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COMMENT: In FTR #1012 we not­ed not only the tremen­dous com­mer­cial clout of  the Reimann fam­i­ly and their JAB Hold­ing com­pa­ny, but the extreme secre­cy sur­round­ing the clan.

” . . . . The lack of involve­ment is alleged­ly part of the fam­i­ly pol­i­cy, which also includes sign­ing a codex on one’s 18th birth­day pledg­ing to stay out of the pub­lic as much as pos­si­ble, thus mak­ing them one of the most pri­vate bil­lion­aire fam­i­lies. . . .”

We spec­u­lat­ed that the Reimann inter­ests might very well be part of the remark­able and dead­ly Bor­mann flight cap­i­tal orga­ni­za­tion.

These obser­va­tions were against the back­ground of appar­ent Bor­mann com­po­nents acquir­ing con­trol over the glob­al food sup­ply and the suc­cess­ful devel­op­ment of an appar­ent genet­i­cal­ly-engi­neered, bina­ry bio­log­i­cal weapon–the AIDS virus, to which only a seg­ment of pure-bred North­ern Euro­peans (Aryans) have a hered­i­tary immu­ni­ty.

Thanks to an inves­tiga­tive piece from Bild, we now know the fol­low­ing:

1. “Germany’s sec­ond-rich­est fam­i­ly built its multi­bil­lion-dol­lar for­tune with Krispy Kreme Dough­nuts, Jim­my Choo shoes and Calvin Klein per­fume — and forced labor­ers under the Nazis. . . .”
2. ” . . . . Albert Reimann Sr. and his son Albert Reimann Jr., who ran the com­pa­ny in the 1930s and 1940s, were enthu­si­as­tic Hitler sup­port­ers and anti-Semi­tes, who con­doned the abuse of forced labor­ers, not only in their indus­tri­al chem­i­cals com­pa­ny in south­ern Ger­many, but also in their own home. . . .”
3. ” . . . . Female work­ers from East­ern Europe were forced to stand at atten­tion naked in their fac­to­ry bar­racks. Those who refused were sex­u­al­ly abused. . . .”
4. ” . . . . The Reimann case stands out for the par­tic­u­lar bru­tal­i­ty detailed in some of the report­ed doc­u­ments, and the fact that father and son appear to have been involved in the abuse them­selves, said Andreas Wirsching, direc­tor of the Munich-based Leib­niz Insti­tute for Con­tem­po­rary His­to­ry. . . .”
5. ” . . . .  Based on what has been revealed so far, Mr. Wirsching, the his­to­ri­an, said the Reimanns had most like­ly not just been oppor­tunists but also ‘com­mit­ted Nazis.’ Father and son joined the Nazi Par­ty and donat­ed to the SS even before Hitler came to pow­er. [In 1931, the same year they joined the NSDAP–D.E.] In July 1937, Albert Reimann Jr. wrote a let­ter to Hein­rich Himm­ler, the leader of the SS, who over­saw the Holo­caust. ‘We are a pure­ly Aryan fam­i­ly busi­ness that is over 100 years old,’ he wrote. ‘The own­ers are uncon­di­tion­al fol­low­ers of the race the­o­ry.’ . . .”
6. ” . . . .  The Reimanns ini­tial­ly made their for­tune from a chem­i­cal com­pa­ny that became Reckitt Benckiser, the $58 bil­lion con­sumer prod­ucts giant whose brands include Lysol. They then chan­neled much of their wealth into JAB, a con­glom­er­ate that has become one of the biggest play­ers in the con­sumer world through a rapid-fire series of cor­po­rate takeovers. JAB has spent bil­lions to become a rival to the likes of Star­bucks and Nestlé by buy­ing chains like Peet’s Cof­fee & Tea, Krispy Kreme and Pret A Manger. Last year, it also helped the pod-cof­fee com­pa­ny Keurig Green Moun­tain buy Dr Pep­per Snap­ple for near­ly $19 bil­lion. It also con­trols the cos­met­ics giant Coty, own­er of Calvin Klein fra­grances, and pre­vi­ous­ly owned lux­u­ry fash­ion labels like Jim­my Choo. . . .”

