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Home > Weird World > Third Reich to Fortune 500: Five Popular Brands the Nazis Gave Us

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

By Mike Huang January 3, 2008 1,115,250 views
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Already today you've used at least one product from a company that, at one time, worked for the Nazis. Now, in the name of not getting sued, we'd like to make it clear that we're not accusing any of the below companies of still being in bed with the Third Reich. All of them, to our knowledge, have long disavowed Hitler's regime as being both monstrous and no longer profitable.

Hugo Boss

No yuppie's wardrobe is complete without their standard Hugo Boss suit, Hugo Boss dress shirt, Hugo Boss tie, Hugo Boss sunglasses, Hugo Boss cologne, Hugo Boss man-thong and Hugo Boss socks (to stuff the thong). Even if you're too poor to afford Boss' goods, you can recognize Boss ads from a mile away. They always feature serious-looking men who, despite having enough money for expensive suits, appear to be addicted to heroin. They typically wear tight clothing, and gaze at you wantonly with hollow eyes of infinite, longing that scream, "I'm attractive and I'm really very unhappy about it."

Job with Nazis:
Speaking of stern, closeted white men, Hugo Boss manufactured the sleek all-black uniforms for the Schultzstaffel, better known as the SS. While today Boss uses black for slimming effects, in the SS uniforms it was used to command respect and fear in the populace. While their guns and propensity for genocide probably handled all required respect commanding just fine, the black uniforms did soak up sunlight during the summer months, causing the wearer to sweat uncomfortably and stink like a pack of Mongolian shit-camels. Members of the Hitler Youth were also decked out in Boss wear, teaching children an early lesson in looking good whilst beating up minorities.

So how evil were they?
Most of the uniforms were made in what can be considered the forerunner to the modern day sweatshop, at times by Prisoners of War. Also, it's impossible to underestimate the importance of those uniforms to the whole Nazi image. To this day, they are essentially synonymous with "evil." The influence of the design has been widespread, especially in film where their influence has been noted in the outfits of the Imperial officers from Star Wars.

But, unlike the products of some other companies on this list, the uniforms weren't directly responsible for killing people. In fact, since they actually made the wearers uncomfortable and smelly for a quarter of the year, relative to the rest of the companies on this list Hugo Boss probably deserves a medal of some sort.

Volkswagen

German automaker Volkswagen came on the scene just before World War II, and was founded by Ferdinand Porsche. He's the granddaddy of those fast and expensive cars that wind up becoming fast and expensive fireballs upon impact with a solid object.

Long before the name Porsche became synonymous with expensive toys for rich people, Ferdinand was the lead designer of the most mass-produced car of all time: the Volkswagen Beetle.

Job with Nazis:
What's more surprising, however, is that Porsche's partner in masterminding the Beetle was also the mastermind of World War II: that crazy, affable buffoon Hitler. Hitler specifically wanted a cheap, sturdy vehicle everyone in Germany would be able to drive. Being the opportunistic businessman that he was, Porsche quickly whipped up the Volkswagen Beetle and lobbied heavily for the Fuhrer's approval. Soon, Porsche had his slave labor factories churning them out by the thousands, and eventually, flying out of dealerships.

So how evil were they?
If anything, the Beetle is perhaps one of the most misconstrued cars in history. People look at its rounded shape and anthropomorphic face and instantly think of love, peace and smoking massive quantities of pot. But, it was really designed as a tool for everyday life in the always-cheerful Third Reich. Give credit to Porsche for designing a car so impossibly cute that we forget it was built by diseased slaves in some dark, dank factory in Stuttgart, Germany.


If you squint, Herbie the Love Bug is sporting a Hitler mustache.

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413 Comments

@kai5757: sorry to rain on ur little speech, but i really felt like relieving myself. First of all, are you f*****g serious? biological warfare on such a massive scale 200 years ago when most people believed they could cure diseases with snake oil? The belief that the government handed out blankets laden with smallpox is not only incredibly false, but also IMPOSSIBLE. Im going to skip all the atrocities committed by the natives here or else id be as long winded as you. So how about, if your so sorry, give them your land, your house, your money, an for god's sake your f*****g computer. Finally, the idea that people or companies should be responsible for the actions of their forbears is just crazy. The current representatives of these companies didn't do s**t, they didnt make those decisions, they didn't make those mistakes, why the hell should they be held accountable? You want to us people's tax money to prosecute people who were not in control of the company at the time of the war? and most likely were not old to even be a part of the company? Some 50 year old guy becomes CEO of one of these companies and you want to sue the s**t out of him because of something the company did when basically there was a completely different EVERYBODY working there? really?

