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"People should know", business dynasties that benefited the Nazis

2022-05-18 18:48:32Fokus SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
"People should know", business dynasties that benefited the Nazis
Adolf Hitler amazes at Volkswagen Beetle presentation

In the US and Britain, a campaign of the collapse and rape of statues and busts of history characters helped colonialization and promoted slavery. School names, buildings and streets were changed and changed. A worldwide wave has begun to remove from memory names and families that have committed crimes, or collaborated with dictators and regimes. But there's a tolerance somewhere.

A new book, "Nazi Billionaires" investigates how Germany's richest business dynasties made fortunes by helping and promoting Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. The book also examines how, eight decades later, they are not only undamned, but have also avoided the laws and rules of a nation that has faced its terrible past.

"What impressed me was that this is a country (Germany) that knows its history in many ways, but seemingly with the most economically powerful actors do not deal. That's why I wrote the book. It is an argument in favour of historical transparency," says the book's author, David de Jong, a 35-year-old Dutchman.

The former reporter for Bloomberg News examines German companies that own beer producers and winemakers, as well as famous American brands such as Krispy Kreme and Pret A Manger. But it sheds a particularly harsh light on German car manufacturers, led by names known as BMW and Porsche, which powered the post-war economic miracle and contributed about a tenth of the country's gross domestic product in those years.

De Jong shows how the rise of the Nazis was initially met with skepticism and contempt by many business leaders, but some found it could be very profitable as a movement.

Ferdinand Porsche convinced Hitler to produce the Volkswagen Beetle. The company flourished 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 was surrounded and accompanied by former SS members in the 1950s and '60s.

Steel, coal and gun tycoon Friedrich Flick was convicted in Nuremberg of using forced labour and slavery, funding the SS and looting a steel factory. But he was released in 1960 and eventually became the controlling shareholder of Daimler-Benz, then germany's largest car maker. Deutsche Bank bought the Flick conglomerate in 1985, turning its successors into billionaires.

Perhaps no one better sums up de Jong's argument than Günther Quandt and his son Herbert Quandt, members of the Nazi party and patriarchs of the family that now dominates the BME Group.

Herbert Quandt had responsibility over battery plants in Berlin where thousands of prisoners worked, including hundreds of women from concentration camps. He bought companies that the Nazis seized from Jews in France and used war captives and forced labour on his private property. He even built a concentration undercamp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

When Günther Quandt was 37 and widowed, he met and married a 17-year-old named Magda Friedländer and had a child with him. After their divorce, Magda married Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, with whom he killed their six children before the two killed themselves in 1945.

After the war, Günther Quandt was arrested for allegedly cooperating with the Nazis, only to be released after falsely claiming he had been forced to join Hitler's party by Goebbels.

"Günther Quandt becomes one of Nazi Germany's most successful industrialists. He multiplied his wealth under Hitler's regime. At the end of the war he escaped saying: 'I was the victim of persecution. I was persecuted by Joseph Goebbels and my ex-wife," de Jong says.

Herbert Quandt inherited a large fortune from his father and saved BMW from bankruptcy, becoming the company's largest shareholder. Two of his children, Stefan Quandt and Susanne Klatten, are now Germany's richest family, with almost majority control of the BMW Group, large possessions in the chemical and technology industries and a net worth of about $38 billion.

They and other dynasties take credit for turning Germany into an economic power, with buildings, squares, streets and awards bearing their names.

Some have taken small steps towards transparency. The Quandts commissioned a study in 2011 to look at their shameful past. Changes have been made to corporate websites, but only, de Jong's accusations with important details bypassed are not. Stefan Quandt still gives an annual media award named after his father and works from the headquarters named after his grandfather.

De Jong, who found that family members were not willing to be interviewed except for a London-based heir, says: "You have BME and Porsche, especially the families who control them, commit this bleaching or leave out of history where they celebrate the successes of business for their subjects or saviours, but leave out the fact that these men commit war crimes".

"I never got an answer if they're afraid it would hurt recent prices or company share prices to be fully transparent about history, or whether it's simply because they take their entire identity from the successes of their fathers and grandparents. Being transparent about them is a kind of denial of their identity. Maybe it's a combination of both," de Jong said.

Familjet priren të mbështeten në nocionin te faji kolektiv për nazizmin, vazhdon de Jong. “Por është shumë perverse, ku tani keni Fondacionin BMË Herbert Quandt, i cili ka një model për të frymëzuar udhëheqjen e përgjegjshme në emër të një njeriu që, po, e shpëtoi BMË-në nga falimentimi në 1959, por gjithashtu projektoi dhe ndërtoi dhe çmontoi një kamp përqëndrimi në Poloninë e pushtuar nga nazistët. Në minimum ajo që mund të presim nga këto kompani dhe familje është transparenca historike”, shton ai.

Në librin e tij, de Jong vë në dukje se një përpjekje ndërkombëtare për një transparencë të tillë dhe llogaritjet e saj shoqëruese, kanë rrëzuar statujat e gjeneralëve të konfederatës, tregtarët e skllevërve dhe Christopher Columbus dhe kanë paralajmëruar ripagëzimin e kolegjeve të emëruara sipas presidentëve racistë në SHBA.

"Megjithatë, kjo lëvizje drejt përballjes me të kaluarën po anashkalon disi shumë nga biznesmenët legjendar të Gjermanisë," shkruan ai. “Trashëgimia e tyre e errët mbetet e fshehur në pamje të qartë. Ky libër përpiqet ta korrigjojë këtë gabim”.

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