I would
like to outline the importance attached by high [Nazi] officials
to respect the desire and maintain the good will of "Ford," and
by "Ford" I mean your father, yourself, and the Ford Motor
Company, Dearborn.
(Josiah E. Dubois, Jr.,
Generals in Grey Suits, London: The Bodley Head, 1953, p.
250.)
Henry Ford
is often seen to be something of an enigma among the Wall Street
elite. For many years in the 20s and 30s Ford was popularly known as
an enemy of the financial establishment. Ford accused Morgan and
others of using war and revolution as a road to profit and their
influence in social systems as a means of personal advancement. By
1938 Henry Ford, in his public statements, had divided financiers
into two classes: those who profited from war and used their
influence to bring about war for profit, and the "constructive"
financiers. Among the latter group he now included the House of
Morgan. During a 1938 New York Times interview1
Ford averred that:
Somebody once said that sixty families have directed the
destinies of the nation. It might well be said that if somebody
would focus the spotlight on twenty-five persons who handle the
nation's finances, the world's real warmakers would be brought
into bold relief.
The
Times reporter asked Ford how he equated this assessment with
his long-standing criticism of the House of Morgan, to which Ford
replied:
There
is a constructive and a destructive Wall Street. The House of
Morgan represents the constructive. I have known Mr. Morgan for
many years. He backed and supported Thomas Edison, who was also
my good friend ....
After
expounding on the evils of limited agricultural production —
allegedly brought about by Wall Street — Ford continued,
... if
these financiers had their way we'd be in a war now. They want
war because they make money out of such conflict — out of the
human misery that wars bring.
On the
other hand, when we probe behind these public statements we find
that Henry Ford and son Edsel Ford have been in the forefront of
American businessmen who try to walk both sides of every ideological
fence in search of profit. Using Ford's own criteria, the Fords are
among the "destructive" elements.
It was
Henry Ford who in the 1930s built the Soviet Union's first modern
automobile plant (located at Gorki) and which in the 50s and 60s
produced the trucks used by the North Vietnamese to carry weapons
and munitions for use against Americans.2
At about the same time, Henry Ford was also the most famous of
Hitler's foreign backers, and he was rewarded in the 1930s for this
long-lasting support with the highest Nazi decoration for
foreigners.
This Nazi
favor aroused a storm of controversy in the United States and
ultimately degenerated into an exchange of diplomatic notes between
the German Government and the State Department. While Ford publicly
protested that he did not like totalitarian governments, we find in
practice that Ford knowingly profited from both sides of World War
II — from French and German plants producing vehicles at a profit
for the Wehrmacht, and from U.S. plants building vehicles at a
profit for the U.S. Army.
Henry
Ford's protestations of innocence suggest, as we shall see in this
chapter, that he did not approve of Jewish financiers profiting from
war (as some have), but if anti-Semitic Morgan3
and Ford profited from war that was acceptable, moral and
"constructive."
Henry Ford:
Hitler's First Foreign Backer
On December
20, 1922 the New York Times reported4
that automobile manufacturer Henry Ford was financing Adolph
Hitler's nationalist and anti-Semitic movements in Munich.
Simultaneously, the Berlin newspaper Berliner Tageblatt
appealed to the American Ambassador in Berlin to investigate and
halt Henry Ford's intervention into German domestic affairs. It was
reported that Hitler's foreign backers had furnished a "spacious
headquarters" with a "host of highly paid lieutenants and
officials." Henry Ford's portrait was prominently displayed on the
walls of Hitler's personal office:
The
wall behind his desk in Hitler's private office is decorated
with a large picture of Henry Ford. In the antechamber there is
a large table covered with books, nearly all of which are a
translation of a book written and published by Henry Ford.5
New York Times, August 1, 1938:
HITLER ACCLAIMED BY 200,000 IN FETE; New York Times, December 20,
1922: BERLIN HEARS FORD IS BACKING HITLER
The same
New York Times report commented that the previous Sunday Hitler
had reviewed,
The
so-called Storming Battalion.., 1,000 young men in brand new
uniforms and armed with revolvers and blackjacks, while Hitler
and his henchmen drove around in two powerful brand-new autos.
