Count-martyr: why the German helped the Russians during the First World War. The United States during the Second World War helped not only the USSR, but also Nazi Germany

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In total, according to the statistics of the Eastern Troops Directorate, as of February 2, 1943 total number Soviet citizens who speak German military service, amounted to 750 thousand, of which "Hiwi" - from 400 to 600 thousand, excluding the SS, Luftwaffe and fleet. Hivi (German: Hilfswilliger, who wants to help; Ost-Hilfswilligen, eastern voluntary assistants) - the so-called voluntary assistants of the Wehrmacht, recruited (including forcibly mobilized) from the local population in the occupied territories of the USSR and Soviet prisoners of war. As of February 1945, the number of "Hiwi" reached 600 thousand people in the Wehrmacht, up to 60 thousand in the Luftwaffe and 15 thousand in the Navy.

It is believed that on June 22, 1941, Germany attacked the Soviet Union. In fact, this is not entirely true, several countries started a war against the USSR, among them:
Romania - about 200 thousand soldiers,
Slovakia - 90 thousand soldiers,
Finland - about 450 thousand soldiers and officers,
Hungary - about 500 thousand people,
Italy - 200 thousand people,
Croatia as part of the security division

And these are only those countries that have officially declared war on the Soviet Union. According to various sources, from one and a half to two and a half million volunteers who fought in parts of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen SS took part in this "crusade" against the USSR.

These were representatives of such countries as: Holland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Sweden, Finland, France, Switzerland, Spain, Luxembourg. As well as during patriotic war 1812, in fact, the whole of Europe took up arms against Russia.

The famous American historian George G. Stein in his book "Waffen SS" describes National composition these parts:
the Dutch - 50 thousand people, the Belgians - 20 thousand people, the French - 20 thousand people, the Danes and Norwegians - 6 thousand people each, 1200 people each from Sweden, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and other European countries.

Of the European SS volunteers, one of the best divisions of the Reich, the Viking, consisted. The name symbolized that representatives of the Aryan peoples of Nordic blood were gathered in its ranks.

So on March 10, 1942, the Norwegian Legion was transferred to the Leningrad Front, he helped keep the city in the blockade ring until the spring of 1943. But due to heavy losses, most of the legionnaires refused to renew the contract, and were replaced by the Latvian SS Legion on Himmler's orders.

The blockade of Leningrad can generally be considered a pan-European enterprise. In addition to the Norwegians, the Netherlands Legion, a Belgian battalion, operated near Volkhov. Spanish volunteers from the Blue Division fought here, Finnish and Swedish troops besieged Leningrad from the north, Italian sailors were preparing for battles on Ladoga.

The German historian Müller-Hillebrandt, who during the war was a major general in the General Staff of the Wehrmacht, recalls that many Frenchmen, who were refused enlistment by the Germans in their armed forces, were greatly offended.

It all started with the fact that Heinrich Himmler had a conflict with the leadership of the Wehrmacht due to the fact that he tried to take the best for his SS units. The best in terms of physical fitness, health, intellectual state. He really selected the guards, and the Wehrmacht got, as his leadership considered, the second grade, so to speak.

After the army generals "complained" to Hitler, a limit was set for Himmler to call up Germans to the guard units. But Himmler quickly found a way out, he began to recruit representatives of the so-called Volksdeutsch, Germans living outside Germany, into his units. It could be Germans from Holland, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, and anywhere.

“I swear to you, Adolf Hitler, as a leader, to be loyal and brave. I vow to obey you and the chief appointed by you until death. And so help me God.” This is a fragment of the oath of European volunteers of the Waffen SS upon entry into service.

Unlike the oath that the Germans took, the text did not mention Hitler as Chancellor of the Reich, this is a kind of psychological trick that this is not a service in the ranks of the German occupiers, but in the pan-European parts of the SS.

Among the Alpine riflemen there were also not only Germans, in total there were twelve mountain rifle divisions, of which two were Austrian, one was from Yugoslav Germans, one was from Bosnian Muslims, another consisted of Albanians, and another included both Austrians and Norwegians. So we can assume that every second German mountain shooter was born outside the borders of the Third Reich in 1937.

Such a large number of volunteers from the European countries captured by Hitler is explained by many reasons, this is the racial theory that was fashionable in Europe at that time and the bright successes of the National Socialist ideology, and simply the desire to profit.

According to Himmler's plans, the racially inferior peoples of the USSR were to be thrown back beyond the Urals, and their numbers were reduced several times. Aryans of Nordic blood were to settle in the occupied territories of the eastern lands.

The Second World War is unique of all wars, never before in history have there been similar cases of mass transition of citizens of the conquered countries to the service of the invaders. Under the Nazi banners, she voluntarily became almost most of population.

Not only the armed formations of the European Waffen SS and foreign units of the Wehrmacht took part in the war against the USSR, the entire industry of Europe also worked for the military machine of the Third Reich. In the early years of the war, almost every second shell was cast from Swedish ore.

In the summer of 1941, every fourth tank in the German army was Czech or French. Germany won its first victories largely thanks to Scandinavian iron and Swiss optics for sights.

Few people know that the most powerful tank of the Wehrmacht during the attack on the USSR was the French B2. Half of the super-heavy guns that shelled Leningrad and Sevastopol were produced in France and the Czech Republic.

In 1938, in Munich, representatives of England and France treacherously gave Hitler Czechoslovakia. If not for this collusion, Germany, for economic reasons, might not have been able to start a full-scale war.

The Czech defense industry was at that time one of the largest in Europe. From its factories, the Reich received more than one and a half million rifles and pistols, about 4 thousand guns and mortars, over 6600 tanks and self-propelled guns.

Of particular importance for Germany was the supply of raw materials. American oil companies, through their subsidiaries in Latin America, handed Hitler gasoline to the tune of several tens of millions of dollars. Rockefeller's Standard Oil supplied the Third Reich with fuel, lubricants and fuel worth $20 million.

Henry Ford, a big admirer of Hitler, had branches of his enterprises in Germany, which, until the very end of the war, supplied the Germans with very good trucks, only about 40 thousand units. For America, war has become good business.

It is worth noting that in the occupied territory of the USSR, the Germans, out of 32 thousand enterprises, were able to launch only two hundred. They gave products three times less than a country like Poland.

“If we see that Germany is winning, we must help Russia. And if Russia wins, we must help Germany. And let them kill each other in this way as much as possible. It's all for the good of America." This statement was made on June 24, 1941 by future US President Harry Truman to the American newspaper The New York Times.

