Back when I worked at IBM, there were a bunch of flags hanging in the cafeteria that represented every country where IBM did business. We often wondered, why wasn’t there a Nazi Germany flag? After all, IBM did sell a ton of machines to the Nazis to keep track of Jews and other undesirables, in order to commit genocide. I wonder why IBM wouldn’t want people to know about that? /s
BMW
Submitted 2 years ago by vickychen@lemmy.world to [deleted]
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/659645a1-c40d-4fed-a39e-9b18ad0edcd7.jpeg
Comments
Limonene@lemmy.world 2 years ago
5redie8@sh.itjust.works 2 years ago
Eyebrow, meet ceiling
Scotty_Trees@lemmy.world [bot] 2 years ago
“In February 2001, an Alien Tort Claims Act claim was filed in U.S. federal court on behalf of concentration camp survivors against IBM. The suit accused IBM of allegedly providing the punched card technology that facilitated the Holocaust, and for covering up German IBM subsidiary Dehomag’s activities.”
Sadly, a majority of the lawsuits brought up against IBM in connection with it’s dark past get dropped.
speaker_hat@lemmy.one 2 years ago
Doing business with Nazis because it’s profitable. Nazis died, BMW regrets.
Doing business with fossil fuel because it’s profitable. Earth dies, BMW regrets.
I see a pattern here
Mac@mander.xyz 2 years ago
Hmmm… Maybe we shouldn’t prioritize profits over all else?
Nah, nvm. That can’t be right.
Custoslibera@lemmy.world 2 years ago
Get outta here with your pinko commie socialist gay woke agenda!!!
CitizenKong@lemmy.world 2 years ago
Fun fact: The grandmother of the current BMW owner Gabrielle Quandt was literally Magda Goebbels. No, seriously.
AlmightySnoo@lemmy.world 2 years ago
On a similar note Deutsche Bank literally funded the Nazis and to this day is still doing shady shit like the numerous money laundering scandals and also being involved in the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking scandal. For each of those, including funding the Nazis, they merely got a slap on the wrist as they’re literally still allowed to exist as one of the top 10 biggest banks of Europe.
JackBruh@lemm.ee 2 years ago
Well Nazis were pretty much reintegrated into society in West Germany because Soviets became the enemy. So many people escaped justice it’s insane.
Communist_Lemming@discuss.tchncs.de 2 years ago
Yes, but for justice they would have had to arrest half of Germany and find prison guards that do not sympathise with the prisoners, so 99% foreigners. It was just impossible without Germany collapsing. And they probably wanted to avoid another treaty of Versailles.
Rac3r4Life@lemmy.world 2 years ago
Most of the top Nazi officials escaped to Argentina, and the more talented scientists ended up working for the US government.
poopknife@lemmy.world 2 years ago
some of them also became Austrian (or stayed in Austria) and went into politics after a very short while… (which is the origin story of the Austrian populist right-wing party “FPÖ” - their first leader was the former Nazi Minister of Agriculture and an SS officer) No need to hide your nazism if you’re in Austria (even today)
MoscovianSwampGuide@lemmy.world 2 years ago
Should IBM also close shop?
Sotuanduso@lemm.ee 2 years ago
Any company that existed in Germany during WWII, it seems.
Gork@lemm.ee 2 years ago
Other than the giant swastika, does it bother anyone else that the kerning is uneven? The B is farther away from the M than the M is from the W.
0ops@lemm.ee 2 years ago
Well it didn’t
Soupbreaker@lemmy.world 2 years ago
Other than that, how was the kerning, Mrs. Lincoln?
samus12345@lemmy.world 2 years ago
I thought Germans were supposed to be sticklers for detail!
Schmuppes@lemmy.world 2 years ago
Sloppy work like that is how you lose wars, son!
ramjambamalam@lemmy.ca 2 years ago
Yikes, I also looked into the background of Ferdinand Porsche, and man, he was a real Nazi summabitch.
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 2 years ago
Hitler was directly behind the development of the VW Beetle with Porsche doing the engineering work.
evergreen@lemmy.world 2 years ago
Porsche also stole many of the innovative design elements of their cars from a Czech auto manufacturer called Tatra, after the Nazis took over the factory.
