American companies that supported the Nazis maintained substantial business operations throughout World War II, surprisingly even after the United States officially entered the conflict. In December 1941, when America joined the war against Germany, 250 American firms owned more than $450 million of German assets. Furthermore, these weren’t minor enterprises but included some of America’s most recognizable corporate giants.
General Motors was actually more important to the Nazi war machine than Switzerland, with its Opel division supplying vehicles to the Nazi Party. Similarly, Ford’s German and French subsidiaries produced military vehicles and equipment for Nazi Germany’s war effort. IBM’s majority-owned German subsidiary provided crucial punch card and accounting equipment that Nazis used extensively, while Chase Manhattan Bank profited $500,000 by helping the Nazis raise $20 million for a dollar exchange.
American companies in Germany often continued operations during the war, notably Kodak, which produced film, fuses, triggers, and detonators for the Nazi military. This complex network of corporate involvement raises important questions about who funded the Nazis and how these Nazi companies managed to maintain their operations despite the global conflict.
American Companies That Supported the Nazis
“Ford’s eagerness to be compensated for damages incurred to Ford Werke during the Nazi era makes its current posture of denying any association with the wartime plant all the more hypocritical.” — Ken Silverstein, Investigative journalist, author of ‘Private Warriors’ and former Washington editor for Harper’s Magazine
Several major American corporations maintained deep ties with Nazi Germany throughout the 1930s and 1940s, often prioritizing profits over ethical considerations. Their involvement ranged from manufacturing military equipment to providing financial services that directly supported the Third Reich’s war machine.
Ford Motor Company and forced labor
Ford’s European subsidiaries in Germany and France produced military vehicles and other equipment for the Nazi war effort. At Ford’s Cologne plant, operations continued using forced laborers, with U.S. Army records documenting “destitute foreign workers confined behind barbed wire” upon liberation. Although Ford has acknowledged that slave labor was used at its German subsidiary, the company maintains it had lost control of its German operations during the war. Nevertheless, Ford’s founder Henry Ford was known to be a virulent anti-Semite and received the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, the highest medal Nazi Germany could bestow on a foreigner.
General Motors and Opel’s military production
GM’s German Opel division became an essential component of Hitler’s military strategy. According to Bradford Snell, “The Nazis could have invaded Poland and Russia without Switzerland. They could not have done so without GM”. Opel produced the three-ton “Blitz” truck, which became the mainstay of the Blitzkrieg. In 1937, almost 17% of Opel’s Blitz trucks were sold directly to the Nazi military, increasing to 29% in 1938—approximately 6,000 trucks that year alone. After the war, GM received $32 million in compensation from the U.S. government because its German factories were bombed by U.S. forces.
IBM and the Holocaust tracking systems
IBM, through its German subsidiary Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen GmbH (Dehomag), supplied punch card technology that proved crucial for Nazi census operations identifying Jews and other targeted groups. Every Nazi concentration camp maintained its own Hollerith-Abteilung (Hollerith Department) to track inmates using IBM’s technology. According to Edwin Black’s research, these systems helped the Nazis create 1.5 billion index cards that facilitated the efficient management of prison, labor, and extermination camps. IBM continued to provide equipment maintenance and service throughout the war, with all operations directed from its New York headquarters.
ITT and its investment in Focke-Wulf
International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT) established close ties with Nazi leadership beginning in August 1933, when CEO Sosthenes Behn met personally with Hitler. Through its subsidiary C. Lorenz AG, ITT owned 25% of Focke-Wulf, the German aircraft manufacturer that built some of the Luftwaffe’s most successful fighter aircraft. By 1943, ITT became Focke-Wulf’s largest shareholder with a 29% stake. These planes “were to wreak havoc on Allied convoys” even as ITT simultaneously provided direction-finding technology to help Allied ships evade German torpedoes. In 1967, ITT received $27 million in compensation from the American government for war damage to its factories in Germany, including $5 million for damage to its Focke-Wulf plants.
Kodak’s use of slave labor and war materials
Kodak’s German subsidiary employed at least 250 slave laborers at its Berlin-Kopenick factory and another 80 at its Stuttgart plant. As the war progressed, Kodak’s German operations expanded to manufacture triggers, detonators, and other military hardware. The company circumvented U.S. trade restrictions by using subsidiaries in neutral countries like Switzerland to continue doing business with Nazi Germany. Internal company documents reveal that Kodak leadership justified these relationships on the basis of profit throughout the war. In recognition of its use of slave labor, Kodak later contributed $500,000 to the German fund for victims of forced labor.