Neutral countries in the service of the Nazis

“... In the very first days of the war, a German division was passed through the territory of Sweden for operations in Northern Finland. However, the Prime Minister of Sweden, the Social Democrat P. A. Hansson, immediately promised the Swedish people that not a single German division would be allowed through the territory of Sweden and that the country would in no way enter the war against the USSR. Sweden took over the representation of the interests of the USSR in Germany, and yet through Sweden the transit of German military materials to Finland unfolded; German transport ships transported troops there, hiding in the territorial waters of Sweden, and until the winter of 1942/43 they were accompanied by a convoy of the Swedish naval forces. The Nazis achieved the supply of Swedish goods on credit and their transportation mainly on Swedish ships ... "

“... It was Swedish iron ore that was the best raw material for Hitler. After all, this ore contained 60 percent pure iron, while the ore received by the German military machine from other places contained only 30 percent iron. It is clear that the production of military equipment from metal smelted from Swedish ore was much cheaper for the treasury of the Third Reich.

In 1939, the same year that Nazi Germany unleashed the Second world war, it was supplied with 10.6 million tons of Swedish ore. Wow! After April 9, that is, when Germany had already conquered Denmark and Norway, the supply of ore increased significantly. In 1941, 45,000 tons of Swedish ore were supplied daily by sea for the needs of the German military industry. Little by little, Sweden's trade with Nazi Germany increased and, in the end, amounted to 90 percent of all Swedish foreign trade. From 1940 to 1944, the Swedes sold over 45 million tons of iron ore to the Nazis.

The Swedish port of Luleå was specially converted to supply iron ore to Germany through the waters of the Baltic. (And only Soviet submarines after June 22, 1941 at times caused the Swedes great inconvenience, torpedoing Swedish transports, in the holds of which this ore was transported). The supply of ore to Germany continued almost until the moment when the Third Reich had already begun, figuratively speaking, to expire. Suffice it to say that back in 1944, when the outcome of the Second World War was no longer in doubt, the Germans received 7.5 million tons of iron ore from Sweden. Until August 1944, Sweden received Nazi gold through Swiss banks.

In other words, the Norschensflammann wrote, “Swedish iron ore ensured the Germans success in the war. And that was a bitter fact for all Swedish anti-fascists.” However, the Swedish iron ore came to the Germans not only in the form of raw materials.

Note that Sweden, as noted by Norschensflammann, produced bearings of "special quality and technical characteristics" that Germany could not obtain from anywhere else. The import of bearings from Sweden became especially important for Germany when the VKF bearing factory in Schweinfurt was destroyed in 1943. In 1945, the economist and economic adviser Per Jakobsson provided information that helped disrupt the supply of Swedish bearings to Japan.

Let's think: how many lives were cut short because formally neutral Sweden provided fascist Germany with strategic and military products, without which the flywheel of the Nazi military mechanism would, of course, continue to spin, but certainly not as fast as it was?

In the autumn of 1941, that very cruel autumn when the existence of the entire Soviet state was at stake (and, consequently, the fate of the peoples inhabiting it), King Gustav V Adolf of Sweden sent Hitler a letter in which he wished "the dear Reich Chancellor continued success in the fight against Bolshevism…”

Until now, few people know that one of the main tasks of the ships of the Navy Soviet Union, who fought in the Baltic, was not only the fight against fascist ships, but also the destruction of the ships of neutral Sweden, carrying cargo for the Nazis.

Well, what did the Nazis pay with the Swedes for the goods received from them?

Only by the fact that they looted in the territories they occupied and, most of all, in the Soviet occupied territories. The Germans had almost no other resources for settlements with Sweden. So, when you are once again told about "Swedish happiness", remember who and at whose expense the Swedes paid for it.

The war in Europe was more for political influence and for control of territories, the war on the eastern front was a war of annihilation and survival, these are two completely different wars, they just took place simultaneously.

Civilized Europe always diligently erases from the history of the Second World War these shameful facts of its cooperation with the most bloody and inhuman regime of the twentieth century, and this is the truth about the war that needs to be known and remembered.

19th-century English publicist T. J. Dunning: “Capital avoids noise and scolding and is distinguished by its timid nature. This is true, but it is not the whole truth. Capital is afraid of no profit or too little profit, just as nature is afraid of the void. But once sufficient profits are available, capital becomes bold. Provide 10 percent and capital is ready for any use, at 20 percent it becomes lively, at 50 percent it is positively ready to break its head, at 100 percent it defies all human laws, at 300 percent there is no crime that it would not risk, even under pain of the gallows. If noise and scolding are profitable, capital will contribute to both. Proof: smuggling and the slave trade."

A series of photographs depicting the humane attitude of German soldiers towards the soldiers of the Red Army and the Russian population in the Great Patriotic War.

SS men rest in the Soviet village.

An SS man assists a soldier of the Red Army.

This military grave belongs to the Russian General Smirnov, who fell in the Battle of Andreevka, and was buried by his enemy, the German General Guba, in October 1941.

Kursk, July 1943. The Germans provide first aid Soviet colonel from the 5th Guards Tank Army.

Humanity on the Battlefield of Stalingrad. German soldiers help a wounded enemy.

A German Landser helps a wounded Red Army soldier.

Captured soviet soldier receives medical attention.

1943, Kuban bridgehead. German orderlies and a soldier of the Red Army together rescue the wounded.

German soldier, Soviet prisoner of war.

On the day of the Harvest Festival, Wehrmacht soldiers visit Russian children's hospitals and distribute gifts to children.

German soldiers share food from the field kitchen with the Russian civilian population.

Easter, 1942 German soldiers with the inhabitants of the Russian village.

End of 1943 Wehrmacht orderlies take care of Russian refugees fleeing Stalin's army.

German soldiers with Ukrainian girls.

German soldiers of the 19th Panzer Division and Russian children in the village near Orel during a break in the fighting.

(Top photo). Waffen-SS soldiers with Russian women.
(Bottom photo). A German field doctor takes care of Russian civilians.

The next three photographs were taken in the Pavlovsk hospital (Slutsk) at the gates of Leningrad, where the German surgeon Dr. Ewald Kleist of the 121st Infantry Division, along with German and Russian colleagues, is equally helping both Germans and Russians.

German soldiers help the Russians with the harvest.

German soldiers overnight in the house of a Russian family.

For many years, the desecration of the Yasnaya Polyana estate (famous for the fact that the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy lived and worked there) was accused German soldiers.

As a result of many years of work, the German publicist Sterzl managed to prove that the Germans not only did not desecrate Yasnaya Polyana, but, on the contrary, carefully watched her and guarded her. The photo shows Tolstoy's great-granddaughter, Sophia, in a conversation with a German soldier.

Ten Commandments for the conduct of war by a German soldier.

1. A German soldier fights like a knight for the victory of his people. The concepts of the German soldier regarding honor and dignity do not allow the manifestation of brutality and cruelty.

2. A soldier is obliged to wear uniforms, wearing other attire is allowed provided that distinguishable (from afar) distinctive signs are used. Fighting in civilian clothes without the use of distinctive signs is prohibited.

3. It is forbidden to kill an enemy who surrenders, this rule also applies to surrendering partisans or spies. The latter will receive a fair punishment in court.

