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Ford and GM Scrutinized for Alleged Nazi Collaboration (1998)
various ^ | My Madness

Posted on 11/14/2004 9:59:00 PM PST by Calpernia

(snip)

The Ford Motor Co. has mobilized dozens of historians, lawyers and researchers to fight a civil case brought by lawyers in Washington and New York who specialize in extracting large cash settlements from banks and insurance companies accused of defrauding Holocaust victims. Also, a book scheduled for publication next year will accuse General Motors Corp. of playing a key role in Hitler's invasions of Poland and the Soviet Union.

"General Motors was far more important to the Nazi war machine than Switzerland," said Bradford Snell, who has spent two decades researching a history of the world's largest automaker. "Switzerland was just a repository of looted funds. GM was an integral part of the German war effort. The Nazis could have invaded Poland and Russia without Switzerland. They could not have done so without GM."

(snip)

But documents discovered in German and American archives show a much more complicated picture. In certain instances, American managers of both GM and Ford went along with the conversion of their German plants to military production at a time when U.S. government documents show they were still resisting calls by the Roosevelt administration to step up military production in their plants at home.

After three years of national soul-searching, Switzerland's largest banks agreed last August to make a $1.25 billion settlement to Holocaust survivors, a step they had initially resisted. Far from dying down, however, the controversy over business dealings with the Nazis has given new impetus to long-standing investigations into issues such as looted art, unpaid insurance benefits and the use of forced labor at German factories.

(snip)

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: armandhammer; communism; ford; generalmotors; kennedy; mcnamara; nazi; soros; vietnam; worldbank; ww2
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To: Calpernia
You forgot IBM...
21 posted on 11/14/2004 10:24:45 PM PST by okie01 (The Mainstream Media: IGNORANCE ON PARADE)
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To: Calpernia
He worked for Ford in '46 and sat as chair of the WB. What exactly should I be looking at?
22 posted on 11/14/2004 10:27:47 PM PST by endthematrix (CRUSH ISLAMOFACISM!)
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To: Calpernia

It was addressed to California Patriot. The Nazis killed all types of people, besides Jews. Well, that is beside the point. Many companies helped the Nazis. Don't forget the Soviet Union too. The Communists shipped arms to Nazis Germany.


23 posted on 11/14/2004 10:28:56 PM PST by Ptarmigan (Proud rabbit hater and killer)
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To: Calpernia

And one last thing, good night to you. :)


24 posted on 11/14/2004 10:29:24 PM PST by Ptarmigan (Proud rabbit hater and killer)
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To: Calpernia; TapTheSource

The Ford Charity Foundation, is a major communist supporter.

There is quite a bit of info out there, showing that
Mr. Ford was connected to the Nazi's and to Communism.

When you shake the commie bush, out falls Soros. He must be super human, to have touched so much evilness in one lifetime.


25 posted on 11/14/2004 10:30:03 PM PST by nw_arizona_granny (On this day your Prayers are needed!!!!!!!)
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To: nw_arizona_granny

Standard oil sold oil to the nazis all through the war.
Pockefeller said it was an international corp. and owed no allegence to any country.

Chase Manhatten had a branch open in Moscow all through the cold war.


26 posted on 11/14/2004 10:34:19 PM PST by philetus (Zell Miller - One of the few)
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To: investigateworld; Calpernia
Re: Hitler promised the multi-national corporations

I have extensive info on this after I heard Granddaddy HW Bush worked in bank that had NAZI ties.

One thing need explaining is that Germany was free before Hitler and had friendly ties to the US. When Hitler "nationalized" business in Germany he stole patents and put questionable "owners" under house arrest or worse. The US told subsidiaries to pull out all ties (this was prior to '41 BTW), some did not. Willing working for the "cause" or profit.
27 posted on 11/14/2004 10:35:49 PM PST by endthematrix (CRUSH ISLAMOFACISM!)
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To: endthematrix
Did or does German corporations kick back to Holocaust survivors, so they don't get criticized? VW, Krupp, etc.

I know the government payed back some of the survivors, but I don't know about the corporations.
28 posted on 11/14/2004 10:41:12 PM PST by eladamry
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To: eladamry
I'm sure they did pay retributions in some way, like building museums or donating to a fund.
29 posted on 11/14/2004 10:46:43 PM PST by endthematrix (CRUSH ISLAMOFACISM!)
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To: eladamry

That said, I'm sure Ford and GM spent millions too.


30 posted on 11/14/2004 10:47:46 PM PST by endthematrix (CRUSH ISLAMOFACISM!)
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To: Calpernia
By coincidence, I picked up one of McNamara's biographies today, as part of a research project I'm doing which touches on Ford Foundation funding of "philanthropic" causes.

Henry Ford's Nazi collaboration is pretty well-documented, as is James Mooney's at GM (see authors James Pool and Charles Higham on this). This was before McNamara got involved with Ford, though, and by the time McNamara came along there had been some changes at Ford. When Henry Ford was alive he restricted the Ford Foundation's use to preserving the family fortune, and he wasn't willing to sell stock publicly due to his anti-Semitic views and conspiracy theories about Wall Street. After he died his grandson Henry II, whose political views were further left, put Ford stock up for public sale and started donating to charities, many of which were left-wing, under the direction of one Rowan Gaither (who later chaired a committee which promoted nuclear disarmament policies that meshed with Soviet foreign policy). This prompted a Congressional investigation in the 1950s, the Cox and Reece Committees:

Tax-exempt foundations

Due to pressure from the Cox/Reese investigation, Ford temporarily backed off a bit on left-wing contributions, but meanwhile (under the influence of John McCloy, who had joined the board and would later support Gaither's committee) opposed CIA requests to use Ford funding for Agency anti-Communist operations. In the 1960s after the antiwar movement gained popularity, Ford again took a sharp left turn and began contributing to various far-left causes.

