Why Did Royal Dutch Shell Fuel the Nazis during WW2?

In 2021, calls went out for the oil company, Shell plc to apologize for fueling the Nazis during WW2. 

No apology was forthcoming. 

Did Shell really fuel Hitler's war machine? 

In short, yes, according to the four-volume, 1500 page, 11 pound official history, “A History of Royal Dutch Shell" (2007). 

In fact, Shell fueled both sides of both World War II and World War I! 

Authors, James Marriott & Terry Macalister, brought Shell’s behavior in WW2 to light in their book,"Crude Britannia: How Oil Shaped a Nation" (2021). 

Shell made the fateful decision to maintain corporate neutrality and effectively "divided itself into an Allied corporation and an Axis corporation" during WW2. 

To date, no apology has been forthcoming. 

Shell, plc as Royal Dutch Shell is known today, has wisely remained silent. For if Shell decided to apologize it would likely open up a Pandora's Box. The public would demand more details, demand the names of those who made the fateful decision to fuel Hitler. Which executive at Royal Dutch Shell allowed Hitler's tanks to roll and his Luftwaffe to fly. Which Shell director allowed Shell to provide fuel Hitler's murderous Einsatzgruppen to travel into Russia's Pale of Settlement to murder 1.5 million Jews who were beyond the reach of Europe's rail network. 

The Group, as the managing directorship of Royal Dutch Shell was known, had anticipated this inevitable investigation. The person of Sir Henri Deterding was the face of Royal Dutch Shell. For thirty-six years he was the managing director. Deterding was Royal Dutch Shell. He befriended Hitler. Deterding spent time four days with Hitler at his retreat at Berchtesgaden. Deterding made sure the Nazi flag was flown at the headquarters of Royal Dutch Shell in The Hague. Then, on February 4, 1939, Deterding died. Eight months before the start of WW2.  

Yet, the Nazi flag continued to fly over the headquarters of Royal Dutch Shell. Royal Dutch Shell continued to divide itself into an Allied corporation and an Axis corporation.

Despite Deterding's death, things at Shell were still business as usual. 

The following is quoted from "Crude Britannia":

"There is an embarrassment about Shell's role in the Nazi state"

"Shell operated on both Axis and Allied sides. Corporations often try to declare that they are above politics, but as the war illustrated, such is their scale that they cannot help but affect politics. Shell's actions and inactions impacted Britain in the midst of the conflict. The course of the UK in the war would have been different if Shell had dynamited its refineries in the Netherlands and France and destroyed its oil wells in Romania. The oil companies helped shape the war and this shaped the nation."

The begging question remains...Who was really running the show? This is an ongoing mystery for most people and it is likely at the root of Shell's reticence today. Even the eleven pounds of Royal Dutch Shell's official history doesn't explicitly name the top dog at the company during WW2. Nevertheless, the authors of the official history of Royal Dutch Shell left enough clues for anyone who takes the time to sift through the 1500 pages. Being a seasoned researcher myself, I kind of knew who I was looking for. I was just looking for confirmation. I'm satisfied that I have found it and I will share what I have found with you to embrace or toss away. 

Part 2

On page 85 of A History of Royal Dutch Shell, volume 1 it is written with regard to the Royal Dutch board of Directors:

"Fred Lane served there from 1910 to 1926, presumably as representative of the Paris Rothschilds who were the largest individual shareholders of Royal Dutch, but otherwise no foreigners sat on it until the 1960s. Consequently, Royal Dutch had a dominating managerial presence...in what became known as the Group."

How do we know that the Paris Rothschilds remained the largest individual shareholders throughout WW2? We know thanks to Herbert R. Lottman who wrote "The French Rothschilds: The Great Banking Dynasty Through Two Turbulent Centuries". Before leaving France in the months preceding Hitler's surprise attack some family assets were transferred abroad. Lottman continues:

"A record of one of these transfers shows up in a roundabout way, thanks to a postwar legal affair. As early as 1939 Edouard (de Rothschild) dispatched one of the family's most portable treasures, the precious shares of Royal Dutch oil stock, to a Montreal bank. After the fall of France in June 1940, Canadian bank officers who knew how to read the letter of the law blocked the account--France was occupied, after all, and were these not enemy assets? By then Edouard and his wife and youngest daughter, Bethsabee, were refugees in New York, literally living on the family jewels.

    In 1940, Edouard de Rothschild, along with his wife and daughter, arrive in New York's LaGuardia        airport from Paris.

After the war, when  it was finally ready to return to Rothschild what Rothschild had deposited, the bank in Montreal billed Edouard $22,000 as a custodial fee. He refused to pay, sued, and won."

[Note 18: Source:"Les Rothschild," Realities (Paris), March 1952, 110. The Royal Dutch shares were worth 1,534,000 Dutch guilders in 1940.]