{"id":13485,"date":"2022-05-18T01:32:46","date_gmt":"2022-05-18T08:32:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=13485"},"modified":"2022-05-18T06:30:22","modified_gmt":"2022-05-18T13:30:22","slug":"people-should-be-more-aware-the-business-dynasties-who-benefited-from-nazis-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=13485","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;\u2018People should be more aware\u2019: the business dynasties who benefited from Nazis&#8221;, The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>David Smith in Washington, Books, London, 18 May 2022<\/p>\n<aside class=\"dcr-1aul2ye\" data-gu-name=\"meta\">\n<div class=\"dcr-zjgnrw\" data-gu-name=\"standfirst\">\n<div class=\" dcr-gv481e\">\n<p><em>In his new book Nazi Billionaires, David de Jong explores the damning history of companies who have refused to examine their murky <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/books\/2022\/may\/18\/nazi-billionaires-book-hitler-bmw-porsche\">history with Hitler<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"dcr-pn0kqp\" data-gu-name=\"media\">\n<div class=\"dcr-krkkhw\">\n<div class=\"dcr-16n5mgq\">\n<figure id=\"8a009067-0195-4633-a9f2-e4e62a2cf764\" class=\"dcr-13udsys\">\n<div class=\"dcr-1b267dg\">\n<div class=\"dcr-1b267dg\"><picture><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"dcr-1989ovb\" src=\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/ad17c032b8da9d1b78a499442e5592e66ab48a5c\/0_84_3750_2249\/master\/3750.jpg?width=465&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=b23d08c3ed5438396036a87f2d35aad6\" alt=\"Adolf Hitler admires a model of the Volkswagen car. He is with the designer Ferdinand Porsche and to the right Korpsfuhrer Huehnlein, Dr Ley, Schmeer, and Werlin.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1200\" \/><\/picture><\/div>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"dcr-5yynor\"><span class=\"dcr-1f2y4fi\">Adolf Hitler admires a model of the Volkswagen car. He is with the designer Ferdinand Porsche, left, and to various Nazi officials.<\/span> Photograph: Heinrich Hoffmann\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<div class=\"dcr-1eucl2a\"><\/div>\n<aside class=\"dcr-1aul2ye\" data-gu-name=\"meta\">\n<div class=\"dcr-1jw1u7l\" data-gu-name=\"body\">\n<div class=\"dcr-1cemy1r\">\n<div id=\"maincontent\" class=\"dcr-7sthwg\" tabindex=\"0\">\n<div class=\"article-body-commercial-selector article-body-viewer-selector dcr-18wsxay\">\n<p class=\"dcr-139bh9t\"><span class=\"dcr-1i2w9iu\"><span class=\"dcr-1jnp7wy\">C<\/span><\/span><span class=\"dcr-139bh9t\">olonial and Confederate statues toppled. Looted objects returned by contrite museums. Tainted family names <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/05\/10\/arts\/design\/guggenheim-sackler-name-opioids.html\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">such as Sackler<\/a>\u00a0expunged from buildings. A worldwide reckoning with the past crimes of great powers is under way. But is there a glaring omission?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-139bh9t\">A new book, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.harpercollins.com\/products\/nazi-billionaires-david-de-jong?variant=39935148359714\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Nazi Billionaires<\/a>, investigates how Germany\u2019s richest business dynasties made fortunes by aiding and abetting Adolf Hitler\u2019s Third Reich. It also examines how, eight decades later, they still escape close scrutiny and a nation that has done so much to confront its catastrophic past still suffers a very particular blind spot.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"44973b5a-cdcc-4676-8fc0-847327bb53df\" class=\" dcr-1mfia18\" data-spacefinder-role=\"richLink\" data-spacefinder-type=\"model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.RichLinkBlockElement\">\n<div class=\"css-1i4v9dy\" data-print-layout=\"hide\" data-link-name=\"rich-link-2 | 2\" data-component=\"rich-link\" data-name=\"\">\n<div class=\"dcr-s7oxzu\">\n<div><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"css-q4dzvk\" src=\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/6e4486aee626dcafdb09e49bf87fb2883a3e75cd\/0_99_2489_1493\/master\/2489.jpg?width=460&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=8539f3263dc7bcb0ae9224d8e1248b60\" alt=\"Richard Burton in the 1965 film of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.\" width=\"2489\" height=\"1493\" \/><\/div>\n<div class=\"dcr-1d91meq\">\n<div class=\"dcr-m4qltb\">\n<div class=\"dcr-1gqsble\">Top 10 novels about postwar Germany<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-1arhh0d\">\n<div class=\"dcr-dobi02\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/books\/2022\/apr\/13\/top-10-novels-about-postwar-germany-martin-goodman-on-bended-knees\">Read more<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"dcr-139bh9t\">\u201cWhat struck me was this is a country that\u2019s so cognisant of its history in many ways but seemingly the most economically powerful actors do not engage with that,\u201d says author <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/04\/19\/opinion\/bmw-porsche-nazi-germany-quandt-flick.html\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">David de Jong<\/a>, a 35-year-old Dutchman. \u201cThat was the reason why I wrote the book. It\u2019s an argument in favour of historical transparency.