55 lines
2.8 KiB
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55 lines
2.8 KiB
Plaintext
From: kristyp@coos.dartmouth.edu (Kristy Patterson)
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Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
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Subject: Re: Coke and Fanta in World War II
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Date: 8 Jun 1994 19:03:42 GMT
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In article <1994Jun8.070555.3934@lugb.latrobe.edu.au> matap@lure.latrobe.edu.au (Andrej Panjkov) writes:
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>Two Questions:
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>
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>1) Was the Coca Cola Company trading with Nazi Germany during World
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>War 2?
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>2) Was Fanta "invented" in Nazi Germany to fill the gap left when Coke
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>Co.
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> stopped trading with Germany in World War 2?
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This is an excerpt from a paper I wrote on the Coca-Cola company last term:
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footnotes available on request:
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"...Coca-Cola's desire was to sell Coke to whoever would drink it, wherever
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they were, regardless of race, ideology, or system of government; its only
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objective was to spread of Coca-Cola. This lack of discrimination allowed
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the product to be more widely disseminated that it would have been had Coke
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refused to transact business in totalitarian states. A major market for
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Coca-Cola was Nazi Germany, which had 43 bottling plants and over 600 local
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distributors by 1939. The product was a favorite of Hitler and the Nazi
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military, and it was bottled in the Third Reich up to and during World War
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II; in fact, Nazi aggression actually helped to spread Coke around Europe,
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as bottlers were established in newly conquered areas such as Austria and
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the Sudetenland.
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The eventual cessation of Coca-Cola production in Nazi
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Germany was not a decision of The Coca-Cola Company but of the Berlin
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government. Max Keith, the leading Coca-Cola bottler in Germany, actually
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joined the Nazi bureaucracy in order to lobby from within against prohibitions
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on the import of Coke syrup; he wished to have his Coca-Cola bottling business
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declared a local industry, so that the government would not restrict the
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import of the ingredients. Though high officials enjoyed Coke, there were
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some problems with marketing it in the Third Reich. The official Nazi position
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was that the fizzy American beverage was "a menace to European civilization."
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...After it was publicized that Coca-Cola was kosher, consumption dropped
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off drastically.
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Still, Keith was able to keep his business alive. Even after the Nazis
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prohibited the import of essential Coke ingredients (de-cocainized coca
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leaves and Coke's secret ingredient), Keith stayed in business by inventing
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and selling Fanta, a fruit drink which continues to be a Coca-Cola product
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today. Thanks largely to Keith's efforts, Coca-Cola was able to re-establish
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production Germany virtually immediately after World War II..."
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And a big HELLO! to the Terrys and everyone who I knew when I read this group
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before; I unsubscribed for awhile when my office got moved (I've been
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relocated to hell; my new office-mate has told me the Hogg Sisters UL, saying
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it was a friend of her father's, and sells Amway, no less.
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-Kristy
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