John James

I saw on Dateline lastnight that VW AG, Audi's parent company, was dreamt up by Hitler and used to create many of the German military vehicles in WWII. According to the report, millions of Jews were inslaved in the VW factories, and even tortured and killed inside the factories. VW AG has even set up a 12 million dollar "I'm sorry" fund for the Jews that were inslaved in these factories. Any comments?<p>John

JohnS

It's in the past, they're trying to fix it, move on.

Matt Daniels

This was brought up a few months ago. This summer a lawsuit was brought against VW by one of the former "workers" (slave). I believe most other German automakers were named in the suit also, but VW was the main company named because this was the factory where this person was forced to work.<p>I really don't have any comments about the whole thing, it happened about the time my father was born. And we have no idea what the envioronment was like then. Did VW and other manufactures willingly take the slave labor? If they refused would they be shot and killed? We have no way of knowing. <p>Matt<p>

J.Russ

Audi (Auto Union, etc.) strode this Earth long before VW bought it. This purchase occured long after Adolf and Eva had their underground barbecue in the face of the advancing Allies.<p>The recrimination of VW for alleged crimes against humanity is par for the course in today's victim-obssessed culture. It's a no-win situation for a company who is pinned by the media with the sins of its officers from a half-century earlier. VW may feel some sense of remorse for crimes committed in complicity with the *****, but the cold fact is that it's less expensive to set up the compensation fund than to battle for its reputation. It's a little like settling out of court.<p>Should Mitsubishi pay reparations for the havoc it's war wachines brought to China and the Pacific?

AJL

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pdw

(the following is a synopsis of a book I read that was published about 30 years ago called Small Wonder)<br>*****************<br>VW was actually dreamt up by Ferdinand Porsche(father of the guy who started the sports car company and grandfather to the current head of VW) but Hitler very much liked the idea. VW as a company didn't even really exist until after WWII. The Wolfsburg factory was built before WWII(barely) but production of the Beetle was put on hold due to the war. The factory was essentially government owned and VW was a socialistic venture. <p>Porsche was, to some degree, in charge and was forced to both accept slave laborers and to produce military vehicles. Porsche actually lobbied Hitler for better treatment of the slave laborers. His reasoning was that if they weren't reasonably healthy, they wouldn't be productive. They were probably better off than they would have been in other places. Some of them even stayed and worked in the plant after liberation. <br>******************<br>I'm not sure how true this book's portrayal of the actual events is, but I didn't see any reason why the author should have been biased one way or the other. I do believe that any survivors should be compensated but the question is by who or what company? VW(not even known as Volkswagen) was essentially government owned at the time all this happened. This is well documented and it's also well documented how VW started after liberation. The US Army offered to give the plant to either Rover or Ford niether of whom wanted it. The US Army then found a person who had been an executive at some German company to try and build VW into something.<p>The gist of all this is that VW, while culpable, seems less so than companies like MB and BMW who were full-fledged companies at the start of the war. VW is probably named because of their size.<p>Of course, there's also a lawyer involved who stands to make a lot of money.

Henri Berger

When I brought this up several weeks ago, I was hounded! Although I still dislike the fact that I like and own products from a company that once was involved with *****, what am I going to do about it?<p>-henri

Todd W

And we all know that the Internet was made for WWIII

Roger B

If you want to be PC, consider how many American companies you buy products from that were founded by Slave Owners. Or can we not buy Italian cars because of what the Roman Empire did? What's the statute of limitiations on these things?

Koushik

<br>$0.02,<br>-K.