4. Bullying and insulting prisoners of war are prohibited. Weapons, documents, notes and drawings are subject to seizure. The rest of the property belonging to prisoners of war is inviolable.

5. It is forbidden to conduct unreasonable shooting. Shots should not be accompanied by facts of arbitrariness.

6. The Red Cross is inviolable. A wounded enemy must be treated humanely. It is forbidden to obstruct the activities of sanitary personnel and field priests.

7. The civilian population is inviolable. A soldier is prohibited from engaging in robbery or other violent acts. Historical monuments, as well as buildings serving worship, buildings that are used for cultural, scientific and other socially useful purposes, are subject to special protection and respect. The right to give work and official assignments to the civilian population belongs to representatives of the leadership. The latter issue the appropriate orders. The performance of work and official assignments must take place on a reimbursable, paid basis.

8. It is forbidden to attack (pass or fly) neutral territory. It is forbidden to fire, as well as conduct hostilities on neutral territory.

9. A German soldier who has been captured and is under interrogation must provide information regarding his name and rank. Under no circumstances should he disclose information regarding his affiliation to a particular military unit, as well as data related to military, political or economic relations inherent in the German side. The transmission of this data is prohibited, even if it is requested by promises or threats.

10. Violation of these instructions, committed in the performance of official duties, is punishable by punishment. Facts and information testifying to violations committed by the enemy in terms of compliance with the rules enshrined in paragraphs 1-8 of these instructions are subject to reporting. Compensatory activities are allowed only if there is a direct order issued by the highest army leadership.

After the war, Germany lay in ruins. The industry was destroyed, products were issued on cards. But in 1948 a “miracle” happened. Factories began to open, goods appeared on the shelves, and the German mark became the most desired currency in the world.

Marshall plan

The first post-war years in Germany were called "zero". As the “father” of the German miracle, Ludwig Erhard, later wrote: “That was the time when we in Germany were engaged in calculations, according to which per capita had one plate every five years, a pair of shoes every twelve years, every fifty years — one suit each.” [S-BLOCK]

The well-known "Marshall Plan" was the first step towards Germany's exit from this crisis.

In addition to preparing the ground for the ensuing Cold War, he had clear economic objectives. Western Europe has always been the most important market for American capitalism. Back in the days of the Great Depression, the United States was able to get out of the crisis by conquering the European sales market. [С-BLOCK]

The "mechanism" is simple - the greater the demand in Europe, the greater the supply from the United States, the more jobs there, the higher the purchasing power of American citizens.

In the post-war period, Europe needed American goods more than ever. There was only one problem - there was nothing to buy them, national currencies depreciated. Therefore, in 1947, the United States found itself at a crossroads - either to abandon promising markets and slow down the growth of its own economy, or to provide post-war Europe with material support and get not only a "regular customer and customer", but also an ally. The United States put on the second and did not lose.

In accordance with the Marshall Plan, Germany was provided with a total of $3.12 billion in loans, equipment and technology over 4 years. And although the "plan" was not the main active force in the post-war reconstruction of Germany, it made it possible to carry out later what will be called the "German miracle." In a few years, the production of both agricultural and industrial products will exceed the pre-war level.

"Prosperity for all"

The main creator of the "new Germany" was not the American Secretary of State, but the first Minister of Economics of the Federal Republic of Germany, later the Federal Chancellor - Ludwig Erhard. Erhard's main concept was contained in the postulate that the economy is not a soulless mechanism, it rests on living people with their desires, aspirations and needs. [С-BLOCK]

Thus, the basis for the economic revival of Germany was to be free enterprise. Erhard wrote: “I see the ideal situation where a common person can say: I have enough strength to stand up for myself, I want to be responsible for my own destiny. You, the state, do not worry about my affairs, but give me so much freedom and leave me so much from the result of my work so that I can, at my own discretion, provide for the existence of myself and my family.

In Erhard's policy, the state was assigned the role of a "night guard", which "protected" entrepreneurial activity from monopoly, external competition, high taxes and other factors that stood in the way of the liberal market.

The introduction of a free market economy in post-war Germany was not simple solution. It was Erhard's only initiative, an "anti-law", which contradicted the policy of the occupying authorities and nullified all previous attempts to pull Germany out of the crisis, through a planned economy and state regulation. [С-BLOCK]

And it worked. Some time later, two Frenchmen Jacques Rueff and Andre Pietre, who were then in Germany, wrote: “Only eyewitnesses can tell about the instantaneous effect that the currency reform had on filling warehouses and richness of shop windows. From day to day, shops began to be filled with goods and factories resumed work. The day before, hopelessness was written on the faces of the Germans, the next day the whole nation looked to the future with hope.

New brand

But free enterprise needed one more thing. important condition- currency stability. In the post-war period, the Reichsmark was valued no more than once "Kerenki" in the RSFSR. [С-BLOCK]

On June 21, 1948, a monetary reform was carried out, aimed at the confiscation of depreciated money and the creation of a hard currency. This is how the Deutschmark appeared, which later became famous as one of the most stable currencies of the 20th century. [С-BLOCK]

The monetary reform was prepared in the strictest secrecy. Firstly, in order not to provoke the intervention of the USSR, and secondly, in order to avoid panic getting rid of the old Reichsmarks.

But on the eve of the reform, rumors still leaked to the masses, causing a real "shopping hysteria" - the Germans tried to buy everything that money could still buy. As a result, black market prices have shot up to astronomical heights.[C-BLOCK]

The exchange rate of the old currency for the new one was purely confiscatory. Firstly, for 10 old marks they gave one new one, with the same paying capacity. Secondly, each adult could change on June 21 at a time only 400 Reichsmarks for 40 Deutschmarks, and then another 200 Reichsmarks for new 20 within a few days. At the end of the term, all remaining Reichsmarks were either partially stored in banks or depreciated. [С-BLOCK]

Through such tough measures, Erhard managed to ensure a stable exchange rate for the new currency, as well as achieve an even distribution of funds between different segments of the population, while before that most of the country's currency was concentrated in the hands of a small but very wealthy group of people. Now a broad and stable middle class was being formed. [С-BLOCK]

In the 50s, the German mark became one of the most reliable currencies in the world, in which residents of many countries kept their savings. Even when DM in 1977 was almost half its value in 1950, its purchasing power remained among the best in the world.

Freedom to prices!

Literally a few days after the monetary reform, prices were "set free". From now on, the pricing policy was based on the principle of liberalization, with only one proviso that the state retained the right of partial control over them. So he compiled a list of "appropriate prices" for some consumer products, and also adopted a ban on arbitrary price increases in order to avoid the greed of entrepreneurs. [C-BLOCK]

It was followed by antitrust decrees, according to which the share of one company in the market could not exceed 33%, two or three - 50%, and four or five - no more than 65%.

