Car makers and slave labour (WWII)

Stevie Dakota

We are used to seeing BMW motorbikes and Merc staff cars in WW2 footage, but reading the below leaves a slightly sour taste in my mouth.

"After the war, Sommer was interviewed by the US Chief of Counsel on his activities under the Nazi regime, and specifically, about which companies used Nazi slave labor. Sommer said that the firms, after filling the necessary prerequisites, were allowed to come in to the camps and choose the prisoners they wanted. Even after seeing the horrible conditions in these camps, seeing the death, starvation, torture... these firms chose to take some of these people and exploit them for profit.

The first such firm named on Sommer's list is BMW, which makes 4 further appearances on the list. Altogether, BMW admits to using to using 25,000 - 30,000 slave laborers, POWs and concentration camp inmates. If they were payed, their meager earnings (20 cents an hour) went into the SS treasury to further fund their own annihilation (information from The Ethnic Newswatch 03.31.98). Other firms listed by Sommer include Ford, Volkswagen, Krupp, Siemens, Bayer, Porsche and Daimler-Benz (Mercedes)."

colm_mcm

Slave labour doesn't stop people buying ipods.....

Anan1

Almost all companies are profit-driven to the complete exclusion of moral and ethical considerations. Can anyone name even one car company that boycotted South Africa under apartheid?

Cookie_Monster

yeah never mind what the Nazis did to people, BMW forced them to make engines :rolleyes:

Anan1

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

yeah never mind what the Nazis did to people, BMW forced them to make engines :rolleyes:

You might not be aware of this, but these people were worked to death.

Cookie_Monster

Anan1 wrote: »

You might not be aware of this, but these people were worked to death.

Yes I realise that but given the kinds of things that went on in the war, working for German manufactures was not the worst fate out there, terrible as it was.

Don't forget also that the allies bombed those factories remorselessly and almost non stop, likely killing just as many.

Anan1

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Yes I realise that but given the kinds of things that went on in the war, working for German manufactures was not the worst fate out there, terrible as it was.

This isn't a competition. I was explaining the difference between working someone on an inadequate diet until they are no longer productive and then gassing them and 'forcing them to make engines'.

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Don't forget also that the allies bombed those factories remorselessly and almost non stop, likely killing just as many.

I think you might want to do a little more reading on the subject.

Stevie Dakota

Interestingly BMW were building cars in South Africa all through the apartheid years, largely to get around paying heavy import duties. Boycotting was never on the agenda.

robtri

has anybody got any links to how many of the prisioners died under say BMW ......

what i am trying to get at is , the camps where apallaing and you where gauranteed nearly to die in them...
did working for BMW make their lives better???
for example the mortality rate in the camp was for example say 50%.. if you where forced to work for BMW what was the mortality rate????


and before anybody jumps down my throath .. i dont know just asking the question

Anan1

robtri wrote: »

has anybody got any links to how many of the prisioners died under say BMW ......

what i am trying to get at is , the camps where apallaing and you where gauranteed nearly to die in them...
did working for BMW make their lives better???
for example the mortality rate in the camp was for example say 50%.. if you where forced to work for BMW what was the mortality rate????


and before anybody jumps down my throath .. i dont know just asking the question

It wasn't either/or, Auschwitz was a huge complex incorporating everything from factories to gas chambers, crematoria and the rest. As a general principle, it went like this: If you were very young, old, or infirm you likely went straight to the gas chambers on arrival. If you were fit for work then you were worked until you were no longer of value, and then you were killed. In this sense, working a prisoner was similar to taking anything else they had of value prior to killing them.

corktina

history is full of torture and abuse...noone has entirely clean hands...I can't see the point in raking open old wounds for point scoring purposes on the 'net...look to the future and try to build up bonds of freindship between old enemies.

biko

Very rude video, not for easily offended.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9b3_05qL7k

Stevie Dakota

corktina wrote: »

history is full of torture and abuse...noone has entirely clean hands...I can't see the point in raking open old wounds for point scoring purposes on the 'net...look to the future and try to build up bonds of freindship between old enemies.

