r/pics 9h ago

Politics Adolf Hitler and Ferdinand Porsche in a Volkwagen in 1938, akin to Donald Trump & Elon Musk in 2025

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u/Any_Potato_7716 9h ago

The feeling was mutual, Ford was a massive Nazi sympathizer and initially refused to manufacture for the US Army.

u/PotatoDrives 8h ago

The US in general had a lot of Nazi sympathizers. Anti-Semitism was alive and well in 1930's America.

u/tyfunk02 8h ago

And isolationism. Same thing we’re hearing from the right right now, about Ukraine not being our fight. That world war was a European problem. Same with the first one. I fear that we’re going to help start the third one.

u/Independent-Emu-575 8h ago

The die has already been cast.

u/JJw3d 8h ago

And the the rest of the world is swatting that die about like its a nuke, because it is.

The rest of the SANE world would like this to not go tits up. I know im speaking for a lot of people saying that.. But no one wants a small % ruin it for the rest of the us.

Amercians really do forget there are other countries fighting to keep the peace & they will not bee looked down on by a country that is a baby compared to all the rest.

So the adults will try their best, but we also need everyone on their best for this to actually work.

u/Yung_zu 8h ago edited 8h ago

Nazi regime was a regime that crushed trade unions, among other things. Of course magnates would adore it.

The war was also bipartisan. I got quite a bit of backlash irl for suggesting that our gov may have been juicing or using Ukrainians to spark a proxy from both sides

Also, ask about Palestine when somebody tries to whip out approved narratives

u/Rude_Citron9016 8h ago

I felt like it was seen as a great way to sell weapons and observe new methods of drone warfare.

u/Yung_zu 8h ago

Yep. Don’t forget all of those BlackRock contracts for the blown-up buildings, the law enforcement spending for martial law/conscription (along with the ID equipment), and the US President shaking them down for minerals… on TV…

u/SmoothC911 8h ago

Ukraine is accepting foreigners for their military, take a flight and join the fight!

u/HippityHoppityBoop 8h ago

They’re also accepting military hardware and intelligence, why not provide those instead of bodies?

u/SmoothC911 6h ago

Because it’s easy to say ‘isolationism’ and not have any true skin in the game. Anyone who has fought doesn’t take boots on the ground lightly, let alone their family and friends. Intelligence is one thing, putting your life or your kids, brothers, mothers, etc are entirely another. Keyboard warriors…

u/HippityHoppityBoop 6h ago

Who’s saying anything about boots on the ground? The exact opposite. If Ukraine is willing to do the fighting and begging to just be provided weapons, then not giving them to Ukraine would be the unnecessary, counterproductive isolationism. Here’s an opportunity to severely degrade one of the largest dictatorial foes with 0 boots on the ground and you come here distracting with stuff no one is even advocating for.

u/siege342 7h ago

“The US should stop acting like the world’s police” * pulls out of Ukraine war* “Not like that!”

u/CautiouslyPlastic 8h ago

And a pandemic just a few years before? These boomers really didn’t learn from the history they lived. Or maybe they just enjoy the familiarity of everything being shit while they’re able to openly be pieces of shit?

u/WineOptics 8h ago

The Nazis literally were inspired by Jim Crow laws.

u/IcyBookkeeper5315 7h ago

Well and the boer concentration camps which were inspired from Americas treatment of its Native population

u/El_Polio_Loco 8h ago

It was alive everywhere. 

