Jump to content

Sosthenes Behn (Q2378638)

From Wikidata
American businessman; founder of International Telephone & Telegraph (1882–1957)
  • Louis Richard Sosthenes Behn
edit
Language Label Description Also known as
default for all languages
No label defined
    English
    Sosthenes Behn
    American businessman; founder of International Telephone & Telegraph (1882–1957)
    • Louis Richard Sosthenes Behn

    Statements

    0 references
    0 references
    0 references
    0 references
    0 references
    1 reference
    The protagonist in Sampson’s article is the late Sosthenes Behn who founded the ITT in 1920. Citing a news item that appeared in The New York Times on Aug. 4, 1933, he reports that Adolf Hitler, then Germany’s new chancellor, received a delegation of American businessmen which consisted of Behn and his representative to Germany, Henry Mann. “The meeting was the beginning of a very special relationship between the ITT and the Third Reich,” Sampson notes. “Behn was eager to work closely with the new Nazi government.”NAZIS JOINED ITT BOARDS Behn obtained the names of “reliable men acceptable to the Nazis who could join the boards of ITT’s German companies, Sampson continues. One of these men was the banker Kurt von Schroeder, later a general in the Nazi SS “and the crucial channel of funds into Himmler’s gestapo.” Another “important Nazi ally.” Sampson states, was Gerhardt Alois Westrick, whose law firms represented several American companies in Germany, and who also became a director of Standard Elektrizitats-Gesellschaft (SEG) and Lorenz. (English)
    19 February 2020

    Identifiers

     
    edit
    edit
      edit
        edit
          edit
            edit
              edit
                edit
                  edit