Schmuppes@lemmy.world 2 years ago
Hitler was not “behind” the development. You make it sound like he was the lead designer, accountant and test driver. He said “I want you to develop a car that will seat four, reach 110 km/h and cost a maximum of 1000 Reichsmark”.
zer0@thelemmy.club 2 years ago
Porsche employed nazis even after the war en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joachim_Peiper
Schmuppes@lemmy.world 2 years ago
Everybody employed nazis after the war, including NASA. To an extent, the winners of the war silently agreed to let that slide.
qyron@lemmy.pt 2 years ago
So lets stop to consider, regardless of that nazi memorabilia.
You live under a fascist dictatorial regime. There are very few options available for you to live a relatively uneventful life.
Either you’re an open, true, supporter, a passive one or a dissimulated dicident. Yes, there are more options available, but lets take these as the most broad categories.
Now let us consider that your regime an enacted several acts of domestic, unprovoked violence, internal purges and other assorted brutal and unpredictable actions against social peace and stability, in order to cement its unquestionable power over an entire nation.
Then, that same regime advances to a state of war, where all resources and infrastructure are comandeered to bolster the military.
At some point, companies are put a very simple option: either they cooperate and remain active or they refuse and suffer the consequences, that at best can be simple nationalization and purge of the heads.
Considering all of this, BMW supporting Germany’s war effort is understanble.
Do I agree with that decision? No. But do I understand it? Yes.
Cooperate and live or refuse and die? Not an hard choice, especially if a lot of money is put on the table.
TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee 2 years ago
cool nazi apologia
thats a lot of words for “companies dont care about anything except money”
we get it, they followed what the country’s trends did regardless of the cost
Rilichu@lemmy.world 2 years ago
Thousands might be being murdered a day in death camps but at least the shareholders are happy.
Stinkywinks@lemmy.world 2 years ago
Awe, poor multi million dollar corporation had to support the Nazi war killing a shit ton of people or they would lose monies…
Sotuanduso@lemm.ee 2 years ago
What do you think the Nazis did to people who refused to support them?
qyron@lemmy.pt 2 years ago
I’d risk, with a good degree of comfort, that the negotiations would have been more along the lines of “serve your country and be paid for it or don’t serve your country and go to a concentration camp and die a miserable death”, the last part as subtext.
You do not negotiate with any sort of dictatorial regime. The regime holds all the cards, including the cards the other players think they have in hand.
BMW and, by extension, any company, be it small or large, cooperating with any regime is understandable. It’s that or risk a terrible, more or less public, demise. That is why dictatorial regimes go to great lenghts to ensure companies and business owner favorability by putting large quantities of money and/or resources.
Self preservation is easy to turn into greed.
gamer@lemm.ee 2 years ago
If we don’t hold corporations accountable for these types of things, they’ll be more likely to go along with it next time. All of the corporations that helped the Nazis should have been dissolved, had their assets liquidated, and used to pay reparations.
qyron@lemmy.pt 2 years ago
Could you be so kind and explain how would you ensure those who would be losing their livelyhoods survive? And their families?
We tend to peg a face to a company and demonize the whole from one person, like the tweeter debacle and that hair enhanced loon that bought it out of a whim, motivated by spite.
How many have lost their jobs already and how many more would lose them if the company was to be dissolved for punishment in their spread of false information (thus, aiding and abetting) that have led to the terrible losses and even worst for many?
Or perhaps Facebook, with their assistance with covering and gagging the genocide in Myanmar?
This doesn’t mean I disagree with severely punishing these entities. Fine them in millions and billions, force them to break into competing entities, severely regulate and control their actions. But kill a company because, and in this particular case for BMW, they could cooperate or cease to exist, perhaps in horrendous ways?
That would make the punishment as bad or worst than the crime.
marmo7ade@lemmy.world 2 years ago
The people working at those corporations would have been murdered. You want people to commit suicide. That’s really the argument being made in this comment thread: people should commit suicide instead of taking immoral action under the threat of violence or death.
If someone puts a gun to my head and makes me choose between my life and your life, I’m choosing my life.
veganpizza69@lemmy.world 2 years ago
qyron@lemmy.pt 2 years ago
What ever you may be trying to convey it’s completely lost on me, as I don’t have the faintest idea of what that is or means.
