German billionaire family to donate €10m after Nazi past revealed

[KhalaiMakhlooq]

German billionaire family to donate €10m after Nazi past revealed

25 March 2019 | https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/03/25/german-billionaire-family-admits-nazi-past/

JAB Holding bought Pret a Manger last year CREDIT: MATT DUNHAM/AP

One of Germany’s richest families has spoken of its “shame” and pledged to donate €10 million (£8.5 million) after historic ties to the Nazi regime were uncovered.

The Reimann family owns major interests in brands including Krispy Kreme donuts, the Pret a Manger sandwich chain and Clearasil skincare products, and is estimated to be worth as much as €33 billion (£28 billion).

It emerged at the weekend that the family business had close ties to the Nazi regime and used slave labour during the Second World War.

Albert Reimann Sr and Albert Reimann Jr, the two men who headed the business during the Nazi era, were “avowed Hitler supporters” and “convinced National Socialists”, according to details published by Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

Albert Reimann Sr donated funds to the SS as early as 1931, two years before Hitler rose to power.

“Reimann Sr and Reimann Jr were guilty. Both businessmen have passed away, but they belonged in prison,” Peter Harf, the family spokesman and chairman of its JAB Holding Company, told Bild.

Mr Harf said the details were not new to the family, which commissioned a historian to research its Nazi-era history three years ago and was horrified by the results

“We were speechless,” he said. “We were ashamed and white as sheets. You cannot gloss over that. Those crimes are abhorrent.”

His comments were a rare public statement from a family which usually avoids the limelight and does not give interviews.

Mr Harf said Albert Reimann Sr and Albert Reimann Jr had not talked about their Nazi past, and that the family had assumed the full details had emerged in a 1978 report, but younger members began to ask questions after discovering old family documents.

Bild submitted its findings to Professor Christopher Kopper of Bielefeld University, a leading expert on German economic history in the Nazi era.

“In my opinion, the Reimanns were convinced National Socialist entrepreneurs,” Prof Kopper told the newspaper. “While most company bosses and managers only sided with the Nazis after they seized power, this was already the case with the Reimanns in 1931. Father and son Reimann were obviously not political opportunists, but National Socialists out of conviction.”

The family said the donation would be made "to a suitable organisation".

 

[KhalaiMakhlooq]

This article is from April 2018. I posted this because of what looks like a growing trend of far-right extremism (nazi) in Europe. This could affect all people who are non-white and even non-nazi.

My family has a Nazi past. I see that ideology returning across Europe

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...ast-ideology-europe-germany-fascism-far-right

In Germany and elsewhere, younger generations are becoming indifferent to the history of fascism. This is how the far right thrives

In Aistersheim, a village in north-west Austria, a pale yellow castle towers over a frozen lake, as if out of a fairy tale. It looks like it might be awaiting royal guests. But the sign at the entrance reads: “Congress of the defenders of Europe.” I had signed up under a false name, because only the “well-wishing” press was allowed to attend this gathering in March of far-right activists, mostly from Germany and Austria.

Under the ribbed vaults of a large hall, I join an audience of 300. The first speaker is the deputy mayor of Graz, Mario Eustacchio, from Austria’s far-right Freedom party. He lashes out against what he calls modern obsessions with “human rights”, which he says have produced a “catastrophic situation in Europe”.

Next is André Poggenburg, the regional head of the German far-right Alternative für Deutschland party in Saxony-Anhalt. He calls for a “Gerxit”, Germany’s departure from the EU. He wants a “fortress Europe” that will ally with Putin’s Russia – a regime clearly admired in these circles. A blonde woman wearing a satin dress stands up to sing German and Russian patriotic songs. Another AfD member follows. He uses the word Mitteldeutschland (central Germany) in reference to former East Germany – as if more German territories lie beyond the Oder-Neisse line which has marked the border with Poland since the second world war. After that, an Austrian publisher complains about “censorship” of the word Neger (negro).

