with J.P. Morgan and Rockefellers, his daughter, Abby, married John D. Rockefeller, Jr., the only son of John D. Rockefeller.
Nelson Aldrich set up two commissions; one to study the American monetary system in depth and the other, headed by Aldrich himself, to study the European central-banking systems and report on them. Aldrich went to Europe opposed to centralized banking, but after viewing Germany's banking system came away believing that a centralized bank was better than the government-issued bond system.
By the late 1908 Germans were controlling almost all production of steel and coal, and banking system in the United States.
In 1910, Aldrich and executives representing the banks of J.P. Morgan, Rockefeller, and Kuhn, Loeb & Co., secluded themselves for 10 days at Jekyll Island, Georgia to draft the basic plan for the US Federal Reserve System. The executives included J.P. Morgan, Paul Warburg, a naturalized German representing Kuhn, Loeb & Co.; Frank A. Vanderlip, president of the National City Bank of New York, associated with the Rockefellers; Henry P. Davison, senior partner of J.P. Morgan Company; Charles D. Norton, president of the Morgan dominated First National Bank of New York; and Col. Edward House, who would later become President Woodrow Wilson's closest adviser and founder of the Council on Foreign Relations; Benjamin Strong, representing J. P. Morgan.
In 1910, J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller did not agree on plan to control Federal Reserve System, as a result in 1911 the Supreme Court of the United States found Standard Oil Company of New Jersey in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act and held that Standard Oil, which by then still had a 64% market share, originated in illegal monopoly practices and ordered it to be broken up into 34 new companies. Former President Roosevelt was unable to protect Rockefeller this time.
In 1913, US President Woodrow Wilson signed into law the Federal Reserve Act creating the Federal Reserve System, the central banking system of the United States of America. Jack Morgan, son of J.P. Morgan was one of the signatories to the establishment of the Federal Reserve System in 1913.
In 1913, J.P. Morgan testified before the Pujo Committee, a subcommittee of the House Banking and Currency committee because his intervention in Panic of 1907. The committee ultimately found that a cabal of financial leaders was abusing their public trust to consolidate control over many industries.
To protect his wealth J.P Morgan started investing in Europe, however, J.P. Morgan died in 1913 leaving all connections and wealth to his son J.P. Morgan Jr.
In August 1914, just at the beginning of the WWI, Henry P. Davison, a Morgan partner, traveled to the UK and made a deal with the Bank of England to make J.P. Morgan & Co. the monopoly underwriter of war bonds for UK and France. The Bank of England became a fiscal agent of J.P. Morgan & Co. and vice versa. Germany was largely excluded from international financial markets at that time, industries, university endowments, local banks and even city governments were the prime investors in the German war bonds.
During World War I, German Americans, especially those born in Germany, were sometimes accused of being too sympathetic to the German Empire. Thousands of German Americans were forced to buy war bonds to show their loyalty to the US. One man was hanged in Illinois, just because he was of German descent (the hanging was called an act of patriotism by a jury).
Above tyranny on German people in the US and Treaty of Versailles made Germany to revenge on the US. Therefore in late 1920s, Germany, with help of its distinguished friends initiated the Wall Street Crash of 1929.
The key figures of the Wall Street Crash included Morgan's and Rockefeller's associates: Thomas W. Lamont, Owen D. Young, Albert Henry Wiggin, Charles E. Mitchell, Richard Whitney, Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich, Montagu Collet Norman, Benjamin Strong Jr., Paul Warburg, among other smaller participants.
Thomas William Lamont Jr. was an American banker, acting head of Morgan Bank, and representative of the United States Department of the Treasury on the American delegation during the Treaty of Versailles. Lamont, who was a close associate of Morgan Senior and Morgan Jr., also was in committee of the Young Plan, a program for settlement of German reparations debts after World War I.
In addition, creator of the Young Plan in 1929 was Owen D. Young, an American industrialist, businessman, lawyer and diplomat at the Second Reparations Conference (SRC) in 1929. Owen Young was a key figure of General Electric and creator of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). In 1928, he was appointed to the board of trustees of the Rockefeller Foundation. As a reminder, In 1892 J.P. Morgan arranged the merger of Edison General Electric and Thompson-Houston Electric Company to form General Electric.
