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The Dark Side of Great Historic Figures

Khalid Elhassan December 11, 2020 33 min

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17. Hitler Referred to Henry Ford as “My Inspiration“

Hitler praised Henry Ford in Mein Kampf. France 24

Henry Ford probably had no problem with Jews as individuals, or at least no problem with some Jews as individuals. However, this great man had some serious problems when it came to Jews collectively. He was an out-and-out anti-Semite who believed that Jews were conspiring to take over the world. To that end, and to spread the alarm about this perceived Jewish threat, Ford 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, and through that and other measures, got its circulation up to 900,000 by 1925, second only to The New York Times.

Adolf Hitler was a great admirer of Henry Ford. The Nazi leader lauded the American industrialist in Mein Kampf, referred to him as “my inspiration“, and kept a photo of him on his desk. On Ford’s 75^th birthday in 1938, he was awarded The Grand Cross of the German Eagle, the highest medal that Nazi Germany bestowed on foreigners.

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.