7/1/2009 11:49:58 PM
sliderr21

I think a few of the commenter’s below don't realize the full extent of the American efforts of Genocide against the Native peoples of North America. It was full scale and plotted well for the time period it took place in. Some of the first recorded acts of germ warfare were committed then, when the US army gave blankets from polio and small pox outbreaks to the Native Americans, knowing they had not biological defense against these European diseases. Killing off MILLIONS of buffalo to try to starve out the Native Americans, and making them then dependant on US "aid". Marching them across many states on foot to God-forsaken places on the earth like North Dakota... waiting for the men to go out on hunting parties and then attacking all the elderly, women, and children. This was the ARMY killing civilians, and the weak. Can you imagine coming home and finding your whole family slaughtered? In Southern California, there are parks and schools named after the "Great American Hero" Kit Carson! This guy led many massacres against women and children and elderly. This is genocide folks. You can’t sugar coat it into just a dispute over land rights. And let’s not forget that the US government double-crossed the Native Americans on EVERY “peace treaty” ever signed. The Shoshone Nation still have a legal deed to half of So Cal and Nevada. Our US government has been blocking them in court for a century! Why shouldn’t they be paid reparations? There is a group of Navajo in AZ being starved out of their land because the US government has found huge coal deposits there, and they want at it. This is still going on today!
The Germans used technology to do the most systematic human slaughter in known history. They kept impeccable records of their activities. They were incredibly detailed. Which is why I find it amazing that there are still some fools in the world who try to say it never happened. There are more German created documents about the Holocaust than you can count. And yes the companies that helped in those atrocities need to be held accountable - in court and with our almighty dollar. I make decisions every day about the products I am going to buy, and the companies are listening. That is why you see things changing on the shelves. And yes even though the employees today of those companies were not involved in the decisions of the 1930's and '40's, the companies and governments are still responsible. They did make a profit by the actions they did with the Nazi’s – which enabled them to continue to be in business for many years later. They PROFITED by the killing of Jews, Gypsies, handicapped persons, etc. They could have chosen not to do what they did. They had the freedom of choice. The Jews did not.
The sad thing is that humans never seem to change. There is genocide going on all over the world even today. The governments try to make it sound less horrific by calling it "ethnic cleansing" like it's the newest face wash to get rid of pimples. It's not. It's Genocide. The mass-scale murder of a race of people. Look at Darfur, Rwanda, Bosnia, etc. We have to talk about it because we have to make sure it doesn’t keep rearing its ugly head. And now more than ever, as our planet continues to change, and access to clean water, food supplies, fuel, and land become more and more stressed, governments will continue to de-humanize certain populations of people in order to keep the resources under their own control.
We therefore can never forget. I suggest to some of you folks that can’t relate, to visit one of the Holocaust museums. See the lamps made out of SKIN - Jewish human skin - and proudly used on the desks of SS officers. The emaciated bodies, the experiments - horrific experiments, the mountains of shoes, the babies and children murdered.... All while the general population looked away. Let's also not forget that Hitler put some of the wealthiest Jews from Germany on a boat and offered them to different countries to test if he would be reprimanded, and everyone, including the US turned them away. That was Hitler's "green light" for all the hell that followed. EVERYONE has a stake in that horror. The US didn’t even want to get involved in the war about Jew's. If it wasn’t for Pearl Harbor, who knows if the US would have ever gotten involved. What a stain on our US history! If Germany had Oil or something, I am sure we would have been glad to go over there and bomb them.
Things to think about folks.

6/24/2009 1:40:51 PM
kai5757

Humility, I think we should vote you ruler of the world.

5/4/2009 9:51:43 PM
Colombus

I think unique cultures cause more problems then they are worth. I actually see no value in culture, but since so many people make a big fuss about it, it has to be important.(Like how so many people made a big fuss over celebrities not getting the special treatment they obviously deserve.)

I don't know how to eliminate cultures though.

4/19/2009 5:15:13 PM
Humility

what a complete ripoff of excerpts from "50 things the government doesnt want you to know". but thanks for making it more public, i guess?

4/10/2009 6:31:41 PM
caitdgaf

what about fanta?!

4/10/2009 6:36:55 AM
13east

Nogrentain,

i wasnt trying to compare the natives problems with the jews problems. but if you wanna, the only reason we are still around is probably because they didnt have the technology. also we were pretty hard to round up. the nazis had industrial size death machines. they had to try and wipe us out the old fashioned way. and i suppose around 2060 we can just not care about the holocaust anymore? im just saying that these things are dangerous to remember but also dangerous to forget. as long as there are different races there will be irrational hatred. personally, i dont care about race. it means almost nothing these days. good and evil depend on how we were raised. the nazis didnt sit there cackling and twisting their curvy beards. they believed in what they were doing. the white settlers werent snidely f****n whiplash. they did what they thought was right. we cant hate a whole race of people for doing what they thought was right. well, we can, but what will that solve? surely we will all be lost to history in the long run.

