The company, Continental, is the latest to offer a detailed exposé of its wartime use of slave labor and other crimes. The auto parts maker Continental became the latest German company to issue a confessional study of its Nazi past Thursday, saying it was “a pillar of the National Socialist armaments and war economy” that employed around 10,000 slave laborers, often in inhumane conditions. During the war, when Continental supplied tires for military aircraft and vehicles, the company used concentration camp inmates to test products and the inmates often died as a result, according to the study by Paul Erker, a historian at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich commissioned by Continental to examine its past. Yet after the war, top managers of the company managed to escape punishment and pursue successful careers, according to Mr. Erker, who spent four years doing research for an 800-page book on Continental’s wartime history. The study also looked at firms that Continental acquired after the war, like VDO, a maker of auto electronics that supplied guidance systems for V-1 rockets fired at Britain by Germany during World War II.
via nytimes: German Automotive Giant Admits It Was a Nazi Accomplice