>>5602216

Ford and GM Scrutinized for Alleged Nazi Collaboration

Three years after Swiss banks became the target of a worldwide furor over their business dealings with Nazi Germany, major American car companies find themselves embroiled in a similar debate.

Like the Swiss banks, the American car companies have vigorously denied that they assisted the Nazi war machine or that they significantly profited from the use of forced labor at their German subsidiaries during World War II. But historians and lawyers researching class-action suits on behalf of former prisoners of war are busy amassing evidence of collaboration by the automakers with the Nazi regime

The issues at stake for the American automobile corporations go far beyond the relatively modest sums involved in settling any lawsuit. During the war, the car companies established a reputation for themselves as "the arsenal of democracy" by transforming their production lines to make airplanes, tanks and trucks for the armies that defeated Adolf Hitler. They deny that their huge business interests in Nazi Germany led them, wittingly or unwittingly, to also become "the arsenal of fascism."

The Ford Motor Co. has mobilized dozens of historians, lawyers and researchers to fight a civil case brought by lawyers in Washington and New York who specialize in extracting large cash settlements from banks and insurance companies accused of defrauding Holocaust victims. Also, a book scheduled for publication next year will accuse General Motors Corp. of playing a key role in Hitler's invasions of Poland and the Soviet Union.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/nov98/nazicars30.htm?noredirect=on

>>5602311

Ford Sees Big Russia Gamble Vindicated as Sales Finally Turn Corner

Ford has become the first major foreign carmaker in Russia to see sales grow after three bad years, potentially vindicating its decision to double down on a notoriously volatile market when rivals decided to cut and run.

Sales of cars in Russia have fallen by more than half since a 2012 peak of 2.9 million vehicles, due to an economic crisis brought on by low oil prices and Western sanctions. The market fell by 11% last year, and was down a further 5% in January from a year earlier.

Ford’s big U.S. rival General Motors pulled out of Russia two years ago. But Ford chose not only to stay, but to keep investing, launching new models with modifications designed to suit the country’s harsh driving conditions.

Since 2011, its joint venture with Sollers, a Russian partner, has plowed $1.5 billion into making cars locally to local specifications.

Now Ford’s sales have turned a corner and rose 10% last year, an achievement the company says is proof its strategy is at last paying off.

http://fortune.com/2017/02/19/ford-russia-sales-increase/

>>5602352

Ford Motor Car Company in World War Two

Dearborn, MI

1903-Present

This page updated on 9-22-2018.

Ford Motor Company is probably best known for its production of 6,790 B-24 Bombers at the US government financed and owned plant at Willow Run, MI. Constructing the plant, finding and training the required people, and acquiring the tooling and equipment to build the aircraft consumed a considerable amount of Ford's resources and time during the war. Lost in the B-24 story is the numbers and diversity of other war items Ford built that contributed to the success of the US war effort. Below I have attempted to capture the entire breadth of what the Ford Motor Company produced during WWII. This starts with the JB-2 Loon, the first US "cruise missile," which was a copy of the German V-1 Buzz Bomb.

Also of significant note is the number and location of Ford's plants, not only in the US but overseas as well. While several of the plants were sold or loaned to the US government for war production, Ford's 42 domestic plants continued producing war goods. Some of these were small "village" plants that produced many important parts for the larger products.

https://www.usautoindustryworldwartwo.com/ford.htm

>>5602397

Ford signs agreement with Soviet Union

After two years of exploratory visits and friendly negotiations, Ford Motor Company signs a landmark agreement to produce cars in the Soviet Union on this day in 1929.

The Soviet Union, which in 1928 had only 20,000 cars and a single truck factory, was eager to join the ranks of automotive production, and Ford, with its focus on engineering and manufacturing methods, was a natural choice to help. The always independent-minded Henry Ford was strongly in favor of his free-market company doing business with Communist countries. An article published in May 1929 in The New York Times quoted Ford as saying that “No matter where industry prospers, whether in India or China, or Russia, all the world is bound to catch some good from it.”

Signed in Dearborn, Michigan, on May 31, 1929, the contract stipulated that Ford would oversee construction of a production plant at Nizhni Novgorod, located on the banks of the Volga River, to manufacture Model A cars. An assembly plant would also start operating immediately within Moscow city limits. In return, the USSR agreed to buy 72,000 unassembled Ford cars and trucks and all spare parts to be required over the following nine years, a total of some $30 million worth of Ford products. Valery U. Meshlauk, vice chairman of the Supreme Council of National Economy, signed the Dearborn agreement on behalf of the Soviets. To comply with its side of the deal, Ford sent engineers and executives to the Soviet Union

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/ford-signs-agreement-with-soviet-union

>>5602480

THIS is the second volume of an empirical study of the relationship between Western technology and entrepreneurship and the economic growth of the Soviet Union.

The continuing transfer of skills and technology to the Soviet Union through the medium of foreign firms and engineers in the period 1930 to 1945 can only be characterized as extraordinary. A thorough and systematic search unearthed only two major items–SK-B synthetic rubber and the Ramzin 'once-through' boiler–and little more than a handful of lesser designs (several aircraft, a machine gun, and a motorless combine) which could accurately be called the result of Soviet technology; the balance was transferred from the West

The USSR's space technology was first-rate; but the Soviet space program was a development from the German V2.

The T-34 tank was an important Soviet weapon which helped turn the tide against Nazi Germany. It was not introduced until the German army was deep inside Russia.

Prior to the start of the Korean War, each side had talked of "liberating" the other. Stalin, at Kim Il-Sung's request, gave 100 T-34 tanks to North Korea; these formed the spearhead of its attack.

But the Soviet T-34 tank was a development from a Christie M 1931 tank chassis sold to the Soviet Union by the United States. "The Soviet T-34 and the American M3, both based on the Christie, had the same 12-cylinder aero engine: a V-type Liberty of 338 horsepower."

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2862244-western-technology-and-soviet-economic-development