Document 48yJbrdmxXGy419DyDZmrXxN

Chapter 2 1945. How the Americans Took Over Cologne-and Discovered Ford Werke's Role in the War "We Welcome the Leader ofGreater Germany1"--Hitler's train passes by the Opel factory in Russelsheim, 1938 (A16) Below (A17), USAF aenal reconnaissance of the Opel factory in 1943 The foreign workers' barracks are marked at left in solid black (#18) Dirty Business" was the headline given to a sensational December report m Newsweek about the role of American banks and busmes Nazi Germany after 1933. "America had its own Nazi connection," the azine wrote "Chase, General Motors and Ford all had some links to B And now they may have to face the consequences "' Sold as a major revelation, this was not terra incognita to researi American historians began already m the early 1960s to explore the pc of the Ford Motor Company m Europe and Germany after 1933: results are informative and important, but do not delve too deeply ini politics and ethics of the company's role in German war preparation production The use of forced laborers at the Ford Werke subsidir Cologne is given litde or no attention, even in Charles Higham's hars hque of the support for Hider.3 After the attack on Pearl Harbor m December 1941, when the l. States entered the Second World War against Japan and Germany, Motor became the third-largest American arms maker The compan itself as part of the "arsenal of democracy." But during the prewar yeai m the first years of the war Ford Motor had raised production capacit) advanced automotive factory in Cologne and taken up mditary produ The company headquarters m Dearborn, Michigan was well aware o' Werke's importance to Hitler's "fast divisions " Was the U S parent agement simply unscrupulous in lending support to a totalitarian rc one that was preparing war with the goal of a reactionary new world ( Were Henry and Edsel Ford indifferent to the idea of a Europe und swastika? Or did they see only an opportunity to increase their own ness power and gain a share m a new, single European market7 S-FORD-883 SCF-FORD-3690 These and similar questions were asked repeatedly at the U S Treasury and Justice departments after 1939 During the war the two ministries looked into Ford's policy in France, and they investigated Ford Werke in Cologne right after the war The lnquines produced informative reports, but m the end neither resulted in any political or legal consequences The following examines the U.S government investigations of Ford in the spring and summer of 1945, while necessarily drawing a far broader context of the U.S. occupation and pohcy m western Germany, from the first days of victory amid a destroyed and depopulated Cologne to the quarrel over the revival of the German economy and the appropriate forms of "industrial dis armament" and control. The investigations did not occur in a vacuum of nor mality, but during a tune of great transformation and sudden developments Shattered Cologne Falls to First Army The advancing U S soldiers first crossed the border from Luxembourg into Germany, north of Tner, on the early evening of 11 September 1944, about one hundred days after the Allied landing m Normandy on 6 June4 Advance units of the US 1st Army reached the outskirts of Aachen twentyfour hours later. The German commander of the town garrison was ready to surrender In Pans, at the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expedi tionary Force (SHAEF), the jomt command for U S and Bnhsh forces, it was anticipated that a rapid push forward might capture the city of Cologne before the end of the month However, the German Wehrmacht succeeded in rallying their disinte grating troops in the west, blocking the Allied advance Eight thousand Amencan soldiers were lulled m a battle that stretched out over the next six weeks before Aachen was reduced to rubble and the garrison finally sur rendered. Under the headline, "Aachen A Test of Nazi Fanaticism," the New York Times warned m mid-October that this pointless and total resistance would have fatal consequences, above all for Germany "What is happening [in Aachen] is bound to happen to other German cities if the nature of the war does not change "s To the east of Aachen, the German front held up under Amencan pressure. In mid-December the Wehrmacht launched a counterattack in the Ardennes The Allies were not to reach the nver Rhine until late February 1945 This five-month delay entailed utter devastaUon for the Rhineland and especially for Cologne, the Western Allies' next des tination on their way to Berlin Years of air war had already wrought havoc on that ancient city Of die pre-war population of 772,000 people, 40 percent had by September 1944 fled or been evacuated. Despite this, Cologne remained an important center for military transport, industry, and supply. It was therefore once again des ignated a main target for the British and U S air fleets. From late September 1944 to early March 1945 upwards of 4,000 Royal Air Force and 7,000 U S Air Force bombers dropped their payloads there The destructive force visited upon Cologne in these five months, a cumulative 30,000 tons of explosives, was over twice as great as m the preceding war years 6 Much of the damage was impossible to fix or counteract in the short term, ren dering meaningless the desperate efforts at repair7 In mid-November 1944 there were still 250,000 people remaining m the city Seventy thousand of them departed in December, leaving 180,000 behind Transport, communi cations, power and water systems were brought to a standstill, many until well after the end of the war Nearly all of the key military producers--who had still achieved astonishing output numbers in the first three quarters of 1944--were forced to suspend operations. By the end of the year the city had ceased to function as a war resource The U.S 1st and 9th Armies launched their decisive move towards the Rhine at Duren and Julich on 24 February 1945. Their success was imme diate and spectacular. Within days, U S war reporters were writing "of spreading panic, coupled with signs that the Germans are beginning to with draw across the Rhine " Nevertheless, with the horror of Aachen still fresh, SHAEF decided to smooth the conquest of Cologne by means of prolonged shelling and a final blow from the air. Cologne came within range of U.S artillery fire on 26 February 1945. Two days later the remaining 85,000 civilians--civil servants, police officers and fire brigades included--were ordered to leave the city On 2 March, at 1000 hours, just as the local authorities and an SS unit began to force all stragglers to move to the eastern bank of the Rhine, downtown was para lyzed by the last RAF attack. "850 planes swept over the city diligently, block by block, using the RAFs technique of night-pattem bombing against a city under full daylight observation "9 "More than 150 RAF bombers returned during the afternoon to repeat the blow Airmen said Cologne's famous cathedral was standing, but that most of the rest of the city `looked like a heap of rubble '"10 A great flight of civilians ensued and "after the exodus came a penod of waiting, during which there was almost no movement in the streets of the ruined city," except for isolated patrols of the squads who were supposed to mount a defense An unknown number of German civilians, deserters from the Wehrmacht, members of the underground resistance, and foreign forced laborers hid in cellars, bunkers, and amid the nuns, waiting for the arrival of the victors 11 The "Rome of the North" had been transformed into a depopulated and terrifying wasteland, "a perfect illustration of what modem war means--total destruction, with the survivors driven to existence m cel lars and caves."12 The war photographer Margaret Bourke-White remarked in March 1945 that Cologne was the first city of ruins she had ever seen "It was a measure of the catastrophe that had befallen the Nazis."13 The British bombers were followed by U.S. infantry and tank divisions Ground units moved in on the mommg of 5 March 1945 and occupied the city west of the Rhine by the evening of 6 March Allied fears of a new Bat tle of Aachen, or even a "Stalingrad on the Rhine," proved groundless. But their hopes of capturing an intact bndge over the nver went unfulfilled. These and similar questions were asked repeatedly at the U S. Treasury and Justice departments after 1939. During the war the two ministries looked into Ford's policy in France, and they investigated Ford Werke in Cologne nght after the war The inquiries produced informative reports, but in the end neither resulted in any political or legal consequences The following examines the U S. government investigations of Ford in the spring and summer of 1945, while necessarily drawing a far broader context of the U.S. occupation and pokey in western Germany, from the first days of victory amid a destroyed and depopulated Cologne to the quarrel over the revival of the German economy and the appropriate forms of "industrial dis armament" and control The investigations did not occur m a vacuum of nor mality, but dunng a time of great transformation and sudden developments Shattered Cologne Falls to First Army The advancing U S soldiers first crossed the border from Luxembourg into Germany, north of Tner, on the early evening of 11 September 1944, about one hundred days after the Allied landing in Normandy on 6 June4 Advance units of the US. 1st Army reached the outskirts of Aachen twentyfour hours later. The German commander of the town garrison was ready to surrender In Pans, at the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expedi tionary Force (SHAEF), the jomt command for U.S and Bntish forces, it was anticipated that a rapid push forward might capture the city of Cologne before the end of the month However, the German Wehrmacht succeeded in rallying their disinte grating troops m the west, blocking the Allied advance Eight thousand Amencan soldiers were killed in a battle that stretched out over the next six weeks before Aachen was reduced to rubble and the garrison finally sur rendered Under the headline, "Aachen. A Test of Nazi Fanaticism," the New York Times warned in mid-October that this pointless and total resistance would have fatal consequences, above all for Germany. "What is happening [m Aachen] is bound to happen to other German cities if the nature of the war does not change "s To the east of Aachen, the German front held up under Amencan pressure In mid-December the Wehrmacht launched a counterattack in the Ardennes The Allies were not to reach the nver Rhine until late February 1945. This five-month delay entailed utter devastation for the Rhineland and especially for Cologne, the Western Allies' next des tination on their way to Berlin Years of air war had already wrought havoc on that ancient city Of the pre-war population of 772,000 people, 40 percent had by September 1944 fled or been evacuated Despite this, Cologne remained an important center for military transport, industry, and supply. It was therefore once again des ignated a main target for the Bntish and U S air fleets From late September 1944 to early March 1945 upwards of 4,000 Royal Air Force and 7,000 U S. Air Force bombers dropped their payloads there The destructive force visited upon Cologne in these five months, a cumulative 30,000 tons of explosives, was over twice as great as in the preceding war years.6 Much of the damage was impossible to fix or counteract in the short term, ren dering meaningless the desperate efforts at repair7 In mid-November 1944 there were still 250,000 people remaining in the city Seventy thousand of them departed in December, leaving 180,000 behind Transport, communi cations, power and water systems were brought to a standstill, many until well after the end of the war Nearly all of the key military producers-who had still achieved astonishing output numbers m the first three quarters of 1944--were forced to suspend operations By the end of the year the aty had ceased to function as a war resource The U S 1st and 9th Armies launched then decisive move towards the Rhine at Diiren and Jiilich on 24 February 1945. Their success was imme diate and spectacular. Within days, U S. war reporters were writing "of spreading panic, coupled with signs that the Germans are beginning to with draw across the Rhine "B Nevertheless, with the horror of Aachen shll fresh, SHAEF decided to smooth the conquest of Cologne by means of prolonged shelling and a final blow from the air. Cologne came within range of U S artillery fire on 26 February 1945. Two days later the remaining 85,000 cmhans-civil servants, police officers and fire bngades mcluded--were ordered to leave the city On 2 March, at 1000 hours, just as the local authonhes and an SS unit began to force all stragglers to move to the eastern bank of the Rhine, downtown was para lyzed by the last RAF attack. "850 planes swept over the aty diligendy, block by block, using the RAFs technique of night-pattern bombing against a city under full daylight observation " "More than 150 RAF bombers returned dunng the afternoon to repeat the blow Airmen said Cologne's famous cathedral was standing, but that most of the rest of the aty `looked like a heap of rubble.'"10 A great flight of civilians ensued and "after the exodus came a penod of waiting, dunng which there was almost no movement in the streets of the ruined aty," except for isolated patrols of the squads who were supposed to mount a defense An unknown number of German civilians, deserters from the Wehrmacht, members of the underground resistance, and foreign forced laborers hid m cellars, bunkers, and amid the rums, waiting for the amval of the victors.11 The "Rome of the North" had been transformed mto a depopulated and terrifying wasteland, "a perfect illustration of what modem war means-total destruction, with the survivors dnven to existence in cel lars and caves."12 The war photographer Margaret Bourke-White remarked in March 1945 that Cologne was the first city of nuns she had ever seen. "It was a measure of the catastrophe that had befallen the Nazis The British bombers were followed by U.S. infantry and tank divisions Ground units moved in on the morning of 5 March 1945 and occupied the aty west of the Rhine by the evening of 6 March Allied fears of a new Bat tle of Aachen, or even a "Stalingrad on the Rhine," proved groundless. But their hopes of capturing an intact bndge over the nver went unfulfilled The U S. soldiers were astonished by the friendly reception from the , remaining civilians One of the first Americans to enter the city on 5 March, tank corps Sergeant Mitchell, was sent back to SHAEF in Pans to report his experiences at a press conference His descnption turned so euphonc that the journalists began doubting whether the U.S Army's ban on fraterniza tion with die enemy was being upheld. The Amencans were treated practically as liberators, the sergeant said The Germans, of whom disproportionate numbers were children or elderly people, at first waved white flags and held up their hands They broke into joy and relief the moment they realized they were out of danger14 As Amencan intelligence units confirmed, the sergeant was not describ ing an isolated case. "The first interrogators in Cologne noted without exception, as they went through the town in the wake of the combat ele ments, the `terrific' welcome given to Amencan troops Free beer and wine were offered by several beerhouse propnetors .. Civilians showed an inchnation to pat soldiers on the back and addressed jokes to them Everywhere a spirit of `liberation,' genuine or synthetic, was in evidence and tanks were stopped by civilians, who in broken English or m plain German simply said' `Endlich seid Ihr gekommen, seitJahren haben wir auf Euch gewartet' (At last you have come, for years we have been waiting for you J"15 The enthusiasm faded in the days that followed. "Nevertheless, a sober sense of release, akin to `liberation,' is reported to exist still m Cologne Much of this is patently false, expressions of enthusiasm and smiling good will have always come easily to the people of this area The opportunists reveal themselves inevitably by their eagerness to `spill the beans' or `put the finger' on the remaining Nazis left in the town Quite obviously, the shoe is now on the other foot"16 The AMERICANS' ELATION at encountering minima] resistance gave way to mounting sobriety with each new discovery of the crimes of the Nazi regime "Of Cologne's normalJewish population of 16,000, all but 100 were deported, members of that remnant reported," New York Times correspon dent Gladwin Hill cabled his editors on 7 March. "They hid out in the city, constantly hunted by the Gestapo like criminals, for fear of being sent to execution camps " 0 On the same day a first unit of the Military Government liberated the inmates at two of the city's most notorious torture centers, Klingelputz Prison and the Gestapo Headquarters at EL-DE Haus near the Cathedral Right up to the moment they took flight the Gestapo agents at both sites had tortured and executed political prisoners 18 The eighty inmates liberated by the Amencans, women and men of var ious nationalities, had been left behind by their guards because they were too weak to move After the Gestapo withdrew, the prisoners spent five days in their cells without food or water before being rescued It took three days for the Amencans to bury the dead and make arrangements for the sick and dying. At Klingelputz and EL-DE Haus the U S. medical officer, Captain Moreland and his assistants found tools of torture and parts of a gallows I designed for executing several prisoners simultaneously They discovered that mass executions had been earned out in late February, just days before the city fell Several dead prisoners were still in their cells, where they had been buned by rubble dunng the bombmg and shelling 19 U.S. and Bnbsh reporters were given an opportunity to speak with the liberated prisoners on 10 March "Many wept-men as well as women Oth ers laughed . Some could scarcely walk More than 20 had already been taken to a hospital.. Each story of the reasons for their imprisonment was different, but in each story was some heroism, great or small A Frenchman forced to work m a Cologne restaurant had given food to Russian slave laborers A Belgian woman of 22 had refused to do espionage A young Dutchman had listened to BBC broadcasts and had reported news to friends Odette, 19 years old, had spent nearly 20 months m prison for helping French prisoners to escape from Pans, where she was living when the Gestapo seized her Her home was in Charleroi, Belgium" The youngest of the pnsoners, the reporter found out, "was a French boy of 16, who had been seized for slave labor when he was fourteen, and later imprisoned for attempting escape and suspicion of espionage .. Seeing these people, you could begin to comprehend what the Nazi system meant This was only one of many such prisons. Here fives were shattered by ter rible, organized cruelty "20 That day the journalists also visited the first camp set up by the new Mil itary Government of Cologne to accommodate the many thousands of "dis placed persons" (DPs). Most of them were foreign nationals who had been used as forced laborers at companies on the west bank of the Rhine, and who had gone into hiding amid the rums in the first days of March 21 Military Government Detachment E1H2, pinpointed for Cologne officially assumed its duties on the morning of 9 March 1945. Dunng th< next hundred days, in which the unit took responsibility for the city anc county (Regterungsbe&rk) of Cologne, its staff grew to fifty-two career officer and thirty-three noncommissioned officers and recruits, making it one of tht largest Civil Affairs units m the U S. Army at that time E1H2 had earned. good reputation for its service m the Aachen region m the fall and winter a 1944 to 1945 Its officers were chosen carefully, and had backgrounds a engineers, doctors, businessmen, civil servants, and lawyers Six of th * r twenty-one men who formed the core of the Cologne MG had attended th U.S School of Military Government from 1943 to 1944 Eleven others ha taken special preparatory courses at elite colleges and universities.22 The detachment came to Cologne with five primary tasks They wer i expected to stem the acute typhus epidemic, establish a supply of dnnkin water and minimal energy needs, build a functioning German admnustn Uon, shelter and feed the liberated polihcal pnsoners and foreign force laborers, and revive the city economy. Under the command of Lieutenai ColonelJohn Patterson, E1H2 soon succeeded in containing the typhus ar m mastering the repair of ruptured water and power lines. 88 | Workingfor the Enemy They also established contact with Konrad Adenauer, who had been the High Mayor of Cologne from 1917 until 1933, when he was removed by the Nazis Adenauer (who in 1949 became the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany) served first as an advisor to E1H2 and was then appomted by the Americans to his old post as Oberbiirgemuister on 4 May23 During the one hundred days Cologne was ruled by Americans, E1H2 headquarters became the nerve center of the paralyzed city It attracted numerous British and American correspondents, high ranking politicians and military officers, Allied intelligence units, and field teams from special ized Amencan and British services George Orwell, who visited Cologne in March on assignment for the British Observer, drew a conclusion that would be seconded by many in the weeks to follow "When the Americans first entered, many of the streets were quite impassable until the bulldozers had swept them dear. The town has no piped water, no gas, no transport, and only enough electrical power for certain vital jobs such as keeping the elec tric ovens of a few bakeries working. However,,., the Military Govern ment--in this area a purely American concem-is tackling the job of reorganisation with praiseworthy energy "24 The daily reports of E1H2 (completely preserved by Patterson) bear convincing witness to the unit's exceptional engagement, effectiveness and improvisational talent25 Foreign and Forced Laborers in Cologne When the thunder of Allied artillery was first heard to the west, m mid-Sep tember 1944, about 30,000 foreign nationals were still working in Cologne. The largest contingent of DPs, representing over 40 percent, were Soviet citizens, mostly Russians and Ukrainians. There were also large groups of French, Italians, Belgians, and Dutch Nearly all had been rounded up by force and expelled from their countries for "labor deployment" in Ger many (Retchseinsat$ Almost eight million foreign workers were so "deployed" in German agriculture and industry, most of them as cheap laborers, as of autumn 1944 The regime was desperate to alleviate the growing shortage of labor, especially in the arms industry where produc tion was at full hit26 As they approached the Rhine, the Western Allies liberated 100,000 "Allied and neutral deportees in German territory, generally referred to m the British [and Amencan] Press as slave labour, but known officially as Dis placed Persons. By the first week in Apnl [1945] the number had nsen to about 1,000,000, and it is now thought to be round about 2,000,000, with the prospect of many more to come, for there are at least 7,000,000 of these people in Germany and German-held temtory.. "27 The officers who were m charge of solving the DP problem knew httle of the history or practice of "foreigner deployment" (Auslbndereinsatfy Even the U S Psychological Warfare Division (PWD) experts were unable to investi gate it m detail until they were on German soil. PWD issued a first report, based on information from "forced labor groups, mainly from Belgians who worked in vanous parts of the Reich," in late December 1944 28 In most places foreign workers were separated into three categones, each of which was always referred to as `voluntary' by the Nazis (1) Western workers (French, Belgian and Dutch)-these were allegedly treated like German workers and received the same pay, (2) Polish workers-these wore a large square yellow insignia with a "P" on it They were paid according to the German wage scale, but were made to return a considerable amount through the device of a heavy `Ostabgabf In public places and transport they were subject to many restncuons (3) Russian and Ukrainian workers-these were clearly the worst handled cate gory, recognized by their large blue square bearing an `O' for `OstarbeiUr' They received a little spending-money, but this could not be spent legally since they were not permitted to enter any stores or other public places. The money was used mainly to purchase items on the black market run by Western workers Both Russians and Poles were treated on a sub-human level. In some places, it is reported, Eastern workers were systematically starved Whether with "Ostarbeiter" or "Western workers," the Germans had acted like a master race, as the Americans discovered "Belgian workers .. claim that despite their membership in the first category they were treated as sec ond-class persons " On public transport and in the movies "they were forced to give jup their seats to Germans and 90% of all restaurants were closed to them Industrial workers, who were obliged to wear a badge marked `A' for Auslaender (foreign) suffered more severely from the slogan 'Fetnd bleibt Feind' (Once enemy, always enemy) than workers in rural districts. Here it should be noted that conditions of foreign workers vary largely from area to area, and even from plant to plant During the recent past, the Party [NSDAP] has issued various guidance notes to correct excesses of both generosity and cru elty. There is a fair amount of evidence that foreign workers were treated kindly by German fellow-workers and by well-disposed civilians, particu larly women, who would secretly slip them some extra bits of food."29 Poles and French deployed to agricultural work may have represented the majonty of foreign laborers from 1940 to 1941, but the number and importance of civilian workers from the Soviet Union increased with each year of the war. In Cologne the trend was obvious in the workforces of the major state and private military producers A catalogue of the labor and pnsoner-of-war camps in the city, derived from a survey of companies ear ned out in 1949, lists 107 camps m 1943 and 1944, all of which were located at or near businesses and organizations of vital military importance. Sev enty-one of these camps held civilian laborers, thirty-four were for prison ers of war. The survey arrives at a cumulative camp occupancy of 21,000 Many of these figures were too low. For example about 2,500 foreign work ers were deployed at Ford Werke in mid-1943, and shout 2,000 at KlocknerHumboldt-Deutz (KHD), whereas the 1949 camp catalogue lists only 2,000 for Ford and 1,100 for KHD30 According to a more recent estimate, there were at least 250 labor camps in Cologne In June 1944 the local Labor Agency (Arbeitsamt) counted l|p$8,I98 "Auslander" and "Ostarbeiter" among the total of 170,000 workers Ifphen registered in the district of Cologne 31 Whatever its shortcomings, the 1949 survey allows a ranking of operations employing foreign and forced , ' laborers at the high point of war production efforts m the years 1943 and 1944, before the bombs of fall and winter 1944 crippled the city's industry and transport Besides private companies, foreigners were employed by the Reichsbahn (the railway authority), Organisation Todt (a special labor army established for the construction of infrastructure and military installations), Kommando Reichsautobahn (highway building and maintenance squads), and the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAT, the Nazi labor front) The 1949 cata logue names forty-seven companies in all, with foreign labor forces ranging from 20 to 2,000 people Measured by approximate camp occupancy, the Reichsbahn topped the hardly flattering list of Cologne's "slave-masters" with an estimated 3,600 forced laborers-followed by Ford Werke, where in mid-1943 about 50 percent of the workforce were from abroad. At the same time the number of foreign workers m the German automotive industry amounted to about 31 percent32 In the case of Ford, the indispensability of compulsory labor to the inten sified German war production effort is made clear in the minutes of the company's advisory council {Beiratj of 17 August 1942. "The war program until now ran at about 4,000 units per quarter The authorities have ordered a nse in output to about 7,000 units per quarter That requires a more inten sive use of prisoners, especially Russians, who already make up nearly V4 of the personnel."33 At that time, total personnel was at around 4,000, mean ing about 1,000 were "Russians " The mounting losses of the Wehrmacht demanded an ever higher tribute in the form of male German conscripts, exacerbating the labor shortage. "Military recruitment is no longer sparing our key people The gaps m the factory, m purchasing, and in other depart ments are growing, and the hired foreigners no longer suffice. This is another matter causing major worries at the Ford plant"34 The "labor question" became a constant theme among Ford's top execu tives. The managing director and wartime custodian, Robert Hans Schmidt reported to the advisory council on 1 July 1943 that "about 50 percent of the employees are now foreigners, and of these