Background Of The Dark Times Digest

by Karl Loren

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The Bank for International Settlements, like most other suppressive groups, has learned that "massive, but false and misleading" publicity about the organization sooths the public worries. They have chosen to spend some of their riches on public relations giving out information which a dumbed-down citizen can swallow and then feel comforted.

So it is with the large web-presence for the BIS, presenting the simple and apparently innocuous purposes and activities of this tiny group that sounds like some old-fashioned gentlemen's debating club.

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Here is there official organizational statement: Source

About BIS

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) is an international organisation which fosters international monetary and financial cooperation and serves as a bank for central banks.

The BIS fulfils this mandate by acting as:

 

• a forum to promote discussion and policy analysis among central banks and within the international financial community
• a centre for economic and monetary research
• a prime counterparty for central banks in their financial transactions
• agent or trustee in connection with international financial operations

The head office is in Basel, Switzerland and there are two representative offices: in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China and in Mexico City.

Established on 17 May 1930, the BIS is the world's oldest international financial organisation.

As its customers are central banks and international organisations, the BIS does not accept deposits from, or provide financial services to, private individuals or corporate entities. The BIS strongly advises caution against fraudulent schemes.

It's Mission Statement is standard boilerplate warm milk and cookies. Source:

BIS Mission Statement

Excellence in service to central banks and financial authorities

The BIS

• Aims at promoting monetary and financial stability
• Acts as a forum for discussion and cooperation among central banks and the financial community
• Acts as a bank to central banks and international organisations

BIS staff emphasis

• excellence in performance
• highest ethical standards
• professional discretion

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Since this "bank" was more a "usual" bank during World War II, it helped Germans get money out of Germany for those rich businessmen and Nazi politicians who had helped Hitler form his dictatorship and Fascist Government. That was enough of a historical background with loads of paper trails that could not be erased -- enough so that anyone who really wanted to dig could find the dirt. "Diggers Find Dirt" is the motto -- it bespeaks crooked research where the sleuth already has his conclusion and only looks for corroborating evidence. But it is easy to find if you do that kind of looking.

Source:

Carrol Quigley --- the bankers' plan

This system was to be controlled in a feudalistic fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences.

The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks, which were themselves private corporations.

Each central bank sought to dominate its government by its ability to control treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence co-operative politicians by subsequent rewards in the business world."

Carrol Quigley, Tragedy and Hope, 1966 - [Bill Clinton's mentor and Georgetown University professor]

This is the type of "dirt" which is so easily dismissed, but in this day of digital electronic research and revelation "dirt" keeps popping up on stray web sites. Drugged and Dumbed-Down citizenry "don't want to know" this type of information while the few "weird loners" find it to be their mission to sound the clarion call: "Mankind Awake!"

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On the Nazi connection, Source:

Chapter 1 - A Bank for All Reasons

From: 'Trading With The Enemy, How the Allied multinationals supplied Nazi Germany throughout World War Two' - By Charles Higham - pub. Robert Hale, London - 1983 - ISBN 0 7090 10230

[there are some minor typographical errors in this transcription]

On a bright May morning in 1944, while young Americans were dying on the Italian beachheads, Thomas Harrington McKittrick, American president of the Nazi-controlled Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland, arrived at his office to preside over a fourth annual meeting in time of war. This polished American gentleman sat down with his German, Japanese, Italian, British, and American executive staff to discuss such important matters as the $378 million in gold that had been sent to the Bank by the Nazi government after Pearl Harbor for use by its leaders after the war. Gold that had been looted from the national banks of Austria, Holland, Belgium, and Czechoslovakia, or melted down from the Reichsbank holding of the teeth fillings, spectacle frames, cigarette cases and lighters, and wedding rings of the murdered Jews. (blue text continued below, after these insertions)

Karl Note: This data is so sensational, so unbelievable, that I had to search more. Since I write this within a few days of attending my 50th reunion of the MBA graduating class of 1959 at the Harvard Business School, I looked to see if the man who was the President of this Bank during World War II might be a graduate of Harvard. He was in 1911, and was part of the President Woodrow Wilson Fascist approach to international banking.

