General Motors History Essay

General Motors is a well-renowned automotive company, which manufactured popular American brand cars such as, Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac, and GMC. The automotive assembly plant originated in 1892 by R.E. Olds. He converted his father’s old naval and industrial engine factory into the Olds Motor Vehicle Company, which, in 1895 started creating the famous car models, Oldsmobile. It was a four-seater with a Petrol engine that produced five horsepower and topped out at 18 mph. After founding the first Detroit automobile factory, Olds’ first models he produced were high end luxury cars, which sold for $1,200 and then sold his second model cars for $650. By the turn of the century, he had sold 1,400 cars. Roughly around the same time, Cadillac Automobile Company was founded in

On May of 1939, Mooney was on his way to one of Hitler’s rallies, the annual “May Day” festival in Templehof Field, in the outskirts of Berlin. Since security around the field was tight fisted, all the cars coming through except Mooney’s had to be searched for any and all anti-Hitler propaganda. Since Mooney was Hitler’s special guest and was permitted to go anywhere around Templehof, the Fuhrer’s officers had sent Mooney a special windshield tag for his car. Mooney was impressed with the festival. Swastika banners swept all across the field, Nazi soldiers marched covered and aligned shoulder to shoulder, and 30,000 – 90,000 stormtroopers, army divisions, citizen brigades, and blond-blue Hitler youth enrollees were held by the 13 parade columns. After a few short hours, there were about 2 million marchers and attendees. The next day, Mooney was accompanied by two other executives from GM and their German branch, Opel, to go meet Hitler at his Chancellery office, who was accompanied by Nazi Party stalwart Joachim von Ribbentrop, who would later become foreign minister, and Reich economic advisor Wilhelm