about 1,200 are Russians, mostly women " Schmidt Insofar as they already were industrial workers, the Russians are reported to have familiarized themselves with their work in surprisingly rapid order But the training of the agricultural workers was very difficult The capacity (Arbetlskrafl) of the aver age Russian is at about 90 percent of a normal German worker's, while that of the German personnel has declined to about 75 percent as a result of the air raids. This trend is unfortunately exacerbated by the need of having the people work 54 to 60 hours per week, a constraint imposed by the so-called `combing-out' commissions These were roaming conscription squads who drafted laborers they judged redundant, and "whose will cannot be demed, if even more workers are not to be lost" The excessive number of hours is counterproductive More can be achieved with 48 hours at a plant like Ford, but that could only be implemented gradually The sick rate is rising dramatically, amounting at times to 17% of the personnel, with the women showing the highest rates Everything is being done to assure that unnecessary sick calls are avoided through the use of company doctors, but we cannot ignore that this level of output cannot be expected from a labor force compelled to spend two to three hours in a bomb shelter every night, though their spirit and will are astonishingly high The foreign workers are getting their own specially cooked meals They are housed in a now completed, separate bar racks city Five different kitchens have been set up according to nationality, also birthing wards, homes for babies, and other measures of this kind.35 In the second week ofjune 1943, during a business trip to Spain and Por tugal, Robert Schmidt visited the U.S. embassy m neutral Portugal, where he reported, among other things, that "approxfimatelyj half of the employ ees were females; the male workers are mosdy foreign, Russians predomi nating with a scattering of Belgians and other nationalities. The employees are fed in a tremendous mess room at the plant; three different types of rations are distributed according to the heaviness of duty performed, over time was partly paid m an mcreased food allowance "36 Schmidt seems to have avoided figures, and his report on food and pay did not touch on the different fates the foreign laborers suffered, depending on their country of origin 37 By 1943 the situation on the eastern front had turned clearly against Germany Schmidt apparendy hoped to demonstrate Ford Werke's good treatment of its forced laborers, knowing that in a not too-distant future he might be held responsible for their fates Why did he choose the U S embassy in Portugal? Possibly Schmidt had learned from Ford representatives he met in Spam, on his way to Lisbon, that the embassy there would be willing to transmit his message38 The vast majority of foreign workers at this stage of the war were ado lescents and young adults, men and women working against their will, even if the company was offering "five different kitchens," "birthing wards" and "homes for babies" in the barracks camp on the plant grounds. Even in the "underdeveloped East," word had by then spread about the true status enjoyed by "Ostarbeiter" in Germany, how they were fed and accommodated, and how many hours they had to work each day for a few pfennig at best39 Rescuing the Displaced Persons Before the occupation of Germany, the Allies were m the dark about how many foreign workers and refugees they would have to shelter and feed, possibly without advance warning Following a mid-May 1944 press con ference with senior U S Civil Affairs officers at Allied Headquarters, then stall in London, the New York Times wrote of "some 16,000,000 displaced per sons m Europe, who at the first inkling of German surrender probably will '* i "v attempt to rush like an ant horde over the Continent to their former homes . The problem further is complicated by the physical and economic conditions of the homeless souls A great percentage is known to be under nourished, ill-clothed and diseased Many from eastern Germany are reported to be typhus victims No army in history ever faced such complex problems in the field of civil affairs, as those to be met on the continent"40 After the first regions of Germany were occupied, the press obtained more realistic information. Reports in the winter of 1944 to 1945 revolved around "only" nine million DPs, of whom 77 million were presumed to be in Ger many That was still more than enough to pose one of the main problems fac ing the occupiers For this reason SHAEF emphasized, in its "Handbook of Military Government," that commanding officers were responsible for look ing after foreign nationals. Displaced persons from Allied countries were to be gathered "in Assembly Centers until they can be repatriated in an orderly fashion " Securing food and shelter for the DPs was defined as an absolute priority, to be met if necessary at the expense of the German population Pre sumably the most important message in the handbook's twenty-five para graphs on displaced persons was that combat forces were also required to view the DP situation as a priority 41 SHAEF in the following months issued more precise instructions, based on experiences gathered in liberated West ern Europe42 Six thousand officers and 12,000 noncommissioned officers {NCOs) were assigned the "breathtaking" task of housing the DPs, by then estimated at 4 5 million people, m 1,500 camps for 3,000 people each43 Untold thousands of foreigners were thought to be awaiting liberation in the industrial city of Cologne Three DP detachments were assigned to the E1H2 Military Government They had a commitment for support from U S Army transport units, but in the first weeks of the occupation the burden proved far fighter than anticipated The German forces had herded the majority of foreign laborers to the regions east of the Rhine just before the Allies occupied the mam part of the city on the western side The Americans within a week of their arrival established the first "Assem bly Center for Displaced Persons," on the outskirts of the city. They there provided shelter for about five hundred people, most of them liberated for eign workers from Russia, France, Poland, Belgium, Italy and several other countries 44 As the number of incoming DPs rose, two more camps were set up m late March There was a camp for Soviet citizens, one for Poles, and one for French and Italian nationals. Food for the refugees was drawn m equal parts from local stocks and U S Army supplies. By 7 April 1945 the three camps sheltered 12,000 people, and the initial food shortages had been overcome45 However, the most dramatic phase of the DP crisis still loomed. The German front collapsed in mid-April 1945 U S forces occupied the regions east of the Rhine, setting off a westward flood of freshly liberated DPs "The city is overrun with forced laborers, and the situation will be get ting much worse in the next days when other areas are liberated The food situation is acute, and at the moment the Military Government is not func tioning except for the police. The eastern end of the Hohenzollem Bridge was closed off in order to keep Displaced Persons from moving mto west ern Cologne."46 Groups of liberated OstarbetUr looted throughout eastern Cologne, spreading fear and terror among the German population "Numerous incidents of plundering and acts of violence by Russian and Polish Displaced Persons have been reported during the last 24 hours. These include damaging machinery, attacking German policemen and loot ing civilian homes "47 ElH2's good preparation and cooperation with combat units proved vital in overcoming the crisis Bread production was centralized and equip ment stocked up at the three existing camps.48 Working with Russian and Polish contact officers, E1H2 on 21 April found in the suburb of Dellbruck a barracks complex suitable for a new camp to house the several thousand Russian DPs from the areas east of the Rhine49 A further center, this one for Westarbetter, was set up just across the river from the Cathedral. Many of the French, Belgian and Dutch nationals who gathered there clamored to go home U S Navy boats brought them across to the western bank, and Army trucks drove them to Brauweiler in the west of Cologne, where they could set off on their own Two more camps were opened in early May for West ern Europeans and Poles 40 In the parts of Germany controlled by the Western Allies, May 1945 wit nessed the high point of migrations towards the west The "repatriation rate" for Western Europe, running at 35,000 people per week in April, jumped to 200,000 a week ByJune only about 5 percent of the former "Westarbeiter" still remained in Germany. The return of over two million Russian DPs began in late May Lake most of then fellow sufferers from the West, they were sent home on cargo cars. By the end of August 95 percent of the Russian DPs had been transported out of Germany The Allied forces and then military governments had mas tered the massive logistics of repatriating several million foreign and forced laborers The last large group to be brought into motion were the Poles, for many of them were hesitant to return to their country now that it was dom inated by the Soviet Union.51 Germany in Ruins? MA Policy of Hard Realism*1 About one third of the E1H2 officers sent to administer occupied Cologne m March 1945 were responsible for economic matters 52 All they knew of Cologne in advance was provided by SHAEF intelligence, pre-war maps, scattered data on companies and industrialists, a senes of aenal reconnais sance photos that gave an idea of the destruction After months of prepara tion, they arrived in Cologne to discover that very few experts of any kind were still left in the city 53 The first wntten information the officers received from Germans were two fists of Cologne companies that were still in opera tion before the carpet bombings of 2 March 1945 The first representatives of a local company they met were "two officials of the Ford plant"54 , "A preliminary survey of one of the most highly industrialized sections of the city" was made on 10 March 1945. "This included twenty-four of the largest plants in the area. All of these factories were in very bad condition and the indications are that the extent of the damage m most cases is almost 100%."55 , The officers inspected twenty-nine companies during the next week They focused on plants where a resumption of production was allowable under the guidelines of the military occupation, which read "You will instruct the German authorities to reactivate such plants as may be absolutely required for the production of supplies or for the maintenance of public services as may be immediately necessary in the support of military operations . You will take no other steps toward the economic rehabilita tion of Germany."56 The first report from early March certainly raises the impression that the bombing had put an end to the local economy: "Plant was damaged 100%, was burned and 100% destroyed, is 90% destroyed, .. was 75% destroyed by fire and bombs, . only slightly damaged,. . 95% damaged, is 40% burned, . is undamaged,. . was badly damaged, was 80% destroyed,, was completely destroyed,. . was completely destroyed,. . was completely demol ished, .. 100% destroyed, completely destroyed, . m fair condition, not damaged, completely destroyed,... 80% destroyed,.. 90% damaged BS7 Washington Post correspondent Marquis Childs drew the conclusion "Germany is finished as a modem industrial nation for at least 30 years 1 am convinced of that after seemg the destruction m Aachen ... and other towns m the Ruhr and Rhine valleys--and now this once populous city" "According to the estimate of engineers on the staff of the Allied Mditary Government, 90 percent of Cologne's industry has been destroyed That may be a high estimate, but . . the job of reconstruction is plainly over whelming " "Public opinion in both England and America has solidified in favor of stem treatment of the conquered nation, and we have begun to plan how this shall be meted out Who will be left to rebuild Germany, where will the energy come from, where will the capital come from'"58 Childs was voicmg a fear shared by many U S officers and politicians that an excessively hard policy m a destroyed Germany would rouse bitter ness and resistance against the "barbaric Americans " In the United States the long-running argument within the Roosevelt Administration about the future of an occupied Germany, m which liberal-reformist "hardliners" faced off against business-oriented "realists," was entering its decisive phase 59 JOHN McCloy, the assistant secretary of war, traveled to the Rhineland m early Apnl 1945 to gather an impression of the state of affairs E1H2 Com manding Officer Patterson bnefed him in Cologne In his diary McCloy wrote. "There were the usual problems--sewers, water, power, food and dis placed persons . There were reserves of food but when these reserves have gone there was going to be real distress --Not one of Germany's enemies could wish for a more complete sight of destruction than the town of Cologne Every home seems to have been hit--rubble throughout the town, and still people living in it" McCloy was overwhelmed by the extent of destruction he saw m the whole region. "Here was this beautiful [Rhine] val ley-prosperous, industrious and seemingly contented . . and now it is a wasteland in large parts. Its industry mostly destroyed, its towns laid waste.. I do not see how this country can ever recover All Europe hates her and har bors well seated grudges. The slave labor under which she operated is now gone and the prisoners [of war] will not return perhaps for years How are the crops to be sown and gathered? They will have to go back to a medieval existence and, even so, they will starve. There has been nothing like it since the Thirty Years War and I have an idea that was mild compared to this "60 Back in Washington, McCloy on 26 April spoke with the press. One reporter wrote: "In presenting a gnm picture of the situation inside the country, ndden by famine, desolation and hatred, the Assistant Secretary revealed that food stocks captured by the Allies m the sectors he visited will be exhausted in thirty to sixty days `The problem is going to be food and manpower,' he declared. .. Everywhere he saw `complete destruction' and `dissolution of society-complete collapse of social and political economy.'"61 Whatever the threat of starvation in Germany, the American public in those weeks was far more absorbed with the crimes of the Nazi regime, the scale and horror of which were just becoming clear to the Allied soldiers and journalists 62 "The most devastating experience of the war for most of us was the first visit to a concentration camp," a senior intelligence officer later recalled.63 The pictures from Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen were radicaliz ing the mood of both the eyewitnesses and the people back home "The newsmen hold to the view that the uncovering of almost coundess examples of Nazi sadistic cruelty and brutality m prison camps has convinced the troops that they are fighting a nation steeped in evil instincts, and that this knowledge is preventing fraternization on anything but a very minor scale."64 Thus, the advocates of a moderate and pragmatic occupation policy in Germany saw themselves faced with a horrified public who apparently had nothing against a severe peace and a ngorous security policy of restriction, supervision and reform "Topic `A'm the Press during the week was the way we are treating the Germans," the press officers at SHAEF noted with dis may on 26 May 1945. "Qinte a hot blast was directed against the Allies by the U S and U K. newspapers, and there is obviously more to follow Although peace has come to Europe, the Allied public are uneasy about apparent weaknesses in our grip on the Germany of today and newspapers have been quick to emphasize the danger of any soft attitude to a defeated but still dangerous people -`Don't let them get away with it' is a fair sum ming up of what the Press is saying "65 The overall occupation authority, known as U.S. Group, Control Council (USGCC, reorganized in the following months as OMGUS, the Office of Military Government for Germany, United States) was forced to take account of the reigning mood General Lucius D Clay, deputy military governor for General Eisenhower and head of USGCC, called a press conference on 15 May to announce "a policy of hard realism for the Amer ican zone m occupied Germany," to "be applied through a military govern ment of twelve departments " His top priority, he promised, was "to smash whatever remaining power Germany may have for making war and the elimination of the Nazi party "66 Responding to questions of why the antiNazi regulations had at times been interpreted leniently, Clay said "that `men with a Nazi viewpoint and who have been active m the Nazi Party will be purged, and purged quickly ' He also promised that although some Nazis might be used to `get electricity on'--a favonte phrase of Military Govern ment officers--the history of every applicant would be carefully consid ered."67 Clay introduced some of his advisors and a few department heads, but the press had to wait until the end of the month for more hints about the program and more detailed information about the future decision makers On 26 May, Clay announced that German cartels would be abolished and future exports strictly supervised Further "Plants which cannot be con verted to production of essential civilian goods will be destroyed."68 The published details about the "leading American civilians and Army officers appointed to help carry out the policies of the United States and Allied authorities in controlling Germany's economy" proved more instruc tive--and triggered immediate criticism "The Americans just named as advisors to the U S Control Council mclude top executives of steel, auto mobile manufacturing, copper, oil, explosives, lumber and investment firms.... In many cases, the persons just named have long represented American industrial interests in Germany and bear heavy responsibility for the industrial practices pursued in Germany during the inter-war years."69 A critical USGCC internal paper named the men responsible for the recruitment of "big business officers" to control the German economy. "This pattern of recent appointments had been shaped by the industrial represen tatives already in military government, notably General Draper of Dillon Read, Lewis Douglas of General Motors and Mutual Life, and Graeme Howard of General Motors r7 Assisted by senior War Department officials, these men* influenced American occupation policy by selecting personnel *Lewis Douglas, head ofthe Mutual Insurance Company of New York since 1940, also accepted directorships m other major corporations, of which the most prominent was General Motors Douglas "became a strong advocate of German economic reconstruction as the key to pro moting European recovery and curbing communism " He played an important role in accom plishing these objectives as the U S ambassador to Britain (1947--1950) Graeme Howard represented General Motors in Germany starting m 1929 as the regional director for Europe He formally remained a member of the Opel directorate until March 1942 (See Ch 1) In 1944 and 1945, as a colonel with die U S Army, Howard influenced postwar planning and person nel appointments in the U S occupation authority "Colonel Howard was m charge of the Eco nomic Planning Group at Bushy Park, England, and was later assigned to the U.S Group CC (Germany) He returned to the United States 20 March '45 and worked in recruiting per sonnel for the Economics Division, U S Group CC [USGCC] * In 1945 and 1946 Howard again served as General Motors's vice-president in charge of Europe He then took a new job with Ford Motor in 1947, and accompanied Henry Ford II to Europe (and Cologne) in Febru ary and March 1948 as a consultant on overseas matters (Henry Ford II was the grandson of for key positions It is astonishing how smoothly and successfully John McCloy, as assistant secretary of war, and General William H Draper, as designated head of the Economics Division, modified post-war planning and recruitment procedures during the very early stages of the occupation to gam a greater role for the War Department and its representatives in Germany 71 The recruitment of economic officials undertaken by McCloy and Draper in April 1945 focused on "outstanding civilians" and experts from big business. A contrary effort was backed by the secretary of the treasury, Henry Morgenthau, who favored a lasting weakening of Germany's war-rel evant industries. One of Morgenthau's long-standing advisers, Bernard Bernstein, had been appointed acting director of Finance Division USGCC. In March and April he assembled about forty people on his staff, mainly anti-trust specialists from Treasury and Justice now focusing on German industries and cartel investigation No wonder that Colonel Bernstein's group was viewed with suspicion by General Clay's political advisers72 U S occupation policy m the spring and summer of 1945 was shaped by directives comprising both punitive and "elastic clauses." It was influenced by the unexpected death of President Roosevelt, growing anti-German feel ings at home, and by planning for the upcoming first postwar conference of the victorious Allies, at Potsdam inJuly 1945. U S. policy became a confus ing mixture of strongly worded announcements and instances of tough action against selected German industries, even as most of the key positions m Clay's military government were filled with "pragmatics" arguing that first of all "German economic activity must be restored."73* Henry and the son of Edsel He became chief executive after the death of Edsel in 1943 and of Henry m 1947) A New York Times article of 27 May 1945, *U S Board Named for Reich Con trol," remarked that of six further managers just named to the occupation authority, two had histones with General Motors "Edward S Zdunek, formerly head of General Motors at Antwerp' was appointed to supervise the MG Light Machines Production Department, which oversaw vehicle production in the U S zone The GM Vice President "Peter Hoglund, on leave from General Motors and an expert on German production" was appointed "to serve as Colonel Boyd's deputy" m overseeing industnal production Elias "Pete" Hoglund had held power of attorney for GM'i businesses in Germany, i e, Opel, from February 1940 to Febru ary 1941 (See Ch 1) Edward Zdunek had been employed continuously by GM since 1925 and became regional director for Europe in 1946 He later took over as chief executive at Opel "For your secret information, Lew Douglas has just sent back a message to Secretary of War Sbmson Douglas emphasizes the basic necessity for central control and the urgent neces sity of avoiding during at least the next eighteen months any limitations (except the obvious ones covering the production of armament and material of this character) on the productive capacity of Germany already badly smashed, necessary to the essentials of Ufe He goes as far as insisting that temporarily we should use whatever German production of synthetic oil and synthetic rubber we can, confident that when the strain is over we will be able to take the decision to liquidate these industries In other words, the trend here is that our hands should not be tied by a rigid directive in the economic field -General Clay is working out well and I think we can count on him for intelligent and effective cooperation." Eisenhower adviser and "pragmatic" Robert Murphy, letter to Emile Despres, Chief, Division of Financial and Monetary Affairs, Department of State, 3 May 1945 (BA Koblenz, RG 260, POLAD/ 737/26-28) 98 | Workingpr me enemy THE INITIAL REPORTS of "total destruction" were overdrawn, as became ' clear already in the first weeks of the occupation The U S Reparations Commission sent economist Moses Abramovitz on a tour of fourteen west German cities in early May 1945 He was cautious "No reliable evaluation of the present condition of industrial facilities is now available m any quar ter. It is generally agreed that, given transport, coal, certain other raw mate rials, a usable monetary system, and government authorization, the recovery from the present desperately depressed condition could be rapid and substantial " Abramovitz emphasized that the evidence the group encountered "varied in extreme fashion. A preliminary survey of facilities in Cologne made by MG showed that most establishments were completely destroyed . A similar survey of plants m the Duesseldorf area employing more than 250 workers showed few plants destroyed, and the rest either undamaged or partially damaged "74 Even in Cologne, the dramatic conclusions of mid-March 1945 gradually gave way to a more optimistic appraisal At the start of their industrial sur vey the MG officers were astonished to discover two large plants had both withstood the bombing nearly untouched* the chemicals producer Glanzstoff-Courtaulds, and, not far from it, Ford Werke, the largest factory in the city west of the Rhine. A survey was made of the Ford plant on 11 March 1945 The office building was burned and destroyed by the evacuating Germans, but "with the above exceptions, the plant was undamaged by bombs or shell fire and is in excellent condition The stock room was in very bad disorder from the activity of our own troops--many parts of motors and much desirable material have been wasted "7S The Americans found the company's chief executive was waiting for them and eager to answer their questions R. H Schmidt, General Manager of Ford Motor Co, made [an] initial report as follows (a) Capital-32,000,000 RM (b) 52% owned by Ford Motor Co in Detroit (c) 6% owned by Ford Motor Co. in London, (d) Balance--42%--by unknown German nationals (e) Prewar output 20,000 trucks, 20,000 passenger cars yearly (f) Output third quarter 1944* 5,000 trucks, 20,000 motors, 4,000 tons spare parts (g) Employment* (1) Third quarter 1944, total of 5,000, consisting of 800 on Salary roll, balance of payroll-2,000 Germans, 2,200 foreigners of which 800 were Russians, 400 Italians and balance Dutch, French and Belgian (b) Pro duction, February/45--250 trucks, 500 motors Decreased production due to loss of energy and supply of parts (i) Financial condition 12,000,00 RM (approx.) in Reichsbank and Dresdner Bank on deposit 20,000,00 (approx) bank credits 16,000,000 due from German Govt (j) Since October/44 approximately 80% of machinery has been moved east of the Rhine to points from ten to twenty miles from the Rhine Some machinery is still on freight cars near the plant (k) About sixty key employees have remained m Cologne. Approximately 300 foreigners, mostly Italian, are still in Cologne76 The above report was useful but far from complete. Schmidt failed to mention the chemicals empire IG Farbenindustne, a major shareholder in Ford Werke, and did not indicate the full extent of his factory's military output or the higher number of foreign and forced laborers used during the peak peri ods of war production in 1943 and 194477 But the MG officers were not charged with examining Ford Werke's role in the war They were instructed to focus on Schmidt's optimistic conclusion "A considerable number of trucks can be produced within a short time when conditions permit"7 The discovery of an intact automotive factory, one of potentially great use to the U S. Army, was welcome news amid the depressmg impressions of the Military Government's first days It was also a bombshell for the jour nalists. The "war correspondents who called today," E1H2 reported on 14 March, "were particularly interested in the Ford plant, which escaped dam age in the air raids on Cologne."79 The reporters' curiosity was understand able given the thousands of Allied bombers that had flown over and past the large car factory many times on their way to other targets in the Cologne area. Had the planners of the bombing campaign against Germany's auto motive industries been unaware of the plant's importance? An Allied military intelligence report on Ford Werke, dated 29 May 1943, had left little doubt "Principal wartime activities are probably man ufacture of light trucks and of spare parts for all the Ford trucks and cars in service in Axis Europe (including captured Russian Molotovs) " "There may also be some production of light Army vehicles and especially of engines for them The addition during the war of three new buildings sug gests that the works are operating at a high level." The paper argued that destruction of Ford's large machine hall, which housed many hundreds of irreplaceable tools that had been made in the United States, might imme diately halt production 80 Ford Werke was designated Target Category 1 ("major plants in indus tries of major importance") by the British Ministry of Economic Warfare, but no action was taken until early October 1944, one and a half years later. "Intelligence sources (10-5-44) state Ford, Cologne, was never bombed, was working full speed, is protected by barrage balloons and produces 1000 3ton trucks per month "` The tone of this later report suggests that the fail ure to raid Ford may have been causing discontent among those involved in choosing targets. The Allied foot soldiers landing m Normandy m June 1944 had been astonished to see that the