The
Times made a clear distinction between the German monarchist
parties and Hitler's anti-Semitic fascist party. Henry Ford, it was
noted, ignored the Hohenzollern monarchists and put his money into
the Hitlerite revolutionary movement.
These Ford
funds were used by Hitler to foment the Bavarian rebellion. The
rebellion failed, and Hitler was captured and subsequently brought
to trial. In February 1923 at the trial, vice president Auer of the
Bavarian Diet testified:
The
Bavarian Diet has long had the information that the Hitler
movement was partly financed by an American anti-Semitic chief,
who is Henry Ford. Mr. Ford's interest in the Bavarian
anti-Semitic movement began a year ago when one of Mr. Ford's
agents, seeking to sell tractors, came in contact with Diedrich
Eichart, the notorious Pan-German. Shortly after, Herr Eichart
asked Mr. Ford's agent for financial aid. The agent returned to
America and immediately Mr. Ford's money began coming to Munich.
Herr
Hitler openly boasts of Mr. Ford's support and praises Mr. Ford
as a great individualist and a great anti-Semite. A photograph
of Mr. Ford hangs in Herr Hitler's quarters, which is the center
of monarchist movement.6
Hitler
received a mild and comfortable prison sentence for his Bavarian
revolutionary activities. The rest from more active pursuits enabled
him to write Mein Kampf. Henry Ford's book, The
International Jew, earlier circulated by the Nazis, was
translated by them into a dozen languages, and Hitler utilized
sections of the book verbatim in writing Mein Kampf.7
We shall
see later that Hitler's backing in the late 20s and early 30s came
from the chemical, steel, and electrical industry cartels, rather
than directly from individual industrialists. In 1928 Henry Ford
merged his German assets with those of the I.G. Farben chemical
cartel. A substantial holding, 40 percent of Ford Motor A.G. of
Germany, was transferred to I.G. Farben; Carl Bosch of I.G. Farben
became head of Ford A.G. Motor in Germany. Simultaneously, in the
United States Edsel Ford joined the board of American I.G. Farben.
(See Chapter Two.)
Henry Ford Receives a
Nazi Medal
A decade
later, in August 1938 — after Hitler had achieved power with the aid
of the cartels — Henry Ford received the Grand Cross of the German
Eagle, a Nazi decoration for distinguished foreigners. The New
York Times reported it was the first time the Grand Cross had
been awarded in the United States and was to celebrate Henry Ford's
75th birthday.8
The
decoration raised a storm of criticism within Zionist circles in the
U.S. Ford backed off to the extent of publicly meeting with Rabbi
Leo Franklin of Detroit to express his sympathy for the plight of
German Jews:
My
acceptance of a medal from the German people [said Ford] does
not, as some people seem to think, involve any sympathy on my
part with naziism. Those who have known me for many years
realize that anything that breeds hate is repulsive to me.9
The Nazi
medal issue was picked up in a Cleveland speech by Secretary of
Interior Harold Ickes. Ickes criticized both Henry Ford and Colonel
Charles A. Lindbergh for accepting Nazi medals. The curious part of
the Ickes speech, made at a Cleveland Zionist Society banquet, was
his criticism of "wealthy Jews" and their acquisition and use
of wealth:
A
mistake made by a non-Jewish millionaire reflects upon him
alone, but a false step made by a Jewish man of wealth reflects
upon his whole race. This is harsh and unjust, but it is a fact
that must be faced.10
Perhaps
Ickes was tangentially referring to the roles of the Warburgs in the
I.G. Farben cartel: Warburgs were on the board of I.G. Farben in the
U.S. and Germany. In 1938 the Warburgs were being ejected by the
Nazis from Germany. Other German Jews, such as the Oppenheim
bankers, made their peace with the Nazis and were granted "honorary
Aryan status."
