Customer Reviews

Working for the Enemy: Ford, General Motors, and Forced Labor in Germany During the Second World War

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War, any war, is a sad and brutal indictment of failed politics and blundered diplomacy, but it always finds its willing supporters: militarists, super patriots, blind loyalists and cynical businessmen whose pursuit of profit knows no moral or ethical barrier. Could any war exist without them? This excellent book revealed many pages of World War II's history that I, and I suspect, many other people did not know existed - or existed on such a vast scope. It is both scholarly AND readable. It documents facts, not speculation. There can be little argument as to what went on during those years. Only someone suffering a massive bout of denial could argue with the facts. Still the book, with all that it reveals, and it reveals much, would not have guts or emotion without the perspective of the little guy. If anyone can read Mareno Mannucci's ordeal of his first night at Ford Werke and not see the pathos, feel his complete and total fear when he awakened alone and lost in the blackness of that night, with the sound of air raid alarms filling the tense night air and the shriek of his panicked voice joining the blaring alarms in a surreal duet of terror and helplessness, then that reader is not human. THAT memory of Mareno Mannucci probably is shared in one form or another by countless millions who experienced the war first hand. I wonder how many times he re-lived that night in the ensuing decades. The world should forever remember all the Mareno Mannuccis, whether they were frontline GIs, or Brits, or Russians, concentration camp prisoners, POWs, or slave laborers, but it won't. There's no profit in it. This is a real history book. Buy it, read it and remember it.

In Working For The Enemy: Ford, General Motors, And Forced Labor In Germany During The Second World War, Reinhold Billstein, Karola Fings, Anita Kugler, and Nicholas Levis effectively collaborate to present the reader with a revealing and meticulously presented series of essays on the history of German industry within the context of World War II. From airplane manufacture at a General Motors Subsidiary (1939-1945), to forced labor at Ford Werke in Cologne, this compelling and informative contribution to twentieth-century German history is a significant, scholarly, and welcome addition to academic collections and reading lists.