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The Dark Secret Kept Hidden for 50 Years: How a Global Media Empire was Built on a Lie

October 9, 2002
By Saeed Shah

The virtuous image of the Bertelsmann media empire has been destroyed by a devastating historical study into the company's Nazi links that exposes its post-war success as built on a lie.

The report, published this week, not only gives details of the company's role in the Nazi propaganda machinery - it was the single biggest producer of pro-Nazi literature - but provides evidence of its use of forced labour in the war. The British, who administered the part of Germany where Bertelsmann was based after the Second World War, knew of the Nazi links but turned a blind eye.

The findings shatter the image that Bertelsmann has carefully constructed. In June 1998, it took over the US publisher Random House, and its chairman at the time, Thomas Middelhoff, declared proudly that it was "one of the few non-Jewish media companies closed down by the Nazi regime".

Bertelsmann was indeed shut by the Nazis in 1944, but its dark history has remained hidden for more than 50 years. The closure, supposedly because the company published books that the authorities disapproved of, became a central part of the Bertelsmann legend.

The role of other industries in the Third Reich, such as steel and banking, has been documented. But the Bertelsmann report, commissioned by the company, is the first big study of a media business.

British forces providedBertelsmann with a licence to print books after the Allies occupied Germany at the end of the war, and so gave it a cover to bury its past.In 1945, two officers, known to the researchers only by their surnames, Felix and Paget-Brown, granted Heinrich Mohn, the head of the company's founding family, the authority to set up in business.

Mr Mohn insisted to the officers that Nazis had censored his company's books and that it had been closed in 1944 because of its dissenting texts.

Professor Norbert Frei of the Ruhr University in Bochum, one of the authors of the 800-page report, said: "Mohn lied. He did not mention his support of the SS. He did not mention that one of his daughters had joined the Nazi party ... They just covered up their connection to the National Socialist regime."

By 1947, British officials had found out the truth but, because few in Germany seemed untainted by the Nazis, turned a blind eye to it on condition that Mohn's son, Reinhard, applied for a renewal of the licence. Father and son set about turning Bertelsmann into a big media player. Heinrich Mohn died in the mid-1950s but Reinhard Mohn, now in his eighties, remains the power behind the scenes. On its 150th anniversary in 1995, Bertelsmann published a company history that made no mention of Nazi activities.

Bertelsmann is today the world's largest publisher of books, one of the leading publishers of magazines, Europe's biggest television group, and owner of the BMG music business. In the UK, it is the majority owner of Channel 5. As a global media group, Bertelsmann ranks alongside Vivendi Universal and AOL Time Warner and is bigger than Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

However, troubling questions about its past after the Random House takeover in the US forced Mr Middelhoff to set up an independent commission of academics three years ago.

In Munich on Monday, the commission set out its findings. The study helped to explain the rapid rise of an obscure provincial publisher, based in the small central town of Gütersloh. The researchers were stunned to discover that Bertelsmann was the biggest publisher of Nazi texts, bigger even than the National Socialist Party's own printing business. It pumped out 20 million books to spread the word. Its support was evident long before the war. In the early 1930s, the firm published, for instance, The Christmas Book for Hitler Youth, which tried to blend Christianity with Nazi ideology.

Stuart Eizenstat, the American politician and lawyer who led talks with the German government and companies that led to a multibillion-dollar compensation deal over forced labour under the Nazis, praised Bertelsmann for revealing its involvement. But he added: "It underscores for me how broad-based was the incorporation of private German industry in the Third Reich's operations in terms of its involvement at most levels."

Gunter Thielen, Bertelsmann's current chairman, said: "I would like to express our sincere regret for the inaccuracies the Commission has uncovered in our previous corporate history of the World War II era, as well as for the wartime activities that have been brought to light."

Since Bertelsmann took part in the previous settlement, it would like to end the matter with its apology. That will not satisfy victims of the Nazis.

Lord Janner of Braunstone, chairman of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said Mr Thielen's statement was "pathetically inadequate and disgraceful ... From now on, Bertelsmann should do everything in its power to influence public opinion against racism. They have the ability and responsibility to make amends."

Bertelsmann's role in Nazi propaganda had much to do with Heinrich Mohn, who in 1921 took over the family business, then a small publisher of religious texts and hymn books. The man, the company and that region of Germany were imbued with a conservative Protestantism that looked forward to a new, strong state that would reinstate traditional "folkish" German values. That outlook fitted perfectly with that of the Nazi party, which took power in 1933.

Until 1924, Mr Mohn was a member of the German National People's Party, which was largely taken over by the National Socialists. He also joined a scheme that financially supported the SS. Although Mr Mohn was never a member of Adolf Hitler's party, he was sympathetic to it and saw an ideological and business opportunity in its rise to power.

The company outsourced some work and it was in the Baltic cities of Riga and Vilnius that the researchers found that slave Jewish labour was used. Professor Frei said: "The whole post-war image of Bertelsmann was built on a perception that was created after the war. It was possible because there was a significant loss of interest and loss of understanding."

The younger Mr Mohn was not involved with the company during the war but when he returned to Germany in 1946, he took over a firm that had many of the same pro-Nazi managers in place. He says he rarely discussed the war with his father and was not aware of its links with the Nazis.

Professor Frei said: "After 1945, Germans interpreted themselves as the first victims of Nazis. They did not want to accept what they had done before. After such a total defeat, people reinterpret their lives."

BLACKLIST TAINTED BY THE NAZIS

Bertelsmann

The world's largest book publisher insisted for years that it had opposed the Nazi regime, but a new company history says that it benefited from the use of Jewish slave labour and exploited the war so that it could grow from a small provincial firm into the biggest supplier of literature to Hitler's troops.

Deutsche Bank

Germany's largest financial institution became implicated in the expropriation of Jewish-owned enterprises during the Nazi dictatorship.It was not until 1999 that Deutsche Bank admitted its involvement in funding the construction of Auschwitz, the concentration camp where 1.5 million people died.

Degussa

Degussa, one of Germany's oldest companies, admitted in 1997 that it had probably been involved in melting down gold taken from Jewish concentration camp victims. Degussa was under international pressure to admit its part in the affair after years during which it proclaimed its innocence. The precious metals company has also paid compensation to about 500 Auschwitz prisoners reported to have worked for it in a tyre factory.

Siemens

In 1998, the company expressed "deepest regret" for the use of slave labour – an estimated 50,000 workers – to build underground and electronics factories for the Nazi war effort. The company claims, however, that it was forced to do so by the Nazis to fulfil wartime production goals.

Daimler

Daimler was one of the first companies to commission an independent history of its wartime activities, opening its archives to historians in the early 1980s. It has voluntarily paid out more than £6m in compensation to former slave workers, and has initiated contacts with hundreds of former forced labourers.

Volkswagen

The history of Volkswagen's involvement in the Nazi regime was published in 1996 after the company commissioned independent research. Its findings give details of how Hitler commissioned the Beetle and then ordered the building of Kraft durch Freude Stadt – Strength-through-Joy Town – to house the workers. The production lines were staffed with Jewish inmates of Auschwitz concentration camp.

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