Alien Property Custodian Seizes Bush-Thyssen Nazi Banking Assets

The Office of Alien Property Custodian seizes the assets of Union Banking Corporation (UBC) in New York on October 20, 1942, under the Trading with the Enemy Act. Among the bank’s directors is Prescott Bush, father and grandfather of two future presidents, whose firm Brown Brothers Harriman manages assets for Fritz Thyssen, a German steel magnate who helped finance Hitler’s rise to power.

Union Banking Corporation operates as the American arm of a financial network connected to the Thyssen family’s banking and industrial empire. Fritz Thyssen, the “Man Who Bankrolled Hitler,” used the network to move money between Germany and the United States. The bank’s assets are seized because of its status as a front for enemy nationals, not as punishment for American participants.

The same month, the government seizes the assets of two other entities connected to the Bush-Harriman network: Holland-American Trading Corporation and the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation. Documents from the Office of Alien Property Custodian show these enterprises operating as front organizations for Thyssen interests.

Prescott Bush and his partners face no criminal charges despite their documented business relationships with Nazi-connected entities. The Trading with the Enemy Act allows asset seizure but does not require prosecution of American participants in enemy commerce. After the war ends, Bush and other shareholders receive their portion of the seized assets, approximately $1.5 million, when UBC is liquidated.

The episode illustrates the differential treatment of elite collaboration with enemy powers. While the government aggressively prosecutes labor activists under the Smith Act and interns Japanese American citizens without evidence of disloyalty, Wall Street bankers who facilitated Nazi financing escape meaningful consequences. Prescott Bush’s career continues unimpeded; he is elected U.S. Senator from Connecticut in 1952. The family’s Nazi banking connections remain largely obscured from public knowledge for decades.