In 1937, Adolf Hitler created a special new medal–the Cross of the German Eagle Order–for foreign friends of the Third Reich. The first American to whom it was awarded was Henry Ford.
Consisting of a Maltese cross bracketed with four eagles and four Swastikas, it was clearly a Nazi medal and although its presentation to Ford was ostensibly only to honor him on his seventy-fifth birthday, it may have really been acknowledgement for past services rendered to the Nazi cause.
The connection between Hitler and Ford went back at least fifteen years. In 1922, a reporter visiting Nazi headquarters in Munich noted that a large portrait of Henry Ford hung on the wall beside Hitler’s desk.
Without question, Ford and Hitler had something in common: They both hated Jews. Ford had bought an American newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, and used it to publish a long series of articles (i.e. Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Rothschild bank), which claimed that for centuries Jews had been systematically conspiring to destroy Christian civilization. Their crimes, Ford insisted, included starting the First World War.
Eventually, the Independent’s anti-Semitic articles were collected and published under the title, The International Jew. The German translation became a bestseller. Hitler was enthusiastic about The International Jew, had copies prominently displayed at Nazi headquarters, and ultimately ordered it translated into a dozen other languages and distributed throughout the world.
There may have been an even more sinister connection between Ford and Hitler. Rumors circulated in the early 1920s that Ford was pouring money into the Nazi Party but Hitler denied the rumor. However, in April 1938 when Hitler asked him to build a truck and automobile assembly plant in Berlin, Ford agreed. Construction was soon underway, and in July Henry Ford was awarded his Swastika-studded Cross of the German Eagle Order. In October 1938, another famous American received the Cross–Charles Lindbergh.
Hitler was not an Atheist, according to his Mein Kampf memoir. Martin Luther’s On the Jews and Their Lies contributed to Nazi anti-Semitism. Indeed, the right-wing creeds of capitalism and Christianity were both in bed with Nazism. Thomas Fuchs and Albert Speer are preeminent experts on Adolf Hitler. THE END
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