German firms realize responsibility for Nazi taking power

(MENAFN) Nearly 50 of Germany’s top corporations have publicly recognized their historical complicity in Adolf Hitler’s rise to power and the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime. In a statement published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, firms including Siemens, Volkswagen, Uniper, BMW, Adidas, Bayer, and Deutsche Bank admitted that business leaders at the time contributed to Nazi crimes through silence and profit-driven motives.

“The Nazi takeover in 1933 would have been unimaginable without the failure of key figures in politics, the military, the judiciary, and especially the economy,” the joint letter stated. The companies acknowledged that many in the business community helped entrench Nazi rule due to their pursuit of profit, and expressed a commitment to preserving the memory of the regime’s crimes.

While the companies stopped short of directly accepting blame for their predecessors’ actions, they emphasized a duty to promote remembrance, stating that the silence and complicity of the past “impose responsibility for the past, present, and future.” The letter also condemned antisemitism and hate, calling for the preservation of post-Cold War European unity.

The role of German businesses and industrial families during the Nazi era has been the subject of growing scrutiny. In his 2022 book Nazi Billionaires, journalist David de Jong documented how leading firms such as Porsche and BMW not only profited from the Third Reich but remain under the control of families with Nazi-era ties. De Jong argued that many German businesses were never fully de-Nazified and only become transparent once family control is relinquished.

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