IBM computers for concentration camps. Close friendship with the Nazis

May 10th, 2013

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 have in western districts there were 170 divisions. 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 Munich agreement, according to which Czechoslovakia undertook to transfer the Sudetenland to Germany, Hitler warned the British Prime Minister N. Chamberlain and the French head of government 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%. This small country produced monthly 130,000 rifles, 200 guns, about 5,000 different machine guns... The German Air Force increased by 72% thanks to Czechoslovakia alone, 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. Especially huge contribution the factories of the well-known Skoda company introduced the production of guns, trucks, and tanks. 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 ... Even neutral Sweden and Switzerland supplied enterprises of the German military industry with iron ore for the production of steel and precision instruments ... Spain supplied a significant amount of oil and petroleum products ... The industry of almost all of Europe worked for the war machine of Hitler, who on June 30, 1941 announced that he considered 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 about 35 divisions. In addition, the Skoda factories, the second most important arsenal, fell into the hands of the enemy. Central Europe, which between August 1938 and September 1939 produced almost as much product 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 and 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 into Germany through Swedish ports. Unlike the occupied countries, Sweden made good money in the war. How much? 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 Europe (and, as it turned out, mostly free) with the volume American aid Soviet Union (we paid for it). It turns out that there is neither a general figure for 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 the Battle of Stalingrad, which 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? Row Russian authors believe that its role and importance in the occupied industrialized countries Western Europe extremely bloated. 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 in the ranks German army about 50 thousand French died. 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 sacred. 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 you try French troops get out of the environment, did they have their own Brest Fortress, your Smolensk battle? Their heroic fights 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

And these are only those countries that have officially declared war on the Soviet Union. According to various sources, this crusade"against the USSR, 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.

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:

Dutch - 50 thousand people, Belgians - 20 thousand people, French - 20 thousand people, Danes and Norwegians - 6 thousand people each, 1200 people from Sweden, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and others 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 on Leningrad Front the Norwegian Legion was transferred, he helped to 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 the orders of Himmler.

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, from the north Leningrad was besieged by Finnish and Swedish troops, 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. Best in terms physical training, health, intellectual state. He really selected the guards, and the Wehrmacht got, as his leadership considered, the second grade, so to speak.

After army generals“complained” to Hitler, for Himmler a limit was set on the draft of Germans in the guards 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 European countries captured by Hitler due to many reasons, it was fashionable at that time in Europe race theory and the bright successes of the National Socialist ideology, and just a 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 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 branches in Latin America, they gave Hitler gasoline for several tens of millions of dollars. The Rockefeller Standard Oil Company supplied the Third Reich with fuels and 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. 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 insured property taken from the same Jewish population for the benefit of the Nazis.

Novartis

While Bayer is infamous for having started out as a division of the manufacturer of the Zyklon B gas used by the Nazis in gas chambers, it is not the only one. 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 chemicals for the Nazis. 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 prisoners of war, forced laborers and prisoners concentration camps produced engines for the Luftwaffe and thus were forced to help the regime defend itself 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 Kyiv 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.

Considering 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 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 and that the country will in no way go to 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 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 of pure iron, while the ore obtained by the German military machine from other places contained only 30 percent iron. It is clear that production military equipment from metal smelted from Swedish ore, cost the treasury of the Third Reich much cheaper.

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 to the Nazis iron ore.

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.

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 specifications which Germany could not get 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…”

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 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 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're in once more they will talk 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 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 tramples everything human laws, at 300 percent there is no such crime that he would not risk, at least 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 website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy is made -

From the first weeks of the invasion of German troops into the USSR, not only the heroism of the Soviet people was manifested, but also the conciliatory, and sometimes directly hostile position of some citizens of the country.

Militia soldiers, soldiers of the Red Army (Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army) and civilians of the occupied territories went over to the side of the enemy.

Who are the hiwis?

The name of the collaborators comes from the German word hilfswilliger, that is, "who wants to help." The Nazi command used this term to refer to all residents of the occupied countries who served in the German forces or worked for the good of Germany. These included prisoners of war, voluntary defectors, locals occupied areas, including forcibly hijacked. Initially, the Nazis called such people "our Ivans", but rather quickly the term "Khivi" was officially fixed.

