holocaust

Das Internationale Olympische Komitee (IOC) steht in der Kritik, weil es im offiziellen Online-Shop ein T-Shirt angeboten hat, das das historische Motiv der Olympischen Spiele 1936 in Berlin zeigt – ausgerechnet jener Spiele, die im Dritten Reich als Propagandainstrument dienten. Das Kleidungsstück gehört zur sogenannten «Heritage Collection», die Designs aus 130 Jahren olympischer Geschichte aufgreift und nach Angaben des IOC auch bereits ausverkauft ist.  Ein Sprecher des IOC räumte zwar ein, dass die Spiele mit dem NS-Regime und dessen Propagandastrategien verbunden seien, betonte jedoch, dass das Motiv in die Reihe historischer Designs passe und erinnerte zugleich an positive sportliche Aspekte jener Spiele: So habe etwa der afroamerikanische Leichtathlet Jesse Owens mit seinen vier Goldmedaillen den rassistischen Ideologien der Zeit eine Antwort entgegengesetzt. Jüdische Organisationen und gesellschaftliche Akteure und Akteurinnen haben den Verkauf scharf kritisiert

via tachless: Nazi-Spiele als Werbung

siehe auch: International Olympic Committee store sells Nazi propaganda T-shirt from 1936 Berlin Olympics Online shop of the International Olympic Committee offered a shirt featuring imagery from the 1936 Berlin Games, used by Adolf Hitler’s regime for propaganda; German officials condemn move as item quickly sells out. The International Olympic Committee’s official online fan shop has sparked outrage after offering a T-shirt featuring imagery from the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the Games infamously used by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime as a propaganda platform.

UBS executives told U.S. senators that the Swiss bank fears litigation from Jewish groups over Holocaust restitution claims as it refuses to release additional documents. The Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony about newly uncovered links between the Nazis and a Swiss banking conglomerate, amid an ongoing legal dispute over restitution to Holocaust victims. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), committee chair, told reporters before Tuesday’s hearing that an independent investigator found 890 accounts with potential Nazi links at Credit Suisse, which UBS acquired in 2023. “These accounts were once used by individuals or entities who participated in or assisted Nazi war efforts,” Grassley said. “That includes wartime accounts for the German Foreign Office, a German arms manufacturing company and the German Red Cross.”  “Credit Suisse’s connection to all three of these entities was previously unknown, or only partially known,” Grassley told reporters. “The investigation also found evidence that Credit Suisse’s banking relationship with the SS was more extensive than we knew before.” Nazi Germany and members of the Nazi party had extensive relationships with Swiss banks before, during and after World War II, taking advantage of Swiss neutrality and the country’s banking secrecy laws to shelter assets, including wealth seized from Jews during the Holocaust.

via jns: Investigation uncovers hundreds of Nazi-linked accounts at Credit Suisse

sieeh auch: Hundreds of Swiss Bank Accounts With Suspected Nazi Links Found by Investigators. Revelations come as Swiss bank UBS uses legal fight to curb Jewish groups from reopening a decades-old settlement. UBS pointing triangle has said it wants to bring greater transparency to Switzerland’s dark chapter helping the Nazis in World War II. In Brooklyn federal court, UBS has a different message for the Jewish organization that asked for the Credit Suisse probe in 2020, the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Be quiet, and don’t ask us for any more money. The issue received an airing in Congress on Tuesday when UBS executives, a rabbi from the Simon Wiesenthal Center and an independent investigator delving into archives at UBS’s Credit Suisse unit testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The investigator, Neil Barofsky, told senators his probe has found much deeper ties between Credit Suisse and the Nazi war effort than previously known. These included bank accounts held by the German Foreign Office, which helped in the mass deportation of Jews to concentration camps in the Holocaust. SS, or Schutzstaffel, agents also had accounts at the bank, he said. In all, he said he found around 890 accounts potentially tied to Nazis. Barofsky said he found previously unreported examples of Credit Suisse carrying out forced transfers of Jewish clients’ assets into Nazi-affiliated banks. He also found indications that Credit Suisse helped fleeing officials resettle in Argentina after the war. For decades after World War II, Swiss banks turned away the families of Holocaust victims, saying they had no records of their loved ones’ accounts and assets. Neutral Switzerland denied suggestions it helped to finance the Nazis and prolonged their terror.

German airline Lufthansa is one of many big-name brands that collaborated with the Nazis during the Holocaust. As the airline celebrates its 100th anniversary, why does its Nazi past continue to fly under the radar? Lufthansa Airlines, the flag carrier of Germany, takes great pride in its aviation heritage spanning almost a century. Images from the 1920s and 1930s — including Junkers Ju 52 aircraft used by the Luftwaffe — feature prominently in Lufthansa’s marketing, alluding to the “pioneering spirit” of the brand and its place in aviation history. But the story of Lufthansa’s role in the Third Reich war machine, one that includes the large-scale use of forced labor, remains largely under the radar. In fact, Lufthansa is just one of many companies that collaborated with the Nazi regime, big-name brands and business dynasties that continue to “hide in plain sight,” according to journalist David de Jong. (…) Deutsche Luft Hansa — from 1933 styled as Lufthansa — was founded in 1926 when only a small elite could afford to fly. By the early 1930s, it was struggling to survive. The Nazis “saved Lufthansa,” according to German historian Lutz Budrass, an expert in German aviation history. In 1933, Hermann Goering appointed Lufthansa director Erhard Milch to state secretary of what would become the Reich Aviation Ministry. Under the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I, it was forbidden for Germany to have an air force. But with only minor restrictions on civil aviation, Budrass said that Lufthansa became a front for National Socialist rearmament. After 1941, Lufthansa had a prominent role in aircraft repair workshops behind the front lines and, unlike other companies, was able to directly procure forced laborers, including many children who were kidnapped from Nazi occupied territories across Europe. When World War II ended, the Allies declared the airline part of the German air force and liquidated the company in 1951. Deutsche Lufthansa, today the world’s fourth largest airline by revenue, was founded as the Aktiengesellschaft für Luftverkehrsbedarf (shortened to Luftag) in 1953, acquiring the rights to the Lufthansa name and the famous crane logo in 1954. But it wasn’t just the same name and logo: Many of the same men returned to its management board, including Kurt Weigelt, who led the economic department of the NSDAP Office of Colonial Policy. After the war, he was placed on a list of wanted war criminals and was eventually sentenced to two years in prison and a fine. But by 1953, he was the chairman of Lufthansa’s supervisory board and in retirement, became its only ever honorary board member. At the end of the 1990s, Lufthansa hired Budrass to research its use of forced labor during the Nazi period. The study was completed in 2001 but Lufthansa did not publish it until 2016, and then only as a supplement at the back of a glossy illustrated history of the company. In response, Budrass published his own 700-page book — against Lufthansa’s wishes: 2016’s “The Eagle and the Crane: The History of Lufthansa 1926-1955” (“Adler und Kranich: Die Lufthansa und ihre Geschichte 1926-1955”). In a statement to DW, Lufthansa asserted that it is not the legal successor of the company founded in 1926, writing that “the legal foundation of today’s Lufthansa was laid in 1953.” Lufthansa acknowledged that the National Socialist era is part of its history and said it would be “using its 100th anniversary as an opportunity to critically reexamine its responsibility during the Nazi era and to further investigate it based on historical research.”

via dw: Lufthansa and the role of big business in the Holocaust

Von Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-02911A / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, Link