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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 36, Number 17. July 18th, 1973

ITT's Nazi Tie-Up

ITT's Nazi Tie-Up

According to the latest edition of Tribune, "International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT), the multinational corporation best known for its intervention in Chilean elections, was a major supporter of nazi war industry during World War II." It claims ITT's cooperation with Hitler began in 1933, when Sosthenes Behn, the founder of ITT, first visited the nazi leader.

ITT's German subsidiaries were named Lorenz and Standard Elektrizitats- Gesellschaft (SEG). In 1938, Lorenz acquired a 28 per cent interest in Focke-Wulf, the corporation that manufactured German warplanes.

At the same time as it was supplying Hitler with essential materials, ITT was manufacturing war material for the US military. In 1942, it invented a direction finder designed to protect US convoys being bombed by ITT-built Focke-Wulf planes. Behn was even given a medal by the US army for his contribution to the "war effort".

In 1967, ITT — presenting itself as a "victim" of the war — actually managed to obtain $27 million in compensation from the American Government for war damage to its factories in Germany, including $5 million damage to Focke-Wulf plants.