Henry Ford Receives Nazi Grand Cross of the German Eagle on 75th Birthday, Hitler's Highest Honor for Foreigners

On Henry Ford’s 75th birthday, July 30, 1938, the automobile magnate receives the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, the Nazi regime’s highest honor for foreign nationals, awarded by Adolf Hitler for Ford’s “services to the Third Reich.” The award represents the first time the Grand Cross has been bestowed upon a United States citizen and culminates years of mutual admiration between Ford and Hitler based on shared antisemitic ideology and Ford’s profitable business operations in Nazi Germany. Ford accepts the medal and remains silent about the honor both after Kristallnacht in November 1938 and even after Germany’s declaration of war on the United States in December 1941, refusing all calls to return the award.

Hitler had long admired Ford, acknowledging him in Mein Kampf and keeping a portrait of Ford in his Munich office as early as 1922. Baldur von Schirach, leader of the Hitler Youth, testified at Nuremberg that “the decisive anti-Semitic book” he had read was Ford’s The International Jew, a compilation of antisemitic articles published by Ford’s Dearborn Independent newspaper during the 1920s that blamed Jews for various social problems. Hitler once indicated his desire to help “Heinrich Ford” become “the leader of the growing Fascist movement in America,” viewing Ford as a kindred spirit in both business philosophy and racial ideology.

Ford’s Nazi connections extend beyond ideological affinity to profitable commercial relationships. Ford Motor Company opened an auto plant in Cologne, Germany, which proved highly lucrative, with Ford’s interests in Germany estimated to be worth approximately $8.5 million by the start of the war. While rumors that Ford financially supported Hitler’s party in the 1920s have never been verified by evidence, Ford’s German operations undeniably profited from Nazi economic policies and military buildup throughout the 1930s. Ford-Werke, the German subsidiary, later produces military vehicles for the Wehrmacht during World War II using forced labor.

The Grand Cross award ceremony occurs just four months before Kristallnacht (November 9-10, 1938), the coordinated Nazi pogrom against Jews across Germany and Austria. Even after this violence makes Nazi antisemitism undeniable to the world, Ford refuses to return the medal or issue any statement distancing himself from the honor. Ford’s acceptance and retention of Nazi Germany’s highest civilian honor demonstrates how American business leaders could maintain profitable relationships with fascist regimes while those regimes persecuted minorities and prepared for aggressive war. The episode reveals the extent to which ideological sympathy and commercial interest aligned some prominent American industrialists with Nazi Germany during the 1930s, prefiguring debates about corporate collaboration with authoritarian regimes that persist through subsequent decades.