Episode 140: The Formula & Nazi Technology

The Formula tells the story of a secret alternative fuel formula invented by the Nazis. It's not the greatest film, TBH, but it gives us echoes of Operation Gladio, Operation Paperclip, and the conspiracies that free or low-cost abundant energy exists but has been suppressed. 

Also, Marlon Brando looks tremendously like Dick Cheney. 

⚠️ Spoilers lie ahead!

Links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Formula_(1980_film)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080754/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_energy_suppression_conspiracy_theory

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-63064471

https://www.auschwitz.org/en/history/auschwitz-iii/ig-farben/

Bob Roberts: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2289560/episodes/18417740

Operation Gladio series: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2289560/episodes/14840044
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2289560/episodes/14952036
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2289560/episodes/14952039

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Transcript

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Transcription by Otter.ai.  Please forgive any typos!

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

The Formula, Nazi technology, Synthetic fuel, Operation Gladio, Free energy, Energy suppression, Marlon Brando, George Scott, IG Farben, Operation Paperclip, Coal liquefaction, Fossil fuels, Patent suppression, Industrial cartels, Cold War

Welcome to con-sara-cy theories. Are you ready to ask questions you shouldn't and find information you're not supposed to know? Well, you're in the right place. Here is your host, Sara Causey.

Hello, hello, and thanks for tuning in. In tonight's episode, I will be talking about the formula and Nazi technology. Generally speaking, I say watch this film for yourself. Come to your own conclusions. Spoilers lie ahead. If you have not watched this movie or this TV show or this documentary, and you plan to download this episode or bookmark it and come back to it after you've had the opportunity to digest this for yourself, but every so often I come across a real stinker, and I'll just be honest with you and say, maybe I'm just doing your homework for you on this one. Maybe I'm saving you the process of spending 90 minutes or two hours out of your life that you'll never get back. The formula is at about a 20% on Rotten Tomatoes right now. It was not a film that I remember hearing about when I was a kid, I know that I didn't see it. I don't even remember hearing anything about it. I watched this movie for the first time several years ago when I bought a boxed set of Marlon Brando films, and I looked at it and I thought, "Gosh, I don't even remember anything about this. Popped it into the DVD player and was like, "Oh Lord, oh oh. Oh, oh my! Now I understand why I don't really remember hearing anything about it. Unlike Bob Roberts, which was a fantastic movie from the early '90s and so prescient, just as relevant now as it was then, if not more so, the formula is not the greatest movie on the planet. Have I seen worse? Yes, absolutely. Have I seen better? Yes, absolutely. But even if the film itself is not exactly some great Academy Award-winning picture with fantastic gravitas, it doesn't mean that there's not a relevant message inside it. So tonight I want to talk about the film itself, as well as Nazi technology and why I think this film is actually telling us something important. Select your frosty beverage of choice. There will be spoilers, but I don't know if that's anything to lose any sleep over. And we'll saddle up and take this ride.

Looking for your next great read? Learn more about Sara's books at saracausey.com, and now back to the show. 

