Did you know that some of the most famous companies in the world profited from using workers in concentration camps?
Nowadays, we remember the Nazi regime as an evil empire, horrendous in their actions and vile in their ideology. But the horrible truth is that it wasn’t always viewed this way.
In fact, many major corporations that are still around to this day did business with the Nazis both before and during the Second World War.
And many business leaders at the time were sympathetic to Nazi ideology and even teamed up with the Nazi government for ideological reasons. Other businesses saw a chance to make a profit despite their views.
But whatever their reasons, some of these Nazi collaborators provided materials that even helped organize or carry out the Holocaust itself. On the other hand, there were also Nazi collaborators who used slave labor from concentration camps to build their products.
Some simply supplied the Nazi troops during wartime. While some of these businesses were German corporations that were created or controlled by the Nazis, many were foreign companies that sought to work with the Nazis.
These brands made fortunes and grew to what they are today with the help of “The Fuhrer.” And, in the end, although they’d worked against the interests of humankind, they suffered little to no consequences.
Who are we talking about? Continue reading to learn about 6 very well-known brands that thrived off the backs of holocaust prisoners!
Bayer
During the Holocaust, a German company named IG Farben fabricated the Zyklon B gas used in the Nazi gas chambers. They also helped and funded Josef Mengele’s nightmarish “experiments” on prisoners in concentration camps.
IG Farben is the company that turned the single most considerable profit from work with the Nazis. When the War ended, the company was broken up. Bayer was one of its divisions and went on to become its own company.
Fun Fact: Aspirin was founded by a Bayer employee named Arthur Eichengrun… who was Jewish. Bayer didn’t want to admit that a Jewish man created the one product that kept their company in business.
So, to this day, Bayer officially credits Felix Hoffman, an Aryan man, for creating aspirin.
Chase bank
Many banks sided with the Nazis during World War Two. Chase is the most well-known. They froze European Jewish clients’ accounts and were extremely cooperative in providing banking services to Germany.
Kodak
Knowing how Kodak worked with the Nazi regime, it’s rather difficult to look at that brand the same way again. During World War II, the company’s German branch used slave laborers from concentration camps.
A few of their other European branches did some major business with the Nazi government. In fact, Wilhelm Keppler, one of Hitler’s leading economic advisers, also had deep ties in Kodak.
When Nazism began, Keppler counseled Kodak and several other US companies to fire all of their Jewish employees.
Hugo Boss
Hugo Boss has a past that many may find surprising. The company’s early business venture, established in 1924, initially focused on producing various textile products.
But, the company’s trajectory shifted during the 30s when it began making uniforms for Nazi organizations. Why did this happen? Hugo Boss had joined the Nazi party and won a contract to make the stormtrooper, Hitler Youth, and SS uniforms.
The whole operation went so well that Boss ended up bringing in slave laborers in Poland and France to help out. In 1997, Hugo Boss son, Siegfried, told an Austrian magazine, “Of course, my father belonged to the Nazi party. But who didn’t back then?”
Volkswagen
Ferdinand Porsche, the man behind Porsche and Volkswagen, met with Adolf Hitler in 1934 to discuss creating a “people’s car.” Hitler told Porsche to build a car with a streamlined form, “like a beetle.”
And that’s the beginning of the Volkswagen Beetle… it wasn’t just created for the Nazis, Hitler ACTUALLY named it. During World War II, it’s thought that as many as four out of every five workers at the company’s plants were slave laborers.
Porsche even had a direct line to Heinrich Himmler, one of the most prominent leaders of the SS, to directly request workers from concentration camps, specifically from Auschwitz.
IBM
IBM custom-built machines for the Nazis that would be used to track things. This meant anything from train schedules into death camps to oil supplies to Jewish bank accounts to individual Holocaust victims themselves.
In the autumn of 1939, when Germany invaded Poland, the New York Times wrote that three million Jews would be “immediately removed” from Poland and were most likely going to be “exterminated.”
This company’s reaction? An internal memo said that due to that “situation,” they must step up production on high-speed alphabetizing equipment…Hmm, we wonder what THAT could’ve been about?!?!
For more on World War II, you may want to check THIS out!
Did you know about the dark pasts of these renowned companies? Please feel free to share your thoughts with us in the comments section.
And if you found this article interesting, we highly recommend you also read: 9 Reasons Hitler Dismantled the German Constitution So Easily
