8. Siemens Did Great Under the Nazis and Profited Greatly from the Holocaust
Siemens’ general director, Rudolf Bingel, was a personal friend of Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler, and used his connections to ensure that his company did well. Siemens’ evil practices included the exploitation of the Holocaust for profit via the “Aryanization Program”. The program expropriated Jewish businesses and properties, then resold them at bargain-basement prices to approved companies such as Siemens. As to Siemens’ slave workers, they toiled in horrific conditions. For example, the company used female slave workers at Ravensbruck to make electrical components for V-1 and V-2 rockets. They were subjected to all types of exploitation, with the ever-present threat of death if they balked.
Siemens’ construction operations also used female slave workers, and yoked them in teams like draft animals to pull giant rollers to pave the streets. After the war, the company did its best to forget that history, but reminders cropped up from time to time. In 2001, in a jaw-dropping display of obliviousness, Bosch Siemen Hausgeraete, the company’s consumer products arm, filed applications with the US Patents & Trademark Office for the name Zyklon. The same as in Zyklon B, the toxic chemical used in the Holocaust’s gas chambers. The company wanted to use the Zyklon name in a range of household products, including gas ovens. After a public outcry, Siemens withdrew the trademark applications.
