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archive:food:coke_fan.naz

From: kristyp@coos.dartmouth.edu (Kristy Patterson) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban Subject: Re: Coke and Fanta in World War II Date: 8 Jun 1994 19:03:42 GMT

In article 1994Jun8.070555.3934@lugb.latrobe.edu.au matap@lure.latrobe.edu.au (Andrej Panjkov) writes:

Two Questions:

1) Was the Coca Cola Company trading with Nazi Germany during World
War 2?
2) Was Fanta "invented" in Nazi Germany to fill the gap left when Coke
Co.
stopped trading with Germany in World War 2?

This is an excerpt from a paper I wrote on the Coca-Cola company last term: footnotes available on request:

"…Coca-Cola's desire was to sell Coke to whoever would drink it, wherever they were, regardless of race, ideology, or system of government; its only objective was to spread of Coca-Cola. This lack of discrimination allowed the product to be more widely disseminated that it would have been had Coke refused to transact business in totalitarian states. A major market for Coca-Cola was Nazi Germany, which had 43 bottling plants and over 600 local distributors by 1939. The product was a favorite of Hitler and the Nazi military, and it was bottled in the Third Reich up to and during World War II; in fact, Nazi aggression actually helped to spread Coke around Europe, as bottlers were established in newly conquered areas such as Austria and the Sudetenland.

The eventual cessation of Coca-Cola production in Nazi Germany was not a decision of The Coca-Cola Company but of the Berlin government. Max Keith, the leading Coca-Cola bottler in Germany, actually joined the Nazi bureaucracy in order to lobby from within against prohibitions on the import of Coke syrup; he wished to have his Coca-Cola bottling business declared a local industry, so that the government would not restrict the import of the ingredients. Though high officials enjoyed Coke, there were some problems with marketing it in the Third Reich. The official Nazi position was that the fizzy American beverage was "a menace to European civilization." …After it was publicized that Coca-Cola was kosher, consumption dropped off drastically.

Still, Keith was able to keep his business alive. Even after the Nazis prohibited the import of essential Coke ingredients (de-cocainized coca leaves and Coke's secret ingredient), Keith stayed in business by inventing and selling Fanta, a fruit drink which continues to be a Coca-Cola product today. Thanks largely to Keith's efforts, Coca-Cola was able to re-establish production Germany virtually immediately after World War II…"

And a big HELLO! to the Terrys and everyone who I knew when I read this group before; I unsubscribed for awhile when my office got moved (I've been relocated to hell; my new office-mate has told me the Hogg Sisters UL, saying it was a friend of her father's, and sells Amway, no less.

-Kristy

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