NPR’s Rob Schmitz talks with author David de Jong about his new e-book that explores the connection between Nazism and a few of Germany’s wealthiest households.
ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
Germany’s willpower to always remember the atrocities of the Holocaust have been on the heart of their postwar success. However the Nazi legacies of Germany’s greatest automotive firms spotlight the nation’s challenges to make good on that dedication.
David de Jong tells this story in his new e-book, “Nazi Billionaires: The Darkish Historical past Of Germany’s Wealthiest Dynasties,” and he joins us now. David, welcome.
DAVID DE JONG: It is good to be right here.
SCHMITZ: The spine of Germany’s financial system is its automotive trade. And David, you have been reporting on the households who run Germany’s greatest automotive firms for years, and you have written that you simply’re shocked at what you have come to find out about them. Give us an instance of what has shocked you.
DE JONG: Throughout my decade of reporting on this matter, I feel what shocked me most is the brazen whitewashing that also occurs right this moment by international client firms like BMW and Porsche and the households that management them who’re sustaining international foundations within the identify of their patriarchs, reminiscent of Ferry Porsche, who designed the primary Porsche sports activities automotive, or Herbert Quandt, who saved BMW from chapter. Their enterprise successes are celebrated, however their struggle crimes they dedicated, or the Nazi affiliations that they had, like being voluntary SS officers, are omitted on the web sites of those foundations or to media prizes or to company headquarters these households preserve.
SCHMITZ: And there are actual people behind these automotive firms with clear and direct ties to Nazis, just like the Quandt household, who you simply talked about, who owns a majority share of BMW. They’re the richest household in Germany. And the grandfather of the present majority shareholders was near Hitler and used labor from focus camps in his factories, but his household continues to defend him. Why?
DE JONG: It is – I feel it’s totally arduous for these heirs to distance themselves from their father and grandfather. They reside within the shadow of those folks. They did not make their fortunes themselves, so their total id derives from the fortunes that had been created by their father and grandfather, Gunther and Herbert. And to disavow the household patriarchs is mainly to disavow their very own identities. So that’s my finest guess as a result of they did not need to speak to me for the e-book.
You realize, they drew their companies from a company headquarters exterior of Frankfurt named after their grandfather, Gunther Quandt. And so they award an annual media prize, the place a few of Germany’s most outstanding journalists sit on a jury of, in any case this grew to become public data.
SCHMITZ: And why is not the German authorities holding these firms accountable?
DE JONG: The German authorities is not holding them accountable as a result of, I imply, that is not their – to what extent, is the query, is that their position? – or – and likewise, is that of their finest curiosity, proper? I imply…
SCHMITZ: Proper.
DE JONG: …These households are Germany’s and Europe’s, and to an extent, the world’s most economically highly effective enterprise households. The BMW Quandts are the most important political donors to the CDU, Angela Merkel’s celebration, and to the FDP, which is at the moment in authorities. So it isn’t, you realize, within the curiosity of the German authorities to criticize these households for whitewashing their histories.
SCHMITZ: I reside in Berlin and in my neighborhood, the streets and sidewalks are peppered with stolpersteine, that are stumbling stones, that are small stones within the sidewalk in entrance of homes the place Jewish households had been dragged out and despatched to focus camps. These are throughout Germany. They’re additionally criticized for being window dressing.
Within the circumstances that you have investigated with the richest households who personal Germany’s largest automotive firms, what could be an appropriate acknowledgement? – are we monuments, reparations? What do you suppose ought to occur?
DE JONG: I feel on the naked minimal, the worldwide foundations that these households preserve, and their firms, ought to be clear about their historical past, on the very least. I imply, you find out about historical past by displaying the great and dangerous. And by solely displaying that Herbert Quandt saved BMW from chapter in 1955, however not displaying that he deliberate, constructed and dismantled a focus camp in Nazi-occupied Poland, or that he had the accountability over battery factories in Berlin the place 1000’s of compelled and slave laborers had been used, together with feminine slave laborers from focus camps, you study nothing concerning the historical past. You realize, that’s, on the naked minimal, what we will anticipate from these households on a worldwide degree, not solely on the German degree, is historic transparency.
SCHMITZ: That is David de Jong. His new e-book is “Nazi Billionaires: The Darkish Historical past Of Germany’s Wealthiest Dynasties.” David, thanks a lot.
DE JONG: Thanks, Rob.
SCHMITZ: After we spoke with de Jong, we reached out to the Quandt household for remark. A spokesman claims the household has been clear about its Nazi previous and donated hundreds of thousands to commemorate the destiny of compelled laborers from World Struggle II.
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