Koch Industries (and the Family) - Part 2

Harry and Mattie Koch's first born son was John Anton, who worked in the family newspaper business.  In 1900, Fred Chase was born.  Both sons appear to have shared their father's view of politics.  From 1917 through 1919, Fred attended Rice Institute; he graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1922, with a degree in "Chemical Engineering Practice."  Fred began working immediately after graduation from MIT for the Texas Company in Port Arthur, Texas.  Soon afterwards, he was employed by the Medway Oil and Storage Company in County Kent, England. In 1925, Fred was back in the US, and invested money with his friend, and co-MIT graduate, P. C. Keith, in the Keith-Winkler Engineering Company in Wichita, Kansas.  Keith sold his interest in the company to his friend, Fred Koch, before the end of 1925.  At that time, the company became known as the Winkler-Koch Engineering Company.
  In 1927, Fred C. Koch developed and patented a more efficient thermal cracking process, refining gasoline from crude oil, at a much higher yield-rate than any other existing process.  He started to use his process, but the big oil companies filed a total of 44 lawsuits against Koch, and his company, for "patent infringement."  Koch could not use his new process in the United States until the law suits ended - but he could use the new process in other countries.
  Europe was still recovering from World War I.  The Weimar Republic, which elected an 80% Democratic representation in Germany's 1919 election, replacing the Imperial Government, was economically weak.  From 1919 until 1933 there was constant talk and negotiations between Germany and Russia to form an alliance to partition Poland between the two countries, returning their borders back to the 1914 lines.  The 1929 Wall Street Crash in the United States was a crushing blow to Germany, who had planned on recovering the country's wealth through the US stock market. In 1930, another election took place in Germany, and 19% of the elected representatives were members of the National Socialist German Worker's Party (which we came to know as the Nazi party).  Adolf Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany in 1933.
   In Russia, Lenin had died, and Josef Stalin had come into power.  Russia was, essentially, back in the Dark Ages when it came to refining crude oil.  Stalin had already begun his series of Five Year Plans, and a large one was to increase oil refining capacities within the country.  Between 1926 and 1929, the USSR purchased more than $20 million of United States-made oil equipment.  In 1929, Winkler-Koch Engineering Company signed a contract worth $5 million to build 15 oil refineries inside the USSR.  Winkler-Koch provided the equipment needed to build the plants, and oversaw the construction.  The first Winkler-Koch plants (2) were set up in Tuapse in 1930. The cracking unit performed commendably and became the preferred type in Russia.  In 1931, two cracking units were opened in Baku, two in Batumi, and six in Grozny.  In 1932, three plants opened in Yaroslavl.  Winkler-Koch made certain that they ran a tightly bound organization.  Fred Koch was on-site most of the time.  Koch pleased his clients by ensuring top-quality and by "helping the cause of socialism."  During this time, Fred Koch became a favorite friend of one of Stalin's immediate supporters, and was wined and dined throughout the USSR.  People from Russia were flown into Wichita, Kansas and given "hands on" training at the Winkler-Koch Company.  Koch also trained the friendly Germans for their Russian comrades, helping to increase the outpouring of jet fuel and gasoline production for what became the Third Reich.
   Fred Koch left Russia in 1933 and returned to the United States.  But he and his company continued doing engineering training and oil refinery work for, and inside, the USSR until 1956.  An Associated Press article in 1956 reported that Fred C. Koch and eleven prominent citizens of Wichita, Kansas "left for Moscow today, by plane, in an effort to convince the Russian people that Soviet propaganda about capitalists is untrue."  Was it a business meeting that went sour? No one knows the facts anymore, but 12 big American capitalists, going to treat with the Russian people sounds like a great cover for an "under-the-covers" business deal.  All we know, today, is that when Fred Koch returned to the United States, he suddenly had a great hatred for Russia and the Communist Party.
    More later.....