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
Eyebrow, meet ceiling
“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.
Fun fact: The grandmother of the current BMW owner Gabriele Quandt was literally Magda Goebbels. No, seriously.
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.
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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.
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They did nazi that coming
Now that’s a classic reddit comment right there. The more things change, the more they stay the same lol
It’s missing the “Anne Frankly” opener.
Something something fuhrerious
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?
That pun was not created by anyone on Reddit
Can we still leave it there?
No u
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A big part of Reddit getting to where they are now in size and popularity was that the comment sections got predictable and less fun and informative. I think hoping for better here isn’t judgemental or controlling, it’s part of why we left reddit.
Everyone here is talking about how this reminds them of early reddit and early internet but these low effort comments getting common place are very late stage reddit which is boring.
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Unlikely, those predate historical record.
All dad jokes have been banned until father notice
I’m here to sign up for the band
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
Other than that, how was the kerning, Mrs. Lincoln?
I thought Germans were supposed to be sticklers for detail!
I’d like to think they did that on purpose to spite Hitler.
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
Literal grammar Nazis.
It is Bayerische Motoren Werke. Funnily enough, that’s wrong orthography, it should be Bayerische Motorenwerke, so you have a point.
These shitposts are too real
Yikes, I also looked into the background of Ferdinand Porsche, and man, he was a real Nazi summabitch.
Hitler was directly behind the development of the VW Beetle with Porsche doing the engineering work.
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.
Hitler was not “directly 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” because he wanted to make car manufacturing a significant industrial branch. The reality is that it was pretty much an empty promise. People invested in shares of VW so they could eventually get a Käfer, but very few were actually built during the war.
I literally said Porsche did the engineering. How would that make Hitler the lead designer?
Not a good look ehh?
Is that even legal to post in Germany?
It’s history and for educational purposes. It’s perfectly legal.
Shit posting is educational?
People are learning of BMWs dark history, are they not?
Generally as long as the symbol isn’t used to endorse nazi ideology it is fine.
You’re goddamn right it is
Considering BMW is one of the worse profiteers from WW2 it probably classifies as satire or something else art related!
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
This is not at all a view that is based in reality, Germany has made it mandatory in their curriculum to learn about the atrocities committed by the Nazis in the war and bring the schools to concentration camps to drive home the depravity of their history.
What a bullshit take. Germany is noted for how they have handled their history, in stark contrast to Japan who do not acknowledge the atrocities they committed and shy away from public knowledge of them.
Iirc I’m pretty sure they haven’t apologized for all the horrible shit Unit 731 did to the Chinese and actively go out of their way to pretend stuff like the Rape of Nanking never happened.
I normally would say to look them up, but this one of the rare cases that I would say to do so if you can stomach reading some of the most disgusting shit.
When I was doing history in Year 11 & 12 (junior and senior?) I had this incredibly strict, serious teacher. He was known throughout the school for his intensity, and his lack of tolerance for bullshit. When we covered the Rape of Nanking, he had gone through and sharpied out a paragraph on a handout. He told us that he wouldn’t normally try to shield his students from a part of history, but that this particular part was incredibly distressing.
While I disagree with the person you’re responding to because I find it honestly a little bit disgusting to equate the population of Germany with big German corporations (no, BMW is not “the Germans”), it is true that Germany has historically had a blind spot for capitalist Nazi collaboration (and so has the US, by the way!).
Cory Doctorow wrote a great piece about this topic a few weeks ago. Really recommend reading it if what you’ve always heard is how well Germany does with its history.
Can confirm this.
I visited several concentration camps in different countries with my school (not mandatory on curriculum; but visiting Auschwitz is something that really brings home the horrors and that’s why the school offers it to older students (together with psychological staff))
I learned about Nazi-History for 2, maybe 3 years in school.
Therefore I can say that in general we are not afraid to learn/teach about the time; to prevent that it happens again (which seemingly didn’t work as a significant parts goes towards the right again… but I digress)
That said: There was never a focus on german companies. Sure, here and there you will find some references and images as a sidenote in a school history book; but nothing that was talked about long enough to got stuck in my brain.
So I wouldn’t deny that some of us are a bit blind in regards to the still-running businesses that were involved with the nazis. And if someone brings it up it’s often just dismissed with sth. alike “Well, at that time you had to cooperate with the nazis or ceise to exist”.
But saying we’re “uncomfortable” about the history is wrong in the way it was said; sure, we (at least those with my opinion) are not proud of what happened and it’s not our favorite topic, but it’s not like we just pretend it never happened
How many executives and shareholders were convicted for their crimes? Did any profits get dislodged? Seems like people who benefit front these crimes are still holding nice bags of profits and assets.
Also, you glossed over how BMW and other corps would import slaves to work their factories. Do they teach that in German schools or just topics in vogue like camps?
It’s taught in schools, and anyway, you’re glossing over the fact that the poster above proved your claim wrong (Germans are all uncomfortable with their history), which is just plain false.
You make it sound as if everyone got off easy. Ww2 is the reason we’re going after war criminals in the first place. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_trials
This didn’t exist prior to WW2. While there certainly there are many, that didn’t face any punishment or got to keep their benefits, there also have been those that got punished. The allies had to form a new state and rebuilt and most available personnel had worked in the administration or economy of nazi Germany before and was guilty to some degree. There was nobody else and times were changing fast. A new conflict was on the horizon and life had to go on. So they had to work with what they had.
Mistakes were made but this has never been done before. Punishing a whole country and its people is what made the Nazis possible and successful in the first place. I’d not be so sure it would be done any different today. I’d say we’d probably struggle even more and fumble the whole thing even harder.
Concentration camps are so in vogue.
You must be so tired from moving those goalposts.
You really don’t know what you’re talking about.
“they get all uncomfortable about history.”
Looks like I do ;)
You haven’t made me fee uncomfortable, if that’s what you’re implying.
Man I just had a look at your comment history, and noticed you haven’t posted anything at all.
Good luck trolling around the internet, uninvited, talking as if you’re a fountain of wisdom.
Add another sad little troll to the ban pile.
That’s not true at all, Germans make a big effort in remembering what they did and making sure it keeps being remembered.
As opposed to my country, Italy, where the attitude after the fall of Mussolini was “uh, oh well”.
Let’s just not talk about it was very common practice for like 40 years after the war in Germany, too. But today it’s a totally different story (luckily). Can’t be remembered enough especially when looking at the political directions the western world is heading to right now…
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this reads like a joke, it’s so far from what i see from germans and germany.
They were getting Germany confused with Florida and profit/tech with alligators/meth. Easy mistake.
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.
It’s important not to forget the past. If America treated slavery the same way we’d be a lot further socially.
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.
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!!!
better than IBM I guess
I mean, the famous Bf-109 fighters had BMW engines.
For everyone wodering, here is a good english video that also covers some of BMWs history! https://piped.video/watch?v=-WX5zOdMprc&t=1011
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.
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.
Oof