Tax incentives were introduced, which discouraged companies from the "shadow business". In short, numbers speak louder than words. By 1950, Germany had reached the pre-war level of production, and by 1962 it was three times higher. [С-BLOCK]

Once, after the recovery of the German economy, its entry into the first positions of the world market, Erhard was asked what is the key to the successful development of the economy. To this he replied: "the resourcefulness of the entrepreneurs, the discipline and diligence of the workers, and the skillful policy of the government."

On the same topic:

"Marshall Plan": who helped Germany recover after the war

History is written by the victors, which is what the Soviet Union did in relation to Germany: for example, it attributed its own crimes to it (such as the Katyn massacre). But more importantly, the Soviet Union bears great responsibility for the Holocaust.

Mass killings are not at all characteristic of the Germans with their mentality of law and order. The Germans learned this from the Russians. Two years before the Nazis started loading Jews into cattle cars, the Russian secret services had already done it with the Poles. Since the winter of 1940, about 400 thousand people have been displaced from the territory of Poland, occupied Soviet troops. The USSR increased the intensity of mass violence gradually, meticulously testing various schemes. Everything was tried: labor camps in which people died of cold and hunger, mass executions of enemies of the people (which anyone could become), ethnic cleansing of territories. Taken together, these three components paved the way for the genocide.

In many cases, forced resettlement was difficult, but it cannot be called genocide. Only the Russians drove the Poles into the wagons in a forty-degree frost, already causing the death of many of them. Only the Poles were shot en masse, about 110 thousand in all, and their only fault was their nationality.

What did Stalin not like about the Poles? The answer becomes clear when you look at the statistics. Five months after the occupation of Poland by the Soviet Union, 93,000 people were arrested, of which 23,000 Jews, 41,000 Poles and 21,000 Ukrainians. The Poles personally offended the Bolshevik leadership when they defeated the Russian aggressors in 1919–21. Western Ukrainians have consistently resisted the coming of Russian power. But why were proportionally more Jews arrested than representatives of other nationalities?

Having visited Moscow, German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop issued a communiqué, which Soviet newspapers published September 20, 1939. In particular, it said: “Soviet-German friendship is founded forever ... Both countries desire the continuation of peace and an end to the fruitless struggle of England and France with Germany. If, however, instigators of war prevail in these countries, Germany and the USSR know how to react. In German jargon, "warmongers" were Jews.

It is noteworthy that the Nazi leaders, as far as is known from their diaries and minutes of meetings, were convinced that the Jews were pushing Britain and the United States to go to war with Germany. The Jewish establishment only reinforced this suspicion by calling for a boycott of Germany: they wanted Germany to integrate its Jews, while the Zionists tried to take advantage of the situation and encourage Jewish emigration to Israel.

Obviously, Stalin shared the same system of views, namely that the international Jewish guarantee opposed the spread of communism. Strange, but the Russian tyrant looked back at world public opinion: that is why he divided Poland with Germany, and did not conquer it all. Only two weeks after the Germans finished with the Polish state, the Soviet Union invaded its half. In this light, the world Jewish lobby presented a problem for Stalin. In addition, the Jews interfered with Stalin in another matter: he believed in the imminence of the world crisis and the world communist revolution, and therefore the real enemies were the Jews - capitalists and, in general, far from being proletarians. During the Great Depression, the advance of the communist paradise seemed especially close, and its enemies did not deserve human treatment.

Stalin's pre-war attitude towards the Jews is evident from how actively he cleared Soviet ministries and the highest state institutions of them. This is especially true of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the spring of 1939. He handed over to the Nazis the German communist refugees living in the USSR, mostly Jews. For their part, the Nazis treated Jews and Communists alike. And this despite the fact that the majority of German Jews leaned towards capitalist entrepreneurship.

The spiral began to spin by itself, and now the Germans decided that the Jewish Bolsheviks were the source of the Russian threat against them. And there really was such a threat: Soviet army surpassed the German one by a head. The USSR had several times more infantry, tanks, aircraft, artillery, not to mention the noticeable qualitative superiority of Russian weapons. If in 1939 the Nazi leadership expected to win in alliance with the USSR, then already in 1941 it considered the Soviet Union a mortal enemy.

The Nazi army was very weak. The Treaty of Versailles forced demilitarization on Germany, and a whole generation of soldiers lacked military training. Shackled by sanctions, German industry produced mostly second-rate weapons. Even small military campaign in Poland took four weeks. Germany lost the air war to Great Britain, despite the multiple superiority in the number of aircraft. Over time, the African campaign was also lost. France was defeated more strategically than by brute force. military force. The Germans were well aware of their weakness and did not even try to capture France: formally, this country retained its independence and even signed an armistice agreement with Germany.

But even such dubious achievements would not have been possible without the massive support of the Nazis by the Soviet Union. Since the 1920s, the USSR has helped Germany in every possible way, from the deployment of German military factories and schools in circumvention of the Treaty of Versailles to the supply of oil, grain and metal. Soviet-German military training and rearmament programs developed. For Germany, devastated by the First World War and the Treaty of Versailles, Soviet assistance was indispensable. Austria and occupied France had nothing to offer Germany, and the Swedes and Swiss traded for hard currency that Germany did not have.

Stalin collaborated not so much with Germany as such, but specifically with the Nazis. For years he poured mud on the German communist party and interfered with her fight against the Nazis. Ideology is ideology, but Stalin was not interested in losers.

The Soviet Union was the main political partner of Germany. These two countries cooperated very closely: the same division of Poland was discussed in the early 1920s. During the war between Germany and Great Britain, the USSR hosted the German fleet in Murmansk, and also supplied oil, from which fuel was made for German aviation. Soviet-German cooperation was amazing: Germany annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia, the USSR annexed Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia; Germany forced France to conclude a truce, and the USSR did the same with respect to Finland; both countries divided Poland among themselves; The Soviet Union helped Germany financially in the war with Great Britain.
The conspiracy to divide Poland was necessary for Germany like air, because in 1939 it could not invade the Soviet sphere of influence. This was not possible in 1941 either: the Barbarossa plan worked only because the Soviet and German troops were located very close, so that a negligible number of German bombers could make many short sorties. Poland was a buffer that prevented Germany from inflicting a crushing first blow on the Red Army. A German invasion of Poland without the consent of the USSR would lead to a war with a fully mobilized and incredibly strong Soviet army.

Germany's war with the USSR was an apocalyptic enterprise, which the Nazis started solely to prevent the first Russian strike. The Barbarossa plan was incredibly stupid: it provided for an advance of 2,400 km to Arkhangelsk in four months, and mostly through difficult terrain. The Soviet campaign was supposed to be won before the end of the British, despite the huge difference in the scale of operations. No surprise factor allowed any hope of victory over the much stronger Red Army. The Germans planned to carry out the encirclement with a ridiculously small number of tanks, and the bombing was carried out by literally a few aircraft. The German headquarters understood all these limitations, but it simply had no other choice: it was opposed by the gigantic Soviet forces, ready to invade the German sphere of interest. As Soviet documents show, these calculations were correct. So, in May 1941, the Soviet High Command issued a document of a clearly offensive nature: "Considerations on the plan for the strategic deployment of the Armed Forces of the USSR in the event of war by Germany and its allies." The concentration of the best Soviet tanks in the border depressions into German-controlled territory on the eve of the war left no doubt about the intentions of the communists.

