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This is not a Shell website. You Can Be Sure Shell does not endorse or approve of this site, or its content. Royal Dutch Shell Plc threatened to take legal action in the event of publication. All bluster and bluff thus far. There are no subscription charges nor do we solicit or accept donations. It is a non-commercial entirely free to use website drawing attention to Shell’s toxic Nazi history. The Shell logo image with the white text used on this website, as per the above example, is in the public domain because its copyright has expired and its author is anonymous. It can be found on WIKIMEDIA COMMONS. Link to Shell’s own website: shell.com
NAZI HISTORY OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL
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 honoured 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 honoured personal guest would be rewarded with a private four-day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
MORE INFORMATION
Shell appeased and collaborated with the Nazis. The oil giant instructed its employees in the Netherlands to complete a form giving particulars about their descent, which for some, amounted to a self-declared death warrant. Shell used slave labour and was a close business partner in Germany of I.G. Farben, the notorious Nazi run chemical giant that also used slave labour and supplied the Zyklon-B gas used during the Holocaust to exterminate millions of people, including children. Shell continued the partnership with the Nazis in the years after the retirement of Sir Henri and even after his death. It was money generated on Shell forecourts around the world, profiteering from cartel oil prices, that funded the Nazi party and saved it from financial collapse. Evidence about Shell’s Nazi connections can be found in extracts from “A History of Royal Dutch Shell” Volumes 1 and 2 authored by historians paid by Shell, who had unrestricted access to Shell archives. There are 67 pages in total, so takes some time to download.
Photograph (full size here) shows a Swastika flag flying at the head office of Royal Dutch Petroleum, 30 Carel van Bylandtlaan, The Hague, during the Nazi occupation of the in World War II (From Image Database Hague Municipal)
Sir Henri Deterding (photograph above and oil painting below), the founder of the Royal Dutch Shell Group – known as “The Most Powerful Man in the World” – who became an ardent Nazi and financial supporter of Hitler and the Nazi party on behalf of his beloved company, Shell.
The caption says: “Oil painting of Sir Henri Deterding, controversial leader of Royal Dutch Shell”.OVER 500 EXTERNAL PUBLICATIONS CITING OUR SHELL WEBSITES
See our link list of over 500 articles by the FT, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Bloomberg, Forbes, Dow Jones Newswires, New York Times, CNBC etc, plus UK House of Commons Select Committee Hansard records, information on U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission website etc. all containing references to our Shell focussed websites, or our website founders Alfred and John Donovan. Includes TV documentary features in English and German, newspaper and magazine articles, radio interviews, newsletters etc. Plus academic papers, Stratfor intelligence reports and UK, U.S. and Australian state/parliamentary publications, also citing our Shell websites. Click on this link to see the entire list, all in date order with a link to an index of over 100 books also containing references to our websites and/or our activities.
John Donovan, the website owner
A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
Category Archives: Human Rights
Royal Dutch Shell should apologise for antisemitic conduct and Nazi support
Royal Dutch Shell should apologise for antisemitic conduct and Nazi support
By John Donovan
I strongly believe that Royal Dutch Shell should be held accountable for its outrageous antisemitic actions against its own employees, which cost some of them their lives. The same applies to Shell’s huge financial support for Nazi Germany that contributed to the deaths of some 50 million victims in WW2 including those poor souls who perished in the Holocaust. Shell’s leader, Sir Henri Deterding, was an ardent Nazi feted by Adolf Hitler. Shell has never apologised or expressed any remorse.
CHAPTER 7: “You Can Be Sure of Shell….”
“You Can Be Sure of Shell” was one of the best-known advertising slogans of all time. First used in Great Britain during 1937 in print advertising it subsequently became a jingle sung on television by the legendary American “crooner,” Bing Crosby.
Those of pensionable age may fondly remember the advertising jingle – “You can be Sure of Shell,” – featured in TV commercials aired in the 1950′s. The song was ideally suited to the legendary crooner, Bing Crosby, who sung the praises of Shell.
CHAPTER 8: Royal Dutch Shell Anti-Semitism
In the pre-war years, Royal Dutch Shell adopted anti-Semitic policies within its Germany subsidiary, and subsequently in the Netherlands following occupation by the Nazis. The Swastika flag flew on the classic Dutch facade of Royal Dutch’s head office at 30 Carel van Bylandtlaan in The Hague. Displayed immediately below is a screenshot of the adjacent current HQ of Royal Dutch Shell Plc.
As his infatuation with the Nazis grew, Sir Henri Deterding began making anti-Semitic remarks in his correspondence. See page 481 RDSH V1.
CHAPTER 10: Shell support for the Nazis continued after the retirement of Sir Henri as leader
The above photograph is of Sir Henri Deterding around the time of his retirement as absolute leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group, standing alongside his third wife, a thirty-eight-year-old German-born ardent Nazi, Charlotte Knaack. Her admiration for the Nazis probably strengthened his views, and no doubt played a part in the decision to move their home to Germany.
In October 1936, the first news reports of the pending resignation of Sir Henri Deterding as the leader of Royal Dutch Shell Group were published.
CHAPTER 12: Shell’s notorious business partner: IG Farben
Several IG Farben directors were found guilty of war crimes arising from their actions during WW2. The firm manufactured large quantities of Zyklon-B gas used by the Nazis to kill millions of Jews at extermination camps during the Holocaust. Royal Dutch Shell was a business partner of I.G. Farben both in Germany and globally.
