5 world-famous brands that collaborated with the Nazis
To whom the war, and to whom the mother is dear! This is how you can accurately describe the actions of entrepreneurs who managed not only to keep their business in the meat grinder of the Second World War, but also to significantly develop it. Prudent businessmen skillfully took advantage of economic instability, the withdrawal of competitors from the game, new sales markets and, of course, the opportunity to receive military orders. We will tell you about several such brands that came to us from Nazi Germany.
The list of brands associated with the Nazis is so extensive that it will be boring to read it. Therefore, it offers only the Top 5 brands that are probably known to everyone.
The manufacturer of the world's favorite carbonated drinks did not dirty himself with cooperation with the Nazis. Before the outbreak of World War II, Coca-Cola officially watered the citizens of the Reich with its products and was very popular with the Germans. After the fighting in Europe began, the American manufacturer stopped supplying Germany with the concentrate necessary for the manufacture of its most recognizable product — Coca-Cola.
As a member of the anti-Hitler coalition, the United States did not allow the supply of anything to the enemy. But the official representative of the brand in Germany, Max Kite, decided to resume the production of beverages, creating his own basis for the drink, which included whey and apple cake. The result was a light brown soda with apple flavor, which was liked by both civilians and military. They called the new drink — Fanta, which can be translated from German as "a joke".
After the end of the war, the Coca-Cola plants were not returned to the United States and German businessmen produced Fanta for many years as a native German soft drink. In 1960, the Americans bought out the brand and began to produce products themselves. The apple flavor was replaced with orange to avoid unnecessary analogies with the Nazis. In 2008, the company still introduced the "Fanta" with apple flavor, but the modern analogue of Max Kite's invention is not brown, but green.
During the Second World War, the Siemens concern produced a huge number of household and military products. It can be said that the company was fully responsible for rail transport, communications and power generation in Germany and the countries occupied by it.
The brand produced generators, radio stations, electrical systems for aviation and the navy, and also participated in a large-scale propaganda campaign of the Nazis. Another disgusting moment in the history of Siemens was that workers exported from occupied countries, as well as prisoners of war and prisoners of concentration camps were used at the concern's factories. Also on the Internet you can find information that the brand produced furnaces for crematoriums and "gas vans on wheels". No one has presented official evidence of this, so the topic remains controversial.
The German fashion house Hugo Boss can be considered one of the oldest companies to create branded clothing in Europe. Hugo Boss founded his company in 1923, when Germany was plunged into the deepest economic crisis. In 1931, the entrepreneur and fashion designer joined the NSDAP and remained loyal to the Nazis until the very end.
Hugo Boss was considered Adolf Hitler's favorite fashion designer, so he easily managed to receive the largest military orders. The company designed and sewed uniforms for the Wehrmacht and SS, as well as for the Nazi youth organization Hitler-Jugend.
We must pay tribute to the Boss — he knew his job perfectly well and his SS uniform is still considered by many experts to be the best in the new military history. The designer paid for his services to the Reich, but the punishment was not too severe. He had to pay a fine of 80 thousand marks for aiding the Nazis, after which the fashion house continued its work.
Two brothers and at the same time irreconcilable competitors in business, Adolf and Rudolf Dassler, from the very beginning of Nazism were his passionate supporters. The brothers were members of the NSDAP, and Rudolf was so imbued with ideology that he went to the front among the volunteers.
The Gebrüder Dassler company, founded in 1924, produced only sports shoes and never fulfilled military orders. But in Nazi Germany, sports and a healthy lifestyle were actively promoted, so the brothers' shoes flew like hot cakes.
The 1936 Olympics organized by the Nazis became Adolf Dassler's finest hour. However, it was not an ideological Nazi who performed in Gebrüder Dassler spikes, but a black athlete from the USA, Jesse Owens. The American won four gold medals in German shoes and gave the brothers a start in the world of big sports. By the way, by choosing an African-American for the presentation of his product, Adolf took a serious risk, but everything worked out.
The world-famous carmaker Daimler-Benz has dirtied itself up to its ears by cooperating with the Nazis. Adolf Hitler had a lot of good domestic cars, but he preferred Mercedes-Benz Grosser 770K 150 specially made for him to all of them. Other Nazi bonzes, as well as the leader of the Italian fascists Benito Mussolini, also loved this brand of cars.
During the war, the Mercedes-Benz concern was the largest supplier of military and equipment, as well as power units for aircraft, tanks and even submarines. Individual divisions of the company also participated in the creation of small arms and artillery pieces.
The Daimler-Benz factories ruthlessly used the labor of migrant workers and prisoners of war. In 1944, the company employed about 74 thousand people, of which 47% were forced labor. Like the Hugo Boss house, the concern got away with it, one might say, several large fines, public apologies and modest payments to some prisoner workers - this is all the punishment that the company suffered after the end of the war.