The formula was released on december 19, 1980, and it does have some major motion picture stars: Marlon Brando, George C. Scott, Sir John Gielgud, and Marthe Keller, who was also in Marathon Man. It actually was, believe it or not, nominated for an Oscar for Best Cinematography, but it was also a nominee for several Razzie Awards, including Worst Picture and Worst Supporting Actor, being Marlon Brando. I hate to say this, but Brando does look quite bizarre in this film. The very first time that I saw it, when I popped it in, I was like, "Oh my god, oh my god! And the funny thing is, you can see George C. Scott having the same reaction because Marlon Brando is kind of coming down this hill towards George C. Scott, and he looks like Dick Cheney. He has a big old school hearing aid hanging out of his ear, and he looks like Dick Cheney. That was the first hand to God I shouted that to the television watching this. I was like, Oh my God, why does Marlon look like Dick Cheney? The backstory of the fake hearing aid it becomes part of the character, but in actuality, Marlin didn't want to learn his lines, so his secretary is off the screen, transmitting the lines to him through this earpiece. But it's um, it's not really anybody's finest hour, even though there are some major film actors in it. It's definitely not a movie that I would look at as being the world's greatest achievement, even though it it did somehow get a nomination for best cinematography. Yowza! It it was not the the most incredible film that I've ever seen. Now let's get into the nuts and bolts of the plot. So when the movie opens up, we're in the last bit of World War II, and the Soviets are closing in on Berlin, and this Nazi general named Helmut Clauden is sent with a packet of secret documents, and the idea is that he's going to be able to use. These documents to negotiate with the Allies, and if he can strike a deal with the Allied forces, then they can work together against the Soviets. So, in other words, the Germans won't fall to the Soviets if they can cut some kind of a deal with the Allied powers. So, let's stop just right there, just just on the beginning scenes of this film, this has severe echoes for me of Operation Gladio. If you missed the three-part series that I did about the BBC's three-part series of Operation Gladio, those of you who have been with me from the beginning, I know sometimes I probably sound like a broken record, but we just have to remember there's new people coming into the funnel all the time. People finding these episodes that don't know anything about the episodes from the past. Make sure that you go and check those out because Operation Gladio really happened. The pretense for it was that the West was going to set up a quote-unquote stay-behind network during the Cold War, and it would be organized by the Charlie India Alpha, MI6, and NATO. And the idea was the stay-behind network would have guerrilla resistance in Western Europe against the Soviets. Now, who was involved in this so-called stay-behind network? Well, the BBC documentary reveals that you're talking about black shirts, fascists, and Nazis-people like Klaus Barbie and the Black Prince, people who should have stood trial for war crimes, people who should have been on trial for genocide-and then. then, let's say, dispensed with accordingly. They were getting paid 1000s of dollars every month by these intelligence agencies in order to stay behind and beat back the scourge of communism. And in the formula, this General Claddon is intercepted. by the army and given over to army intelligence. Things that make you say, "Hmm, isn't it interesting when art imitates life? So now the movie springs us forward to 1980 Los Angeles, and this man named Barney Kane, who's a police officer played by George C. Scott, is trying to figure out who killed Tom Neely. Tom Neely was his former boss and his friend, and it looks like he's been murdered in some kind of a drug deal gone awry. And in the process of the investigation, Lieutenant Kane finds that the word Gene, G E N E, is written in Neely's blood.

