Nazi Billionaires
- Author David de Jong
- Narrator Michael David Axtell
- Publisher HarperCollins Publishers
- Publish Date 19 April 2022
- Run Time 11 hours and 48 minutes
- Format Audio
- Genre Economic history, European history, Far-right political ideologies and movements, Popular economics, Second World War.
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What to expect
‘Lucid and damning … an absorbing – and infuriating – tale of complicity, coverup and denial’ PATRICK RADDEN KEEFE, author of EMPIRE OF PAIN
A groundbreaking investigation of how the Nazis helped German tycoons make billions from the horrors of the Third Reich and World War II – and how the world allowed them to get away with it.
In 1946, Günther Quandt – patriarch of Germany’s most iconic industrial empire, a dynasty that today controls BMW – was arrested for suspected Nazi collaboration. Quandt claimed that he had been forced to join the party by his arch-rival, propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, and the courts acquitted him. But Quandt lied. And his heirs, and those of other Nazi billionaires, have only grown wealthier in the generations since, while their reckoning with this dark past remains incomplete at best. Many of them continue to control swaths of the world economy, owning iconic brands whose products blanket the globe. The brutal legacy of the dynasties that dominated Daimler-Benz, cofounded Allianz and still control Porsche, Volkswagen and BMW has remained hidden in plain sight – until now.
In this landmark work, investigative journalist David de Jong reveals the true story of how Germany’s wealthiest business dynasties amassed untold money and power by abetting the atrocities of the Third Reich. Using a wealth of untapped sources, de Jong shows how these tycoons seized Jewish businesses, procured slave labourers and ramped up weapons production to equip Hitler’s army as Europe burnt around them. Most shocking of all, de Jong exposes how the wider world’s political expediency enabled these billionaires to get away with their crimes, covering up a bloodstain that defiles the German and global economy to this day.
Critics Review
u2018It is impossible to fault de Jongu2019s fierce indignation in his book. He must be right to urge that the descendants of Hitleru2019s tycoons should admit their ancestorsu2019 criminalityu2019
Max Hastings, Sunday Times
u2018Fascinating u2026 de Jong tells the story with the brisk clarity of the good financial journalist he is and lets the fact speak for themselves. It leaves you awestruck at the power of greedu2019
Daily Telegraph
u2018The author cleverly weaves his astonishing facts and figures into human stories u2026 Its fascinating detail and engaging style makeu00a0Nazi Billionairesu00a0a forceful book, revealing to a wide audience a vital aspect of Germanyu2019s ongoing discussion with itselfu2019
Spectator
u2018Lucid, and damning, Nazi Billionaires unearths decades of family secrets and exposes the tainted origins of several of the world's most significant dynastic fortunes. As adept in the archive as he is on the page, de Jong draws on a vast wealth of historical evidence to tell an absorbing u2013 and infuriating u2013 tale of complicity, coverup, and denial, and to unearth the sordid war crimes behind some of today's most vaunted consumer brandsu2019
Patrick Radden Keefe, bestselling author of Empire of Pain
u2018Eloquent, thorough, and profound, David de Jongu2019s brilliant debut illuminates a dark chapter of the past while also shining a stark and uncanny light onto our present, and, perhaps, our near future u2013 showing how an insidious mix of capitalism and fascism can destroy democracy and countless lives. An absolute must-readu2019
Norman Ohler, bestselling author of Blitzed
u2018As riveting as it is disturbing. At times, it felt like reading the anti-Schindler's List: instead of secretly helping the Jews, Germany's most powerful tycoons brutally exploited their suffering for personal profitu2019
Bradley Hope, bestselling co-author of Billion Dollar Whale
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