“Eloquent, thorough, and profound, David de Jong’s 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—showing how an insidious mix of capitalism and fascism can destroy democracy and countless lives. An absolute must-read." — Norman Ohler, New York Times bestselling author of Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich
A groundbreaking investigation of how the Nazis helped German tycoons make billions off the horrors of the Third Reich and World War II—and how America 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 archrival, 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 chapter of German history remains incomplete at best.
Many of billionaires continue to control swaths of the world economy, owning iconic brands whose products blanket the globe. The brutal legacy of the corporate 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, David de Jong reveals the true hidden history of how Germany’s wealthiest business dynasties amassed untold money and power by abetting the atrocities of the Third Reich. Using a wealth of previously untapped sources, de Jong shows how these tycoons seized Jewish businesses, procured slave laborers, and ramped up weapons production to equip Hitler’s army as Europe burned around them. Most shocking of all, de Jong exposes how America’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.
“Meticulously researched …compels us to confront the current-day legacy of these Nazi ties.” —Wall Street Journal
This meticulously researched work of investigative journalism uncovers the shocking details:
Nazi Collaboration: The full story of Günther Quandt and other tycoons who claimed to be victims of the regime while actively helping to fund Hitler’s war machine.Corporate Complicity: A harrowing account of how Germany’s most iconic companies, from BMW to Porsche, seized Jewish-owned assets and profited from persecution.Forced & Slave Labor: An exposé on the procurement and brutal exploitation of slave laborers to ramp up weapons production for the Third Reich.American Inaction: How political expediency in the U.S. allowed these billionaires to escape justice, sanitize their legacies, and retain their fortunes.