Ford
Motor Company Assists the German War Effort
A post-war
Congressional subcommittee investigating American support for the
Nazi military effort described the manner in which the Nazis
succeeded in obtaining U.S. technical and financial assistance as
"quite fantastic.11 Among other
evidence the Committee was shown a memorandum prepared in the
offices of Ford-Werke A.G. on November 25, 1941, written by Dr. H.
F. Albert to R. H. Schmidt, then president of the board of Ford-Werke
A.G. The memo cited the advantages of having a majority of the
German firm held by Ford Motor Company in Detroit. German Ford had
been able to exchange Ford parts for rubber and critical war
materials needed in 1938 and 1939 "and they would not have been able
to do that if Ford had not been owned by the United States."
Further, with a majority American interest German Ford would "more
easily be able to step in and dominate the Ford holdings throughout
Europe." It was even reported to the Committee that two top German
Ford officials had been in a bitter personal feud about who was to
control Ford of England, such "that one of them finally got up and
left the room in disgust."
According
to evidence presented to the Committee, Ford-Werke A.G. was
technically transformed in the late 1930s into a German company. All
vehicles and their parts were produced in Germany, by German workers
using German materials under German direction and exported to
European and overseas territories of the United States and Great
Britain. Any needed foreign raw materials, rubber and nonferrous
metals, were obtained through the American Ford Company. American
influence had been more or less converted into a supporting position
(Hilfsstellung) for the German Ford plants.
At the
outbreak of the war Ford-Werke placed itself at the disposal of the
Wehrmacht for armament production. It was assumed by the Nazis that
as long as Ford-Werke A.G. had an American majority, it would be
possible to bring the remaining European Ford companies under German
influence — i.e., that of Ford-Werke A.G. — and so execute Nazi
"Greater European" policies in the Ford plants in Amsterdam,
Antwerp, Paris, Budapest, Bucharest, and Copenhagen:
A
majority, even if only a small one, of Americans is essential
for the transmittal of the newest American models, as well as
American production and sales methods. With the abolition of the
American majority, this advantage, as well as the intervention
of the Ford Motor Company to obtain raw materials and exports,
would be lost, and the German plant would practically only be
worth its machine capacity.12
And, of
course, this kind of strict neutrality, taking an international
rather than a national viewpoint, had earlier paid off for Ford
Motor Company in the Soviet Union, where Ford was held in high
regard as the ultimate of technical and economic efficiency to be
achieved by the Stak-hanovites.
In July
1942 word filtered back to Washington from Ford of France about
Ford's activities on behalf of the German war effort in Europe. The
incriminating information was promptly buried and even today only
part of the known documentation can be traced in Washington.
We do know,
however, that the U.S. Consul General in Algeria had possession of a
letter from Maurice Dollfuss of French Ford — who claimed to be the
first Frenchman to go to Berlin after the fall of France — to Edsel
Ford about a plan by which Ford Motor could contribute to the Nazi
war effort. French Ford was able to produce 20 trucks a day for the
Wehrmacht, which [wrote Dollfuss] is better than,
... our
less fortunate French competitors are doing. The reason is that
our trucks are in very large demand by the German authorities
and I believe that as long as the war goes on and at least for
some period of time, all that we shall produce will be taken by
the German authorities .... I will satisfy myself by telling you
that... the attitude you have taken, together with your father,
of strict neutrality, has been an invaluable asset for the
production of your companies in Europe.13
Dollfuss
disclosed that profits from this German business were already 1.6
million francs, and net profits for 1941 were no less than
58,000,000 francs — because the Germans paid promptly for Ford's
output. On receipt of this news Edsel Ford cabled:
Delighted to hear you are making progress. Your letters most
interesting. Fully realize great handicap you are working under.
Hope you and family well. Regards.
s/ Edsel
Ford14
Although
there is evidence that European plants owned by Wall Street
interests were not bombed by the U.S. Air Force in World War II,
this restriction apparently did not reach the British Bombing
Command. In March 1942 the Royal Air Force bombed the Ford plant at
Poissy, France. A subsequent letter from Edsel Ford to Ford General
Manager Sorenson about this RAF raid commented, "Photographs
of the plant on fire were published in American newspapers but
fortunately no reference was made to the Ford Motor Company.15
In any event, the Vichy government paid Ford Motor Company 38
million francs as compensation for damage done to the Poissy plant.