enemy's favonte truck brands were from Ford and General Motors. In the course of the war, both sides had learned that precision attacks were especially effective against plants with complex production processes, as in an automotive factory 82 The Ford factory grounds were first included m "area attacks" on northern Cologne on 2 and 3 October 1944 The 2 October attack left craters on the plant grounds and in nearby fields, and hit barracks in the forced labor camp, causing casualties there. Ford Werke was specifically targeted in USAF "precision attacks" by daylight on 15 and 18 October 1944 but was not hit in the raids 83 No further bombings were scheduled, although aenal reconnaissance only days later verified that th attacks had failed Definitive evidence to explain why this important pro duction plant was not again targeted has yet to surface 84 1VU | nvjKuigjut uu iattctnj Production at Ford Werke nevertheless declined precipitously in fall 1944, when massive bombings in the Ruhr and Rhine valleys often shut down transport and energy supply 83 "September and October 1944 became the worst months of bombing raids and our production came to a complete standstill from October 1st through November 16th," Schmidt reported in late May 1945 to Lord Perry, the head of British Ford m Dagenham "From then onward on a reduced schedule compared with the monthly average of 1944 production was kept up until the occupation of Cologne."86 In 1943 the Reich Ministry for Armaments and War Economy had set high production targets of 24,000 Ford trucks 87 Mainly because of a "lack of material," Ford-Werke AG fell short of that by some 20 percent in 1944, pro ducing about 40,000 trucks in the two years 1943 and 1944 combmed, but also covenng unscheduled orders for 10,000 Maultier half-tracks (military transporters with caterpillar tracks in the rear)88 Armaments Minister Speer had to make do After the destruction of Opel's truck factory in Branden burg on 6 August 1944, Ford in Cologne and Daimler-Benz in Mannheim were the most important remaining suppliers of the vital three-ton transport and supply vehicles 89 The lines of the Cologne plant stood shll on 28 February 1945.90 With the exception of 290 Italian military internees, the foreign and forced laborers left in the Ford camp were evacuated east of the Rhine, just before the U S 3rd Armored division occupied the factory grounds on 6 March 1945 91 In the weeks after the occupation and before the Rhine front collapsed, "sev eral hundred shells hit the roof of our premises so that practically no glass was intact. The roof was holed in hundred[s] of places The structure, how ever, was not damaged to any extent "92 Because 80 percent of the machin ery had been moved since mid-November 1944 to five dispersal factories in the surrounding region, neither the German shells nor the vandalism of the U S combat troops were to cause Ford any lasting concern.93 U.S. 11*881117 vs. Ford Motor Company When SHAEF in Versailles received word that Ford Werke had been taken intact, a team was dispatched from Military Intelligence (G-2) Economic Section. Arriving at Ford Werke on 13 March 1945, the men spent five days searchrng for papers and questioning the top management and Schmidt's secretary, all of whom "gave information willingly and were helpful m our obtaining considerable economic data." The G-2 men blew a safe at die fac tory and twice visited Schmidt at his house. On 20 March, having removed a number of documents and prepared a report, they left the plant The tar get presented "no further interest" to them.94 This may have given impetus to a far more ambitious probe being pre pared under the auspices of Colonel Bernstein and the Finance Division USGCC Morgenthau's associate, Colonel Bernstein, had proposed in the summer of 1944 "that the Military Intelligence (G-2) Services adopt a program I to investigate Germany's international assets and to uncover and preven transfers through searching the files and interrogating the personnel of th< large German firms " Military Intelligence at first gave senous considerahoi to the idea but decided against participation on the grounds that it lacket enough qualified personnel Finance Division therefore assumed th< ' responsibility for planning "a program of financial investigations" withu '. USGCC, aimed at the heart of the country's industry and finance 95 U S. Attorney General Francis B. Biddle, a staunch defender of the Nev Deal antitrust and reformist factions, put their programmatic stance u plain words: * j The German Government and the German people as a whole have neve accepted the doctnnes of economic liberalism which run through American hn f tory The monopolistic firms of Germany have survived m that country throug i two wars and constitute a definite menace to the future peace of the world A long as they survive in their present form it will be exceedingly difficult t f develop independent industry outside of Germany .. [Therefore the victonoi i allies should] break the power of the German monopobstic firms The purpose t such a program would not be to destroy German economic life in its entirety, bi to put its industries into a form where they will no longer constitute a menace ( f the avilized world 96 Bernstein had spent several weeks in Washington in February 1945 t recruit experts from the Treasury and Justice departments. He worked oi his plan with senior officials from the State Department and from the W: Department Civil Affairs Division97 In principle there was agreement c the goals of reordering the German economy and imposing effective coi trols and enforcement measures towards "industrial disarmament," as of) cial policy held in 1944 and 194598 The "realists" at War and Stat however, were mainly concerned with "securing German potential," in pa due to the presumed threat of a more powerful Soviet Union They ther ! fore favored a rapid reconstruction of the German economy, and oppose ii anything that might endanger it From the beginning they attempted to ke< Colonel Bernstein and his "trust-busters" under control99 * The influential "pragmatist" Robert Murphy, the political adviser to Else hower and Clay, wrote on 11 April that while die State Department was "syi pathetic to the view that large corporate combines should be disestablish) and that there should be elimination of interlocking directorates," neverthele "a well-conceived program for this purpose should contemplate the establis ment in Germany of vested interests which would prevent the reconstn non after withdrawal of Allied control of such combines and mterlocku directorates " "The Department of State believes," he concluded, "that su a program should not be formulated and executed solely by the Finan Division but should be the joint responsibility of all appropnate Divisio in the Control Council The Department adds that if possible the progrs when formulated should be referred to Washington for final approval "10t Murphy was only partly successful A "Committee on German Cartel called forth by Clay in early May, included both hardliners and realists T - -- TO/ of events forced its suspension, however, and a further reorganizafollowed m June.101 There was growing cnhcism in the United States of ,German occupation policy for being too soft, and the government felt elled to send a clear signal On 5 July General Clay ordered the of all I.G. Farbenindustne properties in the Amencan zone Look- i die upcoming Potsdam conference, he announced that the German ial empires" would be broken up. Don Whitehead in the New York 1 Tribune, 6 July 1945: "This would mean the end of the great com , such as Krupp's, IG Farben, Siemens, Hermann Goenng Stahlwerke, i have poured steel, armaments, chemicals, rubber and aluminum into aw of the German war machines and given Germany the industrial ion of Europe " Whitehead's readers could have easily drawn the non that Morgenthau's hard line had taken hold among the makers S. occupation policy. That was not the case Morgenthau, who had that "a weak economy for Germany means that she will be weak and .. won't be able to make another war," tendered his resigon 5 July 1945. The protagonists of his political credo lost their bold in the reshuffling of the Truman Administration 102 STRUCTURE OF THE MILITARY OCCUPATION was still bemg defined the months from March to September 1945. This was a period of it new tasks, inconsistent directives, political uncertainties and a gen- ihortage of personnel. Under these circumstances Colonel Bernstein he had a lot of room to maneuver By early April 1945 a team of civilfessionals from Treasury and Justice prepared a list of 230 "leading houses and industrial firms m German iron and steel, chemicals, equipment, aircraft components and motive power, machinery, if equipment" The directory served as a travel route for several "file teams with a group of interrogators " One set of teams covered OSjor financial houses and firms important in iron and steel and related 8," the second "the major chemical firms and their financial "*3 Group No 1 began its search in the Rhme-Ruhr industrial Its list of objectives for Cologne mcluded two banks and nine mdusi, mcludmg Ford-Werke AG 104 ijr did Bernstein and his investigators view Ford as a primary objecBesides Ford Werke's importance in German rearmament and war the long-running antagonism between the company and the ilt Administration surely played an important role the 1930s, the autocratic founder of the Ford Motor Company was the most aggressive opponents of President Roosevelt's New Dead and _ stance.105 From 1921 to 1927, Henry Ford publicly propagated an anti-Semitism through a number of self-financed publications He no secret of his admiration of the Germans and their Fuhrer106 That have sufficed to make plenty of enemies within the Roosevelt govemIWo events in the late 1930s served to galvanize the aversions against die occasion of Henry Ford's 75th birthday, Hider bestowed upon tttnii him the "Grand Cross of the German Eagle " This was the highest honor reserved for a foreign supporter of the German Reich, and came with the Fuhrer's personal congratulations to the pioneer of automotive engineering. Celebrated with great pomp on 30July 1938, the medal-pinning, carried out m Dearborn by a German consul, set off a storm of indignation m the United States A growing number of Americans were disgusted to see Henry Ford accepting honors from a regime that had established totalitarian con ditions and was openly preparing to wage war on its neighbors 107 The criticism did not prevent Henry Ford from withdrawing, in mid-June 1940, his company's participation in a deal negotiated between Washington and London, under which Ford Motor Company would have produced 6,000 aircraft engines for the British government At that point the Wehrmacht had conquered a half-dozen European countries Hitler was parading into Pans and die Luftwaffe was gearing up for the Battle of Britain Look ing to soothe the renewed surge of outrage against him, Henry Ford pub lished an editonal in the London Daily Mail of 26 June 1940, in which he conceded to the Bnhsh and Canadian members of his corporation the nght to pursue their patriotic duties, but without reversing his decision "Ford Motor Canada and England are using their facilities to the utmost for pro duction of military equipment for defense of the British empire and will con tinue to serve their countries as they should do. While I am against war nevertheless I believe our facilities m America should be preserved for Amencan defense when and if so required."108 Ford's article kept quiet about the activities of German Ford That week the same incident was also causing headaches for Ford execu tives in Germany The chairman of the Ford Werke directorate, Heinnch Albert, who was loyal to Henry Ford and to the Nazi government, was con fronted with a false report circulating among Wehrmacht High Command (OKW) officers: that Ford Motor Company m Dearborn was delivering war material to Bntain. Albert fired off a defense to General Zuckertort of OKW "These kinds of rumors always come up We assume that they originate with Amencan competitors who are uncomfortable with Henry Ford's stance They have always been proven wrong the rumor is refuted in detail "108 Henry Ford and Adolf Hitler In his article on Henry Ford in the 1999 edition of Amencan National Biography, the automotive histonanJames Flink writes "Apart from Ford's increasing cal lousness toward his work force-from key executives to floor sweepers--the main blot on Ford's reputation was his blatant anti-Semitism Ford's magazine, the Dearborn Independent began publishing anti-Semitic articles in 1920 Between 1920 and 1922 Ford reprinted them in four brochures and in a more comprehensive book. The International Jew, which was translated into most European languages and widely circulated throughout the world Among other things,Jews were accused of controlling the world's banks, starting World War I, and plotting the destruction of Christian civilization " At the time of these publications, Ford the carmaker was regarded by mil lions as a kind of pope of the modern age He was receiving thousands of let ters a month from admirers and advice-seekers A reading of The International Jew alongside the sections about theJews in Mein Kampf{l92i) reveals a largely identical content a diffuse nation ofJews, pretending to be based on a religion, "getting5' instead of "making," as the secret power within every country, run ning high finance, labor unions. Communism, liberal press, gangsterism, pro sex ideology, atheism, internationalism, jazz music and modernist art Ford called upon the white race to take up the fight by "Naming the Enemy" Of course, Hitler and Ford were both drawing from the same broad Euro pean anti-Semitic tradition and, more specifically, from the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," an early-century forgery by the Czanst intelligence Contrary to Flink's assertion, Ford is not mentioned m the edition of Mein Kampfavail able to us However, Flink is correct m writing; "Ford was considered a `great man' in the Nazi pantheon of heroes. A picture of Ford was displayed in a place of honor at die National Socialist party headquarters By late 1933 the Nazis had pubbshed some twenty-rune [by 1942 thirty-seven] German edi tions of The InternationalJew, with Ford's name on the title page and a preface praising Ford for the `great service' his writings on the `WorldJewish Program' had done to the world " At the mam Nuremberg war crimes trial, Baldur von Schirach, the leader of Hider Youth, testified that he picked up his ideas at age seventeen from Ford's book. Privately, according to his associates, Ford also saw Jews behind General Motors and the banks that were "out to rum him " In the democratic United States, Ford came under political pressure for his publications, and the com pany was subjected to a boycott Henry Ford publicly retracted The Interna tionalJew in 1927, and arranged for the destruction of all copies that could be gathered He made no further public statements againstJews The bad press did not let up, however Despite his fadure in politics. Ford seems to have con tinually applied a pathology of total control at his company In his classic on The Automobile Age, Fhnk wntes (p 125). "Citing the Ford Motor Company as the world's outstanding example of an industrial dictatorship, the New York Times on January 8, 1928 called Henry Ford `an industrial fascist--the Mus solini of Detroit'" Henry Ford set up a troop of company informants and strongmen called the Ford Service Department and led by the boxer Harry Bennett, who came to be Henry Ford's most trusted associate "From Edsel Ford on down, the Ford executives came to fear and despise Bennett as his influence grew, and by the mid-1930s Ford workers wondered whether Hitler had denved the idea for his Gestapo from Bennett's Ford Service " That trivi alizes the Gestapo, but the company joke is revealing Ford and Hitler were not necessarily conspiring together, but they seem to have shared important traits and behaviors Many writers mention, however without a primary attribution, the rumor that Ford presented Hitler with high cash gifts every year on the latter's birthday In December 1932, with the Nazis preparing their decisive move, Berlin Tageblatt reported rumors that Ford was financing Hitler, and submitted an official protest to the American embassy in Berlin For all this, whether and which of the Ford Motor Company's activities in Nazi Germany were related to Henry Ford's personal beliefs, or were a tivu/ mm ii/mMwitu xc/VA KtUfi KsiHOgTU | 1U. function of "business as usual," or were forced by the regime, is a question for case by case scrutiny Today, Henry Ford remains a legend He was named "Businessman of the Century" by Fortune magazine in November 1999 Of all of the above, the magazine saw fit to mention only "In his latter years he surrounded himself with goons, spouted ugly anti-Semitic bile, and left his company in terrible shape " In this case, "anti-Semitic" is a euphemism, as though it were a private fault If we are to remember Ford for his accomplishments in business and engineering, then we cannot at the same time de-emphasize his highly public political persona. (RB/NL) Collaboration with Dearborn's Consent Many people in the U S. government who reviled Hider never forgot or for gave Ford's unwillingness to help the besieged British ally--or his company's business-as-usual policies m Axis Europe before and after 1939. Social reformers and opponents of Hider saw in Henry Ford the epitome of a reac tionary capitalist, a man who pursued his own foreign policy outside demo cratic control, and who seemed not at all disconcerted by the thought of a Europe united under the Nazis, as long as his own empire remained intact In spring 1943, Treasury investigators paid a surprise visit to Dearborn and demanded to see the personal files of the company president, Edsel Ford (son of Henry), and the vice-president, Charles E Sorensen, neither of whom were informed of the reason for the mvestigaUon.110 The agents hoped to find out about Ford Motor's "relationship and its control over its French subsidiary "111 They discovered many letters and telegrams sent back and forth between Edsel Ford and Maurice Dollfus, the managing director of Ford SAF in Pans, in the period from the German conquest of France in June 1940 to September 1942, when contact was interrupted 112 Randolph Paul, acting secretary of the treasury, encapsulated the findings to Morgenthau in May 1943 as follows. "From the fall of France to July 1942-the date of the last letter m the files from Ford of France to Ford of Amenca (1) the business of the Ford subsidianes m France substantially increased, (2) their production was solely for the benefit of Germany and the countnes under its occupation, (3) the Germans have `shown clearly their wish to protect the Ford interests' because of the attitude of stnct neutrality maintained by Henry and Edsel Ford, and (4) the increased activity of the French Ford subsidianes on behalf of the Germans received the commen dation of the Ford family in Amenca."IU The seventy-page report of the Treasury investigators m every way confirms these points. In late August 1940, Dollius informed Dearborn that Ford of France had begun producing trucks for the Wehrmacht and would be raising output in the following weeks, "which was 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 and at least for some period of time all that we shall produce will be taken by the German Authorities " Dollfus appears to have been enthusiastic in serving the new masters once Berlin issued assurances that the conditions of own ership would not be changed "In order to safeguard our interests-and I am here talking in a very broad way-I have been to Berlin and have seen Gen eral von Schell himself [the "Reich Plenipotentiary for the Vehicle Industry under the Four-Year Plan"], who is the highest executive responsible for the motor industry both from the military and civilian points of view I will sat isfy myself by telling you that my interview with him has been by all means satisfactory, and that the attitude you have taken together with your father of strict neutrality has been an invaluable asset for the protection of your companies in Europe "1U Dollfus returned to the last point on 27 November 1940 "Even m the case of a completely victorious German peace, the rights of the sharehold ers will be protected . and your right of control will remain " "If we admit the possibility of a German victory, m my opinion, we certainly must (a) maintain the independence of the French company and eventually that of the British company; (b) have a company or organization comprising representatives from every country, all the more so that then the United States of Europe will be contemplated, and each state will have to be repre sented there In that company you should have mdependent men of your own choice, and not satellites placed there to protect Cologne's mterest." Edsel Ford answered by telegram and letter "Appreciate your efforts to continue development Ford mterest France Hope it unnecessary to change status of company control" In his next letter, Edsel Ford hinted where his own priorities lay "It is gratifying to learn of the efforts you have made to continue the Ford manufacturing program which began prior to hostilities and especially to know that you have been able to get the cooperation of various interested parties and to make some progress towards the comple tion of this program."115 Ford SAF's cooperation with the German occupiers began to bear fruit By August 1941 the Pans factory was producing 1,000 units a month Six months later, Dollfus informed Dearborn of net profits on the year 1941 of 58 million francs. But Robert Schmidt and Heinnch Albert, the heads of Ford Werke, were by then causing Dollfus great womes They were out to establish a European Ford corporation under German con trol Edsel Ford showed sympathy for Dollfus's distress, but kept quiet about his own views 118 Despite the ample evidence that Ford managers m Pans collaborated with the Germans with Dearborn's consent, Randolph Paul andJohn Lawler (the author of the 1943 Treasury report) saw no grounds for an indictment under the Trading With the Enemy Act, since the United States had not been at war with Germany until 11 December 1941lp Years later, inJuly 1945, Dearborn would even ate the Treasury investigation in defending Ford against charges that it acted illegally by doing business with Hitler118 Historian Charles Higham's bitter commentary, forty years later- "No attempt was made to prevent Ford from retaining its interests for the Ger mans m Occupied France, nor were the Chase Bank or the Morgan Bank expressly forbidden to keep open their branches in Occupied Pans It is indicated that the Reichsbank and Nazi Ministry of Economics made promises to certain U.S. corporate leaders that their properties would not be injured after the Fuhrer was victonous. Thus, the bosses of the multination als as we know them today had a six-spot on every side of the dice cube. Whichever side won the war, the powers that really ran nations would not be adversely affected "119 Colonel Bernstein's Revenge: Investigating Ford Werke The contacts Colonel Bernstein had forged at SHAEF while preparing his large-scale investigation started paying off as early as March 1945 He learned of the documents which Military Intelligence had secured in Cologne These were examined carefully by one of his teams. The head of the Finance Division was called on short notice to other concerns, however. Military Intelligence had secured a large store of documents belonging to the Cologne bankJ H Stein, a private firm which was considered one of a group of "some of Germany's most aggressive combines, among them IG Farbenmdustne A.G and Krupp of Essen " In early Apnl, Bernstein dis patched a large group of investigators to Cologne and a second one to the IG Farben plants m die Frankfurt area. IG Farben became target No. 1, and most of Bernstein's field teams ended up involved m the campaign against Germany's largest and most powerful industrial complex 120 The Ford Werke investigation therefore had to wait until earlyJune, when the U S. Army officers responsible for the plant had already left for the American zone and the Cologne area was about to pass to British control. The field team assigned to Ford Werke was centered on a civilian expert, Henry Schneider After searching for documents and questioning the wartime executives, they arrested Schmidt and took him to their headquar ters in Frankfurt, where he was held and interrogated for three months Once the most powerful Ford manager in German-occupied Europe, Schmidt was compelled to write fifty-two statements (of varying quality) on himself and other executives at the Cologne plant, production schedules, wartime prod ucts for the Wehrmacht, the history and politics of Ford in Germany, and the brief European empire of Ford-Werke AG Schmidt provided a great deal of information to his interrogators, helping to structure their final report but also influencing its content by the way he used his knowledge.121 The "Ford Boys"-as the team was dubbed by a superior officer at the Finance Division-finished the inquiry in late August 1945 They submitted their "Report on Ford Werke Akbengesellschaft" on 5 September. Colonel Bernstein passed it on to General Clay four days later m The mam text was just eight pages long, but the notes ran thirty pages, and 221 exhibits were included. Schneider's investigators did not learn about a further set of mean ingful documents kept by Johannnes Krohn, the Reichskommissar for the Treatment of Enemy Property, whose office had been responsible for over seeing Ford Werke during the war m Nevertheless, the conclusions in the "Report on Ford Werke" proved highly reliable. Schneider and his team presented the case like charges in an indictment: - "The Reich used German Ford and its cooperative parent in Dearborn as a direct means of stockpiling the raw materials needed for wax " "Even pnor to the War, German Ford arranged to produce for the Reich vehicles of a strictly mil itary nature This was done with the knowledge and approval of Dearborn - "When war came German Ford stepped into the position of a major supplier of vehicles for the Wehrmacht." In addition "as much as 7 or 8% of total output during the war years consisted of more specialized war material " - "As was common in other German enterprises Ford increasingly resorted to use ofprisoners of war and other slave labor" who had to live "behind barbed wire." "The foreigners employed rose to over 40% of its labor supply in 1944 The usual Nazi discriminations in wages and working conditions were practiced " - "Because one of the Ford companies was located in Germany, absorption of its other members in continental Europe into the Nazi war economy and utiliza tion of their resources by the Reich war machine were simplified " Conse quently "an organization of most of European Ford under hegemony of German Ford was accomplished dunng the war"124 Exhibit I in the "Report on Ford Werke" was a memorandum from Hein rich Albert, dated 25 November 1941, concerning the question "as to whether a complete Germanization would be necessary or advisable " Writ ing at a tune when hostilities with the United States seemed imminent, Albert was arguing preemptively against those who might wish to see "enemy property" expropnated by the Nazi state Ford Werke, he claimed, was a fully German company that also enjoyed the privileges of member ship in a global corporation The benefits to Germany were obvious tn the country's current accounts, which profited by Ford Werke's exports. Albert recalled how Ford arranged to import vital raw materials into Ger many before the war' ."All needed foreign raw materials were obtained through the American company .. to cover the production needs of the German plant and above that, in part for the whole industry " "Already dur ing the peace the American influence had been more or less converted into a supporting position for the German plant" Albert claimed that Ford's international network would be invaluable in resuming German export sales after the war, and that new American models would be made available for production by Ford Werke at no development cost To Germany, Ford had and would again offer invaluable "insights into the American methods of production and sales."125 Upon discovering Albert's memorandum mJune 1945, the investigators submitted it to Colonel Bernstein's deputy, Orvis Schmidt, a Treasury direc tor. Orvis Schmidt flew to Washington later that month to testily at Senate hearings on "German penetration into the industry and finance of lotc0 countries," presided over by Senator Harley Kilgore 126 Describing the aggressive conduct of German banks and companies between the world wars, Orvis Schmidt stressed "the extent of the investments by American firms in various types of German industries and of the types of American concerns which are known to have had substantial interests in German industry n|27 He did not mention Ford by name That task fell to a widely syndicated columnist. Drew Pearson, who exposed the Albert memorandum for the Washington Post and other newspapers under headlines like, "How Ford Helped Nazis" and "Ford to be Used as a Cloak." The column was pub lished on 17 July 