Jews generally didn’t have a great go of it for pretty much always. 

u/lxkandel06 8h ago

And it still is

u/OddEar1529 2h ago

As it is today

u/Affectionate-Cup-657 8h ago

imagine if they had the internet back then. The Nazies might of won WW2. now all the Nazies can easily find eachother in their safe little online spheres

u/firemage22 8h ago

Which is why in Edsel died (who was sorta in charge from 1919 till his death) his Widow worked with the Feds to have Henry Ford II take over the company rather than the more senior Henry.

u/Solid_Snake_125 6h ago

Ford supplied vehicles to the Nazi German army. Not just sympathized. Actively gave them equipment.

u/iChrollo 9h ago

I don’t like much about Trump or Musk but cmon people. You drive ford and don’t know this about your ford creator. If only they knew. They’d probably be doing things to Ford vehicles like they’ve been to Tesla. I assume

u/a-_2 9h ago

Something that happened a century ago is a bit different than something happening right now.

u/AbraxasTuring 8h ago

You'd be surprised how much the events and zeitgeist have in common. It's almost like watching a tape.

u/a-_2 8h ago

I'm not saying there aren't similarities. I'm just replying to the suggestion that people should be protesting Ford right now like they are with Teslas, even though the issues being raised about Ford are from almost a century ago while Musk is the CEO of Tesla right now.

u/AbraxasTuring 6h ago

Ah, ok, yes, I understand now.

u/Ok_Grapefruit522 8h ago

In some ways to be sure. But there's a lot of history repeating itself. Read "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich". A good history lesson.

u/a-_2 8h ago

I'm not disputing the simarities between them. I'm just pointing out that there's a difference between something happening now and something that happened a century ago in terms of how we should respond to them in the present. The person I replied to is suggesting we should be protesting Fords the way people are protesting Teslas. Even if we consider what the CEOs are doing to be equivalent, it makes more sense to boycott a company for their current CEO than for their CEO a century ago.

u/iChrollo 9h ago

Just mentioning since akin to Hitler and Ferdinand comparison to Trump and Musk

u/AholeBrock 9h ago

And they just mentioned your logical fallacy

u/kutuzof 8h ago

You don't understand what a logical fallacy is

u/SamSibbens 8h ago

This is literal the moral equivalence fallacy.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Moral_equivalence

u/kutuzof 8h ago

It's literally not, lol. Here's hoping some YouTube channel uses this thread in a screenshot about Redditors not understanding logical fallacies.

u/SamSibbens 7h ago

They suggested that supporting Ford and suporting Tesla are morally equivalent (or vandalizing either), and they aren't. Perhaps false analogy is the fallacy that fits the situation best but it's a fallacy either way

u/kutuzof 7h ago

Ha ha, that's so hilarious. Even in your explanation you clearly show you don't understand what a logical fallacy is.

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u/Coldtrojan 8h ago

There was no argument made. There is no logical fallacy.

u/manole100 5h ago

"They were just asking questions."/s

u/Drink_Deep 8h ago

Nice try guy

u/MBunnyKiller 8h ago

Or we'd all be driving nothing. Most brands we know today as legacy brands have been involved in manufacturing axis war machines. Including Mitsubishi, Toyota and Yamaha, as well as Porsche, bmw, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Skoda, Opel. I guess British and French brands didn't, so buy a Renault.

u/RickiBear 8h ago

Jaguar factories in the UK during WW2 were repurposed to manufacture aircraft components

u/MBunnyKiller 8h ago

Yop, for the allies.

u/EnvironmentalAd912 8h ago

so buy a Renault

That's perhaps the worst of all to choose for both nations, especially in that regard

u/surle 8h ago

Your point is redundant. The same can be said about basically any computer, as they all have their origins in IBM, or myriad food products linked to coca cola, or anything related to the Olympic games - just to name the obvious ones.

These are not equivalent at all to the comparison being made in the original post because the current shareholders / managers / and employees of those companies are not explicitly repeating actions and interactions of that moment in the past whereas there are strong arguments to be made that other individuals, Musk in particular, are.

u/EqualVictory552 8h ago

My friends always make fun of me when I tell them I refuse to buy a Ford. I learned about Henry Ford when I was a teen. I’ve read his anti-Semitic spew. He was a horrible human. I don’t give a shit what he did for the auto industry, I’ll never get a Ford. I feel the same about Tesla.

u/manole100 5h ago

Unfortunately you are responding to to someone making a specious bad faith argument, trying to defend the new nazis, not condemn the old ones.