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He was; from this official Harvard Source:

American-born banker Thomas Harrington McKittrick (1889-1970) spent the greater part of his professional life in Europe. He is noted for serving as president of the Switzerland-based Bank for International Settlements throughout World War II.

Note that McKittrick was, like I, Karl Loren, a graduate of Harvard in, but in 1911 . Harvard has its reliable information about its own graduates as:

Harrington was born in St. Louis, the son of Thomas Harrington and Hildegarde Sterling McKittrick. Graduating from Harvard in 1911, he began his banking career in St. Louis. He joined the National City Bank of New York in 1916, assigned to assist in opening a branch of the bank in Genoa. After service with the American Expeditionary Force in Europe (1918-1919) McKittrick spent two years in the New York office of Lee, Higginson & Company. In 1922 he transferred to Lee, Higginson’s London affiliate, Higginson & Company, becoming a partner in 1924. Higginson & Company shut down most of its operations in 1939, ending McKittrick’s association with the firm. Later that year he was elected president of the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, remaining in that position until 1946.

The Bank for International Settlements, founded in 1930, is a central banking institution, owned and controlled by the central banks of a number of industrialized nations. It’s primary purposes are, according to Article 3 of its original Statutes, “to promote the co-operation of central banks and to provide additional facilities for international financial operations…”

On leaving the B.I.S. in 1946, McKittrick joined The Chase National Bank in New York, where he remained until his “retirement” in 1954. Later he traveled to India for the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development as well as becoming president and chairman of the Continental American Fund Incorporated until reaching the mandatory retirement age of 70 in 1959.

McKittrick married Marjorie Benson in 1921. They had four children: Marjorie Sterling, Elisabeth Benson, Mary and Frances Anne.

 

McKittrick, graduate of Harvard, and President of the BIS during all of WW II, was the subject of a cable from a Time Magazine War Correspondent on May 28, 1943 and a story then appeared in a later edition of Time Magazine. His widow donated thousands of private documents he had at his death -- donated them to Harvard and they are there now. One of those documents includes this reference to the Time Magazine cable:

Source: 1943 May 28.

Machine-tool cut-back (Griffin).

The OWM and the OPA (Griffin).

Congress vs. the Executive (McNaughton).

Argentine elections (Foss).

McKittrick and B.I.S (Foss).

War mobilization (Brecht).

The President's week (Tames).

 

Here is an excerpt from a Time Magazine article, probably the one referenced above:

Mr. McKittrick of Basel

Monday, Jun. 07, 1943

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A Believe-It-or-Notable character is Thomas Harrington McKittrick, 54, of Milton, Mass. and Basel, Switzerland. Though he is a U.S. citizen, and his country is at war, he is a neutral in office hours. For he is the President of the Bank for International Settlements.

Next week he will probably arise in the empty (?) board room of the bank's five-story building in the old Swiss city of Basel and, as he has three times before, go through the motions of presenting and accepting the annual report. He will have been authorized to do so by proxies of the bank's 17 directors, 13 of whom are controlled by the Axis powers, and one of whom is Walther Funk himself (Reich Minister of Economics).

Spies and 6%. In a world at war, in a world busily inventing new types of international currency and banking instrumentalities, the Bank for International Settlements has passed almost completely from public notice. (It was created primarily for the purpose of handling German reparations under the now-moribund Young Plan.) Periodically the B.I.S. is accused, in the House of Commons, the U.S. Congress and else where of being: 1 ) a clearing house of international espionage; 2) a shelter of international finance; 3) an instrument of possible appeasement.

Karl Note: These truths were KNOWN, and openly talked about, but the media and US "officials" always deflected these charges as baseless.

On such occasions high U.S. or British officials come to the bank's defense and explain that its business, under McKittrick, is so conducted that none of its operations could possibly confer an advantage on any belligerent nation at the expense of another. These operations consist chiefly of: 1) collecting interest; 2) semi-automatic renewal of maturing investments (no new ones are made); 3) extending limited credits to central banks; 4) handling payments under the international postal agreement and prewar treaties; 5) acting as banker for the International Red Cross organizations operating from Switzerland. Last year the bank had to dip into its reserves to pay its usual 6% dividend of 7,500,000 Swiss gold francs ($2,323,000).

