War Profits...

In wars hot or cold, localized or world encompassing, profiteers abound, some popular, and others despised...Even those in non-combatant nations can profit whether the blood flows or not...As examples, the Swiss take their percentage of funds from belligerents crossing their borders even while maintaining the illusion of neutrality...The Swedes continued with the sale of raw materials to the German war industry during WWII, while later allowing tenancy of air fields by the Allies, all for a price...

Those in the business of manufacturing or distributing war materiel or services must know that they become fair targets of military activity in a hot war, and objectives of less lethal but more vicious attacks in courtrooms, pressrooms and legislative cloakrooms...Consistently the most polarizing of all participants in any hostile action, they are viewed as either conscientious patriots aiding the noble cause, or unprincipled scoundrels one step ahead of a hangman's rope, with few opinions in between...

The history as written by the victors in any war determines how the profiteers are viewed by later generations, and can determine whether there is even a future for those participants...Since WWII is the most well documented war in history, examples of this are easily found and documented...

Two of the most visible were the manufacturing families of Ford and Krupp...Viewing Ford's participation in the events leading to war from the standpoint of the victors allowed a cursory and dismissive look at charges of collaboration, while praising its quick and effective turn from manufacture of products for civilian consumption to massive quantities of instruments of warfare...

Although Henry Ford embraced some of the racial theories spewed by the Nazi dictator, and likely admired his ruthless climb to the top over the backs of his enemies, he was also astute enough as a businessman to forecast the doom toward which Germany was heading, and cut ties with the Third Reich at the opportune time...Ford knew a loser when he saw one, and knew he could expand his own empire with a much greater degree of certainty by contracting with those opposing Hitler rather than aiding him...

The definitive literary work on the Krupp dynasty is The Arms of Krupp by William Manchester, a copy of which I've owned and re-read numerous times since 1968...Almost nothing is known of the origin of the first Krupp of record, Arndt, other than he walked out of the forest into the town of Essen Germany, and may have sprung from Dutch beginnings...

What is known is that his business skills were passed down through the family from the time he first registered as a merchant in Essen, and started his fortune buying properties cheap from families decimated by the Bubonic Plague, right down to the final Krupp business tycoon, Alfried, who allied the family fortune with a political movement destined to bring itself and all who stood with it to doom...Manchester's book is a masterwork as he chronicles the entire lineage of the family with painstaking research, attention to the smallest detail and a writing style that carries the story forward from obscure beginning to bitter end...

Ford ended the war with new paid-for factories, new sources of raw materials and a guaranteed customer base clamoring for products...The Krupp family was left in ruin with destroyed factories, confiscated accumulations of wealth, endless debt and facing prosecution and possible death sentences as war criminals...However the Krupps survived and after some prison time Alfried Felix Alwyn Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach regained some semblance of a manufacturing career, although he became the last family member of the great steelmaker dynasty...

Profiteering itself, seldom used as anything but a pejorative term, is often viewed as the activity and singular motivating interest of the greedy, ignoring the pain and suffering resulting from the wanton use of their products of destruction...That definition fades into the mist when those same products from the same business-people are employed in defense or aggressive attack against those who have become the enemies of the civilized world...

As in any business, profits must be taken or commerce will stall and fail...All expenses must be considered and budgeted for because all bills come due and must be paid...Those critics who lament the $800.00 toilet seats, and $1,200.00 hammers billed to the taxpayers in some defense contracts should know that the bottom line profit also covers R&D costs, tooling and testing as well as costs most would rather sweep under the rug such as lobbying, employee theft and even bribery...All must be paid for in the end...

Indeed the ubiquitous Red Cross, the non-profit organization with its attendant Red Crescent and Red Crystal entities, accounted for at scenes of human suffering in both war and peace, takes its profit to pay the salaries of its managers and directorship, and to stockpile supplies against future needs...Profit is the reason trade exists no matter what product or service is being offered...

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