Ford and the Führer 
 

     New Documents Reveal the Close Ties
     Between Dearborn and the Nazis
 

     by KEN SILVERSTEIN
 

         E-mail this story to a friend. 
 

          We have sworn to you once,
          But now we make our allegiance permanent.
          Like currents in a torrent lost,
          We all flow into you.
 

          Even when we cannot understand you,
          We will go with you.
          One day we may comprehend,
          How you can see our future. 
          Hearts like bronze shields,
          We have placed around you,
          And it seems to us, that only
          You can reveal God's world to us.
 

     This poem ran in an in-house magazine published by Ford Motor
     Company's German subsidiary in April of 1940. Titled "Führer," the
     poem appeared at a time when Ford maintained complete control of
     the German company and two of its top executives sat on the
     subsidiary's board. It was also a time when the object of Ford's
     affection was in the process of overrunning Western Europe after
     already having swallowed up Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland in
     the East.
 

     I found "Führer" among thousands of pages of documents compiled
     by the Washington law firm of Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll,
     which sought damages from Ford on behalf of a Russian woman who
     toiled as a slave laborer at its German plant. This past September, a
     judge in New Jersey, Joseph Greenaway Jr., threw the case out on
     the grounds that the statute of limitations had expired. Greenaway,
     who did not exonerate Ford, did accept the company's argument that
     "redressing the tragedies of that period has been--and should
     continue to be--a nation-to-nation, government-to-government
     concern."
 

     Ford argues that company headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan, lost
     control of its German plant after the United States entered the war in
     1941. Hence, Ford is not responsible for any actions taken by its
     German subsidiary during World War II. "We did not do business in
     Germany during the war," says Lydia Cisaruk, a Ford
     spokeswoman. "The Nazis confiscated the plant there and we lost all
     contact." She added that Ford played a "pivotal role in the American
     war effort. After the United States entered the war, Ford threw its
     entire backing to the war effort."
 

     That Ford and a number of other American firms--including General
     Motors and Chase Manhattan--worked with the Nazis has been
     previously disclosed. So, too, has Henry Ford's role as a leader of
     the America First Committee, which sought to keep the United
     States out of World War II. However, the new materials, most of
     which were found at the National Archives, are far more damning
     than earlier revelations. They show, among other things, that up until
     Pearl Harbor, Dearborn made huge revenues by producing war
     matériel for the Reich and that the man it selected to run its German
     subsidiary was an enthusiastic backer of Hitler. German Ford served
     as an "arsenal of Nazism" with the consent of headquarters in
     Dearborn, says a US Army report prepared in 1945.
 

     Moreover, Ford's cooperation with the Nazis continued until at least
     August 1942--eight months after the United States entered the
     war--through its properties in Vichy France. Indeed, a secret
     wartime report prepared by the US Treasury Department concluded
     that the Ford family sought to further its business interests by
     encouraging Ford of France executives to work with German officials
     overseeing the occupation. "There would seem to be at least a tacit
     acceptance by [Henry Ford's son] Mr. Edsel Ford of the
     reliance...on the known neutrality of the Ford family as a basis of
     receipt of favors from the German Reich," it says.
 

                             * * *
 

     The new information about Ford's World War II role comes at a
     time of growing attention to corporate collaboration with the Third
     Reich. In 1998 Swiss banks reached a settlement with Holocaust
     survivors and agreed to pay $1.25 billion. That set the stage for a
     host of new Holocaust-related revelations as well as legal claims
     stemming from such issues as looted art and unpaid insurance
     benefits. This past November NBC News reported that Chase
     Manhattan's French branch froze Jewish accounts at the request of
     German occupation authorities. Chase's Paris branch manager,
     Carlos Niedermann, worked closely with German officials and
     approved loans to finance war production for the Nazi Army. In
     Germany the government and about fifty firms that employed slave
     and forced labor during World War II--including Bayer, BMW,
     Volkswagen and Daimler-Chrysler--reached agreement in
     mid-December to establish a $5.1 billion fund to pay victims. Opel,
     General Motors' German subsidiary, announced it would contribute
     to the fund. (As reported last year in the Washington Post, an FBI
     report from 1941 quoted James Mooney, GM's director of overseas
     operations, as saying he would refuse to do anything that might
     "make Hitler mad.") Ford refused to participate in the settlement
     talks, though its collaboration with the Third Reich was egregious and
     extensive. Ford's director of global operations, Jim Vella, said in a
     statement, "Because Ford did not do business in Germany during the
     war--our Cologne plant was confiscated by the Nazi government--it
     would be inappropriate for Ford to participate in such a fund."
 

