Talk:Private sector participation in Nazi crimes

A fact from Private sector participation in Nazi crimes appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 10 August 2020 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that after World War II, German industrialists who used forced labor claimed to be victims and opponents of Nazism?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2020/August. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Private sector participation in Nazi crimes.

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Request for clarification

Is this page about criminal acts? Does "participation in Nazi crimes" mean complicity? Or does it refer to any involvement with Nazi crimes whether criminal or not? I think this should be clarified. Srnec (talk) 00:58, 18 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Participation in a crime means being a co-perpetrator... that's what I meant anyway. I know that the current title is not ideal, so feel free to suggest alternatives. (t · c) buidhe 04:25, 18 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Helping Hitler prosecute his illegal war of aggression is itself a crime. Grassynoel (talk) 11:59, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Is this the correct title and was it legally a 'crime'?

I am as appalled as anyone else at the way the forced labourers were treated. However, from a legal standpoint for something to be a crime it has to break a recognised law. If German law at the time permitted the use of forced labour then it is strictly speaking not a crime. Unless of course there was an existing international law against it which the German nation had signed up to. Otherwise a better title might be "Private sector use of forced labour in Nazi Germany". Bermicourt (talk) 09:42, 25 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That's not the case, see ex post facto law, which exists (although controversial.) IDK what the status of forced labor was under German and international law was under Nazi Germany, however afterwards it was unambiguously determined to be a crime at the Nuremberg Trials and virtually all reliable sources refer to it as criminal. (t · c) buidhe 21:52, 5 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Planning and waging a war of aggression is itself a crime, and those companies that helped Hitler in these crimes committed their own crimes. Grassynoel (talk) 11:58, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What about IBM?

Edwin Black has plenty to say about it in IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation. Yoninah (talk) 21:42, 5 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]