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Modern Companies that Collaborated with Nazis During World War 2 - YouTube
Channel: The Infographics Show
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Would you buy products from a company that
collaborated with the Nazis during World War II?
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What if that company paid reparations, or
started a foundation as a way to apologize
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for their mistakes of the past? Or what
if the company refused to apologize,
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or admit they did anything wrong? Would you
still buy their products? We are about to
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look at several companies that had ties to the
Nazi party, or profited by selling products to
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the Nazis during World War II. All of
these companies are still around today,
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and we can almost guarantee you own one or more
of their products. Let’s find out which ones.
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If you’ve ever taken a picture using old school
film you’ve probably bought a product from Kodak.
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For decades after World War II Kodak kept
a sinister secret from the public. They had
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been Nazi collaborators during the war. Kodak
had subsidiaries in Germany and across Europe.
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Even as Germany’s bold aspirations for
world domination grew in the 1930s,
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Kodak kept healthy buisness
relations with the Nazi party.
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After all out war broke out and the United States
joined the Allies, the U.S. government mandated
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that companies could no longer do business
with Axis nations. This was a problem for
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many companies operating internationally,
Kodak being one of them. Kodak allowed their
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German branch to become more self-sufficient, and
eventually the Nazis took control of it. However,
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Kodak took things one step further to make a
profit. They began using their subsidiaries in
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neutral European countries, such as Switzerland,
to continue doing business with Nazi Germany.
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The subsidiaries in Europe continued
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selling photographic equipment and
electronics to the Nazis on behalf
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of Kodak. This meant that the Kodak corporation
was directly providing technology to the Nazis,
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and making a profit off it, all while hiding these
facts from the United States government. The heads
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of the Kodak company justified these actions by
citing the massive profits they were bringing in.
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Worst of all, the German branch of Kodak used
over 250 slave laborers from concentration camps.
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After the war, Kodak reclaimed their German
subsidiary and collected on the large profits
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made by the slave laborers during the war.
Kodak ended up paying $500,000 into a fund
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which provided reparations to families of
people who worked as slaves under their
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Nazi controled subsidiary… but the
company never actually apologized.
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Volkswagen is clearly a German word, and it
probably doesn’t surprise you that the company
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had ties to the Nazi party. However, what might
surprise you is that the company was actually
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started by the Nazis. Adolf Hitler himself laid
out the precursor to what would become Volkswagen.
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The idea for the company started with Hitler
wanting to create a car for the common man,
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a “people’s car.” This is
how Volkswagen got its name:
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“Volks” meaning people and “wagen” meaning car.
Hitler hired Ferdinand Porsche to develop the car.
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This initiative was where the classic
Volkswagen Beetle got its shape. But,
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the new head of the organization which would
eventually become Volkswagen had bigger plans.
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Porsche insisted that the company also make
military vehicles to support the Reich.
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The most influential of the these
vehicles was the Volkswagen Kübelwagen,
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which was a light military vehicle often seen in
World War II movies carrying around SS and Nazi
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officers. It had a boxy body and tire mounted
on the hood. During the time period that the
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Nazi party controled Germany, more than 15,000
slaves from concentration camps were used to
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build the Volkswagen cars. The company even
helped build the Arbeitsdorf concentration
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camp near one of their main factories to ensure
a steady supply of slave labor was available.
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In 1998, under pressure from human rights
organizations, Volkswagen agreed to create
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a fund that would benefit the victims and
their families that were used as slave labor.
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`Other companies benefited from large profits
gained by working with the Nazis in a different
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way. Several companies were started, or
acquired, by wealthy individuals whose
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fortune started with the money made from
dealings with the Nazi party. For example,
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the Reimann family who owns JAB Holdings profited
greatly from Nazi abuses and slave labor.
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You may be unfamiliar with JAB Holdings,
but you probably know the companies they own
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such as: Krispy Kreme, Panera Bread,
and Pret a Manger. These companies were
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all created post World War II, however, their
financing was partly provided by JAB holdings,
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which unfortunately means they profited
indirectly from the atrocities of the
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Nazis. When this information was
made public, the Reiamann family
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said they were planning to donate around 11
million dollars to “suitable organizations.”
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Coca-Cola is an American company. People around
the world associate Coke with being “American.”
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When you think of the soda, an image of American
families or friends enjoying an ice cold beverage
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probably comes to mind. However, The
Coca-Cola Company had ties to the
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Nazi party during World War II. The drink
line Fanta, which includes commercials of
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people happily dancing to upbeat music,
was actually created for Nazi Germany.
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As the Nazis came to power in 1933 Coca-Cola
was making enormous profits in Germany
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selling their products under the leadership of Max
Keith. He made the Coca-Cola brand more appealing
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to the German citizen, which resulted in a boost
in sales. He also knew how to market the product
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in a way that would make people around the world
want to buy Coca-Cola. During the 1936 Berlin
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Olympics Max Keith made sure that everyone in
attendance had as much Coke as they could drink.
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As the Nazis prepared for war, they started to
limit the amount of foreign goods coming into
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the country. This included Coca-Cola syrup,
which began to hurt the company’s profits.
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So, the sneaky Coke executives used a third
party to open a dialogue with Hermann Göring,
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Hitler’s second in command. They convinced
him to allow the import of their syrup.
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To boost sales even further Keith began promoting
the Coca-Cola company as pro-Nazi in Germany.
