part0037

“We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history we make today.”

In the years between 1910 and 1918, Henry Ford became increasingly anti-immigrant, anti-labor, anti-liquor, and anti-Semitic. He wanted to let the world know his views on just about everything; after all, he was an inventor and a tycoon and knew better than the average Joe. One of the things Ford wanted people to know was that there was a Jewish conspiracy to control the world.

Once Henry Ford had his Dearborn Independent newspaper running regularly he began writing anti-Semitic articles. In Germany, these articles were published in four volumes, all under the title “The International Jew.”

Paradoxically, by the early 1920s, Ford had a reputation for actively seeking out and hiring black workers. He wasn't accused of Jewish discrimination or of not dealing with Jewish suppliers. But he did intend to use his newly acquired newspaper as his public mouthpiece. Ford had practical ideas that he wanted to give to the public.

Ford addressed his newspaper to the common people. Two-thirds of those reading the Dearborn Independent lived in small towns or in the countryside. They looked with great affection on Henry Ford. He knew these were the “real” Americans and he was out to teach them his truth about the world.

The recent war, the Russian Revolution, the modernization of America and the economic slump were all things putting American life in jeopardy. Ford was convinced that all of these events were traceable to one source, and he was going to tell the nation what that was.

By the 1920s, Ford positioned E.G. Pipp as editor for his Independent. Pipp had known Ford a few years before going to work for him, and it was in the ensuing years that he began to notice a change in Ford. Ford was “bringing up the Jews frequently, almost continuously in conversation, blaming them for almost everything.” Ford asserted it was the Jewish international financiers who were behind all war. In May 1920, the front page of Ford's newspaper declared, “The International Jew: The World's Problem.” This was the first of 91 articles that would appear consecutively. Pipp resigned in disgust when the first article appeared.

A few months after these articles started to pop up, certain people around Ford introduced him to a Russian émigré, Paquita de Shishmareff. She had with her a copy of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, now known as an evil forgery created by the Russian czar's secret service at the turn of the century. In it were a series of lectures by a Jewish elder giving a complete run-down on how European governments were to be overthrown.

Ford's articles were denounced by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and while the texts condemned pogroms and violence against Jews, they blamed Jews for provoking incidents of violence. The columns had been relegated to Ford's second editor, William Cameron, to write, but they were all heartily endorsed by Henry Ford.

For seven years the Dearborn Independent continued running these stories until finally a California farm cooperative organizer, Aaron Sapiro, sued Ford for libel. Others had sued before, but Sapiro was the first one to get a trial. Ford wouldn't testify and may have even staged an automobile accident so he could go to the hospital instead. The judge declared a mistrial and Ford settled out of court. Jewish leaders had called for a boycott of his cars, and slumping sales may have motivated Ford to settle.

Louis Marshall, chairman of the American Jewish Committee, brokered an agreement whereby Ford announced that any articles reflective of the Jews would never appear in his newspaper again. Ford was “mortified” to learn that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion were fake; he even offered Jews his “future friendship and goodwill.” In December 1927, the Independent was closed for good.

Interestingly, the German Ford plants in Cologne and Berlin both utilized slave labor during the war. One of the workers, Elsa Iwanowa, was taken from Russia by the Germans when she was 16. “They put us on barracks on 3-tier bunks. It was very cold they did not pay us at all and scarcely fed us. The only reason that we survived is that we were young and fit.”

It was unclear how much contact Ford's Dearborn facilities had with Germany after 1941. They claim they were completely cut off. There has been speculation yet nothing has been proven. After the war, Ford sued the U.S. Government for wartime damages in which his German facilities had been destroyed due to Allied bombings. He receives almost one million dollars, mostly for damage done to a military truck complex in Cologne.