4/10/2009 5:55:59 AM
skankbundy

Skankbuddy,

Raw deal yes, but there haven't been any serious attempts to wipe out Native Americans in well over a century. Sure, schools that were essentially designed to assimilate children, being on the bottom rung of society and all, but this does not compare to the industrial scale methodical project to systemmatically wipe out an entire race from existence. There is no black and white. There are many grey areas. You can hardly blame the people who currently live in the UK for committing genocide or mass atrocities across the world, but the UK itself still has that history wich the current and future generations should not shy away from but again not be blamed for. Similarily, you have to take into account when such crimes against humanity were slowly striken off, and under what circumstances some remained.

4/9/2009 10:02:30 PM
Nogrentain

you know if the nazis won, we'd be reading about the horrors of american allied companies. as a native american, i can say honestly that we got a raw deal. and by raw deal i mean attempted genocide. but not many Mutt Americans really care because they won the war. horrors and atrocities can be dressed up all kinds of ways. every single country/republic has done something awful, some just more than others. every race has been oppressed in history. all that really matters is whos in power now. frankly the only way to stop everyone from being singled out for genocide is for us to cross breed our races until we are gray frail creatures with large almond shaped eyes. only by losing our culture and race can we be free of racism. then we can just hate people based on personality or taste, the way the gods intended

4/9/2009 5:02:13 PM
skankbundy

@FMchymist: i never asked for reperations. And im aware that, like u mentioned, companies are legally liable...(notice how i compared them to Big Pharm coughing up dough for tainted meds.) i think u misundestood the race thing. I never said each jew should be able to sue a whitegerman, or every indian get to kill/rape one white person, or every black person get to inflict unjust pain and misery on any white person. But they compaines ARE liable, and fair is that they be sued by the people who their comapny just happened to kill scores of.... and conincidentally..did so because of race.
@hinge toast: aiming to inspire more hate and resentment.? hell no. looking for whats fair is something different. The jews arent bombing parts of germany on account of what happened. their just suing the parties responsible. WHICH IS FAIR. Sorry to hear about the plight going on in your town, but you know, hate is a hard thing to get over. Who in the history of the world (besides the dahli lama and mother teresa at one time) didnt feel like getting revenge on someone who wronged them? Im not saying that its right to do that, but everyone feels it. Guess the catholics in ireland choose bombs apparently while the jews choose lawyers.
@darth_spork: did i blame you? let me quess, your white, right? you guys are missing my point. i dont mean to come off that the companies should be sued because their run by non-jews. the point is, their company is responisble for atocities. so fair is for them to pay. Just like the u.s. government should of paid the indians in all fairness. And the slaves actually.... Races responsible for atrocities always have some way of excusing themselves. Perhaps thats the quote thats confusing ppl. The companies/entities are the ones responsible, HOWEVER, the ones excusing the unjust courses of action most always end up being ppl of the same race that afflicted the atorcity. you dont hear of too many jews saying..."oh they didnt know better back then. leave them alone". Only a bunch of ppl from the race (remember, the whole third reich thing was a race fueled war which is why i tied race into the whole argument) who were involved in slaughtering the jews.....
@rew223: lol thanks.

4/9/2009 2:51:17 PM
pacey

I'm actually rather surprised that Krupps wasn't mentioned. They were the main industrial family in Germany before and during the Third Reich, and manufactured everything from weapons to camp buildings, and today are still a major manufacturing company in the world. The elevators in my dorm are made by them, and I'm rather scared to go into one with a Jew.

4/9/2009 12:07:43 PM
aBEA

FUN FACT: That picture with the Nazi's and the kid was featured on 60 minutes. The kid is actually a Jew who was taken in by a Nazi soldier who hid his true identity to the other soldiers, he was kinda like a mascot for the camp.

3/27/2009 11:41:00 AM
SpanksU

Pacey: you made a page long rant without swearing. I for one am f*****g impressed

3/24/2009 4:04:06 AM
rew223

well pacey, it seemed like you were making an intellegent{albeit misguided) argument, up until you said "U feel me?" also, to blame me and the rest of the current generation for s**t that happened before we were in existence is ludicrous and ignorant. Thats like saying that because someones grandfather cheated on his wife hes responsible for his grandfathers actions....and trust me im not responsible for my gramps f****n lil miss nguyen in nam

3/17/2009 8:26:14 PM
darth_spork

Pacey, Im from Ireland, and in the north here we've been having Catholic republicans blowing the s**t out of innocent prodestants and vice versa for the past fifty years because of a war that happened nearly a century ago. And beleive me, EVERYONE here wishes that both the victims and the oppressors from that war would just shut the f**k up and live and let live. No matter how bad things were, they arent bad any more, so leave what happened unless you're aiming to inspire more hate and resentment.

