But Henry Ford was no Saint by any means either. He was the man who built the Soviet Union's first modern automobile plant in Gorki in 1930. He also knowingly profited from both sides of the war, for his French and German affiliated plants produced vehicles for the Axis, while his American factories profited from the United States Army. In 1928, Henry Ford merged his German assets with I. G. Farben, while in 1942, Edsel Ford urged his associates at French Ford to arm the German Wehrmacht. In essence, then, Henry Ford's factories produced vehicles that were used against American soldiers that landed in France in 1944.
If this was all there was to the story, someone could dismiss the above information as being coincidental, or circumstancial,. But regrettably, there is more.
In The New York Times dated December 20, 1922, a headline read: "BERLIN HEARS FORD IS BACKING HITLER," while the subsequent article stated, "A rumor is current here that Henry Ford, the American automobile manufacturer, is financing Adolf Hitler's Nationalist and anti-semitic movement in Munich. Indeed, the Berlin Tageblatt has made an appeal to the American Ambassador in Berlin to investigate and interfere."
There were many people who were either directly or indirectly associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi's who said that they had no idea about their anti-Semitic underpinnings. But just remember - this New York Times article ran in 1922, over a decade BEFORE World War 2 even began!
The same New York Times article stated: "The wall behind his desk in Hitler's private office is decorated with a large picture of Henry Ford. In the antechamber there is a large table covered with books, nearly all of which are a translation of a book written and published by Henry Ford."