Family ties: Herbert Quandt, Guenther's son, was also aware that slave labour was being used in the family's factories. Right, Adolf Hitler and his propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. Guenther Quandt divorced Magda Behrend Rietschel, who went on to become Goebbels' wife (pictured right)(dailymail.co.uk) |
The family that owns Germany's luxury car manufacturer BMW has ended decades of silence about its role during the Nazi era and admitted to taking over scores of Jewish businesses and using tens of thousands of slave labourers at its factories during Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. The disturbing revelations about the Quandt dynasty, which became a major BMW shareholder in 1960, are contained in an independent 1,200-page study commissioned by the family in 2007 after its ruthless Nazi-era business practices were exposed in a German television documentary. BMW was not implicated in the report. "The Quandts were linked inseparably with the crimes of the Nazis," Joachim Scholtyseck, the Bonn historian who compiled and researched the study, concludes at the end of his report published this week. "The family patriarch was part of the regime." Mr Scholtyseck established that Günther Quandt and his son Herbert, who both headed the dynasty during the Third Reich, willingly collaborated with the Nazi regime by employing an estimated 50,000 forced labourers in its arms factories. An average of 80 slave labourers per month died at Quandt factories and many were executed. "We were treated very badly, we were whipped and had to drink water out of the lavatories," recalled Takis Mylopoulos, a former slave labourer who worked at a Quandt factory in Hanover during the Second World War. The family was also found to have taken over scores of previously Jewish-owned businesses that were "Aryanised" by the Nazis. Gabriele Quandt, Günther Quandt's grandson, responded to the study's conclusion by admitting his family had been "wrong" in trying to avoid confronting the truth about its Nazi past for so long. The study shows that Günther Quandt joined the Nazi party in 1933, the same year that Hitler became Reich Chancellor. Four years later, he was put in charge of the Nazis' so-called "armaments economy" supplying ammunition and military hardware from factories that used thousands of slave labourers from concentration camps. An execution area for disobedient slave workers was set up at at least one of the Quandt plants. The Quandts commissioned the study just five days after the showing of a 2007 television documentary entitled The Silence of the Quandt Family, which contained extensive details about its collaboration with the Nazis. The family admitted in a statement at the time: "We recognise that in our history as a family of German industrialists, the years 1933 to 1945 have not been sufficiently accounted for." Günther Quandt was arrested and interned in 1946. But judges concluded that he was a mere Nazi "fellow traveller" who played no active part in committing the crimes of the Third Reich. He was released in 1948. Prosecutors have argued that if today's evidence had been presented at the time, Quandt would have been charged with committing war crimes or crimes against humanity. However, he joined the board of Deutsche Bank after the war and was honoured by Frankfurt University in 1951. He died on holiday in Egypt in 1954. (Read by Nelly Min. Nelly Min is a journalist at the China Daily Website.) (Agencies)
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歷經(jīng)數(shù)十年的沉默,掌控寶馬汽車的德國科萬特家族近日終于承認(rèn)了歷史上與納粹的不光彩關(guān)系。在阿道夫?希特勒統(tǒng)治時(shí)期,“寶馬家族”接管了數(shù)十家猶太人的企業(yè),并在工廠中使用了數(shù)萬名奴工。 2007年,德國一部電視紀(jì)錄片曝光了科萬特家族在納粹時(shí)期的累累罪行。隨后,“寶馬家族”對(duì)自己的歷史展開了調(diào)查,并最終公布了這份長(zhǎng)達(dá)1200頁的獨(dú)立調(diào)查報(bào)告。報(bào)告中并未牽涉寶馬公司??迫f特家族在1960年控股寶馬公司。 此次調(diào)查的負(fù)責(zé)人、波恩歷史學(xué)家喬希姆?斯科蒂塞克在本周公布的報(bào)告結(jié)尾寫道:“科萬特家族與納粹的罪行密不可分,家族元老也參與了納粹統(tǒng)治。”。 斯科蒂塞克研究發(fā)現(xiàn),在希特勒統(tǒng)治期間,家族領(lǐng)袖岡瑟?科萬特及其子赫伯特主動(dòng)與納粹分子合作,在軍工廠內(nèi)雇傭了大約5萬名奴工。平均每月有80名奴工死于家族工廠,很多奴工還被處死。 塔基斯?馬勒潑勒斯在二戰(zhàn)期間曾在科萬特家族位于漢諾威的工廠里做工,他回憶說:“我們被虐待,被鞭打,還被逼喝廁所里的水?!?通過納粹的“雅利安化”運(yùn)動(dòng),科萬特家族接管了幾十家原本屬于猶太人的企業(yè)。 岡瑟?科萬特的孫子加布里埃萊?科萬特對(duì)研究結(jié)果做出回應(yīng),承認(rèn)其家族長(zhǎng)期無視歷史上的污點(diǎn)是“錯(cuò)誤的”。 研究表明,岡瑟?科萬特在1933年加入納粹黨,同年,希特勒出任德國總理。四年后,岡瑟開始負(fù)責(zé)納粹所謂的“國防經(jīng)濟(jì)”,使用大量來自集中營的奴工為納粹生產(chǎn)軍火和裝備。在科萬特家族的每一家企業(yè)里,都有一處專門的行刑區(qū),用來處死反抗的奴工。 2007年,德國電視紀(jì)錄片《科萬特家族的沉默》播出5天后,科萬特家族即宣布將對(duì)這段歷史展開調(diào)查。紀(jì)錄片曝光了科萬特家族與納粹合作的大量細(xì)節(jié)。 科萬特家族當(dāng)時(shí)發(fā)表聲明稱:“我們認(rèn)識(shí)到,作為一家德國家族企業(yè),我們?cè)?933年至1945年的歷史還不夠充分清晰。” 1946年,岡瑟被逮捕拘禁。但他被裁決為納粹的“同路人”,也就是沒有積極參與納粹罪行的人,遂于1948年獲釋。 檢察官認(rèn)為,如果現(xiàn)在的證據(jù)在當(dāng)時(shí)能夠呈交法庭,科萬特家族成員將被判戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)罪或反人類罪。然而二戰(zhàn)后,岡瑟還加入德意志銀行董事會(huì),并在1951年被法蘭克福大學(xué)授予榮譽(yù)稱號(hào)。1954年,他在埃及度假期間去世。 相關(guān)閱讀 (中國日?qǐng)?bào)網(wǎng)英語點(diǎn)津 Julie 編輯:馮明惠) |
Vocabulary: Third Reich: 第三帝國,指希特勒統(tǒng)治下的德國 whip: to strike with repeated strokes, as with a strap or rod; lash(鞭打,抽打) aryanised:雅利安化,納粹用語,即把猶太人的財(cái)產(chǎn)變?yōu)榈聡说呢?cái)產(chǎn),將猶太人排斥出一切經(jīng)濟(jì)部門。 concentration camp: a guarded prison camp in which nonmilitary prisoners are held, esp one of those in Nazi Germany in which millions were exterminated(集中營) intern: to confine, especially in wartime(拘留,軟禁) patriarch:(宗教、企業(yè)等的)創(chuàng)始人,元老;家長(zhǎng),族長(zhǎng) |