What did the Germans do with the Khivs?

The Nazis used citizens of the occupied countries in the army as drivers, cooks, grooms, guards of objects in the rear, loaders, sappers, storekeepers, orderlies. Those who confirmed their loyalty and showed it in practice were allowed to take part in punitive measures, sorties against partisans, and also participate in combat operations of the regular army. They could also become police officers in occupied areas.
Khivs were actively used as propagandists - on the front line, with the help of megaphones, they called on the soldiers of the Red Army to drop their weapons and go over to the Germans - "civilized progressive people." Volunteers from among the Red Army served in the combat units of the Wehrmacht, having received the status of hilfswilliger. Their presence worked to increase the influx of defectors.
In 1943, the headquarters of the 6th Army of the Nazis developed the "Basic Directions for the Training of Volunteer Assistants." The document stated that the purpose of training and education was to prepare hilfswilliger as "reliable comrades-in-arms in the fight against Bolshevism."
The Khiva did not include prisoners of war used for forced labor in concentration camps, and almost 5 million Ostarbeiters - residents of the occupied territories, driven to Germany on forced labor. Among them were many women and teenagers.

The Red Army soldiers who fell into German captivity made a choice between death and betrayal of their homeland in favor of survival. They were afraid to run back to the troops of the Red Army or the partisans - those who were captured and survived were usually considered traitors. Shooting at your own seemed unforgivable to many, and joining the support services, why not? There were not so many ideological opponents of Soviet power among the prisoners of war.
Civilians in the occupied territories went over to the side of the Nazis for various reasons. Some residents of the republics annexed to the USSR in 1940 did not forget how Soviet power was implanted with “fire and sword”. They sincerely believed that the Germans were better and more civilized.
Many coveted the benefits from the invaders, guaranteed rations, cash rewards. When a dilemma arose - a half-starved life for themselves and children, or paid work and loyalty to the authorities - not everyone could resist.
In addition, at all times there have been selfish and unscrupulous people who are ready for betrayal and cruelty for the sake of power and money. They were also in demand by the Germans and took their place in the ranks of the Khiva.

The scale of the phenomenon

The experiment on the use of khiva brought results that exceeded the wildest expectations of the Germans. By the spring of 1942, the rear units of the German army included at least 200 thousand volunteers, and by the beginning of 1943 their number reached a million.
The lack of an unambiguous interpretation (who is considered a Khiv and who is forcibly mobilized) and the loss of German archives do not allow us to give an exact figure. According to the archives of the NKVD, in the period up to March 1946, proceedings were initiated against 283 thousand Vlasovites, representatives of the Cossack units and the Eastern legions, and these are only those who survived and were discovered.
The researcher S. I. Drobyazko believes that over a million people were in the SS, the Wehrmacht, police and paramilitary units on the side of Hitler (ROA, RONA, Cossacks, Eastern and Baltic divisions) during the entire period of the war.
According to the estimates of the German Office of the Eastern Forces, as of February 2, 1943, the total number of Soviet citizens in the German military service reached 750 thousand, including Khiva - from 400 to 600 thousand. These statistics do not include the Navy, the Luftwaffe and the SS. As of February 1945, the number of Hiwi was determined at 600 thousand people in the Wehrmacht, 15 thousand in the Navy and 60 thousand in the Luftwaffe.

Few got the monuments

An unusual fact: in August 2011, a monument to three Soviet Khivs was erected in the French city of Brebier, Pas de Calais department (Lance agglomeration). Four volunteer assistants were assigned to the German air defense battery. On September 1, 1944, the day before the Allies entered Lans, the Germans decided that they no longer needed the Khiva. Grigory Malinin and Alexei Teslenko were shot on the spot, Alexander Milaykov was killed while trying to escape. Ilya Lavrentiev managed to escape - later the Allies handed him over to the USSR.
The inscription on the commemorative plate reads: “In memory of three Russian soldiers, prisoners of war of the German air defense unit Dienststelle Feldpost 49300. Shot by the Germans at the time of the retreat on September 1, 1944, on the day of the liberation of Brebier, and buried in this cemetery. For us - memory, for them - immortality.

