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These Corporations Committed the Ultimate Evil

Khalid Elhassan June 7, 2021 36 min

Henry Ford receiving the Grand Cross of the German Eagle in 1938. History Channel

A Coca-Cola ad from the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Reddit

26. A Popular Drink’s Origins in the Evil Third Reich During WWII

Fanta is one of Coca-Cola’s most popular products, sold in 188 countries with more than 70 flavors. A lesser-known fact is that it was first concocted and manufactured in the evil days of Nazi Germany during World War II. Its story started in the years leading up to the war, when Coca-Cola’s greatest international success was its German branch, Coca-Cola Deutschland (Coca-Cola GmbH). Germans loved Coke, and consumed it at such a rate that record sales were set year after year in the Third Reich.

The company’s German branch flourished under American-born director Ray Powers, and continued to flourish under his successor, Max Keith, after Powers died in a car accident in 1938. By the time WWII broke out in 1939, the soft drink giant had 43 bottling plants and over 600 local distributors. The war disrupted that love affair between Germans and Coke. Keith communicated with the parent company that he would try to keep operations running in Germany for as long as he could.

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.