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bistro777
Donuts-Is There Anything They Can't Do?
Premium
join:2002-02-07
Englewood, CO
| reply to Roundel
Re: German History...
One more example - - - ITT
ITT was founded in 1920 by Sosthenes Behn. In 1930 Behn and ITT acquired several German companies (Standard Elekrizitats, A.E.G., Berliner Fernsprech und Telegraphenwerk, and others) - - - telephone companies and a number of heavy-industry manufacturing plants.
In 1938, following several meetings with Luftwaffe chief Herman Goring, Behn encouraged ITT's (German) Lorenz subsidiary to purchase 28 percent of the Focke-Wulf firm - - manufacturer of the bombers that were to sink so many Allied ships during the war. In addition, the German army, navy, and air force contracted with ITT for the manufacture of switchboards, telephones, alarm gongs, buoys, air raid warning devices, radar equipment, and thirty thousand fuses per month for artillery shells.
There is no record that ITT made direct payments to Hitler before his grab for power in 1933. On the other hand, numerous payments were made to Heinrich Himmler in the late 1930s and in World War II as late as 1944 through ITT’s German subsidiaries.
The most bizarre aspect of the US/Nazi corporate partnership, was war reparations: ITT presented itself as an innocent victim of WWII, and it was recompensed for its “injuries.” In 196 ITT managed to obtain $27 million in compensation from the American government - - for war damage to Focke-Wulf plants! - on the basis that they were American property bombed by Allied bombers. Huh?!?!?
ITT was not alone: GM and Ford demanded reparations from the U.S. Government for wartime damages sustained by their Axis facilities as a result of Allied bombing. By 1967 GM had collected more than $33 million in reparations and Federal tax benefits for damages to its warplane and motor vehicle properties in formerly Axis territories. (Ford received a little less than $1 million, primarily as a result of damages sustained by its military truck complex at Cologne.)
And there's lots of history regarding Texeco, J.P. Morgan, the Rockefellers, John and Allen Dulles (real irony there!), and other mainstays of big business in the 1930s and 40s...
Timothy 6:10. 'For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.' | |
Roundel
Blau Und Weiss
Premium
join:2002-03-24
Westport, CT
clubs: |  reply to bistro777
I learned alot from your posts, and I like the history channel!
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Small, Dependable and Deadly! | |
bistro777
Donuts-Is There Anything They Can't Do?
Premium
join:2002-02-07
Englewood, CO
| reply to keith2468
Here’s the IBM part - - - It is not a part of the Fund because it "wasn't involved." Earlier I’d mention’d Edwin Black's book "IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation.” His research indicates, among other things:
"The infamous Auschwitz tattoo began as an IBM number. The five-digit Hollerith number was part of a custom punch card system devised by IBM to track prisoners in Nazi concentration camps, including the slave labor at Auschwitz. Nearly every Nazi concentration camp operated a Hollerith Department known as the Hollerith Abteilung."
"The German IBM, Dehomag, was IBM's second most profitable company in the 1930s. IBM maintained sales quotas for all its subsidiaries during the Hitler-era. It did not simply sell the Reich machines and then walk away. IBM's subsidiary, with the knowledge of its New York headquarters, enthusiastically custom-designed the complex devices and specialized applications as an official corporate undertaking.”
“IBM did not sell any of its punch card machines to Nazi Germany. The equipment was leased by the month. Each month, often more frequently, authorized repairmen, working directly for or trained by IBM, serviced the machines on-site-whether in the middle of Berlin or at a concentration camp. In addition, all spare parts were supplied by IBM factories located throughout Europe. Of course, the billions of punch cards continually devoured by the machines, available exclusively from IBM, were extra.”
How much IBM (US) knew or didn’t know is a firestorm of controversy. Mr. Black claims “Some of it IBM knew on a daily basis throughout the 12-year Reich. The worst of it IBM preferred not to know-'don't ask, don't tell' was the order of the day. Yet IBM NY officials, and frequently Thomas Watson's personal representatives, were almost constantly in Berlin or Geneva, monitoring activities, ensuring that the parent company in New York was not cut out of any of the profits or business opportunities Nazism presented. When U.S. law made such direct contact illegal, IBM's Swiss office became the nexus, providing the New York office continuous information and credible deniability.”
Here’s a cnet link to an interview with him about this - - - »news.com.com/2009-1082-269157.html. You decide, but the book is a real eye-opener... And now from the "equal time" corner again - - - In its defense, I know that IBM (US) performed such critical wartime efforts as breaking the Enigma Code, forecasting the weather/date of the Normandy landing, and other worthwhile missions. But on the other hand, it must be nice to make money off BOTH sides in a war, huh?
This'll probably be my last post on Germany history. I apologize in advance for turning this site into the History Channel. 
"Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please." - - Mark Twain | |
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