A Secret History of Brands

The Dark and Twisted Beginnings of the Brand Names We Know and Love

De: Matt MacNabb

Narrado por: Matt Godfrey

We live our lives immersed in name-brand products. It's hard to drive down the street without seeing a plethora of chain restaurants, car dealerships, branded clothing; they're all around us. What most of us don't know is that the origins of many of the most well-known and beloved brands in the world are shrouded in controversy, drug use, and sometimes even addled with blatant racism.

A Secret History of Brands cuts through the rumors and urban legends and paints a picture of the true dark history of famous brands, like Coca-Cola, Hugo Boss, Adidas, Ford, Bayer, Chanel, and BMW among others. Explore the mystery of the cocaine content of Coca-Cola, the Hitler-Henry Ford connection, and why Bayer is famous for aspirin but began their journey with heroin, and how Kellogg's Corn Flakes were crafted to deter sexual arousal. Thoroughly researched, MacNabb details firsthand conducted interviews alongside fairly weighed research to present the decisive view of brands histories that you haven't heard of yet.

©2017, 2018 Matt MacNabb (P)2021 Tantor

Why don't we throw a little Nazi party?

"Don't be stupid, be a smarty
Come on join the Nazi party!"
- The Producers

Whether we all love the brands discussed here is certainly debatable. The book covers the following brands, and I have summed up what is supposedly dark and twisted about each brand:

Coke (soda manufacturer)- created by someone linked to the Confederacy, also had cocaine in it originally, and blacks got hooked on it, which makes it racist.

Hugo Boss (fashion) - Nazi sympathizer, member of the Nazi party, company designed Nazi uniforms. supposedly employed slave labor. Making uniforms for the army is anti-semitic.

Ford (automobile manufacturer) - Nazi sympathizer, Henry Ford was supposedly a role model for Hitler. Ford was supposedly anti-semitic because he talked about worldwide Jewish influence on finance and banking. Obviously insane.

Adidas and Puma (footwear and athletic wear manufacturers) - Nazis, designed footwear for Nazis, members of Nazi party. Creating footwear for the army makes you anti-semitic.

Chanel (fashion and perfume) - Nazi, Nazi sympathizer, Nazi spy, married a Nazi, didn't like all Jews, lived in a hotel where Nazis stayed. Living near Nazis makes you anti-semitic. Did supposedly benefit from anti-Jewish discrimination to further business prospects.

Bayer (drug maker) - created heroin as substitute for morphine, used slave labor during WW2 in concentration camps (Auschwitz) to build products. Later apologized for this.

Kellogg's (food manufacturer) - eugenics and racial segregationists, brought the world Corn Flakes and many other food products of questionable to nutritional value.

Winchester - I honestly don't know what they did wrong. By this point I was really bored. Rifle manufacturer, built a crazy house, was obsessed with the number 13.

Bakelite - I glossed over this section because, again, it was boring.

Oy vey, what a mess this book is. At least the Nazi sections. The author, who one would think had actually done some research for this book, distorts the history of the National Socialists, the so called Holocaust, the camps, sympathizers, the Olympics, and many other things. There were so many erroneous parts on the Nazis that I almost stopped listening. Just a few examples:

The alleged evils of the Nazis are largely overblown. The Nazis were a reaction to the hedonistic Weimar government and push towards international communism, which is a Jewish creation.

The concentration camps were not death camps, and were filled mostly by people who the Third Reich did not know what to do with, or because they were insurrectionists or because the Germans needed labor for the war machine. The labor camps were war labor camps.

Zyklon B was a delousing agent, not a gassing agent to kill Jews. The author admits this and then still tries to claim the Germans killed Jews with it. No, they were saving their lives because they needed their labor.

There was no widespread plan to kill Jews. The plan was to relocate them.

Every action taken by the Germans was towards peace. Remember, international Jewry declared war on them in 1933. The German tactics were a defensive measure. Their "invasions" were to regain land stolen after WW1, or because German speaking peoples were being abused, such as in Poland.

Hitler admired Jesse Owens, and even congratulated him for his excellence. Owens is even known for saying the Germans treated him far better than the American government and his own country did.

I could go on and on. The book is a mess when it comes to the Nazis. Other parts are somewhat interesting, but how much do we know is actually true? If you can't get WW2 and the Nazis right, what is the likelihood you're going to be truthful about the other subjects.

Skip this one, folks.

Mostly a Deep historic dive into a few brand’s seedy past

A lot of history surrounding pre-world war 2 German companies and what they did during the war and their affiliation with the Nazi party. Then a few stories about US companies focusing on what can only be described as disturbed owners and their fringe views or deranged tendencies. I was hoping for less deep dive and more of the quirky interesting stories. Leading off with the history of Coca Cola was the best portion of the book.