Later, there are speeches by self-styled “alternative media” representatives, who explain that infiltrating social networks helps “influence public opinion”, for example by posting insults on Angela Merkel’s Facebook page. And to top it all off, a youthful, elected politician from Italy’s South Tyrol calls, hand on chest, for his region to be annexed by Austria.

Stepping out for some fresh air, I stroll around some stalls showcasing various publications, including those of Les Identitaires, a racist French group calling for a “white Europe”. Other books carry titles such as Race, Evolution and Behaviour, or The Young Hitler, A Corrected Biography. I pick up a copy of The Brainwashing of Germans and its Lasting Consequences. It is the opposite of the message I wrote in a book (Les Amnésiques) about Germany’s postwar transformation and its efforts to deal with its Nazi past, through the story of my own family.

I am the granddaughter of a German member of the Nazi party and of a French gendarme who served under the Vichy regime, which collaborated with the Nazis. My German grandfather was not an ideological National Socialist – he joined out of opportunism and for convenience. He took advantage of Nazi “Aryanisation” policies to buy a Jewish family business at a low price. My grandmother was not a card-carrying Nazi, but was fascinated by the Führer. Between them, they were typical of the Mitläufer (followers): those masses of people who, through blinkered vision and small acts of cowardice, helped create the conditions for the Third Reich to perpetrate its crimes.

After 1945, Germany’s trickiest task was not setting up new institutions or prosecuting high-profile criminals – it was transforming the mindset of an entire population whose moral standing had been reversed by Nazism in ways that made crime appear not only legal but heroic. My grandparents never acknowledged their responsibilities as Mitläufer. But their son, my father, became part of a generation that confronted its parents and forced Germans to ask themselves: what did I do? What could I have done? How do I act now?

One of the greatest achievements of the memorial work Germany has undertaken since the 1960s has been to infuse many of its citizens with a historical conscience and a sense of duty towards democracy, as well as a critical attitude towards populism and extremism both left and right. In France, the taboo long attached to how people behaved under Vichy made such teachings more difficult. In Italy, Austria and eastern Europe, efforts to reckon with their past as allies of the Nazis were even weaker. It is no coincidence that these are countries where patterns of extremism we’d thought long gone have returned.

But now, Germany in turn is affected. Last September, 12.6% of voters cast a ballot for the AfD, allowing a far-right party to secure a strong position in parliament for the first time since the second world war. The arrival of more than a million refugees seems to have broken down the safeguards. In former East Germany – where no true reckoning of the past was possible under communism because state propaganda held West Germans solely responsible for Nazism – the AfD’s popularity was twice as high as in western parts of the country.

What worries me most is that younger generations in Germany and elsewhere feel less and less concerned with the history of fascism, and hence risk becoming indifferent to the new threats. That’s precisely what the AfD strives for when it says it wants a “180-degree turn” from the tradition of atoning for Nazism, and suggests the Holocaust memorial in Berlin should be closed down, and Wehrmacht soldiers rehabilitated. It’s also what the Austrian FPÖ has in mind when its MPs refuse to applaud a speech commemorating the 1938 Kristallnacht massacre.

Today’s far-right parties want to downplay Nazi crimes as a first step towards reawakening ideas from that era: the notion that a hierarchy can be drawn among humans according to their race or their religion, the acceptance of violence and hatred, mendacious propaganda and devotion to a strong leader. “Empathy is a weakness” was the motto of the SS.

We have to give young people a knowledge of the past, and a pride in belonging to a continent where two totalitarian systems were ultimately defeated. Democracy in Europe was built through blood, sweat and tears – the dignity of citizens was eventually restored. Now is the time to remember.

• Geraldine Schwarz is a Berlin-based German-French journalist and author of Les Amnesiques (published in France by Flammarion and in Germany by Secession Verlag)

 

[Ahmet Pasha]

Pret cafes are so common in dowtown Chicago.
Damn
I didnt know they were former nazis.