Coca-Cola’s Fanta workaround
When America entered the war, Coca-Cola’s German division faced a crisis as it could no longer receive the syrup needed to produce Coke. Under the leadership of German-born Max Keith, the company invented Fanta as an alternative beverage specifically for the German market. This new drink was made from leftovers of other food industries: fruit shavings, apple fibers, beet sugar, and whey from cheese production. By 1943, sales had reached nearly three million cases. Fanta became so popular that it earned an exemption from sugar rationing after 1941, making it a sweetener for soups and other foods during wartime shortages.
Chase Manhattan Bank and Jewish account seizures
Chase Manhattan Bank (now JP Morgan Chase) wrongfully seized bank accounts and safe-deposit assets of Jewish customers during the German occupation of France. The bank also helped the Nazis raise $20 million for a dollar exchange, earning a commission of $500,000. In 1998, Chase was sued in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn on behalf of Jewish citizens of France, Israel, and other nations who survived the Nazi occupation or were relatives of victims. The lawsuit was filed under the Alien Tort Claims Act, which permits foreigners to bring suits in American courts charging violations of international law.
Alcoa’s aluminum exports to Nazi Germany
As America’s largest aluminum producer, Alcoa played a significant role in supplying Nazi Germany with this critical war material. In 1931, Alcoa signed the Alted Agreement with IG Farben, which transferred aluminum technology to Germany. By 1942, Germany had become the world’s largest aluminum-producing nation. Alcoa’s monopoly and massive exports to Germany created severe aluminum shortages in America when the U.S. entered the war, hampering early American military efforts. Additionally, Alcoa restricted the Dow Chemical Company’s magnesium production to 4,000 tons annually as part of its deal with IG Farben, threatening litigation if Dow exceeded German-set limits.
How These Companies Justified Their Actions
“Certainly, Ford was far from the only American businessman who was enticed by Nazi Germany. His rival—General Motors—had a German division of its own and manufactured aircraft parts for the Luftwaffe.” — Bradley W. Hart, Historian and author of ‘Hitler’s American Friends: The Third Reich’s Supporters in the United States’
Behind the collaboration with Nazi Germany, American corporations developed various justifications that helped them rationalize their business activities in Hitler’s regime.
Claiming neutrality before U.S. entered the war
Throughout the 1930s, many American companies leveraged the U.S. Neutrality Acts as legal cover for their German operations. These laws, passed between 1935-1939, prohibited certain dealings with belligerent nations yet contained provisions like “cash-and-carry” that still permitted trade. Companies like Ford and General Motors pointed to these regulations as evidence they were merely following American foreign policy. Even after war erupted in Europe in 1939, businesses continued to operate under the guise of diplomatic neutrality. Before Pearl Harbor, many firms insisted they were maintaining an apolitical stance in accordance with America’s official position, though critics noted they selectively interpreted these laws to benefit their bottom line.
Profit motives over political alignment
Most executives demonstrated what historians describe as “amoral pragmatism” and a “morality of efficiency” rather than ideological commitment to Nazism. Corporate leaders focused primarily on ensuring company survival and maximizing returns regardless of political context. This profit-driven mentality was evident when German banks initially resisted “Aryanization” policies—not from moral objections, but from concerns about losing skilled Jewish colleagues whose removal might damage business interests. By December 1941, American firms owned more than $450 million in German assets, illustrating how financial considerations typically outweighed ethical concerns.
Corporate autonomy of foreign subsidiaries
Perhaps the most common defense involved claims that parent companies had little control over their German subsidiaries. Ford executives insisted that Nazi authorities “interfere with everything” in their German operations. Likewise, IBM suggested that its German subsidiary Dehomag operated with “almost complete autonomy” from U.S. corporate management. Historian Heide argues that companies like IBM maintained this narrative even while continuing to profit substantially from their German affiliates’ success—Dehomag became “IBM’s most successful affiliate” despite alleged independence. In reality, scholars have noted that these claims of subsidiary autonomy often conflicted with evidence showing ongoing business relationships coordinated from American headquarters throughout the war period.
The Role of Financial Institutions in Nazi Collaboration
Financial institutions played a crucial role in facilitating Nazi Germany’s war efforts, often operating behind the scenes to move and launder vast sums of money and assets.
