The documents, many of which were declassified only three years ago, show that even after America had entered the war and when there was already significant information about the Nazis’ plans and policies, Prescott Bush worked for and profited from companies closely involved with the very German businesses that hoisted Hitler to power.

While there is no suggestion that Prescott Bush was sympathetic to the Nazi cause (nor is there any proof to the contrary), the documents reveal that the firm he worked for, Brown Brothers Harriman acted as a U.S. base for Fritz Thyssen, the German industrialist who financed Hitler in the 1930s. Evidence shows Bush was the director of the New York-based Union Banking Corp. that represented Thyssen’s U.S. interests and he continued to work for the bank well after America entered the war. Bush was also on the board of at least 1 of the companies that formed part of a multinational network of front companies to allow Thyssen to move assets around the world.

Papers also show, Prescott Bush was a director and shareholder of a number of companies involved with Thyssen, Germany’s most powerful industrial family, and with I.G. Farben, which was prosecuted for war crimes, and is best known as the producer of Zyklon B, a lethal poison widely used at the Auschwitz and Majdanek death camps.