 

[Dubious]

Nice way to juice some families...Sadly thick faced American/ Australian nor British families dont pledge anything for their murderous colonial genocides!

 

[Daghalodi]

Nice way to juice some families...Sadly thick faced American/ Australian nor British families dont pledge anything for their murderous colonial genocides!

Nobody is Juicing them!!

Its their own good will!!

 

[Microsoft]

Nobody is Juicing them!!

Its their own good will!!

HAHAHAHAHA! They're business people they know who will be first to acknowledge their "kind" gesture.
They could have done this anonymously but chose to attach their business to it.

 

[Daghalodi]

HAHAHAHAHA! They're business people they know who will be first to acknowledge their "kind" gesture.
They could have done this anonymously but chose to attach their business to it.

You mean this is all a bussiness deal??

CSR !! Creating a goodwill gesture!! Free marketing

Not surprised if Israelis get some money and zionist regime bussiness deals will be apperciated!!

 

[KhalaiMakhlooq]

From the article, what can be noted about a typical far-right-extremist

• He lashes out against what he calls modern obsessions with “human rights”, which he says have produced a “catastrophic situation in Europe”
• He wants a “fortress Europe” that will ally with Putin’s Russia
• complains about “censorship” of the word Neger (negro)
• Younger generations are becoming indifferent to the history of fascism. This is how the far right thrives
• self-styled “alternative media” representatives, who explain that infiltrating social networks helps “influence public opinion”,
• transforming the mindset of an entire population whose moral standing had been reversed by Nazism in ways that made crime appear not only legal but heroic.
• Today’s far-right parties want to downplay Nazi crimes as a first step towards reawakening ideas from that era
• The notion that a hierarchy can be drawn among humans according to their race or their religion, the acceptance of violence and hatred, mendacious propaganda and devotion to a strong leader. “Empathy is a weakness”

From the article, what can be noted about a typical far-right-extremist

• He lashes out against what he calls modern obsessions with “human rights”, which he says have produced a “catastrophic situation in Europe”
• He wants a “fortress Europe” that will ally with Putin’s Russia
• complains about “censorship” of the word Neger (negro)
• Younger generations are becoming indifferent to the history of fascism. This is how the far right thrives
• self-styled “alternative media” representatives, who explain that infiltrating social networks helps “influence public opinion”,
• transforming the mindset of an entire population whose moral standing had been reversed by Nazism in ways that made crime appear not only legal but heroic.
• Today’s far-right parties want to downplay Nazi crimes as a first step towards reawakening ideas from that era
• The notion that a hierarchy can be drawn among humans according to their race or their religion, the acceptance of violence and hatred, mendacious propaganda and devotion to a strong leader. “Empathy is a weakness”

So a typical defence on a brain level from a far-right-extremist would be:

• Shift the blame of the situation in Europe to weak leadership of the European nations
• Play on the weaknesses between Europe and Russia, considering the communist-capitalist schizm, referring to Ukraine, Venezuela and other examples of proxy wars, while playing to strengths of Russia with Arabs.
• Ridicule the alternative media as "conspiracy theorists and nutcases"
• Always emphasise the importance and responsibility of murder genocide and racism as a means of destruction of life.
• Always reiterate the nazi reawakening ideology back to its real roots as stemming from Esoteric Arian Supremacy, which is a religious fantasy, similar to al-qadea.
• Show extreme sympathy with their hurt feelings, while treating them like children.
• Always say swearing and racist words is not acceptable.
• Always deny the validity of their ancestors, from which they claim to draw rights.

Further take their "flow" and redirect towards something positive, like a single global village of a common human brotherhood.

Although this is a sketch, there is much needed work to be done on profiling the typical psyche of a right wing extremist.

If controlling them doesn't work, feed em to the crocodiles.

 

[Dubious]

Nobody is Juicing them!!

Its their own good will!!

Good will in business is PR