Memento

[matrixmann]

Originally posted by matrixmann at Memento

Deutschland - Polen.
Beginn des zweiten Weltkrieges.

Germany - Poland.
Beginning of World War II.

Comments

[onb2017.livejournal.com]

Hitler was not unique but the position of Germany as an emerging capitalist country that just lost WWI contributed a lot. Actually I read that the US companies invested lots of money into German military at the time, because they saw a threat from the Soviet Union. Later I think Joseph Goebbels played an important role with his "skillful" propaganda.

[matrixmann]

Hm... I know as far, exports from the US into the Third Reich didn't cease until they declared war to them after Reich attacked some ships with goods near the American East Coast.
Especially Ford (car Ford) did continue to trade with Germany for pretty long as Mr. Ford himself didn't keep it very well with the Jews himself.
But also IBM comes to my mind - I remember some documentary film - was it "The corporation"? - speaking you could find calculating machines manufactured by IBM in German concentration camps. Not even with the name of some overseas offspring firm of them attached to the machines, it was directly American IBM logos as one knows them from them.
They were used for Nazis' index card system where it was noted down where you were from, which reason your were in the KZ for and so on - the famous cataloged bureaucracy that the allies later could find and see how big the extent of this killing machine of the Nazis really had been.

About the antisemitism part I don't know that exactly, but partly this trade was possible as America did some neutrality politics at this time episode. Don't ask, don't tell, we don't care - that was their politics at this time, so that's why even nations leading war still received goods from them.
I think, they even changed it in their treaties and official papers as it was due that they could also deliver to these countries, before they were only allowed to deliver goods to nations which weren't at war with another at this time.
So to speak - as German politics sometimes are like in these years now too, I admit -: Deliver to your enemies as well as your friends, that's the way how you make the most profit from it. Don't care about anything, just sell anything to them all.

I'm writing this only down from memory, correct me if I'm wrong.

[onb2017.livejournal.com]

Probably, it looked like it but I read some secret documents from the Soviet archives and it showed that the American corporations deliberately helped to increase military power of Germany although it may seem like they were doing it like unscrupulous businessmen, just sell it because it was profitable. Well, it is true but there is more behind it, England and US pretty much gave cart blanch to Germany and instead of holding it back, they encouraged its military power thinking they will fight USSR, which at the time was a real threat considering economic crisis like Great Depression. But, in general, I agree. The names like Ford, General Motors, DuPont, ITT etc.

[matrixmann]

Might also be that it's one of those things they only know these days. Like, documents having been kept secret until recently, you know? Wouldn't be the first thing to hear being newly revealed...

I also know that too, the question about the guilt of WWII is a little more twisted and complicated if you just take a look at the bigger picture. The machinery of the Reich takes the great part, but even that situation that the Reich could get as big as that lies with the governments of other countries which haven't bothered the circumstance for a long time.
Only when the size of the Third Reich and its ambitions started to turn against the Western "partners", they started to act against them - realizing, like today with all the Middle East programs, that you can't control somebody for always and forever which you only rent for serving your needs.
But that point had been relatively late in the progress of the events - they didn't bother much about Poland, about the Sudeten territories, about Austria, I think not even about the Scandinavian occupations.
As far as I remember learning it in history classes, even after WWI, one "mistake" (or intention?) the allies made was allowing them to have the general military service relatively quickly again. So they were able to build up an army pretty very fast again.

[onb2017.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah, looks like intention. In the end, Germany is not the only one to blame for the WWII or even better: looking at the big picture, the class of monopolistic capital is to blame, I think.

[matrixmann]

They've done the biggest cruelties by far what one knows today.
But who knows what cruelties still sleep in the drawers of all what has been kept secret until today? Cruelty is universal, not exclusively a German invention.