The Politics of Industrial Collaboration during World War II : Ford France, Vichy and Nazi Germany

Abstract

Did Ford SAF sabotage the German war effort by deliberately manufacturing fewer vehicles than they could have? Ford SAF claimed after the war that they did. Exploring the nature and limits of industrial collaboration in occupied France, Horn and Imlay trace the wartime activities of Ford Motor Company's French affiliate. The company began making trucks and engine parts for the French military; but from 1940 until Liberation in 1944 was supplying the Wehrmacht. This book offers a fascinating account of how the company negotiated the conflicting demands of the French, German and American authorities to thrive during the war. It sheds important new light on broader issues such as the wartime relationship between private enterprise and state authority; Nazi Germany's economic policies and the nature of the German occupation of France, collaboration and resistance in Vichy France, and the role of American companies in Occupied Europe.