1945, the same day Truman met Stalin and Churchill at Potsdam to discuss how to deal with defeated Germany Pearson made a clear link between the revelations on Ford and the "Berlin talks" Senators probing the question of the extent to which American business helped Hitler have unearthed a very interesting document written by Dr H F Albert, chairman of the Ford Auto Works in Germany in which he urges upon the Nazi government the importance of cooperation with American business This whole question of whether Amencan business will continue to cooperate with Germany after this war as after the last, is sure to lurk in the background of Pres ident Truman's Berlin talks There is a definite school of thought in both Bntam and the United States which advises budding up Germany again as a buffer against Russia Unfortunately the presence of representatives of Standard Oil, the Mellon interests, J P Morgan, and other powerful business corporations now in Amencan uniform does not allay these Russian suspicions128 Surprised and worried by the surfacing of the Albert memorandum and the public accusation of having helped Hitler, Dearborn struggled to formulate a credible defense Since Albert had been known as one of the company's most important representatives m Europe long before the war, the statement on Pearson's column, written at Ford Motor headquarters and dated 26July 1945, did not criticize the incriminating paper or its author, but instead emphasized the legitimacy of the "common business procedure" Dearborn and Cologne executives followed up until the United States entered the war.129 If Ford had arranged for imports into the Reich of otherwise unavail able raw materials beyond Cologne's own needs, then only because the alternative was to close down our Cologne operations or to sell out the Ford inter est to German capitalists, with htde or no chance of being able to convert the pro ceeds of this sale into dollars due to German government exchange controls. At the tune this export-import arrangement was submitted to our German company offi cials and referred to us by them we investigated the matter very carefully and had an authoritative opinion by an attorney specializing tn matters ofthis land. Although it was not satisfactory from a business standpoint, the entire transaction, however, was common business procedure as earned on by many other Amencan manufac turing organizations and banks and was strictly within the provisions of a ruling made by the U S Treasury as by Treasury Department Release 9-25 dated Decem ber 23, 1936 It was a case of having a substantial investment in a country and attempting to protect it in hopes that eventually the general situation would improve so that we could continue our business in a more satisfactory manner130 Liu | rrwtuttgjw ut* Astwj There was no serious reservation towards the new regime but only concern that Ford might lose the struggle for German market share to competitors with better connections among the Nazis Ul Moving out of Germany was never an option, m part because Ford did not want to show weakness in the face of its true arch-enemy, General Motors, and furthermore it was expected that the German market would offer good business opportunities. The German Ford management had issued a jubilant annual report for 1933. "The predominant feature of the business year 1933 was the revolu tionary change of the conditions prevailing in the automobile market The repercussions of the crisis of 1932 were still bemg felt in the beginning of 1933 when the energetic measures taken by the Government with a view of motorising Germany, and especially the exemption of passenger vehicles from taxation, caused an exceedingly increasing demand for passenger cars and trucks resulting in the revival of the automobile industry."132 After 1933 Dearborn increased its equity in the Cologne company, sup ported almost all of its Cologne executives' initiatives to improve coopera tion with the German authorities, and enjoyed success Production and turnover increased rapidly in 1935, and in 1936 Ford-Werke AG reported its best operating result in Germany to date In the meantime production had been aligned to use more materials produced in Germany; the number of domestic suppliers rose dramatically In addition Dearborn gave permission for the Cologne daughter company to produce the high performance V8 engine, which had up to then been produced only in the United States 133 Dearborn supplied Cologne with raw matenals, parts, and machines that were difficult or impossible to obtain in Germany In 1937 Ford managed to once again gready raise production and was the only carmaker m Germany to do so other than Daimler-Benz 134 The regime honored this cooperation by officially naming Ford a "German company," but at the same time demanded that Dearborn provide additional dehvenes of raw matenals and machines Albert issued one of his dramatic appeals to Ford Motor: "If you leave Cologne in the lurch, the effort of an increased program breaks down-not only for 1937, but also for 1938 as the negotiations with the authonbes about the again increased program for 1938 are based on your readiness to provide us with pig iron "U5 Again and again Dearborn con sented, paving the way for large and lucrahve state orders. After years of lobbying the German authonties, Ford in Germany finally became a major Wehrmacht contractor136 To cope with the growing requirements of the military Albert, who had replaced Lord Perry of Bnbsh Ford as the chairman of the Ford-Werke AG directorate in June 1937, proposed setting up additional truck producbon at the Berlin factory of the automobve supplier Ambi-Budd. This was at the military's behest Although one U.S Ford execubve cnbcized the pro posed vehicle as "war munibons," Dearborn decided in favor of the pro ject "In principle we have no objecbon to the plan," Ford Motor Vice President Sorensen wrote to Albert, and he traveled to Germany in April 1938 to get the project going 137 "Sorensen had no qualms about working for the government," Wilkins and Hill wnte. "He scoffed at the danger of war and felt that orders from the regime would simply help the company."138 With the German armaments effort at a fever pitch, the danger of war in Europe became increasingly obvious This failed to prompt any eleventhhour reservations at Ford. By approving the new factory in Berlin, Dearborn was communicating to the Germans that Ford Motor had no problem either with armaments or Germany's threats of war The "Report on Ford Werke" comments- "The relabvely unimportant producbvity in specially designed vehicles in no way detracts from the fact that even before the War a portion of German Ford had with Dearborn's consent become an arsenal of Nazism, at least for military vehicles "U9 Ford Werke sales zoomed, as did year-end results Revenues rose by 400 percent from 1934 to 1938 Since the profits had to be used in Germany, they mainly served to raise capital and expand production plant Although it now retamed profits, rather than repatriating to the U.S, and had switched to "German velucles" with "German parts," Cologne remained dependent on Dearborn. Starting in 1935, according to one ofSchmidt's statements, the Cologne managers and many suppliers traveled regularly to the United States to learn about the latest technology from their Amencan counter parts Licenses and patent nghts were granted and a few of the contacts led to new business for German suppliers 140 In 1938, after considerable plant extensions and mstallabons of more high-end machinery from the United States, the Cologne plant ranked as the second most advanced auto factory in Europe Ford Werke was fourth on the German market in passenger car sales after Opel, DKW and Mercedes, and second in trucks after Opel.141 In the same year the rubber arrangement, "which in 1937 had already been utilized to cover imports of non-ferrous metals and 5,000 tons of pig iron was extended to mclude such strategic material in express terms. The Reich Ministry of Economics conditioned its consent upon German Ford's increasing its export of vehicles to 10,000 out of a total production of 40,000 and exacted for its own disposition not only 30% of the rubber imported by German Ford but also 20% of the pig iron so imported." The incredulous comment of the "Report on Ford Werke"- "This did not deter Dearborn from supplying these raw matenals to Germany."142 Summing up 1938, Cologne informed Dearborn that business with the authonties had developed so well that demand could only be met by importing a considerable number of Amencan trucks When the Reich ordered 3,150 trucks in June 1938 for the planned occupation of Czecho slovakia, Dearborn secretly delivered pre-built components to Cologne for rapid assembly in special night shifts.143 The "Grand Cross of the German Eagle" was bestowed upon Henry Ford the following month In the summer of 1939 a top executive from Dearborn visited the plant and endorsed a further expansion of the factory, as strongly recommended by the Cologne management144 At the end ofJuly the company received the "Germanized" new name it bears to this day, Ford-Werke AG When the war started in September, German Ford joined fully in the German homefront effort Within ten months it had assumed control over most of the Ford sub sidiaries On the Continent ' Dearborn does not seem to have been seriously disturbed by Germany's invasions of its neighbors in 1939 and 1940 Cologne continued drawing materials and machine tools from the Umted States In late 1940 Dearborn approved Albert's proposal to raise equity by 12 million RM, to 32 million RM Despite its high profits, Cologne needed additional capital to satisfy Wehrmacht demand. Even m 1941, the headquarters sent vital machinery from the Umted States to Cologne, helping to expand the plant's capacity for war production.145 The German plans for a new European economic order after victory seem to have been of little interest to anyone at the com pany. "It is, of course, somewhat early to discuss what should be done after the war," Albert wrote to Edsel Ford on 18 September 1940 "But not only m official quarters but also in business circles, the opinion prevails that a radical change will take place after the war economically and that the Ger man sphere of interest will be immensely enlarged whatever the political settlement may be It is assumed that the greater part, if not the whole, of Europe will economically form one unit and that import and export will be possible only according to a uniform plan and that also in the motorcar busi ness a muted program as mentioned before may have to be set up for the whole of Europe, Germany taking the lead "M6 Wartime Operations and the Domination of Ford Companies on the Continent Anticipating that the Umted States would enter the war, Schmidt and the IG Farben director Carl Krauch,* who served as Albert's deputy on the Ford Werke directorate, wrote to Reichskommissar Krohn in June 1941 to claim that Ford Werke was "a purely German company, and has taken on the accordant obligations with such success that the American majority share-- quite apart from the for us favorable political attitude of Henry Ford-has even sometimes functioned as an asset for the German economy." Schmidt and Krauch listed the many services Ford rendered to the Reich, citing much the same points that Albert later brought up m his memorandum of November 1941: "The product is made entirely from German materials (insofar as the required material is not only available abroad, such as rubber or copper)" and by a "German workforce." Ford's "maximum growth m Cad Krauch, a top IG Farbenmdustne AG manager who later chaired the Farben direc torate, was one ofthe most influential industrialists m the apparatus of the Nazi regime In 1936 he was named die Reich's Plenipotentiary for Special Questions of Chemical Production as part of the four-year plan implemented that year under Hermann Goring. Krauch and many of his technical employees were committed followers of the Nazi Party Found guilty of "enslavement" in connection with Farben activities and sentenced to six years imprisonment by a U S military court in 1948 He was released in 1950 (USGCC, Finance Division, Ermittlungcn gegm duIG Farbenmdustne [Nordlingen 1986], pp 17f) TABLE 3 : Ford-Werke A G In Facts and Figures, 1 9 3 2 -1 9 4 5--------------------------------- ----------;----------------D ire c to ra te " i!| o> a *-tt * 2 `Sfle -- , o, ! VNsO* i VS a 8 ^sabocbo. a s I"' B5 Oi 8 % j -2 IS 2 114 | rrnu/*gyv hm i^wwy export and provision of raw materials beyond its own needs" helped the country's current accounts "The plant is in every regard an armaments operation" and it was integrated in the war economy from the start "Even before the war, it helped the army on the occasion of its march into Czecho slovakia with large deliveries from abroad "147 After the outbreak of war the top Ford Werke executives became more independent of Dearborn and assumed more clearly defined roles within the company's hierarchy. Schmidt officially became the chief executive He received the title Wehrunrtschaftsfuhrer and was named company custodian under the Reich Enemy Property Decree In 1943 Armaments Minister Speer delegated to Schmidt the task of organizing the European Ford pro gram. On 1 Apnl 1941, Albert wrote to Edsel Ford- "The plants in Antwerp and Amsterdam in particular require a good deal of his [Schmidt's] time. We shall have to appoint two assistant managers* Mr Streit who is at the head of the production and Mr Loeckman who takes care of the purchasing department, substituting at the same time [for Schmidt] in his general func tions when he is away " Erhard Vitger, in 1939 still a managing director like Schmidt, until his demotion m 1941, was later characterized by the British Control Office for Germany as "a Danish national with strong Nazi sympathies though not a member of the Nazi party." In the Schmidt/Krauch memorandum ofJune 1941, Schmidt's financial manager was described as follows- "Vitger is Dan ish, but he has lived in Germany and worked for the Ford company for 20 years. His basic conviction and way of life are purely German, and he has remained on the board with the approval of the responsible authonties He covers finances and has nothing to do with operations "148 Schmidt and Krauch did not mention Schmidt's membership in the Nazi Party as an argument to impress the Reichskommissar, but the notonous Baron Kurt von Schroder* did so m a letter to the Legal Office of the Fuhrer Kanzlei des Fuhrers) in February 1942 149 Von Schroder served the Ford iVerke management as a banker and financial adviser. He was also a key In spring and summer 1945 Bernstein's investigators pieced together a report on "a small, select roup of Germany's most prominent industrialists," the so-called Keppler Kreis, named after one fHitler's economic advisers These men "gathered monthly under the leadership ofSS BngadeIhrer Baron Kurt Freiherr von Schroder for the express purpose of furnishing `our most revered tenhsfilhrer, Heinrich Himmler' with necessary funds," as Colonel Bernstein reported to Lieumant General Clay on 8 September 1945 (NA, RG 260, USGCC, Box 1) The money to Himm sr "was paid into a special account `S' BankhausJ H Stem, Cologne, in the name of Kurt von chroder The 1943 contribution was RM 1,100,000, and that for 1944, RM 1,015,000 " "Baron von Schr&der is the dominant figure in theJ H Stem Bank of Cologne The bank a one of a group of eight banks which have played the outstanding role in German big busi ness and industry.'' Kurt von Schroderjoined the NSDAP in early February 1933 A few weeks later, the finance minister in the Hitler government appointed him as the German delegate to the Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland, which was known at the time as the "bank of the centra] banks." Von Schroder later joined a small group of economic advisers who met regularly with Hitler's secretary, Martin Bormann It is likely that in Cologne he was the person with the best connections to the Kanzlei des Fiihrers economic adviser to the NSDAP and a senior SS officer close to SS chief Himmler's inner circle Von Schroder lobbied actively for the appointment of Schmidt (with Albert as the second choice) as the wartime administrator of Ford-Werke AG, and against a custodian from outside the company. The Kanzlei des Fuhrers agreed, and submitted a concurring opinion to Reichskommissar Krohn- "Due to the German character of this factory, the appointment of a special administrator is unnecessary, especially since there are employees there who will guarantee the protection of German inter ests "IS0 On 15 May 1942 Schmidt became "enemy property custodian" of Ford Werke for the duration of the war. Compared to the capacities and production of Ford factories in the United States, Ford Werke's absolute production numbers (or those of any other German producer) seem modest As a proportion of the German mil itary's needs during the rapid occupation of ten countries and the conquest of die Soviet Union up to the gates of Moscow, they were indispensable. According to a 1946 Allied report, in 1938 "Ford was responsible for 48% of the total German output of 2-3-ton trucks, while in 1942, when the Cologne works were concentrating on the production of medium trucks for the German armed forces and were producing 1,200-1,600 trucks per month, they are estimated to have made 35% of the total German medium ' truck output"151 During his interrogation Schmidt wrote. "This company was the second largest producer of trucks in Germany," estimating that 95.000 trucks had been dehvered direcdy to the Wehrmacht during the war years Another 90,000 civilian Ford trucks were requisitioned by the Wehrmacht in Germany and m the occupied countries "Of the 350,000 trucks which the motorized German army possessed in 1942, 100,000 to 120.000 were Ford built Of the Wehrmacht's total of 650,000 mobile units of all kinds, 15 to 20% were built by Ford."152 In addition, the company pro duced tens of thousands of replacement engines and countless spare parts While its mam role was in motorizing the Wehrmacht and keeping its trucks running, Ford Werke was also involved in the production of high-end munitions. The Schneider report revealed details of a secret arrangement, made in a late-1939 meeting between Ford Werke representatives and OKW, under which "German Ford agreed to assume lull responsibility for production of munitions and armament of the kind and to the extent deemed necessary by the High Command " At the same time, "Cologne was permitted to retain the appearance of continuing to produce only its standard Ford trucks (all destined for the Wehrmacht)." For this purpose a cloak company, Arendt GmbH, was set up by Ford Werke in December 1939 to manufacture munitions "throughout the war at a yearly turnover of 1.500.000 marks."153 Albert was pulling the strings in an affair Dearborn apparently knew nothing about As he wrote to General Zuckertort, his contact at OKW "The solution of producing the war material under a different name from Ford and outside the Ford factory has been a complete success The small subsidiary created for this purpose [Arendt GmbH] has absorbed excess material and personnel from Ford and is producing the war material you have ordered at full capacity nL54 Curiously, "German Ford did not think it necessary to use this or any other cloak for its 1939-1941 production of the command cars [by its Berlin factory], nor for the 1940-1944 production for the Luftwaffe of 505 motors I for boats and landing barges, nor for the 1940-1941 production of 20,000 gears for aJunkers aircraft plant; nor for the production of the 10,000 half tracks begun m 1942 or 1943, nor for its participation m an army repair shop program from 1942 to 1944."155 Business at Ford Werke had never been so good Revenues in 1943 stood at 184 million RM, about six times 1933 levels, and nearly double those of 1938. Net profits had also nearly doubled since the start of the war The col lapse of production in the fall and winter of 1944 and 1945 did not cause a corresponding collapse m the balance sheets As Schmidt revealed to Lord Perry in May 1945: "Our finances were quite good even after the big bomb ing raid m September and October of last year, and the consequent down fall of production Where we stand to-day we are not quite sure. Indications are that the financial posibon is still good although much material must be considered lost" "In order to cover the costs of decentralisation," meaning the program of dispersing production machinery among various locations to avoid bomb ing, Ford Werke "had obtained an advance from the German Government which will cover the decentralisation as well as re-centralisation costs. The amount we still have to receive from the Government for trucks and parts is fairly small since we had cashed every possible invoice before the occupa tion." Neatly passing over the matter of forced labor, Schmidt added that "rates of pay, both for pay- and salary roll have not changed during the war, only in the cases of promotion or demotion."156 ACCORDING TO THE "Report on Ford Werke," Robert H Schmidt, wartime administrator of German Ford by Reich appoint ment gained stature with the expanding German borders. In addition to Schmidt's appointment as Administrative Custodian (Verwalter) of German Ford he also became Kommissar of Ford in Belgium, Verwalter in Holland and for a period of 6 months acted as Kommissar of the French Ford plant, his successor being Albert With all these powers, Schmidt and Albert were able to juggle machinery and productive capacity to serve the best interests of their Nazi rulers, to continue domination of German Ford's original territory in Austria, Czecho slovakia, and Hungary and to extend German Ford interests m other continental countries. There is no indication that the German management ever was so bold as to lay plans for taking over Dearborn. It is a fact, however, that an organiza tion of most of European Ford under hegemony of German Ford was accom plished during the War In the peace to follow, immediate objectives were to bolster this control over `the European Greatspace' and effect German domina tion over British Ford and the few other Ford organizations in Europe not yet hilly controlled 157 In the conquered countries, a "Kommissar" was appointed by the military command, a "Verwalter" (custodian) by the Reich's civilian occupation authorities Either type of enemy property custodian had much the same powers In July 1940 Albert and in September 1940 Schmidt reported to Dearborn m detail on Cologne's efforts to integrate the Belgian, Dutch and French Ford companies into the German war economy. Albert claimed the measures were m keeping with the Hague Convention and in the interests of both Germany and the Ford family.158 Edsel Ford answered m October 1940 We have a fairly complete impression of the present status of the Ford Compa nies in Germany as well as the other occupied temtones It is quite evident and very gratifying that you and your organization are looking after our interests suc cessfully and we appreciate your efforts on our behalf I am glad to hear that the outside plants are beginning to operate, as it is the only way for rehabilitation to take place, and after all there are many people financially interested in these properties besides ourselves Anything that can be done constructively to keep these plants in operabon will be a great help for the future 159 "You have a very difficult task to carry out with regard to the companies that have come into your jurisdiction," Edsel Ford wrote two weeks later to Schmidt, "and I feel sure that you will have cooperation from the other con tinental organizations in looking after the best interest of the Ford organiza tions as a whole."160 The expressions of fealty seem heartfelt and mutual Albert wrote confidentially to Schmidt in December 1941 about his negotia tions in Berlin with General von Schell. Schell's office had suggested merg ing Ford Werke with Volkswagenwerk, Hermann Goenng Werke, Mercedes, or Auto Union Albert to Schmidt. "For us it would go without saying that we ,would stick wholeheartedly and to the last minute to the American partner ship, to the fact to be part of the Ford concern, to build up a German domi nation within the Ford concern as far as Europe was concerned "161 Had the Finance Division investigators seen the files of the Reichs kom missar, they would have known that they were by no means underestimat ing the extent of Cologne's operations and control over the European Ford units. In addition to the countries mentioned in the passage above, Schmidt also controlled Ford Athens He pulled all the strings at the Ford Werke sub sidiary m Bucharest, although Axis Romania had placed that under a cus todianship of its own. Cologne imposed rationalization programs in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, reorganizing production and supply among these plants to enable them to carry out self-sufficient manufacture for the Wehrmacht and reduce the burden on Ford Werke.162 But production at Cologne was always the top priority. As Schmidt confessed to Lord Perry in May 1945, during the occupation 232 essential production machines were taken from the Ford plants in France, Holland and Belgium and shipped to Ford Werke 163 Schmidt expounded on the "satisfactory" process of "adding the non-Ger man European Ford factories to the war potential" during a meeting of the Ford Werke advisory board on 1 July 1943 He noted that Ford Copenhagen was building gas-powered generators and that Ford in neutral Sweden wai occasionally supplying parts to eliminate bottlenecks Schmidt was espe cially thrilled that Ford affiliates in neutral Switzerland had been convinced to supply about 2,000,000 RM m replacement parts 164 During his imprisonment m summer 1945 Schmidt signed three state ments on Ford Werke's influence in Switzerland, one of which read Switzerland was Belgian Ford temtory, but even pnor to the war German Ford was quite a factor After Belgium was occupied, German Ford paid the staff of Belgian Ford in Switzerland and its expenses. The Belgian staff cooperated with Schmidt. He developed the idea of buying Ford spares in Switzerland both for German Ford and other European Ford companies The German Government guaranteed payment German Ford's sales also were increased Moreover, it aided the German government's deal with all Swiss dealers in all makes under which the Swiss dealers agreed to repair 2,000 Army trucks and convert them into gas producers.,6S Always on the Side of the Winners After six years of feverish war activity on all fronts, of exploiting forced labor and collaborating in every way with the Nazi regime, Ford Werke and its management at first suffered nothing more than shell damage to the plant buildings during the Wehrmacht's pointless last stand On 18 April the men of the Military Government of Cologne (specifically E1H2 Property Control Section) returned to the Ford plant for their first look smce mid-March The U S. Army officers were disturbed by the new rubble, but the resourceful Schmidt was not worried He announced that "500 trucks could be pro duced within a short time if he is permitted to conserve material which is available "166 Schmidt knew that most of the plant's machinery was safely stored at dispersal points on the other side of the nver MG Cologne promptly made arrangements to allow plant employees to start cleaning up the grounds, and on 28 April "tentative plans were made to visit the various subsidiary Ford factories east of the Rhine to determine the feasibility of resuming operations here m Cologne "167 The resources of the U S military were put to the task m the next days,188 and Charles Thacker, former stock superintendent of Ford of England, was called in to take over the factory. He decided to immediately resume production 169 Ford Werke became the first large factory in Cologne to do so On 8 May 1945, the day of Germany's unconditional surrender, an American documentary team set up its cameras to record the sight of the first post-war truck coming off the Ford Werke assembly line 170 In September factory personnel was back up to 2,500 and by the end of the year Ford had built 2,438 trucks m "It was a notable achievement, for raw materials were in short supply, steel and tires were at a premium and semi-finished goods were frequendy unavailable because suppliers had not resumed production "m Of course, very little conversion work was required for peacetime production All along the factory had "only produced trucks " These no longer transported German troops and materiel, but they were needed to carry supplies into the city, start the displaced persons on die way home, and haul rubble The Military Government of Cologne began allowing companies to resume production more freely after Germany's unconditional surrender In Cologne a company could apply for a permit to the new municipal depart ment for economics and labor. Later the task was taken over by the recon structed city chamber of commerce and industry (Cologne IHK). Even then, companies with more than five (later ten) employees needed permis sion from the E1H2 Trade & Industry officers Applicants were required to swear they had never been members of the NSDAP, SS or S A Decisions on industrial operations, and on what energy sources would be made avail able to them, were met by the military government alone But as the E1H2 reports make clear, the military government was intent on avoiding any superfluous delays. By the end of May 1945, E1H2 had forwarded seventyseven approved applications to the U S. 15th Army command m Soon the German institutions were playing the key role in reauthonzation The military government's supervision of the process cannot be described as strict, except that E1H2 remained very persistent about not compromising its anti-Nazi pohcy Patterson emphasized Eisenhower's strict orders and mentioned bad experiences due to lemency in Aachen.