Thread: What to think about A.C.Suttons theory about the Wall-Street support for the Nazis

Lately I came across the historian Antony C. Sutton and his book "Wall Street- and the rise of Hitler" which theory is that Germany have been "supported" by Wallstreet Bankers to be able to pay it's reparations...which ended up not just in an German dependence on the American market and the rise of AEG, IG Farben and other firms. These bankers (namely Morgan, Warburg and Rockefeller) and firms are said to have directly financed Hitler (more than any other source) and triggered events (like the crises) to help him, maybe because they liked the idea of a dictator that was able to grant them privileges or that would be a loyal customer or maybe in order to keep communism away from there businesses.
My questions are:
Wether or not there are historian beside Sutton who support that view
Do you think that this theory is backed up by facts
Do you think that A.C.S's assumptions about the motives of the Bankers are right
And IF the theory is solid, did (like Suttons claims) the bankers exactly new what Hitler was like, and was WW2 a part of the plan or at least something that have been tolerated as such
Thx...for answering.

Germany stopped paying reparations in 1931. Hitler came to power in 1933.

Originally Posted by Headdresser

Lately I came across the historian Antony C. Sutton and his book "Wall Street- and the rise of Hitler" which theory is that Germany have been "supported" by Wallstreet Bankers to be able to pay it's reparations...which ended up not just in an German dependence on the American market and the rise of AEG, IG Farben and other firms. These bankers (namely Morgan, Warburg and Rockefeller) and firms are said to have directly financed Hitler (more than any other source) and triggered events (like the crises) to help him, maybe because they liked the idea of a dictator that was able to grant them privileges or that would be a loyal customer or maybe in order to keep communism away from there businesses.
My questions are:
Wether or not there are historian beside Sutton who support that view
Do you think that this theory is backed up by facts
Do you think that A.C.S's assumptions about the motives of the Bankers are right
And IF the theory is solid, did (like Suttons claims) the bankers exactly new what Hitler was like, and was WW2 a part of the plan or at least something that have been tolerated as such
Thx...for answering.

I think what you'll find prior to WW2 is there were lots of links between the Nazi regime and big business, what needs to be considered here though is that when Hilter came to power he was seen by many a miracle worker, with many big business leaders under his economic spell. What it meant was they had faith in his policies and believed that at the time Germany was a good market to invest in so naturally they did business with Hilter, and who were most of these big business leaders looking to expand into new markets? At the time many were American because of the rapidly growing strength of the US economy, also you have to remember that the other biggest player at the time was Britain which still had it's Empire and wasn't exactly on the best of trading terms with Germany due to the legacy of the first world war.

Even after the start of the second world war there were still links between some high profile American companies and Nazi Germany, this in part was due to the existing business links, a failure to realise just how dangerous to the rest of the world Hitler really was, some resentment towards the British trading strangle holds within the Empire and also some real and actual belief in Nazi ideology and propaganda.

One of the most famous historical examples of the links between big business in America and the Nazi regime was that of the case of Standard Oil, Standard Oil changed the registration of their entire fleet to Panamanian to avoid British search or seizure when the WW2 broke out. The link below explains in some detail:

A People’s History of the United States