Henry Ford was a Nazi sympathiser
 

Was watching a doco on SBS last night about the early years of Adolf and his rise to power.

Apparently in 1927 when he was forming the Nazi party, Henry Ford donated all profits from any Fords sold in Germany, to the party and he also sent $50,000 every year to Adolf on his birthday (for how many years it didn't say).

It's surprising there wasn't any fallout in later years against Mr Ford over this (well there may have ben but nothing was mentioned).
I bet that was one decision Henry regretted.

Re: Henry Ford was a Nazi sympathiser
 

Maybe he didn't regret it, his company is doing pretty well. When I read about this, it only changed the way I saw Henry and not the FoMoCo

Re: Henry Ford was a Nazi sympathiser
 

you need to remember than in 1927 Hitler and in particular the NAZI party were not seen as they are today, or even 70 years ago.
A lot of business supported the NAZI party as the direction that the party was taking Germany was considered progressive.
Also, remember that Adolf Hitler was voted Time magazine's person of the year, the same year (I think) Albert Einstein was considered. It is easy to think as we do now, as we have knowledge of the chain of events.

Re: Henry Ford was a Nazi sympathiser
 

Henry Ford was long regarded an anti-semite. Very old news now. Henry and Adolf used to write to each other.

And BMW had a forced labour workforce. Didn't seem to affect them either.


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Re: Henry Ford was a Nazi sympathiser
 

Yes, thefargo is spot on.

Back in the early years Hitler was backed by many governments for what he was establishing in Germany at the time. Even the Olympic committee gave the country backing which of course was used as a massive propaganda fest. He did do good for a very troubled country in the early years and managed to do so well with the backing of the people, he was then able to do what ever he wanted as he was just so massively popular ...... the rest, of course, is history. Interesting (& sad)

For Henry, and the rest of the world at the time, hindsight would have been a wonderful thing. In other words, it wasn't just him so no need to think he did the wrong thing at the time. :)

Re: Henry Ford was a Nazi sympathiser
 

Hitler was a brilliant man , unfortunately he also turned out to be a sociopath. many were taken in by him and as previously stated he was Time magazines man of the year 1938 http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16...390102,00.html

Re: Henry Ford was a Nazi sympathiser
 

Henry Ford was a man for the People back in them days.
People like Churchill were just great stuck up snobs that were all about their upper class superiority and they treated the lower class like dirt and they did not want just any Joe Blow driving a car.
In WW2 you could not move up the ranks unless you were one of the upper class.
It was snobs like this that brought about the Communist and Nazi's.
The fact is the Jews never had a good reputation at all, the world over and Churchill despised them as well.

Re: Henry Ford was a Nazi sympathiser
 

yup a wel known fact he was anti-semite.

other little interesting bit is that all his factories were exactly the same no matter where they were built. One set of plans... he was known as a bit of a um.. tight ****!

Re: Henry Ford was a Nazi sympathiser
 

Wether we like how or what sometime done at the time,its all old news now ......
We all make mistakes some we thought at the time were a good thing,sometimes a life long thorn in the side
Theres no world leader.politian , councilor,or anyone thats does 100 % correct,theres no millionares in the world that spend,fund always the right people
70,100 years ago we cant change,but now we can ,and the majority of people still vote in muppets that destroy everything those years ago worked for
Move forward not backwards

Re: Henry Ford was a Nazi sympathiser
 

Royalty was much the same back then ..
As said we did things "AT THE TIME" which where thought to be the right thing !!
Even in Australia. Forced adoption etc...

Re: Henry Ford was a Nazi sympathiser
 

old news
the bush grandfather was as well (prescott)
there was actually a rather big nazi movement in the states

Re: Henry Ford was a Nazi sympathiser
 

henry was both pro and anti semite - maybe he was just one of the few people who could think on his feet and not be led like the rest of the sheep

he wasn't an angel, nor was he the devil - he was one of the greatest businessmen in history, who gave people others had turned their back on, a chance of employment

Re: Henry Ford was a Nazi sympathiser
 

Hugo Boss designed the Nazi uniforms, no one looks down on the brand for that now. Its history now. They weren't to know what Hitler was going to do.

Re: Henry Ford was a Nazi sympathiser
 

Same with Jap car manu who built the planes that bombed Darwin !!!

Re: Henry Ford was a Nazi sympathiser
 

Ole' Henry was a well know Jew-hater.
Mitsubishi's most successful product during WW2 was the Zero.
General Motors made tanks during the wars, Ford made all sorts of military vehicles. Other companies made weapons that are frowned on or banned today such as cluster bombs and mines.
Lots of big pharmaceutical companies that are well know household names today were involved in chemical weapons and a couple of the German based ones made the stuff they used to gas Jews in concentration camps.


Go back far enough and all sorts of companies had shady or embarrassing parts of their history they don't like to discuss...

Re: Henry Ford was a Nazi sympathiser
 

Exactly... making a profit is more important then politics of how and who they shack up with.

Re: Henry Ford was a Nazi sympathiser
 

of course we only hear the one side of the story and have a one sided view . what do you think wouldve happened if world war 2 did not happen . ethnic cleansing of another race perhaps ?
. so Henry Ford was Nazi, captain cook was a pomme !

Re: Henry Ford was a Nazi sympathiser
 

Sorry I know it's old but I couldn't resist

It was a sweltering August day in 1937 when the Cohen brothers entered the posh Dearborn, Michigan, offices of Henry Ford, the car maker. "Mr. Ford," announced Norman Cohen, the eldest of the three. "We have a remarkable invention that will revolutionize the automobile industry."