* Excep tions were granted only when higher U.S Army staff overruled the Cologne detachment Because it was directed against all "party comrades" and not just "ardent Nazis," the Patterson line called forth great agitation and expressions of outrage, above all from the industrialists who had been involved m the Nazi war economy. As Swiss General Consul von Weiss noted on 18 April "Industry plans diplomatic overtures to Marshal] Eisen hower through Mayor Adenauer or the Bishop Count Galen, in order to amend the current regulation so as to acknowledge a distinction between decent and wild Party comrades "04 Bernhard Hilgermann, the newly appointed chief executive of the city chamber of commerce IHK Cologne, commented on the attitude prevalent among his countrymen as follows "Most of the Germans beheved that everything past would be forgiven and forgotten with the cessation of hos tilities, as after a boxing match, one reaches out for a handshake in an act of Ernest O Hauser, a war correspondent who witnessed the establishment of the military gov ernments in both Aachen and Cologne, summarized the origins of the "soft" Aachen and "hard* Cologne policies m the Saturday Evening Post* 2 June 1945 "The appointment of Nazis to administrative jobs under MG was left from the start to the discretion of individual teams All the book said was that `ardent Nazis' were not eligible, and the Aachen team experimented with some `nonardent Nazis' until the Allied press communicated the scandal to the world Thereafter, MG adopted a pohcy which was pioneered by Ll Col John K. Patterson, the mil itary governor of Cologne It disqualifies all former members of the Nazi Party This new deal, Lw:hich constituted a victory of Allied public opinion over MG's experimental frame of mind, created some difficulties.'' friendship. After all, preparations are now being made for a peaceful recon struction " "The businessmen feel that they have a completely clean record, since they were only members of a party that was coincidentally called NSDAP."m Hilgermann was one of the rare Germans with an insight into the other side's thinking "The officers were trained for their missions, but it was not easy for them to cope with the exceptional conditions They needed the cooperation of the Germans. But these Germans were to them the orig inators of this long war, the inventors of the extermination camps, the mur derers of many millions of people, on purely personal grounds they rejected them At first this attitude was very clear in direct conversation They did not extend hands to Germans The ban on fraternization underlined this attitude. Only when alone with a German would they ask him to take a seat, assuming they had come to hke him With only a few exceptions Germans, if they even came into contact with the occupying power, were far too occupied with themselves to see the dif ficulties that die Americans faced "In practice the detachments of the Mili tary Government are running into a great variety of problems, complicated by the temporary helplessness of the German civilians, by the unrestrained loss of control with which the displaced persons are enjoying their newly won freedom and releasing pent-up rancor against their former German masters, and often enough by self-doubts among members of the military government, about whether they will succeed m walking the narrow ridge between strict justice with regard to the Germans and the urgent need to reestablish at least a minimum of administration and economy "m In reality the Rhineland business community had litde cause for com plaint The American economic officers were competent pragmatic, and completely free of socialist influence The general American policy was based on private property and a predictable rule of law. The Americans were making a massive logistical effort to transport home the frightening army of now-superfluous foreign and forced laborers-away from their camps near the factories Even under Patterson's hardline enforcement of the rules, a common distinction was by then bemg drawn between a strict policy of de-Nazification for office-holders and a moderate one for trade and industry178 "The finance and economic officers that we dealt with back then," Hilgermann later recalled, "were often bankers from the Midwest or businessmen obviously trying to get production moving to the extent allow able within then authoritiesr>m Given all that, Robert Schmidt may have felt he was on his way in late May 1945, when he helped Thacker to reorganize the Cologne plant and sought Lord Perry's absolution That was foiled by the arrival of Bernstein's investigators, who arrested him 180 Vitger, who had stood by Schmidt's side throughout the war, encountered no such difficulties Vitger was made plant custodian m September 1945 and hired on as the new boss of Ford Werke after Dearborn normalized its control Ford also kept Heinnch Albert, but in a subordinate position at the company's Berlin office Albert had made himself unpalatable through the secret munitions production under the cover of Arendt GmbH Schmidt had his difficulties in getting cleared, but after a successful de-Nazificabon in 1948, he was back with Ford Werke m 1949 He became a top execuhve again in 1952 and stayed with the com pany for the rest of his life (Schmidt died in a car crash on the way to lay a cornerstone for a new factory in Belgium in 1962)181 In their history of Ford's international businesses, Wilkins and Hill stress that "the European companies operated at a handsome profit in all years except 1945 . [the last] chiefly due to the impending collapse of Germany," and that the Ford family's net paper profit for the war years stood at about $11 million.182 But they suggest the Cologne subsidiary paid a stiff pnce because it was compelled to use German materials and to standardize according to German guidelines During the war, exports plunged, profits had to be kept in Germany, and the Reich forced truck development along military fines "The iron hand" of the Nazi regime "gripped Cologne firmly, although the velvet glove of approbation and profits (which eventually might be taken) made it fairly acceptable "183 This seems like an overcomplicated explanation for the activities of Albert and Schmidt during the war Rather than seeing them as victims of some "iron hand," it would be far simpler to think they were activists, true to the regime, with a double allegiance that proved opportune amid the shifting winds of the war A decorated civil servant, Albert was typical of many non-Nazis whose conservative loyalties to the Reich and its Wehrmacht m particular were obviously more important than oaths of office taken during the "legalistic penod" of the Weimar Republic The energetic Schmidt was also more than a "willing helper" of the Nazi regime, although his task involved producing and selling motor vehicles, rather than imple menting the party's politics As a Wehrwirtschafisfithrer, Schmidt belonged to a caste of about 400 directors and industrialists who swore allegiance to the Fuhrer and to the goals of the Wehrmacht They held substantive and offi cial authority as necessary to meet that responsibility184 After the war Ford Werke went through a few years of difficult business but reestablished its prewar position as one of the top European carmakers. Ford cashed in $1 million for its war-related damages from the U S gov ernment in the 1960s For fifty-three years, it upheld a rigorous silence about the forced laborers who had helped make its German unit so profitable dur ing the war. Epilogue The presentation of the "Report on Ford Werke" to General Clay on 9 Sep tember 1945 did not result m any consequences for either Ford Motor or its German subsidiary185 The writers of the report avoided a legal interpreta tion Even Colonel Bernstein did no more than assert that. "The activities of Ford Werke AG may serve for comparison with the activities of German owned or controlled subsidiaries located m the United States or elsewhere in the United Nations "186 That was the end of the matter as far as General Clay was concerned The "Report on Ford Werke Aktiengesellschaft" was filed away as confidential How did Ford Motor deal with the damaging accusation that it had helped Hider? The answer is simple The company as far as possible avoided any pubhc discussion of the matter Ford Motor's only known posi tion regarding the accusations in Drew Pearson's Washington Post column from September 1945, a memorandum by the company counsel that appar ently was never publicized, stressed the legality of Dearborn's activities 187 The lawyerly argument sticks to the purely economic aspects of the involvement, and points to the many other U S companies who also stayed in Nazi Germany. The political and ethical dimensions go unmentioned- not a word therein is lost on the company's policies, no regret was expressed This was only possible because the accusations raised against Ford were largely ignored by the U S media First of all, as many publishers and editors would have argued, we must try those who are directly responsible for the Nazi regime's military aggression and coundess cnmes against humanity Eleanor Roosevelt took up that issue when she used her popular column "My Day" to promote the findings of Bernstein's investigators, only ten days after the report was submitted to General Clay "I hope a great many peo ple read the story about the Ford plants m Germany, published in one of our newspapers the other day, with its record of the action permitted to these foreign plants by the majority stockholders in this country. Although the story dealt only with the Ford empire, there are many other great indus trial concerns in the United States whose plants function m many coun tries throughout the world." She made what seems to be an oblique reference to the Lawler Report from spring 1943: "I recall hearing, after France fell and after we went into the war, that the heads of a big industry m this country cabled congratulations to their managers m France because the latter were keeping the plant going-although they were keeping it gomg by making what the Germans asked them to make." But she avoided con crete details "Business complications do strange things to our patriotism and to our ethics!" "It is important that every now and then we stop and examine what we have done and what resulted from our actions. In the carefully documented case of the Ford German plants, it was quite evident that Hitler and the Nazis profited by the attitude of the stockholders in this country "188 Mrs Roosevelt's appeal--to confront the activities of American compa nies in support of the Nazi regime sooner rather than later-had little effect Whether in the Umted States or in Occupied Germany, time was working against the critics of Dearborn and its Cologne subsidiary With Morgenthau's resignation the advocates of a hard peace, especially with regard to the German war industry, had lost their most important backer in govern ment. During a reorganization of the U S Mditary Government in late Sep tember, General Clay stripped Colonel Bernstein of leadership of the Finance Division Clay offered to make Bernstein the director of the Divi sion of Investigation of Cartels and External Assets (DICEA), a post that had been created with Bernstein in mind Bernstein refused, and returned to Washington. DICEA was soon demoted to a Decartehzation Branch and assigned to General Draper's Economics Division The reformers still left in the "branch" were not quite yet defeated The quarrel over the extent of struc tural reform and reconstruction in Germany continued In February 1947 Decartehzation Law 56 and the similar British Ordinance No 78 enforced new arrangements within their respective branches Intensive investigations were initiated of conglomerates such as Henschel, Siemens, Bosch and Gutehoffriungshutte But when the trust-busters submitted their cases for approval and filing in March 1948, the Military Governor Clay blocked them, citing economic reasons and the poor physical condition of industry West Germany's economy withstood the critical post-war years without suffering any lasting damage. The automobile industry was one of the ben eficiaries of the victory of the "pragmatics" and "realists" over the "hardlin ers" After the end of the occupation, the carmakers repeated their grandiose nse of the 1930s, this time in a democratic republic and without need of a war program The upward trend was of duration, as Ford Werke's further history clearly demonstrates. Today Ford-Werke AG is one of Germany's twenty largest industrial cor porations, with revenues of 27 8 billion DM in 1998 on European sales of 1.1 mdlion vehicles189 The European headquarters of the Ford Motor Com pany in 1998 was moved from the British town of Dagenham to Cologne. On the brink of the twenty-first century, the whole Ford family of corpora tions is said "to have a chance of becoming the biggest car maker in the world, a position it lost in the 1920s to General Motors . The company will be 100 years old in 2003 World leadership would be a fitting way to cele brate "190 It sounds like a good time, surely, for the company to finally nd itself of a history of denial and equivocation by admitting openly the full story of Ford Motor's and Ford Werke's activities during the twelve years of the Nazi regime - Retnhold BiUstein Discoveries U S soldiers watch military parade at a Cologne stadium, 11 March 1945 (B2) } View from die Cathedral, 7 March 1945 (B4) 11 May 1945 Aerial photo of Ford Werke plant (center, standing) with camouflage cover for parking lot in foreground and barracks in die background (B5). . h ,Doa oiftropoiMQQlI^o t ^ \j QO<5 06t 6tOr8n6QDlofl.j_l,_ ,'.Qiitoqtfaaa8aa-''tf fjanty gpj6 * '^'pnr^^l<5;Q8Mitoa?q,^Va; ooo'Woif BaOnauW^ScS? '- , T .1 "*>.' paeasts''fScc~Ka^Ooar^J >;,,* ",v" si* , * * <* ye J-1. ** r/\r*1rv~-j*-~vf -w -** t *' ; Qodoof5mt(MSSO- SMI&) ,:.? fltpa>o^oai,,' ` 'J" *%. \ - ::&5cS?^ A German edition of The InternationalJew: A World Problem (B6). "The firstAmerican book on theJewish question, edited by Henry Ford," 2nd ed, published in Leipzig In 1921 After seiz ing power, the Nazis put this book through 29 editions by late 1933 Below (B7), the author of Mem Kampf{1924}, Adolf Hitler, views the Ford stand at the 1936 Berlin motor show, next _ to the Ford Werke chiefexecutive, Ench Diestel -- A\\?i ,,\ .cr C <1 >' -J ^ > Vi ^ V (U ,,1 WoflicitMlika dp as!ricto0O[iObetkoDfa FORD. B0J,W0. ,apuj<r 2,Jd>0.011.Ev. IBP t..~- ..-- -~1 ' ~~ \'-4'T .............. . ~ . -r- r r- ......... J "German Ford vehicles on Polish roads " - Ford Werh&ttung, October 1939 (B8) Exhibit 93 in the U.S Finance Division's 1945 "Report on Ford-Weike AG " Ford vs. Ford Outside Kharkov, Ukraine, February 1943 (B9). German Ford V3000Sldtchen truck serves the crew of a Wehrmacht Panzer III M ' / ,) < \ c^ ; I 1 \ German Ford Maultier half-track caterpillar with 2 cm anti-aircraft flak gun (BIO) i Literatim V ~'1 i 1 their journey home, 4 April 1945 (B14). A Polish woman and VS soldier celebrate VE Day (B13) i i Walter Rietig (B15) Chapter 3 Walter Rietig and the Effort of Remembrance Walter Rietag was just thirty-six when he was murdered, m December 1942, by the authorities of the German Reich He was sentenced to death by the Volksgenchtshof, the so-called People's Court in the Berlin dis trict of Plotzensee Many of the judges who delivered verdicts there regained high posts and judicial authority after the war They never had to answer for their misdeeds Their victims were relegated to the historical scrap-books of the Federal Republic, the recollection of them fading with time. A short street in the town of Russelsheun is named after Walter Rietig. Despite such scattered symbolic gestures, people after the war more often preferred to do away with the concrete evidence of the Nazi era. This ten dency has survived mto our own times. The old house at Schafergasse 20, where the last Jewish residents of Russelsheun were imprisoned m cramped quarters before being transported away, was demolished just a few years ago 1 Many Germans, even when they are open about the Third Reich in gen eral terms, prefer to avoid dealing with specific Nazi-era events m their own towns Local studies, which have become common in the last twenty years, tend to reveal the entanglements of individuals in the system. The local approach to history raises questions of personal responsibility. Many peo ple, both young and old, prefer to avoid such questions in their own lives, or wish to conceal feelings of complicity Some among the old may even be hiding a direct participation Many Germans who lived through the Nazi era later claimed that they had been apolitical, or "inner emigrants " This man ner of self-exoneration might appear dubious when contrasted against examples of people who stood up to the Nazi tyranny Walter Rietig was not an outstanding political figure of the German Resistance He was just a man who remained true to his anti-Fascist 126 | Workingfor the Enemy beliefs, in spite of the Nazi terror By not adapting to the New Order, he showed that assent to the Nazi regime was not simply a function of yield ing to irresistible force Walter Rietig, bom 1906 in Breslau, worked on and off at the Opel fac tory in Rmselsheim starting in 1929. He and his wife moved to the nearby town of Langen in 1931 In the 1920s Walter Rietig was a member of Social ist Worker Youth, as the youth organization of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) was then known In 1929 he joined the Langen chapter of the "Friends of Nature," a nationwide association of hiking and travel groups within the workers' movement2 The last years of the Weimar Republic saw an increasingly dramatic street-level confrontation between die trade unions, the SPD and the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) on one side, and the National Socialists with their million-plus paramilitary stormtroops on the other In the Gross- Gerau region, as in many other places, the Nazis gamed the support of a plurality of the rural population and of the middle classes In other words, they won over the former voters of the bourgeois and con servative parties.3 . Parallel to this life-or-death struggle, the years of the Great Depression also brought polarization within the workers' movement, between an SPD- onented reformist wing and a KPD-mfluenced revolutionary wing. The KPD attempted to mobilize a umted "Red Front" of all workers in an extra parliamentary struggle of "class against class " Social Democrat politicians, often in government on the local level, instead felt compelled to uphold due process and the rule of law, if necessary against their own political goals. SPD-led town councils had to enforce the harsh emergency measures imposed by the senes of conservative national governments who held power in Berlin during the late Weimar period. Communists, who orga nized demonstrations against cuts in social benefits and against wage reduc tions in compulsory work schemes, more often than not aimed their political fire at SPD-led municipal bodies, rather than at the conservative national governments 4 As the crisis intensified, the SPD came to be associated with workers who still had jobs, while the KPD became a party of the unemployed and the poor. Communist leaders viewed the SPD as then primary opponent At Moscow's behest, they accused Social Democrats of being "social fascists." This hyperbole caught on with the KPD rank and file, who were incensed that SPD-led town councils and works councils were enforcing austerity policies Whatever its superficial rhetorical appeal, the KPD's insupportable accusation of "social fascism" was simply self-destructive, all the more so because the true fascists were preparing to seize power5 Events at Opel in the years 1929 to 1930 illustrate how the incipient division in the Weimar-penod workers' movement turned irreconcilable Shop-floor influence m Russelsheim traditionally was wielded by DMV, the metal workers' union Social democrat in orientation, DMV was challenged in the Opel works council election of February 1929 by the KPD-orgamzed "Revolutionary Union Organization" (RGO). In their first ballot-box effort, the Communists captured 39 percent of the votes cast by the Opel personnel. Despite the factory's advanced production process and technology, Opel, like most companies, faced a serious cnsis as die global system of credit and payment collapsed. A family business until the late 1920s, the Adam Opel firm was converted to a stock corporation. Sensing a bargain, General Motors bought 80 percent of Opel shares in 1929 During its first year of control, the U.S auto giant implemented a strict labor regimen and work speed-ups, and reduced personnel at Russelsheim from 10,000 to 6,500 Until then, DMV leaders had viewed rationalization schemes positively, believing that higher productivity allows higher wages for those workers who escape redundancy But General Motors instead forced a new shopfloor agreement to lower wages The Communists were expelled from the works council for stirring extralegal opposition to the wage cuts RGO thereupon launched a wildcat strike, on 12 February 1930, without the sup port of DMV. The action was suppressed immediately by a brutal police crackdown, and denounced by the Social Democrats as the "Opel Putsch " Following this failure, RGO was nearly wiped out in the Opel works coun cil elections of spring 1930 Within two years the Nazi shopfloor organiza tion, the NSBO, gained by election a majority of the seats on the company council for salaried employees The NSBO also captured a strong foothold on Opel's blue-collar works council In the wake of these developments, the Social Democrats came to regard the KPD as no better than the NSDAP, while the Communists believed that their theory of "social fascism" had been confirmed At that point neither side really imagined what would happen once the Nazis were in power As a direct result of the "Opel Putsch," Communist and Social Democrat orga nizations across the nation broke off all but a few isolated points of contact One of these was the Fnends of Nature, within which the conflicts between SPD and KPD were continued on a smaller scale. Walter Riehg may have felt himself trapped between the two camps. Most of the Langen "Fnends" were social democrats. They adopted the anhKPD policy set by the central headquarters of the Fnends movement, and expelled a group of KPD members The expelled Communists joined the Fnends of Nature in nearby Egelsbach, who refused to toe their national orgamzanon's line On the contrary, the Egelsbach Fnends were among the few groups who still sought to bndge the splits and unite working people in a common political struggle against the Nazi threat It is unknown if Walter Rietig was himself expelled from the Langen Fnends, or if he supported the expulsions. But he did take part in a 1932 demonstration of die KPD-onented "International Workers Welfare" in Langen That allows for two interpretations. 1 Like many Social Democrats, Walter Riehg had turned away from the SPD and towards the KPD, or 2. He was following the lead of those who hoped to reunite the work ers' movement |9 Either way, it seems that the young Walter Riebg, like many othw9 Friends of Nature, stood between the SPD and the KPD. It seems likely hite| convictions were individual and deep-seated, and that he would not hsvela surrendered easily after the Nazi seizure of power in early 1933 fjS In his surveys of the minority of Germans who resisted the Nazi regime after 1933, the political scientist Axel Ulrich found a disproportionate - number of young people who had been in the Friends of Nature, who had stood between SPD and KPD, or who were disillusioned with the SPD and 1 leaning towards the KPD in the final years of the Weimar Republic Ulnch presents ample evidence that, soon after the Nazis seized power, a clan destine resistance group formed at Opel, with members from both SPD and KPD In the first days of May 1933 the Nazis smashed all independent trade unions and rounded up labor leaders and activists, establishing the NSDAP German Labor Front (DAF) as the sole shopfloor organization, with com pulsory membership Ulnch- "Several resistance groups arose m the fol lowing years, mostly comprising former trade unionists-Social Democrats, Communists, Christians-and members of the disbanded Friends of Nature." These underground groups were generally tolerant of different political orientations Communists played a dominant role, m part because they already had the most expenence in clandestine activity.7 Having seen the political disaster of 1933, the KPD was prepared to reorganize its Com munist Youth Association (KJV) along heterogeneous lines, and to bridge the ideological nfts of the late Weimar penod 8 Various old grudges were overcome to form an incipient common resistance, with the Communists in charge.9 This was not a secret to the Gestapo In February 1935 they launched a nationwide crackdown on resistance groups. The Darmstadt Gestapo reported on the regional results as follows "119 persons were arrested just in the three Hessian counties of Offenbach, Gross-Gerau and Dieburg .. It is curious that in Mainz, the reorganized KJV took hold among the dis solved organization known as the `Fnends of Nature,' which before the coup consisted mostly of members and followers of the SPD. It may be inferred that in rebuilding the illegal KJV the KPD is pursuing the goal of a unified front with the SPD, especially with young Social Democrat workers T', Witnesses who lived through that time confirm involvement by Friends of Nature m several resistance groups in the county of Gross-Gerau--and at Opel11 It is known that Walter Rietig joined an illegal group of Social Democrats and Communists in 1933, but nothing is known about the group's activities a After all, opponents of the regime did not keep written records. They were under constant threat of imprisonment, torture and death, and forced to work illegally. This reveals one of the biggest problems in researching the Nazi-era resistance Axel Ulnch points out the paradox jjfri'ifftiSBrii-fifrifii Withal historiography has generally accepted Nazi documentary sources as Wtehabie, as though the authorities were all-powerful and all-knowing, while $the spoken testimonies of resistance fighters, and even their original docu ments, are usually treated with far greater skepticism u With the crackdown of 1935 the Gestapo succeeded in shattering the majority of resistance groups in the Gross-Gerau region Many Opel work ers were arrested Walter Rietig was not among them A new, especially paranoid phase began, during which most activists shunned all but the most informal resistance contacts. The labor situation at Opel got worse in the years that followed. InJune 1936 the workers of one department staged a fifteen-minute strike to protest a cut in pay and temble working conditions. Two hundred strikers were fired on die spot Thirty-seven were arrested, several of them ended up in concentration camps Company security and Gestapo thereupon recruited an extensive network of informants, with the design of alerting management and secret police immediately of any organizing or expressions of discon tent In reaction the isolated resistance groups at the Opel plant gave up entirely on their often foolhardy written propaganda, and adopted stricter rules of conspiracy Only after the outbreak of war, in September 1939, did they cautiously resume their organizing efforts Our next concrete information about Walter Rietig dates from 1942 Most of our knowledge about the events leading to his death was gamed by Pfeter Schirmbeck of the Russelsheim Town Museum m interviews with Fritz Zangerle, a resistance activist who worked at the Russelsheim body plant, and who became the first leader of the Opel works council after the Second World War.14 Fritz Zangerle was the contact man to Walter Rietig "Actually our cell consisted of just a few people. It was supposed to never be more than five There were I believe seven of us One of us had the con nection to the next highest level. None of the cells was supposed to know about the others . ." Since they were greatly restricted by the Nazi terror, their activities at first consisted in listening to foreign broadcasts. The mere possession of an unau thorized shortwave receiver was a serious crime. At the factory the conspir ators met regularly at a metal-grinder to whisper news beneath the roar of __.1 .1 That was practically our headquarters, everybody would bnng something to grind, and we would circulate the news, whatever was going on, how things looked at the front, or that the English [prisoners of war in Russelsheim] were being given this or that as rations Walter Rietig was also a member of the cell. He wasn't an acUve member, but more someone who would give and get