Financial Times
Review by Ed Crooks
Published: February 22 2010 05:00 | Last updated: February 22 2010 05:00
Beyond Business: An Inspirational Memoir from a Visionary Leader
By John Browne
Weidenfeld & Nicolson £20, 336 pages
FT Bookshop price: £16
After the fall, the rehabilitation. That familiar arc in the lives of disgraced public figures is now being traced by Lord Browne, unceremoniously bundled out of BP after he was forced to resign as chief executive in May 2007, and now starting to rebuild his profile.
There is also a revelation, in the news that Browne twice talked to chief executives of Royal Dutch Shell about a possible merger, once in 1996 and again in 2004-05. That deal remains the dream of every investment banker in the oil business.
FULL FT ARTICLE (SUBSCRIPTION)
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