Nazi Restraint. The self-effacing but worldly-wise McKittrick was in the U.S. this year—he came out through southern France before the Nazis occupied it, and returned through Italy on a diplomatic visa (which the State Department did not obtain for him). While in the U.S. he did not comment on the fact that the Nazis refrain from using the Axis majority on the board of directors for unneutral undertakings. To all such queries he replied: "Remember, I'm neutral." Once he amplified this: "The policy of the bank can only be to remain entirely outside all matters of politics."

Now the weird web sources of dirt about the BIS begin to take on some substance, with Time Magazine and Harvard vouching for McKittrick's role in the War. The fact that McKittrick said he was a "neutral" and then joined Chase Bank? Just curious oddities.

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Continuing the blue text from above:

The Bank for International Settlements was a joint creation in 1930 of the world's central banks, including the Federal Reserve Bank (the Feceral Reserve Bank was started by Democratic President Woodrow Wilson during his term) of New York. Its existence was inspired by Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht, Nazi Minister of Economics and president of the Reichsbank, part of whose early upbringing was in Brooklyn, and who had powerful Wall Street connections. He was seconded by the all important banker Emil Puhl, who continued under the regime of Schacht's successor, Dr. Walther Funk.

Sensing Adolf Hitler's lust for war and conquest, Schacht, even before Hitler rose to power in the Reichstag, pushed for an institution that would retain channels of communication and collusion between the world's financial leaders even in the event of an international conflict. It was written into the Bank's charter, concurred in by the respective governments, that the BIS should be immune from seizure, closure or censure, whether or not its owners were at war. These owners included the Morgan-affiliated First National Bank of New York (among whose directors were Harold S. Vanderbilt and Wendell Willkie), the Bank of England, the Reichsbank, the Bank of Italy, the Bank of France, and other central banks. Established under the Morgan banker Owen D. Young's so-called Young Plan, the BIS's ostensible purpose was to provide the Allies with reparations to be paid by Germany for World War I. The Bank soon turned out to be the instrument of an opposite function. It was to be a money funnel for American and British funds to flow into Hitler's coffers and to help Hitler build up his machine.

Karl Note: Is the role of the BIS any different today? What Arabs you know have trillions of dollars "earned" by selling oil to America, and need to move it around on the planet without going directly through Western Banks?

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The BIS was completely under Hitler's control by the outbreak of World War II. Among the directors under Thomas H. McKittrick were Hermann Shmitz, head of the colossal Nazi industrial trust I.G. Farben, Baron Kurt von Schroder, head of the J.H. Stein Bank of Cologne and a leading officer and financier of the Gestapo; Dr. Walther Funk of the Reichsbank, and, of course, Emil Puhl. These last two figures were Hitler's personal appointees to the board.

The BIS's first president was the smooth old Rockefeller banker, Gates W. McGarrah, formerly of the Chase National Bank and the Federal Reserve Bank, who retired in 1933. His successor was the forty-three-year-old Leon Fraser, a colorful former newspaper reporter on the muckraking New York World, a street-corner soapbox orator, straw-hat company director, and performer in drag in stage comedies. Fraser had little or no background in finance or economics, but he had numerous contacts in high business circles and a passionate dedication to the world of money that acknowledged no loyalties or frontiers. In the first two years of Hitler's assumption of power, Fraser was influential in financing the Nazis through the BIS. When he took over the position of president of the First National Bank at its Manhattan headquarters in 1935, he continued to exercise a subtle influence over the BIS's activities that continued until the 1940s.

Other directors of the Bank added to the powerful financial group. Vincenzo Azzolini was the accomplished governor of the Bank of Italy. Yves Breart de Boisanger was the ruthlessly ambitious governor of the Bank of France; Alexandre Galopin of the Belgian banking fraternity was to be murdered in 1944 by the Underground as a Nazi collaborator.

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Source: The German Central Bank had a typical role to play when Hitler needed money for his war:

The Reichsbank

 

 

The Reichsbank 1924

With the creation of the German state in 1871 the currency affairs needed to be controlled centrally. For this purpose the central bank "Deutsche Reichsbank" was founded on 1. January 1876 as a successor of the Prussian state bank.