He also finds a map marked with the name Oberman, and from there he's trying to figure out who is Gene and who is Oberman? Is it a man named Gene Oberman? Who who is this person, or is or are these words even related at all? So Lieutenant Kane learns that Neely had connections to this wealthy oil baron named Adam Steeple. Adam Steeple is played by Marlon Brando, who looks very, very much, remarkably much like Dick Cheney. If you don't watch it for any other reason than that, that that alone would be something worth seeing. Or go to IMDb and look and see if they have any pictures, because you'll be like, "Holy shit, he does! He looks just like that old penguin, Dick Cheney. And so, anyway, Kane finds out that Stiefel has used Tom Neely to be a bag man. So it's kind of like he-he's somebody who has helped Stiefel to coordinate international deals. When Kane discovers that Stiefel's company had recruited Neely to go to an overseas job. He gets permission to go to Germany to continue his investigation of the murder over there. So when he's in Berlin, Kane meets with a man named Paul Oberman, and he explains the importance of genesis, and genesis is this synthetic fuel formula that's been developed by Nazis, and it could potentially eliminate the need for oil. So the dependence that people have on oil and gas products could go away based on this synthetic fuel formula. Kane discovers that Neely was murdered because of the formula. However, before he can suss any more out, Oberman is killed. So Kane is then accompanied by Lisa Spangler, who is Oberman's niece, and they try to find the remaining individuals who are connected to. Formula, including a man named Professor Sebold. Sebold in turn discloses that Dr. Abraham Esau, the creator of Genesis, is still alive. But conveniently, of course, after they leave Sebold's apartment, he is killed, and then Cain realizes that Lisa is not exactly who she says that she is, she admits that she's a spy who's been sent to keep an eye on him. Kane finds out that true copies of the formula are hidden with the LAPD and a Swiss energy company. Kane confronts the forces behind this conspiracy, and he learns that Stiefel has been orchestrating events to keep the formula a secret for decades. He goes back to L.A. meets with Stiefel, who has kidnapped Kane's current partner Louis, and is holding him hostage in exchange for the formula. After exchanging the formula for Louis' release, Kane demands answers from Stiefel, and he basically says there's a whole cartel around this thing, and we have a plan to keep the formula hidden. It doesn't do me any good as an oil baron if this information goes public and it actually changes the way that business is done. I don't want my stocks to be worthless. I don't want my company to be worthless. Kane reveals that he's already sent the formula to a Swiss businessman named Franz Tauber, who agrees to keep it secret for another 10 years in exchange for a share of his anthracite holdings. Now, before I start talking more specifically about Nazi technology, I'm going to hop over to the Wikipedia page about free energy suppression conspiracy theory. Free energy suppression, or new energy suppression, is a conspiracy theory that technologically viable, pollution-free, no-cost energy sources are being suppressed by governments, corporations, or advocacy groups. Devices allegedly suppressed include perpetual motion machines, cold fusion generators, torus-based generators, reverse-engineered extraterrestrial technology, anti-gravity propulsion systems, and other generally unproven or physically impossible low-cost energy sources. Because remember, Wikipedia has to tell us. Okay, under the claims, the alleged suppression or weakening of the technology is claimed to have occurred since the mid 19th century and allegedly perpetrated by various government agencies, corporate powers, special interest groups, and fraudulent investors. The special interest groups are usually claimed to be associated with the fossil fuel or nuclear industry, whose business model would be threatened. Claims of suppression include the claim that the scientific community has controlled and suppressed research into alternative avenues of energy generation via the institutions of peer review and academic pressure. Because I mean, we know that academia just never gets into an echo chamber, right? We know that.

We know that they don't sit around huffing each other's farts in a giant circle jerk oroboros, we know that that just never happens. Of course, it doesn't. The claim that devices exist which are capable of extracting significant and usable power from pre-existing unconventional energy reservoirs, such as the quantum vacuum zero point energy, for little or no cost, but are being suppressed. We know about CERN. We know about the Hadron Collider. I mean, it's one of those things where it's like, how is this all just a conspiracy theory? Like, how is it possible that there's not even a scintilla of truth to all of this? I'm just, I'm just asking. The claim that related patents have been bought up, such as those for the 100 mpg carburetors. Some people who have been claimed to be suppressed, harassed, or killed for their research are Stanley Meyer, Eugene Malov, and Nikola Tesla. Free energy proponents claim that Tesla developed a system that could generate unlimited energy for free. His system was only intended to transmit energy for free. The system's energy would still need to be generated through conventional means. Proponents of the conspiracy theory include Gary Mackinnon, a Scottish computer hacker who unlawfully accessed computer systems to look for evidence of a secret free energy device videos apparently showing homemade perpetual motion machines generating free energy with magnets omit that said machines possess hidden batteries to create the illusion of perpetual motion, since their existence would violate the first law of thermodynamics. Followers of the Tartaria conspiracy theory believe an advanced civilization called Tartaria, destroyed by a mud flood now covered up by the world's governments, once had free wireless energy. In a mainstream report from the BBC, we read over 1,700 environment activists killed in decade. Report says, an environment. Activist has been killed every two days on average over the past decade. A new study shows the report from Global Witness says that more than 1,700 people have died while trying to prevent mining, oil drilling, or logging on their lands. Over the 10 years, Brazil and Colombia have the highest have recorded the highest number of deaths, and that was back in 2022. Presumably, as we continue to have, at least in America, the absolute shitting out of these data centers and smelter plants and all the rest of it, I would assume that that number would be even higher. I want to think now about Nazi technology because the film. I feel like it's telling us several things. There's certainly the conspiracy of someone has invented or discovered how whatever nomenclature you want to use around that invented or discovered free or very low cost energy, and it's being suppressed. It's being suppressed by people who are already in charge and they want to continue to make absolutely obscene amounts of money. It's not lost on me that I'm talking about this as fuel is insanely high, especially being involved in agriculture. It's like when you look at the cost of diesel fuel right now, my God, their truck drivers talking about spending 1000, 1200, $1,300 to fill up their rig, just going to put gas in a truck and a tractor can easily be three or $400, and I'm talking about just a run-of-the-mill farm tractor. This is crazy. They had a report on the news tonight saying that holiday travel. If you're planning to go home for the holidays at Thanksgiving or Christmas, and it's going to require you to take a flight, you're going to pay more than you have in over a decade. If you're going to have to gas up the car, you're going to rent a car or take your own vehicle. You're not going to fare much better because you have to stop and fill up for gas, and it's going to be higher than ever. And depending upon what state you're traveling to, you could really get pinched. So it's certainly dealing with this idea of there have been inventors or scientists who have come up with ways to get us out of this dependency on nuclear power, on fossil fuels, etc. but they always wind up being killed or suppressed, and the technology goes bye bye.