Swiss and American banks laundering Nazi gold
Beyond manufacturing firms, Swiss banks became the primary financial enablers of Hitler’s regime. Evidence emerged in the late 1990s that Swiss banks had accepted more than $4 billion in looted assets, including gold dental fillings taken from Holocaust victims. The Swiss National Bank (SNB) effectively became Nazi Germany’s international banking center, laundering stolen funds, jewelry, and art treasures.
In 1998, a Swiss commission estimated that the SNB held $440 million of Nazi gold (equivalent to $8.5 billion in 2024), over half of which was looted from occupied countries and individuals. This gold-laundering operation reached unprecedented scope, as Switzerland shipped 280 truckloads of Nazi gold to Spain and Portugal, worth an estimated $250-500 million. Ultimately, after the war, only 12% of the stolen gold was ever returned through the 1946 Washington Agreement.
Prescott Bush and Union Banking Corporation
Prescott Bush, grandfather of former President George W. Bush, served as a director of the New York-based Union Banking Corporation (UBC), which represented the U.S. interests of German industrialist Fritz Thyssen, a major Hitler financier. In October 1942, under the Trading with the Enemy Act, the U.S. government seized UBC’s assets pending investigation of its Nazi connections. The New York Herald-Tribune had exposed these ties in an article titled “Hitler’s Angel Has $3 million in US Bank”. Government documents confirmed that Bush continued working for the bank even after America entered the war. The seized assets were eventually returned after the war, with UBC dissolving in the 1950s.
Bank of England’s gold transfer to Germany
In March 1939, just days after Nazi Germany invaded Czechoslovakia, the Bank of England helped facilitate the transfer of £5.6 million in Czech gold (worth approximately $1.1 billion today) to the Nazi Reichsbank. Moreover, the Bank executed a second gold transaction in June 1939, involving £440,000 in sales and £420,000 in shipments to New York. Despite the British government’s attempt to freeze Czech assets in London, bank officials claimed the gold transfer was merely a transaction between Bank of International Settlements accounts, over which they had no authority. Subsequently, this “economic appeasement” benefited Britain in the short term yet provided Hitler’s regime with essential financial resources.
Media and Cultural Complicity
The Nazi regime’s influence extended beyond industrial and financial sectors into American media organizations that aided Hitler’s propaganda machine through content control and information management.
Hollywood studios were editing films for Nazi approval
From 1933 to 1940, Hollywood studios maintained what both parties understood as “collaboration [Zusammenarbeit]” with Nazi Germany. This arrangement involved selling approximately 250 movies to Germany in exchange for agreeing not to attack the Nazis in any of their productions. Hollywood studios regularly submitted scripts and finished films to German officials for approval. Indeed, when scenes or dialogue portrayed Germany negatively, criticized Nazis, or addressed Jewish mistreatment, studios accommodated Nazi demands by making cuts not only in German versions but in American and worldwide releases as well.
This relationship began notably with Universal’s 1930 release “All Quiet on the Western Front,” which faced disruption by German nationalists. Universal’s Carl Laemmle agreed to heavy edits for German screening. Throughout the 1930s, executives from RKO, Fox, and United Artists promised “close collaboration” with German authorities. Consequently, Nazi pressure successfully killed entire projects critical of Hitler, including “Mad Dog of Europe,” the first film addressing Jewish persecution in Germany.
Associated Press hiring Nazi propagandists
The Associated Press maintained a formal cooperation with the Hitler regime until 1941, becoming the only Western news agency permitted to operate in Nazi Germany. Upon receiving this privilege, AP signed the Schriftleitergesetz (editor’s law), promising not to publish material “calculated to weaken the strength of the Reich abroad or at home”. Under this arrangement, AP hired reporters who simultaneously worked for Nazi propaganda divisions.
One of AP’s four photographers, Franz Roth, was an SS member whose photographs Hitler personally selected. AP photos became the single largest source for a Nazi pamphlet called “The Jews in USA” and the second-largest source for “The Subhuman,” virulently antisemitic propaganda. Even as AP’s Louis Lochner won a Pulitzer in 1939 for his reporting from Berlin, the organization’s photographs helped “portray a war of extermination as a conventional war”. This relationship continued until America entered the war in 1941.
Post-War Outcomes and Modern Legacy
The aftermath of World War II created a complex legal landscape for companies that collaborated with Hitler’s regime, yet many faced minimal consequences for their wartime activities.
