{{Short description|Swiss Nazi collaborator (1915–1996)}} {{Infobox person | name = François Genoud | birth_date = {{Birth date|1915|10|26|df=y}} | birth_place = Lausanne, Switzerland | death_date = {{Death date and age|1996|05|30|1915|10|26|df=y}} | death_place = Lausanne, Switzerland | death_cause = Suicide by poison | political_party = National Front | movement = Nazism, anti-colonialism }}
'''François Genoud''' (26 October 1915 – 30 May 1996) was a noted Swiss financier and a principal benefactor of the Nazi diaspora through the ODESSA escape 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."<ref name=TH />
His friends included militant 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 militant Wadie Haddad.<ref name= "Coogan book">{{Cite book |last=Coogan |first=Kevin |author-link=Kevin Coogan |title=Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International |title-link=Dreamer of the Day |publisher=Autonomedia |year=1999 |isbn=978-1-57027-039-0 |location=Brooklyn |language=en |pages=585–586}}</ref>
==Early life== Genoud was from Lausanne, Switzerland. He met Adolf Hitler in 1932 as a teenager in a hotel while studying in Bonn.<ref name=TH>Wyden, Peter (2001) [https://books.google.com/books?id=w0RGVHB8YucC ''The Hitler Virus: The Insidious Legacy of Adolf Hitler'']. Arcade Publishing. pp.111-12. {{ISBN|1-55970-532-9}}, {{ISBN|978-1-55970-532-5}}</ref> 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.<ref name="David Lee Preston">{{cite news | title = Hitler's Swiss Connection | author = Preston, David Lee | newspaper = The Philadelphia Inquirer | date = January 5, 1997 | url = http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Holocaust/swiss-and-hitler.html }}</ref>
==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".<ref name="David Lee Preston"/>
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.<ref name="David Lee Preston"/>
==Post-war== Genoud is notable for having been the executor of the 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 Martin Bormann's works.<ref name=MJ /> This enterprise suffered a setback in 1960 when Paula Hitler died without his securing the full rights to the literary works of Adolf Hitler.<ref>Harris, Robert (1996) ''Selling Hitler: The Story of the Hitler Diaries''. Arrow. p.158</ref>
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.<ref name="David Lee Preston"/>
In 1986 American journalists Martin A. Lee and Kevin Coogan met with Genoud and interviewed him in Lausanne in 1986. Genoud only agreed to meet with Coogan and Lee with the condition that the interview not be taped and he not be directly quoted. The article came out in ''Mother Jones'' in May 1987, the only American journalistic investigation into Genoud while he was alive.<ref name="Phil970105">{{Cite news |last=Parson |first=David Lee |date=1997-01-05 |title=Hitler's Swiss Connection: Nazi gold, Arab terrorism, and a financier of fascism. |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-philadelphia-inquirer-hitlers-swiss/179053235/ |access-date=2025-08-16 |newspaper=The Philadelphia Inquirer |pages=24, [https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-philadelphia-inquirer-hitlers-swis/179053667/ 26] |language=en-US |via=Newspapers.com |issn=0885-6613}}</ref>
===Friendship with Paul Dickopf=== That Paul Dickopf became Interpol Head is connected with his friendship with Francois Genoud, because Genoud lobbied Arab governments to help him achieve the role. The implications are understood to include 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."<ref name= "Coogan book" />
==Arab liberation== Genoud became a passionate supporter of Arab liberation causes, funding many nationalist and right-wing organisations.<ref name=MJ>Lee, Martin A. and Coogan, Kevin (May 1987) [https://books.google.com/books?id=recDAAAAMBAJ "Killers on the Right: Inside Europe's Fascist Underground"] ''Mother Jones''. pp.45-52. Accessed March 1, 2011.</ref> When creating “Hitlers politisches Testament” (a forgery<ref>{{cite book |last1=Nilsson |first1=Mikael |title=Hitler Redux: The Incredible History of Hitler's So-Called Table Talks |date=15 September 2020 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-000-17329-1 |page=2 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Hitler_Redux/_i34DwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gl=US |access-date=18 April 2025 |language=en}}</ref>), he likely attributed pro-Arab statements to Hitler in order to fit his agenda of support for Arab Terrorism.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Nilsson |first1=Mikael |title=Constructing a Pseudo-Hitler? The question of the authenticity of Hitlers politisches Testament |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13507486.2018.1532983#abstract |website=European Review of History: Revue européenne d'histoire |access-date=18 April 2025 |pages=871–891 |doi=10.1080/13507486.2018.1532983 |date=3 September 2019}}</ref> (He was also heavily involved with Hitler’s Table Talk, possessing most of the revised Bormann notes in question.)
