Ford, Henry b. July 30, 1863; Dearborn, Michigan d.April 7, 1947; Dearborn, Michigan
Most frequently associated with revolutionary Fordist production methods, Henry Ford also exerted considerable influence on German culture as a person. His immensely successful autobiography Mein Leben und Werk (My Life and Work), published in German in November 1923, left a strong impression on German culture.
With more than 200,000 copies sold already during the first two years after publication, it was one of the great bestsellers in Weimar Germany and, beyond that, a canonical statement for the Weimar stabilization period, promising the transformation of “the wasteland of industry into a blooming garden.”Henry Ford was born on a prosperous farm near Dearborn in southeastern Michigan. His grandfather, John Ford, a Protestant English tenant farmer, came to the United States from Ireland in 1847. In 1879, he left his father’s home and began working as an apprentice machinist in Detroit. After he married Clara Bryant in 1888, Ford became an engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company in 1891. Two years later, Ford was promoted to chief engineer. This new position gave him sufficient time to invent his self-propelled vehicle—the Quadricycle. This invention paved the way for the creation of the automotive industry. In 1903, Ford established the Ford Motor Company, which in 1908 began producing the Model T. About ten years later, Ford produced half of all American cars. To meet the growing demand, the Ford Company expanded and opened a new production facility in Highland Park, Michigan (1910). Three years later, Ford introduced the continuous moving assembly line in this outlet.
His autobiography helped to create a mythical, iconical, rather than factual Henry Ford, representing an ideal that others aimed to emulate. German businesspeople and engineers traveled to Detroit to understand how one person had created this economic empire.
Their travelogues were published in Germany along with numerous other popular books on Henry Ford. German readers were primarily interested in the person and his success instead of the abstract principles of Fordism. In these books they found not only portrayals of Ford as an engineer and businessman but also as a philosopher, a visionary, and even a messiah of the modern era. His ethics of
Celebrating his 75th birthday, Henry Ford receives the Grand Cross of the German Eagle (highest Nazi award to a foreigner) for industrial accomplishments, July 31, 1938. (Bettmann/Corbis)
social service became a shining model of humane and moral behavior. Ford assured his readers that his social system would end the attractiveness of revolution and communism for workers. This corrupted image of Ford—some people in Germany regarded it as a “Ford psychosis”—basically survived even the Great Depression.
Long before the Nazis came to power in Germany, many of its members and sympathizers were highly interested in Henry Ford. Already in the early 1920s, Adolf Hitler was an admirer of this engineer and businessman. He repeatedly mentioned Ford in his speeches and later also in Mein Kampf (My Battle). This interest was in part due to Ford’s business success and philosophy but also to another publication of his, Der Internationale Jude (The International Jew), published in Germany in 1921, even before his autobiography. In 1922 this collection of blatantly antisemitic articles was already in its twenty-first printing. An abridged edition of Der Internationale Jude later became a standard work of Nazi propaganda. In 1938 Hitler awarded Ford the Verdienstkreuz Deutscher Adler (Grand Service Cross of the Supreme Order of the German Eagle) in recognition for his contribution to the motorization of the masses. Ford was the first recipient of this highest award of the Nazis for foreigners.
Bernd Essmann
See also Business, U.S.-Third Reich; Fordism;
Great Depression
References and Further Reading
Baldwin, Neil. Henry Ford and the Jews: The Mass Production of Hate. New York: Public Affairs, 2001.
Klautke, Egbert. Unbegrenzte Moglichkeiten: “Amerikanisierung” in Deutschland und Frankreich (1900—1933). Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2003.
Sward, Keith. The Legend of Henry Ford. New York: Atheneum, 1975.