I’ll have to remember that Elon/Eloff word play.
When you create an echo chamber which excludes ethics, excludes inconvenient facts, and drives out marginalized groups, you might think that echo chamber is reasonable, and ethics, facts, and those marginalized groups are extremist.
When you do that you might think also groups which try to be ethical, try to stay fact-based, and try to welcome marginalized groups are themselves echo chambers because they’re at odds with your echo chamber, with traditional violence, and with much of the public.
“They keep saying “far right”, but the policies of AfD that I’ve read about don’t sound extremist…”
… compared to some of the fine gentlemen whom I follow here on X, with their book recommendations like The Turner Diaries or The Camp of the Saints. Not that I have any problem with them either. Everyone is welcome in my Nazi bar!"
Henry Ford Receiving German Award
Celebrating his 75th birthday, Henry Ford receives the Grand Cross of the German Eagle (highest Nazi award to a foreigner) for industrial accomplishments. It is presented by Karl Kapp, German consul at Cleveland while Fritz Heiler, German consul at Detroit shakes Ford’s hand.
Hey, now, no need to single out old Henry here.
Other recipients of the order (which had several tiers) were:
Ernest G. Liebold, Henry Ford’s private secretary, German Eagle 1st Class; my guess is for out-antisemiting his boss.
James Mooney, General Motors’ chief executive for overseas operations, German Eagle 1st Class; this has something to with GM buying Opel in 1929 (until 2017 when GM sold it to PSA).
Thomas J. Watson, chairman of IBM. Rewarded in 1937 at the meeting of the International Chamber of Commerce in Germany, Watson was president of the ICC then. Watson returned the medal in 1940. After massive pressure. Didn’t keep IBM from making a decent amount of money from the various Holocausts, though.
Charles Lindbergh, German Eagle with Star. Oh come on, he was “The Lone Eagle” and the Nazis were crazy about aviation. And he was a frequent guest, even started a parallel family in Munich with two or three kids.
Jacob Wallenberg, Grand Cross of the Order of the German Eagle. Probably because he was on the government commission for trade agreements with Germany and, you know, iron ore. No relation to Raoul Wallenberg.
General Olof Thörnell, Supreme Commander of the Swedish Armed Forces, Grand Cross of the Order of the German Eagle. Probably for being in the ‘sort of neutral but pro-German because only they can save us from the Bolshies’ camp. And, you know, iron ore.
Sven Hedin, Grand Cross of the Order of the German Eagle. Very pro-German during WW I, also viewing Nazi Germany as a deterrent against a Soviet invasion. To be fair, a) his work was exploited where it was convenient for the Nazis, b) Hedin used personal connections to get some people out of death camps and c) Hitler really had a thing for explorers, especially those who went to places described in the books by Karl May.
Risto Ryti, President of Finland, Grand Cross in Gold with Star
Field Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, Grand Cross in Gold with Star
Jimbopedia has let me down on the dates, so I don’t know whether this was just about the Winter War or about the Continuation War as well. Mainly for kicking out the shit out of the Red Army either way.
Mannerheim was also awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class with 1939 bar and the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, both in 1942, and Oak Leaves for the latter in 1944.
Finnish Minister of Defence Rudolf Walden, Grand Cross. Not sure, really, because apparently he got it in 1939 just before the Winter War. Something to look into, sometime later.
Fanni Luukkonen, leader of the Lotta Svärd organization, Order of the German Eagle with Star, “for her role in the fight against Bolshevism”. Received her award personally, there’s a nice picture of the occasion.
Apart from those, the list is pretty much what you’d expect; wall to wall fascists.
If anybody is confused by the recipients from Siam/Thailand - they had their own flavour of fascism at the time.
As it has been noted many, many times: fascism is basically impossible to define universally, but you know it when you see it.
Special mention to Ing. Ugo Conte, Rome Chief Engineer, German Eagle 2nd Class in 1938 “for leading team in the construction of first German motorway” and angry yelling at Jimbopedia for getting things wrong.
The first stretch of the Autobahn was opened in 1932, almost a full year before Hitler became Chancellor. Just 20 km between Cologne and Bonn, but still. Still there as the A555. (And that’s not counting the AVUS because it doesn’t qualify.)
No Hitler didn’t invent the Autobahn. The first road like this was built in Italy in 1924. Under Mussolini. Although that’s not why Mussolini was rewarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the German Eagle in Gold with Diamonds. But it is the reason why Italian engineers were involved in building German Autobahns in the 1930ies.
The Autobahn between Cologne and Bonn was one of Konrad Adenauer’s many projects, which brings me to my final point and actually back to where we came in:
The Ford-Werke GmbH was founded as a subsidiary of the Ford Motor Company in Berlin in 1925 and started assembling Model T’s from imported parts. In 1929, Konrad Adenauer managed to persuade Ford to move to Cologne and build a proper factory.
And in the run up to and during WW II the Ford-Werke GmbH managed to pull off the perfect fix.
To the German authorities, they managed to present themselves as a 100% deutsch, 100% arisch company. No foreign influence at all, the name is really just a coincidence, honest. So no need to seize the company, put it under forced administration (like the Deutsche Hollerith, aka IBM had been during WW I) or anything like that. Nothing to see here, just let us get on with building lorries for the Wehrmacht, right?
To the American authorities, Ford managed to present the Ford-Werke GmbH as a honest to God 100% subsidiary of a 100% American company. The incorporation as a GmbH is just one of those silly legal things crazy Europeans come up with. So there is no need to bomb our factory, which is private property of American citizens, patriots all, mmmhhkay? And they’re not building panzers anyway. By the way, what would you like us to build for the war effort over here?
In the end, the city was reduced to rubble while the factory got hit by two or three artillery shells that went wide by accident when the US Army crossed the Rhine. Ford closed shop for less than a week during this kerfuffle and then got back on with it.
Isn’t capitalism just wonderful?
Pshaw! Way! 'Sif!!!
The accelerating Nazification of a single Japanese-American cartoonist:
https://old.reddit.com/r/sinfest/comments/1htbgog/datafest_how_antisemitic_was_the_2024_run_of/
It’s like an accident report, where you’re hoping that somehow, somehow, he’s going to get out, but he keeps going further in.
“No nazis in Oodi [Ode], no nazis anywhere”
https://www.instagram.com/p/DEe_pJ2N1jF
https://www.instagram.com/p/DEfCXQCtnzY
The gathering also drew around 250 people who were opposed to the event.
Funniest thing I saw was some rando on twitter threatening that they would follow people to their homes.
Attention: The communist ideas are all around.
Attention: There are several communistas already among us.
Attention: The communism is imminent.
People are vulgarizing the term. In this way, commu…
Whoah!
Attention: there are some people flirting with nazism.
Attention: It isn’t just flirting, they are nazis for real.
Attention: The nazism is imminent.
It’s their fault for trivializing the term.
By Raphael Salimena - @linhadotrem.bsky.social on Bluesky
Outsourced concentration camps: