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Rich People From History Who Committed Shady and Evil Deeds

Khalid Elhassan April 12, 2022 36 min

rich people from history who committed shady and evil deeds

27. BMW Used Thousands of Slave Workers During WWII

concentration camp inmates at a bmw plant — Slave workers at a BMW plant. Pinterest

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.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.