Albert Henry Wiggin, close associate of Rockefeller's, was an American banker and the head of the Chase National Bank. The largest stockholder of Chase National Bank was John D. Rockefeller Jr. With Rockefeller inside, it became the largest bank in America and indeed the world. In 1923 Wiggin opened a Chase National Bank representative office in London, which began lending directly to governments and businesses throughout Europe. He was responsible for bringing in members of the Rockefeller family as investors in Chase National Bank.
Charles E. Mitchell, president of the National City Bank of New York, was an American banker whose incautious securities policies facilitated the speculation which led to the Crash of 1929. He was a close associate of Morgan family.
Richard Whitney was an American financier, vice president and later president of the New York Stock Exchange from 1930 till 1935, and a convicted embezzler. His uncle had been a partner in J.P. Morgan & Co., and his brother George was in high position at the Morgan Bank. He stole funds from the New York Stock Exchange Gratuity Fund as well as from the New York Yacht Club where he served as the Treasurer. Following his indictment by a Grand Jury, Richard Whitney was arrested and eventually pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to a term of five to ten years in Sing Sing prison.
All above actors including J.P. Morgan Jr. and Otto Kahn (born German, and partner of Kuhn, Loeb & Co) were investigated under The Pecora Investigation. In 1931, the Pecora Commission was established by the US Senate to study the causes of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The testimony of the powerful banker J.P. Morgan Jr. caused a public outcry after he admitted under examination that he and many of his partners had not paid any income taxes in 1931 and 1932.
Montagu Collet Norman was an English banker, best known for his role as the Governor of the Bank of England from 1920 to 1944. Norman was Germany's strongest ally in England and one of Europe's most influential persons in monetary system. His close tie with Germany was seen trough close friendship with German Central Bank president Horace Greeley Hjalmar Schacht, later Hitler's finance minister.
Benjamin Strong Jr. was an American banker. He served as Governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and was one of the important creators of the Federal Reserve System. Strong was J.P. Morgan's closest ally, head of J.P Morgan's Bankers Trust Company and his emissary to the secret Jekyll Island expedition in 1910 to form Federal Reserve System.
Paul Warburg, born German, was a major player in German banking system and real power behind the Federal Reserve System. He was appointed a member of the first Federal Reserve Board by President Woodrow Wilson. Warburg was a partner in the New York banking house of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. Kuhn, Loeb & Co was the principal rival of J.P. Morgan & Co, and was joined in a partnership with Rockefeller in 1911, to gain control of the Equitable Trust Company, which was later to merge and become the Chase Bank.
Even, US President Herbert Hoover, who was of German ancestry, and friend with Morgan Jr., managed to get support for a one-year moratorium of the reparations payments. A moratorium had been placed on the war reparations payments in 1931 and a year later the delegates to the Lausanne Conference realized that the deepening world financial crisis in the Great Depression made it nearly impossible for Germany to resume its payments. However, Britain and France and other Allies had borrowed heavily to fight the war and in particular. They borrowed substantial funds from Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan & Co. and Morgan, Grenfell & Co. (In 1990 Morgan Grenfell was acquired by Deutsche Bank).
Germany succeeded in its plan, the financial system had collapsed and Germany made no further payments. By 1933 Germany made World War I reparations of only one eighth of the sum required under the Treaty of Versailles.
German enormous influence in the US was also seen with the US President Dwight David €śIke€ť Eisenhower, the 34th President of the United States, who was of German ancestry. He also served as the 1st Military Governor of the American Occupation Zone in Germany from May 8, 1945 €“ November 10, 1945, and 1st Supreme Allied Commander in Europe from April 2, 1951 €“ May 30, 1952. After the Petersberg agreement West Germany quickly progressed toward fuller sovereignty and association with its European neighbors and the Atlantic community. With Dwight Eisenhower in Supreme command, Americans quickly called for the rearmament of West Germany. Whit Eisenhower as the US President, in 1954 The London and Paris agreements restored most of the German state's sovereignty and Germany formed Western European Union, in 1955 West Germany joined NATO. Eisenhower was close associate with Konrad Hermann Josef Adenauer, first Chancellor of West Germany from 1949€“1963.