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"dfp-ad--inline1\" class=\"js-ad-slot ad-slot ad-slot--inline ad-slot--inline1 ad-slot--outstream ad-slot--rendered\" data-link-name=\"ad slot inline1\" data-name=\"inline1\" data-mobile=\"1,1|2,2|300,197|300,250|300,274|fluid\" data-phablet=\"1,1|2,2|300,197|300,250|300,274|fluid|620,350|550,310\" data-desktop=\"1,1|2,2|300,250|300,274|fluid|620,350|550,310\" data-google-query-id=\"CLbi5OvO6PcCFYj3ZAodA74ClA\">\n<p class=\"dcr-139bh9t\">The former reporter for Bloomberg News examines German companies that own beer brewers and wine producers as well as famous US brands such as Krispy Kreme and Pret A Manger. But he casts an especially harsh light on car makers led by household names such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bmwgroup.com\/en.html\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">BMW<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.porsche.com\/usa\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Porsche<\/a>, which powered the postwar economic miracle and contribute about a 10th of the nation\u2019s gross domestic product.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-139bh9t\">De Jong tells how the rise of the Nazis was initially met with scepticism and contempt by many business leaders but some discovered it could be very profitable.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-139bh9t\">Ferdinand Porsche convinced <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/film\/2021\/aug\/10\/the-meaning-of-hitler-nazism-documentary-netflix\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Hitler<\/a> to put the Volkswagen Beetle into production. The company thrived under his son, Ferry Porsche, who volunteered for the SS, became an officer and lied about it for the rest of his days. Ferry Porsche designed the first Porsche sports car and surrounded himself with former SS members in the 50s and 60s.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-139bh9t\">The steel, coal and arms magnate Friedrich Flick was convicted at Nuremberg of using forced and slave labour, bankrolling the SS and looting a steel factory. But he was released in 1960 and eventually became controlling shareholder of Daimler-Benz, then Germany\u2019s biggest car manufacturer. Deutsche Bank bought the Flick conglomerate in 1985, turning his descendants into billionaires.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-139bh9t\">Perhaps no one better encapsulates de Jong\u2019s argument than G\u00fcnther Quandt and his son Herbert Quandt, members of the Nazi party and patriarchs of the family that now dominates the BMW Group.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"d61095b8-648d-4098-8791-5ec5459057c3\" class=\" dcr-10khgmf\" data-spacefinder-role=\"inline\" data-spacefinder-type=\"model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.ImageBlockElement\">\n<div class=\"dcr-1b267dg\"><picture><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"dcr-1989ovb\" src=\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/315e6b938eb253eab84608d55fa9b7a3f48783a6\/0_360_3508_2104\/master\/3508.jpg?width=445&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=e8a0751db03d82bc26adebac5de9169e\" alt=\"The first Volkswagens made in West Germany, at Bonneberg near Kerford, parked in the factory\u2019s courtyard. The Beetle owes its existence to Adolf Hitler\u2019s will to equip the Third Reich with a popular car.\" width=\"3508\" height=\"2104\" \/><\/picture><\/div><figcaption class=\"dcr-5yynor\"><span class=\"dcr-1f2y4fi\">Volkswagens are parked at Bonneberg near Kerford, in 1945.<\/span> Photograph: Keystone-France\/Gamma-Keystone\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"ad-slot-container ad-slot--offset-right\">\n<p class=\"dcr-139bh9t\">Herbert Quandt had responsibility over battery factories in Berlin where thousands of forced and enslaved labourers toiled, including hundreds of women from concentration camps. He acquired companies stolen from Jews in France and used prisoners of war and forced labourers on his own private estate. He even built a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Subcamp#:~:text=Subcamps%20(German%3A%20KZ%2DAu%C3%9Fenlager,Germany%20and%20German%2Doccupied%20Europe.\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">concentration subcamp<\/a> in Nazi-occupied Poland.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-139bh9t\">When G\u00fcnther Quandt was 37 and widowed, he met and married a 17-year-old called Magda Friedl\u00e4nder and had one child with her. After their divorce, Magda married the Nazi propaganda minister, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2016\/aug\/15\/brunhilde-pomsel-nazi-joseph-goebbels-propaganda-machine\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Joseph Goebbels<\/a>, with whom she murdered their six children before both killed themselves in 1945.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-139bh9t\">After the war, G\u00fcnther Quandt was arrested for suspected collaboration with the Nazis, only to be acquitted after falsely claiming that he had been forced to join the party by Goebbels.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-139bh9t\">\u201cG\u00fcnther Quandt becomes one of Nazi Germany\u2019s most most successful industrialists,\u201d de Jong, who has been reporting on the families for a decade, said in a phone interview from Palm Springs, California. \u201cHe was already immensely wealthy before Hitler seized power. He uses it at the end of the war as a way of saying, \u2018I was a victim of persecution. I was persecuted by Joseph Goebbels and by my ex-wife.