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.
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.
I know that. But we still need to support the companies that do shit we want, so it’s more profitable to do so.
TBF, Disney is not buckling under pressure from the Florida Nazi governor.
Disney don’t give a fuck about LBGTQIA+.
There’s just more profit in performative concern for that community.
They have a lot more to lose if they do.
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.
If they don’t another business will
That’s true, but just because the business that does sell out is more successful, doesn’t mean we can’t and shouldn’t buy from the businesses that didn’t sell out. Obviously they will be harder to find because they tend to be more local and/or niche (you gotta be, if you want to survive against businesses with no morals), but we all need to be doing what we can.
Of course with cars, there’s little we can do because all the privately owned companies tend to be making multi-million dollar cars. But for things like food, clothing, etc, there are often alternatives to the big name brands. You just have to look for them.
It’s important not to forget the past. If America treated slavery the same way we’d be a lot further socially.
and then there is Austria…
Fun fact: The grandmother of the current BMW owner Gabriele Quandt was literally Magda Goebbels. No, seriously.
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
Hmmm… Maybe we shouldn’t prioritize profits over all else?
Nah, nvm. That can’t be right.
Get outta here with your pinko commie socialist gay woke agenda!!!
Nah they literally used extermination camp forced labour, that much we know without doubt so they were pretty damn complicit. Tried to research whether BMW ever actually made gas vans, but couldn’t find a definitive confirmation or good evidence to the contrary from a reputable source, so gonna say they might have.
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.
Well Nazis were pretty much reintegrated into society in West Germany because Soviets became the enemy. So many people escaped justice it’s insane.
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.
Honestly, after WW2 and the horrors of it and the Holocaust, I’m mildly surprised that Germany wasn’t intentionally “collapsed” in a permanent way. Not just its division into zones but permanently dissolved as a geopolitical entity, with the allies flooding their respective zones with people to settle, work, and live in the region, and encouraging the German people to travel to their countries to dilute/absorb/assimilate the people and culture to the point that the actual land effectively became something between a territory and a colony of each ally (or even an outright annexation), with no moves toward creation of East and West Germany, nor any consideration of reunification.
I guess time has a way of healing wounds, but given the impact of the war and the acts of the nazi regime, I would have expected the allies, post-war to do everything in their power to prevent a German state from ever existing again.
Admittedly, I’m not as familiar with that time period as I am with the war itself, and such ideas are always easier said than done…but that’s always seemed like a more realistic course of events, to me, than what actually happened.
That is what happened at the of WW1 which created conditions that were a straight line into WW2.
The reality it is far better to support a people back into democratic, peaceful self-governed society vs perpetuate the damage and trauma of a bestial dictatorship.
How do you measure that, there’s no crime in Germany that’s in anyway related to the horrors of WW2 (I’m assuming). Most remnants feel guilty or ousted by society if they mention being part of war crimes. Very few would have found support in different parts of the world encouraging supremacy or something shady.
The purpose of punishments and prison system if to avoid repeat behavior which mostly happened anyways. So does still punishing them have any real value except for feelings of revenge?
Well, if you don’t even try to punish wrong behaviour it’s a bit like agreeing with it. Hey son, you did nothing wrong in killing the neighbors. Keep it up, Kyle.
Most of the top Nazi officials escaped to Argentina, and the more talented scientists ended up working for the US government.
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)
Should IBM also close shop?
Any company that existed in Germany during WWII, it seems.
yes
Why though? Today it’s a different company with different people and values.
if IBM had such different values they could be paying reparations to the communities they helped tried to murder out of existence. even acknowledging the company’s role in the holocaust would be a start - instead as of 2021 they’re still in full denial mode
Removed by mod
These shitposts are too real
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.
Well it didn’t
Sloppy work like that is how you lose wars, son!
Now that you mentioned it, it does bother me, but it might have been on purpose.
