22. Kodak’s European Branches Profited Greatly from Evil Practices Like Using Slave Labor and Collaborating With the Nazis During WWII
During WWII, the US embassy in London noted that Kodak frequently made: “fairly substantial purchases from enemy territory“. The embassy also noted: “[t]hat the idea that he has been helping the enemy seems never to have occurred” to Kodak’s Swiss branch manager when he made substantial purchases from Germany. An American official got in touch with the Swiss manager, and reported in late 1943: “I pointed out to him that our sole interest is to shut off every source of possible benefit to our enemies, regardless of what American commercial interests might suffer“.
As to Kodak’s German branch, it expanded operations during the war and used slave workers to produce detonators, triggers, and other military hardware. After the war, Kodak resumed control over its German branch, and untroubled by the evil methods by which they had been generated, gladly absorbed the profits made during the conflict. Things had also gone great for Kodak’s branch in occupied France. It made so much money during the war that it was able to invest its profits into purchasing real estate, coal mines, and rest houses for the staff. As with its German subsidiary, Kodak resumed control of its French branch and wartime profits after that country was liberated.