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His plan was to reach out to the Hitler Youth
and win over the younger generation of Nazis.
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This worked for a time, but as war broke out
restrictions on imports became stricter again.
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Max Keith had a new syrup created
in Germany using local products.
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This new soda became Fanta, based off of the
German word “fantasie” which means “imagination.”
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In 1941, when the United States joined the war,
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all official contact between the Coca-Cola company
and Max Keithe’s German branch was cut off.
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Keith continued to sell his supply of actual
Coca-Cola syrup to the Nazi party members,
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and marketed the Fanta drink to the German
public. The German people quickly fell in
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love with the drink and Keith continued to
make large profits for the Coca-Cola company.
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After the war ended, Coca-Cola took back control
of their German branch. They even reinstated the
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recently convicted Nazi collabortaor, Max Keith,
as its leader. The profits made from the German
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branch during the years of the Nazi regime
were funneled back into the main company.
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If you are into high end fashion than
you may be surprised that one of the
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most successful fashion companies in the world
has deep ties to the Nazi party. Hugo Boss set
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up a fashion label in Germany two years
before the Nazi Party came into power.
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Even before the Nazis gained control of the
country Hugo Boss was a Nazi collaborator.
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The company itself had produced early
Nazi uniforms in their factories.
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In 1931 Hugo Boss made it clear where his
allegences lie when he officially joined the
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Nazi party. He became a sponsoring member of the
Schutzstaffel and made monthly donations. Hugo
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Boss and his company created many uniforms
for the Nazis, and made large profits on
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outfitting their soldiers. The company also
produced uniforms for the SS and Hitler Youth.
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In order to keep up with demand Hugo Boss began
employing slave labor from the concentration
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camps. It was reported that the company used
140 slaves from the camps and 40 prisoners of
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war from France to make their products. The
worst part was that many of these workers
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were either worked to death, or later sent to
Auschwitz or Buchenwald to be sentenced to death.
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After the war, Hugo Boss was tried
and convicted for being a “supporter
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and beneficiary of National Socialism,”
and his right to own a company was taken
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away. The company continued on under Boss’
son-in-law Eugen Holy. In 1999 the company
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finally agreed to pay into a fund that was
set up to compensate former slave laborers.
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If you’ve ever had a headache, or needed relief
from pain, you may have taken an Aspirin. Bayer,
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the company that makes the pain reliever,
may have one of the darkest histories when
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it comes to collaborating with the Nazi party.
In the 1930s Bayer was part of a company called
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IG Farben. It was a conglomerate made up
of several chemical companies in Germany.
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As the Nazis swept through Czechoslovakia,
IG Farben worked closely with the party to
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capture chemical factories to be used by the
corporation. The chemists who worked for Bayer,
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and were employed by IG Farben, later went on to
create Zyklon B; the gas used in concentration
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camps to quickly kill large numbers of Jews and
other people the Nazis labeled as “undesirable.”
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IG Farben also heavily used slave labor from
the same camps they provided Zyklon B to. It
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was a very messed up relationship between the
Nazis and IG Farben. They built a factory next
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to Auschwitz where they would use the prisoners
their product would later kill for slave labor.
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As the war came to an end, IG Farben was forced
to dissolve; the directors of the company were
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put on trial for war crimes. Unfortunately,
justice was never served, and Fritz ter Meer,
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who was the director of operations at the
IG Farben facility at Auschwitz, became the
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president of Bayer after the war. In 1995 Bayer
apologized for their role in the Holocaust.
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If you are watching this video you most likely are
using a device that has components built by IBM.
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The company, International Business Machines, has
been around since 1911. In 1933 the president of
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the company, Thomas Watson, traveled to Germany
to oversee an IBM factory being built there.
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At this time IBM was using a subsidiary
called Dehomag to do their work in Germany.
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IBM’s subsidary had been hired by the Nazi
party to carry out a nation wide census.
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The census itself was designed to identify
populations of ethnic groups that the
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Nazis found impure or undesirable.
This included populations of Jews,
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Gypsies, and any ethnic group that would dilute
the Arian bloodlines of the country. IBM supplied
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the Nazis with punch cards and a sorting system
that would make it easy for them to identify,
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locate, and track any people that
they would later sentence to death.
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These same machines and cards were later converted
and used to coordinate the trains bringing people
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to death camps across Nazi controlled territories.
IBM has come a long way since punch cards,
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but at the time this technology was bringing
in massive amounts of money for the company.
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IBM continued to conduct business with the Germans
even after the United States joined the war.
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High ranking members of IBM falsified
data from their European subsidiaries
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to make sure they could smuggle in punch card
materials and devices that were in high demand
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by the Nazis. For IBM at the time the Nazi
buisness of killing was highly lucritive.
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During World War II Nazi Germany was IBM’s
largest territory after the United States.
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Now many computers and electronic devices use
parts created by IBM. The crazy part is that up
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until this day IBM has not appologized
for their complicity in the Holocaust.
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A company’s main purpose is to
make money; but at what cost?
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It is important to never forget the past,
so we do not repeat the same mistakes.
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Collaberating with the Nazi party, and
being complicit in the attrocities they
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carried out during World War II, is a
steep price to pay to make a profit.
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Now check out “Oldest Companies
In The World (OVER 800 YEARS).”
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Or watch “Most Powerful Corporations
in the World?” Thanks for watching,
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and, as always, don’t forget to like,
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