Posted by Dave Burns on February 26, 2006, 12:21 am The class-action lawsuit against Ford, filed in a federal court in Newark NJ, alleged that company founder Henry Ford had a "personal friendship" with Adolf Hitler that accorded the automaker "uniquely favorable treatment" by the Nazis. The suit also sought to force the company to divest itself of “all economic benefits accrued" by Ford and its German subsidiary, Ford Werke A.G., as a result of the forced labor. The plaintiffs in the case also sought punitive damages for the "inhuman conditions inflicted upon them” while they were enslaved at Ford Werke. The 1998 lawsuit was dismissed in September 1999 based on the argument that U.S. courts could not intervene in German legal affairs, but the stigma remained and some individuals continued to press the claims in the court of public opinion and in 2001 the Ford Motor Company donated $4 million toward human rights studies, most of which focused on the issue of forced and slave labor, and to humanitarian relief in an attempt to bring the debate to a close and repair the damage done to its public image. Two articles published by organizations: http://www.abanet.org/irr/hr/spring00humanrights/lite.html Anti-Defamation League http://www.adl.org/braun/dim_13_2_ford.asp Article from The Nation (magazine) http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20000124&s=silverstein
71.124.9.8
In the late 1990s, as the numbers of holocaust survivors were dwindling, a strong push for reparations for slave labor was undertaken in order to force companies that benefited from the Third Reich to publicly acknowledge their role in aiding and abetting the Nazi Regime while turning a profit for shareholders. The Ford Motor Company was one of the corporations targeted, and the effort and questions about the activities of the American business in Germany during the war became major news.
American Bar Association
I was wondering if anybody had any thoughts on the questions and issues surrounding slave labor and the Ford Motor Company based on the film or the articles above.
Message Thread:
« Back to thread