infor mation He was the contact man to the prisoners of war, to the French That's how he ended up under the guillotine, Walter Rietig, a Friend of Nature from Langen A good acquaintance of mine, whom I saw every day Of course, the Nazi shop stewards asked me what Walter Rietig was doing there every day, at my place I said I had known him from the Fnends of Nature, that we bad both been in it and had a few things keeping us together, such as that every week he brought me my laundry from my mother. The Nazi stewards had been assigned to find out who Rietig was meeting every day, and of course it was a big mistake that he came to me every day Fntz Zangerle recalls the day when "Rietig came to me and said, `Fritz, they're making me give up my DAT card.'" Rietig had been interrogated by the Gestapo m connection with the spreading of defeatist rumors Zangerle urged him to take flight. "I told him, Walter, if they're canceling your DAF pass, then you must get out You can get connections, you can surely escape to Switzerland or France But he said' `No, I won't do that, what could hap pen to me' In three years at the most, the war will be over ' But he had mis judged his situation " Walter Riehg was arrested and convicted on the testimony of three co workers. They each received payments of 100 RM "That was a lot of money back then," Fntz Zangerle says. "The top wage for a foreman was 1 25, 135 during the war. That was a small fortune that each of them got, just to make a statement in Berlin." The Gestapo paid a visit to the Opel plant on 13 July 1942, interviewed the informants, and arrested Walter Rietig He was brought to the State Pobce Prison in Darmstadt There he confessed, apparendy after torture He later recanted, but that was of no consequence Walter Rietig was trans ferred from Gestapo custody to the Darmstadt Regional Prison on 23 July, where he was kept to await tnal On 13 October he was taken to Alt-Moabit Prison in Berlin He was tried by the Volksgenchtshof on 26 October 1942. His retraction was ruled inadmissible Herbert Bauch, in his study of Walter Rietig's death, quotes the Reich Lord Prosecutor- "In the following case, the accused has retracted his con fession, and claims that the police is incriminating him unfairly on the basis of a nervous breakdown " Bauch wntes: "The Berlin judges entertained no doubts In Walter Rietig they saw `a very secure personality, someone who would not lose his composure, even in the course of a rough treatment from the police--as may have been made necessary by his behavior.'"15 In her history of Nazi-era Langen, Heidi Fogel wntes- "The lay jurors who assisted the two judges in the case of Walter Rietig were all functionar ies of the NSDAP Each held a high position in the Party The court heard the three informants They repeated their original testimonies Walter Rietig objected that the mam witness against him was acting on a personal grudge. This was swept away with the observation that the witness did not give the impression of being capable of such an action No witnesses were called on Walter Rietig's behalf "16 Walter Rietig was sentenced to death for "weakening the inner front of the German people through Communist recruitment speeches" and for a "traitorous promotion of conditions conducive to the enemy, in combina tion with plans for high treason." The court did not uphold the original accusation of "forbidden communication with pnsoners of war " Appeals for clemency and a resumption of the case were denied.17 The Reich Interior Ministry saw fit to consummate the sentence m the month of December 1942 The war was by then obviously turning against the Wehrmacht, and the German people were waking up to a gnm reality The secret S D "Situation Report" of 29 December 1942 reads: "A degree of disquiet has been roused [among the people] by Wehrmacht reports ol difficult battles at Vekkiye Laki [in Russia]. This town was believed to be fai behind our hnes, and one might therefore infer from the reports that the Soviets have advanced along this part of the front The rumors that division! are surrounded by the enemy at Stalingrad have also intensified, and are it part causing senous worries "i8 The mood among the Opel workers was also causing "senous womes.' Fntz Zangerle The so-called factory roll-calls-nobody wanted to go there anymore1 (The com pany security forces] would run through the factory departments, yelling "Ge up, let's go, why are you sitting around here? We are having a gathering bad there'" [The personnel] had to be pushed into attending the roll-calls. They reall only took place under pressure And the Nazis were really angry about tha Something had to be done, to get all these defeatists to shut up, so that no on would dare say anything he might have heard in an enemy broadcast Walter Rietig's execution was mtended to set an example, as the readin of the sentence confirmed. "As a deterrent," he would receive the highe: penalty. "It is a clear danger that the poison of discord, which the defer dant has spread among the personnel of the Opel factory, will continu having its effect, and may seriously impair the will to work at this vital mi itary operation."19 Walter Rietig had underestimated the punishment he was likely to fac and this proved to be his doom. Perhaps he was thinking of earlier, suml, cases at Opel In the first years of the war, several Opel workers had bee convicted for making statements critical of the regime. These were no wor than the statements of which Rietig was accused Most of the offenders we sentenced to one or two years m prison 20 But the times had changed, and the Nazis apparently thought it necessa to set a more drastic example to the Following. Walter Rietig was killed 1 the guillotine m the mght of 22 December 1942. On the same night, tl Nazis executed the members of the legendary "Rote Kapelle," a group dozens of well-placed Germans who had transmitted intelligence to Russ over some one hundred radio transmitters throughout Europe Despite his modest wishes for a cremation, as expressedjust hours befo his execution m his final letter to his wife and son, Walter Rietig's family vs demed a decent funeral His body was given instead to the anatomical ms tute of the University of Berlin, an act that expresses exceptional contem The Interior Ministry ordered news of Walter Rietig's execution si pressed, except for a single announcement a large red poster was put up the Opel factory to inform the workers of the death of their colleague.21 "In my life I did my duty, as I had to do, my life was work and duty Now I take farewell, my love Do not forget me, I will accept my sentence with the courage of innocence " Walter Rietig circumvented the censor in his letter with the ambiguous wish "of an imminent, just victory for the German people over their enemies, that they may gain a better place in the sun, work, contentment and happiness " That wish did not come true. The German people proved unable to overcome their Nazi barbarism on their own - Bemd Heyl Part Two Chapter 4 Forced Labor at Ford Werke in Cologne In reply to our request [for information on the use in Cologne offorced laborersfrom con centration camps] Ford Werke in Cologne-Niehl stated that reliable documentsfrom that time are not available, and they therefore must depend on information from company employees According to reports, forty tofifty people, believed to have been prisonersfrom the Buchenwald concentration camp, worked on the factory grounds for about three months There were no deaths, according to thefactory doctor and the deputy ofthe com pany securityforce at that time, at arty rale, neither ofthem could recall any such cases Cologne Office of the Registry, October 1949 I still remember well, when we workersfrom Ford were sitting in the canteen at mid day, how the young Ukrainians always came over die roof, driven by hunger, and watched us while we ate There were always colleagues who would open the skylight andpull the boys in But there were also sadisticpeoplefrom the company securityforces who would guard the canteen, so that no foreign workers, as they were called at that time, could come in Fntz Theilen, retired Ford worker, September 1995 Perhaps you can't imagine it, but die tearsflowedfrom my eyes while I wrote. I could n't recall the camp, the bombings, the humiliations and die return home without break ing into tears Stepan Saika, former forced laborer at Ford during the war, February 1995 The three efforts to remember the past ated above each stem from a direct participant, but the way they remember seems to differ gready. In 1949, the factory doctor and the security officer claim they can no longer recall what happened a few years earlier1 Fifty years later, the retired Ford worker Fntz Theilen, who had been active in the resistance against the Nazi regime, says he remembers clearly2 For Stepan Saika, a former forced laborer, looking back on the years at Ford-Werke AG in Cologne is a painful process.3 ii/u | rn/'ivw^i j vt . German society is afflicted to this day by the rationalizations of its Naziera perpetrators, by their denial of crime and complicity But questions of entanglement in Nazi crime also haunt the countries overrun by the Ger man Reich in the war, the victorious Allies of the anh-Hider coalition, and the countries that tried to stay neutral The present controversy over wartime forced labor at the Ford auto factory in the Cologne district of Niehl reveals how tortuous the effort of memory remains, fifty-four years after the end of the war Historiography in Brief For decades West German historians mostly ignored the Nazi practice of forced labor, until it was "rediscovered" in the early and mid-1980s. In those years, many researchers abandoned earlier, over-theoretical approaches to the Nazi past, and set out to examine events at particular localities in closer detail. Many histones of Nazi-era events as witnessed in towns, at work places, and at sites of persecution have since been published, and quite a few of these concern the use of forced laborers. Ulnch Herbert's Fremdarbeiter Pohtik und Praxis da `Auslander-Einsatzfs " in der Knegswirtschaft da Dntten Retches, first published m 1985, is now considered the standard general study on forced labor during the Nazi era.4 The corporations that made use of forced labor during the war met any and all accusations in later decades with a defense borrowed from the Nuremberg Tnal defendants They argued that the Nazi state forced com panies to accept slaves, that businesses were left no choice and no influence in the matter A long senes of studies have exploded this myth5 The debates tnggered by important cnhcal works, such as the two books on DaimlerBenz published in 1987 by the Hamburg Foundation of 20th Century Social History,6 have encouraged a shift towards a more complex view, even at pro-corporate institutions like the Society of Entrepreneunal History (GUG) m Frankfurt am Main7 However, many companies today still refuse to open their wartime archives, especially to potentially cntical historians Several works have examined in depth the Nazi-era history of DaimlerBenz and Volkswagen, including their use of slaves 8 Less extensive studies deal with other carmakers, such as BMW, Adler, Auto-Union and Borgward. The forced-labor involvements of the U S auto giants General Motors and Ford, through their German subsidiaries, have not inspired quite as much scholarship among German-speaking historians In fact, most of it is gathered in this volume 9 The issue of Nazi-era forced labor returned to the political agenda after 1989, following the transformation m Eastern Europe The vast majority of the German Reich's slaves had been rounded up or recruited m the Soviet Union and Poland. Returning home after the war as "Displaced Persons," many of them were treated as "collaborators" or even deported to the Gulag For decades, the erstwhile slaves suffered discrimination from the Communist authorities and from their countrymen, and fell silent about their wartime experiences On the other side of the East-West divide, the 1953 London Debt Accords between the Federal Republic of Germany and the former Western Allies included a clause postponing individual restitutions for forced labor until after the signing of a "final" peace treaty for the Second World War. Citing that passage and various technicalities, the Federal Republic and its courts systematically turned away claims to compensation from former forced laborers10 But m 1990 the 2+4 Treaty joined the German Democratic Republic to the Federal Republic, with die approval of the four powers that had occupied the two Germanys since the war. Since then 2+4 has been interpreted as a peace treaty by German courts-although this is not yet con clusive--suggesting an incipient lapse in the 1953 stipulation Meanwhile, the political shift in Eastern Europe has allowed former forced laborers liv ing there to organize associations and pursue their claims more openly. They have used the new opportunities for communication and travel in part to forge links to German groups investigating the historic sites of their per secution. That has fueled further research, m Germany and elsewhere In Cologne, a grassroots initiative in the mid-1980s began to research the largely forgotten history of the many labor camps and concentration camp (KZ) satellites that had existed in the city This "project group" later named itself after the largest of these camps (Lager), which was located at the public fairgrounds known as the Cologne Messe "Prqjektgruppe Messelager" gradu ally established contacts to Messe camp survivors in Western and Eastern Europe, and invited several of them to a 1989 symposium m Cologne. This originated a visitors' program that, ten years later, remains unique in the Fed eral Republic Each year, former forced laborers, prisoners of war, and KZ inmates receive invitations from the mayor of Cologne to visit for ten days at the city's expense They return to then former prisons, camps and workplaces, speak to gatherings, and are interviewed at length about their experiences on behalf of the city's Nazi-era documents center, NS-Dokumentabonszentrum der Stadt Koln, which keeps the transcripts m a public archive 11 The visitors program for 1995 specifically concentrated on forced labor at the Ford factory Eight survivors from the Ukraine and Poland returned to Cologne and told then stones at a public gathenng. Ford-Werke AG was persuaded for the first time to allow program visitors to tour the factory Ford also provided photos and visual matenals for a small exhibition or "Forced Labor at Ford," but made clear that no further documents could b contributed by the company. One executive wrote to Projektgruppe Messe lager in July 1995. "In reality we comb carefully through our archives it response to such requests, today as in the past, and we speak with employ ees who might still remember that time. Never have we found document or other information in Cologne about forced labor at Ford We have hai no occasion to press the issue ourselves." Ford Werke otherwise declined to participate in the 1995 gathenng, an rejected the project group's proposal that it finance a study of its Nazi-er, history The company claimed it would instead confront the problem of "forced labor in Cologne in the Third Reich" as part of a "common effort by Cologne companies " After the 1995 visit, Projektgruppe Messelager published the transcripts of several interviews along with a collection of documents and photographs from the exhibition u The book was intended to show that the company's history in Cologne demanded more study. The FORD Motor Company plays a major role in any telling of automo tive history,13 and some U S publications have examined allegations that it collaborated with the enemy during the Second World War.14 But we lack a general history of Ford Motor's wartime activities in Europe No study pub lished to date set out to examine as a whole the policies of the Ford Motor headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan, the connections between Cologne and Dearborn before and after the United States' entry into the war in Decem ber 1941, and the wartime events at various European Ford units in relation to Cologne and Dearborn. The only comprehensive approach to Ford m Germany during the Nazi era, in a book by Hanns-Peter Roselien, deals mainly with production and models.15 Peter Lessmann explored Cologne's management of Ford Paris in German-Occupied France Stephan Lindner treats Ford as a case in his dis sertation on the "Reich Commission for the Treatment of Enemy Property " Johannes Reiling examines a key figure of the 1930s and 1940s in his biog raphy of Heinnch Albert, the chairman of the Ford-Werke AG directorate in the years 1937 to 1945 16 The lack of a comprehensive business history of the European Ford units has handicapped research on forced labor there. Since much of the useful material on the topic has yet to be examined by scholars, the most important primary sources so far are the interviews with the former forced laborers.17 I devoted a chapter to the Buchenwald satellite labor squad "Aussenkommando Koln-Ford" and its fifty prisoners in my book on the Buchenwald KZ satellites in Cologne.18 Very few of Cologne's municipal records escaped destruction in the war19 Ford-Werke AG has stated that it possesses no documents of relevance. More thorough research is required to pick up the trail of documents which apparendy still existed in 1945 20 Important sources such as the thorough Military Government report writ ten by Henry Schneider right after the war were kept confidential until very recendy (See Chapter 2) Thus the following account of forced labor at Ford during the war relies on a fragmentary documentation It provides a context for the statements of the former forced laborers themselves We may hope that the current wave of new research, begun by Ford in response to a class-action lawsuit, will tap new source material from European and U S. archives towards creating a more complete history. "Keep These Hants in Operation" In 1931 the Ford Motor Company moved the head office of its Germ, subsidiary from Berlin to Cologne, where a new, advanced vehicle facto was built to assemble cars for the German market The company was st in the red in 1933, when the NSDAP seized power in the German Rei< The German Ford management and directorate thenceforth worked shake off their image as an American company and to please the n< regime, to take part in Holer's "mass motorization of the German people. Starting in the mid-1930s, Ford actively entered bids for Wehrmacht cc tracts. Ford enjoyed support within the Army High Command (OKH) a was able to position itself well, despite the opposition of its German co petitors The military recognized early on that Ford Werke's producti capacities were vital "in fulfilling the pressing tasks of motorization m l country's defense "22 Ford's direction was set for the years to come' service to the Nazi regir participation in German rearmament Ford Cologne adapted its person, and business policies accordingly, with the full knowledge and approval Dearborn The subsidiary's name was changed to support its public ca paign of "Germanizahon." In 1939 Ford Motor Company Aktiengesellscl became Ford-Werke Akbengesellschaft23 Ford Werke share capital \ raised from 20 to 32 million reichsmarks (RM) m summer 1941, at wh time Dearborn cut back its share from 75 to 52 percent In the course of these efforts Ford apparently forged a partnership mutual protection with the chemicals giant IG Farbenindustne, one of Reich's largest industrial combines According to a Ford management st ment to a Reich agency m 1941, IG Farben held about 6 percent of Ft Werke AG equity Unless this was false, Farben must have bought massi\ into Ford-Werke AG in the years that followed A 1943 tax audit by Reich reveals Farben's share at 42 percent, with the remaining 6 pert held by Ford of Britain Ford Werke had effectively turned into a joint \ ture with IG Farben. Back m the United States, Ford Motor Company 1 a substantial interest in Farben's U S subsidiary.24 Following the outbreak of war, several heavyweight German indust ists were recruited for the Ford Werke directorate (Aufitchtsrai). Dr t Krauch of IG. Farbenindustne became the deputy chairman and Dr. ' helm Botzkes of Deutsche Industrie Bank also joined in 1940 Hans Hi meyer, the vice-president of the regional Chamber of Commerce (I Cologne) jomed in 1941. But Dearborn was still well-represented. Edsi Ford, the son of Henry Ford, had been on the directorate since 1925 associate Charles E. Sorensen since 1929 25 The chairman of the directorate, starting in 1937, was Heinnch F. All a Pnvy Councilor (Gehnmrat) who had served the Company as legal con since 1928. Formerly a high-ranking civil servant, mimstenal secretary, bnefly, Minister of die Treasury, Albert had since 1933 maintained the ( pany's contacts to high Nazi funcbonanes, with Dearborn's knowledge.2 played a key role ui Ford's endeavor to run up high revenues in Nazi Ger many while maintaining American ownership. After the German conquests m western Europe in 1940, Albert arranged for the Reich's appointment of Robert Hans Schmidt-chief exec utive of Ford Werke since 1938--as the "enemy property custodian" of the Ford units m Belgium, the Netherlands, and France Edsel Ford sanctioned Cologne's takeover of these independent Ford companies in a letter of 10 October 1940. We have a fairly complete impression of the present status of the Ford Compa nies m Germany as well as the other occupied temtones It is quite evident and very gratifying that you and your organization are looking after our interests suc cessfully and we appreciate your efforts on our behalf I am glad to hear that the outside plants are beginning to operate, as it is the only way for rehabilitation to take place, and after all there are many people financially interested in these properties besides ourselves Anything that can be done constructively to keep these plants in operation will be a great help for the future 27 Cologne was well aware that the United States might soon become involved in the war In that event, the Reich Commissioner for the Treat ment of Enemy Property (hereafter- the Reichskommissar) would be empowered to impose a trusteeship on all companies owned wholly or even partly by U S citizens 28 The Ford Werke management therefore strove to reach a friendly arrangement with the Reichskommissar in advance They argued that Ford Werke was "Germanized" and fully integrated in the Nazi war machine. The management and directorate wrote the Reichskommissar injune 1941 to hst in detail Ford's many services to the Nazi Reich. By rais ing exports, they said. Ford Werke had helped improve the Reich's current accounts. At the Reich's behest, Ford arranged imports of scarce raw mate rials for other German manufacturers. The company supported the German occupation of Czechoslovakia m March 1939 with "large dehvenes from abroad," according to the letter The Cologne factory was converted entirely to war production after the invasion of Poland- "The plant is in every regard an armaments operation " Cologne also oversaw the conversion to Wehrmacht production of the Ford plants in the occupied Netherlands, Bel gium and France, the letter notes 29 At a time when Henry Ford was stil] refusing arms contracts from the U S government. Ford Werke Cologne had become an important partner of the German Wehrmacht Revenues increased from 177 million RM in 1933 to 118 8 million RM m 194030 "As elsewhere, the demands of a war economy were the decisive factor in our concluded business year 1940," the management reported in spring 1941 to the last general assembly before an enemy property trusteeship was decreed for Cologne "To our satisfaction, we saw Ford vehicles from Cologne standing by the Wehrmacht everywhere in the hundreds--as helpers tried and true."31 Normally a foreign company that evidenced willingness to cooperate with the Reich was neither confiscated nor liquidated, but placed under the trusteeship of a custodian from the company itself The Nazis did not sub stantively attack Ford after December 194132 Ford Werke's chief executive, Robert Schmidt, was appointed custodian by order of the Reichskommissar on 15 May 1942 Schmidt had started out at Ford's Berlin sales department in 1926, and worked his way up to General Director (CEO) in 1938 His appointment as custodian was supported by no less a Nazi than Baron Kurt Freiherr von Schroder, a pnmary financial backer and an architect of the Thud Reich, the organizer of the "Fnends of Himmler" Ford transacted some of its business through Schroder's Bankhaus Stem.33 Schroder called the Legal Office of the Fdhrer (Kanzlei des Fiihrers) to urge Schmidt be appointed, and followed up with a letter to the Kanzlei on 7 February 1942 Therein he wrote that Schmidt enjoyed his full confidence as a "Party Com rade and Wehrwirtschaftsfuhrer." The latter title ("Arms Economy Leader") was a Nazi honorific for loyal industrialists. The Kanzlei des Fuhrers was s nerve center for the euthanasia program and the Holocaust Its support sealed Schmidt's custodial appointment34 The directorate was thereupon dissolved Albert, Krauch, Botzkes anc Hunemeyer-the Germans on the duectorate--were appointed to a new "advisory council" {Beiratj without the two Americans 35 In practice, th< trusteeship had litde impact on management at Ford Werke Schmidt': "certificate of appointment" empowered him to represent the company foi all legal and business purposes He was free to delegate to the managemen board all of its old powers, although a change m mandate requued thi Reichskommissar's approval Otherwise the Reichskommissar held a veto over actions that might expand, divest, or shut down Ford Werke m whole or in part (including its properties, shares in other companies, branches etc) The files leave no doubt that Schmidt's activities met with the Reich skommissar's approval throughout the war In difficulties Schmidt evei called upon the Reichskommissar's support Only on one occasion did th< Reich Economics Ministry (RWM) block one of Schmidt's moves--hi attempt, m late 1944, to found a Vienna-based GmbH for doing busines in Slovakia 36 Officially, all contacts to Ford Motor Company in Dearborn were cut ol after the U S entered the war and Schmidt was appointed custodiar Whether and how Dearborn was informed about Ford Werke's subsequec operations in the Reich, and to what extent it exercised influence o Cologne's policies and operations, is a major question for future researcl Contacts may have been maintained through the branches in France, or i Denmark, where Ford Werke developed and built generators with hel from IG Farben Or in Switzerland, where Ford dealers repaired aboi 1,000 Wehrmacht vehicles in 1940 and supplied the Wehrmacht with aboi 2 million RM in replacement parts m 1943.37 It can be stated that Ford Werke's course in the 1940s was followed wit the full knowledge and support of the Ford Motor Company m Dearbor and its ownership By making business with the enemy, Ford became a accomplice m the crimes of the Nazi regime I "'V The Several Groups of Forced Laborers at Ford Werke The outbreak of the war on 1 September 1939 caused an immediate col lapse m the passenger car market and plunged Ford Werke and other auto motive producers into a crisis The regional military authority for war resource allocation-the "Armaments Commando" (Riistungskommando) of Cologne--reported on 15 September 1939 that "Ford will be letting go of about 200 to 300 salaried employees and 1,200 workers within the next 10 days, as business m passenger cars is reaching a standstill. Most of the lay offs can be avoided insofar as mobilization orders for trucks now get going...."38 Ford took on a small number of munitions production and sim ilar military contracts,39 and jomed Daimler-Benz and Opel as a main sup plier of three-ton trucks to the Wehrmacht for the rest of the war40 According to one estimate, of 350,000 Wehrmacht trucks in 1942, 50,000 had been built by Opel and 120,000 by Ford41 As the war went on, Ford lost more and more of its male German work ers to the draft Foreign laborers were needed to meet the constantly rising official production quotas The "labor question" became a long-running sub ject at meetings of the company's custodial advisory council. The council's minutes of 17 August 1942 read "The war program until now ran at about 4,000 units per quarter The authonties have ordered a rise in output to about 7,000 units per quarter That requires a more intensive use of pnsoners, especially Russians, who already make up nearly */4 of the personnel "42 The situation had worsened byJanuary 1943: "The labor question has got ten extraordinanly difficult Military recruitment is no longer sparing our key people The gaps in the factory, in purchasing, and m other departments are growing, and the hired foreigners no longer suffice This is another mat ter causing major worries at the Ford plant"43 s From the first days of the war, the labor shortage in the German Reich 1 was constant and ever more severe As a result, the supply of food within t the Reich might have fallen off disastrously m winter 1940, if not for the two I^MMjJhon foreigners working at German farms If not for foreign labor, war ^^^HMiichon would have collapsed sifter fall 1941.44 In August 1944, a total of million non-German laborers accounted for