The German Billionaires With a Grotesque Antisemitic History
“Nazi Billionaires” author David de Jong joins this episode of The New Abnormal to discuss the findings from his book, including the ugly history of German business dynasties.
Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty
When Nazi Billionaires author David de Jong first began his research into the histories of uber-rich German business owners, he had no idea their crimes would be as blatant, and horrible, as they were.
“The sheer magnitude of the crimes stunned me,” he tells New Abnormal co-host Molly Jong-Fast on this bonus episode. “I went in expecting, naively, perhaps that it was gonna be somehow contained.”
De Jong, who got started on this beat as a Bloomberg reporter, says these powerful families used “tens of thousands of slave force laborers,” including Jewish people, to produce their companies’ products, and many of them died. He was also stunned by “the sheer magnitude of the companies and the assets that they stole from Jewish people.”
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One family that de Jong says has a horrible antisemitic history is the family of Herbert Werner Quandt, which owns almost half of the luxury car brand BMW.
“He had the responsibility for a factory in Berlin where, among other people, 500 female slave laborers from concentration camps were held. He acquired companies overseas from Jews in France. He used forced laborers and prisoners of war in his private estate during the war. But now you have the BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt, whose motto is ‘Inspire Responsible Leadership.’”
Molly wonders if these families have any guilt for the crimes that happened on their ancestors’ watches.
Yes and no, says de Jong. The guilt is there when they’re confronted with it, but he says they brush it off as something that many affluent German families have in their histories.
“These people are heirs, right? Right. In my opinion, for the most part, this reckoning is not sincere,” he says. “They’re billion-dollar brands and fortunes on the line.”
“It led me to ask this question,” he adds. “Does business success trump morality?”
He and Molly dissect that and more in this episode.
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