If anyone is trying to point score then shame on them. However, forget the lessons of history at your peril. In 70 years BMW (and others) have gone from using slave labour to producing some of the greenest cars on the planet. That is to be commended, but their recent history should never be forgotten.

Alanstrainor

biko wrote: »

Very rude video, not for easily offended.

Banned for eternity for posting a Sarah Silverman video.

Can't stand that wench.

Tabnabs

OP, the Japanese did the same
http://www.rense.com/general8/pows.htm

What car make do you drive BTW?

corktina

whatever atrocities were carried out, the Americans and by association the Allies equalled them by dropping atom bombs on two cites and killing hundreds of thousands of mostly innocent women and children. A near miss would have served the smae purpose of bringing about capitualtion but I suspect there was a modicum of revenge about it.

The losers get judged for war crimes by the winners who write the history books

robtri

Anan1 wrote: »

It wasn't either/or, Auschwitz was a huge complex incorporating everything from factories to gas chambers, crematoria and the rest. As a general principle, it went like this: If you were very young, old, or infirm you likely went straight to the gas chambers on arrival. If you were fit for work then you were worked until you were no longer of value, and then you were killed. In this sense, working a prisoner was similar to taking anything else they had of value prior to killing them.

so BMW had a producing factory at Auschwitz?

Anan1

robtri wrote: »

so BMW had a producing factory at Auschwitz?

I don't know. From memory, Krupp and Siemens had factories at Monowitz.

@ corktina - I'd imagine a large part of it, as with Dresden, was making a point to the Russians.

cormac_byrne

robtri wrote: »

so BMW had a producing factory at Auschwitz?

No, but the BMW plant at Eisenach used slave labour from Buchenwald concentration camp

http://www.theawfultruth.com/salbmw/

As this is a motoring forum I'll say my biggest problem with the Nazis is that they let auto manufacturers like Messerschmit & Heinkel bomb the Triumph factory in Coventry.

After the war Triumph had to sell off the motorbike business to get money to rebuild the car operation. Splitting the marque forever. Some time after the car business was bought out by the Standard motor company (previously they supplied engines to Triumph)

Before the war Standard Motor company had a car called the Vanguard. Aircraft manufacturer Vickers Supermarine liked that name and asked Standard for permission to use it for one of their cargo planes. Sure said Standard as long as we can use one of your names sometime in the future.

Hence after the war Triumph (now Standard - Triumph) used the 'Spitfire' name.

BMW currently owns the Triumph marque so that makes me guilty of owning a German car (Spitfire Mk III)

Actually two German cars as I also got a Smart forfour (which is basically a Merc). Or I could pretend the Smart is Japanese as it's built on a Mitsubishi chassic, but from the posts above a Jap car is as bad a a German one.

In my defence I do have a Landrover (UK) and a Winnebago (USA) so both the Allies and Axis powers are equally represented at my house and I can declare myself neutral.

woody33

Ah, Mitsubishi:

From Wikipedia - "The Mitsubishi A6M Zero was a long range fighter aircraft operated by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service (IJNAS) from 1940 to 1945"

junkyarddog

About 5 or 6 years ago,I was working in a Breakers/garage/car sales yard.
An American chap called in looking for a cheap car to use for the summer during his "vacation".
I pointed him in the direction of a nice little Corolla,
only get the angry response "god damn boy,I won't drive no Jap car,
I remember pearl harbour",he then went on to ask me if we had any Audi's or BMW's in stock:rolleyes:
True story.

peasant

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Well just off the top of my head

Porsche -did Turrets and engines for various German tanks
BMW -Engines for the Me-262
Daimler -engines for the bf-109
Siemens -submarine components
VW -air cooled engines and cars
Audi (Auto Union) -amoured cars
Krupp -steel production

Pretty much any German heavy industry at the time was making equipment for the German war machine. Not suprising really, also most of the best equipment from that time came out of Germany.

That's kinda what happens under a dictatorship at war ...industry gets taken over for wartime production under a general planned economy.

None of these factories made weapons (or parts thereof) because management thought it might sell well and they'd give it a shot ...but because they were told to. The whole lot of German heavy industry became basically one big factory with different components made here, there and everywhere.

And as most of the former employees and workers were getting shot to bits at some front or another, other "workers" had to be organised from somewhere else.

