Volkswagen (VW) began as the “people’s car” under Hitler but before long it was primarily producing military vehicles, V1 bombs and missiles for the Wehrmacht in World War II. Some 80 percent of the VW workers were forced labor, including prisoners from concentration camps, many of whom did not survive. The complex contained four concentration camps and eight forced-labor camps. In 1944, a VW engineer traveled to Auschwitz and selected 300 hundred skilled workers, (United States Holocaust Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia Volkswagen Facts). I’m hardly the first to note the grotesque irony that a company created by Hitler is reinventing itself on the same business model, this time to be complicit in another genocide.
The Osnabruck facility will be repurposed to manufacture military vehicles, heavy launchers and power generators for Israel’s Iron Dome. Unable to compete with Chinese electronic vehicles — profits fell 53 percent in 2015 — Volkswagen is shedding 100,000 jobs in the next few years and this conversion will guarantee that 1,200 positions will be preserved. Mercedes Benz, Audi, Daimler and BMW are all attempting to tap into ramped up defense spending to offset losses in the auto industry.
The VW-Rafael project is typical of Germany’s corporate and governmental collaboration with the Zionist entity. In the past, Germany exported Dolphin-class submarines that could be reconfigured to be armed with nuclear warheads to Israel and German-made Saar 6 vessels have been used to shell Gaza’s coast line.
In 2023, Berlin signed two deals with Eurospike, a subsidiary of Rafael, for anti-tank missiles ($2 bn) and a targeting system for its Typoon fighter jets ($200 m). It also approved a ($3.1 bn) weapons deal with Israel that supplied Tel Aviv with Arrow 3 missile systems. Also included in 2023: 500,000 rounds of rifle ammunition and thousands of portable anti-tank weapons used in Gaza to destroy civilian infrastructure. This came on the heels of another $3.5 billion agreement that Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz proclaimed as a “clear expression of the deep trust the Germany places in the state of Israel.” (Middle East Monitor, December 28, 2025).
In the first half of 2026, Germany approved $930 million in arms exports to Israel as the genocide continues. Export licenses surged 4 times last year after Chancellor Merz lifted restrictions on November 24, 2025. According to the Stockholm Peace Research Institute, Germany provided 30 percent of Israel’s major arms imports between 2019 and 2023. That 30 percent remains constant and is second only to the United States.
(BYW, this is all part of Germany efforts to ramp up defense spending. Germany’s budget allocated for defense is set to rise by a third next year, to ($127 ) from ($96 ) this year. How that “war, war, war” and “Putin, Putin, Putin” phony narrative is being sold to the public must wait for another day.
When asked about Germany’s virulent devotion to the colonial settler state, German officials invariably respond that the country’s previous crimes against the Jewish people demand unconditional solidarity. That is, Israel’s security is an element of Germany’s “reason of state,” as German Chancellor Angela Merkel famously put it. This special responsibility for Israel’s security is non-negotiable. Put another way, Israeli officials have weaponized the Holocaust. As Middle East Eye’s Gjovalin Macajassents states, “Establishment forces have translated Holocaust remembrance into unconditional support for Israel, with any criticism treated as antisemitism.” (Middle East Eye, 15 August, 2025).
All of this does not have the support of the German people. Surveys indicate tht 60% of Germans reject that there’s a “special responsibility” to protect Israel because of the Holocaust era past. Only 32% support the traditional stance. Other polling reveals that 82% of Germans are against the government’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza. Only 15% support it. (Anadolu Agency, 26 November, 2025.) Finally, 62% of all German voters believe that Israelis are committing genocide in Gaza. (YouGov poll).