The American Axis
Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh have long been exalted as two of the greatest American icons of the twentieth century. From award-winning journalist Max Wallace comes groundbreaking and astonishing revelations about the poisonous effect these two so-called American heroes had on Western democracy. In his wide ranging investigation, Wallace goes further than any other historian to expose how Ford and Lindbergh-acting in league with the Nazis-almost brought democratic Europe to the verge of extinction.
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- This is a nice write-up, although it focuses solely on the US industrial output, which is indeed impressive, going from ~2,100 aircraft to ~50,000 in six years. However, that first table raises some questions - the Soviets were already at ~10,300 in 1939, and the Germans at ~8,200. How were they able to do it?
One major influence is that American industrialists were busy expanding global markets and happily supplied their technology and manufacturing processes to the two major buyers, Nazi Germany and Communist Russia, in the 1930s, with Ford being one of the major actors, perhaps more active in Germany:
In Germany:
> "Ford and the Führer: A History of Ford Motor Company's Involvement in Nazi Germany" by Paul Ingrassia and Joseph B. White: This work delves into Ford's business activities in Germany, documenting the introduction of assembly-line manufacturing and the company's interactions with the Nazi regime."
> "The American Axis: Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, and the Rise of the Third Reich" by Max Wallace: This book explores the relationship between American industrialists like Henry Ford and the Nazi regime, including detailed accounts of Ford's manufacturing contributions."
In Soviet Union:
> "Gorky Automobile Plant (GAZ): Built with the technical assistance of Ford, the Gorky Automobile Plant began producing vehicles using American-style assembly lines. Ford provided machinery, blueprints, and training to Soviet engineers and workers. Soviet engineers and technicians received training in Ford’s American factories, learning about assembly line production and modern manufacturing techniques."
I don't know if there's a particular moral to this story, other than that in search of short-term profit major American industrialists were happy to get in bed with any and all buyers.
- Countermeasures* to this problem reminded me of an incident in which the Germans were able to outsmart Allied military intelligence.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_tank_problem#Countermea...
This is something I read in The American Axis, which discusses how Charles Lindbergh was duped into helping delay American involvement in WWII. The short version: He was taken on a grand, multi-day tour of the Luftwaffe’s large air-force… never the wiser that the planes he saw on airbase after airbase were the same ones, flown in overnight from the last airbase! Naturally the US MI questioned Lindbergh after his travel and grossly overestimated the power and size of the Germain air force, just as they had intended!
(As I recall, Lindbergh wasn’t a Nazi sympathizer so much as a dupe; although the other subject of the book – Henry Ford — certainly was. In fact, Ford plants produced the faultiest American war planes, by far, dooming quite a number of American pilots. There’s every reason to think this was intentional.)
Update I read this book 8 years ago and my memory isn't 100%. It looks like Lindbergh, per the book, was also a Nazi sympathizer to some degree, although he comes off much more sympathetically than Ford.
- As I mentioned, I’m pulling this from a book. http://www.amazon.com/The-American-Axis-Charles-Lindbergh/dp...
One reviewer on Amazon says:
> This is one of the most carefully researched, extensively footnoted, beautifully written, books on this subject ever published. The sources include entries from Lindbergh's journal, Lindbergh's speeches, FBI files, letters from German archives, Ford company records, and many other primary sources. Every assertion of fact is backed up with unimpeachable documentation.
IIRC — by this point it was Ford's son running the plant(s) in question, but Henry Ford himself is not just a known anti-Semite, but quite literally ran and anti-Jewish propaganda paper in Dearborn, MI. It hardly takes a leap to look at the abysmal performance of planes built by Ford and suspect that management there was particularly … lackadaisical in their pursuit of quality.