BMW stands for Benelli (?) Motor Werk(s), so essentially it’s:
(Location) -space- (Factory Type)
At least that’s my assumption for it, because otherwise, it being Nazi Germany, if that was a typographical error, the person stamping those would probably be shot
It is Bayerische Motoren Werke. Funnily enough, that’s wrong orthography, it should be Bayerische Motorenwerke, so you have a point.
Literal grammar Nazis.
Yikes, I also looked into the background of Ferdinand Porsche, and man, he was a real Nazi summabitch.
Porsche employed nazis even after the war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joachim_Peiper
Everybody employed nazis after the war, including NASA. To an extent, the winners of the war silently agreed to let that slide.
I mean, the famous Bf-109 fighters had BMW engines.
They did nazi that coming
i think that pun’s older than the internet
I imagine two soldiers in the trenches and one just says that when something unexpected happens and the other just smacks him in the back of the head.
Can we leave that unfunny overdone joke on reddit?
All dad jokes have been banned until father notice
No
That pun was not created by anyone on Reddit
Can we leave the judgmental and overly controlling posts there?
No
Not a good look ehh?
Is that even legal to post in Germany?
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.
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
To be fair, while everyone likes to think they’d be resisting nazi rule, most people, including you, would have most likely fallen in line and at least pretended to be pro-nazi.
Okay…?
Okay, so I am from a country where we got rid of a fascist government less than 50 years ago, thus ending 4 decades of dictatorship. The memory of those days are still quite fresh in our collective memory, regardless the new right wing zealots going to far lenghts to retell a very well and publicly documented history.
And that history is an history of repression, social stagnation and political persecussion. And denunciation.
KGB, the famous KGB, created a reputation for repression by brutality but here it was impossible to tell who you could trust. Your neighbour, your loved ones, that person you encountered every day on the bus, your coworkers… besides the very easy to spot and identify agents that could at random approach you on the street, question and drag you off to the nearest police station or detention center, with no expected time to return home, if ever.
It took, technically a military coup, an inside job, to take this repressive regime. Luckily, it was never their intention to instate a military junta and democracy was instead established.
People could either support, tolerate or endure the regime. There was no other options. Thousands conspired for decades and died in the process. The slightest suspicion and any one could end behind bars, deported to one of the colonies, where prison conditions were even worse, as if such thing could be possible or simply gone, occasionally dragged out of their house, in the middle of the night, in a very loud and public exibition of force for everyone to see and never to comment but by whispers.
That is how fascism, and by extension, any dictatorship enforces complacency.
Not many are willing to become heroes and even less survive to tell the tale. The notion that when dark times arise a great hero will come is an hollywood creation.
Okay, so the people at the top of that company were terrified for their lives too. Everyone complied or died. They chose to comply. Just like you would have.
Do I think the money earned during that time should be given to survivors and their families? Yes. Do I blame them for complying? No.
You conveniently omit the third group: the ones that perpetrate and take advantage of the narrative for their own gain.
If “we’d all be nazis”, maybe we all deserve criticism. That’s not a defense.
Thousands might be being murdered a day in death camps but at least the shareholders are happy.
You mean like Nike in Bangladesh, but without the wire fences and just through the use of police enforced and government backed brutality, when the workers tried to rally for better work conditions?
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.
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.
If someone puts a gun to my head and makes me choose between my life and your life, I’m choosing my life.
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.
I don’t agree with your dichotomy, but ignoring that for a second, saying “the punishment as bad or worse than the crime” makes it sound like you think someone losing their job is “as bad or worse” than genocide - maybe reconsider
Let’s be clear here too. There was real dissent in Germany and the Nazis shipped those who fought back to camps first. These people just doing their jobs made their choice.
Wherever you work, are you so powerful there that you can refuse to follow intructions or operational guidelines? Are you so financially secure you can just quit your job and leave if you are aware the company is involved in unethical practices? Don’t you those who depend or rely on you for security in their lives?
If so, congratularions.
