German Big Buisness The Aryanization of the German businesses was discussed through Pater Hayes’s article “Profits and Persucution: Corporate Involvement in the Holocaust”. Hayes looked into why German businessmen were initially skeptical of Hitler and what factors played into the role of overcoming these suspicions. Hayes also looked into why German the initial attitude of the German business community changed toward the anti-Sematic campaigns. Neil Gregor through his article, “Big Business and Racial Barbarism: Labour at Daimler-Benz 1939-1945”, explored the exploitation of slave labor through the Daimler-Benz corporation. Gregor specifically went into how Daimler-Benz was able to get around the Jewish forced labor clash against the Final Solution. Gregor also looked heavily into Daimler-Benz’s treatment of Jewish workers reflect their acceptance of Nazi Ideology.12 Aryanization was the forced expulsion of “non-Aryans”, mostly Jews, from business life in Nazi Germany and the areas Nazi Germany controlled. German businessmen were initially skeptical of this plan from Hitler for many reasons. Less than 1 percent of the Jewish businesses were big enough to attract the money of the big firms. A lot of these Germans actually served with the Jews in previous wars with. Some of the business men hanged out with Jews in their personal life. Intermarriage was not uncommon between these groups. Hitler himself avoided talking anti-Semitism when addressing corporate issues. Many of the corporate business men were very liberal. I.G. Farben, a large steel manufacturer and chemicals maker, chairmen even devoted funds to stick up for Jews. Hitler addressed these issues though the Hossbach conference in November 1937. 3 Hitler almost overnight forced corporate Germany to accept Aryanization. War was imminent for lebensraum and preperations had to be made and accelerated. Hitler had governmental pressure for Aryanization at the upper levels of economy. The resistance to cooperation declined on the part of major companies. The willingness of buyers and capacity for corporate buyers to make fair sales offers disappeared. Sol almost overnight Jewish-owned, banks, factories, and trading companies disappeared according to Peter Hayes.4 160 From Hayes’s article, it may be easy to see why the corporate businesses tried to resist Hitler. The business men obviously believed at some point in the near future sound minds would return to power and bring the country back under control. In class, last week we discussed Hitler and the Nazi’s aligned themselves with the German’s National People Party, a highly conservative party, in elections. As businessmen they would have looked at Hitler as opposition since they were liberal. Many of these Jews were veterans of the war. As a former soldier myself nothing aggravates me more than when a government does not want to acknowledge veterans or support them. Unfortunately, for these businessmen Hitler and the Nazi party stays in power for much longer than expected. Within a few years of this takeover General Government will happen.5 General Government was the occupied area of the Second Republic of Poland under Nazi Germany from 1939 to 1945. It was an area in which many Polish Jews and Polish people were requested from to work in German controlled factories throughout Germany and Poland. Many of these factories produced materials needed for the German war effort for World War II. One of these companies that requested people for their war effort Daimler-Benz.6 Daimler-Benz treated the Jewish workers as slave labor. Any money Jewish