I want to think now about actual technology and historical inventions possessed by the Nazis, because this is part of what's happening in this film, the idea that the Nazis already had this technology, and they were going to trade it off to the Allies for protection against the Soviets. So, in the film, we have this synthetic fuel production. The plot revolves around this secret Nazi formula called Genesis, an industrial catalyst that allows a kind of synthetic gasoline to be produced cheaply and efficiently from abundant raw materials like coal. So IRL Germany faced severe oil shortages during the Second World War due to a lack of domestic reserves. German chemists, chemists, I almost said chemists, German chemists Franz Fischer and Hans Trope developed the Fischer-Tropsch process in 1925, and that converts coal gas into liquid hydrocarbons. By 1944, Nazi Germany produced millions of barrels of synthetic fuel per year using coal liquefaction to keep the Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht operational. Let's also talk about the modern catalyst and chemical engineering advances. In the film, the fictional breakthrough, the fictional breakthrough relies on a specific catalyst invented near the end of World War II that dramatically lowers the cost and energy requirements of synthetic oil synthesis, which makes it economically competitive with drilled crude oil. IRL late war Nazi technological efforts were heavily focused on developing specialized catalysts using metals like iron, cobalt, and nickel to speed up hydrogenation processes. Say that five times fast. Hydrogenation processes, and reduce thermal energy needs. Let's also examine industrial monopoly and the IG Farben parallel. In the film, giant multinational energy cartels actively work to suppress the Nazi synthetic fuel formula to protect their crude oil profits and control global market pricing. IRL Nazi synthetic fuel production was dominated by IG Farben, a massive German chemical conglomerate. IG Farben held vast global patents for coal high high. Hydrogenation, hydrogenation, hydrogenation, tomato, tomato, and entered into pre-war patent-sharing agreements with international energy giants, including Standard Oil of New Jersey, demonstrating how closely corporate and cartel interests were tied to wartime Nazi industrial tech. No shit. I'm going to hop over now to Auschwitz.org under the tab IG Farben. The history of the founding of the camp is connected with the initiative by the German chemical concern IG Farben to build its third large plant for synthetic rubber and liquid fuels. The new camp was to be located in Silesia, beyond the range of Allied bombers at the time, among the several sites proposed in December 1940/January 1941, the final choice fell on the flat land between the eastern part of Oshvindium and the villages of Dvori and Monowitza. The decision was justified by the favorable geological conditions, access to railroad lines, water supply, and the availability of raw materials, coal, lime, and salt. Furthermore, the belief that it would be possible for the firm to employ prisoners from nearby Auschwitz concentration camp was by no means a trivial consideration, and may in fact have been decisive in the choice of the project. I.G. Farben put the pieces of the deal in place between February and April 1941. The company bought the land from the treasury for a knockdown price after it had been seized from its Polish owners without compensation. Their houses were vacated and demolished. At the same time, the German authorities expelled the Jews from Auschwitz, confiscated their homes, and sold them to IG Farben as housing for company employees brought in from Germany. Some local Polish residents were dispossessed in the same way. Finally, IG Farben officials reached an agreement with the concentration camp commandant on hiring prisoners at a preferential rate of three to four marks per day for the labor of auxiliary and skilled construction workers. In a letter to his colleagues about the negotiations, IG Farben director Otto Ambros wrote that our new friendship with the SS is very fruitful. This relationship between IG Farben and Standard Oil also has a bearing on this movie and the topic at hand. In World War II, through this partnership, Germany acquired vital aviation gasoline lubricating oils and tetraethyl lead, a crucial gasoline additive, IG Farben acted as a trustee to help the German military stockpile resources using its friendly ties to Standard Oil. Farben withheld key manufacturing details of Buna synthetic rubber from Standard Oil, which restricted U.S. synthetic rubber production capabilities in the early years of the war, U.S.