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-139bh9t\">Herbert Quandt inherited vast wealth from his father and saved BMW from bankruptcy, becoming the company\u2019s biggest shareholder. Two of his children, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Stefan_Quandt\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Stefan Quandt<\/a> and Susanne Klatten, are now Germany\u2019s wealthiest family, with close to majority control of the BMW Group, large holdings in the chemical and technology industries and a net worth of about $38bn.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-139bh9t\">They and other dynasties are celebrated for turning Germany into an economic powerhouse, with buildings, foundations and prizes bearing their names. The skeletons in their cupboards are not a secret \u2013 but nor are they well known or accounted for. Acknowledgment remains an afterthought despite Germany\u2019s much-vaunted remembrance culture.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-139bh9t\">Some have taken baby steps towards transparency. The Quandts commissioned a study in 2011 to look into their shameful past. Changes have been made to corporate websites but only, de Jong charges, grudgingly and incrementally, with important details omitted. Stefan Quandt still gives out an annual media prize named after his father and works from headquarters named after his grandfather.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-139bh9t\">De Jong, who found family members unwilling to be interviewed other than one London-based heir, says: \u201cYou have BMW and Porsche, particularly the families that control them, conduct this whitewashing or leaving out of history where they celebrate the business successes of their founders or saviours but leave out the fact that these men committed war crimes.<\/p>\n<div class=\"ad-slot-container ad-slot--offset-right\">\n<p class=\"dcr-139bh9t\">\u201cI never got an answer whether it\u2019s because they are afraid it would hurt the bottom line or share prices of the companies to be fully transparent about the history, or whether it\u2019s just because they derive their entire identity from the successes that their fathers and grandfathers had and, by being transparent about them, it\u2019s kind of disavowing their own identity. It\u2019s probably a combination of both.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"80d21417-2380-4395-b378-dbe09fb651fa\" class=\" dcr-10khgmf\" data-spacefinder-role=\"inline\" data-spacefinder-type=\"model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.ImageBlockElement\">\n<div class=\"dcr-1b267dg\"><picture><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"dcr-1989ovb\" src=\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/f56649b39c2658f3d6414fb2799d392d27112ec3\/35_0_4805_2886\/master\/4805.jpg?width=445&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=5ba5f952dd5fbdc1dcc37f36984d2f8d\" alt=\"BMW headquarters in Munich\" width=\"4805\" height=\"2886\" \/><\/picture><\/div><figcaption class=\"dcr-5yynor\"><span class=\"dcr-1f2y4fi\">BMW headquarters in Munich.<\/span> Photograph: Christof Stache\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"dcr-139bh9t\">The families tend to lean on Germany\u2019s notion of collective guilt, de Jong continues. \u201cBut it\u2019s very perverse, where you now have the <a href=\"https:\/\/bmw-foundation.org\/en\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt<\/a>, which has a model to inspire responsible leadership in the name of a man who, yes, saved BMW from bankruptcy in 1959, but also designed and built and dismantled a concentration subcamp in Nazi-occupied Poland. At a bare minimum what we can expect from these companies and families is historical transparency.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-139bh9t\">In his book, de Jong notes that an international drive for such transparency, and its attendant reckonings, have brought down statues of Confederate generals, slave traders and Christopher Columbus and heralded the rechristening of colleges named after racist presidents.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-139bh9t\">\u201cYet this movement toward facing the past is somehow bypassing many of Germany\u2019s legendary businessmen,\u201d he writes. \u201cTheir dark legacy remains hidden in plain sight. This book, in some small way, tries to right that wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-139bh9t\">The author, now based in Tel Aviv, Israel, adds: \u201cI hope people will become more aware on a consumer level that the money they spend on these products might end up as dividends for these families and might go towards the maintaining of foundations, corporate headquarters and media properties in the name of Nazi war criminals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-139bh9t\">\u201cI think people should be more aware of these histories and of history in general, particularly when it comes to consumption and the continuing whitewashing of history by these consumer brands and families that control them.\u201d<\/p>\n<ul class=\"dcr-139bh9t\">\n<li>Nazi Billionaires is out now<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>David Smith in Washington, Books, London, 18 May 2022 In his new book Nazi Billionaires, David de Jong explores the damning history of companies who have refused to examine their murky history with Hitler Adolf Hitler admires a model of the Volkswagen car. He is with the designer Ferdinand Porsche, left, and to various Nazi [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13485"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13485"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13494,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13485\/revisions\/13494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}