Many companies famous now, worked for the Nazis in the 1930s and 40s. Besides the obvious Volkswagen; Hugo Boss designed SS uniforms and now is one of the foremost designers of expensive suits in the world. IBM made the punch card databases for Nazi computers to catalog why someone was being sent to a camp(Jewish, Gay, ect) and to what camp they were being sent. Siemens AG used concentration camp laborers to make their products, and manufactured important parts of the camps for the Nazis(Including the gas chambers used to perform mass executions.) All of the aforementioned companies are among the 500 richest in the world today.
Another contribution from the Nazis(in part) is the A-10 Warhog. Highest decorated pilot of all time, German ace Gunther Rall was brought to America after the war and asked to help US engineers design a close ground-support fighter for the USAF.
As an addendum, Hermann Goering was technically more highly decorated than Gunther Rall. But most military historians disregard this, because Hermann Goering(As head of the Luftwaffe) was fond of making up awards and then giving them to himself.
*not really about the Nazis but I found it interesting. A Canadian pilot known as the Falcon of Malta is the only allied pilot to outscore German pilots in any particular theater of war(The Mediterranean theater.)
Henry Ford, founder of Ford Automobile Company was an anti-Semite who wrote essays on the inferiority of Jews. He received medals and personal letters from Adolf Hitler. Hitler even mentions Ford in Mein Kampf.
Joseph Goebbels was originally a chicken farmer, which gave him many of the ideas on breeding 'lesser' people, as well as the idea for concentration camps.
Adolf Hitler's favorite boxer, Max Schmeling(German) was beaten by Max Baer(US.) Max Baer(who you may know as the villain from Cinderella Man,) wore a Star of David during the match in honor of his Jewish grandfather, and of the Jewish community as a whole.
Hitler's personal train was named Amerika.
In 1938, Hitler was Time magazine?s man of the year.
Hitler's original solution to the 'Jewish problem' was to move all the Jews to Madagascar.
During WW1 a British private named Henry Tandey caught Adolf Hitler completely offguard. Tandey however instead of capturing him or shooting him, let Hitler go. Hitler often used this story later to argue that he had a divine mandate for his actions, which is why his life was spared on that day.
The Wolfpack doctrine was developed by Karl Doenitz while he was in prison in a port city during WW1. He watched all the boats coming and going with supplies, noted its importance, and gathered as much information as he could about British and American shipping. After Hitlers death he took over the Nazi government, and immediately surrendered. He was taken to Nuremburg and found guilty of waging a war of aggression, and sinking 'non-military' allied supply ships.
It's estimated that nearly 2 million German women were raped by Red Army soldiers.
The Nazis were the first anti-smoking group in the world. Their scientists pioneered the research into the dangers of smoking.
The name of the Nazi party is National Socialist German Workers Party. Nazi however is not an abbreviation for that name in German. The term Nazi comes from the Bavarian word for 'simple minded,' and was first used by journalists to deride the party.
Rumors circulated even at the highest levels(Hitler's personal staff and cabinet) that Rudolf Hess was a homosexual. In 1941 Hess stole a plane, and flew it to the UK where he crashed and was arrested. He wanted to attempt to negotiate peace on behalf of both sides.
theparsonski said:
EDIT: Actually, atrocities they commited before the war would be good, stuff like the extermination of disabled people in the mental hospitals etc.
The first group that the Nazi's came after as part of their euthanization/execution program was not the Jews, but the elderly. This plan was ended quickly because of the public outcry against it.
Hitler hated Slavs as much as he hated the Jews(if not more.) And they were the second largest group sent to concentration camps, and if he had conquered Russia, would have easily eclipsed the Jewish population in sheer number of deaths.
11 million died in the holocaust. Only 6 million of which were Jews. Slavs, homosexuals, Russian POWs, communists, gypsies, Jehovahs witnesses made up the bulk of the other 5 million.
While the striking image of Jews being sent to concentration camps is of their being dragged from their homes to trains, this is generally untrue of German Jews. Jews living in France, Romania, Norway and so forth fought against and tried to avoid capture. But a plurality of the German Jews went willingly on the trains, many viewed it as their patriotic duty to follow the orders of the Nazi state. They did not however know what really laid in store for them; only that they were being asked to move together into camps set up by the German state.
Near the end of the war, Hitler issued an order to round up the last Jews in Berlin. Thousands of nonviolent protestors showed up at the SS prison before the Jews were shipped, and demanded that they be released. The SS brought in tanks and machineguns and demanded that the protestors disperse or be fired on. The protestors refused to disperse and the crowed continued to grow over two or three days. Hitler ordered the Jewish prisoners be released, deeming it more important that Berlin appear as though it had no dissenters than to finish off Berlin's Jewish population.
Nazi scientists irradiated the testicles and ovaries of Jews and other unwanted groups, in order to see what would happen if they forcibly bred them afterwards as well as if they were still able to produce sperm and if the eggs survived.
A method of execution the Nazi's were fond of was to find a bridge at a river. They would tie or shackle couples together and then shoot one person, letting the dead weight of the person shot drag their spouse underwater to drown.
