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THE ERA, BRADFORD, PA., TUESDAY, MARCH 7, 1939
Extract from above newspaper article…
The last honors bestowed upon the late Sir Henri Deterding by high German officials furnish eloquent confirmation of the story that he was one of the original financial backers of the Nazi movement. A Dutchman by birth and nationality, he attained the chairmanship of the Royal Dutch (Shell) Oil Co. and was knighted by the British king.
Daily Express: Hitler sends wreath: Front Page: 11 February 1939
ST. MORITZ, Switzerland, Feb. 6 (AP).–The family of Sir Henri Deterding gathered at the Swiss villa where he died unexpectedly Saturday to take the body of the 72-year-old Netherlands-born oil operator back to his estate at Dobbin, Mecklenburg, Germany, for burial.
His two sons came from England to join Lady Deterding who, friends said, is expecting the birth of a child next month.
Sir Henri, .who bad a personal fortune estimated at $150,000,000 or more and who retired in 1937 from the director generalship of the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company, also is survived by a daughter by his first marriage and two daughters by his second. His first wife died, the second marriage ended in a divorce and in 1936 he married a 38-year-old secretary.
Daily Express: Oil King will be buried in Germany: 7 February 1939 Page 11
Oil king will be buried in Germany
Daily Express Correspondent
GENEVA. Monday.- The two sons of Sit Henri Deterding, the oil magnate, who died on Saturday, were expected to fly to St. Moritz yesterday, but arrived tonight by train with other relatives.
After meeting Lady Deterding, they decided that their father should be buried on his estate at Dobbin, Mecklenburg, North Germany. The family will leave tomorrow morning.
Daily Express Staff Reporter
SIR HENRI DETERDING, the oil king, once estimated to have a personal fortune of £25,000,000, has left practically nothing in England.
EXTRACTS
He became an ardent nazi after Adolf Hitler attained power in Germany.
Deterding immediately saw the possibilities and set out to tie Royal Dutch and Shell together, the better to compete with Standard Oil.
A practical token of his admiration for the anticommunist regime of Hitler was given in 1937. He gave $5,000,000 with which to purchase Holland’s surplus food products. He stipulated that the proceeds should go to Germany’s “Winter Help Fund.”
SIR HENRI DETERDING
EXTRACTS
Netherlands – born Magnate Built Up Royal Dutch Petroleum Company
Was Ardent Hitler Supporter and Foe of Soviet
Sir Henri, who possesses a personal fortune estimated at between $150,000,000 and $200,000,000, retired from the direction of the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company.
He became an ardent Nazi after Adolf Hitler attained power in Germany.
A practical token of his admiration for the anti-Communist regime of Hitler was given in 1937. He gave $5,000,000 with which to purchase Holland’s surplus food products. He stipulated that the proceeds should go to Germany’s “Winter Help Fund.”
Daily Mirror: 9s.-a-Week to Millions: 6 February 1939 Page 7
Oil King Sir Henri Deterding, seventy two, who died at St. Moritz, Switzerland, began as a nine-shillings-a-week bank clerk and rose to riches so great that eventually he matched dollar for dollar with Rockefeller.
Sir Henri was a Dutchman. He was knighted by the British Government “for services rendered.”
Hitler is said to have received his financial support. He hated the Soviet Government, admired Mussolini and aided France.
Deterding millions in Germany
THE personal fortune of Sir Henri Deterding, multi-millionaire oil king, who died after a heart attack on Saturday, is believed to be in Germany, where he went to live after his divorce in 1936.
PAGE ELEVEN
EXTRACTS
Sir Henri Wilhelm August Deterding was an outstanding figure in world financial affairs because of his role as guiding genius of the great Royal Dutch Petroleum Company, of which he remained a director after retiring from the post of director-general.
He was known as a bitter foe of Soviet Russia and was named at a Moscow trial as having aided in a plot against the Soviet government.
A life of Sir Henri Deterding has been written by Glyn Roberts, and to this biography, which is published by Convici Frieda, of New York, he has given the title of “The Most Powerful Man in the World.”
This “amazing story of the dictator, nobody knows” – to use the author’s own – phrase – breathes sensationalism from the title to the last page. Sir Henri is “the sole surviving specimen ·of the one-man trust… whose personal whims and prejudices have had a great deal to do with the fate of Governments, of huge commercial enterprises, and of millions of dollars of investments.”
