Was President Bush's great-grandfather a Nazi? Post from 14-Feb-2003

[Liegnitz]

www.straightdope.com/columns/030214.html

Dear Cecil:

My friend in Germany wrote me that she had heard that President Bush (now in office) ,his great-grandfather was a Silesian person. She said she heard that from her relative and of course your relatives get it right most of the time.

Well, it prompted me to go and search the net and so I stumbled on to your web site "Th Straight Dope". And since I searched for "President Bush's great grandfather" I came to your article : "Was President Bush's great-grandfather a Nazi?" Well, this is more then I wanted to know ,however I read you report and was actually astonished how much we , at the time back in Germany, already knew.
I summ it up in one sentence "It was known that the United States could have stopped Hitlers atrocities with the Jewish people". Espionage was at it's high point in the 30's so it was impossible that America "didn't know". And I agree also with your article:" without American money, Hitler wouldn't have stood a chance to wage a war".
I was born in Silesia and had to flee , led by my mothers hand (I was 7 years old at that time) in January of 1945 with snow up to a grown ups waist. My father was a soldier and had to fight for Hitler in Stalingrad.
Anyway, we had to flee and walking was the only mode of transportation because no one owned a car. We grabbed a bus to the city and after many tries we finally got out to the West of Germany by freight train . But it was not easy. Our German cities were all bombed which was a direct retaliation of what Hitler had done to Great Britain. Only a child does not understand such complicated things. My mother wondered out loud why it is that the War factories in the Rheinland were not ever bombed?. The factories belonging to Thyssen & Krupp?. One wonders if that was a co-incident?
The Silesian_American Corporation (SAC) is being mentioned and it goes on to say "that this Corporation owned several industrial concerns in POLAND." Just a slight correction in your History lesson, if I may. Shouldn't it have said "industrial concern in Germany?" Silesia was a province of Germany just like Bavaria is a province. It had been since the 1200 Century until 1945. Germany lost the war and Russia presst forwards from the East and overtook our Homeland. The Russians then handed our Homeland to the Polish people and in turn the Polish had to give up part of their own land further East ,to the Russians. Also, Auschwitz is a city in Silesia NOT a city in POLAND. It also was German until 1945 when we Selisians lost our home forever. I just thought I clear this misunderstanding up, it means a lot to me.
I believe all what was written in your report, the "financial exchanges" between
Prescott Bush and Fritz Thyssen with Hitler in the middle. The Powerful were doing their thing and the small guy was caught in the middle. We were the ones that lost everything in this high and mighty game.

~ Gerlinde Paterson ~