Rich Karlgaard, Forbes Staff
This article originally appeared in the Apr. 23, 2012 issue of Forbes magazine.
This year will likely be the first time in history that a company tops $500 billion in sales. Two oil companies are good bets to pass the mark: the U.S. ExxonMobil and the U.K.-registered, Netherlands-headquartered Royal Dutch Shell. In late March I talked with Shells CEO, Peter Voser, onstage at a Silicon Valley Churchill Club event.
How did an economist become CEO of Shell? I started out at Shell but left to become the CFO of [Swiss-based] ABB. In 2004 there was a crisis at Shell, and I came back in as CFO.
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.
