How much did the owners of Krispy Kreme donated after discovering their Nazi ties?
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After an investigation published by Bild, the spokesman of the Reimann family confirmed the links between ancestors of the family and the Nazi regime
On March 23, the German newspaper Bild published an investigation that connected the ancestors of the Reimann family with the Nazi regime. This family has control of JAB Holdings, a conglomerate that includes consumer companies such as Krispy Kreme, Panera Bread and Dr. Pepper Snapple Group and, according to the BBC, is the second richest family in Germany with a fortune of approximately € 33 billion (US $ 34 billion).
Leer en español: ¿Cuánto donaron los dueños de Krispy Kreme tras enterarse de sus vínculos nazi?
According to Bild's research, Albert Reimann, who died in 1954, and Albert Reimann Jr., who died in 1984, forced Russian civilians and French prisoners of war to work in their factories during World War II, while women from Eastern Europeans were beaten, sexually abused and treated as slaves in the facilities of the Reimann family companies, where they were treated as an inferior race. In addition to this, the investigation also reports that Reimann Sr. made donations to the SS.
Days after the publication of the investigation, a spokesman for the Reimann family, Peter Harf, was interviewed by Bild and claimed that the family had hired a historian from the University of München, Paul Erker, to investigate the allegations of the investigation.
According to Harf, Erker's first reports confirmed the veracity of the accusations, leaving the members of the Reimann family speechless. Harf noted that "Reimann father and Reimann son were guilty. Both entrepreneurs committed serious crimes and really should be in jail "and stated that as soon as Erker's investigation is completed, they would publish it with the purpose of" putting the whole truth on the table." In the interview, Harf also stated that the sons of Albert Reimann Jr. did not know of his connections with the Nazi regime.
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One of the most commented points of the interview was the announcement by the Reimann family of the donation of € 10 million (US $ 11 million) to an "adequate" charity. To this day, it has not been announced what that organization will be. Also, according to reports from CNN, a book will soon be released that recounts the links of the Reimann family with the Nazi regime as discovered by Erker.
One more case
The Reimann family are not the first to pay reparations for the Nazi past of their family and their companies. According to the Los Angeles Times, in 1988 Daimler-Benz (today Daimler AG, the owner of Mercedes-Benz) paid US $ 11.7 million in reparations to victims and relatives of victims of forced labor carried out in their factories during the years of the Third Reich
Similarly, according to a report by the BBC, in 1999, thirteen German companies (Allianz, BASF, Hoechst AG, Bayer, BMW, DaimlerChrysler, Volkswagen, Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, Degussa, Friedrich Krupp AG, Hoesch AG and Siemens) they established a US $ 1.7 billion fund dedicated to the reparation of holocaust victims, among them workers forced to work as slaves in their factories and people whose properties were expropriated by the Nazis and which were acquired by these companies.
LatinAmerican Post | Juan Diego Bogotá
Translated from "¿Cuánto donaron los dueños de Krispy Kreme tras enterarse de sus vínculos nazi?"
