In the months leading up to the March 1938 Anschluss with Austria, Veesenmayer functioned as the Foreign Office’s principal economic expert in Vienna. The day before Austria was taken over, March 12, Veesenmayer shuttled Himmler from a Vienna airfield to the German Embassy to help form a new Austrian Nazi regime. The next day, however, before the puppet Austrian government could be installed, Hitler annexed the country altogether.113
A year later, in early March 1939, Veesenmayer traveled to Bratislava to help engineer the destruction of Czechoslovakia and the declaration of a puppet state in Slovakia. On about March 11, he drove two handpicked Slovak leaders to Vienna where they met Keppler and then flew on to Berlin for a meeting with Hitler. On that same day, Veesenmayer wired the Foreign Office, “alle Juden in der Hand,” that is, “all Jews in hand.” He remained in Bratislava on March 15 while Czechoslovakia was dismantled. Jews were quickly identified in the days to come.114
Veesenmayer was a frequent liaison to foreign militant movements. In early 1940, he was assigned to coordinate with two members of the Irish Republican Army visiting Berlin. Later, in Rome, he met with the virulent anti-Semites Amin Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and Rashid Ali Gailani, former Iraqi premier. He escorted both men to Berlin for meetings with Hitler.115
It was Veesenmayer, who, in April 1941, brokered a written political agreement between Yugoslavian Fascists and a murderous Croatian militia known as the Ustashi, helping the Croats remain in power as Nazi surrogates with the support of the German Foreign Office. Indeed, the same day he brokered the Ustashi pact, Germany invaded Zagreb. Ustashi militias were allowed free rein under Veesenmayer’s eye. It was Veesenmayer’s job to liaison with Ustashi leader, Ante Pavelich. In the annals of wartime savagery against the Jews, there was no group as sadistic as the Croatian Ustashi. Using chainsaws, axes, knives, and rocks, frenzied Swastika-bedecked Ustashi brutally murdered thousands of Jews at a time. Ustashi leaders openly paraded about Zagreb with necklaces comprised of Jewish tongues and eyeballs cut and gouged from women and children, many of them raped and then dismembered or decapitated. Pavelich himself was fond of offering wicker baskets of Jewish eyeballs as gifts to his diplomatic visitors.116
In the first days of December 1940, just after completing his assignment with the Irish Republican Army and four months before leaving for his behind-the-scenes work with the Ustashi, Veesenmayer telephoned Heidinger and Albert to make the Reich’s views on Dehomag known. Then he met with Chauncey.
Dr. Veesenmayer is the right hand man of Dr. Keppler. Dr. Keppler, I am informed, is and has been Hitler’s personal economic advisor. The organization of which Dr. Keppler is the head is a Nazi Party organization called… The Department for Policies and Economics. It’s not formally a part of the government but has, of course, immense power… because it instructs… the government on what the Nazi party decides shall be economic policy.
I was present when Mr. Heidinger received a request or summons to visit Dr. Keppler and the morning afterwards when I saw Dr. Albert, he told me he had not slept all night…. Until this time, Dr. Albert had been ardently fighting Mr. Heidinger with respect to any reorganization of Dehomag…. The only question of competition was whether or not the managers were strong enough to fight, and whether our machines and prices could meet the competition.
Dr. Albert did not tell me what the conversation was between Mr. Heidinger, Dr. Keppler and himself, but did tell me of the conversation with Dr. Veesenmayer which conversation was after the talk with Dr. Keppler. Dr. Albert informed me that Dr. Veesenmayer had said that under no circumstances would any coercion be used to force the IBM to give up the majority but that it appeared advisable that the IBM should do so.
Dr. Veesenmayer had asked that Dr. Albert and Mr. Heidinger agree on a plan to effect the reorganization and that I should agree in writing to such a plan subject to the approval of the Board of Directors of the IBM. Dr. Albert attempted to get me to agree, which I refused on the ground that any such tentative agreement would lead to the belief officially that it would be carried out…. If the IBM did not desire to approve it… [then] IBM’s position would [only] be more difficult with the officials. I told Dr. Albert that all I would authorize him to say to Dr. Veesenmayer was that there had been several plans submitted to me and these I would in turn submit to the IBM.
Dr. Albert told me that Dr. Veesenmayer had [then] expressed a desire to see me but not in his office, as he would like the conversation to be unofficial. Tentative arrangements were made for me to meet him at lunch. However, Dr. Albert called me one day and informed me that he was going to see Dr. Veesenmayer on the next day…. Dr. Albert called me later and said that I should go with him to Dr. Veesenmayer’s office.
Dr. Veesenmayer stated [to me] that there were advantages to be gained by friendly agreements between industries in America and Germany and that it was not unusual to find a desire to have industries owned by the nationals of a country. I told him that I appreciated the advantages of a nationally-owned company whether in Germany or elsewhere. I pointed out to him that competition could be used [just as easily] against Dehomag [if it were] partly-owned by the IBM as it could be used when IBM practically owned the entire company… I asked him what guarantees IBM could have for the protection of its minority, assuming that it gave up its majority. He [Veesenmayer] suggested that no guarantees could be made in writing but that if the Government approved of the act of increasing the capital and the disposition of it to Germans, that should be all the security we need ask for. Dr. Veesenmayer did not speak English very well but I understood him to say that he had been instrumental in assisting in the re-organization of the International Telephone Company in Spain. Subsequently I attempted, through Dr. Albert, to have Dr. Veesenmayer give me the names of American companies which he had also assisted in re-organizing. The reply was that he could not give me the names but that he could tell me that he had just about closed the arrangements with two other American companies. In this connection I saw for a moment the names of three German companies which have been reorganized. I did not have the opportunity to get down these names, which were in German, nor could I identify them with any American company….
Dr. Kiep seemed to be of the opinion that Dr. Keppler’s introduction into the matter was occasioned by Mr. Heidinger. This may be so but I do not believe that Mr. Heidinger himself got in touch with Dr. Keppler or Dr.Veesenmayer because he appeared to be as much concerned about the call to Dr. Keppler’s office as was Dr. Albert. It is possible, however, that through his other friends he [Heidinger] may have brought Dr. Keppler into the subject.117
Soon after Chauncey met with Veesenmayer, Albert delivered to Chauncey a short unsigned, unaddressed note, typed on plain paper. Chauncey forwarded that to New York as well through diplomatic pouch.
The party with whom you have discussed the matter of IBM is Mr. Veesenmayer. He is the right hand of Dr. Keppler, Secretary of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but at the same time being entrusted, as an important member of the party with certain special duties and responsibilities, F.I. [for instance] concerning questions of political economic organizations. Mr. Veesenmayer confirmed the official attitude that no pressure should be brought on IBM to transfer its majority into German hands, but that he thought it advisable to do so. His recommendation to you was to lose no time in reporting to IBM and then to return as soon as possible to Berlin in order to carry the plan through.118