But many, if not most, don’t have that power and security. They need to work in order to live and take care of others.
Going back to the tweeter/musk debacle: how many were purged from the company or left it for dissent, how many stayed, even though they knew the company was going to engage in behaviours and practices completely contrary to its history and how many have really signed up for the new boss’s “vision”?
Crude analogy but valid enough.
If the company was to be dissolved as punitive action, as you suggest, where would those who stayed because they had to find jobs, considering they would be condemned by association?
Wait, let me try to answer that on your behalf: it would be necessary to lead proper investigations, to determine who was voluntarily, willingly, involved and those who were stuck with no other option.
Or are you perhaps suggesting that no matter what, the moment you complied, regardless your personal agreement, you are as guilty as those who made the initial decision that turned the company on its head?
This isn’t a black and white world. Please stop to consider these downfall of your decisions onto others.
your analogy between twitter employees not quitting because of Musk’s purchase of Twitter, and BMW workers not quitting because of BMW’s active participation in the holocaust isn’t just crude, it’s appallingly disrespectful.
I ask you again to think about whether you really mean that losing one’s job is “as bad or worse than” genocide.
I’d be happy to discuss with you, what I think someone could do if they find themself working for an organisation perpetrating atrocities (or encouraging them, as Twitter and Facebook are) - a sneak preview of my opinion is “they could certainly do more than sit there” - but I don’t think there’s any chance of it a productive conversation unless we can agree that being rounded up and exterminated is universally, objectively, worse than being fired from a job.
Contrary to your expectations, I’m very open to have a dialogue.
Please, elaborate your point.
Contrary to your expectations, I’m very open to have a dialogue.
Please, elaborate your point.
Awe, poor multi million dollar corporation had to support the Nazi war killing a shit ton of people or they would lose monies…
What do you think the Nazis did to people who refused to support them?
What do you think would happen if everyone didn’t support them? You think it’s okay to genocide if someone threatens you with a spanking?
No, I don’t think it’s okay. Yes, I know that if nobody supported them, the Nazis would have never risen to power in the first place.
But “corporation bad” doesn’t mean it’s always a matter of “I did this horrible thing to save a bit of money.” Sometimes there are lives on the line.
Please do not equate concentration camps with a spanking either. You don’t need to belittle the actual suffering they caused to make the valid point that cooperating with them is evil.
Oskar Schindler spent millions and most of his personal wealth to continue operating while saving as many jews as possible.
The leadership at BMW had many options available to them and instead chose to actively support genocide that they knew was happening. They used slave labor from the concentration camps. Leadership at BMW knew full well what was happening.
Yes, it is fully reasonable to expect people exploiting slave labor and actively contributing to a genocide to either do the right thing and do everything in their power to help the people being murdered, like Schindler, while risking their own lived.
Yeah. Are you trying to prove me wrong, or just provide additional information/opinion? I’m having trouble figuring it out, because it sounds like the former, but I’m not seeing much conflict in the information itself.
Thanks for the info, though. I hadn’t known that they used slave labor. I was only reacting to the initial meme. Of course that is far less understandable than just having made vehicles for the Nazis in wartime economy.
It’s also important to keep in mind that the leadership of the company today consists of probably 0 people who were part of the wartime BMW, and they do own up to their predecessors’ misdeeds, so I don’t think it’s fair to blame today’s BMW for it any more than it is to blame today’s Germany.
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 owners favor by putting large quantities of money and/or resources in their hands.
Self preservation is easy to turn into greed.
There wouldn’t have been a dictator if THEY didn’t make him one. They should have resisted. Their selfishness in preserving their greedy company at the cost of millions of lives does not make them innocent.
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.
For a moment I thought you were talking about the USA.
Heerily similar, isn’t it?
Heerily
Can’t tell if that typo was intentional or not…
Just plain stupidity. Did not bother to look it up in the dictionary and fumble it.
B - Banana
M - Melon
W - We do everything for moneyWell 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.
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.
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.
