Karl Blessing person
also: Blessing
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Related entities (most co-mentioned)
World War IIevent · 6Continental Oilorganization · 5IG Farbenorganization · 4Heinrich Schachtperson · 4Allen Dullesperson · 4Unileverorganization · 4Reichsbankorganization · 3Bank for International Settlementsorganization · 3United Statescountry · 3Alfred Schlatterperson · 2The New York Timesorganization · 2West Berlinplace · 2Hermann Absperson · 2Carl Lindmanperson · 2Heinrich Himmlerperson · 2Carl Krauchperson · 2Gestapointelligence service · 1Friedrich Flickperson · 1Walther Funkperson · 1Fortune magazineorganization · 1Gebhard Westrichperson · 1U.S. State Departmentorganization · 1Heinrich Böhmckerperson · 1Rudolf Bingelperson · 1
Claims (8)
Karl Blessing member_of
IG Farben documented
“slave labor for construction of IG Farben's oil facilities. Yet Blessing managed to escape any of that, even though he was on the IG Farben board, mainly thanks to Alan Dulles' intervention in the McKittrick's document saying that he was an…”
▶ The Colonels Corner The Splendid Blond Beast Part 12b @ 30:22
Karl Blessing member_of
Unilever documented
“as he continued to climb the corporate structure in what was going to be the new Germany. Dulles' de facto clearance became instrumental in Blessing's return to a variety of German businesses on their advisory boards, in corporate directors…”
▶ The Colonels Corner The Splendid Blond Beast Part 12b @ 28:19
Karl Blessing member_of
Continental Oil documented
“was to Germans' weapons production, a government-licensed monopoly used by the Nazis to seize control of hundreds of companies by German troops, especially along the Eastern Front. Under Blessing's leadership, this Continental became the Ge…”
▶ The Colonels Corner The Splendid Blond Beast Part 12b @ 23:27
Karl Blessing member_of
Nazi Party documented
“Carl Blessing's complicity in genocide was not as direct as that of SS generals who led the extermination squads, but he was basically, he was knowledgeable about all of it and did nothing to stop it. Those traits enabled him to prosper as …”
▶ The Colonels Corner The Splendid Blond Beast Part 12b @ 38:18
Heinrich Schacht appointed
Karl Blessing documented
“and monitored all of these meetings. Blessing participated in 30 out of 38 gatherings. You know, so he wasn't an outsider. Blessing also joined various Nazi-sponsored businessmen and other organizations as early as 1934, and then he joined …”
▶ The Colonels Corner The Splendid Blond Beast Part 12b @ 21:57
Karl Blessing member_of
Himmler Circle of Friends documented
“and the elite in turn sought influence with those same people. Senior business leaders active in this organization, including Simmons, General Director Rudolph Bingle, Unilever, and Continental OI Director Carl Blessing, Steel Industrialist…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner The Splendid Blond Beast Part 10_11 @ 15:38
Allen Dulles funded
Karl Blessing host_asserted
“A closer look at Carl Blessing's career illustrates not only the ambiguity of the German financial elite under Hitler, but also the role of U.S. intelligence in preserving that elite through 1945 and 1946. With Allen Dulles' help, Carl Bles…”
▶ The Colonels Corner The Splendid Blond Beast Part 12b @ 20:08
Allen Dulles recruited
Karl Blessing host_asserted
“in contact with that entire network. His counterparts at the Bank for International Settlements and the Western foreign policy and financial circles was all part of his grooming. The Allied leaders who were struggling with the day-to-day pr…”
▶ The Colonels Corner The Splendid Blond Beast Part 12b @ 38:49
Mentions (24)
▶ 15:38
and the elite in turn sought influence with those same people. Senior business leaders active in this organization, including Simmons, General Director Rudolph Bingle, Unilever, and Continental OI Director Carl Blessing, Steel Industrialist…
▶ 18:31
the industrialists, and banks. They brought together Blessing, Kraut, Kurt von Schroeder, another banker, Lindemann, and others in this small circle of friends, and as well as Herman Abs, ABS from Deutsche Bank, who we've talked about befor…
▶ 19:38
Next came Carl Blessing, also a former rights bank director, Bank of International Settlement director, and another protege of Heimler Slot. And then a series of minor bankers, some of who had, in fact, been hostile to some of the Nazi acti…
▶ 20:08
A closer look at Carl Blessing's career illustrates not only the ambiguity of the German financial elite under Hitler, but also the role of U.S. intelligence in preserving that elite through 1945 and 1946. With Allen Dulles' help, Carl Bles…
▶ 20:32
who had once resigned a seat on a board of a powerful multinational company, Unilever, rather than cooperate with SS efforts to take over the company. Following the quote-unquote act of bravery, Blessing later told the New York Times he was…
