From pages 52, 53, 54 & 55 of Royal Dutch Shell and its sustainability troubles Background report to the Erratum of Shells Annual Report 2010
The report was made on behalf of Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Netherlands)
Author: Albert ten Kate: May 2011.
A toxic legacy in Curacao
Curacao and its oil refinery
Curacao is an island in the southern Caribbean Sea, off the Venezuelan coast. It is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and has a land area of 444 square kilometres. As of January 2010, its population amounted to around 142,000 people. Prior to 10 October 2010, when the Netherlands Antilles were dissolved, Curacao was administered as the Island Territory of Curacao, one of five island territories of the former Netherlands Antilles.
From 1918 until 1985, Shell owned and operated the Isla oil refinery in Curacao. During this period, the refinery has been one of the most important lifelines of Curacao. For example, in the early fifties it employed more than 12,000 people out of the total island population of 110,000 people. The refinery generated the foreign exchange necessary to finance the imports the island could not produce itself. In the beginning of the eighties, Shell-companies provided for 33% of the island’s Gross National Product. Apart from the refinery, Shell had a local sales company, an oil storage/transshipment company, and a shipping company on the island. Shell was very important to Curacao, and the government of Curacao treated Shell kindly. In 1980, a former director of Shell declared towards a reporter of the Dutch newspaper NRC: The Antillean government? We were that government.
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.