Evil_incarnate@lemm.ee 2 years ago
For a moment I thought you were talking about the USA.
qyron@lemmy.pt 2 years ago
Heerily similar, isn’t it?
hardly_alex@lemmy.world 2 years ago
These shitposts are too real
sadreality@kbin.social 2 years ago
Not a good look ehh?
Is that even legal to post in Germany?
Gamey@lemmy.world 2 years ago
Considering BMW is one of the worse profiteers from WW2 it probably classifies as satire or something else art related!
sadreality@kbin.social 2 years ago
Yeah but facts like that hurt Germans too much, they get all uncomfortable about history.
They want all that profit and tech, but no shame about how it was obtained
Gamey@lemmy.world 2 years ago
For everyone wodering, here is a good english video that also covers some of BMWs history! piped.video/watch?v=-WX5zOdMprc&t=1011
Chickenstalker@lemmy.world 2 years ago
I mean, the famous Bf-109 fighters had BMW engines.
BigNote@lemm.ee 2 years ago
Well this got disappointingly stupid in no time at all. What I see here is something roughly like the same proportion of idiots as one would typically expect on Reddit.
Mightymaxx@lemmy.world 2 years ago
Maybe it’s not just reddit. Maybe people in general are fucking stupid trolls when posting anonymously on the Internet. I’ve this kind of reply a lot as Lemmy gains users. I’m convinced it’s not a reddit thing. People suck.
BigNote@lemm.ee 2 years ago
100 percent agree. The world is disappointingly full of morons and idiots.
There’s a Bertrand Russell quote to the effect that “the trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and arrogant, while the intelligent are full of doubt.”
No doubt I’ve botched the actual quote, but the point remains regardless.
Stach@lemmy.world 2 years ago
Chrobin@discuss.tchncs.de 2 years ago
I recently was in the BMW museum and they actually had a whole section dedicated to their Nazi past and how they want to never do that again. Do with that what you will but at least they’re not shoving it under the carpet.
zaph@lemmy.world 2 years ago
It’s important not to forget the past. If America treated slavery the same way we’d be a lot further socially.
NathanielThomas@lemmy.world 2 years ago
If America treated . the same way we’d be a lot further as a society
ox0r@jlai.lu 2 years ago
Reminder that the USA was a big inspiration for the nazis.
They pretty much wanted to make a USA II
SneedsFeednSeed@lemmy.world 2 years ago
American here. What is this “slavery” you speak of?
cook_pass_babtridge@feddit.uk 2 years ago
I wish the UK would do the same. At least in the US they learn a bit about slavery - here in the UK we learn nothing about the British Empire and its atrocities. No wonder we have statues of slave traders everywhere.
nBodyProblem@lemmy.world 2 years ago
I know there is regional variation on how the slave trade is taught, but when I was in school we had numerous, extended, and graphic discussions on the horrors of the slave trade starting from elementary school and extending into college.
Gamey@lemmy.world 2 years ago
That’s actually very missleading, like most involved companies they tried everything to hide it till the shitstorm got too big and the damage to their image was smaller that way so we shouldn’t give them any credit for that whatsoever!!!
Custoslibera@lemmy.world 2 years ago
Every single business in existence will sell out any value they say they hold for profit.
If they don’t another business will, welcome to capitalism.
toyg@feddit.nl 2 years ago
TBF, Disney is not buckling under pressure from the Florida Nazi governor.
Chrobin@discuss.tchncs.de 2 years ago
I know that. But we still need to support the companies that do shit we want, so it’s more profitable to do so.
nomadjoanne@lemmy.world 2 years ago
I feel a little more sympathetic to them for the Nazi stuff than for any current shit they pull.
I have to wonder, had they said no, what the German state would have then done to them. Essentially any state can require a company to produce wartime goods.
tallwookie@lemmy.world 2 years ago
better than IBM I guess
xusontha@ls.buckodr.ink 2 years ago
Just curious, what did they do?
gornar@lemmy.world 2 years ago
Like IBM!
TheDoctorDonna@lemmy.world 2 years ago
Their current symbol looks like a painted over swastika, so I’m sure their future will continue be a painted over swastika.
nodimetotie@lemmy.world 2 years ago
no, that’s just the Bavarian checkers, pretty common across Bavaria
name_NULL111653@pawb.social 2 years ago
And a cross is a swastika without arms… your point?
poopknife@lemmy.world 2 years ago
and then there is Austria…