German-American Petroleum Company

On 25 February 1890 a joint venture between the German industrialists Franz Ernst Schütte,[2] Carl Schütte [de] and Wilhelm Anton Riedemann [de] and the American industrialist John D. Rockefeller was agreed in the German city of Bremen to create a subsidiary of Standard Oil that would operate as a petroleum business in Germany.

In 1928 the tanker shipping company of the German-American Petroleum Society was renamed to the Waried Tankschiff Rhederei [de] GmbH.

[8][9] During the global economic crisis, the shares of MAN and Haniel in the Oelhag, the German petroleum company were bought by the German-American Petroleum Society and the German mineral oil company Rhenania-Ossag [de], that would be later called, Shell Germany Oil GmbH.

As a result of the Anschluss of Austria in 1938 and the subsequent reorganization of the local industry, the Vacuum Oil Company was assigned to the German-American Petroleum Society along with its refinery in the Kagran area of Vienna[12] From 1938 onwards the company had holdings in Hydrierwerke Pölitz [de] AG in Pölitz near Stettin, together with IG Farben, who responsible for the production of the chemical Zyklon B for gas chambers, and Rhenania-Ossag.

[16] The number of people employed in oil production grew substantially from 1939 to 1944, including many forced labourers and prisoners of war from Poland, Ukraine and the Soviet Union.

[17] German domestic oil production rose significantly during the course of the second world war, until allied bombing campaign in 1944.

In June, the month after the Allied petroleum raids began, production dropped by one-third to 2.2 million barrels.