3/15/2009 1:33:46 PM
hinge_toast

pacey, I feel that I must point out that while a corporation is a legal entity, and could reasonably be held liable for crimes it committed in the past (although I agree with DallasDeckard that it is unfair for current employees of corporations like Siemens to foot the bill for their predecessor's crimes), a race is not. It is racist to hold people responsible for a crime that they did not commit on the basis of their ancestry. Sure, my ancestors were imperialist fuckbags, but you know what? At some point in history, everyone's ancestors were like that. h**o sapiens is a violent, tribalistic species, and the only way we will ever get beyond that is if we stop dividing ourselves into separate camps, especially camps based on such insignificant physical differences as race. Instead of thinking "White people did X to black people in the past, therefore to be equal and fair white people owe black people Y in reparations today", we should simply acknowledge that a group of individuals who harboured tribablistic, collecitivist notions about the importance of race oppressed another group of individuals based on the color of their skin. It was horrible, unfortunate, but it doesn't mean that the descendants of the oppressors today should be required to pay reparations to the descendants of the oppressed. Both parties are innocent, and should no longer even be viewed as two separate groups, but instead they all should be viewed as individuals.

3/9/2009 11:14:08 PM
FMchymist

ok...im going to post some things some people may not agree with here....but hey, why the phuck not huh?
I am african-american and cherokee indian.(half and half) my family felt b.s on BOTH sides. And while i agree that it is unfair that people who are not directly responsible for trying to completely wipe out my race, and force the rest into horrid slavery i must say.....well thats too bad! It isnt fair. True. Nor was it fair that indian, blacks, jews, etc. suffered the way they (we) did. Races responible for atrocities always have some way of reasoning themselves out of responsibility for things done yester-year. I suppose that would be a little more tolerable if there was at least some kind of public apology to state that your ancestors thinking and your thinking today are different and you dont agree with what they did either.
But about reperations: Its not to different then people suing companies that produced agent orange and bad meds that our family members took and died from. I find that very few people seem to disagree with suing a company when its a situation like that...so why not have todays assholes pay for what there previously in-charge (and in many case, what they desire to become) assholes did. Theres no suck thing as "forgive and forget" when your talking about genocide or slavery. No matter how long ago it was. Now im not saying that we shouldnt forgive...cuz we should. But thats a hell of a thing to try to forget. U feel me? Those people in the past knew as well as people today know that those particular actions were grossly! improper. And if the people running those same buisnesses that were in on Nazi killings and things of the like, really dont mind the history, atrocities and bad reputation that taking on or keeping up that buisness entails....then hey, they bettr be down with paying the people of the families they obviously have absolutely no heart for. Jews may own half the western world (i'd say they sure did get there reperations! hehehe) but that sh*t DID only happen a few decades ago. Its still fresh for them. And slavery may have been about a century ago....but we sure did feel all the unnecessarily complicated, unfair bull shite that was associated with slavery for YEARS and YEARS after slavery was "abolished". You may forget, its was only 1975 when one of the last standing JIM CROW laws that afflicted african americans so sorely was lifted. Slavery ended, but the mentaility of a racist america sure the "H" didnt. And what about the indians? Dont get me started...... And these are just the companies that associated with Nazi's. Think of the product/names you enjoy today (all american, i mind you) that played roles in Hiroshima...in vietnam....in 911 (for those of you who believe the truth about that). Im sure almost every product name can be traced back to some gastly deed. Thing is...if no one knows about it, they dont suffer the cost. Well, everyone knew about the third reich. Kinda hard to hide your association with something like that when your a super conglomerate. ANyway...my point is, as I read alot of the comments made here(and this is a in-no-way-biased remark) I can bet that i can tell with about 90% accuracy who is of a race other than indian, black or jewish. Its was an unjust hell that was handed to many races in the past. And even if they did forgive....you KNOW who didnt forget, and who just never lived it.

3/5/2009 2:58:57 PM
pacey

lol the beetle IS wearing the hitler 'stache!!!

2/23/2009 7:02:38 PM
pyromaniacal13

Siemens hahahaha

2/17/2009 7:48:05 PM
vomitus

Funny. Bayer has a large banner ad on the left-hand side today.

2/14/2009 2:20:12 AM
BobNeitzsche

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