"In 1932, Schmitz joined forces with Kurt von Schroder, director of the BIS and the enormously wealthy private bank, J.H. Stein, of Cologne, Germany. Schroder was a fanatical Nazi. On the surface he was suave, elegant, impeccably dressed, with a clean-cut face. In private he was a dedicated leader of the Death's Head Brigade. During the war he could be seen driving from his office in his sober pinstripe, changing into a black and silver uniform covered in decorations, and continuing to a meeting by torchlight of his personal storm troopers. It was this SS man who was most closely linked to Winthrop Aldrich of the Chase Bank, Walter Teagle of Standard Oil, Sosthenes Behn of ITT, and the other American members of The Fraternity. In 1933, at his handsome villa in Munich, Schroder arranged the meeting between Hitler and von Papen that helped lead to Hitler's accession to power in the Reichstag.

Also in 1932, Hitler's special economic advisor Wilhelm Keppler joined Schroder in forming a group of high-ranking associates of The Fraternity who could be guaranteed to supply money to the Gestapo. They agreed to contribute an average of one million marks a year to Himmler's personally marked "S" account at the J. H. Stein Bank, transferable to the secret "R" Gestapo account at the Dresdnerbank in Berlin." -- Trading With the Enemy, by Charles Higham

"On March 29, 1933, Farben's Max Ilgner -- by now a Nazi officer in Gestapo uniform -- sent a message to Max Wojahn, Sterling export manager for South America, which read, in part: "You are asked to refrain from objecting to 'indecencies' committed by our [Nazi] government. ... Immediately upon receipt of this letter, you are to contribute to the spread of information best adapted to the conditions of your country and to the editors of influential papers, or by circulars to physicians and customers; and particularly to that part of our letter which states that in all the lying tales of horror [about Germany] there is not one word of truth.""-- Trading With the Enemy, by Charles Higham

"A clique of U.S. industrialists is hell-bent to bring a fascist state to supplant our democratic government and is working closely with the fascist regime in Germany and Italy. I have had plenty of opportunity in my post in Berlin to witness how close some of our American ruling families are to the Nazi regime. On [the ship] a fellow passenger, who is a prominent executive of one of the largest financial corporations, told me point blank that he would be ready to take definite action to bring fascism into America if President Roosevelt continued his progressive policies." -- U.S. Ambassador to Germany William E. Dodd -- Trading With the Enemy, by Charles Higham