Before unification in 1871, Germany had 31 central banks – the Notenbanken (note banks). Each of the independent states issued their own money. In 1870, a law was passed that forbade the formation of further central banks. In 1874, a draft banking law was introduced in the Reichstag (the German parliament). After several changes and compromises, the law was passed in 1875.

Despite the creation of the Reichsbank, however, four of the Notenbanken – Baden, Bavaria, Saxony and Württemberg – continued to exist until 1914.

The Reichsbank was based in Berlin and was headed by the Reichsbankdirektorium (Board of directors of the Reichsbank). Its president was proposed by the German emperor or President of the Reich and ratified by the German Federal council (Bundesrat).

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The Reichsbank was headed by the following presidents:

• 1876 – 1890 Hermann von Dechend

• 1890 – 1908 Richard Koch

• 1908 – 1923 Rudolf E.A. Havenstein

• 1923 – 1930 Hjalmar Schacht

• 1930 – 1933 Hans Luther

• 1933 – 1939 Hjalmar Schacht

• 1939 – 1945 Walther Emanuel Funk

The German currency - the Mark - was pegged to Gold and became a very stable currency. It was also used in the newly acquired German colonies. Those issued there own variations of the Mark. A new chapter started for Germany and its money with the beginning of World War 1.

When the war broke out on July 31, 1914, the Reichsbank (German Central Bank) suspended redeemability of its notes in gold. After that there was no legal limit as to how many notes it could print. The government did not want to upset people with heavy taxes. Instead it borrowed huge amounts of money which were to be paid by the enemy after Germany had won the war, Much of the borrowing was discounted and monetized by the Reichsbank, this amounted to issuing straight printing press money.

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Source: Hyperinflation refers to out of control or extremely rapid inflation, where prices increase so quickly that the concept of real inflation becomes meaningless. The classical definition of hyperinflation is inflation greater than 50% per month.

Recently, Argentina, Brazil and Peru (1989-90) all experienced hyperinflation. Perhaps the most well known example of hyperinflation occurred in Germany from 1922-1923 where the average price for all goods and services increased 20 Billion times. Prices doubled every 28 hours for 20 months! Some Germans were seen carrying cash in wheelbarrows to buy a loaf of bread.

_______________________________

That Book is mostly finished, now numbering some 600+ pages.

Then Karl was invited to attend the 50th reunion of his graduating MBA Class of 1959, at the Harvard Business School, attending his first meeting there on May 28th, in the home of the retired Dean of the Harvard Business School, John McArthur. John happened to be in the same small Section (Section C) with Karl for the two years they were both going through the MBA course. While they did not become close friends, Karl knew all the 120 people in his Section C, for the two years that they all attended the Harvard Business School together.

Many from that 1959 Class are no longer living, but those who are include many very famous business and political leaders.

Karl's Book is now ready for excerpts to be released.

ONE excerpt is 113 pages, consisting of "Part One" of the Five Parts of the main book. There are other pages, not included in these Main Parts, so they all add up to well over 600 pages.

Karl has published this Book in the PDF format. You can open this PDF document with Acrobat Reader #7 or higher.

Acrobat Reader #7, #8 or #9 are now available and all are free downloads from Adobe, click here.

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The mechanics of this Newsletter are:

Karl offers some parts of this Book at no charge

The Book, in PDF format, can be copied in whole, but the Book cannot be altered, edited, nor parts of it copied. You can copy the entire book and send it to anyone you wish. This version of the PDF Book cannot be printed either.

The regular Newsletter, The Dark Times Digest, will feature excerpts from the Book as well as references to the current news. You may subscribe at no cost to the Dark Times Digest and stay up to date on various parts of the Book as they are published.

In some cases the Dark Times Digest will have links to the pages on this web site. These pages can be viewed just as any web site can be viewed.

In other cases the Dark Times Digest will have links to PDF documents. If you already have Acrobat Reader #7 or higher, these PDF documents will open in your browser window immediately, ready to read -- depending on the speed of your connection.

If your connection speed is low, the "up loading" of the document to your browser could take some time.

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The First Part of the Book is available with this Newsletter of the Dark Times Digest #10, by clicking here.

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