When we think of the industrialists who profited under Adolf Hitler’s regime, names like Krupp and IG Farben often come to mind—firms notorious for their roles in the Nazi war machine. However, these companies were established long before the Third Reich and represent only part of the story. In Nazi Billionaires, author David de Jong shifts the spotlight to five families who built vast fortunes through direct collaboration with the Nazi regime, transforming their wealth and cementing their legacies in global industry.
How They Built Their Wealth
The immense fortunes of these families were built on three primary sources during the Nazi era:
- Government Contracts: These contracts were predominantly for armaments and materials essential to the war effort.
- Aryanization: Jewish-owned businesses were seized at a fraction of their value, with the spoils enriching Nazi collaborators.
- Exploitation of Slave Labor: Concentration camp prisoners and other forced laborers, supplied by the SS for a fee, were ruthlessly exploited to maximize profits.
Despite their direct involvement in these atrocities, the patriarchs of these families consistently denied any knowledge of the crimes they facilitated. Their descendants perpetuated these denials for decades after the war.
De Jong’s account of the Quandt family exemplifies this moral indifference:
“It didn’t matter to father and son that they took over the seized livelihood and life’s work of Jews. To them, the only thing that mattered was the expansion of the Quandt empire. And expand it they would. Belgian, Polish, Croatian, and Greek firms soon fell prey to the Quandts’ gang of corporate raiders.”
Even more appalling was their reliance on slave labor. Companies such as IG Farben, Siemens, Daimler-Benz, BMW, Krupp, and various Quandt and Flick-controlled enterprises were among the largest private-industry users of forced labor during the war.
The Five Families
De Jong profiles five families whose wealth was deeply entwined with the Nazi regime:
- Günther Quandt (1881–1954): Already wealthy before Hitler’s rise, Quandt expanded his empire exponentially by aligning with the Nazi elite, including Hitler himself. Today, his industrial legacy includes BMW.
- Friedrich Flick (1883–1972): Once the richest man in Germany, Flick’s enterprises, including Daimler-Benz, were instrumental in the Nazi rearmament efforts of the 1930s.
- August von Finck Sr. (1898–1980): Founder of Allianz and Munich Re, von Finck’s fortune grew through Aryanization, acquiring Jewish-owned businesses like Vienna’s S M von Rothschild bank.
- Ferdinand Porsche (1875–1951): Hitler’s favorite engineer, Porsche built his family’s wealth by producing military vehicles and designing the original Volkswagen Beetle with his son, Ferry. Today, the Porsche-Piëch family controls Volkswagen and Porsche.
- Richard Kaselowsky (1888–1944): By marrying into the Oetker family, Kaselowsky became part of the empire behind Dr. Oetker, which supplied food to the Wehrmacht. The Oetker brand has since evolved into a global consumer goods giant.
Were They Tried as War Criminals?
Did these industrialists face justice for their crimes? Shockingly, most did not. They fabricated affidavits, lied about their involvement, and portrayed themselves as mere businessmen capitalizing on wartime opportunities. Claims of coercion—that figures like Joseph Goebbels or Heinrich Himmler forced them to join the Nazi Party or SS—were common.
Only Friedrich Flick faced trial. Convicted as a war criminal, he was sentenced to seven years in prison but served less than three. The leniency of German judges, many of whom were former Nazis, was matched by the Americans. Telford Taylor, a Nuremberg prosecutor, was a notable exception, securing Flick’s conviction. However, U.S. policy under President Truman prioritized rebuilding West Germany as a Cold War ally, allowing many Nazi profiteers to escape accountability.
De Jong highlights this disturbing trend:
“Over 1950 and 1951, U.S. High Commissioner for Germany John J. McCloy oversaw a series of controversial acts of clemency affecting more than a hundred Nuremberg convicts. He not only pardoned industrialists like Alfred Krupp, returning his assets, but also commuted death sentences and reduced prison terms for high-ranking SS officers responsible for massacres.”
What Happened to the Money?
While dynastic wealth often dissipates over generations, much of the fortune accumulated by these families remains influential today. According to Forbes‘ Real-Time Billionaires list, three of the five families still rank among Germany’s wealthiest:
- The Quandts: Stefan Quandt and his sister Suzanne Klatten jointly own over 40% of BMW. Their respective fortunes of $26.2 billion and $25.0 billion place them among the top 100 richest people globally.
- The von Fincks: Francine von Finck, with assets worth $8.4 billion, is the sole family member on the billionaires’ list.
- The Oetkers: Alfred, Carl Ferdinand, and Julia Oetker each possess $3.9 billion, tied to the family’s diversified holdings in wine, spirits, chemicals, and luxury hotels.
By contrast, the Flick family and Porsche-Piëch clan no longer feature prominently on wealth rankings.
The Volkswagen Deception
No history of Nazi-era industrialists is complete without mentioning Volkswagen. Ferdinand Porsche designed the original Beetle under Hitler’s orders, but as De Jong reveals, the car was never delivered to ordinary Germans. Instead:
“The ‘people’s car’ was not, in fact, delivered to the people. Only 630 of them were built during the Third Reich, and they all went to the Nazi elite. The 340,000 Germans who signed up for the [company’s] program to save for the purchase of the car were bilked of around 280 million reichsmarks.”
In today’s terms, that’s approximately $2.4 billion—a staggering betrayal of ordinary citizens, enriching the regime and its industrial allies.
Legacy of a Dark Chapter
The stories of these families are a stark reminder of how opportunism and complicity can forge immense wealth. While their descendants continue to enjoy the benefits of these fortunes, the dark origins of their wealth cast a long shadow. De Jong’s Nazi Billionaires is a powerful exposé of the moral compromises and human suffering that underpinned their success, urging us to confront the uncomfortable truths about the foundations of modern wealth.
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