one-quarter of all workers in k flie German Reich. The proportion of foreign workers at arms makers at r that time averaged about 50 percent.45 Most of the companies displayed : great initiative in attracting laborers through their own campaigns abroad, but above all by lobbying the three mam sources for forced recruits 1} the Arbeitsamt (Labor Offices) for "civilian workers" from the occupied coun tries, 2) the Wehrmacht and its Stalag prison-camp system for prisoners of war, and 3) the SS-WVHA, the bureaucratic administration and economic agency of the SS, for concentration camp prisoners Foreign groups were divided mto a strict hierarchy: "Westarbeiter," "Ostarbeiter," prisoners of war, KZ prisoners They were subject to a legal structure of discrimination that specified rules for every detail of then fives, defined their food rations and lodgings, their wages, and the make-up of the security forces guarding them Drastic sanctions were approved and enforced in keeping them down, for they were viewed as a threat to domes tic security. The basic framework for the treatment of forced laborers was set by various official decrees (Erlasst) such as the "Ostarbeiter Decrees" of February 1942 In the course of the war these were modified and reinter preted, in some ways tightened, in others loosened. But the actual condi tions under which forced laborers lived and worked varied greatly from company to company. The companies had a decisive influence upon factors such as the food, medical care, lodgings, and workplace treatment Compa nies had an even more important leeway in deciding how many forced laborers they would use, and from which of the available sources they would draw their forced laborers.46 The first group known to have worked as forced laborers at Ford Werke, according to the available evidence, were a contingent of French prisoners of war assigned to Niehl at some point m 1940.47 That year, many of the war businesses in the jurisdiction of the Cologne Armaments Commando began clamoring for assignments of POW laborers Groups of prisoners were finally distributed among the companies in July and August 1940.48 The Wehrmacht and the German Reich thereby acted in violation of the 1929 Geneva Convention, which prohibits the use of prisoners of war as laborers in military production. The treatment of the POWs also violated the Con vention's requirement of "due respect for their persons and dignity."49 The French prisoners at Ford in 1940 were presumably sent by Stalag VI in Bonn. No French POWs from Ford have been interviewed, and practi cally no documents from Stalag VI still exist today, so that very fitde is known about their numbers or the conditions under which they lived and labored at Ford in 1940-41.50 It is confirmed that Stalag VI later provided Ford with Italian "military internees" in 1943, as reported by the former Ital ian prisoner, Mareno Mannucci. The Italians were kept in a part of the Ford camp with the sign "STALAG VIG, ARBEITSKOMMANDO 619" posted at the entrance51 Forced laborers of other nationalities report that the French at Ford in 1942 lived under relatively privileged conditions, with better food and lodg ing than the other groups They were reportedly allowed to leave the camp area after work and on weekends We may therefore infer that the first French prisoners of wax were gradually redesignated "civilian workers," or replaced by other French nationals.52 By 1942 at the latest. Ford employed 400 to 500 "civilian workers" or "Westarbeiter" from France, the Netherlands, and Belgium Some of the "Westarbeiter" were no doubt voluntary recruits, who may have come to Ford with the idea that they could earn good wages there But the Reich occupation authonbes often recruited labor in the conquered Western coun tries by compulsion Yvon Thibaut was compelled to sign up for work by the occupation authority in Belgium in October 1942 He was told that other wise, his brother or his father would be taken by force Thibaut was one of seventy to eighty Belgians at the Ford camp in Cologne 53 Dutch nationals 144 | WorkingJar tlu ,nmy are also mentioned as laborers at Ford, in a letter written by Schmidt54 Among the foreigners, the Western "civilian workers" clearly received the best treatment, with better food, lodging and pay, and a degree of freedom including holiday privileges 55 Five hundred Italian soldiers were brought to Ford in November 1943 as "Italian military internees" (called "IMIs") and used as forced laborers They had gone through the Stargard (II D) prisoner camp and the camp at Meppen, where they received numbers from 15,001 to 15,500, before being brought to Ford.56 Captured by German forces after the Italian surrender, IMIs were considered traitors and called "Badogho pigs."57 Their treatment m the Reich was especially brutal m the first few months They were redes ignated as civilians in September 1944, at which point their food improved and security measures were loosened.58 The first contingent of forced laborers from the Soviet Union came to Ford in April 1942. Called "Ostarbeiter," they soon made up the largest group of "foreigners" at Ford Werke.59 Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarussian workers occupied some of the lowest rungs in the Nazi racist hierarchy, and accordingly received the worst treatment of the groups at the factory They faced draconian ngor under the Reich's Ostarbeiter decrees of February 1942,60 which ordered that they be "stncdy" isolated from the German pop ulation Sex with Germans was prohibited That was normally punishable by death "Ostarbeiter" were subject to a night-time curfew. They were banned from making use of public transport or recreational facilities, attend ing cultural events, or riding bicycles. Their mail was censored The "Slavs" were m every regard relegated to the status of "subhumans." Ford also kept a smaller group of Polish forced laborers. Poles were sub ject to similarly rigid rules under the "Pohsh Decrees" {Polenerlassej of 8 March 1940.61 According to the testimonies of the survivors and company sources, the majority of the 1,200 enslaved Soviet nationals at Ford as of summer 1943 were female adolescents Aged sixteen or seventeen, most of them had been taken summarily from their villages and towns, by force Anna Nesteruk describes her abduction: The soldiers of Fascist Germany marched into our temtory in the first days of the war [i e., the invasion of the Soviet Union in lateJune 1941] But we were earned off to forced labor, as it is called, on 3June 1942, dnven by blows from nfle butts to Starokonstanbnov in the region of Chmelmzky. We weren't even given a chance to say goodbye to our families Armed soldiers went from house to house They were die local police, commanded by the German occupiers Hiding was pointless because they could shoot whole villages And so we sat and waited for the fateful hour when they would come for each of us Like a herd of cattle we were dnven forth on foot, but where and why we scared little girls and boys did not know We hoped that we weren't being taken to be shot, because a great many Jews, Poles, and other nationalities had already been shot in Starokonstantmov for various offenses, as defined by the German occupiers, in the months fromJune 1941 toJune 1942 . We were so many, mostly children and adolescents. Then we were put in cargo cars, bars on the windows, and taken to Germany 62 Anna Nesteruk's transport went straight to Cologne. The Cologne Arbeitsamt distributed the young women among companies "like a commodity," as Klawdia Podobed put it Other enslaved civilians arrived at Ford through one of the intermediary camps serving the labor offices of the Rhineland, or after a period at a different workplace Inna Kulagina reports that she and a group of young women were picked out personally by a Ford employee at the Wuppertal intermediary camp.63 One-quarter of Ford personnel as of August 1942 were foreign laborers, about 1,000 people in all, mostly prisoners of war and enslaved Soviet civil ians 64 The labor bureaus cooperated with the armaments commandos in assigning "Ostarbeiter" wherever they would best serve war production For the third quarter of 1942, the Wehrmacht prioritized production of Ford's "Maultier" (mule) trucks Developed especially for the German armed forces, these three-ton trucks had a center axle to allow the addition of caterpillar tracks in the rear The assignment of Soviet laborers to Ford was raised to help increase Maultier output-65 ByJune 1943, about half of die 4,985 Ford employees were foreign nationals The largest group consisted of 1,200 "Ostarbeiter "66 Overall personnel rose to 5,742 by the end of 1943, so that Ford was running one of the largest labor camps in Cologne.67 These fig ures do not account for labor at Ford's estimated 350 suppliers 68 Life at the Ford Camp and Factory The assignment to a group within the Nazi hierarchy of "foreign peoples" was decisive in determining a forced laborer's living conditions At Ford, the racist order was expressed architecturally in the "AuslSnderlager," built right next to the factory on Henry Ford Strasse 69 The camp was divided into three separate areas- a "Russian Camp" for Soviet forced laborers, a "Westarbeiter" camp, and (starting in 1943) one for Italian military internees7C The three areas were named after German Ford models, so that the "Russ ian Camp" was also called "Taunus."71 A portrait of Hitler hung m the bar rack where meals were served to the Soviet civilians. As if in mockery of th inmates, it bore a sign in Russian- "Hider the Liberator "72 The "Auslanderlager" was built m 1942, and covered twice the area of thi factory production halls Ford spent 830,000 RM for the barracks, 530,OCX RM of which was tax-deductible.73 The size of these investments suggest that the company was reckomng with a long-term deployment of the foreig workers Armed policemen with dogs patrolled the perimeter of the camj The forced laborers had to show identification on entering or leaving th camp The sole gate for "Ostarbeiter" ran through the inside of the secunt barrack74 Prisoners of war were never allowed to leave without guards Tt Cologne police had orders to arrest immediately any pnsoner of war spe ted alone on the street75 itv | '""V Kamila Felinska, a Polish national, was at first mistakenly assigned to the Russian camp and later taken for French, so that she spent time in both camp areas. She describes the difference between the two camps as one between "heaven and earth."76 As a rule, Soviet civilians were not allowed to leave the factory or camp Tamara Nosik, then a Soviet national, relates that the people in her transport to Ford were placed in an eleven-month quarantine immediately after their arrival in summer 1942 Afterwards small groups could request permission to leave the camp on Saturdays Barracks m the Russian camp were furnished with three-level wooden bunk beds and mattresses filled with sawdust Each barrack held 250 to 300 people There was no privacy Several families, who had been abducted from the Soviet Union together, were lodged in a "family barrack." The very sparse furnishings stand out in Kamila Fehnska's mind "There was nothing there, only a large room, and in the middle there was a very long table." By contrast a couple in the French camp could even get a small room of their own with a cabinet, a table and two chairs Wherever they were, all of the interviewees recall that it was very cold The small ovens m the barracks were inadequate, with frequent fuel shortages The forced laborers were guarded by company security, police, and sometimes soldiers The commandant in the Russian camp was Police Offi cer Wierschheim, an older man usually called "the Boss " He was assisted by two Ukrainian deputies.77 The inmates received a "company identifica tion" with then camp number The Soviet civilians were required to wear a badge with "OST" for "Ostarbeiter" in very large letters The Italians wore a sign with their work number on their chest, and gray uniforms with an "IMI" label on the back Identification by number was the seal of deindividuahzation and degra dation The forced laborers were required to recite their numbers at roll-call and on other occasions. The memory of this particular humiliation still hurts today. "We had no name, we were only a number. We were a labor unit, not people," says Inna Kulagina. The camp order was, as Anna Nesteruk says, "very strict" "Ostarbeiter" were constantly reminded of their general help lessness and of the many rules devised for them Inna Kulagina "We had to sign a paper promising we would have no relationships with the Germans. And that anyone caught having a relationship with a German would be shot I signed that myself " Stepan Saika: "The guard could at any time rap or punch someone on the head There was no one to complain to, no right to complain, you were just livestock."78 According to Saika, guards earned out unannounced inspections at any and all tunes, mside the barracks and out From the barracks the prisoners went to work in columns and under guard They were used in nearly every department, on the production fine, in quality control, loading and unloading, and maintenance and construc tion around the plant grounds. The usually heavy work was earned out m twelve-hour shifts, day and night The young women were often exhausted. Risk of injury was especially high on night shifts Inna Kulagina once fell asleep in the bathroom Her supervisor found her and beat her unconscious Much of this labor would normally have been performed by qualified machine operators and framed craftsmen Stepan Saika received only a quick explanation of how to turn on the machine that made cylinder heads "I looked at these machines. Where could I have seen such machines in the village9 I thought, they will take off my head1" Overwhelmed and fearful, the young man grew apathetic and stopped taking care of himself His con dition unproved only after he was transferred, about a month later, to an easier job brushing metal rods.79 The forced laborers at the factory were at the mercy of the German per sonnel Many Germans seem to have helped them by secretly giving their food Some supervisors are described as friendly people A few acts of sab otage were specifically intended to slow down the pace of work for the forced laborers But the company security forces never rested m then effort! to prevent contacts between their "fellow Germans" (Volksgencsse) and th< "foreign peoples" (Fremdvolkische), by harsh punishment if necessary Ont German worker caught giving food to a foreigner was promptly sent off ti the front80 The interviewees also report that many of the Germans made use of thi opportunity to issue commands and harass the foreigners with impunit) "You could do anything you liked to a Russian or a Pole," one German whi worked at Ford relates. "They were fair game "81 The NSDAP encouragei inhumane treatment by propaganda actions that constandy invoked "th clear fine separating our fellow Germans from the foreign peoples, a lin drawn in blood "82 Anna Nesteruk desenbes being beaten on several occi sions, once for stealing potatoes. "We all felt the rubber truncheon We wer constandy afraid . But we also had moments of happiness, as when a Ge man foreman shared his piece of bread with us or gave us a buttered rol Those were moments of unlimited joy and gratitude But there were othi moments, when we were humiliated and called `Russian pigs', when v\ were struck with rubber truncheons "M Despite the heavy manual labor, the food was terrible Reich authontn had established a nationwide table of rations for each foreign group The! were so low that they even roused criticism from German agencies. As d Cologne Armaments Commando reported in September 1942 "Foe rations for the Ostarbeiter are completely insufficient Especially with su< a low intake of fat, it must be doubted whether the Ostarbeiter can keep t the demands placed on them in the long term."8* The forced laborers a unanimous in recalling constant hunger and weight loss. Mareno Mannuc lost over ten kdograms m three weeks He is all the more grateful to the c< league who secredy gave him bread The interviewees all stress that th' could have hardly survived those years without the extra bits of food th came their way. Finding ways to get more food was a necessary survival skill The Fren received packages from their families or the Red Cross. The Soviets had such privileges. Malnutrition drove many of them to desperate measur They needed inventiveness, luck, and courage. Those caught stealing fre MM UIKIliy the canteen were beaten Nadja Schubrawa was locked up In the camp prison for stealing a turnip Below we shall see that many attempts to get food ended in arrests by the Gestapo The company management and per sonnel were hardly unaware of these conditions: Leaflets decrying the "bread-begging of the Ostarbeiter" were passed out at the factory85 Sanitary conditions and medical care were also terrible According to a former German worker, Ford "did just enough to prevent epidemics, noth ing more."86 The medical care in the camp was limited to absolute neces sity Injuries sometimes went untreated Lidija Solotarjewskaja tells of how she once had her finger slammed very hard by her supervisor. She had to bind her hand herself. Her finger was crippled. According to Mareno Mannucci, every two months the Italians were subjected to selections. The sick were exchanged for new prisoners from the Stalag m Bonn A closer study of known deaths from the Ford camp hints at the living conditions The Westfriedhof cemetery in Cologne has the graves of three babies from the Ford camp. They were aged six, nine, and thirteen months Nothing is known about the causes of their deaths87 There were at least eleven other deaths due to unknown causes among the Polish and Russian forced laborers at Ford Conspicuous m most of these cases is that they were very young, seventeen to twenty-one years old.88 The Birthing Ward, Children's Barracks, Abortions One of the most difficult stones is m the treatment of pregnant women, babies and children Anna Obuchowskaja, one of the interviewed Soviet nationals, gave birth to a girl on 14 November 1943 She did not see a doc tor or a nurse during her pregnancy. She delivered her baby in the barracks, and was forced to return to work soon after. She was allowed to go to the camp to breast-feed her child. Children at the camp were attended by Ger man and Russian kindergarten teachers. A company document from 1943 creates the impression that Ford showed great concern for families and built maternity facilities and a home for babies89 However a controversy that arose in 1947, when Ford Werke re-hired Carl Wenzel, the head doctor at ^he factory during the war, gives nse to doubts about whether the earlier description was truthful Having jomed the NSDAP in December 1931, before the Nazis took power, Wenzel enjoyed the status of an "old fighter" under the Nazi regime He was let go from his factory doctor's post in December 1945, and put through de-Nazification proceedings There he produced a number of char acter witnesses. The former paramedic of the "Auslanderlager" wrote, m a November 1947 deposition, that Wenzel was responsible for especially good sanitary conditions at the Russian camp, and added He saw to the lodgings and clothing, nutrition, mental recreation and so on, and took exceptional efforts to arrange for a birthing station with a children's bar racks, and did then set it up Every child had a pretty little bed, strollers were bought. It was a joy for everyone when they could go out for a stroll with the child He treated women who were pregnant or post-natal and children just like Germans, granting them the same care, extra rations, and time to rest90 Wenzel's own remarks serve as a curious counterpoint Accused of hav ing carried out racially motivated abortions on "Ostarbeiter" women at the camp, he argued these were humanitarian actions, given the dire straits of the pregnant women, who were usually sick, and given the "impossibility of raising children "91 Pregnancies among "Ostarbeiter" were a kind of abomination to the Party and much of the public. Until 1942 pregnant Soviet women were sent back home, but later a movement arose towards legitimating abortions for pregnant Polish and "Ostarbeiter" women, as their labor was considered too precious to lose A general order of 11 March 1943 allowed abortion for these groups on the woman's request, given an approval by the local med ical association 92 Kresse, one of the doctors appointed fpr the Russian camp by Wenzel, claimed that many Soviet women Applied for abortions follow ing the publicizing of this order. At first the procedures were earned out in a Cologne hospital ward set up for the purpose The medical conditions there were catastrophic, Kresse said. The operations were done without anesthetics. Many women returned to the Ford camp with infections, and had to stay in bed for weeks 93 According to Wenzel's testimony, there were later ten cases in which abortions were earned out at the Ford camp by either Kresse or himself, but always at the woman's request Wenzel's claims that his motives were humamtanan and that the women aborted voluntanly were contested at his de-Nazificahon procedure His for mer nurse, who on ethical grounds had refused to help him perform the abortions, raised senous accusations The de-Nazificahon commission of Cologne took the following minutes of her testimony Id questioning, Mrs Str said 2 abortions were earned out within a short time on the same person, who was about 40 years old The woman's health suffered greatly According to the same testimony, an abortion was earned out on a Russ ian woman who was six months pregnant Mrs. Str would find it regrettable if Dr Wenzel were to return to the company With regard to nutrition at the Russian Camp, Mrs Str stated that Dr W did not exercise a minimum supervision She claims to have often complained to Dr W about the poor nutrition for the chil dren and the adults, but Dr W never took action 94 Based on these accusations, the de-Nazificahon commission asked for a statement from the Cologne Medical Association.95 Determining that there had been seventy births in the camp as opposed to ten abortions (the abor tions at the hospital were not taken into account), the Association wrote. It would contradict medical expenence to see 10 indications for discontinuation, based on health, out of 80 pregnant women of average health. . The ratio of 70 healthy births to 10 abortions does not confirm Dr W's assertion that abortions were earned out rarely and only for health reasons, but on the contrary demon strates that other mohves were surely decisive Such motives could include. 1 13V | Irorangjor me anemy Racial policy or a desire to minimize absence from work. 2 Regard for the surely difficult situation of the expectant mothers, i e social indications We are clos est to the truth if we do not view one of these mouves, but the sum of them all, as decisive m the decision to abort Surveillance and Repression, Wages and Profits Throughout Germany, company secunty forces (Werkschut^ played a key role in supervising and disciplining all personnel and especially the forced laborers.96 Company forces consisted of both full-time guards and part-time recruits from among German personnel Under the Ostarbeiter decrees, the Werkschutz were expected to work closely with the Gestapo They took an increasingly paramilitary cast from year to year A general order to Gestapo offices, dated 20 February 1942, requires all companies making use of Soviet workers to appoint a political "counter-intelligence representative" (AbwehrbeaufiragU) to supervise the company secunty force. The same order urged the assignment of full-time Gestapo units to sensitive workplaces The Gestapo was, among other tasks, specifically charged with "fighting insubordination." They investigated "plots by enemies of the Reich" and cases of "sexual intercourse with Germans." The latter was to be punished by deportation to a concentration camp or "special treatment" (Sonderbehandlung) That was the euphemism for murder. "Less serious cases" were left to company security, who were granted full authonty to carry out beat ings' "In breaking acute resistance, the watchmen are also allowed to use physical methods on the laborers "97 Company secunty forces, which were already bound to follow Gestapo and military orders starting m March 1939, were officially placed under the exclusive supervision of the Gestapo in October 1943, completing a close intertwining of the state and company disciplinary structures 98 "Company leaders" (Betnebsfiihrei) were urged to work closely with Party, State and Gestapo in assunng the discipline and productivity of the foreign workers. The counter-intelligence representatives received regular propaganda schoolings from the Gestapo.99 The first counter-intelligence representative at Ford was Wilhelm H. Buchwald His deputy in the counter-intelligence hierarchy was none other than the "Company Leader" himself, Robert H Schmidt Schmidt's official "counter-intelligence" author ities were identical to Buchwald's. Buchwald reported regularly to the Cologne Gestapo 100 To date, no information is available about the size of the secunty forces at Ford, but a guideline issued by the Cologne Arma ments Commando urged that 30 percent of the male German workforce be incorporated into the forces in full-time or part-time capacities.101 Several cases are known of forced laborers from Ford who were turned over to company secunty or the Gestapo on suspicion of theft, misappro priation, or "plundering " Two of the stdl-existing case files show that the accused was released after an investigation.102 Another case went badly Kambur Gonki left the camp to search for food. On his return, he was cap tured by a secunty patrol and turned over to the police. After a brief impris onment, they sent him to the Gestapo for assignment to a "work education camp."103 Run by the Gestapo, these camps were m many ways comparable to the KZs In another case, the police held two laborers from the Ford camp for theft from 13 January to 6 February 1945, and later deported them to KZ Buchenwald 104 The basement of the Cologne Gestapo Headquarters, in the so-called ELDE Haus not fax from the famous Cathedral, was a pnson Several hundred people were interrogated and tortured there during the war. Today, EL-DE Haus is home to the city's NS Documents Center and a permanent histori cal exhibition on the Nazi era. On the walls of the former cells, litde more than brief narrow passageways into which dozens of prisoners would be crammed without room to sit, the many inscriptions carved by the inmates still evoke their hopes and terrors 105 Cell 8 is full of inscriptions by Nikolai Bulotschnik, a man from the Ford camp who was caught and turned over to the Gestapo for stealing Nor is the one happy who shall return No lucky day awaits him He will beforced to steal again and once more boys the prison Another Russian inscription, inside a heart, makes known the death of Nikolai Bulotschnik106 NIKOLAI BULOTSCHNIK FORD sleeps a PEACEFUL SLEEP City of STAL1NO LIVED FOR 21 YEARS ETERNAL REMEMBRANCE AND ETERNAL PEACE WAS HANGED WITH THE 3rd GROUP Nikolai Bulotschmk's execution cannot be dated, because those murderec by the Gestapo at EL-DE House were all buried in unmarked graves More is known about Michail Lahpow, 32, a Russian, and Piotr Satew 21, a Ukrainian. They were sentenced to death by a "Sondergencht," one o the Nazis' summary political courts 107 On 30 August 1943, LaUpow am Satew, both forced laborers from Ford, took clothes from the basement c an unoccupied house that had been destroyed some weeks earlier rnanai L3Z | vronaugpr uie county raid They wanted to bring these back to the Ford camp Back out on the street, they were confronted by a passerby and soon after arrested On 7 Sep tember 1943, Sondergencht 3 of the Landgencht Cologne, with a Judge Sudholz presiding, sentenced the two men to death for the crime of plun dering Their plunder was a bunch of dirty rags A clerk with the Justice Ministry named Meissner wrote, a few days after the sentencing' "As foreign workers the condemned men treated in a base way the last belongings of our injured fellow Germans. We see no extenuating circumstances to justify a milder treatment I therefore propose not invoking the right of reprieve, but allowingjustice to take its free course." The men were both married Their wives were also forced laborers at Ford. As the authorities documented, they had acted m desperation. Piotr Satew wanted the clothes for his wife, who was pregnant and in her eighth month In a last letter, addressed to the Russians at Ford, he begged his countrymen to take care of his wife, and to break the news of his fate to her gently Lahpow's wife was also expecting. In his last letter, he asked that his child be named after him The letters were never sent, but added to the case files with the following note: "The contents make these letters inappropriate for delivery, since the story as told by the letter writers will call forth unrest among the Ostarbeiter " Latipow and Satew were executed at Cologne's Khngelputz Prison on 4 October 1943. "Satew was taken from his cell at 15.15 and brought before the Prosecutor for the announcement of consummation of his sentence He was very upset He did not admit his guilt and claimed he had been unjustly