Would you buy products from a company that collaborated with the Nazis during World War II?
What if that company paid reparations, or started a foundation as a way to apologize
for their mistakes of the past? Or what if the company refused to apologize,
or admit they did anything wrong? Would you still buy their products? We are about to
look at several companies that had ties to the Nazi party, or profited by selling products to
the Nazis during World War II. All of these companies are still around today,
and we can almost guarantee you own one or more of their products. Let’s find out which ones.
If you’ve ever taken a picture using old school film you’ve probably bought a product from Kodak.
For decades after World War II Kodak kept a sinister secret from the public. They had
been Nazi collaborators during the war. Kodak had subsidiaries in Germany and across Europe.
Even as Germany’s bold aspirations for world domination grew in the 1930s,
Kodak kept healthy buisness relations with the Nazi party.
After all out war broke out and the United States joined the Allies, the U.S. government mandated
that companies could no longer do business with Axis nations. This was a problem for
many companies operating internationally, Kodak being one of them. Kodak allowed their
German branch to become more self-sufficient, and eventually the Nazis took control of it. However,
Kodak took things one step further to make a profit. They began using their subsidiaries in
neutral European countries, such as Switzerland, to continue doing business with Nazi Germany.
The subsidiaries in Europe continued
selling photographic equipment and electronics to the Nazis on behalf
of Kodak. This meant that the Kodak corporation was directly providing technology to the Nazis,
and making a profit off it, all while hiding these facts from the United States government. The heads
of the Kodak company justified these actions by citing the massive profits they were bringing in.
Worst of all, the German branch of Kodak used over 250 slave laborers from concentration camps.
After the war, Kodak reclaimed their German subsidiary and collected on the large profits
made by the slave laborers during the war. Kodak ended up paying $500,000 into a fund
which provided reparations to families of people who worked as slaves under their
Nazi controled subsidiary… but the company never actually apologized.
Volkswagen is clearly a German word, and it probably doesn’t surprise you that the company
had ties to the Nazi party. However, what might surprise you is that the company was actually
started by the Nazis. Adolf Hitler himself laid out the precursor to what would become Volkswagen.
The idea for the company started with Hitler wanting to create a car for the common man,
a “people’s car.” This is how Volkswagen got its name:
“Volks” meaning people and “wagen” meaning car. Hitler hired Ferdinand Porsche to develop the car.
This initiative was where the classic Volkswagen Beetle got its shape. But,
the new head of the organization which would eventually become Volkswagen had bigger plans.
Porsche insisted that the company also make military vehicles to support the Reich.
The most influential of the these vehicles was the Volkswagen Kübelwagen,
which was a light military vehicle often seen in World War II movies carrying around SS and Nazi
officers. It had a boxy body and tire mounted on the hood. During the time period that the
Nazi party controled Germany, more than 15,000 slaves from concentration camps were used to
build the Volkswagen cars. The company even helped build the Arbeitsdorf concentration
camp near one of their main factories to ensure a steady supply of slave labor was available.
In 1998, under pressure from human rights organizations, Volkswagen agreed to create
a fund that would benefit the victims and their families that were used as slave labor.
`Other companies benefited from large profits gained by working with the Nazis in a different
way. Several companies were started, or acquired, by wealthy individuals whose
fortune started with the money made from dealings with the Nazi party. For example,
the Reimann family who owns JAB Holdings profited greatly from Nazi abuses and slave labor.
You may be unfamiliar with JAB Holdings, but you probably know the companies they own
such as: Krispy Kreme, Panera Bread, and Pret a Manger. These companies were
all created post World War II, however, their financing was partly provided by JAB holdings,
which unfortunately means they profited indirectly from the atrocities of the
Nazis. When this information was made public, the Reiamann family
said they were planning to donate around 11 million dollars to “suitable organizations.”
Coca-Cola is an American company. People around the world associate Coke with being “American.”
When you think of the soda, an image of American families or friends enjoying an ice cold beverage
probably comes to mind. However, The Coca-Cola Company had ties to the
Nazi party during World War II. The drink line Fanta, which includes commercials of
people happily dancing to upbeat music, was actually created for Nazi Germany.
As the Nazis came to power in 1933 Coca-Cola was making enormous profits in Germany
selling their products under the leadership of Max Keith. He made the Coca-Cola brand more appealing
to the German citizen, which resulted in a boost in sales. He also knew how to market the product
in a way that would make people around the world want to buy Coca-Cola. During the 1936 Berlin
Olympics Max Keith made sure that everyone in attendance had as much Coke as they could drink.
As the Nazis prepared for war, they started to limit the amount of foreign goods coming into
the country. This included Coca-Cola syrup, which began to hurt the company’s profits.
So, the sneaky Coke executives used a third party to open a dialogue with Hermann Göring,
Hitler’s second in command. They convinced him to allow the import of their syrup.
To boost sales even further Keith began promoting the Coca-Cola company as pro-Nazi in Germany.