EXTRACTS
The author believes that the enormous financial and political power wielded by a really big-shot capitalist like Deterding is a very dangerous influence in world affairs – and particularly when such power is used, as Deterding, according to the author, used it in the post-war years to organize the forces of fascism in Europe, to wage an unremitting propaganda campaign against Soviet Russia and to subsidize the nazi movement in Germany. Besides subsidizing the nazis in the hope that Hitler will launch a crusade against Soviet Russia, Deterding, says the author, also admired Mussolini, sides with Franco, has his doubts about democracy, believes that youth should be “disciplined” and all “idlers” shot.
EXTRACT
THE MOST POWERFUL MAN IN THE WORLD. By Glyn Roberts.
Two years ago Sir Henri Deterding, the Anglo-Dutch oil king and head of the Royal Dutch-Shell Group, retired ad director general of the Royal Dutch unit, at the age of 70, though he remained on the board of directors. In his semiretirement, Sir Henri will feel flattered that his dear enemies, the leftists, still regard him as “the most powerful man in the world,” and they charge him with financing Hitler, admiring Mussolini and generally propping up “decadent capitalism: all over the world.
Sir Henri, who was knighted by King George V in 1920, has for many years had his chief residence in London’s swank Mayfair, but last week he was sitting in his new house near the German capital and showed signs of developing into a good Berliner.
His big Germanic gesture as 1937 opened was to place 10,000,000 Dutch guilders ($5.475,000) at the disposal of Dutch farmers so that they might export their superfluous green stuffs, fruit and cattle to Germany without loss to themselves and with cost to food-starved Nazis much reduced. This “non-political and exclusively humanitarian” gift received the special commendation of The Netherlands Government.
THE NEW YORK TIMES: DETERDING AIDS REICH AS WAY TO BAR REDS: 31 December 1937
Explains Purpose of Plan to Buy Netherland Food Products for Shipment to Germany.
Wireless to THE NEW YORK TIMES
AMSTERDAM. The Netherlands.
Dec. 30.–In a statement appearing in the leading newspapers here, Sir Henri Deterding, chairman of the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company explains his plan to purchase about 10,000,000 guilders’ worth of Netherland cattle and agricultural products for the German food supply.
LONDON, Dec. 30.
Sir Henri Deterding, director-general of the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company, and a director of the Shell Transport and Trading Co., Ltd., who has given £1,000,000 for the purchase of Dutch produce for export to Germany, apparently intends the gift as part of the campaign against economic restrictions and Communism. “The main object of the Communists is to prevent co-operation between the nations,” he says. “They therefore started to create trouble in Spain six years ago, and the result is now visible.
DUTCH SHELL HEAD TO BUY DUTCH FARM PRODUCTS FOR GERMANY
The rise of a new agrarian party in the Netherlands, dominated by Sir Henri Deterding, may result from the oil magnate’s large-scale purchases of Dutch farm products for Germany, officials here said today.
Another result may be preferential treatment for Sir Henri’s oil interests in a grateful Germany, these authorities indicated.
Sir Henri, chairman of the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company, a Hollander recently married to a German woman, yesterday announced he was making available 10,000,000 guilders (about $5,400,000) to buy products of Dutch farms – which have had a hard time finding markets- for shipment to Germany, where shortage of foodstuffs is a serious problem.
Extract
SIR H. DETERDING PROVIDES MONEY
The report is published in the official Nazi newspaper “Angriff,” under the headline “Deterding Plans Gigantic Gift of Foodstuff for the “Winter Help.”
Daily Express: Sir Henri Deterding, Oil King, To Resign: Front Page: 26 October 1936
Sir Henri, himself a mystery man, has chosen another mystery man to succeed him…
Napoleonic Audacity
He became Director-General of the Royal Dutch company…
Sir Henri, who retains his seat on the board, is 70, Dutch born and a naturalised Englishman.
EXTRACT
Enjoys Nazi Monopoly
Thus, when his American oil rivals invaded Europe, and brought much of their supplies from Soviet Russia, Sir Henri opened up a broadside denouncing the U.S. interests for buying “immoral” products. Critics point out that the huge importations of Soviet oil and byproducts by Germany before Hitler’s rise to power have been curtailed and that Sir Henri now enjoys a monopoly in the Nazi state.