     The generous treatment allotted Ford Motor by the Nazi regime is
     partially attributable to the violent anti-Semitism of the company's
     founder, Henry Ford. His pamphlet The International Jew: The
     World's Foremost Problem brought him to the attention of a former
     German Army corporal named Adolf Hitler, who in 1923 became
     chairman of the fledgling Nazi Party. When Ford was considering a
     run for the presidency that year, Hitler told the Chicago Tribune, "I
     wish that I could send some of my shock troops to Chicago and
     other big American cities to help." (The story comes from Charles
     Higham's Trading With the Enemy, which details American
     business collaboration with the Nazis.) In Mein Kampf, written two
     years later, Hitler singled Ford out for praise. "It is Jews who govern
     the stock exchange forces of the American Union," he wrote. "Every
     year makes them more and more the controlling masters of the
     producers in a nation of one hundred and twenty millions; only a
     single great man, Ford, to their fury, still maintains full
independence."
     In 1938, long after the vicious character of Hitler's government had
     become clear, Ford accepted the Grand Cross of the German Eagle,
     the Nazi regime's highest honor for foreigners.
 

                             * * *
 

     Ford Motor set up shop in Germany in 1925, when it opened an
     office in Berlin. Six years later, it built a large plant in Cologne,
which
     became its headquarters in the country. Ford of Germany prospered
     during the Nazi years, especially with the economic boom brought on
     by World War II. Sales increased by more than half between 1938
     and 1943, and, according to a US government report found at the
     National Archives, the value of the German subsidiary more than
     doubled during the course of the war.
 

     Ford eagerly collaborated with the Nazis, which greatly enhanced its
     business prospects and at the same time helped Hitler prepare for
     war (and after the 1939 invasion of Poland, conduct it). In the
     mid-thirties, Dearborn helped boost German Ford's profits by
     placing orders with the Cologne plant for direct delivery to Ford
     plants in Latin America and Japan. In 1936, as a means of preserving
     the Reich's foreign reserves, the Nazi government blocked the
     German subsidiary from buying needed raw materials. Ford
     headquarters in Dearborn responded--just as the Nazis hoped it
     would--by shipping rubber and other materials to Cologne in
     exchange for German-made parts. The Nazi government took a 25
     percent cut out of the imported raw materials and gave them to other
     manufacturers, an arrangement approved by Dearborn.
 

     According to the US Army report of 1945, prepared by Henry
     Schneider, German Ford began producing vehicles of a strictly
     military nature for the Reich even before the war began. The
     company also established a war plant ready for mobilization day in a
     "'safe' zone" near Berlin, a step taken, according to Schneider, "with
     the...approval of Dearborn." Following Hitler's 1939 invasion of
     Poland, which set off World War II, German Ford became one of
     the largest suppliers of vehicles to the Wehrmacht (the German
     Army). Papers found at the National Archives show that the
     company was selling to the SS and the police as well. By 1941 Ford
     of Germany had stopped manufacturing passenger vehicles and was
     devoting its entire production capacity to military trucks. That May
     the leader of the Nazi Party in Cologne sent a letter to the plant
     thanking its leaders for helping "assure us victory in the present [war]
     struggle" and for demonstrating the willingness to "cooperate in the
     establishment of an exemplary social state."
 

     Ford vehicles were crucial to the revolutionary Nazi military strategy
     of blitzkrieg. Of the 350,000 trucks used by the motorized German
     Army as of 1942, roughly one-third were Ford-made. The Schneider
     report states that when American troops reached the European
     theater, "Ford trucks prominently present in the supply lines of the
     Wehrmacht were understandably an unpleasant sight to men in our
     Army." Indeed, the Cologne plant proved to be so important to the
     Reich's war effort that the Allies bombed it on several occasions. A
     secret 1944 US Air Force "Target Information Sheet" on the factory
     said that for the previous five years it had been "geared for war
     production on a high level."
 