Compensation claims and legal immunity
In the decades following WWII, most industrialists faced remarkably brief consequences—many were free within years and “richer than ever”. The United Nations’ highest court ultimately confirmed Germany’s legal immunity from being sued in foreign courts by Nazi victims in 2012. This ruling effectively closed many avenues for individual compensation claims, upholding a restitution system Germany established after the war. In fact, German companies together paid approximately $4.5 billion in reparations to former forced laborers in the late 1990s. Meanwhile, American companies received substantial compensation from their own government—General Motors collected $32 million because its German factories were bombed by U.S. forces, whereas ITT Corporation won $27 million for damage to its Focke-Wulf plant.
Reintegration of Nazi-linked companies
Post-war corporate reinvention occurred with remarkable speed. Continental’s wartime chief executive, Fritz Könecke, successfully reinvented himself as a Nazi resister and escaped punishment. Even as protests erupted from workers aware of his past, this setback proved temporary—Könecke later became chief executive of Daimler, transforming it into one of Germany’s largest corporations. Generally, American firms reabsorbed their temporarily detached German subsidiaries with minimal scrutiny. Within corporate hierarchies, historical accountability often took decades to emerge—some German companies hired professional historians to investigate their cooperation with the Nazis only in the 1990s.
Nazi companies today and public memory
Currently, corporate acknowledgment of Nazi ties varies dramatically. Deutsche Bank accepted “moral responsibility” for purchasing gold from concentration camp victims, whereas Porsche has contributed €2.5 million to a German reparation fund without fully admitting its involvement. Since the early 2000s, Volkswagen has established a $12 million fund (equivalent to $23 million in 2024) to compensate its WWII victims.
In contrast, companies like Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Porsche, and BMW have maintained what critics call “policies of impunity” regarding their Nazi pasts. The JAB corporation represents a more comprehensive approach through its Alfred Landecker Foundation, providing significant funding for Holocaust education and human rights programs. Essentially, Germany’s broader “culture of remembrance” continues evolving, yet remains contested territory—particularly as antisemitic incidents have risen in recent years.
Final Thoughts
Corporate ethical consciousness largely emerged after the Nazi era—not during it. Historical evidence suggests that among American corporations operating in Nazi Germany, only one is recorded to have withdrawn voluntarily from the regime. Most continued operations throughout World War II, prioritizing profits over people. This absence of moral boundaries reveals a stark contrast to how these same corporations positioned themselves during later morally challenging periods.
Throughout the Nazi period, even as journalists, activists, and ordinary citizens condemned the regime’s atrocities, multinational corporations faced remarkably little pressure to disengage. The idea that these businesses were early adopters of moral leadership is refuted by historical fact. They acted not as ethical vanguards but as opportunists—viewing Nazi occupation and Jewish persecution as profitable ventures.
Corporate complicity with the Third Reich offers profound lessons about the intersection of business ethics and human rights. The Nuremberg trials later helped establish legal frameworks that would empower victims to use the U.S. Alien Tort Statute to hold corporations accountable for abuses committed abroad. These legal and cultural precedents remain critical in an era where corporate and governmental complicity in human rights violations is once again under global scrutiny.
Today, the U.S. government’s unconditional military and financial support for Israel—despite mounting international concern over Gaza’s humanitarian catastrophe—echoes familiar themes: selective morality, strategic silence, and the shielding of power structures from accountability.
As of now, over 70,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded, yet many Western institutions, governments, and media outlets continue to support—or remain conspicuously silent about—Israel’s actions. Today, a wide range of corporations are actively complicit: from tech and pharmaceutical firms to military contractors, food giants, global banks, and even fashion brands. These industries, profiting from both direct and indirect ties, are once again intersecting with human suffering. In many ways, Gaza has become a mirror—forcing us to confront whether we have truly evolved beyond the lessons of the past, or if we are repeating them under the banner of modern capitalism. (See: Companies That Support Israel)
Beyond historical curiosity, these corporate behaviors serve as ethical templates for today’s business and political leaders. Companies examining their Nazi-era past must understand they cannot control how long historical memory lasts. Real atonement involves more than settlements or PR statements—it requires institutional reform, public acknowledgment of harm, and permanent shifts in corporate conscience.
As Nelson Mandela noted upon the collapse of apartheid—another system where corporate divestment ultimately proved powerful—society must work toward “socially responsible investment that promotes equal opportunity… and community development.”
If we are to learn anything from Ford, GM, IBM, and Standard Oil’s role in the 1940s, it’s this: a refusal to act—or worse, a willingness to enable—is not neutrality. It is complicity.
And complicity, when repeated, ceases to be history. It becomes policy.