Top 10 American Companies that Aided the Nazis
1. International Business Machines (IBM)
- 1933 - International Business Machines began providing Germany with punchcard machines that functioned as precursors to modern computers and databases
- as late as 1941, IBM was working in tandem with the Reich to liquidate Jews from Holland
- IBM employees were training SS personnel how to use their machines to record the movement, sorting, and mass execution of large numbers of undesirables, at times right in the headquarters of death camps
2. General Motors (GM)
- General Motors and Ford were sued by Holocaust survivors for assisting the Nazi war machine
- 1935 - GM built a factory in Berlin for the purpose of building “Blitz” trucks for the Wehrmacht
- GM was the number one producer of the vehicles that were vital for the quick conquests of Poland, France, and much of the Soviet Union
- Albert Speer, the minister of armaments and war production, claimed that the rubber GM supplied was the key to the ability of the Germans to wage war the way they did
- when America declared war on Germany, the Reich seized GM’s German production facilities.
- neither Ford nor General Motors never fully admitted that they had willingly participated in the use of slave labor
3. Ford Motor Company
- Henry Ford didn’t seem particularly inclined to distance his company or himself from the Nazis
- he accepted Germany’s highest honor freely and never returned the award while Hitler was alive
- was a committee member of the America First Association which advocated America stay out of World War II
- 1998 - it became public that the Third Reich had provided Ford’s factory in Cologne with 1,200 Russian slaves, as a potential form of compensation
4. Alcoa Aluminum
- 1941- Alcoa had a monopoly on aluminum in addition to owning a massive amount of America’s electricity production and other minerals
- prior to Germany declaring war on America, the 3rd Reich received 60% more aluminum products than Alcan was producing for America
- Alcoa sold the Axis powers so much aluminum that there was a shortage in America
5. Woolworth
- Woolworth fired all of its Jewish employees in Germany
- won them the designation “Adefa Zeichen,” an award reserved for companies that were “pure Aryan”
- what Woolworth did ultimately lent foreign legitimacy to the 3rd Reich's notorious anti-semitism
6. Brown Brothers Harriman
- early 1930s - Fritz Thyssen ran a business that he used to help finance Adolf Hitler’s rise to power
- Brown Brothers Harriman was a subsidiary company that was used as a base of American operations.
- Prescott Bush, father of President George W. H.Bush and grandfather of Ex-President George W. Bush, served onthe board of directors for Brown Brothers Harriman
- in 1942, the company’s assets were seized by the federal government and suspicions arose that some of the assets became part of the Bush family fortune
7. Dow Chemical
- Dow Chemical was one of the companies that provided large amounts of materials for the Nazis
- included not only raw materials but also American technological innovations with regards to oil refining
- allowed the Nazis to forgo their previous quotas to accommodate the influx
- the Nazis were taken by surprise with regard to how much material they were allowed to receive from American companies
- major reason why the 3rd Reich was able to achieve such a massive armament build-up in a short period
8. Chase Manhattan Bank
- Carlos Niedermann, Chase’s representative in Paris, had very good personal relations with the Nazis
- agreed to their requests that the bank seize the assets of at least one hundred Parisian Jews that were considered especially worth pursuing by the Reich
- Chase's colluding with the Reich was particularly heinous because it helped the Gestapo capture these people
-1998 - the company was part of a suit demanding reparations from Chase Manhattan, J. P. Morgan and Citibank for the millions of dollars stolen
- the survivors and descendants had to fight to not have large amounts of the payments eaten up by wire transfer fees
9. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
- prior to World War II, Germany was one of America’s most important film markets and American film studios were willing to bend over backward to appease the German government
- Warner Brothers ordered that the word “Jew” be taken out from their movies and invited Nazi dignitaries to visit their studio
- after the invasion of Poland in 1939, MGM donated prints of 11 of their films to the German Relief Effort
- these gestures came to an end only after the French and British markets threatened to boycott MGM if this collusion with the enemy
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10. Coca-Cola
- Coca-Cola was a major presence in Nazi German
- the very American nature of the product (wealth, flashy dreams, etc.) appealed very much to the German public
- 1942 - the company’s presence in the nation was seriously threatened Coca-Cola’s hundreds of bottling plants in Germany were naturally cut off from main American support
- Max Keith, the representative of the company in Germany at the time, redubbed the product “Fanta” for Reich consumption
- the bottling factories and processing plant were then used to provide Germany’s citizens a key element to keep their energy up to support the war effort
- after the war, Keith, in an amazing display of company loyalty, turned over the wartime profits to the parent company when the Allied armies arrived
http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-american-companies-that-aided-the-nazis.php
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The co-operation and collusion between prominent US companies and the 3rd Reich was not one of America's prouder moments and was responsible for Germany's rearmament and the subsequent deaths of many GIs.