Prior to WW2, Royal Dutch Shell had been a business partner both internationally and in Germany, with I.G. Farben (Interessen-Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG.
IG Farben was formed in 1925 from a number of chemical companies and became the largest chemical company in the world. Involved in war crimes during WW2, the company was seized by the Allies in 1945 and liquidated in 1952.
CHAPTER 18: Time for a rare public apology from Shell?
Members of Nigeria’s Ogoni community protest against Shell in New York. Photograph: Bebeto Matthews/AP
Shell does not appear to be big on making apologies. Google “Shell apology” and the search results relate to hoax Shell apologies for human rights abuses in the Niger Delta of Nigeria. Shell has recently apologized for causing Dutch earthquakes, but not for the evil conduct of its past directors in relation to the financing and appeasement of the Nazis, which cost some Shell employees their lives.
Chapter 22: Author’s unique connection with Shell
John Donovan, the author of “Sir Henri Deterding and the Nazi History of Royal Dutch Shell
As the Chairman of an International sales promotion agency and more recently as an individual, I have a relationship with Royal Dutch Shell stretching back over 35 years. It has been the subject of media coverage in newspapers, magazines and TV news and documentary features. It took a wrong turn when Shell misappropriated ideas I had disclosed to the company in strictest confidence.
In the Ed Vulliamy article about my campaign to rename a $3 billion new ship hired by Shell, reference was made to a Shell related website I co-founded with my late father a decade ago:
Selection of related webpage header images from our sister websites, also operated by John Donovan
Selection of related webpage header images from our sister websites, also operated by John Donovan
Header images on royaldutchshellgroup.com
Evidence confirms that Shell fuelled the Nazi war machine
Another hammer blow for Shell. Evidence confirms that Shell fuelled the Nazi war machine
By John Donovan: 31 May 2021 (updated JULY 2021)
A new book by James Marriott and Terry Macalister reveals the extent to which the oil company Royal Dutch Shell played a key role in Hitler’s war effort.James Marriott is a writer and activist with three decades of knowledge of the oil sector. Terry Macalister is a freelance journalist and former energy editor of the Guardian.
As the author of the Kindle book published in 2016 – Sir Henri Deterding and the Nazi History of Royal Dutch Shell – I welcome the fact that other parties have reached the same basic conclusions as I did after studying much of the same evidence.
Based on that evidence I lunched a petition several years ago demanding that Royal Dutch Shell should apologise for antisemitic conduct and Nazi support
Shell will find it more difficult to dismiss the independent findings in the new book, including from an award-winning journalist.
The following extracts are from a related article by opendemocracy.net headlined: Calls for Shell to apologise for ‘fuelling Nazi war machine’ EXTRACTS FROM THE RELATED ARTICLE BY Adam RamsayAccording to ‘Crude Britannia’, by James Marriott and Terry Macalister, at the outbreak of World War Two the Anglo-Dutch company “effectively divided into an Allied corporation and an Axis corporation”. The Nazi-supporting branch of Shell, called Rhenania-Ossag, “swung in behind the [German] government as the Nazi state began to invade other countries”.
Or as Shell’s official history states ‘Following Hilter’s annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia, (Shell) Group managing directors sanctioned Rhenania-Ossag taking over Shell companies in those countries.’ The same process took place in Hungary, Yugoslavia and Greece after Germany took control of those states.
Shell’s German subsidiary, Rhenania-Ossag, fired all the Jewish members on its board in May and June 1933. The appointments to replace them included a member of the Nazi party. The official history states, “the far reaching changes to the Rhenania-Ossag board could not have taken place without the full consent of [Shell Central Offices… No questions of principle or moral judgements about the Hitler regime appear to have arisen.” Shell’s historians were not able to establish what happened next to these Jewish staff members.
Seven years later, after Germany invaded Holland, the Swastika flew outside Shell’s HQ in The Hague.
EXTRACTS END
I was originally tipped off about Shell’s concern over its past toxic history by Shell internal communications never meant for my eyes.
Shell had advance sight of my book and my website ShellNaziHistory.com. Despite aggressive threats, bluster and a global spying operation, Shell took no legal action. No multinational giant would want to draw attention to its past association with Hitler and the Nazis.
NEW BOOK: Crude Britannia: How Oil Shaped a Nation
Product details
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ASIN: B095CND46T
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Publisher: Pluto Press; 1st edition (20 May 2021)
Some of the information about Shell’s collaboration with the Nazis covered on pages 19, 20, 21, 22 of the main book, and pages 352, 353 and 354 from the Notes section of the book:
Wiesenthal Centre to Royal Dutch Shell CEO: ‘Disassociate Your Company from Glorification of a Nazi War Criminal’
By John Donovan
I recently became aware of a letter (see below) which a director of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre sent to Royal Dutch Shell CEO Ben van Beurden on 5 February 2015. The communication stemmed from my campaigning activities that ended with Allseas renaming the worlds largest ship. It had been named in honour of a Waffen SS officer, Pieter Schelte Heerema (right). I will shortly be supplying the Simon Wiesenthal Centre with a trove of evidence about Shell’s Nazi history including its close partnership in Nazi Germany with IG Farben, the chemical giant which manufactured the gas used to exterminate several million Jewish people in the Holocaust. Dutch Directors of the Royal Dutch Shell Group including Sir Henri Deterding helped finance Hitler and the Nazi Party.