Published in partnership with Drop Site
A Nazi regime-linked company is among the suppliers of 563 tonnes of bomb shells and ammunition headed to Israel on a ship moored at a US port.
It’s the largest ever shipment of munitions – on its way to the Israeli land forces’ biggest weapons supplier – to Israel identified by The Ditch.
The Ocean Gladiator will leave the Port of Paulsboro for Ashdod carrying munitions from Wieland Group – which “profited enormously from the armaments orders” it received from Adolf Hitler’s regime in the early 1940s. .
The Ditch reported last month that another vessel that left the same port in August transported 374 tonnes of Israel-bound bomb shells through EU maritime territory.
The largest shipment yet
Last year the German-headquartered Wieland Group – whose former CEO Karl Eychmüller was a member of the Nazi party and even wore its brownshirt uniform – bought the former American Brass plant in Buffalo, New York.
The upstate New York factory is sending more than 162 tonnes of brass ammunition cartridge cases to the Elbit Systems-owned munitions plant in Ramat Hasharon, according to shipping records uncovered by The Ditch.
The Wieland Group munitions are in eight shipping containers loaded onto the Ocean Gladiator at the Port of Paulsboro in New Jersey on Sunday.
Another New York-based company, International Ordnance Technologies, is sending 24 tonnes of M9 ammunition links to the same Elbit Systems plant in Israel.
It’s understood the ship will make stops at other US ports on its way.
Meanwhile the Elbit Systems factory in Ladson, South Carolina, is shipping 377 tonnes of bomb shells in 25 containers to its sister company in Ramat Hasharon.
The Ocean Gladiator is set to pass through the Strait of Gibraltar in the coming weeks before its scheduled arrival in Ashdod Port on 23 October.
Wieland Group, International Ordnance Technologies and Elbit Systems declined to comment.
