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Event

Standard Oil and the war in Europe, 1939–1941

What Standard Oil of New Jersey did with its German ties after war began in Europe and before the U.S. entered it, as the Senate heard it in 1942.

3 links, 3 backed by primary records

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Dates
1939–1941

Connections 3

involved

  • Standard Oil Company (New Jersey) its German subsidiary planned an aviation-gasoline plant at Hamburg; its 1939 Hague arrangement with I. G. Farben was called a continuation of the conspiracy by the Justice Department and “reasonable and expedient” by Farish Primary record 1
  • I. G. Farben the German partner in the 1939 Hague arrangement Primary record 1
  • Cordell Hull according to a Standard memorandum, said he could only express a hope about gasoline for Axis air lines in Brazil Primary record 1
Timeline 1 date
  1. 1939–1941 Standard Oil and the war in Europe, 1939–1941
Proof 1 source
  1. Investigation of the National Defense Program: Hearings before a Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program, United States Senate, Part 11 (Rubber), March-April 1942, U.S. Senate (scan on the Internet Archive), 1942. Primary record
    planned in 1938 or 1939 to erect at Hamburg a plant for producing aviation gasoline. This is true and as a German corporation, operating in Germany — with which country we were not then at war — it could not have done otherwise.
    it is impossible to doubt that The Hague Memorandum is anything but a device for the continuation of the conspiracy, at least through the war between Germany and Great Britain.
    It was both reasonable and expedient, and in the interests of the United States.
    That Standard made shipments to Italian and German air lines in Brazil, contrary to the wishes of the State Department. This is also unfounded.
    Mr. Hull said he could only express the hope that it would not be necessary for such shipments to originate from any other place in the Western Hemisphere.
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