#Volkswagen and IBM Nazi collaboration

[trans-corvo]

12 Companies Still Around Today that Profited Directly Off the Holocaust

Associated Press - The only western news agency to be allowed to operate within Nazi Germany in the latter half of the 30s. The AP was allowed this access on the condition they not publish anything “calculated to weaken the strength of the Reich abroad or at home.”In other words, the AP supplied American newspapers with approved Nazi propaganda. Nazi propagandists were also granted access to AP photo archives, photos from which were used in anti-Semitic propaganda.

Audi (then called Auto Union) - Used slave labour from the Leitmeritz concentration camp to manufacture military vehicles. By the company's own admission, are "morally responsible" for the deaths that took place at the camp. Audi exploited 3,700 prisoners at Leitmeritz, and another 16,500 labourers in Saxony. One of firm's founder and it's chairman, Dr Richard Bruhn, was a Nazi  and was allowed to reform Auto Union after the war.

Baccarat - Supported the Vichy regime and produced commemorative items honouring the Nazis and their collaborators. Many Nazis and Nazi collaborators remained in charge of the company until the early 90s, including Rene Bousquet (who was responsible for the deportation of tens of thousands of french Jews to concentration camps during the war.)

Bayer - The manufacturers of Aspirin. Their parent company operated factories within several concentration camps, and used the prisoners as slave labour, including 30,000 prisoners at Auschwitz. Furthermore, the company conducted medical experiments on the prisoners at these camps. One of the men responsible for the construction of the factories and experiments, Fritz ter Meer, was indicted for crimes against humanity, but served only three years of his sentence. He was then elected to Bayer's advisory board which he served on until 1964. The Bayer Science & Education Foundation was originally set up in his name.

BMW - Used slave labour in concentration camps (mainly Dachau) to manufacture vehicles. Nazi Party members Herbert and Harald Quandt made a large investment in the company using funds stolen from Jewish Germans.

Chase National Bank - Sold Nazi war bonds to German Americans, allowing them to finance the regime. When FDR ordered German assets in America be frozen, Chase collaborated with the Nazis to unfreeze the accounts and allow the funds to be transferred to Germany. In France, Chase enforced restrictions against Jewish property and even froze the accounts of Jews, effectively helping the Nazis plunder the wealth of French Jews.

IBM (German subsidiary Dehomag) - Concentration camps used IBM's punched card technology for parts of the camp's operations and for record keeping. IBM claims that the subsidiary had no choice and was taken over by the Nazis, but evidence suggests the company's New York headquarters directly controlled the subsidiaries that aided the Holocaust, even traveling to Berlin to deal with the Nazis. Thomas J. Watson, the CEO of IBM (and the namesake of the supercomputer) personally approved the company’s collaboration with the Nazis.

Ford - Manufactured vehicles for the Nazis using concentration camp prisoners as slave labour. Ford himself was an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist who blamed WWI on a Jewish plot, and worked to keep America out of WWII. Like many others, the company claimed it lost control of it's German subsidiary to the Nazis; however, evidence suggests that it helped the Nazi government with the full endorsement of Ford's American Headquarters.

Hugo Boss - Famously designed and supplied the Nazi's uniforms - uniforms which were created through the slave labour of concentration camp prisoners.

Mercedes-Benz (and its then-owner Daimler-Benz) - Almost half of its 60,000 'employees' during the war were POWs and concentration camp prisoners.

Porsche - Relied on the labour of concentration camp prisoners.

Volkswagen - Was founded in Berlin in 1937 by the German Labour Front (the Nazi organization that replaced labour unions). Made civilian vehicles, military vehicles, and munitions using forced labour, Soviet POWs, and concentration camp prisoners. The Volkswagen plant housed four concentration camps and eight forced-labour camps.

[antifainternational]

Is it true that certain companies were founded in Nazi germany (Cola company, BMW, etc)?

Yes.  Yes, companies did form in Germany during the period of nazi rule there (1933-1945) and many of those companies remain going concerns.  Two examples come to mind: -Fanta was starting by the German subsidiary of Coca-Cola to be able to continue making & selling soda after the embargo shut off their access to necessary ingredients from the U.S.  -Volkswagen was founded by a nazi-controlled labour union in 1937 after a decree by Hitler that Germany began manufacturing automobiles.  Other companies outside of nazi Germany were complicit in the nazis’ ambitions for genocide and world domination:   -IBM provided the technology that allowed the Holocaust’s bureaucracy to function for example.  -Both General Motors and Ford have been accused of actively assisting the nazi war effort, for another (the latter of which would be no surprise to anyone who knew about Henry Ford’s admiration for Hitler).  Here’s Henry Ford in 1938, receiving the German Grand Cross of the Eagle (the highest honour under nazi Germany; one created by Hitler himself):

We could go on and on about this topic.  Hugo Boss, Coco Chanel, BMW, Kodak, Siemens SG, Bayer - the list goes on and on.  Basically, any company doing business in Germany between 1933-1945 had to do so in collaboration with the nazis; many of them profited directly from the nazi regime’s use of slave labour and ability to grant monopolies to its friends (which of course flies in the face of any claims that the nazis were actually socialists).