GM Trolley-cide

[David Casseres]

[Jeff Meikle sez]
>For GR fans, an even juicier part of Snell's report
>details how GM played both sides as WWII approached, illegally building
>military truck plants for the Nazis and continuing to operate them without
>Nazi takeover until after Pearl Harbor (that is, while Roosevelt was
>pursuing an official American readiness program).  GM's American director
>of overseas operations was decorated by Hitler in about 1938, and
>communications between Allied and Nazi GM components continued through
>neutral countries throughout the war.

This was much more common than we postwar naifs might suppose.  Many U.S. 
corporations continued their business operations in Nazi Germany 
throughout the war; I forget which U.S. aircraft company it was that 
maintained its relationship with Messerschmitt all through the period 
when pilots in its airplanes were being shot down by pilots in 
Messerschmitts.  And no one ever even whispered the word treason.

However, there's a passage somewhere in Gravity's Rainbow where someone 
comments on how Royal Dutch Shell's U.S. subsidiary kept right on doing 
business with the parent company after it was taken over by the Nazi 
occupation of Holland and dedicated to support of the Axis war effort.  
And then he goes off into a little riff about the inferiority of Shell 
gasoline.

Now I remember growing up with this notion that Shell gasoline was 
inferior stuff, and I wonder if it wasn't something started by 
disgruntled G.I.s who realized that the armies they fought Against were 
fueled with the same Shell gas and diesel oil that the foax back home 
were paying good dollars for...

Cheers,
David