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Third Reich to Fortune 500: Five Popular Brands the Nazis Gave Us

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Siemens

Siemens AG is the massive global conglomerate that makes everything from circuits to wind turbines to Maglev trains. It has almost half a million employees worldwide and is listed on every stock exchange imaginable. The company had its roots back in the 19th century when famed scientist Werner von Siemens got tired of discovering stuff and decided to make some money instead.

Of course, he was dead long before the 1940s, so Mr. Werner von Siemens is guilty of nothing more than not entering the world of porn with that gift of a name. The company he gave that name to may as well have it's corporate headquarters inside a dormant volcano, because it probably couldn't have been more evil if it were trying its hardest.

Job with Nazis:
Siemens was the major player in the Nazification of Germany. The company, run by Werner's son, Carl, and then his grandson, Hermann, struggled in the wake of World War I and the Great Depression and had to earn some dough fast. When Hitler rose to power in the 1930s, it was the signal for the Siemens executives to start building factories, and nowhere was the real estate better than near the homey neighborhoods of Auschwitz and Buchenwald.

Hundreds of thousands of slave workers were employed to build all sorts of goodies for the German military to use on both the western and the eastern fronts. Though they weren't the only company at the time supplying the German war effort, they were certainly the most prolific. Siemens was in charge of Germany's rail infrastructure, communications, power generation ... the list goes on. If the Reichstag was the brain behind the war, Siemens was definitely the right hand that stroked Hitler to ecstatic glory.

So how evil were they?
We'll let you be the judge. At the height of the Nazi terror during the 1940s, it was not atypical for a slave worker to build electrical switches for Siemens in the morning and be snuffed out in a Siemens-made gas chamber in the afternoon.


Hold on. We need a moment with the kitten.

Why else would the Allies destroy four-fifths of the company's factories during the war? Because they were bored? Fuck no. It's because they intended to blitz the marque brand of Nazi Germany back into hell where it belonged.

These days Siemens is being forced to pay due to a series of lawsuits from survivors. So, at least they own up to it, right?

Well, a few years ago, in an act of insensitive fuckery so colossal it could blot out the sun, Siemens tried to trademark the name "Zyklon" with the intent of marketing a series of products under the name. Including gas ovens.

Fuck it. If you need us, we'll be on the island.





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In the picture second form the bottom, the brown car, that's a citroen, not a volkswagen; though commonly confused because the damn french copied the german's sexy designs.

Posted on 11/11/2008 7:08:38 PM

And what about Fanta Orange aka the Nazi Juice?

Posted on 10/14/2008 5:23:47 AM

So, the point of this article is... To have stylishly forward thinking innovation - we need the Nazies back!

Posted on 10/8/2008 12:20:15 PM

The picture of a red car with the passenger door open isn't a Volkswagen. It is a Citroën 2CV.

Posted on 10/7/2008 4:47:40 PM

OK,,AKwAaaard, I want funny, got shocking, then cute,then shock, then cute,then intesting, then shock then...

Posted on 9/28/2008 5:15:26 PM

okay sticketymuffin let me break it down. I neither supprot genocide nor getting rich off of it. The whole Volkswagon Nazi relationship was set up when Hitler first came to power. When he was trying to rebuild Germany after the Great Depression. So when Hitler thought f**k the jews. Most people arent gonna argue when your options are comply or get gassed. I'm just saying some of these businesses may have been caught in a bad situation. Two sides to every coin arseholes

Posted on 9/25/2008 9:55:06 PM

I'm surprised Thyssen Krupp didn't make the list. I'm pretty sure they were the company that designed the gas chambers, now they design elevators (that are all over the place).

Might be wrong, can't say I heard it from a reputable source.

Posted on 9/25/2008 9:16:36 PM

zeitgeistmovie.com

Posted on 9/25/2008 5:26:02 PM

I admit, I call my youngest Aryan nation sometimes (blonde hair, blue eyes, 1/4 german), but people who know me aren't offended. Due to our heritage (btw, remember, Hitler was Austrian) I make my boys (8, 10, & 12)learn about the holocaust. They know what the kindercamps were, know the majors players, and see how horrible the idea of the gas ovens is.

Posted on 9/23/2008 6:26:00 PM

Originally the Volkswagen was more of a scam than a consumer product. As I've read there were several prototypes built, but only three finished were shown prior to the start of the war. These were put on tour with the idea that if every good German deposited a certain amount in a special bank account they would eventually get their own car. Hitler was shown several times driving the peoples car, as were many of Reich-Marshals. The exception was Hermann Goering as with his great girth, and spinal injuries from his last crash in the Great War, he simply could not get into the car. The money saved by the people went strait to Porshe to set up a factory line to build the Kubelwagen, the utilitarian German car for the German army, used much like the US Jeep. The Kubelwagen was, under the body metal, just a Volkswagen with some additional suspension travel and heavier springs and shock absorbers. As thousands of modified VWs have demonstrated in off road races, the torsion bar front and swing arm rear suspension make an excellent vehicle for off road driving. In the '70s Volkswagen resurrected the Kubelwagen, smoothed the lines a bit, gave it a more powerful engine and marketed it to the dune buggy crowd as the "Thing". To my knowledge no common German ever received the "peoples car" that they had saved to own.

Posted on 9/23/2008 11:31:03 AM

Makes one want to become an anti-capitalist communist. Oh wait communist regimes have killed and brutalized more poeple than fascist ones. Well since in practice they are one in the same whats a guy to do.

Posted on 9/23/2008 8:32:47 AM

I knew cats were Nazis, and not just because I read Maus.

Posted on 9/23/2008 5:40:42 AM

That really didn't seem that bad. There are a lot more jobs during a war, and a lot more government contracts. These were just companies who felt like being rich. Probably because poor people suck.

Posted on 9/22/2008 1:20:51 PM

I lose more faith in humanity each passing day!

Posted on 9/22/2008 12:03:28 PM

capnwhoopass.no. im just gonna say it. When your country turns to genocide, you get in on it....It's just good business.

Posted on 9/22/2008 10:32:32 AM

you do realise that these were in the sun once under the title 5 brands the nazis gave us

Posted on 9/22/2008 10:32:14 AM

To be fair to Volkswagen. They may have been in it for the cheap cars for all. Also it was before the whole trying to purge the jews thing

Posted on 9/22/2008 9:46:44 AM

I think it should now be mandated that all articles on Cracked involving squirm-in-your-seat subjects have a minimum of 2 'Kitten Breaks'. Even if they're not kittens, a cute baby panda or koala will do. For *really* uncomfortable articles, a baby with a kitten in a teacup decorated with pink daisies. Yeah, that'll work.

Posted on 9/9/2008 3:12:13 AM

Also wtf with the kittens? Not funny.

Posted on 9/2/2008 9:35:33 AM

Actually it was Hitler that modified Porsche's design of the car to make it cute. He felt the lines were too harsh.

Hitler's such a sweetie.

Posted on 9/2/2008 9:28:26 AM

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