11. Ford’s German Subsidiary Used Slave Labor and Was “An Arsenal of Nazism“
In addition to doing business with the Third Reich, Ford’s plants in Germany used slave workers in order to meet the demands of the Nazi war effort. Not only after America joined the war and the plants were seized by Germany, but also during the interval between the war’s outbreak in September, 1939, and America’s entry into the conflict in December 1941. During that period, this great American industrialist still controlled his company’s German subsidiary, and knew what was going on in its factories.
When the American forces liberated Ford’s plants in Nazi Germany, they found emaciated slave laborers behind barbed wires. A US Army investigator’s report, dated September 5th, 1945, accused Ford’s German subsidiary of serving as “an arsenal of Nazism“, with the parent company’s knowledge and consent.