Getting back to McNamara, after he had risen in prominence at Ford, he came to the attention of JFK's transition team, and was recommended to the administration largely on the strength of references from Robert Lovett, McCloy's ally from the FDR War Department. McNamara proceeded to alienate the military establishment by ignoring the Eisenhower-era Joint Chiefs' advice in favor of his own statistical theories, heavily influenced by advisors from RAND such as Ellsberg and others (see Out of the Blue Yonder: How RAND Diversified into Social Welfare Research). McNamara doled out a lot of DoD research to RAND consultants, which IMO was the source of a lot of problems in the DoD during the Vietnam War.

On McNamara and the World Bank, one of his predecessors in that position was John McCloy, who was also the Rockefellers' lawyer representing the interests of Standard Oil and Chase-Manhattan. McNamara instituted fiscal policies which were significantly more socialistic than McCloy's had been--as McCloy's biographer Kai Bird notes, "The World Bank of the 1970s, '80s and '90s more closely resembles Harry Dexter White's vision of a global New Deal agency than the conservative institution McCloy administered." (White, incidentally, was a Soviet agent.)

How Soros' links to the World Bank relate to the above I don't know--haven't gotten that far in my research. But I will mention Soros' investment group handles financing for the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), which did some questionable financial dealing with the Russian mob under Clinton.

Finally, in recent years, McNamara's name has appeared in connection with think tanks and other projects linked to many of Bush's leading foreign policy critics and Michael Moore types. For instance see:

Secure America

Deadly Mistakes

31 posted on 11/14/2004 10:53:49 PM PST by Fedora
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To: endthematrix
One thing need explaining is that Germany was free before Hitler and had friendly ties to the US.

Yes, after World War I the US was trying to help rebuild the European economy to prevent another world war, which is why a lot of US companies invested in Germany. This happened before Hitler came to power, and after Hitler took over most of the US business community (apart from a few exceptions like Ford and GM) was hoping he could be removed through coup or assassination, towards which end Allen Dulles and British intelligence worked with the anti-Hitler resistance in Germany.

32 posted on 11/14/2004 11:02:17 PM PST by Fedora
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To: Fedora
I know Ford built truck factories in the USSocialistRepublics at the same time our guys were trying to plug up the Ho Chi Minh trail. Ford had a long history of building truck factories in the USSR, going back to the thirties.
33 posted on 11/14/2004 11:02:45 PM PST by investigateworld (( .... Father Watch over our servicemen, for their task is righteous and the danger is great....))
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To: investigateworld

Yes. Julius and Armand Hammer, who the Soviets assigned to attract US investors, persuaded Henry Ford to set up Ford operations in Russia starting in 1919, and by the late 30s Ford was doing multi-million-dollar business there (this is mentioned in Edward Jay Epstein's biography of Hammer). I believe Ford stepped up production in the Eastern bloc in the 60s following Zbigniew Brzezinski's 1965 recommendation to ease US-Soviet trade restrictions, though I'm not sure on the specifics about that--would need to look that up.


34 posted on 11/14/2004 11:19:36 PM PST by Fedora
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To: Fedora

Hitler could never hold a candle to perhaps the most horrible man ever to lead a country, Joseph Stalin.

The USA sent him money and arms like crazy.

Maybe some people had disagreements over who was the lesser of two evils.

My Grandfather made paintings when he was in a concentration camp and my great grandpa had his skull crushed by a rifle butt on a forced march into Germany. Many of my relatives in Holland were killed/imprisoned for being in the resistance and also starved due to allied bombings.

My family has never seen any reparations from anyone and they are willing to forgive.

It is not time to put those black years of WWI and WWII behind us?


35 posted on 11/14/2004 11:31:37 PM PST by demecleze
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To: Fedora

Thanks, while your digging, could you find the pay-off between ALGOE Senior, and Armand? It was Armand that made the ALGORE very rich.


36 posted on 11/14/2004 11:37:03 PM PST by investigateworld (( .... Father Watch over our servicemen, for their task is righteous and the danger is great....))
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To: demecleze

"Maybe some people had disagreements over who was the lesser of two evils."

Indeed, there were big disagreements over this within the Roosevelt administration and the Allied command. People like Churchill and Patton wanted to fend off the Soviet long-term threat in the process of finishing off the Nazis, which is why Churchill wanted to come into Europe from below rather than through Normandy, to keep Eastern Europe out of Soviet hands. There was heated debate over this during war-planning strategy meetings.


37 posted on 11/14/2004 11:50:24 PM PST by Fedora
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To: Fedora

Armand Hammer has ties to the Gore family. Lots of info on this google search:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Armand+Hammer%22%2BGore&btnG=Google+Search


38 posted on 11/14/2004 11:55:15 PM PST by Susannah (Jones got 40% of the vote against Senator Boxer....and he never even campaigned.)
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To: investigateworld

Hammer's payoffs to Gore started by making Gore a partner in his cattle business in 1950, and later payoffs involved getting Gore lucrative post-Congressional positions at Occidental and Island Creek Coal.


39 posted on 11/14/2004 11:56:05 PM PST by Fedora
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To: Susannah

Thanks! :)


40 posted on 11/14/2004 11:56:41 PM PST by Fedora
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