François Genoud (26 October 1915 – 30 May 1996) was a noted Swiss financier and a principal benefactor of the Nazi diaspora through the ODESSA network and supporter of Middle Eastern militant groups during the post-World War II 20th century.
In 1992, Genoud told a London newspaper "My views have not changed since I was a young man. Hitler was a great leader, and if he had won the war the world would be a better place today."
His friends included terrorist Carlos the Jackal, one-time Gestapo agent and Interpol head Paul Dickopf, SS general Karl Wolff, Nazi Economy Minister Hjalmar Schacht, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini and Palestinian terrorist Wadie Haddad.
Early life
Genoud was from Lausanne, Switzerland. He met Adolf Hitler in 1932 as a teenager in a hotel while studying in Bonn. He joined the pro-Nazi National Front in 1934, and two years later he travelled to Palestine where he met the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin el-Husseini. Working for both Swiss and German intelligence agencies, Genoud travelled extensively in the Middle East.
World War II
Genoud travelled to Berlin frequently during the war "to see his friend the Grand Mufti," and visited him afterward many times in Beirut. The Grand Mufti allegedly "entrusted Genoud with the management of his enormous financial affairs".
In 1940, together with a Lebanese national, he set up the Oasis nightclub in Lausanne to serve as a covert operation for the Abwehr. In 1941, Abwehr agent Paul Dickopf sent Genoud into Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Belgium. Genoud befriended several top Nazis, including Karl Wolff, "supreme SS and police leader" in Italy. At the end of the war, Genoud represented the Swiss Red Cross in Brussels.
Post-war
Genoud is notable for having been the executor of last will and testament of Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, and for reportedly making a fortune from publishing Goebbels' diaries, which he held the posthumous rights for along with Hitler and Bormann's works. This enterprise suffered a setback in 1960 when Paula Hitler died without his securing the full rights to the literary works of Adolf Hitler.
Nazi hunters such as Serge Klarsfeld and Simon Wiesenthal, journalist David Lee Preston, and others have asserted that his role as a benefactor for surviving National Socialist interests goes much deeper, offering evidence that Genoud was no less than the principal financial manager of the hidden Swiss assets of the Third Reich after World War II.
Friendship with Paul Dickopf
The fact that Paul Dickopf went on to become Interpol Head is not disconnected from his friendship with Francois Genoud, for it was Genoud who had lobbied Arab governments on his behalf to help him achieve the role. The implications are understood to have so far that when the Munich massacre occurred in 1972, Interpol limited its investigation into it, with a spokesman from Interpol stating that, "Interpol was an agency designed to handle criminal, not political matters."
Arab liberation
Genoud became a passionate supporter of Arab liberation causes, funding many nationalist and right-wing organisations.
Algerian Liberation Front
While in Egypt in the 1950s, through contacts in Gamal Abdel Nasser's government, he was introduced to the leaders of the Algerian Liberation Front, which he would eventually finance by 1954 after originally supplying weapons. In 1958, he founded the Arab Commercial Bank in Geneva, which would be active in lending to Arab nationalist groups and as the chief repository for the Algerian National Liberation Front.
Palestine
In the 1960s, Genoud began supplying arms for Palestinian causes. The Lausanne-based New European Order organisation, met in Barcelona in April 1969, where Palestinian groups received financial support and Genoud placed them in contact with former Nazis who would assist their military training, including pledged support designated for the Palestine Liberation Organisation. He was a close associate of Dr. George Habash and Jacques Vergès, and in September 1969, he contributed finances for the legal expenses of three Palestinians from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine following their attack on an El Al flight in Zurich, where he personally sat at their defense table.
Notable aid recipients and associations
Genoud was a close friend of Otto Skorzeny, Karl Wolff, and Klaus Barbie during the years of the Third Reich.