TIL GM and Ford built vehicles for the Nazis during WWII

  • The_Pete@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Uh, henry ford was a notoriously antisemitic person.

    He had an entire paper dedication to publishing antisemitic stuff, he financed a book that was completely full of lies that is still an undertone for existing antisemitic conspiracy theories.

    Hitler had a great respect for the stuff he had published and got some good ideas about the Holocaust from ford, even writing him a letter saying he like the way he though with regards to the place and treatment of other races. He really liked America’s ‘equal but separate’ approach to racism. Hitler gave him the highest civilian metal of Germany and he went and accepted it.

    And to be fair, afterwards, we all pretended like that didn’t happen.

    The US didn’t join the war because of the racist atrocities, intact there was no appetite until perl harbor. The US joined WWII because they didn’t like the attempt at global fascist takeover. If it was just a genocide that didn’t spill out of its boarders we would have been happy to turn a blind eye. Just like we have been happy to do with the existing Uyghur genocide happening now in China and the one in Palestine.

    • Everythingispenguins@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      He was also awarded the Grand Cross of the German Eagle for being pro Nazi. Weirdly enough though when he got the chance to get some of the largest contracts for the US war machine he jumped at the chance. So a win for capitalism… Or something I guess.