High ranks and an inglorious end

Among the Khivs there were quite successful officers of the Red Army. This is not only Lieutenant General Andrey Vlasov, head of the ROA, but also the chief of staff of the Red Army division, Lieutenant Colonel Gil-Rodionov, who again went over to the side of Soviet power in 1943, Hero of the Soviet Union, air squadron commander Bronislav Antilevsky, commander of the 41st rifle division Colonel Vladimir Baersky
All of them went over to the side of the Nazis after being captured. Their fate ended in a natural ending: Baersky was hanged in May 1945 by Czech partisans under the command of the Soviet captain Smirnov, Vlasov was hanged after the trial in 1946, Antilevsky was shot in the same year, posthumously deprived in 1950 of the title of Hero and orders.
Khivs, who survived until the end of the war and returned to the USSR, were condemned as traitors and traitors to their homeland. Those who participated in the hostilities were sentenced to be shot or hanged, the rest went through camps and exile. 148 thousand people were sentenced to 6 years in a special settlement.

Lend-Lease for Nazi Germany

Some American companies during the war years supplied fuel and weapons to both their army and the Nazis.

On October 1, 1941, the first lend-lease protocol was signed between the USA and the USSR, which received assistance from America in tanks, aircraft, fuel, food and other materials. However, American companies generously supplied all this to their own enemies - Germany. Business and nothing personal.

American components for "V"

Some American companies, in fact, supplied fuel and weapons to both the Nazis and their own warring army. It would seem, why else would the Nazis be supplied with everything necessary? In fact, such a demarche is explained quite simply: Germany paid much more.

In addition, not a single German shell fell on the territory of America itself. But if this projectile is intended for someone else, even for an ally, England, it's okay - it's not the United States.

Apparently, so decided in the corporation International Telephone and Telegraph(ITT) and arranged the supply of components and even complete units for missiles " fau". And with them, as you know, the Germans bombed London. Such cynicism and greed cannot but amaze.

What can't be bought with a lot of money, can be bought with a lot of money. Politicians were also bought, turning a blind eye, in particular, to the big contract of the same ITT with the Nazi government at a time when America was already at war with it.

According to the contract, ITT faithfully supplied Germany with special communications equipment, high-frequency equipment, selenium rectifiers, fuses for artillery shells (30,000 every month), radar equipment, telephone sets, switches, and much, much more.

It is known that the automobile magnate Henry Ford sympathized Hitler and even before the Second World War, he invested a huge fortune in the economy of Nazi Germany. And already in 1940, his factories began mass production of five-ton trucks for the Nazis.

Ford V 3000S-SSM Maultier

The Ford plant in Europe also worked at all its capacities, supplying the Nazis with cars for various purposes, tires, aircraft engines, auto parts and much more. At the same time, the production of engines for cars for the British was abbreviated. And the release of aircraft engines for the English Spitfires and Hurricanes stopped altogether.

The German Ambassador to the United States awards Henry Ford for helping the Nazis!

IBM computers for concentration camps

No less "moral" people headed the company IBM, which supplied calculating machines, spare parts for them and special paper for ... concentration camps. Apparently, in order to replenish the contingent of death camps, the Americans increased the supply of vehicles that helped the Nazis quickly count the population of those countries where the Wehrmacht's boot had already set foot, and identify persons subject to arrest.

This was done by cross and comparative analysis - the method made it possible to identify Jews who had hidden their nationality for more than one generation. After the war, the Aibiems fought back in the courts for a long time against Holocaust victims demanding compensation. However, there was something to pay: during the war, the company's capital tripled.

The enormity of the situation lies in the fact that this capital was the profit received after the "investment" in this "concentration camp" business. After all, it was with gold extracted from crowns, cigarette cases, watches and other things taken from prisoners that the Nazis paid off with American suppliers - and the total amount of such “booty” amounted to almost 400 million dollars in gold.

