This piece began in KTB #153.

In the US, gasoline had been more than $2 per gallon in some areas. In Germany, gas had cost about 2 Marks per liter, a liter is a little more than a quart, a Mark is equal to about 50 cents, making gas in Germany equal to about $4/gal. Who is responsible?

Obviously, the big oil companies are trying to maximize their profits - but this is not the first time. Who can remember the so-called 'Arab Oil Embargo' of 1973? I remember it well, because I was Inventory Control Director at the corporate level of a major petrochemical company and I can assure you, there was no shortage of feedstock or petroleum at all. This contrived shortage allowed the company to raise their prices by 500% on both their industrial chemicals and the consumer products, including a nationally known brand of automotive anti-freeze. These products all use feedstock coming from petroleum and it was never in short supply.

Who gave us WWII? It was the 'Seven Sisters" in part. The 'Seven Sisters' were the world's petroleum companies, of which Standard Oil was the largest. The Chief Executive Officer of Shell Oil was so pro-Nazi that the British Government had to force him out in order to get fuel for their own military. In an interview in LIFE Magazine in 1940, the Chief Executive Officer of Texaco (Thorkold Reiber) stated that if any German U-boat Skipper saw a Texaco tanker helping the Allies, he had Reiber's permission to sink the Texaco tanker. But perhaps the one that made the most profit out of these world events was Standard Oil, today known as Exxon. When the German Luftwaffe bombed England during the Battle of Britain, they got fuel from Standard Oil. When the RAF went up to protect their homeland, they got their fuel from Standard, When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, they had fuel from Standard Oil in their tanks. CHARLES HIGHAM (35-1984) put all this in his book Trading with the Enemy but there is more -- and it is in the records of the United States Senate! What you read in this piece comes directly from the testimony of Hearings before a Special Committee investigating the National Defense Program during the 77th Congress, pursuant to Senate Resolution #71 in 1942.

The Committee met at 10:38am pursuant to adjournment on Friday, March 27 in Room 318, Senate Office Building with Senator James M. Mead presiding.

Mr. Farish: “They are being operated, Senator, by the designees or commissaries or whatever they call them, of the Hungarian Government.”

Senator Burton: “That is, they have been seized on behalf of the German Government?”

Mr. Farish: “Hungarian Government. That is the last word we had. Whether the Germans have them today or not, I can’t answer.”

Senator Burton: “Without any compensation, I take it.”

Mr. Farish: “No compensation to us.”

Senator Connally: “Technically, the Hungarian Government is not at war, and Germany hasn’t conquered Hungary. So technically, they are going on, supposedly, with the Hungarian set-up. Is that right?”

Mr. Farish: “That is my understanding, Senator.”

Senator Burton: “May I ask, are they being operated, do you know, efficiently or economically? Have there been any reports on that?”

Mr. Farish: “We have had no word from it since our manager came out with the American diplomatic corps from Hungary some months ago.”

Senator Connally: “When I said Hungary wasn’t at war, I meant wasn’t at war with Germany. She has declared war on us, but we didn’t declare war on Hungary. We just let her conduct her own little fight over there.”

Mr. Farish: “That is correct. To the French hydrogenation: prior to the outbreak of the European war, discussions were going on in France between the International Hydrogenation Patents Co. of the Hague and French groups for a license for one or more coal and tar hydrogenation plants in France. Our French subsidiary of the British owned Shell Company, were interested in working out an arrangement to market any gasoline so made.

When the Germans took Holland, they put a German commissaire in charge of the business of the I.H.P. - that was the company at the Hague that owned these patents, which was owned 50-50 be the Shell and ourselves, although the I.G. (Farbenindustrie) were entitled to a 20% interest in its licensing revenues. Following the fall of France, and the cutting off of all imported oil supplies, the question of these coal hydrogenation plants became active. There were discussions as to whether it would be agreeable to us, in view of whatever equitable interest we might claim in the seized Dutch company to permit the I.G. Farbenindustrie to take charge of these negotiations. The alternative would have been to leave them in the hands of the German commissaire controlling the Dutch company. This alternative did not appeal to us. We consulted the British controlled Shell Company, who were equally interested, and they took the position that they could express no opinion or take any action of any kind. The matter was therefore dropped. Our last American employee, the managing director of our French company left France in January 1941, and we have no knowledge of what happened afterwards.

The matter in question referred to occupied France.

I go on to the readjustments of German contracts; our contracts of 1929 were to run until 1947. As you gentlemen doubtless know, contracts such as there are not, in law, abrogated, but merely suspended when the parties nations are at war. The parties to such contracts must therefore find some way of getting along with their own business while the contracts are so suspended. We had been conducting the patent licensing business under the 1929 contracts through two American corporations, the Standard I. G. & Jasco, in one of which we owned 80% and in the other of which we owned 50%, the Germans holding other shares. The stock holdings represented roughly, although not exactly, the German participations in the licensing which were fixed by the contracts and not by the share holdings. Substantially all the patents in question had originated with the I.G. (Farbenindustrie) and the legal title to most of them, especially the foreign patents, had been left in the I.G. to avoid expense of transfers.

In conducting the licensing business, the American licensing companies were necessarily in regular contact with Germans, who were also represented on their boards. When the European war broke out, Germany was blockaded and it was clearly impossible to continue to conduct business as before, even though there was as yet no legal change in the position between the parties. There was also the possibility that sooner or later, America might be drawn into the conflict. The only way we could meet this situation was to revise our contract agreements with the I. G. as follows:

1. Obtain assignment of the legal title to every patent anywhere in the world in which we had an important interest, in order to protect that interest.

2. Get rid of the German interest in the American corporations, eliminate their control of the processes of making rubber and other synthetics in which we had only a minority interest, and remove all necessity for any further consultations by us with the Germans in the handling of the patent licensing.

These objectives were accomplished as follows: the patent assignments were obtained, and to avoid confusing the German interest with our own in these patents, they were taken over not directly by our company but by an American trustee who was thus is a position to protect our interests and who, in America were to go to war with Germany, would of course, be subject to account to the Alien Property Custodian for any equitable interest of the Germans - as had actually happened.

The German 20 percent interest in the Standard - I.G. Company was purchased at book value ($20,000). This was only a management company, and the Germans still retained title to their 20 percent of the royalties collected by the company, but no longer had they any voice in the management of its affairs.”

Mr. Fulton: “How was that title evidenced - the title to the royalties?”

Mr. Farish: “The title to the German royalties?”

Mr. Fulton: “Yes, the German company’s title to the royalties. How was that evidenced, and was it evidenced in such a way that the Alien Property Custodian could easily ascertain it?”

Mr. Farish: “It was in the original contract, and it was listed for him; yes.”

Mr. Fulton: “It was listed where?”

Mr. Farish: “It was listed for him as part of the German interest, having first been declared to the Treasury under some form they required. I forgot the name.”

Does it appear to the reader that the big oil companies were making sure that, no matter how the war turned out, they would still be in business afterwards? Despite the ravages of war, all the big oil companies are still in business - perhaps with different names, but they are all still there. Interesting………….