27. BMW Used Thousands of Slave Workers During WWII
The study commissioned by the Quandt family resulted in a 1200-page report that concluded: “[t]he Quandts were linked inseparably with the crimes of the Nazis … The family patriarch was part of the regime“. Among other things, the Quandts profited from the Nazis’ “Aryanization Program”, which stripped Jews of their property and turned it over to Germans approved by the new regime. BMW’s owners benefitted greatly from Aryanization: dozens of businesses were seized from rich Jews and handed over to the already rich Quandts.
BMW and the Quandts to the Third Reich and its military that Hitler Named Gunther Quandt a Wehrwirtschaftsführer, or “Leader of the Defense Economy”. During World War II, at least 50,000 slave workers from concentration camps were forced to toil in BMW and other Quandt family enterprises to manufacture weapons and fulfill armaments contracts. Many of them died from the inhumane working conditions. Some from avoidable accidents, some from neglect, some were starved, and others were executed for workplace infractions.
Related: Famous Companies That Collaborated With Nazi Germany.