The initial victories of the Germans are explained only by the complete absence of experienced commanders in the Red Army and hatred of the Communists and Jews. These were not the victories of the Wehrmacht, but the collapse and disorganization in the Red Army itself in the first months of the war, when the totalitarian bridle was temporarily weakened.

But back to the Jewish theme. The Germans did not plan mass murder until 1942. They killed their mentally ill, but not yet Jews, although it is clear that the German public would have taken their executions much more calmly. At first, neither mentally ill Jews nor even German Jewish communists were killed. The Germans collaborated with the Zionists on the resettlement of Jews in other countries. Zionist education, agricultural and somewhat camouflaged military training were carried out with the express permission of the Nazi authorities. The Germans even allowed Jewish emigrants to take out significant amounts of foreign currency. Unfortunately, American Jewish organizations blocked all German efforts; it was preferable for these organizations that the Jews remained in the Diaspora. In order to annoy Germany with the Jewish problem, the United States and Great Britain did not agree to resettle refugees in any country in the world, including their own Jewish homeland, which was allocated to us by the League of Nations. Famous german plan the resettlement of Jews in Madagascar was not a mockery at all, but a completely serious attempt to find an acceptable country. As a supporter of the transfer of Arabs from Israel, I see nothing wrong with the fact that the Germans wanted to get rid of their Jews, if this was done in a relatively bloodless way.
The Germans began executions for three reasons. First, the Allies blocked all migration routes for the Jews. Jewish refugees could not get visas. When they crossed the border illegally, Switzerland sent them back to the Nazis. Britain put pressure on Bulgaria and Romania to tighten their soft border regime and prevent Jews from escaping. The British forced Turkey to refuse to grant asylum to the Jews, because then they could "illegally" move to the Land of Israel.

The second reason: the Germans wanted revenge. They believed that the Jews were the instrument of Soviet and American aggression against Germany. This assumption, although incorrect, made some sense: seeing that international Jewry fiercely resisted pogroms and other manifestations of German unfriendliness towards Jews, the Nazis realized that the war was an extension of the boycott.

The third reason lies in the apocalyptic mood that seized the Nazi leaders when they decided to go to war with the USSR. They began to dream of destroying the Jews and thereby changing the world.

Many peoples took part in the Holocaust: almost all European countries, Americans and some Arabs. But without the Soviet Union, the Catastrophe would have been impossible. The Communists, among whom there were a suspiciously large number of Jews, were preparing to deliver a death blow to Germany: by concluding a non-aggression pact with Germany in 1939, Stalin encouraged her to attack Britain, which further weakened the Germans. From the massive rearmament of the Red Army, the Germans guessed about Stalin's aggressive intentions and themselves began to gather troops to the border. The Germans realized what they were betting on: the USSR was going to crush most of their army with one blow. Such perfidy demanded revenge, and the Germans chose the Jews for it.
The Soviet Union showed Germany that mass ethnic cleansing was both effective and acceptable in the eyes of the world community. Soviet labor camps were less lethal for Jews than German ones, but even in Soviet camps, Jews fared worse than other nationalities. And the death rate in the Gulag even exceeded the figures in the Nazi camps for non-Jews. So, out of 1 million 800 thousand German prisoners of war taken prisoner after the war, about 400 thousand died. The German labor camps were copied from the Soviet ones; There was nothing like it in any other country at that time.

In 1940, the Soviet Union began open ethnic cleansing against the Jews, but a few months earlier, the Russians and Germans had already partitioned Poland. As a result, the Jewish cities ended up in the hands of the Nazis, who at that time were already actively repressing the Jewish population. When individual Polish Jews managed to escape from the Nazis, the Russians interned them in Central Asia. Many internees there survived, which gave rise to a persistent rumor that Soviet Jews served time in Tashkent during the war.

Stalin saved the lives of quite a few Jews, but mostly they were the families of communist officials. About a million of these Jews, mostly from Western Ukraine and Russia, left the advancing German troops. After the war, they changed the face of Eastern European Jewry, which turned into full-blown communists.

The Soviet Union openly assisted the Nazis in executions. Although the massacres were already known on the first day of the war, the information was deliberately hushed up. Given the variety of Soviet sources of information and press organs, an order from the very top was required to remove any mention of the murders of Jews. Soviet propaganda acted even in the occupied territories - by radio, through leaflets and rumors. However, the Jews continued to be in the dark about their fate and remained in place. The state is responsible to its citizens. Perhaps there weren't enough trains, but what prevented them from simply warning the Jews so that they would at least try to leave on foot? And the problem of logistics is far-fetched: during the retreat, the Red Army evacuated millions of family members of communist activists, and there would certainly have been a place for Jews. In many cases, the Soviet authorities dissuaded and even forbade the Jews to leave. The border guards sent back many Jewish refugees, especially from Latvia.

The Soviet ruling circles contributed to the Holocaust also by giving the Germans information about the residence of the Jews. Before the advance of the German troops in most Soviet offices, documents were destroyed: paper burning was a common practice. But documents on residence and registration were left intact in all cities, which allowed the Germans to quickly identify the Jews. Many of the Jews were assimilated and could not be identified in any other way.

Soviet propaganda excellently resisted the German one. Soviet radio broadcasts debunked all German claims except for one: that the war had been provoked by the Jews. The population already hated the Jews and the Jewish Bolsheviks (half a million Russians and Ukrainians joined the Nazi army), so the silence on the radio about this was perceived as a silent confirmation of German anti-Semitism propaganda. Ordinary Soviet people actively helped the Germans to identify Jews.

The catastrophe was led by the Germans, but the labor was supplied by the Slavs. Tens of thousands of Ukrainians, Slovaks, Croats, and many Russians worked in the camps and execution teams.

The Soviet Union was very careful not to interfere with the Holocaust. In tens of thousands of bomber sorties to Germany through Poland, the extermination camps were carefully circled around: not a single bomb fell on them. The Russians bombed objects a few kilometers from the camps, but not the camps themselves. In Belarus Soviet partisans waged a full-scale war with the Germans, blew up railways and infrastructure, but there was no organized attempt to either prevent the killings, or help the inhabitants of the ghetto, or even simply notify them of their fate.