The same goes for agriculture. The German war machine was being fed by farmers wives and POW labourers

Stevie Dakota

Interesting stuff, makes a nice change from bleating on about Octavias.

Where does Austin come into this, didn't they licence a car to BMW post war which effectively saved the company?

cormac_byrne

Stevie Dakota wrote: »

Interesting stuff, makes a nice change from bleating on about Octavias.

You mean the Octavia made by that nice company Skoda

from wikipedia

"Škoda manufactured the world's first triple-barrelled gun turrets for the Tegetthoff class of battleships of the Austro-Hungarian navy. Prior to World War II Škoda also produced LT-35 and LT-38 tanks, which are better known under their German labels Panzer 35(t) and Panzer 38(t). These tanks were originally produced for the Czechoslovak army and their production continued during the occupation by Nazi Germany. They were used extensively by the Wehrmacht in the Polish campaign, the Battle of France and also in German invasion of the Soviet Union."

peasant

Stevie Dakota wrote: »

Where does Austin come into this, didn't they licence a car to BMW post war which effectively saved the company?

That was one war earlier ...the Austin7 (or BMW Dixie) which started car building at BMW (as they were severely restricted in their core business of aircraft engines because of the Versailles treaty)

hardCopy

Is it possible these companies saved some of the labourors, like Schindler did?

peasant

hardCopy wrote: »

Is it possible these companies saved some of the labourors, like Schindler did?

Possible but highly unlikely.
Fraternizing with forced labourers was illegal and heavily punished.
The forced labourers in those factories were under guard and outside of the control or influence of the companies regular HR department
Most large companies at that time had a sizeable contingent of Nazi apparatchiks installed, charged with the co-ordination of the "war effort" and the overseeing of the forced labourers (as well as watching the regular workers for behaviour unbecoming the ideology)

L1011

Anan1 wrote: »

I don't know. From memory, Krupp and Siemens had factories at Monowitz.

Doubt many people objected to Siemens resuming engineering control of our power network after the war either.

Basically EVERY German company that existed pre 1945 used slave labour; cause they could. Simple as.

Anan1

MYOB wrote: »

Basically EVERY German company that existed pre 1945 used slave labour; cause they could. Simple as.

Not every last one, but many did. And every major company does what they can to maximise profits today. Business is fundamentally amoral, there's nothing new there.

colm_mcm

Both BMW and Mitsubishi derive their logos from aircraft propellors.

Just thought id throw that in

L1011

Anan1 wrote: »

Not every last one, but many did. And every major company does what they can to maximise profits today. Business is fundamentally amoral, there's nothing new there.

I'd be surprised to find what German company didn't, tbh. If you've got examples, surprise me.

Johnny Utah

colm_mcm wrote: »

Both BMW and Mitsubishi derive their logos from aircraft propellors.

Just thought id throw that in

No, BMW's logo is based on the flag of Bavaria. :cool:

peasant

MYOB wrote: »

Basically EVERY German company that existed pre 1945 used slave labour; cause they could. Simple as.

Anan1 wrote: »

Not every last one, but many did. And every major company does what they can to maximise profits today. Business is fundamentally amoral, there's nothing new there.

Certainly, in some cases, there was an amoral element of profit maximisation at play ...but not always.

Especially smaller companies often had no choice in the matter. First they got drafted into the consorted "war effort" programme. Then they got told to stop making what they used to make before the war and concentrate on grenade shells instead (for example). And finally, when their output didn't reach the required levels they were assigned forced labourers (complete with Nazi overseer), whether they wanted them or not.

Businesses in those days had very little freedom to make their own business decisions. Larger companies sat on the steering comittees ...smaller ones just got dragged along.

See also here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organisation_Todt

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Speer#Minister_of_Armaments

Mr Benevolent

Apparently the Germans paid compensation to slave labourers and apologised. Doesn't make it better but it's something at least.

Anan1

peasant wrote: »

Businesses in those days had very little freedom to make their own business decisions. Larger companies sat on the steering comittees ...smaller ones just got dragged along.

There was also the option of non-cooperation. It would have been a hard choice and you'd need to be a pretty special person to make it, but the option was there and some Germans did take it.