And the Germans paid generously. For example, companies Standard Oil”, which supplied Germany with millions of barrels of oil. In the Canary Islands, a filling base was generally arranged for German submarines. In addition, this corporation owned a patent for tetraethyl, which was part of the fuel for aircraft. And pay, let's say British Air Force patent royalties for it actually meant refueling German aircraft that bombed the capital of Foggy Albion.

Moreover, " Standard Oil”, which supplied the Nazis with large quantities of oil than their own army, in 1942 generally went to a sharp reduction in the supply of methanol to the United States. A scandal erupted. After all, we were talking about components such as acetic acid (explosives are made on its basis), fuels and lubricants, synthetic rubber, etc.

At the height of the war Rockefellers, who owned the company, supplied the Nazis with a giant shipment of cotton (10,000 tons), from which gunpowder is made, through shell companies. And also 25,000 tons of explosives. But all this was so lacking both in America itself and in the Red Army, which was suffocating without Lend-Lease assistance.

Shaving with a Gillette machine, drinking Coca-Cola, or enjoying cartoons from Warner Bros., remember that you owe all this, including to Hitler, who generously paid the Americans for his support ...

60th British Prime Minister 1937-1940 Arthur Neville Chamberlain in Munich

Hands clasped in friendship, Adolf Hitler and England’s Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, are shown in this historic pose at Munich on Sept. 30, 1938 the day when the premier of France and England signed the Munich agreement, sealing the fate of Czechoslovakia. Next to Chamberlain is Sir Neville Henderson, British Ambassador to Germany. Paul Schmidt, an interpreter, stands next to Hitler. (AP Photo)

What do we think about when we go up the escalators? Otis"or using checks" American Express"? It's easier to say what we're not thinking about at the moment. And we do not think that these American companies during the Second World War invested a huge amount in ... Nazi Germany.

However, their contribution in comparison with other American companies looks simply ridiculous. Tens of millions of dollars - these are the amounts that the companies pumped into the Reich Rockefeller, Rothschild and du Pont. We will talk about them today.
Start a story about a very interesting relationship American companies with the National Socialist regime should, perhaps, with Bank for International Settlements– currently the European subsidiary of the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The BIS was founded in 1930 by the Central Banks England, France, Belgium, Italy, Germany, three private banks USA and private banks Japan.

During the hostilities in Europe, the Bank for International Settlements accumulated and transferred to the Reichsbank most of the gold reserves of the countries occupied by Germany - the financial representatives of these powers did not fit into their heads that the Germans and the allies could be at the same time, so they naively tried to transfer their capital to Western banks through the BIS . In addition, since 1942 Reichsbank valuables requisitioned from the Jews began to be deposited. Gold products - monocles, spectacle frames, watches, cigarette cases and crowns, mined by the Gestapo, were melted down into 20-kilogram bars and sent to the BIS. In total, gold was obtained in this way for total amount 378 million dollars.

Now let's move on to those who regularly transferred and received money through BIS. The palm in this matter is rightfully held by the company " Standard Oil of New Jersey"(Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey), which can now be found at gas stations Esso (trademark ExxonMobil, which was renamed Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey). This company put so much effort into supporting Hitler that at times it was possible to get confused about who they actually worked for. Rockefellers who owned this company.

One of the most interesting moments of cooperation is related to the patent for tetraethyl(a component of aviation fuel), which was owned by Standard Oil. Tsimes lies in the fact that the Royal Air Force, making patent royalties to a British firm " Ethyl", actually refueled the Luftwaffe planes bombing London - "Etil" immediately deposited money in the banks of the Nazi concern " I.G. Farben”, which also produced jet fuel.

However, the main part of Standard Oil's cooperation with the Nazis was the sale of oil. Company tankers flying a neutral Panamanian flag (bypassing British blockade) hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil were transported to the Spanish Canary Islands where it was pumped into German tankers bound for Hamburg. Moreover, part of the oil was processed here at the plant built with money from Standard Oil, and the fuel was poured into German submarines right on the spot, which were sent to hunt in the Atlantic.

Such a flow of fuel looked especially wild to Hitler against the backdrop of the fuel crisis of the American military - at a time when the US General Staff seriously considered the prospects of moving infantrymen on roller skates to save fuel, "Standard Oil" pumped more oil to Germany than it transferred to the US army!

