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20 Historical Figures Who Changed The World, and Also Committed Monstrous Deeds

Khalid Elhassan January 16, 2019 24 min

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, published in Henry Ford’s Dearborn Independent. Wikimedia

9. Henry Ford Was a Notorious Antisemite

Henry Ford revolutionized the automobile industry. He was also so anti-Semitic that Hitler praised him in Mein Kampf. Ford believed that Jews were conspiring to take over the world, so he purchased and published a weekly newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, that had a decidedly anti-Jewish bent. Ford required all of his car dealers to stock his newspaper, which helped shoot its circulation up to 900,000 by 1925, second only to The New York Times. Hitler referred to him as “my inspiration“, and kept a photo of him atop his desk. In 1938, Ford was awarded The Grand Cross of the German Eagle, the highest medal Nazi Germany bestowed on foreigners.

Ford had no problem doing business with Hitler’s Germany. When WWII began, Ford professed himself neutral, but his actions belied that claim. Before America joined the war, Ford supplied Germany with war materials but declined to supply the British RAF with aircraft engines. In addition, Ford’s plants in Germany used slave workers in order to meet the demands of the German war effort. The US Department of Justice concluded that there was a basis for a criminal case against Ford’s son, Edsel, for trading with the Nazis, but he was spared that by his death in 1943.

Read More: Nazi-inspired Inventions.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.