Our 'hero' a simple criminal ?
 

Excerpt from a science magazine with the title 'Hitler´s Henchmen'. Several infamous German war criminals portrayed.

Party: Goebbels - suicide, Göring - suicide, Himmler - suicide, Speer - 20 years prison, Bormann - suicide, Eichmann - executed in Israel, von Ribbentrop - hanged in Nurnberg, Hess - life prison.

Army: Rommel - suicide, Jodl - hanged Nurnberg, Dönitz - 10 years prison.

Industry: Krupp - 12 years prison, Flick - 7 years, Krauch - 6 years, and;

our own Ferdinand Porsche - SS member who´s technical developments within the Volkswagen industry were used in the war production. 22 months in prison.

At least I have read that he more or less was forced (like many others) to assist the Lunatic Adolf. Do or die, as it were. Still, a dirty dozen not very honorary being associated with.

it's still early. :cool:

Porsche was not forced - he liked to build and design things, and took any opportunity given ine pre WWII Germany.

Rommel was killed for trying to kill hitler. He was working against the madness, I don't know a huge amount about him, but I'd he's not bad company.

Markus - please tell me the name of the text where you read this.

Thanks.

SmileWavy

I'm sure that you'd take whatever money was handed to you if you lived in post WW1 Germany

As I heard it Porsche did not really want to work for Hitler, but had three options - work and live, not work and die, try and escape and die. Because of his work during the war, we have such nice fun cars today. You can't really fault the citizens of Germany too much. My grandparents owned two hotels during the war. One was totaled, the other damaged. My grandparents had little choice but to house the Hilter youth. They turned out to be ok. They would do most of the chores my mom and her sister and other help would do.

Dave

so did I!! it really could be.

And Mitsubishi built zeros, and Chrysler and GM built tanks. If germany had won, the US companies would have been portrayed as the war criminals. Remember, the victors write the history books. Not that it isn't true. You can also throw Merceded Benz, BMW, Duestch Industries/Auto Union (AUDI) Bayer, Siemens and a bunch of other german companies into the mix.

"...you magnificent Bastard, I read your BOOK"!

dd,

Its from a Swedish science mag. Pretty sure there is no English version.

I knew Ferdy was unavoidably involved. It was just so 'in your face' having him listed along with some of the histories worst blokes. I am thinking of writing a complaint letter to the editor. :D

+1

For the uninformed...what movie was it?

Sweden isn't blameless either. They gave free passage to the German land forces on their way to Norway.

Before you were born, so we don't blame you.

Patton

Sweden though, housed a lot of escaped jews. Lots of jews from Denmark where secretly brought to Sweden before the Nazi's came knocking for them.

F. Porsche was not linked with the SS and M. Bormann was most likely shot by HitlerJugend while fleeing Berlin.


"You have horses! What were you thinking!"

"be seated..now, there's one thing i want you to remember..that no bastard ever, won a war, by dying for his country. he won it..by making the other poor, dumb bastard die for his country.." ;) did george c. scott get nominated or win an oscar for his portrayal? anyone?
ryan

If I recall, he was nominated, and refused the award. I could be wrong...

I think it was Brando in '73 who refused for Godfather II - because of Native American rights. But I could be wrong, too.

think you're right on brando, david..not sure on george c. scott.
ryan

Yes Pat, our Govt. at the time 'chickened out'.

And I assume you may have heard of Raol Wallenberg. Some what diminishes our collective bad conscience in that regard.

Anyway, I guess it was not long after those 22 months in prison that Papa Ferdinand found that lovely abandoned shack in the rural area of Gmund. And the rest is history. We are all, as a well known Porsche magazine puts it, living the legend. ;)

2 or 3 issues back in Excell. they did a article on pre/post war Porsche , covers this pretty well. And ,I believe..in order to SURVIVE, most will sleep with the devil or god.
Rika

IIRC, BMW built the radial engines for the FW-190 and Maybach engines powered most (if not all) of the German tanks.