The Second World War ends. The USA, and Soviet Union (and to a lesser extent, the UK) divide Europe into spheres of influence.
The following USA companies had supplied arms and equipment to the regime of Nazi Germany:
The Nazi regime had discriminated against and killed Jews and other ethnic groups because it had considered northern Europeans to be a superior race. The USA Chargé d'Affairs in Berlin had stated that hope for Germany lay in "the more moderate section of the [Nazi] party which appeals to all civilised and reasonable people".
The USA had also supported and funded the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini in Italy saying that "all patriotic Italians hunger for strong leadership and enjoy being dramatically governed". The USA State Department had said that "Fascism is becoming the soul of Italy, [having] brought order out of chaos, discipline out of licence, and solvency out of bankruptcy. To accomplish so much in a short time severe measures have been necessary".
At the end of the War, many European Fascists are supported and re-instated by the USA and its West European allies. Many prominent Nazis are taken to the USA to work for the Americans: Reinhard Gehlen (spymaster), Alfred Six and Emil Augsburg (SS officers implicated in the massacre of Jews), Klaus Barbie (killer of many in the French city of Lyon), Otto von Bolschwing (mastermind of the holocaust against the Jews), and Otto Skorzeny (SS leader and friend of Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler).