"Lufthansa Airlines, the flag carrier of Germany, takes great pride in its aviation heritage spanning almost a century. Images from the 1920s and 1930s including Junkers Ju 52 aircraft used by the Luftwaffe feature prominently in Lufthansa's marketing, alluding to the "pioneering spirit" of the brand and its place in aviation history. But the story of Lufthansa's role in the Third Reich war machine, one that includes the large-scale use of forced labor, remains largely under the radar."
""There was no incentive on the side of the West German authorities to judge their fellow compatriots on crimes that they had committed themselves or bore responsibility for, or sympathies that they had held, or still held themselves," de Jong told DW. "Denazification is a myth on every level of German society." After Germany's defeat, the focus quickly turned to the nascent Cold War, to combating communism and Soviet Russia."
Lufthansa markets its nearly century-long aviation heritage using 1920s-1930s imagery, including Junkers Ju 52s tied to the Luftwaffe. Lufthansa participated in the Third Reich's war machine and employed large-scale forced labor. Many major German companies and industrial dynasties collaborated with the Nazi regime and avoided meaningful accountability after WWII. Business leaders were largely not prosecuted like Nazi politicians and military officers at Nuremberg. Industrialists such as Gunther and Herbert Quandt and Friedrich Flick benefited from collaboration; Flick used forced and slave labor, was convicted at Nuremberg, released early, and later became the largest Daimler-Benz shareholder. Postwar priorities shifted to the Cold War, hindering denazification.
#lufthansa #nazi-collaboration #forced-and-slave-labor #postwar-denazification #german-industrial-dynasties
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