“Ger­many’s Sec­ond-Rich­est Clain Dis­cov­ers Dark Nazi Past” by Katrin Bennhold; The New York Times; 3/25/2019.

Germany’s sec­ond-rich­est fam­i­ly built its multi­bil­lion-dol­lar for­tune with Krispy Kreme Dough­nuts, Jim­my Choo shoes and Calvin Klein per­fume — and forced labor­ers under the Nazis.

The Reimann fam­i­ly, which con­trols the con­sumer goods con­glom­er­ate JAB Hold­ing Com­pa­ny, recent­ly com­mis­sioned a his­to­ri­an to dig deep into com­pa­ny archives and shed light on its activ­i­ties dur­ing the 12 years of Nazi rule.

The ini­tial rev­e­la­tions, 74 years after World War II end­ed, are damn­ing.

Albert Reimann Sr. and his son Albert Reimann Jr., who ran the com­pa­ny in the 1930s and 1940s, were enthu­si­as­tic Hitler sup­port­ers and anti-Semi­tes, who con­doned the abuse of forced labor­ers, not only in their indus­tri­al chem­i­cals com­pa­ny in south­ern Ger­many, but also in their own home.

Female work­ers from East­ern Europe were forced to stand at atten­tion naked in their fac­to­ry bar­racks. Those who refused were sex­u­al­ly abused. Work­ers were kicked and beat­en, among them one Russ­ian woman, who cleaned in the Reimanns’ pri­vate vil­la.

News of the family’s dark his­to­ry broke Sun­day in the tabloid Bild. Peter Harf, the fam­i­ly spokesman and one of two man­ag­ing part­ners of JAB Hold­ing, said the historian’s find­ings “com­plete­ly matched” those of the fam­i­ly.

“Reimann Sr. and Reimann Jr. were guilty,” Mr. Harf said. “They belonged in jail.”

The exploita­tion of forced work­ers was wide­spread in Ger­many dur­ing the war, a time of acute labor short­ages. An esti­mat­ed 12 mil­lion peo­ple from more than a dozen Euro­pean coun­tries were abduct­ed by the Nazis and forced to work in sup­port of the Ger­man war effort. At their peak, forced labor­ers made up an esti­mat­ed 20 per­cent of the Ger­man work force.

Farms and indus­tri­al com­pa­nies that mat­tered to the war effort got pri­or­i­ty from the gov­ern­ment office that allo­cat­ed the work­ers — men and women tak­en from their homes in Nazi-occu­pied ter­ri­to­ries or, some­times, pris­on­ers of war.

The Reimann case stands out for the par­tic­u­lar bru­tal­i­ty detailed in some of the report­ed doc­u­ments, and the fact that father and son appear to have been involved in the abuse them­selves, said Andreas Wirsching, direc­tor of the Munich-based Leib­niz Insti­tute for Con­tem­po­rary His­to­ry.

“It was very com­mon for com­pa­nies to use forced labor­ers — but it was not com­mon for a com­pa­ny boss to be in direct and phys­i­cal con­tact with these forced labor­ers,” Mr. Wirsching said.

Albert Reimann Sr., who died in 1954, and Albert Reimann Jr., who died in 1984, report­ed­ly nev­er spoke about the Nazi era after the war. It was only in the ear­ly 2000s that the younger gen­er­a­tion began look­ing at old com­pa­ny doc­u­ments and stum­bled across mate­r­i­al that sug­gest­ed their father and grand­fa­ther had been com­mit­ted Nazis.

In 2014, the fam­i­ly asked Paul Erk­er, an eco­nom­ic his­to­ri­an at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Munich, to doc­u­ment the his­to­ry. Mr. Erker’s research is still under­way. What has emerged so far came from an inter­im pre­sen­ta­tion he gave ear­li­er this year, Mr. Harf said.

