Evidence confirms that Shell fuelled the Nazi war machine

• ASIN: B095CND46T

• Publisher: Pluto Press; 1st edition (20 May 2021)

Some of the information about Shell’s collaboration with the Nazis covered on pages 19, 20, 21, 22 of the main book, and pages 352, 353 and 354 from the Notes section of the book:

• The nature of the Nazi regime was well understood by Shell during the period when concentration camps were already in operation, and the rule of the dreaded Nazi secret police, the Gestapo, was absolute.
• In 1934, the head of Royal Dutch Shell Sir Henri Deterding had a 4 day stay with Hitler at Hitler’s retreat in Berchtesgaden.
• Shell was aiming to obtain a petrol distribution monopoly in Germany and with this objective, Deterding offered a large loan to the Nazi regime.
• Shell’s German subsidiary Rhenania-Ossag which had 10,000 employees adopted anti-Semitic policies. Jewish board members of the company were forced to resign.
• Rhenania-Ossag supported and collaborated with the Nazi regime during the invasion and annexations of other countries.
• A Swastika flag flew outside the HQ of Royal Dutch Shell located on Carel van Bylandtlaann in The Hague. See the above photo.
• In referring to the 4 volume official history of Royal Dutch Shell published in 2007, Crude Britannia concludes on page 22, “There is an embarrassment about Shell’s role in the Nazi state.”
• Shell was “deeply engaged with the European fascist states” before WW2.
• Deterding was hopeful about the possibility of Mussolini and Hitler coming to power and personally helped finance the Nazi Party. Deterding is described as “an outspoken advocate for Hitler, writing several pieces in the German press declaring his support.”
• Deterding passed away in February 1939. His funeral was attended by senior Nazis. Hitler sent a wreath bearing an inscription saluting Deterding as being a true friend of the German People.
• Shell director Sir Andrew Agnew is described in the book as one of the British executives in the 1930s who saw much that they admired in fascism.
• Forty Shell staff working in the Netherlands were dismissed because they were Jewish and at least half of them did not survive the war.
• FRom item 23 of Notes, Page 354: As the official company history states: ‘The far-reaching changes to the Rhenania-Ossag board could not have taken place without the full consent of central offices … Moving managers and employees to other jobs was probably seen as a cosmetic exercise of the kind occasionally required to placate particular regimes, and no more. No questions of principle or moral judgements about the Hitler regime appear to have arisen and it bears pointing out that, whereas correspondence shows Group managers quick to identify and condemn Bolshevism, they appear not to have had the .same sensitivity to Fascism or Nazism. We do not know the Group’s treatment of the staff members concerned, nor their fates.’
• Note 34 on page 354 mentions the existence of substantial evidence that the Shell German subsidiary Rhenania-Ossage used forced labour.