Non­fic­tion

Nazi Bil­lion­aires: The Dark His­to­ry of Germany’s Wealth­i­est Dynasties

  • From the Publisher
September 1, 2021

Suc­ces­sion meets the Third Reich in Nazi Bil­lion­aires. In this land­mark work of inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism, 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 – and how Amer­i­ca allowed them to get away with it. The heirs of the 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, co-found­ed Allianz, and still con­trol Porsche, Volk­swa­gen, and BMW has remained hid­den in plain sight — until now. Nazi Bil­lion­aires shows how Ger­man tycoons seized Jew­ish busi­ness­es, pro­cured slave labor­ers, and ramped up weapons pro­duc­tion to equip Hitler’s army as Europe burned around them. De Jong also expos­es how America’s polit­i­cal expe­di­en­cy enabled these bil­lion­aires to get away with their crimes, cov­er­ing up a blood­stain that deles the Ger­man and glob­al economies to this day.

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