The Russians reaffirmed their Jewish policy in 1953, when the whole country applauded the anti-Semitic rhetoric of the authorities. Plans were being developed for the resettlement of Jews in Siberia, which were prevented only by the death of Stalin. It was a unique plan of ethnic cleansing, comparable only to the Polish one. Jews were specially taken to their deaths: they were to be loaded into cattle cars, as under the Nazis, and taken to the coldest regions of Siberia, where their only housing would be roofing barracks. Under such conditions, the chances of surviving the winter were zero.

After the war, the Soviet leadership covered up the killings of Jews by the Germans, although other atrocities were widely reported. The word "Jew" was removed from all reports and official events, and the vague term "Soviet citizens" was used instead. This policy cannot be explained by the fact that the state pandered to popular anti-Semitism: it has always been indifferent to public opinion. In addition, as practice shows, anti-Semites are not at all against it when Jews are mentioned in reports about the Holocaust. The state hushed up the murders of Jews for the same reason it hushed up many other events of the war, such as mass collaboration with the Nazis: the communist regime swept shameful events under the carpet. The authorities did not want the population to have a question about who helped the killers.

The Soviet Union did not save the Jews: the Germans killed almost all the Jews they could find. In the occupied Soviet territory, the Germans killed almost 100% of the Jews. If the war had lasted a few more years, the number of Jewish dead would not have increased significantly. The Soviet Union brought up the Nazi regime and provoked the war. Regardless of their victory, the Soviet regime is responsible for the Holocaust.

In the late 1920s and 1930s, Germany did not have to strain its strength, as we did, creating new industries, building factories and blast furnaces, opening hundreds of institutes. She occupied the industrial countries and forced them to work for herself.

Just one fact: the weapons that Germany captured in the defeated countries were enough to form 200 divisions. No, this is not a mistake: 200 divisions. We had 170 divisions in the western districts. It took the USSR several five-year plans to provide them with weapons. In France, after its defeat, the Germans immediately seized up to 5,000 tanks and armored personnel carriers, 3,000 aircraft, and 5,000 locomotives. In Belgium, they appropriated half of the rolling stock for the needs of their economy and war, etc.

But the main thing, of course, is not seized weapons, not trophies.

In March 1939, Czechoslovakia, which had a combat-ready army and a developed industry, became a special prize for Germany. Back in 1938, during the Munich Agreement, according to which Czechoslovakia undertook to transfer the Sudetenland to Germany, Hitler warned British Prime Minister N. Chamberlain and french chapter the government of E. Deladier that, following the Sudetenland, all of Czechoslovakia would soon be occupied. But Deladier and Chamberlain did not lift a finger to protect the interests of this country. It must be admitted that the Czechoslovak leaders, having a modern army for those times, were able to offer powerful resistance to Germany, but slavishly handed over their country to the mercy of Hitler. And Czechoslovakia was a tasty morsel for preparing for a future war. The weight of the country in the world arms market of those years was 40%. In this small country, 130,000 rifles, 200 guns, and about 5,000 different machine guns were produced every month ... Only at the expense of Czechoslovakia, the German Air Force increased by 72%, receiving 1,582 aircraft. Tank units of Germany added 486 tanks produced at Czechoslovak plants to their 720. As a result, Hitler, at the expense of Czechoslovakia alone, was able to arm and equip 50 divisions. In addition, fascist Germany received in addition the gold reserves (80 tons) of this country, as well as the people who meekly worked for the criminal Nazi regime all the years of the war. A particularly large contribution to the production of guns, trucks, tanks was made by the factories of the well-known Skoda company. From the beginning of the war, German soldiers fought on Czech tanks in Poland, France, Greece, Yugoslavia, and then in the USSR ...

Ribbentrop, Chamberlain and Hitler during negotiations in Munich, where the fate of Czechoslovakia was decided

Only from 1933 to 1939, during the six years that Hitler was in power, the size of the German army increased 40 times. Despite the Versailles agreements, the leaders of Great Britain and France stubbornly did not notice this ... And the strengthening of the military-technical potential of Germany after the swift victories of the Wehrmacht in 1939-1940. The economies of France, Holland, Belgium, Norway also contributed to the economy ... Even neutral Sweden and Switzerland supplied iron ore for steel production and precision instruments to the German military industry enterprises ... Spain supplied a significant amount of oil and oil products ... The industry of almost all of Europe worked for the military machine of Hitler, who 30 June 1941 stated that he viewed the war with the USSR as a joint European war against Russia.

W. Churchill wrote, for example, about Czechoslovakia after the war: “There is no doubt that due to the fall of Czechoslovakia we lost forces equal to approximately 35 divisions. In addition, the Skoda factories, the second most important arsenal in Central Europe, fell into the hands of the enemy, which in the period from August 1938 to September 1939 produced almost as much production as all British factories produced during the same time.

This arsenal, far from being the only one in Europe, worked for the Nazi army until the end of 1944. And how it worked! Every fifth tank delivered to the Wehrmacht troops in the first half of 1941 was manufactured at the Skoda factories.

Czech enterprises, according to German - and one must think, accurate! - data, constantly increased military production. In 1944, for example, they shipped 300,000 rifles, 3,000 machine guns, 625,000 artillery shells, and 100 self-propelled artillery pieces to Germany every month. In addition, tanks, tank guns, Me-109 aircraft, aircraft engines, etc.

In Poland, 264 large, 9 thousand medium and 76 thousand small enterprises worked for Germany.

Denmark covered the needs of the German civilian population in butter by 10 percent, in meat by 20 percent, and in fresh fish by 90 percent. And, of course, the Danish industry fulfilled all German orders.

France (41 million people), led by Laval's collaborationist government, and French entrepreneurs willingly cooperated with the Germans, were their main supplier. By the beginning of the war with the USSR, 1.6 million people were employed in the French defense industry, which worked for the Wehrmacht. According to incomplete German data, by January 1944 they supplied Germany with about 4,000 aircraft, about 10,000 aircraft engines, and 52,000 trucks. The entire locomotive industry and 95 percent of the machine tool industry worked only for Germany.

Belgium and Holland supplied the Germans with coal, pig iron, iron, manganese, zinc, etc.

The most interesting thing is that all the occupied countries, controlled by collaborators, did not require payment in cash. They were promised to be paid after the victorious - for the Germans - end of the war. They all worked for Hitler for free.

In addition, these countries also helped Germany by taking on the costs of maintaining the German occupation troops. France, for example, from the summer of 1940, allocated 20 million German marks daily, and from the autumn of 1942, 25 million each. These funds were enough not only to provide the German troops with everything they needed, but also to prepare and wage war against THE USSR. In total, European countries "donated" Germany for these purposes more than 80 billion marks (of which France - 35 billion).

