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electric ranges, electric irons, toasters, industrial baking ovens, radiators, water heaters,
kitchen ovens, and industrial heaters. In 1939, 1940 and 1941, most of the Nuremburg
plant's production facilities were used for the manufacture of peacetime products. In 1942
the plant's production was shifted to manufacture of war equipment. Metal parts for
communications equipment and munitions such as bombs and mines were made. Other war
production consisted of parts for searchlights and amplifiers. The following tabulation very
strikingly shows the conversion to war work:
Percent
Total sales Percent ordinary
Year in 1000 RM for war production
1939 12,469 5 95
1940 11,754 15 85
1941 21,194 40 60
1942 20,689 61 39
1948 31,455 67 33
1944 31,205 69 31
The actual physical damage by bombing to this plant was insignificant. No serious damage
occurred until the raids of February 20 and 21, 1945, near the end of the war, and then
protection had been fairly well developed. Raids during which bombs struck in the plant
area and the trifling damage done are listed as follows:
Bombs striking
Date of raid Damage done
plant
March 8, 1943 30 stick type I.B. Trifling, but 3
storehouses outside the
main plant destroyed.
Sept. 9, 1944 None (blast damage) Trifling, glass and
blackout curtain damage.
Nov. 26, 1944 14000 lb. HE in Wood shop destroyed,
open space in plant water main broken.
grounds
Feb. 20, 1945 2 HE 3 buildings damaged.
Feb. 21, 1945 5 HE, many I.B.'s Administration bldg.
destroyed & enameling
works damaged by HE.
Another example of a German General Electric plant not bombed is the A.E.G. plant at
Koppelsdorf producing radar sets and bomber antennae. Other A.E.G. plants which were
not bombed and their war equipment production were:
LIST OF A.E.G. FACTORIES NOT BOMBED IN WORLD
WAR II
Name of Branch Location Product
1. Werk Kries Saalfeld Measuring
Reiehmannsdoff Instruments
mit
Unterabteilungen in
Wallendorf und
Unterweissbach
2. Werk Bayreuth Starters
Marktschorgast
3. Werk F18ha Sachsen Short Wave Sending
Sets
4. Werk Reichenbach Vogtland Dry Cell Batteries
5. Werk Sachsen/S.E. Heavy Starters
Burglengefeld Chemnitz
6. Werk Nuremburg Belringersdorf/ Small Components
Nuremburg
7. Werk Zirndorf Nuremburg Heavy Starters
8. Werk Mattinghofen Oberdonau 1 KW Senders 250
Meters & long wave
for torpedo boats &
U-boats
9. Unterwerk Neustadt Coburg Radar Equipment
That the A.E.G. plants in Germany were not bombed in World War II was confirmed by the
United States Strategic Bombing Survey, officered by such academics as John K. Galbraith
and such Wall Streeters as George W. Ball and Paul H. Nitze. Their "German Electrical
Equipment Industry Report" dated January 1947 concludes:
The industry has never been attacked as a basic target system, but a few plants,
i.e. Brown Boveri at Mannheim, Bosch at Stuutgart and Siemenstadt in Berlin,
have been subjected to precision raids; many others were hit in area raids.17
At the end of World War II an Allied investigation team known as FIAT was sent to
examine bomb damage to German electrical industry plants. The team for the electrical
industry consisted of Alexander G.P.E. Sanders of International Telephone and Telegraph
of New York, Whit-worth Ferguson of Ferguson Electric Company, New York, and Erich J.
Borgman of Westinghouse Electric. Although the stated objective of these teams was to
examine the effects on Allied bombing of German targets, the objective of this particular
team was to get the German electrical equipment industry back into production as soon as
possible. Whirworth Ferguson wrote a report dated March 31, 1945 on the A.E.G. Ostland-
werke and concluded, "this plant is immediately available for production of fine metal parts
and assemblies.18
To conclude, we find that both Rathenau of A.E.G. and Swope of General Electric in the
U.S. had similar ideas of putting the State to work for their own corporate ends. General
Electric was prominent in financing Hitler, it profited handsomely from war production
and yet it managed to evade bombing in World War II. Obviously the story briefly surveyed
here deserves a much more thorough and official investigation.
Footnotes:
1
For the technical details see the three-volume study, Antony C. Sutton,
Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development, (Stanford, California:
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