Ford looked skeptical, but their threat to offer it to the competition kept his interest piqued. "We would like to demonstrate it to you in person." After a little cajoling, they brought Mr. Ford outside and asked him to enter a black automobile parked in front of the building.

Hyman Cohen, the middle brother, opened the door of the car.

"Please step inside, Mr. Ford."

"What!" shouted the tycoon, "Are you crazy? It must be two hundred degrees in that car!"

"It is," smiled the youngest brother, Max, "but sit down Mr. Ford, and push the white button."

Intrigued, Ford pushed the button. All of a sudden a whoosh of freezing air started blowing from vents all around the car, and within seconds the automobile was not only comfortable, it was quite cool.

"This is amazing!" exclaimed Ford. "How much do you want for the patent?"

Norman spoke up, "The price is one million dollars." Then he paused. "And there is something else: The name 'Cohen Brothers Air-Conditioning' must be stamped right next to the Ford logo!"

"Money is no problem," retorted Ford, "but no way will I have a Jewish name next to my logo on my cars!'

They haggled back and forth for a while and finally they settled. Five million dollars, but the Cohens' name would be left off. However, the first names of the Cohen brothers would be forever emblazoned upon the console of every Ford air conditioning system.

And that is why, even today, whenever you enter a Ford vehicle, you will see those three names clearly printed on the air conditioning control panel: NORM, HI and MAX

Re: Henry Ford was a Nazi sympathiser
 

Neville Chamberlain (England's Prime Minister in 1939) had a meeting with Hitler a week before the Nazi attack on Poland and came back from Germany excited about his meeting and that there would be no hostilities and what a good chap Adolf was ---
Back in the sixties before the great influx of Japanese cars into Australia the head of the RSL deemed that there will NEVER be a Japanese car parked in an RSL car park or that a RSL member would purchase one , check out the RSL car parks today and you will be hard pressed to find anything but Japanese vehicles parked in them .

Re: Henry Ford was a Nazi sympathiser
 

Not only whats in the car park,what about impoted building materials, features inside the buildings,lights,furniture,carpet,screws,bolts,nut s,nails, 99 % of what you see , sit or walk on, would be made in some so called previous hated country

They might of once been a seriously hated country ,but on a manufacturing level,we will be at their mercy in the not so distant future

Re: Henry Ford was a Nazi sympathiser
 

I guess anyone who drives a Mercedes or a BMW or Volkswagen likewise is a true Nazi. Hitler never was driven in a ford but Mercedes. I guess Henry was a little bit off track with what was the agenda of the Nazis as were a lot of German people IN THE LONG RUN. Mercedes is the real Nazi brand and car.

Re: Henry Ford was a Nazi sympathiser
 

And we all seem to forget the great impact Hitler had on Volkswagen. Im particular on of the biggest selling car in history, the Beetle.

Re: Henry Ford was a Nazi sympathiser
 

How about you all actually go and do a bit of research on the history of the whole world 1900-1950.

You may find that you all really have NO IDEA WHATSOEVER.

If you are looking for a society that committed genocide, held slaves, treated various ethnic groups as "non people" with forced relocation and ethnic cleansing and corruptly imprisoned people for their beliefs you might want to start here in Australia.........

Re: Henry Ford was a Nazi sympathiser
 

If you look at the amount of Real Estate that foreigners own in Australia it's just gob smacking , Cubby station was just recently sold to Chinese interests , Cubby station was an Australian icon and one of the largest tracts of land with vast water access - the dumb Australian Government let it go instead of securing it for future farming -- it just beggers belief also many of the major resorts on the Queensland coast are foreign owned - those whom we once considered our enemies are (in a lot of circumstances) now our employers.

Re: Henry Ford was a Nazi sympathiser
 

What Henry was thinking & dealing with A.H i'll never know but Henry's legacy is still around today which i absolutely admire but some of his nazi business associates mmm... dont think so.

I was watching sbs last night when it came on, i changed the channel instantly, thinking to myself not another show about that ******* deluded madman.

Separating the man & his achievments from the man & his ideaology is what our fellow AFF members are doing i reckon!

p,s genocide happened to my family also a long long time ago oversea's...

cheers, Maka

Re: Henry Ford was a Nazi sympathiser
 

Ohh, I thought you were talking about 21st century Israel :conf

looking back in hind sight is great innit.

Re: Henry Ford was a Nazi sympathiser
 

We have the advantage of hindsight and we know the full extremes and horrors that the Nazi party ventured upon. But up to the late thirties (before Germany invaded Poland) Hitler and the Nazi party was looked pretty favorably upon, they were pulling Germany up from the destruction and castration of World War 1. Hitler was also one of if not the greatest public speakers in history, Henry Ford wasn't the only person to support the Nazi party, but of course once the Nazi war machine began to roll all those people like Henry severed ties with the party. Antisemitism was pretty wide spread back then, hell it still is today, Jews have always been looked down in society. So any antisemitic stance the Nazi party has was for many people a non factor until they started trying to exterminate them.

Re: Henry Ford was a Nazi sympathiser
 

While true I don't think anyone in the history of the world committed genocide to the scale or ruthlessness that Hilter did.

Things like using the injured and disabled to test his gas chambers before giving his commanders the ok to use them mass scale to me is just beyond words.

Places like Auschwitz just don't even compare.

And it true the Nazi's were a legit political party that some argue brought Germany back from the brink of financial ruin.

Re: Henry Ford was a Nazi sympathiser
 

Hah... Hitler was a choir boy compared to what Stalin did !!