Efforts on the part of Germany to remake public perception of German business corporations after the fall of the Third Reich were as much a matter of shrewd economic sense as they were of a sincere attempt to restore its integrity, Prof. Jonathan Wiesen said to a Dartmouth audience in a speech on Tuesday.
The deep bond between German corporations and the Nazis presented an obstacle to rebuilding the shattered country upon the conclusion of World War II. German companies of international recognition, such as Siemens and I.G. Farbin, were indeed guilty of aiding the Nazis in its campaign to "Aryanize" Europe. Powerful figures in German industry were registered Nazis, some serving in S.S. battalions or even in guarding concentration camps.
As a result, German capitalists somehow had to "transform themselves from war criminals into corporate citizens," Wiesen said.
Their initial response was analogous to that of American CEO's in the recent corporate malfeasance scandals involving Arthur Andersen and Enron, Wieson added: they pleaded ignorance of the war crimes that their products made possible. A few German companies went so far as to form of coalition of silence, vowing to never speak about their involvement with the Nazis.
But over the next 50 years, most German captains of industry set about crafting a uniform response to accusations of complicity with the Nazis. Companies projected the image that they were helpless before the overwhelming power of the Nazis, and that they appeased them while trying to help the Jews where they could. To this end, they dstributed books, pamphlets, advertisements, and other media propaganda not only in Europe, but wherever German products reached.
Though such behavior might appear an obvious attempt to obscure their share of the blame for the atrocities of WWII, Weisen said that their may be some authenticity to their claims. Aging industrialists who he interviewed for his upcoming book, "The Nazi Marketplace: Public Relations and Ideology in The Third Reich," conveyed to him that they truly believed that they were inculpable for complying with the Nazis.
And the campaign to rid the image of fascist plutocrats from German industry may have been carried out to bring back the dignity accorded to Germany before the war, rather than simply to build their fortunes. Weisen pointed out that the campaign pressed on regardless of how prosperous Germany industry became.
Motivation notwithstanding, restoring the credibility of German industry was important enough hat it received international support, particularly from the United States. The success of the emerging German democracy hinged on how well its economy would fare in foreign markets, and with the Cold War at its peak, the U.S. considered a German economic collapse a frightful prospect. For it could have led the Germans to "play into the hands of the Soviets," Wiesen said.
True to prevaling opinion in the West, German industry had great distaste for democracy to begin with. The belief was that democracy had given rise to Hitler, and mass politics were inherently threatening to industry. But soon it was conceded that the democracy was the only suitable government for West Germany in an increasingly international political and economic arena. To sell its products abroad and keep the country from slipping into totalitarianism, the image of German industry had to be remade.
In the 1950s and 60s, corporations undertook an aggressive program to cultivate a sophisticated perception of German industry. Denial was cast aside, and in its place came the "New Industrialist," which was "an amalgam of the old ideas of the eternal capitalist, brought up to date for consumption by the public citizen," Weisen said.
Companies promoted themselves as "small time entrepreneurs" devoted to hard work and making good products. They distanced themselves from politics, trying to convince workers and consumers of their respect for community, familial piety, and private property. Public relations agencies vigorously fostered the new image through active lobbying, advertising, radio and television, and other public outlets.
But by the 1960s and 70s, industrial propaganda had provoked much reproach from the German populace and abroad. Germans began to see society as dominated by former Nazis, and talk of industry's role in the Holocaust entered mainstream discourse. Books with titles such as "Reich collapsed, Rich remained," and "God protects the mighty" met with popularity and publicity.
One book, modeled after typical company propaganda, was censored heavily by the government after the company it concerned took the author to court for libel. Although most of what the company claimed was false in the book has since been proven true, including that it installed a crematorium in a concentration camp, the most recent publishing run in 1995 still contains passages that have been literally blacked out. Weisen passed around samples of censored pages among the audience.
German industry may have carved out a secure footing since World War II, but the extent to which it participated in Nazi war crimes remains in question. Suits against German industry for reparations for Jewish slave labor continue to make headlines today.
"We are reminded that the process of industrial image remaking is still ongoing," Wiesen said.
Wiesen is an assistant professor of history at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois. His first book, "West German Industry and the Challenge of the Nazi Past, 1945-1955," won the 2002 Hagley Book Prize in Business History.