His plan was to reach out to the Hitler Youth and win over the younger generation of Nazis.
This worked for a time, but as war broke out restrictions on imports became stricter again.
Max Keith had a new syrup created in Germany using local products.
This new soda became Fanta, based off of the German word “fantasie” which means “imagination.”
In 1941, when the United States joined the war,
all official contact between the Coca-Cola company and Max Keithe’s German branch was cut off.
Keith continued to sell his supply of actual Coca-Cola syrup to the Nazi party members,
and marketed the Fanta drink to the German public. The German people quickly fell in
love with the drink and Keith continued to make large profits for the Coca-Cola company.
After the war ended, Coca-Cola took back control of their German branch. They even reinstated the
recently convicted Nazi collabortaor, Max Keith, as its leader. The profits made from the German
branch during the years of the Nazi regime were funneled back into the main company.
If you are into high end fashion than you may be surprised that one of the
most successful fashion companies in the world has deep ties to the Nazi party. Hugo Boss set
up a fashion label in Germany two years before the Nazi Party came into power.
Even before the Nazis gained control of the country Hugo Boss was a Nazi collaborator.
The company itself had produced early Nazi uniforms in their factories.
In 1931 Hugo Boss made it clear where his allegences lie when he officially joined the
Nazi party. He became a sponsoring member of the Schutzstaffel and made monthly donations. Hugo
Boss and his company created many uniforms for the Nazis, and made large profits on
outfitting their soldiers. The company also produced uniforms for the SS and Hitler Youth.
In order to keep up with demand Hugo Boss began employing slave labor from the concentration
camps. It was reported that the company used 140 slaves from the camps and 40 prisoners of
war from France to make their products. The worst part was that many of these workers
were either worked to death, or later sent to Auschwitz or Buchenwald to be sentenced to death.
After the war, Hugo Boss was tried and convicted for being a “supporter
and beneficiary of National Socialism,” and his right to own a company was taken
away. The company continued on under Boss’ son-in-law Eugen Holy. In 1999 the company
finally agreed to pay into a fund that was set up to compensate former slave laborers.
If you’ve ever had a headache, or needed relief from pain, you may have taken an Aspirin. Bayer,
the company that makes the pain reliever, may have one of the darkest histories when
it comes to collaborating with the Nazi party. In the 1930s Bayer was part of a company called
IG Farben. It was a conglomerate made up of several chemical companies in Germany.
As the Nazis swept through Czechoslovakia, IG Farben worked closely with the party to
capture chemical factories to be used by the corporation. The chemists who worked for Bayer,
and were employed by IG Farben, later went on to create Zyklon B; the gas used in concentration
camps to quickly kill large numbers of Jews and other people the Nazis labeled as “undesirable.”
IG Farben also heavily used slave labor from the same camps they provided Zyklon B to. It
was a very messed up relationship between the Nazis and IG Farben. They built a factory next
to Auschwitz where they would use the prisoners their product would later kill for slave labor.
As the war came to an end, IG Farben was forced to dissolve; the directors of the company were
put on trial for war crimes. Unfortunately, justice was never served, and Fritz ter Meer,
who was the director of operations at the IG Farben facility at Auschwitz, became the
president of Bayer after the war. In 1995 Bayer apologized for their role in the Holocaust.
If you are watching this video you most likely are using a device that has components built by IBM.
The company, International Business Machines, has been around since 1911. In 1933 the president of
the company, Thomas Watson, traveled to Germany to oversee an IBM factory being built there.
At this time IBM was using a subsidiary called Dehomag to do their work in Germany.
IBM’s subsidary had been hired by the Nazi party to carry out a nation wide census.
The census itself was designed to identify populations of ethnic groups that the
Nazis found impure or undesirable. This included populations of Jews,
Gypsies, and any ethnic group that would dilute the Arian bloodlines of the country. IBM supplied
the Nazis with punch cards and a sorting system that would make it easy for them to identify,
locate, and track any people that they would later sentence to death.
These same machines and cards were later converted and used to coordinate the trains bringing people
to death camps across Nazi controlled territories. IBM has come a long way since punch cards,
but at the time this technology was bringing in massive amounts of money for the company.
IBM continued to conduct business with the Germans even after the United States joined the war.
High ranking members of IBM falsified data from their European subsidiaries
to make sure they could smuggle in punch card materials and devices that were in high demand
by the Nazis. For IBM at the time the Nazi buisness of killing was highly lucritive.
During World War II Nazi Germany was IBM’s largest territory after the United States.
Now many computers and electronic devices use parts created by IBM. The crazy part is that up
until this day IBM has not appologized for their complicity in the Holocaust.
A company’s main purpose is to make money; but at what cost?
It is important to never forget the past, so we do not repeat the same mistakes.
Collaberating with the Nazi party, and being complicit in the attrocities they
carried out during World War II, is a steep price to pay to make a profit.
Now check out “Oldest Companies In The World (OVER 800 YEARS).”
Or watch “Most Powerful Corporations in the World?” Thanks for watching,
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