Major companies relations with Nazis

[ljadw]

Following Forum der WM(Bestand der Kraftfahrzeuge) ,at the mobilisation,the army needed an extra of 55000 trucks for the new created divisions.
The question is :how much did it get ?

[Pruitt]

The Germans acquired foreign trucks every time it took over a country. Certain waves would get certain equipment. Some divisions would get French trucks, while others might get Italian trucks. Naturally this played Hobbs with spare parts!

The Germans were salvaging vehicles and equipment on the beaches at Dunkirk. A little salt water could be cleaned off!

Pruitt

[clackers]

Originally Posted by ljadw

Btw:what would be the difference between automobile and automotive?The former being a substantive and the latter an adjective ?

Yep, noun and adjective.

[Tuomas_]

ITT has an interesting story too. I've read Anthony Sampson's book about it but don't have it at hand now; I seem to recall that in the thirties it was already very active in Spain during the Civil War and cozy with the Franco faction, and the 25% ownership of Focke-Wulf that WP mentions (with post-war compensations for Allied bombings, of course) was just the tip of the iceberg of the involvement with the Nazi regime. The book made it look like something of a rogue company right off the bat; the name was intentionally chosen to get mixed up with AT&T, and so on. WP does reference the later funny stuff in South America. Money makes the world go around...

[Scupio]

Sterling Drug

I have not seen mention of this company so far - I had hoped that an American Contributor might have raised it since it is so convoluted and mixed up with American politics that I don't properly understand it.

Here is a bit of my interpretation:

Sterling acquired American Bayer after WW1 and had very close relationship throughout the 30's. This extended to Bayer (Germany) coming to a secret agreement with Sterling whereby Bayer Patents in the USA were handed over to Sterling for the duration of the War in order to prevent the US Government sequestering them.

The greatest co-operation however occurred in South America and ran right throughout the War. Here Sterling took over some Bayer operations but kept on the Nazis and laundered products and money. In February 1942 Edgar Hoover, wrote that Sterling's Chile operation manager, Werner Siering, was running a nazi spy ring checking on German citizens and American and British operations in Chile.

Nothing was done. Similar exposes came to light in other S American operations. Nothing happened here either.

Littell, Ass Attorney General was the main thorn in the Sterling's side. He tried to get Atabrine (a quinine substitute) released by Alien Property Custodian , Leo Crowley. BUT Crowley refused. With the Japanese take over of SE Asia quinine was in short supply and this drug would have prevented many US soldiers from getting malaria. A full scale Senate hearing was continuously stalled by Att General Biddle.

Littell for his pains got the sack by Roosevelt. BUT finally through persistence got an investigation against Sterling started in Jan 1945 in Congress.

Biddle resigned days later and the investigation was dropped.

Before he died Roosevelt apparently told Littell that he would have liked to see Biddle impeached for treason.

Biddle was a judge at the Nuremberg trials.

Clearly Sterling had good friends in very high places.