vital in helping to install the 64 military
bottling plants and distributing the 10
billion drinks required to stock the various
US bases and fleet throughout the war.
As such these company conscripts or
‘Coca-Cola Colonels’ as they became
known, were granted Technical Observer
status equal to that of qualified military
technicians and as such, never saw front
line action. A sweet posting by more than
one definition. So well associated with
the US troops was Coke that the name
Coca-Cola even became the password to
identify American troops when crossing
the Rhine during Operation Plunder in the
final stages of the war.
[Coke advert during World War II, 1945]
And the Americans were not the only
ones who appreciated the taste of an
ice-cold Coke. According to Emperors of
Coca-Cola by Murray J. Eldred, German
troops discovered a case of Coke left
by retreating Allied forces while fighting
in North Africa. With great value as
contraband, some bottles were acquired
by Luftwaffe BF109 fighter pilots who
devised an ingenious means of chilling
the drink in the hot African sun. Bottles
would be wrapped in wet towels before
being affixed to the underwings of their
planes. Upon returning from flying, where
the pilots had sweated profusely under
the Perspex canopy of their cockpits,
they would remove the bottles of coke
which had chilled at high altitudes and
retained temperature due to the moist
towels evaporating in the drag of the
wings. A true example of Coca-Colas
1939 advertising slogan, ‘Whoever you
are, whatever you do, wherever you may
be, when you think of refreshment, think
of ice-cold Coca-Cola’.
[Shell loading at a large Midwest ordnance
plant, 1943 – courtesy of Library of
Congress Archives]
Not only a soft drinks company, CocaCola briefly diversified into weapons
manufacture investing and operating a
propellant ammunition loading plant in
Talladega, Alabama in support of the war
effort. Operating under the subsidiary
Brecon Loading Company, an average
of 30 railroad cars of ammunition were
reputedly produced from their Coosa
River Ordnance Plant a day until closure in
August, 1945.
Despite their seemingly unfailing support
of Americans at war, what was not known
to the average GI was the continual
operation of the German Coca-Cola
plant throughout the conflict. Adding
refreshment and a much needed financial
boost to the enemy economy, the
existence of this factory has been used
over the years to attack the Coca-Cola
Company and their questionable support
of the Allied war effort. The truth is that
even though prior to the war Coca-Cola
had hosted various Nazi party sporting
events and supplied Coke throughout
Nazi Germany, all direct ties between the
Coca-Cola Company and this factory
ceased with the outbreak of the war and
with it, so did the manufacture and sale
of Coca-Cola in Germany. The factory
however did not stop trading.
[Old German Fanta advert – property
of Presse Portal,
Germany]
With the CocaCola syrup
no longer
imported into
Germany due to
wartime trade
embargoes,
Germany’s
new CocaCola factory
director Max
Keith gathered
his creative
managers together to
develop a new product from ingredients
available outside of war rationing – or the
“leftovers of leftovers” as later quoted by
Keith. Finally creating a product made
from a combination of fruit, pomace and
whey the team branded it in the spirit of the
imagination which went into its creation –
Fanta, from the German ‘fantasie’.
Reputedly resembling something closer to
modern day ginger ale, Keith and his team
continued to produce Fanta throughout
the war where it was used for more than
just common refreshment. As rationing in
Germany got tighter and tighter towards
the end of the war, many people used
Fanta to flavour soups or sweeten stews
in place of luxury items such as sugar
and spices. Despite being cut off from
their American owners during some of
the most tumultuous years in modern
European history, at no point did Keith or
his company succumb to pressure to join
the Nazi party. By the end of the war, Max
Keith reputedly relinquished the company
back to their American owners as well as
representing all profits made from the sale
of Fanta throughout the war – albeit not
a lot. With a market already established,
Coca-Cola relaunched Fanta as an
orange drink and the rest as they say is
history.
[Marshal Zhukov [right] and General.
Eisenhower about to drink a toast (not
Coke), June 1945]
Coca-Cola even managed
to win the tastes of
high placed Russians
during the Cold War
which followed the end
of the Second World
War. General Georgy
Konstantinovich
Zhukov – a Russian hero of WWII and
staunch opposer of Stalin - befriended
US General Dwight D. Eisenhower during
their mutual occupation of Berlin and was
thus introduced to Coca-Cola. Taking
a liking to it but knowing he couldn’t be
seen associating so closely with a western
icon, Eisenhower collaborate with CocaCola to produce a one off colourless soda
with the sa