And what about the neutral countries - Sweden and Switzerland? And they worked for Germany. The Swedes supplied bearings, iron ore, steel, rare earth elements. They actually fed the German military-industrial complex until the end of 1944. The rapid advance of the Germans on Leningrad was due, in particular, to "lock up" our navy and secure the supply of Swedish steel and ore. Through the Swedish "neutral" ports for Germany, there were significant supplies from Latin America. Our military intelligence reported, for example, that from January to October 1942, more than 6 million tons of various cargoes, mainly strategic raw materials, were imported to Germany through Swedish ports. Unlike the occupied countries, Sweden made good money in the war. How many? Such data has not yet been published. The Swedes have something to be ashamed of. Like the Swiss. The latter supplied precision instruments, and Swiss banks were used to pay for badly needed purchases in Latin America.

It would be interesting to compare in detail what Germany received from the occupied, allied and neutral countries of Europe (and, as it turned out, mostly for free) with the amount of American aid to the Soviet Union (we paid for it). It turns out there is no total figure European assistance to Hitler, nor for individual countries. Only fragmentary data. For the Germans, even judging by one Skoda, this help was extremely important. As for us, for example, the supply of American "Studebakers" after Battle of Stalingrad who made the Red Army mobile and maneuverable. But, I repeat, historians do not have complete data on Germany's assistance. And she, judging by the available data, was huge. The four-volume book "World Wars of the 20th Century" gives the following figures: after the capture of Europe from Germany, the industrial potential doubled, and the agricultural potential tripled.

Europe helped Hitler not only with its arsenals. A number of Catholic bishops were quick to call the invasion of the USSR a "European crusade." 5 million soldiers broke into our territory in the summer of 1941. 900 thousand of them are not Germans, but their allies. In addition to Germany, Italy, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Croatia, and Finland declared war on us. Spain and Denmark did not declare war, but they sent their soldiers. The Bulgarians did not fight with us, but put forward 12 divisions against the Yugoslav and Greek partisans, and thus made it possible for the Germans to transport part of their troops from the Balkans to the Eastern Front.

It was in the summer of 1941 that 900,000 Europeans opposed us. In general, during the war, this figure increased to 2 million people. In our captivity were Czechs (70 thousand), Poles (60 thousand), French (23 thousand) and further down the line Belgians, Luxembourgers and ... even neutral Swedes.

This is a special topic or a special conversation, why the Europeans were so willing to help Hitler in the war against the USSR. Anti-communism undoubtedly played a significant role. But not the only one and, perhaps, not the main one. Perhaps this topic should be returned separately.

And finally, European countries helped Germany to eliminate the ever-increasing shortage of its labor force due to the conscription of Germans in the army. According to incomplete data, 875.9 thousand workers were delivered from France to German factories, from Belgium and Holland - half a million each, from Norway - 300 thousand, from Denmark - 70 thousand. This made it possible for Germany to mobilize almost a quarter of its population, and they, like soldiers, in all respects were head and shoulders above their allies - Italians, Romanians or Slovaks.

All this taken together ensured a significant superiority of Germany at the initial stage of the war, and then made it possible for her to hold out until May 1945.

But what about the resistance movement? A number of Russian authors believe that its role and importance in the occupied industrial countries of Western Europe are extremely exaggerated. To some extent, this is understandable: it was important to emphasize in those years that we were not alone in the struggle. V. Kozhinov, for example, cites the following figures: almost 300 thousand members of the Resistance died in Yugoslavia, 20 thousand in France, whose population was 2.5 times larger, and about 50 thousand French died in the ranks of the German army. Isn't the comparison of these losses saying nothing? Is it by chance that the Germans kept 10 divisions in Yugoslavia? Of course, the heroism of the French participants in the Resistance is undeniable and the memory of him is holy. But try to put on one side of the scale all the damage that they inflicted on the Nazis, and on the other - all the real help that the European countries obligingly provided to Germany. Which bowl will overwhelm?

No, the question should be put more broadly, answered historians. Take the first two weeks of the war in France and the USSR. Already on the fifth day of the war, the real war that began on May 10, 1940, and not the one that the Germans called "sitting", the Americans and the British - "strange", when there was simply no fighting, the new French Prime Minister Reine called Churchill and said, "We have failed." Churchill immediately flew to Paris, hoping to lift the spirit of the allied government. But he didn't succeed. Did the French troops try to get out of the encirclement, did they have their own Brest Fortress, your Smolensk battle? His heroic battles surrounded near Vyazma? Did the Parisians come out to dig anti-tank ditches? Has anyone called them to action? Offered a wrestling program? No, the leadership - both civilian and military - led France to become a collaborator and work for Germany throughout the war. The country has lost its honor. For the most part, the French fled to the south and west, they did not want to fight, the main thing was to save their wallets. De Gaulle called out to them from London, but only hundreds of people responded.

It is believed that on June 22, 1941, Germany attacked the Soviet Union. In fact, this is not entirely true, several countries started a war against the USSR, among them:

Romania - about 200 thousand soldiers,
Slovakia - 90 thousand soldiers,
Finland - about 450 thousand soldiers and officers,
Hungary - about 500 thousand people,
Italy - 200 thousand people,
Croatia as part of the security division

These were representatives of such countries as: Holland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Sweden, Finland, France, Switzerland, Spain, Luxembourg. As in the Patriotic War of 1812, the whole of Europe took up arms against Russia.

The famous American historian George G. Stein in his book "Waffen SS" describes the national composition of these units:

the Dutch - 50 thousand people, the Belgians - 20 thousand people, the French - 20 thousand people, the Danes and Norwegians - 6 thousand people each, 1200 people each from Sweden, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and other European countries.

Of the European SS volunteers, one of the best divisions of the Reich, the Viking, consisted. The name symbolized that representatives of the Aryan peoples of Nordic blood were gathered in its ranks.

The Second World War is unique of all wars, never before in history have there been similar cases of mass transition of citizens of the conquered countries to the service of the invaders. Almost a large part of the population voluntarily became under the Nazi banners.

In the summer of 1941, every fourth tank in the German army was Czech or French. Germany won its first victories largely thanks to Scandinavian iron and Swiss optics for sights.

“If we see that Germany is winning, we must help Russia. And if Russia wins, we must help Germany. And let them kill each other in this way as much as possible. All this is for the good of America.” On June 24, 1941, future US President Harry Truman made this statement to the New York Times.

In 2000, in connection with its use of slave labor, Nestle paid more than $14.5 million to the appropriate fund to settle the claims of victims of its actions and survivors of the Holocaust, as well as Jewish organizations. The firm acknowledged that in 1947 it acquired a company that used forced labor during the war years, and also stated: “There is no doubt or it can be assumed that some corporations from the Nestle group operating in countries controlled by the National Socialist (Nazi) regime, exploited forced laborers. Nestle in Switzerland in 1939 provided cash assistance to the Nazi Party, winning a lucrative contract to supply chocolate to the needs of the entire German army during World War II.