Fighter for the Fuhrer

If "Standard Oil" is the leader among American companies in terms of the quantity and cost of supplies, then the company " Ford” took its toll with pinpoint strikes on the economy of the allies. So, in 1940, she stopped the production of aircraft engines for the British " Hurricanes" and " Spitfires"- The vacant factory facilities were transferred to the production of 5-ton trucks for the German armed forces. In order to please German interests, the supply of automobile engines to Great Britain was also reduced, and tires went mainly only to the Reich - despite the fact that they were sorely lacking in the American army.

« general motors", which in Germany belonged to" Opel", also worked with might and main for the Fuhrer. It is curious that 50% of the power units of the bombers " Junkers-88"It was produced precisely at the Opel factories, and in 1943 the German branch of General Motors developed and produced engines for" Messerschmitt-262"- the first jet fighter Luftwaffe.

Junkers-52 with American engines helps the Wehrmacht bomb Soviet cities!

The most interesting things he did during the war and concern GFR is the world's largest manufacturer of ball bearings. At a time when gigantic batches of bearings (more than 600,000 pieces annually) were received by Nazi clients through South America, « Curtis-Wright Aviation Corporation", which produced engines for the US Air Force, for a long time did not receive the coveted steel balls at all. " Pratt-Whitney”, which also produced aircraft engines, was also forced to reduce production due to supply disruptions from SCF.

It is curious that when, on October 14, 1943, the commander of the US Army Aviation, General Henry Arnold ordered an air raid on the SCF ball bearing factory in Germany Schweinfurt, the enemy somehow found out about the operation and managed to prepare the defense, knocking down 60 American aircraft. On October 19, Arnold bluntly told the London News Chronicle: "They would not have been able to organize a defense if they had not been warned in advance."

The activity during the Second World War and the American company was very interesting. ITT("International Telephone and Telegraph"), the products of which today almost every one of you can find in your home. It is especially interesting that the directors of ITT were Walter Schellenberg(Chief of the Political Intelligence Service of the Reich) and SS Brigadeführer Kurt von Schroeder who was also a member of the Board of Directors BIS.

In 1938, an American company acquired a 28% stake in the company " Focke-Wulf”, thereby making all possible assistance in air raids on Great Britain. However, ITT's assistance to the Nazis was not limited to buying shares: after the United States entered the war, the company signed a major contract with the Germans for the production of switches, telephone sets, systems aerial reconnaissance and warnings, as well as radar equipment and fuses for artillery shells. Missiles fau falling on the UK also carried some of the finished products supplied by ITT. Finally, the company provided uninterrupted telephone, telegraph and teletype communications between Latin American countries and the Axis countries. The situation was sometimes senile: American intelligence transmitted through ITT channels turned out to be Berlin and Rome faster than in Washington.

The horror of Nazism in the USA, Henry Ford, Rockefeller, DuPont

10 famous corporations that collaborated with the Nazis (IBM, Kodak, Ford, Coca-Cola, BMW, Nestle, etc.)

More detailed and a variety of information about the events taking place in Russia, Ukraine and other countries of our beautiful planet, can be obtained on Internet conferences, constantly held on the website "Keys of Knowledge". All Conferences are open and completely free. We invite all waking up and interested ...

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, Russian special services have already done this 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 on 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 a 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. Was lost over time African campaign. France was defeated more strategically than by brute 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 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 slandered the German Communist Party and interfered with its 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. It 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." Concentration of the best Soviet tanks on the border recesses 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 can only be explained total absence experienced commanders in the Red Army and hatred of 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 entity, agricultural and somehow camouflaged military training 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. The well-known German plan for 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 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 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.

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 taken as tacit confirmation of German anti-Semitism propaganda. Simple Soviet people actively helped the Germans to identify the 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 Soviet leadership covered the murders 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 rug. 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. On 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 total, according to the statistics of the Eastern Troops Directorate, as of February 2, 1943 total number Soviet citizens in the 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 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 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

“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 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.

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.

Until now, few people know that one of the main tasks of the ships of the Navy of the Soviet Union that 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.

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."

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