Nazi Business

Cracked.com has a cynical piece on five well known brand names and the role they played in supporting Nazi Germany. The companies are Siemens, Bayer, IBM, Volkswagen and Hugo Boss. What did these companies do to support the Nazi war effort? Hugo Boss made the uniforms worn by the Nazis -- and you can probably recognize the Nazi influence in today's Boss wear. Volkswagen created the Beetle to be the affordable wonder car every German could own. IBM supplied the Nazis with systems to keep an inventory of Jews and others, allowing the holocaust to be executed efficiently. Bayer (then part of IG Farben) produced the Zyklon-B gas used in the gas chambers. And Siemens was the Nazi infrastructure machine -- everything from railways to the gas chambers themselves.

Those five are not the only businesses to prosper and support Nazi Germany. There were many others -- and they weren't limited to German companies. Businesses around the world, including Western Europe and the US, saw the opportunity Nazi Germany represented and some even sympathized with their pursuit of a master race.

Of course, it was only just business. It wasn't like those companies were actually killing people. Really. They were just making a killing from the killing. Not much has changed today of course. Around the world, business continue to prosper from the murder of innocents. Think you're not using a product or service that either directly or indirectly is responsible for murder, war, pillage, rape? Think again.