Allianz

Allianz is considered the twelfth largest financial services company in the world. It is not surprising that, having been founded in 1890 in Germany, it was the largest insurer in it when the Nazis came to power. As such, she quickly became involved with the Nazi regime. Its leader, Kurt Schmitt, was also Hitler's minister of economics, and the company provided insurance for Auschwitz facilities and personnel. Its CEO is responsible for the practice of paying insurance compensation for Jewish property destroyed as a result of Kristallnacht to the Nazi state instead of the eligible beneficiaries. In addition, the company worked closely with the Nazi state to track the life insurance policies of German Jews sent to the death camps, and during the war it insured property taken from the same Jewish population for the benefit of the Nazis.

Novartis

Although Bayer is infamous for having started out as a division of the manufacturer of Zyklon B gas, which was used by the Nazis in gas chambers, it is not the only pharmaceutical company with skeletons in the closet. Swiss chemical companies Ciba and Sandoz merged to form Novartis, best known for its drug Ritalin. In 1933, the Berlin branch of Ciba terminated all Jewish members of its board of directors and replaced them with more "acceptable" Aryan cadres; in the meantime, Sandoz was busy with a similar activity for its chairman. During the war, companies produced dyes, drugs, and drugs for the Nazis. chemical substances. Novartis frankly admitted its guilt and tried to make amends in a way typical of other accomplice companies - by donating $ 15 million to the Swiss Nazi Compensation Fund.

BMW admitted to using 30,000 unskilled forced laborers during the war. These POWs, forced laborers and concentration camp inmates produced engines for the Luftwaffe and thus were forced to help the regime defend themselves against those who were trying to save them. During the war, BMW concentrated exclusively on the production of aircraft and motorcycles, with no claim to anything other than being a supplier of military vehicles for the Nazis.

Reemtsma

Reemtsma was founded in 1910 in Erfurt, Germany. In 1918, production was automated. In 1923 production was moved to Altona, now part of the city of Hamburg.

During Hitler's time, despite the NSDAP's official anti-tobacco policy, the company prospered. In 1937, the company owned 60% of the country's cigarette market. In 1939, Philipp F. Reemtsma was appointed head of the Fachuntergruppe Zigarettenindustrie (the cigarette department of the Wehrwirtschaftsführer, an association of companies that worked for the front).

In 1948, the company's activities were resumed, and in 1980 the Tchibo coffee company became the owner of the majority of the shares, which sold its share in 2002 to Imperial Tobacco. It is noteworthy that now the Reemtsma company has representative offices in Kiev and Volgograd, near which the Battle of Stalingrad took place.

The history of the Nivea brand dates back to 1890, when a businessman named Oskar Troplowitz bought the Beiersdorf company from its founder.

In the 1930s, the brand positioned itself as a product for active life and sports. The main products were protective creams and shaving products. During World War II, Ellie Hayes Knapp, who became First Lady under Theodore Hayes, was in charge of the advertising part of the brand. According to her, in her advertising campaigns she tried to bypass the militaristic component, focusing on displaying an active life in peaceful circumstances. However, sports smiling girls from Nivea posters could inspire the Wehrmacht fighters no less, if not better, than Hitler's mustachioed face from NSDAP posters.

It is noteworthy that during the war, several countries at war with Germany appropriated the rights to the trademark. The process of buying up the rights by Beiersdorf was completed only in 1997.

Maggi was founded in 1872 in Switzerland by Julius Maggi. The entrepreneur was the first to enter the market with ready-made soups. In 1897, Julius Maggi founded Maggi GmbH in German city Singen, where she is still based today. The rise to power of the Nazis had almost no effect on business. In the 1930s, the company became a supplier of semi-finished products for the German troops.

Given that none of the management of the organization was seen in a particularly active political life, the brand has retained itself and continues to delight. This time also residents of the ex-USSR.

And what about our neutrals then?

In 1939, the same year when Nazi Germany unleashed the Second World War, 10.6 million tons of Swedish ore were supplied to it. Wow! After April 9, that is, when Germany had already conquered Denmark and Norway, the supply of ore increased significantly. In 1941, 45,000 tons of Swedish ore were supplied daily by sea for the needs of the German military industry. Little by little, Sweden's trade with Nazi Germany increased and, in the end, amounted to 90 percent of all Swedish foreign trade. From 1940 to 1944, the Swedes sold over 45 million tons of iron ore to the Nazis.

In other words, the Norschensflammann wrote, “Swedish iron ore ensured the Germans success in the war. And that was a bitter fact for all Swedish anti-fascists.”

However, the Swedish iron ore came to the Germans not only in the form of raw materials.

The world-famous SKF concern, which produced the best ball bearings on the planet, supplied these, not so, at first glance, cunning technical mechanisms to Germany. As many as ten percent of the ball bearings received by Germany came from Sweden, according to Norschensflammann. Anyone, even a person completely inexperienced in military affairs, understands what ball bearings mean for the production of military equipment. Why, without them, not a single tank will move from its place, not a single submarine will go to sea! Note that Sweden, as noted by Norschensflammann, produced bearings of "special quality and technical characteristics" that Germany could not obtain from anywhere else. The import of bearings from Sweden became especially important for Germany when the VKF bearing factory in Schweinfurt was destroyed in 1943. In 1945, the economist and economic adviser Per Jakobsson provided information that helped disrupt the supply of Swedish bearings to Japan.

Sweden received even more military orders after the outbreak of World War II. And basically these were orders for Nazi Germany. Neutral Sweden became one of the main economic pillars of the national Reich. Suffice it to say that only in 1943, out of the 10.8 million tons of iron ore mined, 10.3 million tons were sent to Germany from Sweden. Until now, few people know that one of the main tasks of the ships of the Navy of the Soviet Union that fought on In the Baltic, there was not only a fight against fascist ships, but also the destruction of the ships of neutral Sweden, which were carrying cargo for the Nazis.

Well, what did the Nazis pay with the Swedes for the goods received from them? Only by the fact that they looted in the territories they occupied and, most of all, in the Soviet occupied territories. The Germans had almost no other resources for settlements with Sweden. So, when you are once again told about "Swedish happiness", remember who and at whose expense the Swedes paid for it.

19th-century English publicist T. J. Dunning:

Capital ... avoids noise and scolding and has a timid nature. This is true, but it is not the whole truth. Capital is afraid of no profit or too little profit, just as nature is afraid of the void. But once sufficient profits are available, capital becomes bold. Provide 10 percent and capital is ready for any use, at 20 percent it becomes lively, at 50 percent it is positively ready to break its head, at 100 percent it defies all human laws, at 300 percent there is no crime that it would not risk, even under pain of the gallows. If noise and scolding are profitable, capital will contribute to both. Proof: smuggling and the slave trade

sources

http://www.warmech.ru/war_mech/tyl-evr.html

http://www.theunknownwar.ru/korporaczii_kotoryie_obyazanyi_naczistam_svoim_uspexom.html

And I will remind you The original article is on the site InfoGlaz.rf The link to the article this copy was made from is

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