▶ 20:59
This claim was remarkable both in that Blessing should make it and that the Times actually printed it. The truth is that Blessing served throughout Hitler's years as one of the most important liaisons between German's big business and the N…
▶ 21:26
who sought to curry favor with the SS chief, Himmler. By secretly bankrolling some of his most exotic projects, Hitler was one of the, excuse me, Blessing was among the most enthusiastic attendees at Himmler's gatherings for more than a dec…
▶ 21:57
and monitored all of these meetings. Blessing participated in 30 out of 38 gatherings. You know, so he wasn't an outsider. Blessing also joined various Nazi-sponsored businessmen and other organizations as early as 1934, and then he joined …
▶ 22:27
of the bank. He engineered Carl Blessing's appointment to several private banking posts and a directorate at Margerin Union AG, the German branch of Unilever. Blessing served as the financial director in Berlin between 1939 and 1941, a post…
▶ 23:27
was to Germans' weapons production, a government-licensed monopoly used by the Nazis to seize control of hundreds of companies by German troops, especially along the Eastern Front. Under Blessing's leadership, this Continental became the Ge…
▶ 23:55
Throughout the 30s, German oil production had been coordinated through the state ministry in a private cartel, and the main German companies in the industry had remained privately owned, but were managed by people like Blessing. Continental…
▶ 26:52
Carl Blessing exercised special responsibility for the company's financial affairs and its relation with the German banks. He could hardly have been ignorant to the character of the company that he was leading. He could not be ignorant to t…
▶ 27:23
were built with concentration camp labor. Much of this was known as early as the summer of 1945. Blessing's service as a director was widely noted in German biographies, dictionaries, business magazines, and the like. Details of Conti's act…
▶ 27:51
Two of Blessing's colleagues from the Conte's board, Walter Funk of the Rights Bank and BIS, and Heinrich Boldavich of IG Farben, were even about to be put on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Nonetheless, with Allen Dulles'…
▶ 28:19
as he continued to climb the corporate structure in what was going to be the new Germany. Dulles' de facto clearance became instrumental in Blessing's return to a variety of German businesses on their advisory boards, in corporate directors…
▶ 28:52
of the German subsidiary. Blessing became one of the highest paid business executives in the world. Fortune magazine gushed after the war with an annual salary equivalent to about $75,000 back in 1940s. Blessing then stepped up and became c…
▶ 29:21
In 1970, Carl Blessing had emerged in his own stories and in the press as virtually an anti-Nazi resistant hero. The prestige media in the U.S. and Europe seemed to have convinced themselves that a man of sensibility, respect, and well-dres…
▶ 29:50
was willing to traffic in the lives of concentration camp inmates in order to maintain his corporate position and social status in Nazi Germany and then lie about it afterwards. By any reasonable standard, this decision made blessing an acc…
▶ 30:22
slave labor for construction of IG Farben's oil facilities. Yet Blessing managed to escape any of that, even though he was on the IG Farben board, mainly thanks to Alan Dulles' intervention in the McKittrick's document saying that he was an…
▶ 30:52
They're still fighting back in the State Department about what's going to be a war crime and what isn't. This infighting became particularly pronounced in prosecutions of the German industrial elites and the business leaders. Nuremberg, so …
▶ 38:18
Carl Blessing's complicity in genocide was not as direct as that of SS generals who led the extermination squads, but he was basically, he was knowledgeable about all of it and did nothing to stop it. Those traits enabled him to prosper as …
▶ 38:49
in contact with that entire network. His counterparts at the Bank for International Settlements and the Western foreign policy and financial circles was all part of his grooming. The Allied leaders who were struggling with the day-to-day pr…
▶ 39:19
of what's going to happen to Germany post-war. Just as with the Smith brothers, the basic question remained, under what circumstances does offering amnesty to Nazis, such as blessing, to avoid a greater evil, supposedly what we were avoidin…
▶ 41:27
Much of the banking industrial elite favored a more traditional imperial approach to acquiring new empires in Europe, where basically they would go in and quote-unquote privatize everything under German leadership and just give the cut to t…