investigations during the war revealed that some patent transfers were treated by German executives as post-war arrangements to protect assets if hostilities broke out. In the aftermath, in 1942, U.S. government officials, including Assistant Attorney General Thurman Arnold and the alien property custodian accused Standard Oil of hindering the U.S. war effort through its deep ties to the Nazi-aligned German trust. Standard Oil signed a consent decree, paid a fine, and released its synthetic rubber patents for war production. Following the defeat of Nazi Germany, or were they really defeated? And there's another conspiracy theory for us. IG Farben was dismantled by Allied authorities due to its extensive use of slave labor, such as at Auschwitz, and central role in the German war machine. Its assets were eventually broken back down into major independent successor companies, including BASF and Bayer. Also in the formula, there's a theme of post-war tech intelligence, a kind of spirit of Operation Paperclip. So in the movie, the secret formula is preserved through World War II, passing through former Nazi scientists and officers into the hands of post-war power brokers, very very Operation Gladio-esque. IRL, following World War II, Allied intelligence agencies captured tons of German scientific records, patents, and manufacturing processes under programs like Operation Paperclip and Fiat, the Field Information Agency Technical, American chemical engineers thoroughly studied and reverse engineered German synthetic fuel technology during the 40s and 50s. So, if we wanted to TLDR that, we could say Nazi Germany's alternative fuel technology was way ahead of the rest of the world at the time. After the Second World War, Allied powers seize the technical plans via paperclip and fiat. The Fischer-Trops process remains the foundational technology used today for coal to liquid and gas to liquid plants worldwide. Most notably used by South Africa's Sasol during the apartheid energy embargoes and by modern energy producers converting natural gas into clean burning diesel. So while the formula is certainly not the most amazing movie that I've ever seen, it is giving us echoes of reality. It certainly is echoing Operation Gladio and Operation Paperclip, along with these questions we have about, have there been people with free or very low-cost energy methods who have been suppressed or killed? Does this technology exist, but it's intentionally buried because fossil fuels, nuclear power, etc. And then now we have some sort of supposed arms race vis-a-vis AI, and these fucking data centers that are everywhere. It's a point to ponder. So even if the movie itself is not your cup of tea, I do think that these bigger questions have to be asked, especially because you were told that there's such a strain on the grid, on power and electricity and water. Well, we've got to have these fucking data centers because if we don't, other countries will get ahead of us. So here we go. It's like Cold War brinkmanship all over again. The more things change, the more they stay the same. But like, okay, well, what if there was unlimited energy? What if all of this is just bullshit anyway? A point to ponder. So even if Marlon Brando comes up the hill looking like Dick Cheney, and you're like, "What has happened here? Even setting all of that aside, I feel like these are good questions to gnaw on. In the meantime, stay a little bit crazy, and I will see you in the next episode.

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