===Algerian Liberation Front=== While in Egypt in the 1950s, through contacts in Gamal Abdel Nasser's government,<ref name=EM /> he was introduced to the leaders of the Algerian Liberation Front, which he would eventually finance by 1954 after originally supplying weapons.<ref name=MJ /> 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.<ref>{{cite news |title= Secrecy is Golden|newspaper= Time |date= November 27, 1964 |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,871430,00.html| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050118234030/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,871430,00.html |url-status= dead |archive-date= January 18, 2005 |author= Staff }}</ref>
===Palestine=== In the 1960s, Genoud began supplying arms for Palestinian causes. The Lausanne-based New European Order organisation,<ref name=MJ /> 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.<ref name=MJ /> 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.<ref name=MJ />
==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.<ref name=MJ />
Genoud financed several legal defences, including Adolf Eichmann and Klaus Barbie.<ref>Waterhouse, Rosie and Sheridan, Michael (July 11, 1992) [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/paper-may-face-legal-action-on-copyright-to-goebbels-diary-1532799.html "Paper may face legal action on copyright to Goebbels diary"], ''The Independent''. Accessed: May 2009</ref> He financed the defense of Bruno Bréguet during the 1970s after a bombing mission in Israel in 1970. The PFLP called for the release of both Bréguet and Leila Khaled, part of the Che Guevara Commando Unit of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, together in 1970.<ref>Laske, Karl and Hoffmann-Dartevelle, Maria (1996) ''Ein Leben zwischen Hitler und Carlos: François Genoud'' Limmat. p.234. {{ISBN|3-85791-276-6}}, {{ISBN|978-3-85791-276-4}}</ref> Genoud helped Ilich Ramírez Sánchez in 1994,<ref name=MJ /><ref name=EM /> after playing a key role in the success of his missions in the previous decades.<ref name=PG>Jennings, Kate (February 2011) [http://www.themonthly.com.au/olivier-assayas-carlos-and-terrorists-film-paths-glory-kate-jennings-2977# "Paths of Glory"] ''The Monthly'' Accessed March 22, 2011</ref>
He was closely associated with Ali Hassan Salameh, providing him medical care,<ref name=MJ /> and he also bankrolled Ayatollah Khomeini's exile in France when Iran was governed by Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. He was a mentor of Ahmed Huber.<ref name=EM>Atkins, Stephen E. (2004) [https://books.google.com/books?id=b8k4rEPvq_8C ''Encyclopedia of Modern Worldwide Extremists and Extremist Groups'']. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp.104-05, 135. {{ISBN|0-313-32485-9}}, {{ISBN|978-0-313-32485-7}}</ref>
Among the people with whom he came into contact was the Sephardic Italian-Egyptian Communist Henri Curiel. It is unclear whether there was any financial relationship between them, although they shared an interest in the Algerian cause.<ref name= "Coogan book" />
Throughout the 1970s, Genoud financed many left-wing groups with the goal of armed Arab liberation.<ref name=MJ /> It is alleged that he delivered the ransom demand after the Lufthansa Flight 649 hijacking in 1972.<ref name="David Lee Preston"/>
Along with Noam Chomsky, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, and other intellectuals, Genoud was a member of a committee which mounted a humanitarian campaign in the 1970s, which resulted in the pardon in 1977 of Bruno Bréguet, a Swiss militant who was the first European to be tried and sentenced in Israel for pro-Palestinian activities; Bréguet had served seven years of his 15-year sentence.<ref>Follain, John (1998) [https://books.google.com/books?id=3t5jtM2faD8C ''Jackal: The Complete Story of the Legendary Terrorist, Carlos the Jackal'']. Arcade Publishing. p.138. {{ISBN|1-55970-466-7}}, {{ISBN|978-1-55970-466-3}}</ref>
==Legal troubles== Genoud found himself in legal troubles from time to time, such as in 1983, when he was represented by Baudoin Dunant, a leading Geneva-based lawyer who sits on the board of over 20 companies, including the Saudi Investment Company, the overseas arm of the Saudi Binladin Group.<ref>Staff [https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/who/family.html "About the Bin Laden Family"] PBS Frontline</ref>
In 1993, a bomb exploded outside his home and by 1996 Swiss authorities were still investigating him for his financial activities during the Third Reich.<ref name=TH />
== Death == Genoud committed suicide, with, according to his family, the help of the Swiss pro-euthanasia group Exit, at age 80 on 30 May 1996.<ref>{{cite news | agency = Associated Press | title = Francois Genoud, Nazi Sympathizer, 81 | newspaper = The New York Times | date = June 3, 1996 | url = https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C02E0DD1F39F930A35755C0A960958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print }}</ref> He explained his decision to the group by stating that a "psychological illness" had made it impossible for him to endure life since the death of his second spouse, Elisabeth, in 1991. It has been speculated that he might also have been motivated by the desire to escape a forthcoming investigation of Swiss-Nazi financial contacts or simply by his declining health, as he was unlikely to live long in any case.<ref>[https://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Holocaust/swiss-and-hitler.html Preston, David Lee. 1997. Hitler's Swiss Connection. The Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan. 5, 1997]</ref>
==In popular culture== In the miniseries ''Carlos'', Genoud is mentioned by Ilich Ramírez Sánchez's character portrayed by Édgar Ramírez. The production has been criticized for downplaying the historical role of Genoud with Sánchez.<ref name=PG />
== See also == * Ahmed Huber * Johann von Leers
== References == {{Reflist}}
{{Swiss far right}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Genoud, Francois}} Category:1915 births Category:1996 suicides Category:Abwehr personnel of World War II Category:Fascism in the Arab world Category:Gestapo agents Category:Swiss Holocaust deniers Category:Swiss Nazis Category:Swiss neo-Nazis Category:Swiss spies for Nazi Germany Category:Suicides in Switzerland Category:Suicides by poison Category:Nazis who died by suicide Category:People from Lausanne