The BMW logo - Germany

I think Bayer AG used to be I.G. Farben - shadiest of shady pasts there.

No the Bayer company is older than that. I think you mean BASF.

Bayer became part of IG Farben, a conglomerate of German chemical industries which formed the financial core of the Nazi regime. IG Farben owned 42.5% of the company that manufactured Zyklon B [citation needed], a chemical used in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, and was the only German company to operate its own concentration camp [citation needed]. When the Allies split IG Farben after World War II for involvement in several Nazi war crimes, Bayer reappeared as an individual business. Bayer executive Fritz ter Meer, sentenced to seven years in prison by the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, was made head of the supervisory board of Bayer in 1956, after his release.

Not a prop, but the prop spinner surely? (which are usually red and white)

If I remember correctly, it used to be red and white as it was the symbol for EMW, Eisenach Motoren Werk, which is where the factory was before the war and changed to blue and white when It became BMW and moved to Bayern and yes it was supposed to represent a propeller. I don't think they made planes, just the engines, which of course they still do.

The BMW logo evolved from the Rapp-Motorenwerke logo, used by a former bicycle factory founded in 1913 near Munich. Karl Rapp began manufacturing his own aircraft engines because of his proximity to the Gustav Otto Flugmaschinenfabrik who were building aeroplanes in Milbertshofen. After Rapp left the company was taken over the Austrian Franz Josef Popp in 1917, and named BMW AG in 1918. Around that time the BMW roundel developed pretty much to the shape/colour we now know and love, allegedly based on the inspiration of looking through a revolving aeroplane propellor toward the Bavarian "chequered" sky. I'm not sure it's ever been red...

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After the second world war the Eisenach plant (which had been a BMW plant after they bought out the Fahrzeugbau Eisenach until the Soviets took over), was forced by a court order to stop using the BMW name in 1952. The red-white propellor was the EMW (Eisenach Motoren Werk) logo which developed from the BMW logo. They simply replaced the Bavarian blue with Soviet red. BMW bought back the plant after re-unification and, with the help of lots of handy government subsidies, make tooling (amongst other things) for all BMW plants.

BMW[/url] Mobile Tradition']For many years, even we at BMW told the public that this BMW logo is showing the rotating propeller. But we found out that this is not really true.

The middle of the logo shows the colours of the Bavarian flag -- white and blue -- and this is why BMW used it.