condemned He begged for religious counsel He remained upset, until the execution " On the next day, the Municipal Publicity Office put up 330 posters to announce the executions, all around the city There can be no doubt that die news made a lasting impression on the "Ostarbeiter " Three other forced laborers from the Ford camp fell into the Gestapo's custody in fall 1944 Many "Ostarbeiter" took to hiding amid the rums of the bombed-out city. They armed and defended themselves against the pohce and Gestapo The Gestapo reacted to the loss of control with brutal crackdowns, round-ups, executions. In November 1944, the Gestapo arrested two "Ukrainian civilian workers" in the Ford camp on suspicion of plundering They announced an upcoming "major action" at the Ford camp.10a Later that week, possibly in the course of this "major action," there was a shoot-out at the Russian camp A third "Ostarbeiter" was arrested by Wehrmacht soldiers on suspicion of "gang membership," and turned over to the Gestapo 109 Escape was almost impossible, especially for the Soviet laborers In his 1992 interview, Ivan Anarutsch was asked whether he had ever thought of escaping from the camp The question seemed so odd that he had to laugh: "You could probably get away, but where would you go9 No one paid atten tion to me They let me through the gate, but it was pointless to run If I had gotten away, they would have arrested me in the city, and sent me back " Fugitives of course faced worse dangers than being "sent back," as the forced laborers well knew. Stepan Saika tells the story of a group of French men and two Russian women who hid in a tram headed from Ford Werke to the Russian Front At the Polish border the tram was searched, and they were sniffed out by the dogs The men were shot on the spot, the women were sent to a penal camp. Given these CIRCUMSTANCES, it is not surprising that the Russians com prised the most reliable and efficient group of laborers at Ford Werke in the summer of 1943 The advisory council minutes ofJuly 1943 note that the "labor-power" {Arbettsbaflj of the Russians was "at about 90 percent of a normal German worker's " The "labor power" of the average German worker was said to have fallen off to 75 percent as a result of the many air raids on Cologne German morale was further undermined by the nse in working hours, from fifty-four to sixty a week Their sick rate was running at an extraordinary 17 percent110 The "Westarbeiter" were by then causing many problems at Ford. About a third of the French, Belgian and Dutch civilians had escaped during the air raids, or failed to return from vacations. The situation among the French was considered critical. Seventeen out of one group of nineteen who went on holiday never came back to Ford.111 Instead of recruiting workers who "then disappear at the first opportu nity," Ford now took up the strategy of transferring assembly and parts man ufacture to Belgium, or to other occupied territories.112 Robert Schmidt had started taking steps m that direction from the moment he was appointed commissanal custodian of the Ford Motor Company units in Belgium and Holland. Ford Motor Company of Antwerp was placed under Schmidt's administration on 29 May 1940, after which Cologne devised the produc tion plans for the Antwerp plant, and gradually integrated Antwerp into its arms program The mostly Belgian personnel jumped from 312 on 1 Octo ber 1940 to 1,080 on 31 December 1941, finally reaching 2,200 in 1944.113 Schmidt was crafting his postwar scenarios at a very early stage, as reported in the company magazme, Ford-Werkszfiituttg, in summer 1941 "As the Com missar for Ford operations m the Occupied Territories, Wehrwirtschaftsfuhrer R.H. Schmidt is preparing Ford to take the measures required in the interests of a European economy after the war."114 The overwhelming majority of forced laborers at Ford received very low wages or none whatsoever KZ prisoners got nothing Companies were required to pay a fixed per diem to the SS for each KZ prisoner (four RM for so-called assistants, six RM for skilled workers) In the month of November 1944, for example, Ford paid 5,220 RM to SS-WVHA for its KZ satellite com mando 115 Almost no other documents concerning costs or wages for forced laborers at Ford survive Here we shall review the reigning general practices, as supplemented through oral reports from former forced laborers at Ford. Prisoners of war received no wages. A fixed per diem, derived as a per centage of a German worker's average wage, was paid to the command of 104 vrvrrangjvt we rjieutj each "Wehrkreis," the regional defense district that administered the Stalag POW camps."6 Mareno Mannucci was brought to Ford as an "Italian mili tary internee" in 1943, and later given "civilian worker" status When he was transferred away from the Ford camp, he received 50 reichsmarks as the wages for over one year's work By decree, wages for "Westarbeiter" were lower than those for German workers Actual net pay was in part determined by the companies, which deducted variable amounts from wages to cover the costs of a laborer's food or lodging The wages paid across the Reich for "Ostarbeiter" were so low that com panies were embarrassed to pay them, as Armaments Commando VI reported in March 1942 The deployment of civilian Russians of male and female gender has by now begun at a number of arms makers The companies are satisfied with their work enthusiasm and conduct They are womed about the very low wages, however The companies have been reluctant so far to pay these amounts, in the fear that the low rates will act as an immediate damper on work enthusiasm IV Again, m paying wages companies made use of a large leeway to deduct for food and lodging The payroll accountant at Ford testified, soon after the war, that after withdrawals for taxes, insurance, lodging and food the "Rus sians" received less than half the wages due them under the regulations.118 This may explain why former "Ostarbeiter" from Ford report unanimously either that they got no money or, according to Stepan Saika, only worthless "camp money " At the end of 1943, looking back on the past year, Reichskommissar Johannes Krohn expressed his satisfaction to Robert Schmidt "that the enterprises you administer contributed even more towards raising our arms potential in the year 1943 than m 1942."119 Ford's revenues were indeed impressive, having reached 128 million RM in 1941, 132 million RM in 1942 and a peak of 184 million RM m 1943 120 Even in 1944, with the Allies approaching and bombing from all directions and causing repeated pro duction stoppages. Ford still turned over 137 million RM in the first three quarters m Production bogged down only after the total collapse of the city's infrastructure in the devastating attacks of fall 1944 The conspicuously high profits registered by "enemy companies" caused disputes between vanous Reich ministries. The Ministry of Economics (RWM) was especially keen to grab the profits 122 A high-level tax inspector named Hiller was sent out in September 1943 to audit several foreign com panies, including Opel, Ford, Hollenth, and Kodak He observed an impres sive growth in assets at all of the companies He found that Ford-Werke AG assets had grown from 14 8 million RM m 1938 to 36 7 million RM in 1942, and that net liquid assets had in the same period risen from 10 million RM to 28 million RM Hiller attributed this phenomenal growth above all to a rise in revenues through Wehrmacht contracts and the consequent opera tion of plant at full capacity. As a thud reason, he cited the use of cheap labor, such as pnsoners of war and "Ostarbeiter."123 Supported by the Foreign Ministry and the Reich Finance Ministry, th< Reichskommissar put up a stubborn and successful resistance against RWM': designs on Ford's profits.*24 The dividends due to Ford Werke shareholder from "enemy states" were not paid during the war, but also not confiscated They were left to Ford-Werke AG, and logged m the accounts books as loan > from the shareholders or new equity125 The Buchenwald Satellite at Ford Werke In the final two years of the war, even with the Wehrmacht falling back o all fronts. Ford and the rest of the arms industry continued producing for th Nazi Reich's last stand. The Western Allies landed in Normandy on 6 Jun 1944 and liberated France that summer. On the Eastern Front, the Re Army on 22June launched an offensive that smashed the German lines an reached the gates of Warsaw that autumn. No doubt remained that the Na Reich would suffer total defeat In August 1944, Ford set up a new camp near the factory in Niehl T1 KZ slave-labor squad known as "Aussenkommando Koln-Ford" moved in the camp on 12 August 1944 The use of KZ pnsoners in truck production came late in the war, ai only after Armaments Minister Speer had applied sufficient pressure on tl other authorities Following a decree by Hider m July 1944, Heinn Himmler ordered that 12,000 KZ pnsoners be made available for truck pi duction It was in this connection that Ford also received a KZ squad. Fon squad comprised fifty men selected from KZ Buchenwald' thirty-five Ri sians, ten Czechs, two Germans, two Poles, and a stateless man. They w< guarded by a unit of sixteen SS troopers 126 Ford's contacts to the SS went back much further than that Prison from Aussenlager Messe, the KZ satellite camp set up in September 19 at the Cologne Fairgrounds, had often been assigned to work at Ford Kazimierz Tamawski was among a Messe group who traveled to Ford a back every day. If no transport car was free, they took the several kilor ters on a forced march. At the company's docks on the Rhine, they loac up ships with boxes headed to the Ford branch m Bucharest. Anot "Aussenkommando" with KZ pnsoners built bunkers on a field to the nc of the factory128 The Messe camp was withdrawn from Cologne in May 1944 Apj ently upset, the municipal authonties led a lobbying campaign fo renewed assignment of KZ laborers. Three small commandos were thi upon assigned to the largely leveled city in late summer 1944 one for municipality ("Aussenkommando Koln-Stadt"), one for Westwaggon, one for Ford129 In relative terms, the Ford KZ labor commando was a very small sate camp. To take three examples from the automotive industry. Dam BMW and Volkswagen employed thousands of KZ pnsoners under 15b | nOTKmgjvr UK cmchcj worst conditions imaginable 130 Compared to that, the conditions at KZ Aussenkommando Koln-Ford were better But the deployment of SS resources signals a new quality compared to Ford's use of forced laborers until then All KZ satellite camps practiced selection. Prisoners who were no longer able to work were exchanged for healthy ones from the mam camp. Returning to the mam camp, the sick faced a likely death of hunger and neglect, or execution Even if no one died or was killed at the Aussenkom mando itself, companies who made use of such squads were complicit in the National Socialist policy of annihilation The example of Opel (see Chapter I) furthermore shows that it was possible for an arms producer to avoid such direct use of SS "labor resources " Marian Gazinski, twenty-four years old at the time, was an automotive locksmith by trade In his telling, the barrack for him and the other KZ commando prisoners was located seventy to one hundred meters from the factory grounds Their fenced-in camp was painted green and kept spodess The center section of the barrack held rooms for command and guard posts, the kitchen, and baths and toilets. Either wing was furnished with a commissary and enough three-level wooden bunks for twenty-five prison ers each The SS men led them to Ford and watched as they worked Their shift ran from six in the morning to six at night KZ prisoners were kept well iso lated from all other workers Marian Gazinski was assigned wherever he was needed each day He operated a lathe, made engine parts, tested igni tions The number of skilled workers among the prisoners of the Ford Aussenkommando is conspicuously high.131 The camp commandant was twenty-seven years old. Mr. Gazinski describes SS OberscharfuhrerJosef Gergel as an "arrogant" but not a brutal man. The SS men did not mistreat the prisoners, but were "very concrete and determined," according to Mr. Gazinski "We always behaved very properly, because we had this discipline We knew you could lose your life for a trifle, so we stuck to the rules " In his recollection, the worst part about his time at Ford was the food, which he describes as worse even than at Buchenwald. Breakfast was coffee and two hundred grams of bread, dinner spinach and three potatoes or a white turnip soup He still remembers a plate of lentils as the best meal he had. No food was served during the fif teen-minute break at midday, no extra rations were given for heavier labor or special occasions Four prisoners escaped from the Ford commando 132 Nine more were assigned from Buchenwald and two transferred m from Kommando KolnStadt, so that Ford's group numbered sixty-one One died of unknown causes and five were sent back to Buchenwald for unknown reasons133 With the city destroyed and the Americans nearby. Ford Werke shut down oper ations altogether on 27 February 1945 The Aussenkommando was dis solved The remaining forty-eight prisoners were transported back to Buchenwald, where the death march began in early April 1945.134 Siege and liberation Although Ford Werke was a very important producer in the German war effort, it was not included in any Allied bombing plans until 2 October 1944 The U S Air Force flew two raids on Ford, on 15 and 18 October 1944. Instead of the factory, the bombs hit the barracks of the forced laborers.135 The "Plan of Factory Ford-Werke AG," drawn up for the occupation gov ernment one year later, shows five barracks having burned down during the wax. Of the plant itself, only a few smaller buildings are marked as having been hit136 One of the USAF attacks was witnessed by Franciszek W6jcikowski, a prisoner in KZ Aussenkommando Kdln-Stadt who was working at Ford As he remembers it, on that day, after the first sounding of air raid sirens, the factory gates were opened, and the people ran out and hid wher ever they could. The Soviet civilians ran to their barracks. After about a half hour, the bombers appeared and dropped incendiaries on the barracks At first a few people ran out of the barracks and back to the factory. Then no one could get past the flames An unknown number died. "The barracks with the people inside There was such a screaming! A terrible screaming." The intensive bombings of fall 1944 were the most impressive sign of the coming end of the war for Cologne A few of the forced laborers at Ford, among them Mareno Mannucci, were assigned to the labor army of the Armaments Ministry, known as "Organisation Todti" They built tank traps against the advancing Allies, who m October 1944 reached the town of Aachen, just 60 kilometers west of Cologne In the month that followed, most Cologne authorities and companies moved to the "safer," eastern side of the Rhine. Ford Werke began relocating in mid-September 1944 w Its machine capital was transported to various "dispersal locations" in the sur rounding country Afterwards most of the forced laborers were moved to overcrowded and under-supplied camps east of the Rhine.13* On I March 1945 the Gauleiter of Cologne (the Nazi distinct leader) ordered a supervised evacuation of the whole city west of the Rhine.139 Five hundred forced laborers from the Ford camp were brought to one of Ford's dispersal plants m Duemmlinghausen, a village m the upper Bergish Country near Gummersbach, on 3 March 1945.140 About 1,000 of the Ford laborers were held in the Cologne suburb of Bergisch Gladbach, east of the Rhine.141 Of course, production at the dispersal plants never got started in the mat confusion of the last days of war In early 1945 the Reichskommissar foi Enemy Property in Berlin lost all contact to Schmidt, who was presume! missing or dead A new custodian for Ford was appointed in Berlin Hi somehow got through the collapsing transport system to take a tour of thi Gummersbach location Meanwhile, the Gauleiter of Cologne, in his addi tional role as a "Reich Defense Commissar," appointed his own custodial for Ford's dispersal locations The second custodian was bent on getting prc duction running at the dispersal plants by the end of March 1945, by whai ever means. This was hopeless. In April the Wehrmacht collapse altogether, and U S forces crossed the Rhine As m the rest of the Reicl Nazi hardliners ordered all of Ford's machinery destroyed The Ford man agers circumvented this and instead followed a deviant order from Albert Speer's Armaments Ministry, to disable, but not destroy, the machines142 The Ford Werke factory grounds had been occupied along with all west ern parts of Cologne six weeks earlier, on 5-6 March The U S troops lib erated a group of 290 forced laborers who stuck it out at the bunkers in Niehl143 The majority of forced laborers, who had been evacuated east of the Rhine, remained in constant danger of being killed m the hostilities until their own liberation in mid-Apnl Mareno Mannucci still calls the thirteenth of April, 1945, the happiest day of his life. The Myth of the Model Camp After the war, Ford Werke and the great majority of its executives benefited from the "dual loyalty"144 they practiced under Nazi rule During the twelve years of the "Thousand-Year Reich," they took every effort to look and act like a loyal German company. As soon as the U S. troops arrived, they turned into the courageous protectors of American property The Ford Werke management immediately pledged their loyalty to the U.S. Military Government (MG), which m turn provided Ford Werke with decisive assis tance in resuming production American military units helped ship the almost intact machinery back from the dispersal locations, and transported Ford's German workers back from their evacuation In the last days of the war, Schmidt had ordered the sinking of Ford's nverbound spare-parts warehouse The Military Government raised the ship from the bottom of the Rhine, enough parts were salvaged to allow three months of truck pro duction On 8 May 1945, the day of Victory m Europe, the first new truck rolled off the assembly line at Ford Werke.145 The continuity m management was remarkable. The U S authorities in April 1945 appointed as the new company custodian Erhard Vitger, the same Danish executive who had sewed as Schmidt's second-in-command since 1937. He was joined on the new management board by Ford execu tives from Britain. Of Ford's 2,600 German employees, a total of forty failed their initial de-Nazification procedures, and were fired in the course of 1945.146 Some disappeared, like the "Shop Leader" (Betnebsobmann) Brunkhorst, a notorious and feared Gestapo informant But many of the Nazi-era executives had joined the NSDAP fairly late or not at all, and were exoner ated in their de-Nazification procedures as Category V: "incidental mem bers "M7 They were neither punished nor required to atone m any way. Of those who were fired, many returned to the factory, after a decent break of two or three years spent in effecting their rehabilitation The former "Wehrwirtschaftsfuhrer" and "Company Leader" Robert Hans Schmidt and the factory doctor Carl Wenzel were among them The re-employment of the factory doctor was controversial.148 He had been fired in December 1945, but later placed in Category TV. A "storm of indignation" broke out among the workers when they heard that he would be allowed to resume his old function on 15 September 1947. The works council, the newly elected representatives of the company personnel, voted to stage a work stoppage on that day An assembly of the personnel adopted a resolution against re-hinng Wenzel, with just two abstentions The work ers refused to accept medical care from an old "Party Comrade," all the more so since he would be involved in setting their sick time and rest peri ods They argued that Wenzel's professional conduct under the Third Reich had proven that he cared much more about the company's interests than the welfare of the personnel The investigations set off by these protests then discovered evidence of Wenzel's wartime abortions. The strike delayed but did not prevent Wenzel's return The doctor's case is exemplary of a cunous process after 1945, by which hundreds of thou sands of active Nazis and Reich supporters mutated overnight into "perse cuted opponents of the regime." Wenzel had once been a member m Germania Leipzig, a nght-wing nationalist dueling fraternity prohibited by the Nazis. His telling practically turned it into an opposition movement He used every argument in discrediting the mam witness against him, and apparently also got his friends to pressure her. The Ford "Auslanderlager" was stylized into a model camp Wenzel provided the de-Nazification board with a number of the exonerating third-party testimonies known popularly as "detergent certificates" (Persilschetri) Wenzel found three former "Ostarbeiter" who attested to his general helpfulness, a "Political" whom he had adopted as a protege just before the end of the war, and a co-worker who testified that Wenzel had "helped Jews " As for the details, the recipient of the help was a "halfjewish" woman terrified that her parents would be deported to the death camps. Doctor Wenzel promised that before that hap pened he would provide her with the poison they needed to kill themselves The debate over Wenzel's wartime conduct lost any factual dimension in the winter of 1947 and 1948, as it turned into a proxy for other conflicts brewing between labor and management. Wenzel successfully portrayed the accusations as a personal smear campaign The municipal appeals commis sion ruled in his favor on 13 Apnl 1948, writing: "[We) on the contrary are of the view that a part of the personnel are attempting to have workplace issues resolved to their favor by making use of the de-Nazification offices." Robert Hans Schmidt was a far less controversial figure among the "com pany community," but he also had to fight for his return 149 He served thi LJ S. Military Government with eloquence and readiness from the momen of their arrival in March 1945. MG Headquarters in Frankfurt ordered hi arrest inJune 1945, however, and he was interrogated for two months abou Ford-Werke AG and IG Farbenindustne AG By the time he was release and returned to Cologne, the city had been taken over by a British MG a part of the British Zone in the Allied organization of Occupied German' They slapped Schmidt with an employment ban, citing his honorific as "Wehrwirtschaftsfuhrer," the title he had held since Apnl 1941 Undi Allied guidelines, this was grounds for immediate firing *87" V In the-ensuing de-Nazification procedure, Schmidt reinvented himself as an internationalist and pacifist opponent of the Nazis. Not unlike Wenzel, he told of a "halfjew" and of a "political victim" whom he had helped. But his first attempt at rehabilitation still went awry The commission caught several false statements on his interrogation form He neglected to mention his job as a "Reichskommissar" for Ford properties in Belgium and Holland, and his articles with a Nazi tone m the Ford company newspaper The examples he cited of his "persecution" by the Nazis all turned out to be conflicts with individual NSDAP members that arose in the course of his efforts at build ing a private fortune In a concurring statement, the British MG also balked at clearing Schmidt "It is hard to believe regarding the carefulness with which the OKH and the NSDAP have selected their collaborateurs for responsible and leading positions that a completely politically unreliable person, as claimed by Schmidt, was selected for the positions stated above." Rejected, Schmidt went searching for more exonerating material. In his appeal motion of 10 September 1946, he pointed to his exemplary conduct towards the forced laborers: My basic attitude in all social and wage-issues naturally extended to the foreign workers, who were as decently treated, clothed, and fed as was at all possible under the very strict regulations I often directly violated legal regulations m order to ease the lot of die people who had been taken away from their homes by force, insofar as this was possible And here the limits of the possible were pushed far further than was generally the case Schmidt had seen how the war would turn out well in advance of the Allied victory. Instead of fleeing Cologne, he stuck it out at Ford Werke m March 1945. Now he claimed to be a resistance fighter who had defended the company's interests from the clutches of die Nazis His argument was helped by a letter from the NSDAP district leader of Gummersbach, dated 12 March 1945 Therein, Schmidt is accused of sabotage for delaying the transfer of Ford's production machmeiy to the dispersal locations This had helped thwart the Party's plans to destroy the machinery, and was very pos itively received by the personnel committee at Ford. It also helped that no documents confirming Schmidt's membership in the NSDAP had come to light. The commission never saw the only available source in which Schmidt is described as a "Party Comrade " That he had been a "Wehrwirtschaftsfiihrer" was considered at least as serious, however. Schmidt deflated it by pointing out that his title was conferred only by General Leeb, head of the Army Weapons Procurement Office, and not by Reichsmarshall Hermann Goring In no small part thanks to a recommendation from the Ford Werke works council, Schmidt was placed in Category V on 25 October 1947. By the mid-1950s, with Ford Werke once again firmly and openly under the control of Ford Motor Company, most of the key executives from the Nazi era had moved back into leading positions Six of them occupied posts on Ford Werke's eight-member board of managers as of 1956 Chairman Erhard Vitger and Deputy Chairman Robert Schmidt were joined by their P i* long-term associates, Hans Grandi, Ernst Sagebiel, Hans Schmidt, and Max Ueber Schmidt was promoted into the directorate in 1958, and remained associated with Ford Werke until his death on 24 October 1962 150 There is no doubt that the upper management at Ford was at least informed about the general living conditions of the forced laborers at then plant during the war All manner of eloquent statements about their "foreign workers" can be found m their de-Nazificahon files, dating from 1945 to 1948 In their efforts towards exonerating each other, they helped constitute the company legend of the "model camp," in which the "foreign laborers" had lived particularly well This legend not only found its way into the lit erature,151 but has been kept alive among the majority of retirees who wit nessed the war years at Ford Conclusion Under great legal and public pressure, a few major German industrial corporaUons finally brought themselves, in the course of 1998, to consider setting up compensation funds for Nazi-era forced labor These announce ments may be part of the companies' attempt to foil the enforcement of the former labor-slaves' legal claims, but they also constitute an admission by the companies that their former defense--that they were simply com pelled to follow the orders of the Nazi regime-has become untenable m light of the facts That Ford-Werke AG in Cologne did make extensive use of forced labor, and that its forced laborers were subjected to degrading conditions, is no longer subject to question Even if the available sources are meager on many points, Ford Werke cannot credibly claim that it was involuntarily assigned forced laborers to meet dictated production numbers No evidence suggests that Ford Werke made an effort to limit its production capacity to avoid employing forced labor. Much evidence shows that the American-owned German Ford unit actively and independently pursued an expansion of its operations at all times under the Third Reich, so that it became one of the most important suppliers of vehicles to the Wehrmacht That the Ford subsidiary in Cologne stood under the supervision of the Reichskommissar for the Treatment of Enemy Property starting in May 1942 does not, on closer examination, relieve the Ford Motor Company of its responsibility Long before then, already in 1940, Ford Werke was employing French prisoners of war as forced laborers The company's policy in the years from 1933 to 1941 is evident. FordWerke AG, with the knowledge and support of the Ford Motor Company m Dearborn, integrated its operations into the Nazi war economy and set off on the course that was followed after 1941 Strikingly, Ford returned to busi ness as usual very quickly after the end of the war, and in doing so relied heavily on its well-tested managers from the Nazi period. This apparendy smooth transition, with almost the same leadership from one era to the next. is tantamount to a sanctioning after the fact by Ford Motor Company of the activities pursued by these men under the Nazi regime. After the war the Ford Motor Company did not just reassume control of a factory, but implicitly assumed responsibility for its history Through the lawsuits filed by the former forced laborers, Dearborn is today confronted with more than five decades of its sins of omission Apparently no one at Ford Motor Company was interested in casting light upon this part of his tory, not even to exphcidy proclaim a distance from the practices of FordWerke AG during the Nazi era. - Karola Fings