You can't do business with Hitler.
We are now at war. There are but two alternatives. Total victory or total defeat. There can be no such thing as a military stalemate that would result in the survival of Hitlerism.
That is the opinion of a man who knows. Douglas Miller, for 15 years commercial attache to the American Embassy in Berlin, presenting a radio series based on Mr. Miller's book. You can't do business with Hitler.
Episode 4. Two for me, one for you.
This is Douglas Miller speaking. I want to talk to you about Nazi barter methods. You know what barter is. You give me your goods and I give something just as valuable in exchange.
A $50 radio for a $50 vacuum cleaner. Fair enough. And even exchange is no robbery. One for you and one for me. But Nazi barter is something different.
Two for the Nazis and one for their customers. Or perhaps three for the Nazis and nothing for the customers. In other words, the Nazis used barter as a weapon of world conquest, attacking the trade markets of the world with its unscrupulous weapons.
Just as they attacked their neighbors with dive bombers and 50 ton tanks. So let's get back to the beginning. When Hitler came to power, he announced Germany would trade with the world on a barter basis.
That sounded all right and American businessmen wanted to give it a try. In 1934, the American Chamber of Commerce invited me to a meeting in Berlin.
The meeting was called for the purpose of appointing a committee of American businessmen to negotiate barter deals with the Nazi Ministry of Economics.
As far as I'm concerned, there's been too much spunkum about this whole business. Let's get down to brass tacks. You men know me and what I stand for. I'm a hard-headed businessman and I'm proud of it.
Well, I've seen my business here in Germany cut to pieces since this fellow Hitler took over and I guess you're all in the same boat. Well, it all boils down to this. The Nazis can't buy American goods because they haven't any money.
What are they building their war machine with? The garter pond? That, sir, is very funny. But we need more than 20 cracks to put our business on the street.
The point I'm making is that the Germans won't pay off cash for our goods, whether they have money for their army or not. But by heavens, they have war to barter with us and if we have any brains, we'll look into it.
What's the difference between a cash deal and a barter deal anyway? It all comes right down to the same thing. You trade your goods to the Germans, they give your German goods in exchange.
You sell the German goods back home for American dollars and there you are. You make your profit barter and over.
Gentlemen, I know we appointed a special barter committee. The committee will assist members in negotiating barter deals with the German Ministry of Economics.
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman. The chair recognizes Mr. Miller. Gentlemen, Douglas Miller, our commercial artist, Jack.
Gentlemen, you are apparently enthused in Mr. Brownell's motion that we set up a barter committee. I have no intention of being a wet blanket, but I must warn you that doing business with the Nazis either on a barter or any other basis is not going to be as profitable as you might hope it to be.
Please realize that the Nazi policy is one of deliberate discrimination against American goods. And therefore, on Mr. Chairman, Mr. Brownell, Mr. Miller has the floor.
That doesn't mean he can pull us up to the neck with a lot of rubbish. Mr. Miller, you don't seem to realize we have to eat a barter with the Nazis or go out of business.
Mr. Brownell, it's quite possible you will save money in the long run if you do go out of business.
Oh, calm down, Mr. Miller. To hear you talk, one would take Hitler Boys and American businessmen in oil and eat them for dinner with salt and pepper.
Mr. Brownell, I'm only trying to point out that men who rule their country with blackjacks and submachine guns will think nothing at all of cheating American businessmen.
You imagine they'll give you a square deal? What? Well, they'll very probably have your pants.
Mr. Miller, if the Nazis will pay me courts and 10 percent, they can have my pants.
Gentlemen, gentlemen, Mr. Miller is obviously confusing politics with business.
Mr. Brownell, I'm afraid the same traits that make the Nazis so difficult to deal with politically make them choosers in business.
Ah, Tommy Rocks. Gentlemen, I made a motion that we try to fix up some barter deals with the Germans. I'd like to have your response to that motion.
Gentlemen, is there anyone any objections to taking a vote on Mr. Brownell's motion?
Very well. All those in favor of the motion signify by saying aye.
Aye.
And so the motion was passed. I had been quite willing that American businessmen attempt to barter with the Nazis.
I had only wanted to warn the Chamber of Commerce not to pin their hopes too heavily upon the success of such deals.
However, the committee was organized and Mr. Brownell was elected as chairman.
A few weeks later, the committee negotiated its first deal.
An American walnut grower named Davidson was to barter $100,000 worth of walnuts for $100,000 worth of German barbed wire.
Mr. Brownell asked me to go to the German Ministry of Economics with Mr. Davidson to help him arrange the final details.
Unfortunately, I was detained. When I arrived at the ministry, Davidson was there before me.
He and a Nazi official were engaged in a violent argument.
Herr Miller, I'm so glad you're at me. Will you explain to your countrymen that I cannot ignore national socialistic regulations just to please him?
Doug, Doug, he's trying to hijack.
Hijack? What does that mean? That is not an English word.
You're darn right it isn't. It's an American word.
Herr Davidson, will you please stop?
Gentlemen, gentlemen, please. What is all about? He's trying to back out of the deep.
We are not backing out of nothing. You are the one who is backing out.
Gentlemen, please.
Now let's talk this over quietly and calmly.
Doug, let me explain. I came here in good faith to save my $100,000 worth of walnuts for the same value in German barbed wire.
Follow me. Yes, go on.
