General Motors and the Nazis
Subtitle: the struggle for control of Opel, Europe's biggest carmaker
By: Henry Ashby Turner, Jr.
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2005
Place of publication: New Haven
Language: eng
Number of pages: 200
Subjects: Opel AG -- History.; Automobile industry and trade -- Germany -- History.
Description: "This book, the first ever based on unrestricted access to General Motors' internal records, documents the giant American corporation's dealings with the Third Reich. GM purchased Opel, Europe's largest automaker, in the 1920s and continued to hold it through the Second World War. Historian Henry Ashby Turner, Jr., uncovers the story of how the American carmaker conducted business in Germany under the Nazi regime and explores larger issues concerning the relations between international corporations and the Third Reich." "The book presents new and detailed information about General Motors' interactions with Hitler and other Nazi officials, including the carmaker's attempt to capture the Volkswagen project. It also reveals how American GM executives thwarted a sustained Nazi effort to gain control of Opel. The author concludes with an assessment of the extent of the company's implication, through Opel, in the Nazi war effort and in the exploitation of forced labor."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: GM's costly subsidiary sags with the slump, then soars under the swastika; title: Opel and GM adapt to the Third Reich; title: GM fumbles the Volkswagen, gains a truck factory, identifies foes and friends; title: A Nazi grasp for Opel is fended off; title: The gauleiter is thwarted, but not without consequences; title: Opel is conscripted for the German war effort; title: Mr. Mooney tries to stop the Second World War; title: GM loses control but takes wartime profits; title: Circumstances and options : responsibility and guilt.