# Eurotank Eurotank — formally **Europäische Tanklager und Transport A.G.** — was an oil refinery on the Elbe River northwest of Hamburg, owned by the American oilman [[William Rhodes Davis]] and built, in its key processing unit, by [[Fred C. Koch]]'s firm [[Winkler-Koch Engineering]] between 1934 and 1935. Personally approved by Adolf Hitler, it became one of the largest refineries in Nazi Germany and a vital supplier of fuel to the Third Reich's war machine. It is **the physical node of the Koch family's Nazi-era business connection** — the place where the founding Koch fortune and the German war economy intersect. ## What It Was - A converted oil-storage site (hence "Tanklager," tank-storage) on the Elbe, roughly seven miles northwest of central Hamburg, redeveloped into a full crude-oil refinery - Owned and promoted by [[William Rhodes Davis]], who secured Hitler's personal sign-off and arranged German financing after being shut out of conventional Western backing - Engineered by [[Winkler-Koch Engineering]] under [[Fred C. Koch]]'s direction; the Koch-built cracking unit had a capacity of about **360,000 tons of oil per year**, roughly double that of a second unit built by the German firm Borsig - Construction began in **1934**; the plant was completed by **1935** ## Why It Mattered to the Reich Nazi Germany was chronically short of refined petroleum and dependent on foreign-controlled supply. A modern, German-soil refinery that could buy crude on the world market and turn out finished fuels — including high-octane product usable by the Luftwaffe — was a strategic asset. Eurotank was reported as among the largest refineries serving Germany, and it remained a war-economy target: U.S. and Allied bombing later struck the facility, and (per postwar accounts) concentration-camp labor was used in rebuilding the bombed plant. ## Why It Matters in This KB Eurotank is the hard, documentary core of the otherwise easily-deflected claim that **the Koch fortune has roots in Nazi Germany**. The connection is not guilt-by-association: Davis owned the refinery, Koch's firm engineered and built its main processing unit, Hitler personally approved it, and it fueled the Reich. It sits alongside [[Fred C. Koch]]'s Soviet refinery contracts as the second foreign pillar of the pre-war Koch business — the half of the Koch origin story that the [[Koch Industries]] corporate narrative tends to omit. ## See Also - [[William Rhodes Davis]] — owner and political broker of the refinery - [[Fred C. Koch]] — whose firm engineered and built the main unit - [[Winkler-Koch Engineering]] — the contractor - [[Koch Industries]] — the company the Koch refining business became - [[World War II]] — the war the refinery's fuel helped power