German influence after the WWII is more or less well known. What is less known is that in 1945, Germany's industrial powers formed political party; The Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU), a major player in setting German influence throughout the world. Some of the key figures of the CDU were Konrad Adenauer, first Chancellor of West Germany from 1949 to 1963; Helmut Kohl, Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998; Angela Merkel, the current Chancellor of Germany. Above named, among many others, were and still are considered to be the most influential persons in the world. The CDU always had a close relationship with the Roman Catholic Church. Current head of the Roman Catholic Church is Pope Benedict XVI, German.
Later, Germany continued its influence in the US with Richard Nixon, of German ancestry. Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, and also Vice President during Dwight Eisenhower's Presidency.
When elected, Nixon introduced Henry Alfred Kissinger, German born, who served as the 8th United States National Security Advisor and the 56th United States Secretary of State. Kissinger was close associate with Rockefeller's; he became an advisor to Nelson Rockefeller, Governor of New York, who sought the Republican nomination for President in 1960. After all this years, he still has a greater influence on the US foreign policy. He was the frequent visitor of the White House and George W. Bush (of German ancestry), and is in close relationship with Obama administration. At present, Kissinger continues to be the most influential German in political scene in the United States.
Today, Germans are still influential in the US monetary system, industry and politics. The current CEO of the New York Stock Exchange is Duncan L. Niederauer, German. Duncan became the CEO on December 1, 2007. Timothy Franz Geithner, of German ancestry, is the 75th United States Secretary of the Treasury. Well known as Kissinger protégé, he worked for Kissinger and Associates in Washington, D.C., and in 2002 he joined the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). In 2003, he was named the 9th President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Strangely, but as previously arranged, Germans were and still continues to be in key financial positions when recession strikes the US (1907, 1929, 2007, 2008, and 2009 (even the AIG which is one of key factors for financial crisis in the US has close relationship with Kissinger and Rockefeller's)).
The Council on Foreign Relations was established by Rockefeller in 1921. The CFR, among others, was established to protect German interests in the US. Since its establishment, many US highly officials were and still are associate with it, such as; Henry Alfred Kissinger, Owen D. Young, Paul Warburg, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Herbert Hoover, George W. Bush, among many others. The CRF can be credited for the Marshall Plan and NATO, all of which Germany advantaged from.
The CRF Corporate Members, among others include: AIG, a major American insurance corporation. Alcoa, the world's third largest producer of aluminum. Alcoa's CEO and Director is Klaus Kleinfeld, German. The Boeing Company, founded by William Edward Boeing, son to a wealthy German mining engineer named Wilhelm Böing. Deutsche Bank, a major bank. Google Inc., an American public corporation. Eric Emerson Schmidt, of German ancestry, is Chairman and CEO of Google Inc. H. J. Heinz Company, American food company founded by Henry John Heinz, a German-American businessman. Pfizer Incorporated, a pharmaceutical company, ranking number one in sales in the world. Pfizer was founded by Karl Pfizer, a German chemist.
The list of German influence in the US never ends: Walter Percy Chrysler, Chrysler automobile developer. Walt Disney, film producer, director, animator and entrepreneur. Harvey Firestone (Feuerstein), founder of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company. John Kluge, television industry mogul. Adolph Ochs-Sulzberger - newspaper publisher and former owner of The New York Times. Steve Schwarzman, owner of the Blackstone Group. Neil Armstrong, astronaut, first human on the moon. Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense. Woody Allen (Allen Stewart Königsberg), an actor and film producer. Wolfgang Petersen, film director, among many others.
Even the US President Barack Obama can thank German Americans who voted for him in 2008 Presidential Elections. Obama won 90% States were German American lives, such as: Ohio, Indiana, Minnesota, Illinois, California, Pennsylvania, among others.
Looking at the above facts we can easily say that Germany was and still continues to be the most influential country in the world.
There are no secret societies, conspiracy theories and secret governments; there is just German sense of supremacy and Germany's desire to rule the world.
Ivan Simic writes from Belgrade, Serbia - ivansimic10(at)gmail.com |
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Vallarta Weddings
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