Hitler’s Billionaires: The Companies That Got Away With It

Hitler's Billionaires: The Companies That Got Away With It On the evening of February 20, 1933, about two dozen of Germany's most powerful industrialists walked into Hermann Göring's residence in Berlin. Hitler spoke for ninety minutes. Before they left, they had pledged three million Reichsmarks to his campaign. Over the next twelve years, some of Germany's most famous names, including Krupp, IG Farben, Flick, Siemens, the Quandt family, Deutsche Bank and Allianz, grew rich on rearmament, on property seized from Jewish families, and on the labor of slaves. Some ran factories beside concentration camps. One built its own camp at Auschwitz. In 1947 and 1948, several of these men stood trial at Nuremberg and were convicted. By 1951, almost all of them were free, and most had their fortunes back. Many of those fortunes are still with us today. This is the story of how they made their money, how they were judged, and how they got away with it. ⏱️ CHAPTERS 0:00 Berlin, February 1933 0:43 The Price of Admission 3:24 The Arms Boom 6:11 Aryanization: The Great Transfer 10:44 The Slave Economy 16:17 Minds and Stomachs 17:28 The Reckoning 19:43 The Cold War Amnesty 23:31 The Long Silence 📅 KEY DATES 20 Feb 1933 – Secret meeting at Göring's residence; industry pledges 3 million RM 5 Mar 1933 – Last multi-party Reichstag election 1 Apr 1933 – Nationwide boycott of Jewish businesses 1934–1938 – About 12 billion RM in hidden "Mefo bills" fund rearmament 1937–1938 – Friedrich Flick joins the Nazi Party; forced sales of the Petschek and Hahn holdings follow 9–10 Nov 1938 – Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass 12 Nov 1938 – Göring's Air Ministry meeting: insurance payouts go to the state; 1 billion RM fine imposed on Germany's Jews Apr 1941 – IG Farben begins building the Buna works at Auschwitz Oct 1942 – Monowitz (Auschwitz III) camp opens beside the plant Aug 1944 – Over 7.6 million foreign workers in the Reich Jan 1945 – Soviet Army reaches Auschwitz 1947–1948 – Nuremberg industrialist trials: Flick (Case 5), IG Farben (Case 6), Krupp (Case 10) 31 Jul 1948 – Alfried Krupp sentenced to 12 years and confiscation of property 31 Jan 1951 – U.S. High Commissioner John J. McCloy announces clemency 3 Feb 1951 – Alfried Krupp walks out of Landsberg prison 1953 – Norbert Wollheim wins his case against IG Farben 1957 – IG Farben in liquidation pays 30 million DM to former slave workers 1986 – Flick group sold to Deutsche Bank; 5 million DM to forced laborers 2000 – Foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility and Future" created with 10 billion DM 2011 – Independent study confirms the Quandt family's Nazi-era history; Hugo Boss apologizes 2019 – The Reimann family admits its Nazi past Welcome to **Echoes of World War II**, where the voices of history are never forgotten. Beyond the famous battles and legendary generals lie extraordinary stories waiting to be told: forgotten WWII history, secret operations, untold wartime encounters, and the people who lived through the greatest conflict in history. Every photograph holds a memory. Every soldier has a story. Every echo deserves to be heard. *The war may be over, but its stories live on.* 🔔 Subscribe and rediscover the forgotten chapters of World War II! 👉    / @echoesofworldwarii-q6d   📚 SOURCES & CREDITS Archive film: U.S. National Archives (NARA) / Internet Archive, public domain. Photographs: Bundesarchiv (CC BY-SA 3.0 DE), Library of Congress, USHMM, Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe and others via Wikimedia Commons. Each image is credited individually in the full credit list. Stock footage: Pixabay. Map borders: historical-basemaps by André Ourednik (GPL-3.0). Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Tracks: Dark Times · Interloper · Industrial Cinematic · Gathering Darkness · Ossuary 6 - Air · Unanswered Questions · Final Count · Movement Proposition · Long Note Four Narration: AI voice. Further reading: Adam Tooze, The Wages of Destruction; Peter Hayes, Industry and Ideology; Harold James, The Deutsche Bank and the Nazi Economic War Against the Jews; Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals. #WW2 #WorldWarII #WWIIHistory #NaziGermany #Nuremberg #Krupp #IGFarben #History #Documentary