All the examples of US business involvement with the Nazis are pretty peripheral, frankly; individual companies or businessmen seeking to protect pre-existing investments or relationships and blinkered to the wider issues. The short answer to your friend would be that any support to Nazi armaments that came from the US was minor compared to what came from the USSR - so if the line is "Capitalists love Nazi militarism" (which I've certainly heard before), you can demonstrate that's at best simplistic.
To what extent did the US 'fund' Nazi rearmament?
- Thread starter Christopher Marcus
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RightHoJeeves
Banned
Kristallnacht was really the tipping point where world opinion turned sharply against Nazi Germany and its anti-Semitic policies and that was 1938, less than a year before the war started. Perhaps Coca-Cola should have revoked its license to its German distributor there and then but I'm just saying they did not authorize production of Fanta during WWII to make money, it was a product invented by Germans using a German bottling plant that previously had a franchise license to import Coke syrup.
In the 1930s Nazi Germany was not seen favorably by much of the international community but it was not a pariah state by any means so I think it's pretty unreasonable to have expected companies to abandon the German market.
RightHoJeeves
Banned
If you're a Coca-Cola executive in 1938 how much public pressure do you feel to not do business in Nazi Germany? Mind you this is the same year Hitler made "peace" with the UK and France and everyone is feeling pretty good about a war being avoided. We all know with hindsight that Nazi Germany was one of the worst regimes in history but not many people in the 1930s and especially in the United States could have been expected to know that.
In other words, you seem to think American companies should have been instigating a boycott, divest and sanction movement against Nazi Germany like what happened with Apartheid South Africa in the 80s but that's simply not possible given the lack of interest the American public had even if they didn't particularly like or support Nazi Germany.
Deleted member 94680
Did it benefit them in the long run, though?
To what extent did their actions facilitate the Nazis in accomplishing what they managed? How sooner would the war have ended without American business enabling the Nazis?
Deleted member 94680
Sieg Heil!
The Times published exerts from Mein Kampf when hitler was made Chancellor. There had already been forced displacement of many Jews, all but confiscation of their property or possessions Kristallnacht happened in November ‘38.
Plenty of people knew what the Nazis were up to, it’s that they didn’t care.
RightHoJeeves
Banned
So again, do you think American business should have been out there taking the lead against Nazi Germany and not the American public or the United States government? We had normal relations with Nazi Germany and participated in their Olympic games in Berlin. I'm really confused why you think Coca-Cola and other businesses have some unique moral culpability here when American society at large was tolerant of Nazi Germany before WWII.
If you're implying I must have Nazi sympathies for questioning your logic that is really uncalled for.
When? The US government has taken no action against the Nazis befor the war breaks out, the American public doesn't care. No other companies are doing so.
But more to the point, how exactly do you think that the importation of a SYRUP before the war contributed to German rearmament? And what happens when Coca-Cola tries to shut down their subsidiary, or the line between them is cut and said subsidiary just keeps on going anyway? (You know, EXACTLY the way they did OTL.)
marathag
Banned
Pogroms in Europe was not an unheard of occurrence, one of the the reasons so many Jews left eastern Europe for the USA, where they were also discriminated against.
So while US Jews couldn't join Country Clubs or buy houses in hoity-toity WASPish areas, not even KKK'ers thought the proper response to presence of Jews was to toss them in ovens after stealing everything they owned.
Technically they would have helped fund pre-Nazi rearmament in that they gave the Germans loans double that they needed to pay the allies, while also pressuring the Entente members to lower war reperations. Which the Germans were at least in a position to pay a bit of, considering they obliterating the mines and industry of the French and Belgian areas they occupied when they realized they would lose.
Hitler sued English publishers and others to prevent Mein Kampf to be published without heavily editing to hide his negative thoughts on others. Mein Kampf was also a banned book in France during the occupation.
In a side note, I believe you should apologize for the Seig Heil thing. I have been called a Nazi more than a few times in the past because I am blond, as well as some jackass employee at a youth group keep talking to me about "Mine Kampf, what, it just means My Struggle". If we were all younger I would say we shouldn't say thing that could be hurtful, but now I am thinking you haikus just apologize because you are basically calling someone a Nazi, which can be considered pretty high up as a slur.
I agree with you 100%. To me a good analogy would be the US during most of the Cold War did business with the USSR. The USSR had the same respect for human life that the Nazis did. One thing I will add as far as whether the companies were purposely helping Nazi Germany would be Henry Ford he was very anti-Semitic. There's no proof that he helped them because of his anti-semitism but one does have to wonder.
Deleted member 94680
Not a “unique moral culpability” at all; just that they had the same moral culpability everyone that traded with, turned a blind eye to and apologised for the Nazi regime did.
That’s not what I’m implying at all. If that’s how you took it, I apologise.
Deleted member 94680
They knew exactly what kind of regime the Nazis were. They just didn’t care. They don’t need the government to take action, they’re perfectly able to do it themselves. They just didn’t want to.
It helps rearmament because it helps the German economy to keep going. It generates funds and taxes. The Nazis were economic basket cases and (during the war, admittedly) once embargoes and blockades took their toll the economy collapsed. A key factor of the Nazis gaining and holding power was the “big business” support for their governments. A stand taken by the companies that could leave may well have led to their removal, before war broke out.
Deleted member 94680
Well to use your analogy, how does that compare to all the companies that removed their facilities and business from the USSR pre-War? When the “red scare” took hold and American companies ceased trading in Russia on “moral grounds”?
RightHoJeeves
Banned
I appreciate that and thank you.
I'm certainly in agreement with you that the US and other free countries should have been tougher on Nazi Germany and that tolerating them for as long as they did lead to some ghastly consequences. But we should temper our judgments a bit since we all have the benefit of hindsight and the global depression of the 30s shifted people's attention to domestic priorities.
Deleted member 94680
No worries, I certainly didn’t mean to offend and was too flippant with a charged turn of phrase.
That is definitely one aspect to it and the benefits accrued to America domestically should not be ignored. It is however, in my opinion, a soft pass to imply that no-one outside of the Jewish community and no one outside of Germany knew what the Nazis were about. Although, for many years, the prevailing argument was the outward aggression of the Nazi regime was a shock that came too late to be opposed outside of war, I believe there was plenty of evidence that ‘clues’ were present if the will had been in evidence to act on them. One can argue our current vogue of ‘regime change’ and the international community looking to effect domestic policies of nations was born out of a desire to not repeat the errors of inter-war relations.
My ‘focus’ on America is not any anti-US bias, but a reply to the OP’s questions which was concentrated on America.
No they didn't. NO ONE did. The Nazis did not appear to be that different from other totalitarians of their time.
So...you basically just admitted it did nothing.
Because of course it didn't. Its a freaking syrup recipe. That is not some inherently vital bit of the economy without which the economy ceases to function, governments collapse, and economies suffer the worst crashes in their history. This isn't the modern US where soda is so vitally important that a minor delay will lead to total shutdown of office buildings.
The big business support of the government that mattered were GERMAN businesses. Because, again OF COURSE IT WAS.