Campaign

Nazi ads to target David Koch’s apartment building

by Jonathan Swan - 01/12/16 6:36 PM ET

Hillary Clinton ally David Brock is taking his trolling of the Koch brothers to new levels, transmitting digital messages about David Koch’s family’s alleged Nazi ties inside Koch’s apartment building in Manhattan.

Starting Tuesday, residents of 740 Park Avenue — the luxury apartment building of David Koch and many other elites — and visitors of other locations tied to the Koch brothers will receive geo-targeted Twitter and Facebook ads attacking the family for reported historical ties to Nazi Germany.

{mosads}The animated gif shows the faces of both Charles and David Koch and bears the message, “The Kochs’ father built a Nazi oil refinery that was personally approved by Adolf Hitler.”

The Nazi allegation comes from The New York Times’ report of a new book “Dark Money” by journalist Jane Mayer, in which she writes that Fred Koch, the father of the billionaire industrialists and major right-wing donors, helped build the third-largest oil refinery in the Third Reich.

Koch industries did not participate in Mayer’s book.

Dave Robertson, the president and COO of Koch Industries, submitted a note to the company’s employees on Tuesday afternoon regarding the Nazi reports. In it, he acknowledged that Fred Koch’s company, Winkler-Koch engineering, helped built an oil refinery in Nazi Germany and that the contract was signed in 1933.

“That signing was nearly six years before Germany invaded Poland,” Robertson wrote. “Meanwhile during that same period, many iconic U.S. companies were doing business in Germany, including Coca-Cola, General Motors, Ford and IBM.

“Of the many false and inaccurate claims that have leaked out so far, the implication that Fred Koch sympathized with one of the most tyrannical regimes in history is reprehensible.”

The Bridge Project attack ads “target influencers in New York, Washington, DC, and across the country, with particular targeting to 740 Park Avenue in New York City, Koch Plaza at the Met, the Koch Theater at Lincoln Center, and the Koch Dinosaur Wing at the American Museum of Natural History,” says a source familiar with the buy.

Bridge Project would not comment on the exact size of the buy, but it is understood to be less than $10,000 — suggesting it is more a stunt to get under the Kochs’ skin than part of a sustained blast. The ads are scheduled to finish at the end of this week.

“It’s shocking that the Kochs’ fortune has roots in Nazi Germany — and that they’ve tried to hide it,” said Eddie Vale, the vice president of the anti-Koch group.

“Koch Industries should apologize for their past work with the Nazis like other companies have done and until they do, Republicans should think long and hard before they take their cash and push their self-enriching agenda.”

The group behind the ad, Bridge Project, was set up by Brock with the sole mission to attack and track the Kochs and their political activities. The Koch donor network is among the most powerful forces in conservative America, with plans to spend $889 million during the 2016 campaign cycle.

Bridge Project has a $4 million budget to use against the Kochs during the 2016 cycle. A relatively new outfit, it became fully operational in the summer of 2014 after conversations between Brock and then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

The group’s nonprofit status conceals the identities of its donors, leading some conservative opponents to charge it with hypocrisy for lamenting the sinister influence of “dark money.”

Tags David Brock David Koch Koch Brothers