It explains why Royal Dutch Shell shares are comparatively stable after several startling slumps in the past, London financial figures declare. Though it has been revealed that many of the sober Dutch investors who own almost half of Royal Dutch Shell shares would be far happier if Sir Henri meddled less in international affairs and more with looking after the oil domain that radiates from the modest headquarters situated at The Hague, Holland’s capital.
THE DAILY GLEANER. The Second World War by Johannes Steel: Thursday 8 November 1934
Extracts from the above article…
Nazi foreign policy as a whole is based upon the plans of Alfred Rosenberg now the head of the Foreign Office of the National Socialist Party.
As far back as 1926, Rosenberg through his secretary, Dr George Bell, a Scotchman naturalised in Germany, established contact with Sir Henri Deterding, the British oil magnate. He informed Sir Henri of the foreign political programme which the National Socialists intended to pursue when they achieved power.
Extracts
The book “Hitler as Frankenstein,” recently published by Wisbart & Co., and written by Johannes Steel, a former member of the nazi movement, although apparently not in the uniformed branch, contains some extraordinary facts about nazi financing – if facts they are. If they are not, they ought to be proven untrue by those against whom the charges are made.
Great Britain is listed in the book as one of the most productive fields for the hitlerites’ money-collecting activities. The main contributor appears to have been Sir Henri Deterding, the untiring advocate and organizer of foreign action against Soviet Russia. The nazi emissary Alfred Rosenberg persuaded him that the nazis would help him to important concessions in Ukraine.
The Border Cities Star: Soviet Paper In Bid for U.S. Trade: 3 April 1933 Page 16
The Border Cities Star: Soviet Paper In Bid for U.S. Trade: 3 April 1933 Page 16
Daily Mirror: OIL KING BLAMES SOVIET FOR SHARE SLUMP: 22 April 1932 Page 3
The above is just the lead in to a major article, accessible via the link provided.
Extracts:
Sir Henri Deterding, head of the Royal Dutch group, told the Daily Mirror last night that the slump was a cunning organised attempt by Soviet Russia to smash the company and capture the world oil markets.
The Royal Dutch Shell group, the shares of which have suffered so severely, in addition to general troubles of the industry, have had other difficulties to face.
Daily Express: NEW ATTACK ON SIR H. DETERDING: 16 April 1932
Extracts:
I had shown Sir Henri Deterding head of the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company, a translation of a vigorous attack on him published in Paris today in “Forces,” the financial newspaper…
Now “Forces,” reprinting the exclusive interview published last Monday in the “Daily Express,” accuses Sir Henri of being an enemy of France, of withholding vital statements of his companies investments and of secret dealings…
Daily Express: MYSTERY DOCUMENT IN GERMAN FORGERY TRIAL: Page 3: 13 January 1930
EXTRACT
The second denial comes from Sir Henri Deterding, who is at present at St. Moritz. The oil magnate interviewed by telephone, declared that he had never heard of the conspiracy against Russia until he read reports of the trial in the German newspapers and found to his amazement that his name had been dragged into it. “The first I knew of this case was when I saw reports in certain of the German newspapers ,” Sir Henri said. “I was naturally astounded. I read the names of the accused and searched my mind in and out if I had ever met them. I can’t recall a single one. I am not connected with this case on any shape or form.”
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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: 
MORE DETAILS:
MORE DETAILS: After a solicitor acting for Shell threatened to make the litigation "drawn out and difficult" with the intention of draining the resources of a financially weaker opponent, my late father (Alfred Donovan) and I decided to mount a wide-ranging campaign as a counter-measure. We jointly founded the Shell Corporate Conscience Pressure Group, which nearly 15% of Shell UK retailers joined. We regularly conducted ethical surveys involving up to 1500 Shell petrol stations. All responses were opened and authenticated by an independent solicitor who supplied Affidavits confirming the results. In whole page announcements in trade magazines (examples above) we challenged Shell to commission and publish the resuits of independent research asking the same questions and offering respondents GUARANTEED anonymity. Shell never took up the invitation. Instead it asked the UK Advertising Standards Authority to investigate our Shell surveys. No problems were found. The head-cut image of Alfred Donovan appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal. 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