     While Ford Motor enthusiastically worked for the Reich, the
     company initially resisted calls from President Roosevelt and British
     Prime Minister Churchill to increase war production for the Allies.
     The Nazi government was grateful for that stance, as acknowledged
     in a letter from Heinrich Albert to Charles Sorenson, a top executive
     in Dearborn. Albert had been a lawyer for German Ford since at
     least 1927, a director since 1930 and, according to the Treasury
     report, part of a German espionage ring operating in the United
     States during World War I. "The 'Dementi' of Mr. Henry Ford
     concerning war orders for Great Britain has greatly helped us,"
     Albert wrote in July of 1940, shortly after the fall of France, when
     England appeared to be on the verge of collapse before the Führer's
     troops.
 

     Ford's energetic cooperation with the Third Reich did not prevent the
     company's competitors from seeking to tarnish it by calling attention
     to its non-German ownership. Ford responded by appointing a
     majority-German board of directors for the Cologne plant, upon
     which it bestowed the politically correct Aryan name of Ford Werke.
     In March of 1941, Ford issued new stock in the Cologne plant and
     sold it exclusively to Germans, thereby reducing Dearborn's share to
     52 percent.
 

     At the time, the Nazi government's Ministry of Economy debated
     whether the opportunity afforded by the capital increase should be
     taken to demand a German majority at Ford Werke. The Ministry
     "gave up the idea"--this according to a 1942 statement prepared by a
     Ford Werke executive--in part because "there could be no doubt
     about the complete incorporation, as regards personnel, organization
     and production system, of Ford Werke into the German national
     economy, in particular, into the German armaments industry."
     Beyond that, Albert argued in a letter to the Reich Commission for
     Enemy Property, the abolition of the American majority would
     eliminate "the importance of the company for the obtaining of raw
     materials," as well as "insight into American production and sales
     methods."
 

                             * * *
 

     As 1941 progressed, the board of Ford Werke fretted that the
     United States would enter the war in support of Britain and the
     government would confiscate the Cologne plant. To prevent such an
     outcome, the Cologne management wrote to the Reich Commission
     that year to say that it "question[ed] whether Ford must be treated as
     enemy property" even in the event of a US declaration of war on
     Germany. "Ford has become a purely German company and has
     taken over all obligations so successfully that the American majority
     shareholder, independent of the favorable political views of Henry
     Ford, in some periods actually contributed to the development of
     German industry," Cologne argued on June 18, 1941, only six
     months before the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
 

     In May of 1942, the Superior Court of Cologne finally put Ford
     Werke in "trusteeship," ruling that it was "under authoritative enemy
     influence." However, the Nazis never nationalized Ford's German
     property--plant managers feared it would be turned over to
     Mercedes or the Hermann Goering Werke, a huge industrial network
     composed of properties seized by the Reich--and Dearborn
     maintained its 52 percent share through the duration of the war. Ford
     Werke even set aside dividend payments due to Dearborn, which
     were paid after the war. Ford claims that it received only $60,000 in
     dividend payments. It's not possible to independently verify that--or
     anything else regarding Dearborn's wartime economic relationship
     with Cologne--because Ford of America was privately held until
     1956, and the company will not make available its balance sheets
     from the period.
 

     Labor shortages caused by the war--millions of men were at the front
     and Nazi ideology was violently opposed to the idea of women
     working--led the Reich to deport millions of people from occupied
     lands to Germany to work in factories. German companies were
     encouraged to bid for forced laborers in order to meet production
     quotas and increase profits. By 1943 half of Ford Werke's work
     force comprised foreign captives, including French, Russians,
     Ukrainians and Belgians. In August of 1944 a squad of SS men
     brought fifteen prisoners from the Buchenwald concentration camp to
     Ford Werke. The German researcher Karola Fings, co-author of
     Working for the Enemy, a book on Nazi slave- and forced-labor
     programs, to be published this spring, says Ford's worker-inmates
     toiled for twelve hours a day with a fifteen-minute break. They were
     given 200 grams of bread and coffee for breakfast, no lunch and a
     dinner of spinach and three potatoes or soup made of turnip leaves.
 

                             * * *
 

     An account by Robert Schmidt, the man appointed to run Ford
     Werke in 1939, states that the company used forced laborers even
     before the Nazis put the plant in trusteeship. His statement, sent to a
     Ford executive in England immediately after Germany's surrender,
     says that as of 1940 "many of our employees were called to the
     colours and had to be replaced by whatever was available.... The
     same applies to 1941. Some 200 French prisoners of war were
     employed." In a statement to the US Army in 1945, Schmidt said
     that the Gestapo began to play an important role at Ford Werke after
     the first foreign workers arrived. With the assistance of W.M.
     Buchwald, a Ford employee since the mid-thirties, the Gestapo
     carefully monitored plant activities. "Whenever there was the slightest
     indication of anti-Nazi feeling, be it amongst foreigners or Germans,
     the Gestapo tramped down as hard as possible," Schmidt told the
     Army.
 

