Ken Berwitz
I have a quick question for Jane Mayer, the New York Times writer who has just put out a book, “Dark Money”, which suggests, among other things, that the Fred Koch, father of Charles and David Koch, made a fortune by building up Hitler\’s nazi regime.
First, allow me to tell you what the “evidence” for this claim is – straight from the New York Times writer Nicholas Confessore\’s write-up of Ms. Mayer\’s book:
“…the book is largely focusedon the Koch family, stretching back to its involvement in the far-right JohnBirch Society and the political and business activities of the father, Fred C.Koch, who found some of his earliest business success overseas in the yearsleading up toWorld War II. One venture was a partnership with the AmericanNazi sympathizer William Rhodes Davis, who, according to Ms. Mayer, hired Mr.Koch to help build the third-largest oil refinery in the Third Reich, acritical industrial cog in Hitler\’s war machine.”
Let\’s start with the fact that the oil refinery in question was completed in 1934. That was before the Nuremberg Laws, which denied German Jews citizenship and imposed other discriminations against them were passed, and years before the start of World War II.
Now, let\’s continue with the fact that, as distasteful as adolf hitler and his regime were even then, Germany was still considered a perfectly viable country to do business with – not just by Fred Koch, but by Coca-Cola, Chase Bank, Standard Oil, IBM, and Random House books, which happily published propaganda material for hitler & Co. And every one of these companies did so well beyond 1934, even into World War II.
Funny how Ms. Mayer seems to have no problem with any of them.
So with all this in mind, here is my question to Jane Mayer: what purpose does your inclusion of the Fred Koch\’s involvement in pre-war Germany have, other than to take a mindless, factless, nasty, intentionally misleading zing at the Koch Brothers?
I don\’t expect an answer any time soon.
