Robert Bosch
 

Haven't seen this mentioned on the forum before so I thought I'd bring it up. I'm reading German Resistance against Hitler and in there it details the fact that Bosch hated the Nazis and was involved in the resistance against him.
Might make someone feel a little better about that Bosch IP on their diesel.

Cool!

Ferdinand Porsche was not a Nazi either but designed war machinery for the reich. He was so respected that he got away without giving Adolph the Heil Hitler salute. He also was entitled to wear a general's attire but dressed as a private.

Before reading this book, I'd been aware of the religious resistance to Hitler from the Confessing Church, and I knew of the international Socialist and Marxist resistance but I was unaware of the complete range of ideologies of resistance. A number of upper class Germans were opposed to Hitler because of their monarchist and aristocratic views. Some of them were in favor of German domination of the European mainland but didn't want to engage the British in hostilities.

There were plenty of people in Germany who hated the Nazi's, just not plenty enough.

- Peter.

Yes. The book is about those who disliked the Nazis enough to try to kill Hitler. I have wondered in the past why the coup attempt came so late in the game, and it was partly because a fair number of the conspirators acted because they wanted to be in a stronger position to negotiate surrender with the Allies.

That was only the last of many attempts. What I meant wasn't that those who hated the Nazi's didn't hate them enough but that there just wasn't a large enough number who hated them for there to be a critical mass of opposition.

- Peter

I've only read this post and not the responses, so this might have already been covered.

I don't remember the details, but I remember reading some time ago that today's Bosch company puts all profits beyond a level necessary for modest growth and necessary R&D, into charitable donations. Maybe I'm thinking of another company, but I think it was Bosch.

I did a good bit of business with Michelin in the nineties and early 2000's. I learned that they are almost as secretive as a military organization and that during WWII, Michelin did everything possible to protect his people.

The nazi's demanded that he make tires. To protect his people, he made tires for the nazi's at the lowest quality and production rate that he could get by with. When the quality or production would get too low, the nazi's would come to threaten him. He would then improve just enough to keep them at bay.

Michelins security is such that when I visited their corporate engineering group in France, they took away my passport in exchange for a badge that allowed me to enter only with a security escort. I even had to exchange badge for passport and exchange back again in order to leave the facility for the two hour lunch period.

I have LOTS of respect for Michelin though.

Yes, not ALL the German people were taken in by Hitler, but there were enough of them that were gullible and uninformed enough for it to happen. It only takes 51% you know. The majority can rule, but the majority is not always correct.

Mercedes Makes It, Bosch Shakes It? :eek::D:D:D DP told me that. :D

A quick lookup reveals that the Co. today still follows R. Bosch's last directive regarding philanthropy. His charitable foundation reaps the lion's share of company profits. Their acceptance of Nazi armaments contracts and use of forced labor doesn't seem to make a lot of sense in light of his other attitudes. What does the book say regarding that decision?

Armaments contracts during WWII wasn't exactly something a major German engineering firm could dodge.

- Peter.

Nothing yet, but lots of the resisters held prominent positions in the Nazi bureaucracy, at least partly because it was an effective way to avoid discovery. It would be easy to view Bosch that way. Tons of difficult moral dilemmas in those circumstances.

There were approximately 40 attempts on Hitler's life. Over 2000 people were devoted solely to his security while Churchill had only a hand full of security people. Also, Hitler would change travel plans on the fly which also helped to keep his enemies off balance. The German resistance repeatedly requested assistance in planning an assassination of Hitler from both England and the United States and yet were told "no deal". I've discussed this matter with others and there seems to be a feeling that countries do not want to be involved in the assassination of another country's leader for political reasons.

However, I think we can all agree that had Hitler been killed early in the game, WWII may not have happened. The other side of the coin is that war is big business. As a result of WWII, manufacturing in all countries stepped up in a big way giving people JOBS which stabilized their economies. The United States was no exception and many defense contractors benefited in a big way as a result of WWII.

Does that mean that wars are the result of international conspiracies to improve economies? I don't know, you tell me......

Hitler put out the call for a small 'People's Car' and invited all of the German auto companies to come up with one. Everyone knew the fix was in for the KDF-wagen, but Opel showed up at the Berlin Auto Show with a People's car of their own design. Hitler was not amused and neither was Speer.

During the war Opel did not get a lot of the better contracts for war material, W. Von Opel himself was considered an outsider, and Opel just built trucks and engines and a tracked motorcycle called the Kettlekrag or something like that. They finally had all their contracts canceled and just did R&D work on Superchargers for Junkers.

And all of this was fine with Opel himself. He didn't like Hitler and Hitler didn't like him, but Opel the company had to do as it was told during the war.

And as long as Opel was just building trucks the Allies did not bomb them. (The fact that they were partly owned by GM before the war might have had something to do with this.) But after they started doing just R&D their plants were bombed to rubble.

I was told a story about a Business Leader that loved Hitler and even went to Germany to cut a deal with him. This guy was the head of a large American oil company and Hitler promised him he would have all the government oil business after the war if he would just help the Nazi's get their oil production going before the war.

He was glad to help out, but when this was discovered in 1943 by Allied Spies the FBI had a long talk with him on this subject. He suddenly decided to retire 'in order to spend more time with his family'.

I always just blew this off until I read about it in the book 'The Game of the Foxes' and found out it was true.