     Meanwhile, Ford Werke offered enthusiastic political support for
     Hitler as well. The fraternal ties between Ford and the Nazis is
     perhaps best symbolized by the company's birthday gift to the Führer
     of 35,000 Reichsmarks in April of 1939. Ford Werke's in-house
     publication couldn't have been more fanatically pro-Nazi if Josef
     Goebbels had edited it. "Führer," the poem printed at the top of this
     story, ran in the April 1940 issue, which celebrated Hitler's 51st
     birthday by running his picture on the cover. The issue carried an
     excerpt of a speech by Hitler in which he declared that "by natural
     law of the earth, we are the supreme race and thus destined to rule."
     In another section of the speech, the Führer declared that
     communism was "second in wretchedness only to Judaism." The
     issue from April of the following year--this at roughly the high point of
     the Third Reich's military victories--featured a photograph of a
     beaming Hitler visiting with German soldiers on the front lines. "The
     management of the Ford-Werke salutes our Führer with grateful
     heart, honesty, and allegiance, and--as before--pledges to cooperate
     in his life's work: achieving honor, liberty and happiness for Greater
     Germany and, indeed, for all peoples of Europe," reads the caption.
 

     Robert Schmidt so successfully converted the plant to a war footing
     that the Nazi regime gave him the title of Wehrwirtschaftsführer, or
     Military Economic Leader. The Nazis also put Schmidt in charge of
     overseeing Ford plants in occupied Belgium, Holland and Vichy
     France. At one point, he and another Cologne executive bitterly
     argued over who would run Ford of England when Hitler's troops
     conquered Britain.
 

     Schmidt's personal contributions to Ford Werke's in-house organ
     reflect his ardently pro-Nazi views. "At the beginning of this year we
     vowed to give our best and utmost for final victory, in unshakable
     faithfulness to our Führer," he wrote in December of 1941, the same
     month as Pearl Harbor. "Today we say with pride that we succeeded
     if not in reaching all our goals, nevertheless in contributing to a
     considerable extent in providing the necessary transportation for our
     troops at the front." The following March, Schmidt penned an article
     in which he declared, "It depends upon our work whether the front
     can be supplied with its necessities.... therefore, we too are soldiers
     of the Fuhrer."
 

                             * * *
 

     The Ford family and company executives in Dearborn repeatedly
     congratulated the management of Ford Werke on the fine work they
     were doing under the Nazis. In October of 1940 Edsel Ford wrote
     to Heinrich Albert to say how pleased he was that the company's
     plants in occupied lands were continuing to operate. "It is fortunate
     that Mr. Schmidt is in such authority as to be able to bring out these
     arrangements," said Edsel, who died of cancer during the war. The
     same letter indicates that Ford was quite prepared to do business
     with the Nazis if Hitler won the war. Though it was difficult to foresee
     what would happen after the fighting ended, Edsel told Albert, "a
     general rearrangement of the ownership of our continental businesses
     may be required. You will no doubt keep as close to this subject as
     possible and we will have the benefit of your thoughts and
     suggestions at the proper time."
 

     "To know that you appreciate our efforts in your and the company's
     interests is certainly a great encouragement," Albert replied the
     following month. He went on to praise Schmidt, who had been
     forced to shoulder immense responsibilities after war broke out. "In
     fulfilling his task his personality has grown in a way which is almost
     astonishing." Indeed, Schmidt grew to such a great degree that the
     Nazis kept him in charge of Ford Werke after they put the company
     in trusteeship. In February of 1942, when the question of who would
     run the Cologne plant was still up in the air, a local Nazi official
wrote
     to Hitler's Chancellery in Berlin to put in a good word for Ford's
     man. The official said he saw "no reason to appoint a special
     custodian for the enterprise" since Schmidt was "a Party member
     [who] enjoys my confidence and...the confidence of the German
     Armed Forces."
 