“We were speech­less,” Mr. Harf said. “We were ashamed and were white as a wall.”

Once the report is com­plet­ed next year it will be made pub­lic, he said. The fam­i­ly plans to donate 10 mil­lion euros, or about $11.3 mil­lion, to a char­i­ty that has yet to be iden­ti­fied.

In 2000, the Ger­man gov­ern­ment helped set up a 10 bil­lion mark (about 5.1 bil­lion euros) fund to pro­vide com­pen­sa­tion to forced labor­ers, with half the mon­ey com­ing from com­pa­nies like Siemens, Deutsche Bank, Daim­ler and Volk­swa­gen.

The list of well-known Ger­man com­pa­nies that prof­it­ed from forced labor — and Nazi crimes more gen­er­al­ly — is long, and it often took decades for them to open their books.

Daim­ler was one of the first, in the 1980s. The Mer­cedes mak­er used near­ly 40,000 forced labor­ers toward the end of the war. Volk­swa­gen used some 12,000, includ­ing con­cen­tra­tion camp pris­on­ers who were locked up in a ded­i­cat­ed camp used by the com­pa­ny. Hugo Boss pro­duced the black SS uni­forms. Deutsche Bank was one of many com­pa­nies that prof­it­ed from busi­ness­es being tak­en from their Jew­ish own­ers.

The Reimanns ini­tial­ly made their for­tune from a chem­i­cal com­pa­ny that became Reckitt Benckiser, the $58 bil­lion con­sumer prod­ucts giant whose brands include Lysol. They then chan­neled much of their wealth into JAB, a con­glom­er­ate that has become one of the biggest play­ers in the con­sumer world through a rapid-fire series of cor­po­rate takeovers.

JAB has spent bil­lions to become a rival to the likes of Star­bucks and Nestlé by buy­ing chains like Peet’s Cof­fee & Tea, Krispy Kreme and Pret A Manger. Last year, it also helped the pod-cof­fee com­pa­ny Keurig Green Moun­tain buy Dr Pep­per Snap­ple for near­ly $19 bil­lion.

It also con­trols the cos­met­ics giant Coty, own­er of Calvin Klein fra­grances, and pre­vi­ous­ly owned lux­u­ry fash­ion labels like Jim­my Choo.

The for­tune of the Reimanns, one of the most secre­tive indus­tri­al fam­i­lies in Ger­many, was esti­mat­ed last year at 33 bil­lion euros, accord­ing to Man­ag­er Mag­a­zin, a finan­cial pub­li­ca­tion. In lists of the wealth­i­est fam­i­lies in the coun­try the Reimanns most recent­ly ranked sec­ond.

Based on what has been revealed so far, Mr. Wirsching, the his­to­ri­an, said the Reimanns had most like­ly not just been oppor­tunists but also “com­mit­ted Nazis.”

Father and son joined the Nazi Par­ty and donat­ed to the SS even before Hitler came to pow­er. In July 1937, Albert Reimann Jr. wrote a let­ter to Hein­rich Himm­ler, the leader of the SS, who over­saw the Holo­caust.

“We are a pure­ly Aryan fam­i­ly busi­ness that is over 100 years old,” he wrote. “The own­ers are uncon­di­tion­al fol­low­ers of the race the­o­ry.”

By 1943, 175 work­ers, or a third of the total, were forced labor­ers, Bild report­ed. In addi­tion to Russ­ian and East­ern Euro­pean civil­ians, the Reimanns used French pris­on­ers of war. In 1940, Albert Reimann Jr. report­ed­ly com­plained to the may­or of Lud­wigshafen, the town where his fac­to­ry was based, that the French were not work­ing hard enough.

At the end of the war, the Reimanns were inves­ti­gat­ed by the allied occu­py­ing pow­ers. The French barred them from con­tin­u­ing their busi­ness activ­i­ties, but the Amer­i­cans over­turned the judg­ment, Bild report­ed.