Business as Usual

The German subsidiaries of American corporations were not ruthlessly confiscated by the Nazis and removed entirely from the control of stateside corporate headquarters until the defeat of Germany in 1945, as parent companies would claim after the war. Regarding the assets of Ford and GM, for example, the German expert Hans Helms states, ‘not even once during their terror regime did the Nazis undertake the slightest attempt to change the ownership status of Ford [i.e. the Ford-Werke] or Opel.’ Even after Pearl Harbor, Ford retained its 52 per cent of the shares of Ford-Werke in Cologne, and GM remained Opel’s sole proprietor. (Billstein et al., 74, and 141)

Moreover, the American owners and managers maintained a sometimes considerable measure of control over their branch plants in Germany after the German declaration of war on the US. There is evidence that the corporate headquarters in the US and the branch plants in Germany stayed in contact with each other, either indirectly via subsidiaries in neutral Switzerland, or directly by means of modem worldwide systems of communications. The latter was supplied by ITT in collaboration with Transradio, a joint venture of ITT itself, RCA (another American corporation), and the German firms Siemens and Telefunken. In its recent report on its activities in Nazi Germany, Ford claims that its corporate headquarters in Dearborn had no direct contact with the German subsidiary after Pearl Harbor. As for the possibility of communications via branch plants in neutral countries, the report states that ‘there is no indication of communication with each other through these subsidiaries.’ (Research Findings, 88) However, the lack of such ‘indication’ may simply mean that any evidence of contacts may have been lost or destroyed before the authors of the report were allowed access to the relevant archives; after all, this archival access was only granted more than 50 years after the facts. Moreover, the report itself acknowledges somewhat contradictorily that an executive of the Ford-Werke did travel to Lisbon in 1943 for a visit to the Portuguese Ford subsidiary, and it is extremely unlikely that Dearborn would have been unaware of this.

As for IBM, Edwin Black writes that during the war its general manager for Europe, Dutchman Jurriaan W. Schotte, was stationed in the corporate headquarters in New York, where he ‘continued to regularly maintain communication with IBM subsidiaries in Nazi territory, such as his native Holland and Belgium.’ IBM could also ‘monitor events and exercise authority in Europe through neutral country subsidiaries,’ and especially through its Swiss branch in Geneva, whose director, a Swiss national, ‘freely travelled to and from Germany, occupied territories, and neutral countries.’ Finally, like many other large us corporations, IBM could also rely on American diplomats stationed in occupied and neutral countries to forward messages via diplomatic pouches. (Black, 339, 376, and 392-5)

The Nazis not only allowed the American owners to retain possession and a certain amount of administrative control over their German assets and subsidiaries, but their own intervention in the management of Opel and the Ford-Werke, for example, remained minimal. After the German declaration of war against the US, the American staff members admittedly disappeared from the scene, but the existing German managers — confidants of the bosses in the US — generally retained their positions of authority and continued to run the businesses, thereby keeping in mind the interests of the corporate headquarters and the shareholders in America. For Opel, GM’s headquarters in the US retained virtually total control over the managers in Russelsheim; so writes American historian Bradford Snell, who devoted attention to this theme in the 1970s, but whose findings were contested by GM. A recent study by German researcher Anita Kugler confirms Snell’s account while providing a more detailed and more nuanced picture. After the German declaration of war on the US, she writes, the Nazis initially did not bother the management of Opel at all. Only on 25 November 1942 did Berlin appoint an ‘enemy assets’ custodian,’ but the significance of this move turned out to be merely symbolic. The Nazis simply wanted to drape a German image over an enterprise that was owned 100 per cent by GM throughout the war. (Bilistein et al., 61)

In the Ford-Werke, Robert Schmidt, allegedly an ardent Nazi, served as general manager during the war, and his performance greatly satisfied both the authorities in Berlin and the Ford managers in America. Messages of approval and even congratulations — signed by Edsel Ford — were regularly forthcoming from Ford’s corporate headquarters in Dearborn. The Nazis too were delighted with Schmidt’s work; in due course they awarded him the title, ‘leader in the field of the military economy.’ Even when, months after Pearl Harbor, a custodian was appointed to oversee the Ford plant in Cologne, Schmidt retained his prerogatives and his freedom of action. IBM’s wartime experience with Axis custodians in Germany, France, Belgium, and other countries was likewise far from traumatic. According to Black, ‘they zealously protected the assets, extended productivity, and increased profits’; moreover, ‘existing IBM managers were kept in place as day-to-day managers and, in some cases, even appointed deputy enemy assets’ custodians.’ (Black, 376, 400-2, 405, and 415)

The Nazis were far less interested in the nationality of the owners or the identity of the managers than in production, because after the failure of their Blitzkrieg strategy in the Soviet Union they experienced an ever-growing need for mass-produced airplanes and trucks. Ever since Henry Ford had pioneered the use of the assembly line and other ‘Fordist’ techniques, American firms had been the leaders in the field of industrial mass production, and the American branch plants in Germany, including GM’s Opel subsidiary, were no exception to this general rule. Nazi planners like Goring and Speer understood that radical changes in Opel’s management might hinder production in Brandenburg and Russelsheim. To maintain Opel’s output at high levels, the managers in charge were allowed to carry on because they were familiar with the particularly efficient American methods of production. Anita Kugler concludes that Opel ‘made its entire production and research available to the Nazis and thus — objectively speaking — contributed to enhance their long-term capability to wage war.’ (Billstein et al., 81)

Experts believe that GM’s and Ford’s best wartime technological innovations primarily benefitted their branch plants in Nazi Germany. As examples they cite all-wheel-drive Opel trucks, which proved eminently useful to the Germans in the mud of the Eastern Front and in the desert of North Africa, as well as the engines for the brand new ME-262, the first jet fighter, which were also assembled by Opel in Russelsheim. As for the Ford-Werke, in 1939 this firm also developed a state-of-the-art truck — the Maultier (‘mule’) — that had wheels on the front and a track on the back end. The Ford-Werke also created a ‘cloak company,’ Arendt GmbH, to produce war equipment other than vehicles, specifically machining parts for airplanes. But Ford claims that this was done without Dearborn’s knowledge or approval. Towards the end of the war this factory was involved in the top-secret development of turbines for the infamous V-2 rockets that wreaked devastation on London and Antwerp. (Research Findings, 41-2)

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