                             * * *
 

     Ford's behavior in France following the German occupation of June
     1940 illustrates even more grotesquely its collaborationist posture.
     As soon as the smoke had cleared, Ford's local managers cut a deal
     with the occupation authorities that allowed the company to resume
     production swiftly--"solely for the benefit of Germany and the
     countries under its [rule]," according to a US Treasury Department
     document. The report, triggered by the government's concern that
     Ford was trading with the enemy, is sharply critical of Maurice
     Dollfus, a Ford director in France since 1929 and the company's
     manager during the Vichy period. "Mr. Dollfus was required by law
     to replace directors, and he selected the new directors exclusively
     from the ranks of prominent collaborationists," says the Treasury
     report. "Mr. Dollfus did this deliberately to curry favor with the
     authorities." The report refers to another Ford employee, a certain
     Amable Roger Messis, as "100% pro-German."
 

     The Treasury Department found that Ford headquarters in Dearborn
     was in regular contact with its properties in Vichy France. In one
     letter, penned shortly after France's surrender, Dollfus assured
     Dearborn that "we will benefit from the main fact of being a member
     of the Ford family which entitles us to better treatment from our
     German colleagues who have shown clearly their wish to protect the
     Ford interest as much as they can." A Ford executive in Michigan
     wrote back, "We are pleased to learn from your letter...that our
     organization is going along, and the victors are so tolerant in their
     treatment. It looks as though we still might have a business that we
     can carry on in spite of all the difficulties."
 

     The Ford family encouraged Dollfus to work closely with the German
     authorities. On this score, Dollfus needed little prodding. "In order to
     safeguard our interests--and I am here talking in a very broad way--I
     have been to Berlin and have seen General von Schell himself," he
     wrote in a typed note to Edsel in August of 1940. "My interview with
     him has been by all means satisfactory, and the attitude you have
     taken together with your father of strict neutrality has been an
     invaluable asset for the protection of your companies in Europe." (In
     a handwritten note in the margin, Dollfus bragged that he was "the
     first Frenchman to go to Berlin.") The following month Dollfus
     complained about a shortage of dollars in occupied France. This was
     a problem, however, that might be merely temporary. "As you
     know," he wrote Dearborn at the time, "our [monetary] standard has
     been replaced by another standard which--in my opinion--is a draft
     on the future, not only in France and Europe but, maybe, in the
     world." In another letter to Edsel, this one written in late November
     of 1940, Dollfus said he wanted to "outline the importance attached
     by high officials to respect the desires and maintain the good will of
     'Ford'--and by 'Ford' I mean your father, yourself and the Ford
     Motor Company, Dearborn."
 

     All this was to the immense satisfaction of the Ford family. In
     October of 1940, Edsel wrote to Dollfus to say he was "delighted to
     hear you are making progress.... Fully realize great handicap you are
     working under." Three months later he wrote again to say that Ford
     headquarters was "very proud of the record that you and your
     associates have made in building the company up to its first great
     position under such circumstances."
 

     Dearborn maintained its communication with Ford of France well
     after the United States entered the war. In late January of 1942,
     Dollfus informed Dearborn that Ford's operations had the highest
     production level of all French manufacturers and, as summed up by
     the Treasury report, that he was "still relying on the French
     government to preserve the interests of American stockholders."
 

     During the following months, Dollfus wrote to Edsel several times to
     report on damages suffered by the French plant during bombing runs
     by the Royal Air Force. In his reply, Edsel expressed relief that
     American newspapers that ran pictures of a burning Ford factory did
     not identify it as a company property. On July 17, 1942, Edsel wrote
     again to say that he had shown Dollfus's most recent letter to his
     father and to Dearborn executive Sorenson. "They both join me in
     sending best wishes for you and your staff, and the hope that you will
     continue to carry on the good work that you are doing," he said.
 

     As in Germany, Ford's policy of sleeping with the Nazis proved to be
     a highly lucrative approach. Ford of France had never been very
     profitable in peacetime--it had paid out only one dividend in its
     history--but its service to the Third Reich soon pushed it comfortably
     into the black. Dollfus once wrote to Dearborn to boast about this
     happy turn of events, adding that the company's "prestige in France
     has increased considerably and is now greater than it was before the
     war."
 