This was not reported in the U.S. press and would hardly be
appreciated by those Americans at war with Naziism. Dubois asserts
that these private messages from Ford in Europe were passed
to Edsel Ford by Assistant Secretary of State Breckenridge Long.
This was the same Secretary Long who one year later suppressed
private messages through the State Department concerning the
extermination of Jews in Europe. 16 Disclosure of those messages
conceivably could have been used to assist those desperate people.
A U.S. Air
Force bombing intelligence report written in 1943 noted that,
Principal wartime activities [of the Ford plant] are probably
manufacture of light trucks and of spare parts for all the Ford
trucks and cars in service in Axis Europe (including captured
Russian Molotovs).16
The Russian
Molotovs were of course manufactured by the Ford-built works at
Gorki, Russia. In France during the war, passenger automobile
production was entirely replaced by military vehicles and for this
purpose three large additional buildings were added to the Poissy
factory. The main building contained about 500 machine tools, "all
imported from the United States and including a fair sprinkling of
the more complex types, such as Gleason gear cutters, Bullard
automatics and Ingersoll borers.17
Ford also
extended its wartime activities into North Africa. In December 1941
a new Ford Company, Ford-Afrique, was registered in France and
granted all the rights of the former Ford Motor Company, Ltd. of
England in Algeria, Tunisia, French Morocco, French Equatorial, and
French West Africa. North Africa was not accessible to British Ford
so this new Ford Company — registered in German-occupied France —
was organized to fill the gap. The directors were pro-Nazi and
included Maurice Dollfuss (Edsel Ford's correspondent) and Roger
Messis (described by the U.S. Algiers Consul General as "known to
this office by repute as unscrupulous, is stated to be a 100 percent
pro-German")18
The U.S.
Consul General also reported that propaganda was common in Algiers
about
... the
collaboration of French-German-American capital and the
questionable sincerity of the American war effort, [there] is
already pointing an accusing finger at a transaction Which has
been for long a subject of discussion in commercial circles.19
In brief,
there is documentary evidence that Ford Motor Company worked on both
sides of World War II. If the Nazi industrialists brought to trial
at Nuremburg were guilty of crimes against mankind, then so must be
their fellow collaborators in the Ford family, Henry and Edsel Ford.
However, the Ford story was concealed by Washington — apparently
like almost everything else that could touch upon the name and
sustenance of the Wall Street financial elite.
Footnotes:
1June 4, 1938, 2:2.
2A list of these Gorki vehicles and their
model numbers is in Antony G. Sutton, National Suicide:
Military Aid to the Soviet Union, (New York: Arlington House
Publishers, 1973), Table 7-2, p. 125.
3The House of Morgan was known for its
anti-Semitic views.
4Page 2, Column 8.
5Ibid.
6Jonathan Leonard, The Tragedy of Henry
Ford, (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1932), p. 208. Also see
U.S. State Department Decimal File, National Archives Microcopy
M 336, Roll 80, Document 862.00S/6, "Money sources of Hitler," a
report from the U.S. Embassy in Berlin.
7On this see Keith Sward, The Legend of
Henry Ford, (New York: Rinehart & Co, 1948), p. 139.
8New York Times, August l, 1938.
9Ibid., December 1, 1938, 12:2.
10Ibid., December 19, 1938, 5:3.
11Elimination of German Resources,
p. 656.
12Elimination of German Resources,
pp. 657-8.
13Josiah E. Dubois, Jr., Generals in
Grey Suits, (London: The Bodley Head, 1958), p. 248.
14Ibid., p. 249.
15Ibid., p. 251.
16Ibid.
17U.S. Army Air Force, Aiming point
report No I.E.2, May 29, 1943.
18U.S. State Department Decimal File,
800/61o.1.
19Ibid.