Well, now this fellow here tells me I have to put up $200,000 bucks cash on the side.
Yes, David. How many times must I tell you that it is not on the side? It is all part of the same deed.
Not for my money, it is.
Now just a minute, gentlemen. Please.
Let me see if I understand this.
Herr Davidson, you came here expecting to trade $100,000 worth of walnuts for $100,000 worth of German barbed wire, right?
That's right. But you understand my chief purpose wasn't to buy barbed wire. My chief purpose was to sell my walnuts.
I'm only taking the barbed wire in the hope that I can sell it at a profit back home.
Yes, yes. I understand that. Now then, L.B. Mueller is quite willing to make such a trade if you will in the kitchen buy an extra $200,000 worth of barbed wire and pay for it in cash.
Yeah, naturally. It's a serious thing.
That's what you think.
Mr. Davidson, I'm just beginning to see the trouble here. You've made a mistake.
That's what I have been saying to you.
Now, wait a minute. How do you figure I made a mistake?
Well, didn't you expect to put up cash? Nazi regulations don't permit Americans to secure barter deals on an even basis.
The Nazis pay their share in good, yes. But you're permitted to pay only one third of your share in good. You must pay the balance, the other two thirds in cash.
Oh, oh. I've said about enough. You think I'm absolutely crazy? Or is it just this stuffed brown shir here taking me for a fuck?
What is this stuffing, sir?
They're not paying me cash for my wallets. Why should I pay two thirds cash for their rotten barbed wire?
I don't know anything about the barbed wire system. I don't mind trying to sell wire that I got from my wallets. Maybe I couldn't sell the wallets anyway.
But $200,000 bucks cash for a lot of barbed wire I have any use for? Utterly impossible. It's fantastic.
Well, but what did you expect, Davidson? Didn't the barter committee explain the Nazi regulations?
No, they didn't.
Well, they should have. Look, John, let's look at the whole thing.
I'm sorry I cost you so much money.
And as for you, Mr. V. Mueller, well, all I can say is that the deal's off. Good day, John.
Here, Davidson. Just one minute.
Huh? What is it?
Why won't you take our barbed wire? It is very high quality, you understand, and you could totally sell it in America.
Mr. V. Mueller, the market for barbed wire in America is very limited.
But there are hundreds of things you can do with barbed wire.
Name what?
Well, in the right, we use thousands of feet of barbed wire to tent in concentration camps.
Mr. V. Mueller, I think you have unconsciously stumbled onto the fundamental reason why you and I can't do business.
You see, we don't believe in concentration camps in America.
This was one of the first barter deals any American had attempted to negotiate with the Nazis.
And as you've seen, the deal fell through.
Over a period of several months, various American businessmen who had American goods they hoped to be exchanged for German goods were sent to the Ministry of Economics.
But it was always the same story.
Americans had to conform to Nazi regulations, and this, they discovered, was impossible.
If you want proof of all of this, get a copy of the magazine Science Atlantic Trade in November 1934.
This magazine was published by the American Chamber of Commerce in Berlin.
See page two and read the story as told by the businessmen themselves.
Well, the members of the barter committee finally gave up and discussed, except Mr. Brownell, the chairman.
He was something of a diehard.
I ran into him later at another meeting of the American Chamber of Commerce.
The meeting had just ended, and the crowd was leaving the hall.
Well, hello there, Mr. Brownell. How's the barter committee coming along?
Oh, hello there, Mr. Mueller.
Well, some of the members are a little impatient, dropping out, you know, but we're not doing so badly.
Oh, come, come now. Don't you think it's a hopeless proposition?
I wouldn't say that. We have completed a few deals, Mueller. Very satisfactory deals, too.
Where were those deals, small affairs involving only a few thousand dollars at the most?
Every deal that really amounted to anything failed, didn't it?
Well, yes, but that wasn't my fault. The deals I had in mind were very good.
The only trouble was they didn't conform to Nazi regulations.
Well, that's the point. No deal satisfactory to Americans ever will conform to Nazi regulations.
Oh, I don't know about that. Hey, Doug, just a minute.
Oh, hello, Dudley. Brownell, you know Mr. Dudley?
He's a representative here, one of our American machine tool manufacturers.
Yes, we've met.
Mueller and I were just having a little argument about barter, Mr. Dudley.
Barter? Don't enter that word to me. My company just completed a barter deal with the Nazis, and I'm still groggy.
Oh, you don't say. Was it a big deal?
Big. Well, it went to the tune of about one million dollars on our side of the ledger.
Ah, there you are, you femurist. Now, what have you got to say about barter deals? I was right all along, wasn't I?
Ah, not so fast. Dudley, what did you get in exchange for that million dollars?
Two hundred thousand canaries.
Did you say canaries?
I said canaries. The Brownsher told us a bill for a million dollars worth of machinery. So we took the canaries in payment.
Why, in the name of pepper, you wouldn't ask that if your firm owned a subsidiary in Germany, as my firm does.
You mean?
I mean we're in no position to bargain. After all, we don't want our properties confiscated.
You can't do business with Hitler.
You have been listening to episode four in a radio series entitled You Can't Do Business with Hitler.
This series is based upon the actual experiences of Douglas Miller, who was, for fifteen years, commercial attache to the American Embassy in Berlin.
Listen to the next episode in this series, which is entitled Mass Murder.
The program was prepared and directed by the author for emergency in Washington.
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