                             * * *
 

     Treasury Department officials were clearly aghast at Ford's activities.
     An employee named Randolph Paul sent the report to Secretary
     Henry Morgenthau with a note that stated, "The increased activity of
     the French Ford subsidiaries on behalf of the Germans received the
     commendation of the Ford family in America." Morgenthau soon
     replied, "If we can legally and ethically do it, I would like to turn
over
     the information in connection with the Ford Motor Company to
     Senator [Harry] Truman."
 

     Lydia Cisaruk, the Ford spokeswoman, says that Ford Werke's
     pre-Pearl Harbor support for the Third Reich was largely unknown
     to company headquarters. Neither of the two Dearborn executives
     on Ford Werke's board, Edsel Ford and Charles Sorenson, attended
     board meetings after 1938. "By 1940, Dearborn was becoming less
     and less involved in day-to-day operations," she says. "There was a
     gradual loss of control." Asked about Ford Werke's political support
     for the Nazis, as seen in its in-house newsletter, she replied: "Looking
     at the years leading up to the war, no one could foresee what was
     going to happen. A number of countries were negotiating with
     Germany and Germany was repeatedly saying that it was interested
     in peaceful solutions. The United States was talking to Germany until
     the two countries went to war." She concedes that some "foreign"
     labor was employed at the plant beginning in 1940, but says
     Dearborn had no knowledge of that at the time. Ford is currently
     conducting an exhaustive investigation into Ford Werke, she says.
     When the research is completed this year, the company will make
     available all of the documentary evidence it has accumulated,
     including financial records. While Ford did not take part in the
     German slave-labor talks, Cisaruk says it is in preliminary discussions
     with Deputy Treasury Secretary Stuart Eizenstat to establish a
     humanitarian US-based fund for Holocaust survivors. "We do want
     to help people who suffered at the hands of the Nazis," she says.
 

                             * * *
 

     Production at Ford Werke slowed at the end of the war, in part
     because of power shortages caused by Allied bombing runs, but
     activity never came to a halt. Soon after Germany's capitulation, Ford
     representatives from England and the United States traveled to
     Cologne to inspect the plant and plan for the future. In 1948 Henry
     Ford visited Cologne to celebrate the 10,000th truck to roll off the
     postwar assembly line there. Two years later, Ford of Germany
     rehired Schmidt--who had been arrested and briefly held by US
     troops at the war's end--after he wrote a letter to Dearborn in which
     he insisted that he had fervently hated the Nazis. He was one of six
     key executives from the Nazi era who moved back into important
     positions at Ford after 1945. "After the war, Ford did not just
     reassume control of a factory, but it also took over the factory's
     history," says historian Fings. "Apparently no one at Ford was
     interested in casting light upon this part of history, not even to
     explicitly proclaim a distance from the practices of Ford Werke
     during the Nazi era." Schmidt remained with Ford until his death in
     1962.
 

     The high point of Ford's cynicism was yet to come. Before its fall, the
     Nazi regime had given Ford Werke about $104,000 in compensation
     for damages caused by Allied bombings (Ford also got money for
     bombing damages from the Vichy government). Dearborn was not
     satisfied with that amount. In 1965 Ford went before the Foreign
     Claims Settlement Commission of the US to ask for an additional $7
     million. (During the hearings, commission attorney Zvonko Rode
     pointed to the embarrassing fact--which Ford's attorney did not
     dispute--that most of the manufactured products destroyed during
     the bombings had been intended for the use of the Nazi armed
     forces.) In the end, the commission awarded the company $1.1
     million--but only after determining that Ford had used a fraudulent
     exchange rate to jack up the size of the alleged damages. The
     commission also found that Dearborn had sought compensation for
     merchandise that had been destroyed by flooding.
 

     Ford's eagerness to be compensated for damages incurred to Ford
     Werke during the Nazi era makes its current posture of denying any
     association with the wartime plant all the more hypocritical. These
     new revelations may force Ford to reconsider its responsibilities with
     regard to slave labor. In the meantime, new legal developments could
     also create problems for the company. Last year California passed a
     law that extends the statute of limitations on Holocaust-related
     claims. In November Senator Charles Schumer of New York
     introduced a bill in Congress that would do the same thing at the
     federal level.
 

                                       E-mail this story to a friend. 
 
 

     Ken Silverstein is a Washington, DC-based writer. His book
     Private Warriors, which examines post-cold war military and
     arms-dealing networks, will be published this spring by Verso.
     Research assistance provided by the Investigative Fund of The
     Nation Institute. 
 

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